Today in Iraq

Editorial: Let’s clear away the propaganda and concentrate on the meaning of Memorial Day. Since the Civil War, it has been a day to remember those who died in action. They are the heroes we celebrate this day, and more than 1,800 have joined the memorial rolls since the outbreak of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. A nation mourns their loss and honors their memory.

They were men and women serving on the treacherous front lines and working the dangerous supply routes. They were 19-year-olds out of high school and "weekend warriors" old enough to be their fathers.

They died for America and Americans. That they were ill-served and exploited by the government that sent them into action has nothing to do with their sacrifice.

Except this - a government that was either smarter or more honest would not have squandered so many lives. The war in Iraq could have been avoided. Or, once launched, enough troops could have been deployed to ensure a successful occupation. Body armor and Humvee armor could have been provided. Familiarity with Arabic and with Arab customs could have become a top priority. American officials could have handled the crucial early weeks after the fall of Baghdad with finesse and good sense, rather than doing everything possible to earn the hostility and contempt of so many Iraqis.

That's not, of course, the story we hear from the White House. The people running this war have signed on to a different narrative altogether: feel-good, strutting, flag-waving. Naturally, it plays to the image of brave, heroic troops in the field - but, quite unnaturally, it values fiction over reality.

At the beginning of the Iraq war, Pfc. Jessica Lynch's story was so overspun and distorted as to become ridiculous. In Afghanistan, we now know, Ranger Pat Tillman was mistakenly killed by U.S. soldiers, but the Army seized upon his death to try to create a fighting legend - out of whole cloth. These PR blunders serve neither of those soldiers well. Lies have marked these wars from the beginning, and besides being ultimately self-defeating, they are an affront to all Americans, most especially those whose bravery and sacrifice have gone unheralded.

If the Bush administration truly wanted to memorialize the war dead, it wouldn't spirit them into Dover Air Force Base under cover of a photo blackout - as if the White House were ashamed of those who died abroad. If the president truly wished to honor their memory, he would demonstrate to the nation that the government that has botched so much of the war at least has some inkling as to how to draw it to a successful conclusion - so that the dead will not have died in vain.

But critics of the war have a particular responsibility, too. The best way to honor the memory of all those American heroes who have been killed in action is not to lose faith, or hope, but to remain engaged, to hold the administration to account, to seek out and advocate ways to achieve a real peace in Asia. It still must be possible - and it would be a lasting monument to those who gave their lives for their country.

War News for Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed in bomb attack on security position in Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: Governor of Al Anbar province killed in clashes between US forces and the guerillas who abducted him. Four guerillas were killed and three wounded in the battle. A US spokesman identified all as foreign fighters.

Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi soldiers killed and nine wounded in truck bomb attack on military checkpoint in Baquba.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi journalist for state-run TV station killed in Mosul. Two Iraqi army soldiers killed by suicide car bomber at a checkpoint near Buhriz. Four Iraqi policemen wounded in drive-by shooting in Baghdad’s Doura district. Bullet-riddled bodies of four Iraqi soldiers who had been kidnapped last week found in Hit.

Bring ‘em on: Senior Kurdish official slain by gunmen in Kirkuk. Sunni tribal leader shot to death in Mosul. Iraqi civilian killed by roadside bomb in Baquba. Six insurgents shot to death by Iraqi police in Mosul and northern Anbar province. US helicopters and warplanes attacked suspected insurgents near Husaybah, casualty figures unavailable because the bodies were buried in the rubble of buildings.

Helicopter crash: One Iraqi and four US Air Force servicemen killed in helicopter crash near Baghdad, cause unknown.

Helicopter crash: Four Italian military personnel killed in helicopter crash southeast of Nasiriyah, cause unknown.

Prelude?: Explosions rip through marketplaces, scattering blood and vegetables and leaving women wailing in the alleys. Bodies bob in rivers and are dug up from garbage dumps and parks. Kidnappers troll the streets, sirens howl through morning prayers and mortar rounds whistle against skylines of minarets. Iraqis awake each day to the sounds of violence. With little respite, many wonder whether strange, terrible forces are arrayed against them. They fear that weeks of sectarian and clan violence, claiming the lives of all types from imams to barefoot fishermen, are a prelude to civil war.

Nearly 700 people have been killed in car bombings and by shootings and beheadings in the last month. What concerns U.S. officials and ordinary Iraqis is that militant leaders such as Abu Musab Zarqawi are attempting to instigate a two-track war: one, the continuing battle between insurgents and American and Iraqi forces, and another between Shiite and Sunni Arabs that could possibly draw in Kurds from the north.

Smooth move: US troops outraged Iraq's new government yesterday by arresting one of the country's foremost Sunni leaders only to release him later and call the whole episode a mistake.

Firing stun grenades, American soldiers burst into the home of Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, head of the largest Sunni Arab political party, shortly after dawn. They forced a hood over his head and dragged him away along with his three sons.

A number of Sunni politicians and religious leaders have been accused of links to Iraq's insurgency - but never Mr Abdul-Hamid.

A Sunni Kurd, he is widely considered a moderate and played a leading role in bringing Sunni Arabs who boycotted January's elections back into the political process.

He was freed 10 hours later, but the US military offered no explanation for his detention and stopped short of apologising.

Iraq's constantly bickering Sunni Arabs, Shias and Kurds were united in condemnation of what was generally perceived as an outrage.

It appeared that the Americans had not sought permission for the raid from the Iraqi government, again raising questions about its supposed sovereignty. It also threatened the most serious rift between Washington and Baghdad since the administration was sworn in a month ago.

Three quarters gone: The chief of police in Basra admitted yesterday that he had effectively lost control of three-quarters of his officers and that sectarian militias had infiltrated the force and were using their posts to assassinate opponents.

Speaking to the Guardian, General Hassan al-Sade said half of his 13,750-strong force was secretly working for political parties in Iraq's second city and that some officers were involved in ambushes.

Other officers were politically neutral but had no interest in policing and did not follow his orders, he told the Guardian.

"I trust 25% of my force, no more."

Qaim: More families are reportedly leaving the western Iraqi town of al-Qaim in fear because of fighting, according to local aid agencies.

Hundreds of families remain displaced on the outskirts of the town, 320 km west of the capital, Baghdad, following clashes between US forces and insurgents in the second week of May.

According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) nearly a thousand families were displaced and living in the desert of al-Jazera'a, west of al-Qaim but were returning when the offensive ended, leaving only 100 families there.

However, aid workers now say that hundreds more have started to flee the town again because of the possibility of another conflict starting in coming days.

Another story they can't get straight: Saddam Hussein could go on trial for crimes against humanity within two months, far earlier than expected, Iraq's new president, Jalal Talabani, said on Tuesday.

Asked in an interview televised on CNN when Saddam's trial would begin, Talabani said: "I hope within two months."

Leading Iraqi politicians have said several times that the trial could start within months. But Iraqi prosecutors and their U.S. advisers say a trial is more likely in 2006, after several of Saddam's lieutenants have been tried, to help build the case against the former dictator.

Iraqi leaders hope that trials of Saddam and his allies will help restore public confidence, sapped by relentless insurgent violence and political bickering that delayed the formation of a cabinet for months.

Maybe not in its last throes: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Syria must do more to block the movement of terrorists into Iraq, while asking the United Nations Security Council to authorize the continued presence of U.S.-led forces.

The insurgency, described as in its ``last throes'' by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Cable News Network's ``Larry King Live'' program last night, isn't going to fade away soon, Zebari told the Security Council. He said violence might escalate as Iraq's transitional government begins to draft a constitution and prepare for elections later this year.

``We anticipate that the campaign of destruction and intimidation will continue, perpetuated by a deadly mix of remnants of the former regime determined to turn back the clock, and foreign elements, whose sole agenda is to destroy the ongoing political process,'' Zebari said.

Fallujah: Today, I did what few internationals have dared to do, I went to Fallujah. Fallujah is completely surrounded by US Forces, the only way in or out is through one of four very restrictive checkpoints. People normally have to wait hours, but since we had our magic US passports, we made it through in about 45 minutes. We did not observe them searching any cars, soldiers just held-up traffic and slowly checked IDs. Like Palestine, these checkpoints seem to have little to do with security and more to do with harassment and intimidation. Fallujah is devastating to drive through. There is more destruction and rubble than I've ever seen in my life; even more than in Rafah, Gaza. The US has leveled entire neighborhoods, and about every third building is destroyed or damaged from US artillery. Rubble and bullet holes are everywhere, the city is indescribably ravaged. It looks like it's been hit by a series of tornados; it's hard to believe that humans could actually do this. I have a new understanding of the destructive potential of modern warfare. See more destruction pictures. US troops, Iraqi military, and Iraqi police have an overwhelming presence in the city. I've never seen such dirty looks directed at the passing forces; I guess in most places people get used to the occupier, but in Fallujah, the hate is still very alive. 16,000 Fallujan police lost their jobs after the US attacks and were replaced by Shiite from the South. The US intentionally sends Shiite to patrol Sunni strongholds to breed resentment and abuse, and it works.

Big Dick Speaks

A pre-Dick-tion: The insurgency in Iraq is "in the last throes," Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday, and he predicted the fighting would end before the Bush administration leaves office.

In a wide-ranging interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Cheney cited the recent push by Iraqi forces to crack down on insurgent activity in Baghdad and reports that the most-wanted terrorist leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been wounded.

The vice president said he expected the war would end during President Bush's second term, which ends in 2009.

"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

Big Dick’s Iraq Credibility – A Trip Down Memory Lane

“There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there." - Vice President Cheney, 1/22/04

“There was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.” – Vice President Cheney, 9/14/03

“We believe Saddam has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” – Vice President Cheney, 3/16/03

“[Saddam] is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time.”- Vice President Cheney, 3/24/02

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” –Vice President Cheney, 8/26/02

“I think has been fairly significant success in terms of putting Iraq back together again…and certainly wouldn't lead me to suggest or think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be changed.” – Vice President Cheney, 9/14/03

“We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly... (in) weeks rather than months.” – Vice President Cheney, 3/16/03

Damn, Looks Like Amnesty International Really Struck A Nerve!

Commander Codpiece squeals: President Bush on Tuesday dismissed a human rights report as "absurd" for its harsh criticism of U.S. treatment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the allegations were made by prisoners "who hate America."

"It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

With the death toll climbing daily in Iraq, he said that nation's fledging government is "plenty capable" of defeating insurgents whose attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers have intensified.

"I think the Iraqi people dealt the insurgents a serious blow when we had the elections," Bush said. "In other words, what the insurgents fear is democracy because democracy is the opposition of their vision."

On the Amnesty International report, Bush said, "It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of the allegations by people who were held in detention, people who hate America."

Big Dick squeals: Vice President Dick Cheney says he's offended by a human rights group's report criticizing conditions at the prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

The report Amnesty International released last week said prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba had been mistreated and called for the prison to be shut down. Cheney derided the London-based group in an interview set to be broadcast Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"Frankly, I was offended by it," Cheney said in the videotaped interview. "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."

“Bantz Craddock” squeals (What kind of parents would name their kid “Bantz” anyway?): Calling it "a shrill assessment," Army Gen. Bantz Craddock on Friday rejected Amnesty International's characterization of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as a "gulag."

Craddock lamented criticism of the Pentagon's premier prison for terror suspects in his first on-the-record U.S. news conference since taking charge of U.S. military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean six months ago.

He bristled at the language the human rights group used in its third annual and harshest rebuke of the U.S. detention camp, which holds about 520 terror suspects.

The London-based human rights group said the prison violates law through a practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention of men the Pentagon says are al-Qaida or Taliban members or sympathizers.

Little Dick squeals: Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. has done a good job of humanely treating detainees. Muslims in several countries have protested in recent weeks about allegations that a Quran was flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo as part of an interrogation of a prisoner.

The human rights group Amnesty International released a report last week calling the prison camp "the gulag of our time."

Myers said that report was "absolutely irresponsible." He said the U.S. was doing its best to detain fighters who, if released, "would turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's throats."

"This is a different kind of struggle, a different kind of war," Myers said on "Fox News Sunday."

A Different Kind Of Struggle, A Different Kind Of War

Bladder failure: One Guantanamo prisoner told a military panel that American troops beat him so badly he wets his pants now. Another detainee claimed U.S. troops stripped prisoners in

Afghanistan and intimidated them with dogs so that they would admit to militant activity.

Tales of alleged abuse and forced confessions are among some 1,000 pages of tribunal transcripts the U.S. government released to The Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit — the second batch of documents the AP has received in 10 days.

The testimonies offer a glimpse into the secretive world of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where about 520 men from 40 countries remain held, accused of having links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. Many have been held for three years.

Due process: A year after the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal erupted, Iraqi anger has flared anew over the growing numbers of detainees held without charge at the notorious detention center and another prison in the south. In the battle against the insurgency, U.S. military sweeps net many guerrillas, but also thousands of people whose offenses are nonexistent, minor or impossible to prove. They are often held for months, only to be released without explanation.

The population of long-term detainees at Abu Ghraib and the larger Camp Bucca, near Basra, has nearly doubled since August and now tops 10,000. With a large operation by Iraqi security forces underway in Baghdad, that number could rise. The military has established a multitiered system to ensure that innocent people caught up in chaotic events are not held for extensive periods. Records provided by the military, however, show that the evidence against suspects justifies prolonged detention in only about one in four cases. Nonetheless, more than half are held three months or more before being freed. The men are detained as security risks under the U.N. Security Council resolution that gives coalition forces the authority to maintain order in Iraq. After secret reviews of their cases, some are released. But the futures of those who remain in custody is unclear. There is no limit to how long they can be held. U.S. military officials did not respond to questions from The Times about why so many detainees have been held so long before being freed.

Air CIA: While posing as a private charter outfit - "aircraft rental with pilot" is the listing in Dun and Bradstreet - Aero Contractors is in fact a major domestic hub of the Central Intelligence Agency's secret air service. The company was founded in 1979 by a legendary C.I.A. officer and chief pilot for Air America, the agency's Vietnam-era air company, and it appears to be controlled by the agency, according to former employees.

Behind a surprisingly thin cover of rural hideaways, front companies and shell corporations that share officers who appear to exist only on paper, the C.I.A. has rapidly expanded its air operations since 2001 as it has pursued and questioned terrorism suspects around the world.

Some of the C.I.A. planes have been used for carrying out renditions, the legal term for the agency's practice of seizing terrorism suspects in one foreign country and delivering them to be detained in another, including countries that routinely engage in torture.

A long list: A report published by the New York Times on May 1, 2005, cited a former American interrogator who corroborated early accounts by several detainees alleging that guards at Guananamo had tossed copies of the Koran into a pile and stepped on them. The International Red Cross Committee also confirmed that it has received complaints from Guananamo prisoners concerning Koran desecration long before the Newsweek broke the news.

Evidently, the Bush administration has not been able to come to grips with the ramifications of such actions on the image and credibility of the United States. The United States, which stood prior to 9/11 as the defender of human rights, is now as guilty of violating human rights as any of the authoritarian regimes it repudiates.

And let us be clear, the image of the United States as a country guilty of human rights violations and of Muslim bashing was not created by the Newsweek account, but emerged as a result of a long list of missteps and abuses. Let us recall the most serious ones:

In 2001 and 2002, bigotry and intolerance were elevated to a tolerable national discourse by leading evangelical leader who insulted Islam and its prophet, and did it with impunity. Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson described Islam as "wicked, violent and not of the same god," and called the Prophet of Islam a “terrorist” and “paedophile,” and were allowed to get away with it. Little has been done so far to reign in Christian and Jewish extremists.

In November 2002, John Ashcroft, then the US attorney general, got away with similar bigoted remarks when he asserted that “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him,” while “Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.” Ashcroft never denied that he made the statement, nor did he apologize despite demands by several American Muslim organizations to retract his statement.

In the same year Ashcroft made his remarks, The Department of Justice embarked on a massive detention and deportation of thousands of innocent Muslim immigrants in the name of fighting terrorism. Many of those who were detained were denied visitation by family members, and representation by lawyers. Deprived from the due process enshrined in the US constitution, they were eventually deported on minor violations.

In October 2003, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was allowed to keep his job after telling church gatherings that the Christian God is “real” and the Muslim is “idol." Secretary Rumsfeld defended Baykin’s bigoted remarks by citing the latter's freedom of speech.

In December 2003, the military accused Col. James Lee, a dedicated Muslim Chaplain and West Point graduate, of spying, and ordered his incarceration in a maximum security facility, but failed to provide any evidence to back up these serious charges. Chaplain Yee was eventually found innocent of all charges laid against him, including charges of adultery and pornography concocted when the spying charges were withdrawn. The army refused to issue an apology and Lee resigned.

In May 2004, Brandon Mayfield, a Muslim lawyer and former Army officer, was arrested by FBI agents in connection with the Madrid terrorist bombing. The FBI maintained its certainty that Mayfield’s fingerprints matched those found on bags left behind by the terrorists even after Spanish authorities said that the original image of the fingerprint did not match Mayfield’s. He was eventually released after spending two weeks in prison.

In December 2004, the open season on Islam and Muslims by extreme Religious Right pundits reached a new low, when the Washington Times, a leading American newspaper, published an article by Sam Harris, entitled "Mired in a Religious War." The article declared Islam the enemy, and openly advocates an all-out war on Islam and Muslims.

In December 2004, 46 American Muslims were fingerprinted, searched and held 6 hours by U.S. border agents upon returning from a religious conference in Canada. The incident is the latest in a series of overzealous ethnic and religious profiling, and of the targeting of law-abiding American Muslims in the name of national security.

The above list, though far from being complete, reveals disturbing patterns of Muslim bashing and abuse, and underscores the troubling fact that some public officials in various departments and at highest levels espouse prejudices toward Islam and Muslims. While the number of bigots and zealots is still limited, the damage they have done to both American Muslims and the reputation of the United States is enormous.

Highly disturbing: The latest FBI documents detailing allegations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay are, like previous FBI documents, highly disturbing. They contain prisoners' descriptions of beatings, strippings and abuse of the Koran. Detainees variously claim the Muslim holy book has been thrown on the floor, thrown against a wall and, yes, flushed in a toilet. There are also references to these kinds of events having led to an "altercation" between detainees and guards.

But the status of these documents is nearly as disturbing as their content. They can be found, again like previous FBI documents, only on the Web site of the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained them by suing the government under the Freedom of Information Act. They did not, in other words, appear in the context of a government or military investigation. After the ACLU released the documents Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence T. Di Rita implied that such an investigation would be unnecessary, since these "fantastic charges about our guys doing something willfully heinous to a Koran for the purposes of rattling detainees are not credible on their face." But then, on Thursday, the commander of the Guantanamo facility, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, acknowledged that incidents "broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran" had in fact taken place. Brig. Gen. Hood made this announcement following an investigation that he said had begun 12 days earlier -- which points to the deeper problem.

For the fact remains that although one has been promised, no independent military, Pentagon or other body has yet published an extensive investigation into the multiple accounts of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay.

The Times, Are They A’Changin’?

Lining up: In the last few months, the small commercial air service to the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been carrying people the military authorities had hoped would never be allowed there: American lawyers.

And they have been arriving in increasing numbers, providing more than a third of about 530 remaining detainees with representation in federal court. Despite considerable obstacles and expenses, other lawyers are lining up to challenge the government's detention of people the military has called enemy combatants and possible terrorists.

A meeting earlier this month in New York City at the law firm Clifford Chance drew dozens of new volunteer lawyers who attended lectures from other lawyers who have been through the rigorous process of getting the government to allow them access to Guantánamo.

The increase in lawyers for Guantánamo detainees was set in motion last June when the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration and said the prisoners there were entitled to challenge their detentions in federal courts.

The rate at which lawyers have stepped forward for the task may be a reflection of the changing public attitudes about Guantánamo Bay and its mission.

The Downing Street Memo

Please go sign this letter: We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.

Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to "look at all options" and that there was "no timetable" for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that "[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq."

In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remain a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a "massive intelligence failure," in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:

1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?

3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?

4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.

More details: The RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make “regime change” in Iraq legal.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that “the US had already begun ‘spikes of activity’ to put pressure on the regime”.

The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did.

An inescapable burden: Ever since Watergate we've had a fairly established narrative of scandal. First you have revelation: the press, usually with the help of various leakers within the government, reveals the wrongdoing. Then you have investigation, when the government -- the courts, or Congress, or, as with Watergate, both -- constructs a painstaking narrative of what exactly happened: an official story, one that society -- that the community -- can agree on. Then you have expiation, when the judges hand down sentences, the evildoers are punished, and the society returns to a state of grace.

What distinguishes our time -- the time of September 11 -- is the end of this narrative of scandal. With the scandals over weapons of mass destruction and Abu Ghraib, we are stuck at step one. We have had the revelation; we know about the wrongdoing. Just recently, in the Downing Street memo, we had an account of a high-level discussion in Britain, nearly eight months before the Iraq war, in which the head of British intelligence flatly tells the prime minister – the intelligence officer has just returned from Washington -- that not only has the President of the United States decided that "military action was...inevitable" but that -- in the words of the British intelligence chief -- "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." This memo has been public for weeks.

So we have had the revelations; we know what happened. What we don't have is any clear admission of -- or adjudication of -- guilt, such as a serious congressional or judicial investigation would give us, or any punishment. Those high officials responsible are still in office. Indeed, not only have they received no punishment; many have been promoted. And we -- you and I, members all of the reality-based community -- we are left to see, to be forced to see. And this, for all of us, is a corrupting, a maddening, but also an inescapable burden.

In Memoriam

Colonel David H. Hackworth: His courage under fire was the stuff of Hollywood, such as once ordering his helicopter pilot to land in the middle of a firefight so he could rescue his wounded men.

As an orphan shining shoes at a military base in Santa Monica, Calif., he lied about his age to join up in the waning days of World War II. That started a career that led him to Korea, where he survived a gunshot to the head, and a whopping four tours of duty in Vietnam, where his daring and swagger became the inspiration for Robert Duvall's Colonel Kilgore character in the movie ''Apocalypse Now."

Tomorrow, the US military will lay to rest Colonel David H. Hackworth -- among its most decorated heroes of all time -- at Arlington National Cemetery.

The top brass is not expected to attend.

Corporal Christopher Zimny: Last Memorial Day, Cpl. Christopher Zimny visited his parents, Ted and Barbara, in Glenview, enjoying the three-day weekend before heading back to Iraq. On Memorial Day this year, his parents plan to visit his grave. For the Zimny family, the holiday is not a kickoff to summer, but a time to remember their son, beginning with a pre-Memorial Day gathering at the Marine's former high school in Glenview. "It's like what was on the news today," Barbara Zimny said Friday evening. "They were talking about Memorial weekend traffic and travel plans. And I think that's what we were like before." That was before Christopher Zimny, 27, their elder son, died Jan. 31. He was killed instantly when a roadside bomb exploded underneath his patrol vehicle in Iraq. Christopher Zimny decided to join the Marines because of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With his death, the Zimnys' lives changed, as did their view of Memorial Day and its meaning. More than 1,800 families find themselves in the same position, their sons and daughters, husbands and wives having been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. "To a lot of people, it's just a holiday," said Barbara Zimny, a hospital secretary. "Not anymore for us. You have to go through the experience to know."

Commentary

Opinion: This Memorial Day is not a good one for the country that was once the world's most brilliant beacon of freedom and justice.

State Department officials know better than anyone that the image of the United States has deteriorated around the world. The U.S. is now widely viewed as a brutal, bullying nation that countenances torture and operates hideous prison camps at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in other parts of the world - camps where inmates have been horribly abused, gruesomely humiliated and even killed.

The huge and bitter protests of Muslims against the United States last week were touched off by reports that the Koran had been handled disrespectfully by interrogators at Guantánamo. But the anger and rage among Muslims and others had been building for a long time, fueled by indisputable evidence of the atrocious treatment of detainees, terror suspects, wounded prisoners and completely innocent civilians in America's so-called war against terror.

Amnesty International noted last week in its annual report on human rights around the world that more than 500 detainees continue to be held "without charge or trial" at Guantánamo. Locking people up without explaining why, and without giving them a chance to prove their innocence, seems a peculiar way to advance the cause of freedom in the world.

Editorial: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld likes to talk about transforming America's military. But the main transformation he may leave behind is a catastrophic falloff in recruitment for the country's vital ground fighting forces: the Army and the Marine Corps. The recruitment chain that has given the United States highly qualified, highly skilled and highly motivated ground forces for the three decades since the government abandoned the draft has started to break down.

This is astonishing, even allowing for the administration's failure to prepare Americans honestly for how long and difficult the occupation of Iraq would be. There are over 60 million American men and women between 18 and 35, the age group sought by Army recruiters. Getting the 80,000 or so new volunteers the Army needs to enlist each year ought not to be such a daunting challenge. There are obvious attractions to joining the world's most powerful, prestigious and best-equipped ground fighting forces, and in so doing qualifying for valuable benefits like college tuition aid.

But Army recruitment is now regularly falling short of the necessary targets. Recruiters are having even more trouble persuading people to sign up for Army National Guard and Reserve units. The Marine Corps has been missing its much smaller monthly quotas as well. Unless there is a sharp change later this year, both forces will soon start feeling the pinch as too few trainees are processed to meet both forces' operational needs.

Why this is happening is no mystery. Two years of hearing about too few troops on the ground, inadequate armor, extended tours of duty and accelerated rotations back into combat have taken their toll, discouraging potential enlistees and their parents. The citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserves have suddenly become full-time warriors. Nor has it helped that when abuse scandals have erupted, the Pentagon has seemed quicker to punish lower-ranking soldiers than top commanders and policy makers. This negative cycle now threatens to feed on itself. Fewer recruits will mean more stress on those now in uniform and more grim reports reaching hometowns across America.

Opinion: Back in September 2003 a report by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the size of the U.S. force in Iraq would have to start shrinking rapidly in the spring of 2004 if the Army wanted to "maintain training and readiness levels, limit family separation and involuntary mobilization, and retain high-quality personnel."

Let me put that in plainer English: our all-volunteer military is based on an implicit promise that those who serve their country in times of danger will also be able to get on with their lives. Full-time soldiers expect to spend enough time at home base to keep their marriages alive and see their children growing up. Reservists expect to be called up infrequently enough, and for short enough tours of duty, that they can hold on to their civilian jobs.

To keep that promise, the Army has learned that it needs to follow certain rules, such as not deploying more than a third of the full-time forces overseas except during emergencies. The budget office analysis was based on those rules.

But the Bush administration, which was ready neither to look for a way out of Iraq nor to admit that staying there would require a much bigger army, simply threw out the rulebook. Regular soldiers are spending a lot more than a third of their time overseas, and many reservists are finding their civilian lives destroyed by repeated, long-term call-ups.

Comment: There is a strange disconnect in America at the moment, with the press partly to blame but in the position to do something about it, or at least explain it. You may be surprised to learn that nearly 6 in 10 Americans feel the Iraq war is "not worth it," according to a recent Gallup poll. Exactly 50% feel that President Bush "deliberately misled" them on the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and virtually the same number call the war an out-and-out "mistake." More than 56% now say the war is going badly for the United States. Gallup also recently found that 46% of those polled say we should start withdrawing troops. Yet there are few marches in the streets (or anywhere else), and even fewer editorials in major newspapers calling for a phased pullout or setting a deadline for withdrawal. But that's not my main concern here. No matter where you stand on the Iraq war, you've got to wonder: What's going on here at home? Yet few in the press have set out to explore this gap between what appears to be wide public anger and apathy: the enormous number of Americans who support our troops while, at least indirectly, devaluing their service by claiming this is a war not worth fighting.

Robert Parry: One benefit of the new AM progressive talk radio in cities around the United States is that the call-in shows have opened a window onto the concerns – and confusion – felt by millions of Americans trying to figure out how their country went from a democratic republic to a modern-day empire based on a cult of personality and a faith-based rejection of reason.

“What went wrong?” you hear them ask. “How did we get here?”

You also hear more detailed questions: “Why won’t the press do its job of holding George W. Bush accountable for misleading the country to war in Iraq? How could the intelligence on Iraq have been so wrong? Why do America’s most powerful institutions sit back while huge trade and budget deficits sap away the nation’s future?”

There are, of course, many answers to these questions. But from my 27 years in the world of Washington journalism and politics, I would say that the most precise answer can be summed up in one word: fear.

It’s not fear of physical harm. That's not how it works in Washington. For the professionals in journalism and in intelligence, it’s a smaller, more corrosive fear – of lost status, of ridicule, of betrayal, of unemployment. It is the fear of getting blackballed from a community of colleagues or a profession that has given your life much of its meaning and its financial sustenance.

Interview: [Thom Hartmann] Yeah. George Galloway, Member of Parliament in the, in Great Britain, of the House of Commons. Why do you believe that Tony Blair decided to join president Bush in waging war when, as has recently emerged with this Downing Street memo, he knew that the case was flimsy, and do you think that either Blair or Bush or people in their administration should be prosecuted on any, on any level for this activity?

[George Galloway] Well, first of all I am sure that they will not be prosecuted, because it is only losers that are prosecuted. In the international system that we have there's no chance of the likes of Henry Kissinger, for example, the greatest living war criminal in the world today with the blood of millions of people in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and Chile and East Timor or in many other places on his hands. He will never appear in a court or be behind bars. That's for the tin pot tyrants, the tiny tyrants like Milosevic; they get sent there. The big tyrants never face justice.

I wish I knew the answer to your first question, why did Tony Blair join it? Certainly, it's been utterly ruinous to his political reputation. He will, he will be followed into the history books and into the grave with this mark of Cain on his forehead. He will be remembered for nothing other than that he followed George W. Bush over a cliff; took the rest of us with them, and we haven't yet reached the bottom, I'm afraid. All I can say from my own conversations with Mr. Blair, man to man, are that I think that both him and George W. Bush are possessed of a kind of messianic belief that somebody, God perhaps, gave them the job of shouldering the white man's burden, which is the world. That someone gave them the right to step outside of international law; go anywhere, do anything, pay any price in other people's blood, to reshape the world in their image; in the image that they want to see. And I think that both men will be damned in history. Both men have made their respective countries the two most hated countries in the world. They have endangered the lives and safety of our citizens. They have damaged our economic and cultural and social interests, and they should face prosecution, but never will.

Editorial: Nothing young Americans can do in life is more honorable than offering themselves for the defense of their nation. It requires great selflessness and sacrifice, and quite possibly the forfeiture of life itself. On Memorial Day 2005, we gather to remember all those who gave us that ultimate gift. Because they are so fresh in our minds, those who have died in Iraq make a special claim on our thoughts and our prayers.

In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Duluth, MN, helicopter pilot killed in crash north of Baghdad.

Local story: Rochester, MN, military policeman killed in Baghdad in March, honored by Rochester police.

Local story: Sun Prairie, WI, soldier killed when his helicopter was shot down over central Iraq.

Local story: Sandusky, OH, soldier, killed in Iraq one year ago, remembered by his family.

Local story: West Cowick, East Yorkshire, UK, soldier killed in roadside bombing in Al Amarah province.

Local story: Four Mississippi Army National Guard soldiers killed in roadside bombing in Iraq.

Local story: Northampton, NJ, Marine killed in helicopter crash last January in Iraq honored in Memorial Day service.

Local story: Albany, VT, Marine, killed January 26 in a gun battle northwest of Baghdad, interred on Memorial Day.

Local story: Two Gulfport, AL, soldiers killed May 23 in the area of Haswa to be honored in separate military rites later this week.

Local story: Long Beach, CA, soldier killed in mortar attack in Mosul.

Local story: Vancleave, MS, soldier killed in explosion in Iraq remembered by his eight-year-old daughter.

Local story: Louisville, KY, Marine killed last week in Hadithah remembered and interred.

War News for Monday, May 30, 2005 Bring 'em on: British soldier killed by IED and four injured in al-Amarah. Bring 'em on: Twenty five sacked ex commandos queuing for back pay killed and one hundred injured in twin suicide bomb attack in Hilla. Bring 'em on: Iraqi police general critically injured after attempted assassination in Kirkuk. Bring 'em on: Leader of largest Sunni political party, considered a moderate, arrested along with his three sons and four guards in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi police sergeants working for the Iraqi Cabinet gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Fifty insurgents launched a sustained attack on Sunday on the detention center run by the Interior Ministry's major crimes unit in Amariya, according to an unconfirmed account by an Amariya resident who was reached by telephone, insurgent bands roaming the district after the battle claimed to have captured weapons from the detention center's armory. Bring 'em on: Five suicide bombs in six hours kill twenty members of Iraqi security forces in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Oil infrastructure attacked on the outskirts of Baghdad. Bring 'em on: South Korean base comes under fire in Irbil. War Crimes: It emerged yesterday that up to 11 members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment could be charged under war crimes legislation enacted in 2001 after the establishment of the international criminal court. The soldiers would face trial in the UK under the ICC act. Averting Civil War: Iraq's religious leaders are intensifying efforts to heal the rifts between the country's Sunnis and Shias amid a spate of sectarian killings that has raised fears of civil war. A weekend meeting between senior figures from the Sunni Association of Muslim Clerics and the Shia Badr Brigades - the militia of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the biggest Shia party - sought to ease tensions caused by the killing of at least 14 Sunni clerics in the past month. Doctors Leaving: In the past year, about 10 percent of Baghdad's total force of 32,000 registered doctors, both Sunnis and Shiites, have been driven from their jobs, according to the Iraqi Medical Association, which licenses practitioners. The exodus has accelerated in recent months, said Akif Khalil al-Alousi, a pathologist at Kindi Teaching Hospital and a senior member of the association. The vast majority of those fleeing, he said, are the most senior doctors. The Interior Ministry has already responded to the threats: It simplified gun license procedures for doctors. They can get licensed weapons faster than other Iraqis. Dr. Omar al-Kubaisy, one of the doctors who stopped going to work at the cardiac hospital after he was threatened, kept going to work at his own clinic, watched over by his 23-year-old son Ali, who stood guard with a large and always visible semi-automatic gun. But last week, Kubaisy, one of Iraq's top cardiologists, left for France. Emergencies are nonstop. Civilian deaths have jumped five-fold since the new government took power late last month. One physician estimated that about 250 Iraqi doctors had been kidnapped over the past two years. The simple quest for money which fuels the country's serious, widespread kidnapping industry appears to be the biggest motivation. Opinion and Commentary Operation Lightning: Is Iraq another Honduras?

In the interview above Carafano states that there's little chance that this will round up real terrorists, because they were given plenty of notice and have probably already taken off for part or parts unknown. So what is the real purpose of Operation Lightning? Perhaps it is a continuation of a tactic used by John Negroponte in Honduras, i.e., use "elite" militias within the larger indigenous force to terrorize the locals and round up, imprison, interrogate and maybe "disappear" alleged bad guys without a search warrant approved by a judge or the benefits of a lawyer to argue the case. Ah, but who cares? It's not as if the other guys bleed or feel anything but hate, right? For all intents and purposes, due to the bungling at the beginning of the occupation, every Iraqi has become the "enemy" and young Americans, who went to Iraq believing that they were the good guys fighting the people who attacked us on 9-11, find themselves in an intolerable situation. They now know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. There were no WMDs. The Iraqi Army turned out to be a ragtag paper tiger. And the "enemy" fights the same kind of war we would fight if someone invaded our country. (I refer you to the movies "Red Dawn" and "V".) Recent studies show that 15-17% of returnees need psychiatric help for a variety of post-traumatic stress disorders.

Operation Lightening: Starting a Civil War?

If this Baghdad offensive is launched, it will result in an escalation of U.S. war crimes and outrage against the U.S. and the new Iraqi "government." Obviously, the Americans are unwilling to take the casualties of house-to-house searches. That job falls to the Iraqi troops who are being set against their own people. If insurgents remain and fight, U.S. airpower will be used to pulverize the buildings, and "collateral damage" will be high. If insurgents leave and cause mayhem elsewhere, large numbers of innocent Iraqis will be detained as suspected insurgents. After all, you can't conduct such a large operation without results. As most households have guns, which are required for protection as there is no law and order, "males of military age" will be detained from these armed households as suspected insurgents. The detentions of thousands more Iraqis will result in more torture and abuses. Consequently, the ranks of the active insurgency will grow. Neocon court historians of empire, such as Niall Ferguson, claim that the U.S. cannot withdraw from Iraq because the result would be a civil war and bloodbath. However, a bloodbath is what has been going on since the ill-fated "cakewalk" invasion. Moreover, the planned Baghdad offensive is itself the beginning of a civil war. The 50,000 troops represent a Shi'ite government. These troops will be hunting Sunnis. There is no better way to start a civil war. As George W. Bush has made clear many times, he is incapable of admitting a mistake. The inability to admit a mistake makes rational behavior impossible. In place of thought, the Bush administration relies on coercion and violence. Nevertheless, Congress does not have to be a doormat for a war criminal. It can put a halt to Bush's madness. The solution is not to reduce Iraq to rubble. The U.S. can end the bloodshed by exiting Iraq. A solution is for Iraq to organize as a republic of three largely autonomous states or provinces - Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurd - along the lines of the original American republic. The politicians within each province will be too busy fighting one another for power to become militarily involved with those in other provinces.

Do more than mourn on Memorial Day:

The Constitution, according to its preamble, was "ordain(ed) and "establish(ed)" by "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union (and) ... provide for the common defense." Defense. The military exists to defend Americans against those who threaten us. It is not intended to be an instrument of offense against sovereign nations, however despotic their regimes. And the exploitation of our soldiers doesn't end when their tours are over. How do our leaders show their gratitude to those who are lucky enough to make it home? By pinching pennies on veterans' benefits and forcing them to pay more for the health care they need because they were put in harm's way for the rest of us. If the war's human cost is not compelling enough, consider the economic cost to the nation. The price tag for Iraq has now climbed above $200 billion, in a nation buckling under the strain of debt and still neglecting many domestic priorities in areas like education and health care. The social, political and economic reconstruction of Iraq must continue to be a priority. But that is a development task, not a military mission, which cannot be accomplished in the context of an occupation. Furthermore, there must be accountability in the reconstruction process, which has been marred by reports of mismanagement and corruption. Earlier this month, government investigators revealed that nearly $100 million in construction money has disappeared and was possibly embezzled. Let's make this Memorial Day more than the traditional day of mourning and tribute. Let's make it a day of action. Let's dedicate ourselves, as a nation, to ending this violent, unnecessary conflict.

Baghdad Matters:

If people happen to have been discussing constitutions anywhere in the world recently, it's a fair bet they were talking about the EU, not Iraq. Yet what is happening in Baghdad probably matters much more than any knife-edge referendums in Paris or The Hague. Iraqis, facing an insurgency that has killed 600 people this month, have to do what the French, Dutch and other Europeans - looking beyond the nation state to something new - no longer have to worry about: build a working democracy from scratch now that the Ba'athist system of Arab socialism, freedom and unity has gone the way of all tyrannies. It really doesn't matter what you think of George Bush, Tony Blair, or their case for war. This - along with an awful lot of other things - has to be done if the occupation is to end and the country is to come out of it in reasonable shape. But US neocons willing a new Middle East to emerge from the rubble make it sound far too easy, fantasising about a Philadelphia-on-the-Tigris, where the founding fathers of free Iraq will be moved by the vision of 1787 to overcome their differences and strike grand bargains as they look, misty-eyed, to some shining city on a hill. Words like "democratic", "pluralistic" and "inclusive", bandied about by an anxious Condoleezza Rice, ring hollow behind the heavily guarded walls of the Green Zone in Baghdad while mass unemployment, power shortages, sectarian incitement and suicide bombings continue outside. Momentum was lost after the January 30 elections in haggling over a government dominated by Shia Muslims and Kurds, and it will be hard to meet the August 15 deadline for completing the constitution. Opting for a six-month delay is possible, but more uncertainty might help keep violence going. Process is vital, since writing a constitution is the only non-violent opportunity to build a workable compromise. Last week, a 55-strong parliamentary drafting committee was expanded, at US urging, to become a 101-member commission. It will permit greater representation for the Sunni minority, which lost most with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, largely boycotted the elections and forms the backbone of the insurgency.

And the Winner is?

Iran! That's at least one surprising answer to the question of who is coming out on top in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Everything has gone very well for the Iranians," says Juan Cole, a professor specializing in Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, a view echoed by many others who study the region. "They had two major geopolitical enemies on the region. One was the Taliban and the other was Saddam Hussein," Cole says. "So from their point of view, the United States has very helpfully removed their major problems. "And not only has it removed those major problems, it has installed regimes that have strong traditional alliances with the Iranians," he says. It can certainly be assumed that it was not the intention of the Bush administration when it embarked on these military adventures to aid a member of the so-called "axis of evil." Bush put Iran on that axis, along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea. But that's the way it has worked out. "It's a very odd outcome," says Shibley Telhami, professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park. "I don't think the administration ever thought we would be where we are today." Where we are is not only were Iran's enemies vanquished by the U.S.-led forces, but the government now in power in Baghdad has longstanding ties to Iran, turning those former enemies into potentially strong allies. "Iraq was the major competitor with Iran in the Persian Gulf," Telhami says. "The intentional strategy of the United States for decades was to maintain that balance of power, not to allow one of them to dominate, to use one against the other. "What you have now is Iraq really disappearing as a strategic player in the gulf for the foreseeable future," he says. "It will not be able to threaten anyone militarily. And that leaves Iran as the sole power in the gulf, except for the American military presence."

Today In History May 29, 1453. Mehmet II took Constantinople and ended the Roman Empire. The slaughter was horrendous. Read John Norwich's history of Byzantium. May 29, 1453 was a Tuesday. **** Istanbul was Constantinople Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople Been a long time gone, Constantinople Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night Every gal in Constantinople Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople So if you’ve a date in Constantinople She’ll be waiting in Istanbul Even old New York was once New Amsterdam Why they changed it I can’t say People just liked it better that way So take me back to Constantinople No, you can’t go back to Constantinople Been a long time gone, Constantinople Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks Thanks to They Might Be Giants for a tune often played in the officers' club, 528th US Artillery, Cakmakli, Republic of Turkey. And thanks to the proud Turkish people who welcomed me into their country and treated me like a brother. I'll never forget you. YD

War News for Sunday, May 29, 2003 Bring 'em on: Two suicide bomb attacks kill five and injure forty five outside a US base in Sinjar. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqis killed in IED attack targeting US troops in Mosul. Bring 'em on: Ten pilgrims found murdered near the Syrian border. Bring 'em on: Moderate Sunni leader gunned down in Kirkuk. Bring 'em on: US Marine killed by roadside bomb in Haqlaniyah. Bring 'em on: Two killed and nine wounded in suicide bomb attack near Kirkuk. Bring 'em on: Japanese hostage confirmed dead. Giving Iraq Back

"We want to hand it over to them. But when it comes down to it, the (Iraqi police) we're hiring are all bad," said Army Sgt. Nicholas Radde, 21, of LaCrosse, Wis., as his soldiers took a break in the parking lot of an abandoned storage area. Despite two interim Iraqi governments, a national election and the graduation of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, U.S. troops remain the ultimate security force in most of Iraq, more than two years after the U.S.-led invasion. Earlier this month, when U.S. Marines led a major assault against insurgents near the Syrian border and lost nine troops, the Iraqi forces played a secondary role. As the elected Iraqi government tries to coax a wary Sunni Arab population into joining the new political system, American soldiers continue to raid homes, patrol neighborhoods and hurriedly train Iraqi soldiers -- the faster the better if they are to get home soon. But a resilient Sunni-led insurgency has effectively stalled progress, killing thousands of Iraqis.

Journalism in the USA From Chicken Yoghurt:

Hersh is firm in his assertion that the war in Iraq has never ended despite the ostentatious proclamation by Bush from the deck of an aircraft carrier. He said the term "insurgency" used to describe those fighting coalition troops is a misnomer because the coalition is still fighting the same people they were engaging before the fall of Baghdad. In April 2003, Hersh says, around 6000 military commanders and soldiers, Baathist bureaucrats and other leaders of the regime (including those who ran the public utilities and oil infractructure) simply disappeared from Baghdad over a short period of days. It's these same commanders and soldiers that are still fighting now. Jihadists have come to the country but the bedrock of the "insurgency" remains Republican Guard units and the like. Hersh also maintains that Iraq is already in a state of civil war and has been for some months, it's merely that a timid American press is afraid to use the term. Bogeyman of the moment Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a useful figleaf to the Iraqi commanders leading the insurgency, said Hersh. In adopting the tactic of killing civilians in an attempt to turn the population against the occupation, the former Baathists find Zarqawi's status as terrorist-in-chief deflects the blame away from them and gives succour to their hope of reassuming control of the country again some time in the future. Their thinking is that the civilian population being told by the coalition to blame Zarqawi for Baathist atrocities will make their task easier.

760 Iraqis Dead in May 2005 for what?

"There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." - George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.

Note to Readers Evidently, Friendly Fire and I can't keep our schedules straight because we both prepared today's news post. It's probably my fault since Friendly and Matt have been kindly covering for me for the last week. Scroll down to read Friendly's news summary. I've eliminated redundancies from my summary. Thanks, YD War News for Friday, May 27, 2004, Extra Edition Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi policemen killed in Mosul. Bring 'em on: Five Iraqis killed, 15 wounded in bomb attack on police patrol in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi civilians, two US soldiers wounded by roadside bomb in Kirkuk. Bring 'em on: US troops and insurgents clash in Fallujah. "Insurgents in Iraq attached explosives to a dog and tried to blow up a military convoy near the northern oil centre of Kirkuk." Knucklehead. "Retired Army Lt. Col. Charles Krohn got himself in trouble with his superiors as a Pentagon civilian public affairs official during the first three and one-half years of the Bush administration by telling the truth. He is still at it in private life. He says not to blame the military recruiters for the current recruiting 'scandal.' Blame the war. "Army recruiting is in a death spiral, through no fault of the Army," Krohn told me. Always defending uniformed personnel, he resents hard-pressed recruiters being attacked for offering unauthorized benefits to make quotas. In a recent e-mail sent to friends (mostly retired military), Krohn complained that the 'Army is having to compensate for a problem of national scope…' In contrast, Krohn is a lifelong Republican who actively supported George W. Bush's presidential candidacy in 2000. He specified in his e-mail that 'I'm not now blaming' President Bush or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the situation. 'We have a problem that transcends politics,' Krohn added." What a fucking moron. I bet this "lifelong Republican" was one of those clowns howling for Les Aspin's resignation after the Battle of Mogadishu. But a truly incompetent defense secretary "transcends politics." IOKIYAR. Rummy's Army. "Last year, Army lieutenants and captains left the service at an annual rate of 8.7% — the highest since 2001. Pentagon officials say they expect the attrition rate to improve slightly this year. Yet interviews with several dozen military officers revealed an undercurrent of discontent within the Army's young officer corps that the Pentagon's statistics do not yet capture. Young captains in the Army are looking ahead to repeated combat tours, years away from their families and a global war that their commanders tell them could last for decades. Like other college grads in their mid-20s, they are making decisions about what to do with their lives. And many officers, who until recently had planned to pursue careers in the military, are deciding that it's a future they can't sign up for. The officers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan just wrapped up a year of grueling counterinsurgency operations — a type of combat the U.S. largely avoided after its struggle in Vietnam and that many in the Pentagon believe is the new face of war. They were in Iraq during last spring's uprisings in Fallouja and Najaf, June's transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government and block-to-block fighting during the retaking of Fallouja in November. These officers have, in most cases, more counterinsurgency experience than any of their superiors. And they are the people the Army most fears losing." The good news from Iraq that the media fails to notice: "So, to summarize the good electricity news: Due to lack of maintenance, electricity production fell from 9000 MW in 1991 to 4400 MW before the war. Since then, there have been many announcements of improved generating capacity and production has fallen further to 3560 MW." Courtesy of Brad De Long. Wounded. "The number of service members wounded in Iraq has surged past 12,000, half of them injured so badly that they cannot return to duty. Many of the most critical cases end up here at the National Naval Medical Center, established in the early days of World War II. On the worst nights at the Bethesda hospital complex, ambulances and casualty buses deliver up to 100 wounded Marines and sailors from Iraq. Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, more than 1,700 have arrived, most of them young and suffering from the devastating damage inflicted on human tissue by explosives, bullets and shrapnel. Some, like Bryan Trusty, stay only a few weeks. Others, like Eddie Ryan, stay longer. The soldiers are surrounded by attentive nurses and skilled surgeons, and by loved ones who cling to hope and share an ordeal that can be both traumatic and uplifting, their lives in turmoil and forever altered. If not for Eddie's tattoos, Angela Ryan would not have recognized her son after she and her husband flew to see him at a military hospital in Germany. His face and body were grotesquely swollen. Before he was wounded, Eddie was lean and fit, 6 feet tall and 195 pounds. He had ballooned to 250 pounds because of severe swelling and fluid accumulation caused by injuries." "A Fayette County (Pennsylvania) veteran blinded in Iraq said he is finally getting help and having to deal with the reality of his injuries. And he's looking forward to starting his new life in a new home being built for him…Ross, a former combat engineer with the 82nd Airborne Division, was wounded on May 18, 2003, while disposing of munitions near Baghdad. He was carrying a mine in a sand-filled shovel to a disposal pit when it exploded. The accident left him with no sight and a prosthetic leg. Since returning home, he's had several run-ins with the law, and said the pressure just got to him. But Ross said he still had dreams of moving out of his trailer home and into a new home and now that's becoming a reality. The Massachusetts-based group Homes For Our Troops is building a handicap-accessible home for Ross." Class warfare. "Given the deteriorating security in Iraq, it had been obvious for months that the Guard unit - E Troop, Second Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment - would be called up. Still, the deployment was tough on the soldiers and their families. The National Guard, as many have noted, is not a cross-section of America. Since the draft was abandoned in 1973, the Guard has drawn overwhelmingly from the working class, like the Army itself. The incomes of members of E Troop cluster around the Tennessee median income, about $38,000. Few are well-to-do, the kinds of people who often joined the Guard to avoid going to Vietnam. Few are among the very poor, who often manned the front lines in that war." Watch the slide show accompanying this short article, read the comments from these Guardsmen and their families, and then ask yourself, "Where the hell are those two sperm-burping Bush brats?" Commentary Analysis:

The Northeast Intelligence Network also gave its own English translation of the Arabic statement, which is annexed below. A careful reading of the translation shows, firstly, there is no reference to Zarqawi by name. It merely talks of a "sheikh", which has been presumed to be a reference to Zarqawi. Why can't it be a reference to Osama bin Laden, who is also referred to by his followers as a sheikh. The statement, according to this translation, does not say that the sheikh is injured, so pray for him. It says should the sheikh be injured, pray for him. Why should the information section put out a statement that all Muslims should pray if their sheikh is injured? This is inexplicable unless the poster has no personal information on Zarqawi and had made his posting on the basis of the reports discussed above which speculate about the possibility of Zarqawi having been injured. Where are we after reading and analyzing all these reports and comments on them by various analysts? Nowhere. We are as much in a state of confusion as we have always been since the US-led coalition invaded and occupied Iraq. All that one knows for certain is: More than two years after the occupation, the Arab Sunni resistance to the US-led occupation shows no signs of abating. There has been an unending flow of volunteers - from Iraq as well as outside - for the resistance movement, with many of them volunteering themselves for suicide missions. Iraqis - many of them from deposed president Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party and armed forces - and Saudis, recruited by al-Qaeda, spearhead the resistance movement. The Iraqi resistance has shown remarkable coordination, even if it has been operating separately. There is a common brain behind all the anti-American operations in Iraq. The Americans project Zarqawi's as that common brain, but their evidence in this regard is far from conclusive. The Americans, with their penchant for demonization and dramatization, have made Zarqawi appear as the source of most of what has been happening in Iraq, just as, post-September 11, they had made bin Laden appear as the source of most of the anti-Western jihadi terrorism taking place in the Islamic world.

Analysis:

Asia Times Online has learned that the US, instead of training up a regular professional Iraqi army, will create what in effect will be armed militias, acting under US central command, to take the militias of the resistance on at their own game. Recent meetings of the so-called Higher Committee for National Forces (a grouping of Iraqi resistance bodies) and the 16th Arab National Congress held in Algiers played a pivotal role in building consensus among various Iraqi communist, Islamic, Ba'athist and nationalist groups on several issues, such as the right of Iraqis to defend themselves against foreign aggression and imperialism, and the right of Iraq to demand a political process untainted by occupation and which reflects the uninhibited will of the Iraqi people for a pluralistic and democratic Iraq. The groups also condemned the continued occupation of Iraq and the establishment of any permanent US bases in the country, the privatization of the Iraqi economy and foreign corporations' unrestricted access to Iraq's resources. On this common ground, the central command of the resistance reorganized its activities, a key to which was merging mohallah-level (street-level) Islamic groups scattered in their hundreds across Iraq to work toward a common goal - defeating the occupation. In turn, these militias would co-opt common folk into their struggle, so that, literally, the streets would be alive with resistance. Aware of this development, the US has accepted that no conventional military force can cope with such a resistance, and therefore similar mohallah-level combat forces are needed. According to Asia Times Online contacts, these US-backed militias will comprise three main segments - former Kurdish peshmerga (paramilitaries), former members of the Badr Brigade and those former members of the Ba'ath Party and the Iraqi army who were part of the Saddam regime but who have now thrown in their lot with the new Iraqi government.

Opinion:

In fact, Sinclair has hopped on the "tribute" bandwagon this time around, and has even changed its story about why it yanked the program last year — not unlike the way the administration changed its story about why we launched the war. In a statement posted Tuesday on its Website, Sinclair said it "applauds Nightline for paying tribute to those service men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by reading their names on Memorial Day." And why is it such a noble undertaking in 2005 when it was such a scandalously unpatriotic act in 2004? Well, Sinclair now says, "Unlike Nightline's reading of the names last year, which coincided with the start of the May ratings sweeps, we feel that this year's Memorial Day selection is the appropriate setting to remember those who have sacrificed their lives to keep all Americans safe and free." What? Sinclair last year blocked a tribute to those who had "sacrificed their lives" because it was "May ratings sweeps"? In other words, to protect the few pennies it might have lost in advertising dollars by yielding two hours of airtime to honor the dead? It's not only a new excuse, but a repugnant one.

Casualty Reports Local story: Michigan soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Tennessee Guasrdsman killed in Iraq. Local story: Kentucky Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Four Iowa Guardsmen wounded in Iraq. Local story: Texas soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Utah airman wounded in Iraq. Local story: Florida soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Pennsylvania soldier wounded in Iraq.

War News for Friday, May 27, 2005 Bring 'em on: Two US airmen killed after their helicopter came under small arms fire and subsequently crashed near Baqubah. Bring 'em on: Fears grow that a Jordanian and two Iraqi drivers that were recently kidnapped have been executed. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi civilians killed when US forces opened fire on their minibus in southern Baghdad. Three hundred Filipino workers have gone on strike in Camp Cooke in Taji. I wonder what Michelle Magalanglagalalallan will say. Martial Law?

In Baghdad, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari told a small group of Western reporters that next week's planned crackdown, dubbed Operation Lightning, was designed "to restore the initiative to the government." Insurgents have killed more than 620 people since his government was announced on April 28. "We will establish, with God's help, an impenetrable blockade surrounding Baghdad like a bracelet surrounds a wrist," Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi said. Iraqi authorities did not say how long the crackdown would last, and it was uncertain if the Iraq security services are capable of mounting a sustained operation. Except for a few elite units, most police officers are believed to have joined up for the higher pay the job provides -- at $300 per month their salaries are triple the average wage.

Waiting for Peace Another Bushism for the collection: Click here to listen:

"See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

More Pictures from Abu Ghraib:

A federal judge has told the US government it will have to release additional pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, civil rights lawyers said. Judge Alvin Hellerstein, stated that the public has a right to see the pictures and told the government yesterday he will sign an order requiring it to release them to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the lawyers said. The judge made the decision after he and government attorneys privately viewed a sampling of nine pictures resulting from an Army probe into abuse and torture at the prison. The pictures were given to the Army by a military policeman assigned there. ACLU lawyer Megan Lewis told the judge she believes the government has pictures of abuse beyond the Abu Ghraib images that sparked outrage around the world after they were leaked to the media last year.

Koran Desecration:

India - Shops, schools and banks were shut on Friday in Indian-administered Kashmir in protest at reports of desecrations of the Quran at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, witnesses said. The one-day strike in India’s only Muslim-majority state was called by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani and backed by the revolt-hit region’s leading women’s separatist group, Dukhtaran-e-Milat or Daughters of Faith. The protest closed down shops, schools, banks as well as most government and private offices in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

Opinion and Commentary Divide and Conquer:

The motive of some other bombing attacks is less clear. Faced with a population that wants the U.S. force to leave their country, Washington stands to gain from what is often vaguely reported in the U.S. mass media as “sectarian violence.” The big-business media is aiding and abetting imperialist efforts to drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shias. Although some dispute these figures, they say the Sunnis make up some 20 percent of the population and that they held greater political power in the Ba’athist government; thus the U.S. media treats them as the “bad guys.” On May 22 Associated Press writer Paul Garwood wrote, “The Sunni fall from grace is regarded by many as a key source of Iraq’s raging insurgency, which claimed more victims Sunday, including Trade Ministry official Ali Moussa and his driver.” What’s missing? No mention of the imperialist occupation fueling the resistance. This AP report’s approach is just the visible tip of the iceberg of Washington’s attempts to pit Sunnis and Shias and Kurds against each other. It’s an effort to keep the entire population divided in order to steal Iraq’s natural wealth and defeat the fight against the occupation. But the insurgency is so tenacious and so strong that even some of the brass hats themselves are, well, down. Many years and many more troops are the best that even the most optimistic of the “unnamed” officials are willing to venture it would take to “stabilize” Iraq. By stable, they mean winning enough class peace to plunder Iraq’s vast resources. But the insurgency has claimed the lives of an estimated hundreds of mercenaries and contractors working for the Pentagon. As a result, a big chunk of those billions of dollars earmarked to build the infrastructure—necessary, for example, to funnel out Iraq’s vast oil reserves—is being channeled instead into military “security.” For the people of Iraq, after enduring two years of life under occupation, most of the 27-million-strong population is still without adequate electricity, sewage disposal, clean water or other essential services. Conditions like these, and the military boot heel of the occupation, drive the Iraqi people’s determination to resist the occupation.

What it really costs:

As we begin a long Memorial Day weekend, the least we can do is finally, even at this late date, be honest about how difficult and costly the war in Iraq is going to be for the men and women fighting and dying for us there. Niall Ferguson gave us a measure of that reality this week in a New York Times op-ed piece. Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard, argued that to defeat the insurgency in Iraq and establish a modicum of stability there would take one million U.S. soldiers and possibly 30 to 60 years. That contrasts to the 138,000 soldiers there now and a prevailing belief that we will start to draw down troops next year - before the midterm elections. Ferguson bases his estimates partly on the British experience in Iraq after World War I. The British, he says, put down an insurgency with a troop to population ratio of 1 to 23. The ratio there today is 1 to 174. He points out that the overwhelming number of British troops came from India, a type of manpower resource Washington doesn't have. And Ferguson says that many liberals in the United States don't grasp how high a price the United States will pay, in terms of its own security, if the mission fails and Iraq falls into civil war and chaos. Even if you believe that Ferguson's estimates of manpower and time are high, the overall point is sobering: There has been and continues to be a tragic mismatch between the Bush administration's reach and its grasp. The administration grossly underestimated what it would take to make Iraq whole after the invasion. In fact, there were reports this week from a top meeting of U.S. military officials that the plan to start withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq next year is premature given the deteriorating military situation.

The Resilient Liar:

For several years now, a favorite slogan of anti-war protestors has been, quite simply, two words: "Bush Lies." But George W. Bush's reputation as a straight-talking president has proved remarkably resilient. Faced with the failure to find even a single weapon of mass destruction in Iraq, this president has floated above charges of cooking intelligence like a cork on a stormy ocean. But now it's time to demand accountability from the president. The recently obtained top-secret memo recording a meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his closest ministers and aides shows that, by July 2002, Bush knew that the evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was weak but had decided to go to war anyway. So far, the president's aides have made sure that none of the war protestors' claims would stick to their man. But as the toll of death and injury continues to mount in Iraq, this new evidence that the "case was thin" for war may prove more difficult to evade.

War News for Thursday, May 26, 2005 Bring 'em on: Four Iraqis, including a translator working for the US military, gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Senior civil servant in Iraqi Ministry of Industry & Minerals assassinated in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Deputy Dean of Baghdad's Mustansiriya University and three of his bodyguards gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Iraqi politician found dead with throat cut in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three detainees escape from Abu Ghraib prison. Bring 'em on: US Marine killed in Operation New Market in Haditha. Bring 'em on: One month old and one year old Iraqis killed in fighting in Tal Afar. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi policemen killed and nineteen injured in car bomb attack in Baghdad. American soldier killed in traffic accident in Al Touz. Operation Thunder:

Iraq's Defence Ministry has announced a huge crackdown on terrorism in the capital Baghdad. More than 40,000 Iraqi troops are to be deployed in the capital to hunt down insurgents. Sadoun al Dulaimi said the force would include troops from the interior and defence ministries. Operation Thunder would be by far the largest anti-insurgent effort carried out in Baghdad by Iraqi security forces. "We will divide Baghdad into seven main areas," al Dulaimi told a news conference. "The number of the forces who will take part in the operation will be more than 40,000."

Playing the al-Zarqawi game:

Iraq's interior and defense ministers said Thursday that they have information that Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been wounded. "We have information in the Ministry of Interior that al-Zarqawi was wounded, but we don't know how seriously," Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said during a news conference. "We are not sure whether he is dead or not but we are sure that he is injured." Meanwhile: Al-Qaeda's Iraq branch said it has named Abu Hafs al-Qarni as its acting chief, according to an Internet statement posted on an Islamist website whose authenticity could not be verified. Google Search: "Abu Hafs al-Qarni"

Women's Rights:

Under Saddam’s dictatorship, Iraqi women were among the most free in the Middle East. They enjoyed many rights equal to those of men: rights to education, employment, divorce in civil courts and custody over children were endorsed by the ruling Ba’ath regime although some of the legal rights were routinely violated. It is now more than a year since the end of the war aimed at bringing liberation to the Iraqi people but rather than an improvement in their quality of life, women have been victims of widespread violence. The Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq has informally surveyed Baghdad, and now knows of 400 women who were raped in the city between April and August last year. A lack of security and proper policing in post-Saddam Iraq has been blamed for the growing rates of crime against women. It is claimed that women can no longer go out alone to work or attend school or university without being accompanied by an armed male relative.

Opinion and Commentary Misinterpeting Lulls:

The specialists, including one with extensive experience in Iraq, suggested that Washington misinterpreted a lull in attacks after January's national elections as a sign that the Iraqi insurgency was dying out or relaxing its effort to force a foreign military retreat. Instead, the experts said, the insurgents have shown patience as they regrouped, devised new strategies and repeatedly demonstrated an ability to thwart U.S.-led efforts to stabilize Iraq. The persistent campaign of attacks has demoralized the population while proving the insurgents can withstand repeated military offensives designed to defang them. Events in Iraq this week showed the effectiveness of the insurgents' campaign. A car bomb exploded Tuesday outside a girls' school in Baghdad, killing six people, while eight U.S. troops were killed in separate attacks. A total of 14 Americans have been reported killed since Sunday, while about 60 Iraqis have died in shootings, car bombings and suicide attacks launched by the insurgents around the country. "The fact that the U.S. Army managed to prevent insurgent plans from halting the elections, and the fact that such a large percentage of the Iraqi population defied the violence to vote, shook the confidence of the various groups deploying violence for political aim," said John Shipman, director of the independent International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. But the three-month gap between the elections of formation of a new government "gave the insurgency the strategic and political space to regroup and strike back," he added. In spite of "risking their lives" to vote for a better future, Iraqis have not been impressed by the new government. Its inaction "has also demobilized the Iraqi population and encouraged a return to the alienation and cynicism that (previously) marked popular attitudes," Shipman said.

Special Report US Arms transfer since September 11, 2001:

"Perhaps no single policy is more at odds with President Bush’s pledge to ‘end tyranny in our world’ than the United States’ role as the world’s leading arms exporting nation, " said Frida Berrigan, the report’s co-author. "Although arms sales are often justified on the basis of their purported benefits, from securing access to overseas military facilities to rewarding coalition partners, these alleged benefits often come at a high price." As in the case of recent decisions to provide new F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan while pledging comparable high tech military hardware to its rival India, U.S. arms sometimes go to both sides in long brewing conflicts. And the tens of millions of U.S. arms transfers to Uzbekistan exemplify the negative consequences of arming repressive regimes. Among the key findings of this report are the following: In 2003, the last year for which full information is available, the United States transferred weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in active conflicts. From Angola, Chad and Ethiopia, to Colombia, Pakistan, Israel and the Philippines, transfers through the two largest U.S. arms sales programs (Foreign Military Sales and Commercial Sales) to these conflict nations totaled nearly $1 billion in 2003. In 2003, more than half of the top 25 recipients of U.S. arms transfers in the developing world (13 of 25) were defined as undemocratic by the U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Report: in the sense that "citizens do not have the right to change their own government." These 13 nations received over $2.7 billion in U.S. arms transfers in 2003, with the top recipients including Saudi Arabia ($1.1 billion), Egypt ($1.0 billion), Kuwait ($153 million), the United Arab Emirates ($110 million) and Uzbekistan ($33 million). When countries designated by the State Department’s Human Rights Report to have poor human rights records or serious patterns of abuse are factored in, 20 of the top 25 U.S. arms clients in the developing world in 2003 -- a full 80% -- were either undemocratic regimes or governments with records of major human rights abuses.

Discussion Thread, May 26, 2005 U.S. forces shot dead a child during an exchange of gunfire near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. "Terrorists used Iraqi children as shields when multi-national forces returned fire. During the engagement, the child was killed." It gave no details about the age or gender of the child, or whether he or she was taken to hospital following the incident. Iraqi civilians often complain that U.S. forces open fire indiscriminately when attacked, leading to innocent people being caught up in the crossfire. The U.S. military says it takes all precautions possible to ensure innocents are not killed.

War News for Wednesday, May 25, 2005 Bring 'em on: Turkish businessman kidnapped in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Iraqi police chief gunned down in Mosul. Bring 'em on: Two killed and eleven injured in suicide bomb attack on police patrol in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Iraqi-American businessman kidnapped on May 17 feared dead. Bring 'em on: Iraqi army captain gunned down in Khalis. Bring 'em on: Roadside bomb kills traffic policemen and wounds ten in Dahuk. Bring 'em on: Iraqi colonel in the Facility Protection service gunned down in Mosul. Bring 'em on: US soldier injured by roadside bomb in Baghdad. Gulag of our time:

Amnesty International branded the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay a human rights failure on Wednesday, releasing a 308-page report that offers stinging criticism of the United States and its detention centers around the world. “Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time.” Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said as the London-based group launched its annual report. Amnesty International called for the Guantanamo camp to be closed down. The annual report accused the United States of shirking its responsibility to set the bar for human rights protections and has instead created a new lexicon for abuse and torture. “Attempts to dilute the absolute ban on torture through new policies and quasi-management speak, such as ’environmental manipulation, stress positions and sensory manipulation,’ was one of the most damaging assaults on global values.”

Operation Market Garden:

"Right now there's a larger threat than should be in Haditha, and we're here to tell them that they're not welcome," said Lt. Col. Lionel Urquhart, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, which is part of the operation. The assault, called Operation New Market, focused on this city of about 90,000 people, where the US military says insurgents have been using increasingly sophisticated tactics. Earlier this month insurgents launched a multistage attack from a Haditha hospital, killing four US troops in an ambush that included a suicide car bomber, a roadside bomb, and gunfire from fortified positions in the hospital, which was partially destroyed in the attack. According to initial reports, three insurgents were killed during fierce gun battles that broke out after US forces entered this town before dawn, Marine Capt. Christopher Toland told an Associated Press reporter embedded with US forces.

Cholera:

Cholera is spreading in Baghdad’s impoverished al-Amil quarter where overcrowding and contaminated water are leading to fears of an epidemic. City officials blame insurgent attacks on infrastructure for the outbreak in southwest Baghdad. Children have so far been the worse affected, with one doctor at a Baghdad hospital saying he is now seeing young cholera patients on a daily basis. Nadia Shawkat was in line at the Central Children’s Hospital waiting for a doctor to treat her daughter. “My only baby girl has cholera, and the reason is water pollution, as the physician confirmed,” she said. To prevent a further outbreak, Imad Hassoon, a pediatrician at the Central Children’s Hospital, has been advising parents to keep their children off the streets. But in this poor and crowded area of southwestern Baghdad, children like four year old Allawi continue to play around stagnant pools of dirty water, despite the danger. “We don’t care about this dirt and water any more because we've got used to it,” he said.

Two can play the al-Zarqawi Game:

An al-Qaida-linked group in Iraq says in a website statement that its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been wounded and urges Muslims to pray for him. The statement, which purportedly was from the group's media coordinator, Abu Maysarah al-Iraqi, did not say how or when al-Zarqawi was injured. In Baghdad, US army Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Boylan, spokesman for US forces in Iraq said: "We have no information on whether he's wounded or what the state of his health is. He's still our number one target to be captured or killed and until that happens, the hunt is still on." He also said that such reports had been heard frequently before and were almost impossible to verify.

The break-up of Iraq:

As Iraq begins writing its new constitution, leaders in the country's southern regions are pushing aggressively to unite their three provinces into an oil-rich, semi-autonomous state, a plan that some worry could solidify Iraq's sectarian tensions, create fights over oil revenues and eventually split the nation. In the southern Shiite Muslim city of Basra, where the provincial government launched the campaign, signs on the streets encourage residents to support the plan. Local leaders have held several conferences to map out their proposed state and regional government. Muhammed Musbih al Waely, the governor of Basra province, said Shiites suffered under the last centralized government, Saddam Hussein's, and that they wanted to control the development of their region. "The next few months are going to witness a big change in the region," al Waely said. Al Waely's proposal would unite the contiguous southeast Shiite-dominated provinces of Maysan, Basra and Dhiqar into a single state. Basra, the country's second-largest city and the principal port city, would be the new regional government's capital. Aziz Kadhim Alwan, the governor of Dhiqar - whose provincial capital is Nasiriyah - said he was on board. The region is rich with resources and trade opportunities. Dhiqar could expand its trading business through Basra's port; Maysan could expand the other two provinces' trade with Iran. Basra would be a more powerful city, with more oil, agriculture, trade and tourism under its control.

Oil exports suspended:

Iraq has suspended oil exports to the Turkish port of Ceyhan because of a production shortage in the northern fields of Kirkuk, an Iraqi official said Tuesday. The northern pipeline and facilities regularly are sabotaged by insurgents. In the south, Iraq's oil output has fallen by nearly 190,000 barrels a day since Monday because of technical problems, said the Oil Ministry official, who asked not to be named for security reasons. ''There has been no pumping from Kirkuk to Ceyhan since Saturday and the pipeline won't be pumping until probably Thursday,'' the official told Dow Jones Newswires, adding that there was not enough crude to pump.

Opinion and Commentary The Metrics of Losing:

Numbers, "metrics", ways of measuring success are now multiplying in Iraq. This in itself is a measure of frustration. Victory seldom needs metrics. Okay, maybe once upon a time, quantifiable loot and slaves mattered; more recently, the metric of victory was territory conquered - and when American troops reached Baghdad and the Bush administration thought its war a raging success, no metrics were necessary. Our iconic metric of war, which also proved a measure of a losing war, was, of course, the body count, which we associate with Vietnam. The body count was, however, an invention of the later years of the Korean War, a way of measuring "success" once the two sides had settled into the bloodiest of stalemates and the taking of significant territory - in fact, the wild movements of armies up and down the Korean peninsula - had become a thing of the past. In a sense, the body count, aka "the meat-grinder", was from its inception both a measure of nothing and a measure of frustration. It reappeared quite early in the Vietnam War for reasons allied to those that called it up in Korea. We were involved in a struggle with guerrillas for whom the holding of territory was not the crucial matter, while our North Vietnamese enemy was bomb-able but not open to invasion (given the larger Cold War context). The body count became a shorthand way of measuring success in a war in which the taking of territory was almost meaningless, the countryside a hostile place, the enemy hard to tell from the general population, and our own in-country allies weak and largely unable to strengthen themselves. The body count was, as in Korea, also part of a secondary struggle - for international "credibility" and for support at home. Those dead bodies, announced daily by the military to increasingly dubious reporters in Saigon, were the most public face of American "success" in those years. When the dead bodies and success began ever more visibly to part ways and, in the terminology of the times, a "credibility gap" opened gapingly between the metrics and reality, the body count became a symbol not just of a war of frustration, but of defeat itself. It came, post-My Lai, to look both false and barbaric. Whose bodies were those anyway? In our new world of conflict, where our leaders had imbibed all the "lessons" of Vietnam, Centcom's General Tommy Franks, then commander of our Afghan War (now on the board of Outback Steakhouse, which donated shrimp and steak dinners to our troops in Afghanistan), declared that "we don't do body counts". He was not talking about Iraq, but the principle was later extended to that country where we were obdurate in our unwillingness to count enemy dead (or keep any public tally whatsoever of the Iraqi civilian dead).

Insurgency increasing their capabilities:

Edward B. Atkeson, a senior fellow at the Rand Institute of Land Warfare, believes it is the inability of U.S. authorities to produce an Iraqi security force capable of taking over complete control of Iraq that continues to place American troops in the firing line. "Whenever you take a larger part in the security operations you have to be prepared to take a larger part of the casualties," Atkeson, a former U.S. military intelligence chief in Europe, said from Alexandria, Va. Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst with Jane's Consultancy Group in Britain, said the rate of attacks against American forces are the same as any time during the conflict - but the key difference is the increasing capabilities of the insurgents. "We would have hoped that the insurgency would have decreased in line with the ability of the Iraqi security forces to hold the ring and become more capable," Heyman said. "But it doesn't appear to be panning out that way with the insurgents increasing in their abilities to kill, attack and strike when and where they want."

Sometimes you are just screwed, writes Juan Cole; well worth reading in full:

In an ideal world, the United States would relinquish Iraq to a United Nations military command, and the world would pony up the troops needed to establish order in the country in return for Iraqi good will in post-war contract bids. But that is not going to happen for many reasons. George W. Bush is a stubborn man and Iraq is his project, and he is not going to give up on it. And, by now the rest of the world knows what would await its troops in Iraq, and political leaders are not so stupid as to send their troops into a meat grinder. Therefore, I conclude that the United States is stuck in Iraq for the medium term, and perhaps for the long term. The guerrilla war is likely to go on a decade to 15 years. Given the basic facts, of capable, trained and numerous guerrillas, public support for them from Sunnis, access to funding and munitions, increasing civil turmoil, and a relatively small and culturally poorly equipped US military force opposing them, led by a poorly informed and strategically clueless commander-in-chief who has made himself internationally unpopular, there is no near-term solution. In the long run, say 15 years, the Iraqi Sunnis will probably do as the Lebanese Maronites did, and finally admit that they just cannot remain in control of the country and will have to compromise. That is, if there is still an Iraq at that point.

Try Five Years:

It could take at least five years before Iraqi forces are strong enough to impose law and order on the country, the International Institute of Strategic Studies warned yesterday. The thinktank's report said that Iraq had become a valuable recruiting ground for al-Qaida, and Iraqi forces were nowhere near close to matching the insurgency. John Chipman, IISS director, said the Iraqi security forces faced a "huge task" and the continuing ability of the insurgents to inflict mass casualties "must cast doubt on US plans to redeploy American troops and eventually reduce their numbers". Insurgents have killed 600 Iraqis since the new government was formed. The IISS report said: "Best estimates suggest that it will take up to five years to create anything close to an effective indigenous force able to impose and guarantee order across the country." The report said that, on balance, US policy over the past year had been effective in emboldening regional players in the Middle East and the Gulf to rally against rogue states. But it warned that the inspirational effect of the intervention in Iraq on Islamist terrorism was "the proverbial elephant in the living room. From al-Qaida's point of view, [President] Bush's Iraq policies have arguably produced a confluence of propitious circumstances: a strategically bogged down America, hated by much of the Islamic world, and regarded warily even by its allies". Iraq "could serve as a valuable proving ground for 'blooding' foreign jihadists, and could conceivably form the basis of a second generation of capable al-Qaida leaders ... and middle-management players", the report said.

War News for Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Bring ‘em on: At least 15 civilians killed and at least 20 wounded, at least 8 critically, in double car bomb attack on a tribal gathering at a Sheik’s home in Tal Afar. The gathering was a celebration of the Sheik’s survival of an assassination attempt several days ago. (Note: This South African news story puts the death toll from this attack at 35 with 25 wounded.) At least two people killed and 22 injured, including 11 children, in bombing of Shiite mosque in Mahmudiya. More casualties may be trapped in the rubble.

Bring ‘em on: Six people killed, four wounded in car bombing near a junior high school for girls in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: At least two Iraqis killed and at least eight wounded in car bomb explosion targeting a police patrol in central Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: At least 20 Iraqis holding key government, political or religious posts have been assassinated since the government was formed April 28. The article lists the dead.

Bring ‘em on: Three US soldiers killed in car bombing in central Baghdad. Four bodyguards critically wounded in attack on female Shiite legislator’s convoy. Two civilians killed in machine gun attack on the Tal Afar home of the Sheik whose residence was the target of the double car bombing in the first entry above. Street battles are reported raging in Tal Afar and an Iraqi Colonel stated that the city was under terrorist control.

Bring ‘em on: Bradley fighting vehicle destroyed by a bomb in Ramadi. Three US soldiers injured, none severely.

Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers killed in bombing in Haswa. All were assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, Second Marine Expeditionary Force.

Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed when gunmen shot him from a passing car. Location appears to be central Baghdad and the incident may have occurred in the aftermath of the bombing that killed three US soldiers listed above.

"Squeeze Play": Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers poured through Baghdad on Monday, detaining suspected insurgents in house-to-house searches and finding $6 million in $100 bills, the preferred currency for paying insurgent hit men and bomb-makers. (Too bad they didn’t find that 8.8 billion the CPA lost…)

At least 285 suspected insurgents had been detained since Sunday. Bystanders were also apparently caught up in the dragnet, however.

Some Iraqis said that while Operation Squeeze Play took some insurgents off the streets, it angered moderate Iraqis while giving insurgents a friendlier environment in which to carry out attacks.

Raad Mutlek, a Sunni Muslim, was sitting in a candy shop in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib neighborhood Monday. He was filling in for the shop's owner, his cousin, who was detained the day before.

"They came here and detained people randomly," Mutlek said. "The families of the innocent people who have been detained will seek revenge."

Not enough boys: The U.S. military's plan to pacify Iraq has run into trouble in a place where it urgently needs to succeed. U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad agree that Al Anbar province — the vast desert badlands stretching west from the cities of Fallouja and Ramadi to the lawless region abutting the Syrian border — remains the epicenter of the country's deadly insurgency.

Yet U.S. troops and military officials in the embattled province said in recent interviews that they have neither enough combat power nor enough Iraqi military support to mount an effective counterinsurgency against an increasingly sophisticated enemy. "You can't get all the Marines and train them on a single objective, because usually the objective is bigger than you are," said Maj. Mark Lister, a senior Marine air officer in Al Anbar province. "Basically, we've got all the toys, but not enough boys."

Just three battalions of Marines are stationed in the western part of the province, down from four a few months ago. Marine officials in western Al Anbar say that each of those battalions is smaller by one company than last year, meaning there are approximately 2,100 Marines there now, compared with about 3,600 last year.

(This article is well worth reading in its entirety. It clarifies the nature of the conflict the US is waging in this part of Iraq and gives an excellent summation of why the recent Operation Matador was a strategic failure.)

Triangle of death: They have lived side by side for generations, but the small farming communities south of Baghdad are being split apart by a vicious sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shias that many Iraqis fear could be a step on the path to civil war.

As politicians in Baghdad struggle to bring the communities back from the brink, fresh accounts are emerging from the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers south of the capital of the latest cycle of violence.

The Shias can rightly claim to have taken the brunt of the sectarian violence, which began last year with bombing attacks in packed mosques during one of their main religious festivals. In recent weeks scores of Shia bodies have been discovered near the town of Madaen, in the so-called “Triangle of Death” south of Baghdad. Over the past six months thousands of Shias are thought to have fled the area.

Until recently the Shias did not respond to the provocation, appearing to heed their religious authorities, who said that retaliation could plunge the country into civil war and jeopardise their political victory in January’s elections.

Now Sunnis say that restraint has ended. Last week around 50 bodies of murdered Shias and Sunnis, including 15 Sunni Arabs with links to the Muslim Scholars’ Board, were dumped in Baghdad. They included the body of Sheikh Hassan al-Neimi, a Sunni cleric who had been arrested by men in police uniforms.

Kirkuk: For generations, this oil-rich city was Iraq’s melting pot, where the country’s diverse ethnic and religious groups lived in relative peace. Today, Kirkuk’s ethnic balance is precarious, threatened both by insurgents wanting to stoke civil war and by Kurds and other long-oppressed groups thirsting for justice and power in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. "It’s a potential flash point," says Army Maj. Gen. Joseph Taluto, commander of U.S. troops in the area stretching from just north of Baghdad to Kirkuk. "But it has to get resolved by the Iraqis. What the heck can we do? We stay out of it." If Iraq’s new government can pull off a reconciliation here, this city of 850,000 could become a model for ethnic harmony in a country with a history of deep sectarian rivalries. If not, this is where Iraq’s experiment with democracy could start unraveling.

Susceptible to corruption and intimidation: According to the Pentagon, Iraqi forces -- police, army, border patrol and an independent oil-security force -- now total more than 150,000 men and women. Over the past several months, Pentagon officials have maintained that the Iraqi forces are steadily improving and growing in numbers -- and the top brass has talked up the prospect of drawing down U.S. troops in significant numbers by this summer, after handing off much of the responsibility for securing the country to the Iraqis.

But the last month's eruption of insurgent violence has underscored the weaknesses of the nascent security forces and cast into doubt Pentagon plans to bring U.S. troops home. U.S. generals themselves warned late last week that America's involvement in Iraq "could still fail."

Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American officer in the Middle East, pointed in particular to the Iraqi police forces, who he said lack ''sophistication, chain of command, [and] cohesion of leadership," and are susceptible to corruption and intimidation. ''I don't know how much I would say time-wise they're behind, but they are behind,'' he said, according to the Associated Press.

Some outside military experts -- as well as numerous U.S. soldiers who've worked side by side with the Iraqis, and with whom I patrolled in Iraq between January and May of this year -- don't foresee handing over responsibility to the Iraqis anytime soon.

"I would not expect to see a significant draw-down [of U.S. troops] prior to 2007, absent a significant falloff in the insurgency, which is not a prospect at the moment," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org in Washington. "Restoring Iraq to military self-sufficiency will require at least a decade," he says. "For that reason alone, Iraq will remain an American protectorate well into the next decade."

Cat eaters: The warriors of Iraq's new army excel at wearing balaclavas, eating raw cat and driving into battle at hair-raising speeds.

The troops on the front line of the campaign to crush the country's insurgency roared into action on the fringes of the "Sunni Triangle" recently in a convoy of pick-up trucks. The vehicles' speedometers rarely dipped below 80mph.

"We go fast, they not hit us. No need to be worried. Iraqi soldiers are very brave," boasted Capt Haidar, although not brave enough himself to give anything other than his first name. "I am special forces," he said. "To finish training we must catch a wild rabbit or cat with our hands, kill it with our hands and then eat it raw. I have eaten five cats. See how strong is the Iraqi soldier."

Catching, skinning and eating small mammals are the least of the skills that the captain and the men under his command must master if, as the United States army hopes, they are to assume the main burden of the struggle against the insurgents by the end of this year.

The US military plans, slowly but inexorably, to disappear into its fortified bases, emerging only when needed to provide assistance.

Landing more and more work on the Iraqis will require intensive training and many more unlikely partnerships such as the one between Capt Haidar and his commander, a veteran of Saddam Hussein's army.

It also puts Iraq's 57,000 soldiers even more at risk from revenge attacks by insurgents and their accomplices.

Goodbye forever: Evidence of how quickly and irretrievably a country can be stripped of its cultural heritage came with the Iraq war in 2003.

The latest figures, presented to the art crime conference yesterday by John Curtis of the British Museum, suggested that half of the 40 iconic items from the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad still had not been retrieved. And of at least 15,000 items looted from its storerooms, about 8,000 have yet to be traced.

About 4,000 of the objects taken from the museum had been recovered in Iraq. But illustrating the international demand for such antiquities, Dr Curtis said around 1,000 had been confiscated in the US, 500 pieces had been impounded in France, 250 in Switzerland and 200 or so in Jordan.

Other artefacts have been retrieved from surrounding countries such as Syria, Kuwait, Iran and Turkey. None of these objects has yet been sent back to Iraq.

Other items had been destroyed or stolen from enormously important archaeological sites such as those at Nimrud and Babylon. "Some of them resemble minefields there are so many holes," Dr Curtis said.

But the schools! We never mention the schools!: Since they arrived in January, many of the 3,000 National Guard troops from Texas have been instrumental in monitoring the reconstruction of elementary and intermediate schools throughout southern Iraq.

"Every one of those kids greet us with smiles," Bentley said. "It's very rewarding to see that."

Hundreds of schoolhouses have been damaged by the war. Thousands of school children have been left with few school supplies.

The mission of helping rebuild the Iraqi school system is drawing help from relatives and friends of the troops back in Texas, where dozens of backpacks and school supplies have been collected and shipped to southern Iraq.

The troops have had to start from scratch. Dirt floors are common in many schoolhouses. Straw roofs cover several schools, providing little protection from the elements. Students are packed in classrooms with no chalkboards or desks.

But working with the Iraqi Ministry of Education and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the soldiers have helped oversee the construction of two primary schools in villages near the Tallil Air Base. One was in Alzebn and the other in Al Kenanah.

Today in Syria

Growing strains: Syria has halted military and intelligence cooperation with the United States, its ambassador to Washington said in an interview, in a sign of growing strains between the two nations over the insurgency in Iraq.

The ambassador, Imad Moustapha, said in the interview on Friday at the Syrian Embassy here that his country had, in the last 10 days, "severed all links" with the United States military and Central Intelligence Agency because of what he called unjust American allegations. The Bush administration has complained bitterly that Syria is not doing enough to halt the flow of men and money to the insurgency in Iraq.

Mr. Moustapha said he believed that the Bush administration had decided "to escalate the situation with Syria" despite steps the Syrians have taken against the insurgents in Iraq, and despite the withdrawal in recent weeks of Syrian troops from Lebanon, in response to international demands.

He said American complaints had been renewed since February, when a half-brother of Saddam Hussein, who was once the widely feared head of Iraq's two most powerful security agencies, was handed over to the Iraqi authorities after being captured in Syria along with several lieutenants. The renewal of complaints caused Syria to abandon the idea of providing further help, he said.

"We thought, why should we continue to cooperate?" he said.

A step away: U.S. sanctions against Syria are a step away from military action, a U.S. congressman said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan. "Sanctions are one step below a military confrontation, and sanctions are preferable to military confrontation, frankly," said U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut, during a panel discussion.

When a Syrian lawyer complained to Shays that the U.S. uses "only the stick" with Syria, Shays responded bluntly that the U.S. has "huge problems" with Damascus.

These problems center on the accusation that Syria is aiding the insurgency in Iraq, an increasingly prominent issue after nine marines died earlier this month in an offensive along the Syrian border.

Further stoking the flames, the U.S. said last week that lieutenants of Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi held a secret meeting in Syria last month, which Al-Qaeda denies.

US Military News

TBI: Among surviving soldiers wounded in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) appears to account for a larger proportion of casualties than it has in other recent U.S. wars. According to the Joint Theater Trauma Registry, compiled by the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, 22 percent of the wounded soldiers from these conflicts who have passed through the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany had injuries to the head, face, or neck. This percentage can serve as a rough estimate of the fraction who have TBI, according to Deborah L. Warden, a neurologist and psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who is the national director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC). Warden said the true proportion is probably higher, since some cases of closed brain injury are not diagnosed promptly.

In the Vietnam War, by contrast, 12 to 14 percent of all combat casualties had a brain injury, and an additional 2 to 4 percent had a brain injury plus a lethal wound to the chest or abdomen, according to Ronald Bellamy, former editor of the Textbooks of Military Medicine, published by the Office of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. Bellamy said that because mortality from brain injuries among U.S. combatants in Vietnam was 75 percent or greater, soldiers with brain injuries made up only a small fraction of the casualties treated in hospitals.

Kevlar body armor and helmets are one reason for the high proportion of TBIs among soldiers wounded in the current conflicts. By effectively shielding the wearer from bullets and shrapnel, the protective gear has improved overall survival rates, and Kevlar helmets have reduced the frequency of penetrating head injuries. However, the helmets cannot completely protect the face, head, and neck, nor do they prevent the kind of closed brain injuries often produced by blasts. As insurgents continue to attack U.S. troops in Iraq, most brain injuries are being caused by IEDs, and closed brain injuries outnumber penetrating ones among patients seen at Walter Reed, where more than 450 patients with TBI were treated between January 2003 and February 2005. All admitted patients who have been exposed to a blast are routinely evaluated for brain injury; 59 percent of them have been given a diagnosis of TBI, according to Warden. Of these injuries, 56 percent are considered moderate or severe, and 44 percent are mild.

Deserter: In March 2004, the Army had 318,533 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. That same year, it also had a smaller number on its books: 2,479 deserters.

Joshua Despain was one of them.

Despain, a Kentucky native, is home now, tending bar in Campbellsville and living in the aftermath of his biggest decision.

At one time, he was just another soldier. Despain spent about a year in the Army with Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne, part of it in Iraq.

Between October 2003 and April 2004, he was stationed at Habbaniyah Air Base, in a town that continues to be a hotbed of resistance in the perilous "Sunni Triangle." He fueled tanks and helicopters, pulled guard duty and manned a .50-caliber machine gun on convoys.

Despain didn't turn tail under fire, and his record includes several decorations. But while he was home on leave over Memorial Day weekend a year ago, and anticipating redeployment, Despain decided he wanted out.

Post-mortem custody battle: A bitter dispute between divorced parents over the final resting place for a son killed in Iraq will go to court this fall, and the outcome could set precedent for other families embroiled in post-mortem custody battles.

On Monday, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Robert Yonts set an Oct. 3 trial date for Renee Amick, the mother of Army Staff Sgt. Jason Hendrix, who was buried last month in a plot next to his grandfather in Oklahoma. Amick, who lives in Watsonville, says her son wanted to be laid to rest in Central California, and she may have his body exhumed if she wins a civil suit to regain custody.

During the brief court hearing in Santa Cruz, Yonts maligned the military's existing next-of-kin protocol - which doesn't require soldiers to designate anyone to handle funeral arrangements if they're killed in action - as "archaic." Others have said the rule is sexist because in many cases it grants custody of remains to the elder parent, usually the father.

"The law is arbitrary in that it chooses one parent over the other but for all practical purposes it guarantees that it's the male in most cases," said David Cherry, communications director for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who's sponsoring legislation that would require soldiers to designate someone to handle funeral arrangements. Earlier this year, divorced parents clashed over whether to bury Lance Cpl. Nicholas H. Anderson, 19, who was killed in Iraq, in Nevada or California.

Waiting for the worst: Families of Fort Lewis-based soldiers braced for the worst yesterday as the Army confirmed that three Stryker Brigade soldiers had been killed in Mosul early Sunday.

Names and specific units of the three, who died in two separate attacks, were not released while Army casualty officers sought out their next of kin. A fourth soldier was injured, according to U.S. Central Command officials.

A reporter from The News Tribune of Tacoma who is embedded with the unit in Iraq said the Army in Mosul imposed a news blackout, shutting down e-mail sites there, so fellow soldiers could not release the identities of the dead ahead of official Pentagon notification channels.

As the wait continued, hands wrung with worry or clasped together in prayer yesterday, according to messages on the Stryker Brigade News Web site, a clearinghouse of information and support for families of the brigade, which began serving a yearlong tour of duty in Mosul last October.

Women And Combat

No front lines: In Washington, the U.S. House of Representatives is considering legislation to prohibit women in the military from serving in direct ground combat roles. The debate has put the spotlight on a controversial issue in American society, what the role of women in the U.S. military should be.

The U.S. Army and Marines have both been using women in combat support roles since the start of the Iraq war. There are nearly 20,000 women currently serving in Iraq. Facing an unpredictable insurgency, more often than not, the women have become involved in combat. Dozens have been killed and hundreds more have been wounded. Lieutenant General John Vines is the Commander of the Multi-National Corps in Iraq. He says, "There are no front lines here, so our forces have to ready to fight all the time, every single sailor, soldier, airman or marine.”

Inappropriate and inopportune: Although there's persuasive evidence that the United States has too few boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is renewed interest in Congress in reducing the number further by restricting the service of women in combat zones.

As of yesterday, 240 women have been wounded, and a record 33 women are among the 1,636 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq.

That's distressing to New York Republican Rep. John M. McHugh, chairman of the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee, who recently proposed that women be barred from certain Army combat support positions.

But others in Congress and in the Pentagon, understandably and rightfully, are unhappy about an inappropriate gesture at an inopportune moment -- a time when, for example, military recruiters, due to the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, have been missing their goals by a mile.

Furious: Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican, is the only female military veteran in Congress, and on meeting her you might well guess at that background without being told. Third-generation Air Force and a member of the third class of female cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Wilson has the erect posture of a member of the armed services. She speaks briskly, her voice low and, on the day last week that I saw her, full of controlled fury.

It was Friday morning, a time when Wilson would ordinarily have been on her way home to her family in Albuquerque. She'd stayed behind to fight a provision, inserted in a defense authorization bill that will hit the House floor this week, to keep female service members out of combat. Seated behind a desk decorated with a bumper sticker proclaiming "We Love Jet Noise," with pictures of her children flashing on a computer screen-saver behind her, the 44-year-old Wilson took unusually direct aim at her colleagues.

"The people who are pushing this policy change intend to close positions, not open them," she said. "I think it's offensive. We've got women thousands of miles from home doing dangerous work and for the first time in history the Congress is going to pass a law restricting how the Army can assign its soldiers? But not all of its soldiers -- just women. What are they thinking?"

American Media

Instrument of war: The media, in the modern era, are indisputably an instrument of war. This is because winning modern wars is as much dependent on carrying domestic and international public opinion as it is on defeating the enemy on the battlefield. And it remains true regardless of the aspirations of many journalists to give an impartial and balanced assessment of conflict.

The experience of the US military in the post-Cold War world demonstrates that victory on the battlefield is seldom as simple as defeating the enemy by force of arms. From Somalia and Haiti through Kosovo and Afghanistan, success has been defined in political, rather than military, terms.

Today’s military commanders stand to gain more than ever before from controlling the media and shaping their output. The laws and conventions of war, however, do not adequately reflect the critical role that the media play in shaping the political outcome of conflicts. International humanitarian law requires that media members are afforded the rights of civilians; the question is whether this is sustainable when the exigencies of warfighting suggest that controlling the media is essential.

Bad PR: It was a damaging week for American public relations in the Arab world.

What started with deadly riots over allegations that US interrogators flushed the Koran ended with leaked photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear.

To The New York Post, which first published the pictures on Friday along with its sister publication The Sun of Britain, the photographs were a chance to emphasis Mr. Hussein's crimes and indulge in public humiliation of the former strongman. The Sun and The Post say a US military source gave them the pictures.

But for the most of the Arab press the pictures are being treated as a small piece in an overall pattern of alleged American violations of prisoners' rights. And as confirmation, to many, of US contempt for Arabs and Islam.

Cowards: A Washington Post article exposing the specific details of several pre-war doubts by Bush Administration aides and anlaysts in the lead-up to war ran on page A1 in the early Saturday editions of WaPo's Sunday paper. By Sunday morning, however, the story had its headlined softened and was subsequently buried on page A26. The story, by WaPo staff writer Walter Pincus, details the doubts of the administration's own intelligence analysts concerning WMD, Munitions Plants and Saddam Hussein's Unmanned Aerial Vehicles program, all of which were widely trumpeted as justifications for going to war by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and others within the administration during the build-up to the War on Iraq. Pincus' Page 1 item, which originally ran in Saturday afternoon editions of the Sunday paper and on the front page of the WaPo website was headlined "More Evidence of Bush Aide's Doubts on Iraq -- Analysts Questioned Most Intelligence". By Sunday, however, the article had been pushed back to page 26 with the softer headline, "Prewar Findings Worried Analysts".

Britain

The splendid Mr. Galloway: George Galloway plans to go on the attack once more over a US Senate Committee's accusation that he took oil money from Saddam Hussein.

The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow is now demanding to see the original Iraqi government documents on which the Committee based its allegations, after claiming he was handed nothing but a sheaf of US transcripts. He hopes to demolish the case against him by proving that the originals are forgeries.

Mr Galloway won many admirers on the American Left for his spirited performance before the US senators last week. He accused the committee chairman, veteran lawyer Senator Norm Coleman, of blackening his name without bothering to contact him to ask for his version of events, saying: "You are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice."

A good idea, now follow through: Senior American congressmen are considering sending a delegation to London to investigate Britain’s role in preparations for the war in Iraq.

By sending investigators to London, Conyers hopes to stir the US media into re-examining a story largely ignored in America since Bush’s re-election victory in November.

“I deplore the fact that our media have been so reticent on the question of whether there was a secret planning of a war for which neither the Congress nor the American people had given permission,” Conyers said.

“We have The Sunday Times to thank for this very important activity. It reminds me of Watergate, which started off as a tiny little incident reported in The Washington Post. I think that the interest of many citizens is picking up.”

Commentary

Opinion: President Bush said the other day that the world should see his administration's handling of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison as a model of transparency and accountability. He said those responsible were being systematically punished, regardless of rank. It made for a nice Oval Office photo-op on a Friday morning. Unfortunately, none of it is true.

The administration has provided nothing remotely like a full and honest accounting of the extent of the abuses at American prison camps in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It has withheld internal reports and stonewalled external inquiries, while clinging to the fiction that the abuse was confined to isolated acts, like the sadistic behavior of one night crew in one cellblock at Abu Ghraib. The administration has prevented any serious investigation of policy makers at the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon by orchestrating official probes so that none could come even close to the central question of how the prison policies were formulated and how they led to the abuses.

Comment: Many Americans who are shocked by the war in Iraq take comfort in viewing it as a mistake, an aberration or a special case rather than as part of a larger strategy. I have to say that nothing in the official documents and policy statements of this administration supports this view. On the contrary, the National Defense Strategy begins "America is a nation at war" and describes the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and against terrorism as components of a long-term offensive global war. The purpose of this war is alluded to only in terms of mystifications like "freedom, democracy and economic opportunity," and analysis of root causes or actual goals is scrupulously avoided. There is no mention of the conflict between U.S. interests and the aspirations of other peoples that lies at the heart of the U.S. foreign policy crisis, nor of its economic or historical roots in past U.S. policy. And, even though one could easily mistake a map of U.S. military deployments and declared "threats" for a map of the world's oil fields, the words "oil" and "petroleum" do not appear in these documents.

The gamble this administration has taken in Iraq pales by comparison to the long-term one that they are taking by staking the future of our country on the illegitimate exercise of military power to secure the Earth's dwindling resources in the 21st century. This policy requires not just waging and winning serial wars of aggression, but somehow doing so without triggering escalating disruptions in the supply and distribution of the commodities we are fighting over. This war-weary world is only too familiar with this type of international behavior and the United States has previously led efforts to establish a "permanent structure of peace," as President Roosevelt called it, based on international treaties and institutions, collective security and a fundamental commitment to peace.

The current illegitimate policy is intertwined with our government's huge investment in military power and its rejection of alternatives to the use of that power as the final arbiter of international problems. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and I would add that you and your hammer become a real danger to everyone, including yourself.

Commendation

Local story: Renton, WA, soldier who suffered traumatic brain injury in a roadside bombing in Fallujah a year ago has recovered sufficiently to receive his Purple Heart.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Omro, WI, Marine killed in Iraq.

Local story: Massillon, OH, soldier killed in Mosul.

Local story: Jackson Township, OH, Marine killed in Iraq.

Local story: Three graduates of Hamilton High School, Hamilton, OH, who were killed in Iraq will be remembered at a ceremony at the High School.

Many thanks to alert reader go long into the day who provided many of today's links.

War News for Monday, May 23, 2005

Bring ‘em on: Three US soldiers injured in three separate suicide bombing attacks in Samarra. One US soldier killed, two US soldiers and two Iraqi policemen wounded in suicide car bombing in Tikrit. Top aide to al-Jaafari’s cabinet and his driver killed in central Baghdad. One US soldier killed in a vehicle accident near Kirkuk.

Bring ‘em on: Five people killed and 18 wounded in suicide truck bombing in Tuz Khurmatu.

Bring ‘em on: Three US soldiers killed in two insurgent attacks in Mosul.

Bring ‘em on: More than 150 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq in the past year. About one third have been killed. See article for a list of names and nationalities.

Bring ‘em on: At least three people killed and more than 70 injured in car bombing outside a Baghdad restaurant. One policeman killed by gunmen in Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood. Iraqi general who directed the National Security Ministry’s operations room assassinated with his driver in Baghdad’s Mansour district. Two Iraqis were killed in the Samarra suicide bombings reported in the first entry above, and in addition, 23 people, including women and children, were injured. Almost 300 suspected militants have been detained in a joint US/Iraqi operation in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi Maj. Gen. escaped assassination when two roadside bombs exploded by his convoy between Kirkuk and Hawija. No other injuries reported. Five civilians wounded by mortar rounds apparently aimed at a police special forces base in Baghdad’s Alam neighborhood. Joint Polish and Iraqi forces detain 184 suspected militants in Suwayrah.

Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi soldiers killed and one wounded in a mortar attack at a joint army/police base in Samarra.

Bring ‘em on: Two people killed and two injured when a mortar round landed on a house in Kirkuk.

New offensive: Seven Iraqi battalions backed by U.S. forces launched an offensive in the capital on Sunday in an effort to stanch the violence that has killed more than 550 people in less than a month, targeting insurgents who have attacked the dangerous road to Baghdad's airport and Abu Ghraib prison.

The U.S. military said the offensive in the west of the capital had been set in motion to root out insurgents, especially those who have staged bloody assaults on the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison and the notoriously dangerous road from downtown to the airport.

Without providing numbers of troops, U.S. officials said four battalions of Iraqi soldiers and three battalions of police launched the offensive with the support of an unspecified number of American military personnel, although a total of about 2,500 personnel were believed involved.

Sophisticated and lethal: Iraq's insurgents are conducting increasingly sophisticated and lethal attacks on the private security companies that are crucial to the nation's reconstruction and the eventual departure of U.S. troops, contractors and U.S. officials say.

These contractors and officials point to the surprising level of planning and brutality involved in a May 8 attack on the British security company Hart Security Ltd., which provides protection to convoys, homes and individuals in Iraq.

Twelve out of 18 Iraqi and international guards were killed in the attack, in which insurgents ambushed a convoy escorting cargo for the U.S. forces from Baghdad to a base in al-Asat, about 90 miles west of the city.

Once resistance from the security team ended, the attackers moved in to finish off the wounded, then piled several of the bodies on top of a bomb so they could not be removed without setting off an explosion, sources said.

The terrorists taped the event, presumably to develop a training and recruiting tool and to study to refine their techniques. The six-minute video is available on the Internet with a claim of responsibility from the terrorist group Ansar al-Sunnah Army.

Retaliation: Signs of sectarian warfare are everywhere in Iraq these days: clerics assassinated outside mosques, dozens of execution victims in ditches and car bombers inflicting heavy casualties on the country's Shia Muslim majority. Nearly four months after Iraq's election, when millions of Iraqis defied insurgent threats by voting for a new parliament, sectarian violence now threatens to drag Iraq into civil war. Most victims so far have been Shias targeted by Sunni insurgents. But the recent discoveries throughout Iraq of more than 50 bodies -- men from both sects, apparently abducted and executed -- highlight a new problem: a wave of retaliatory killings between Sunnis and Shias.

For more than a year, insurgents have targeted Shia mosques, neighborhoods and religious ceremonies across Iraq. They also have relentlessly attacked the Shia-dominated police and army. While there is no exact death toll, several thousand Shias are believed to have been killed by insurgent bombings and other attacks. Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has urged his followers not to retaliate against Sunnis. But as attacks on Shia civilians mount, Shia militias and vigilantes appear to be fighting back with tit-for-tat killings. "We are at a moment of extreme danger," said Hazem Shammari, a political science professor at Baghdad University. "There is a level of sectarian tension that is unrivaled in Iraq's modern history."

Hopefully this will go somewhere: One day after a large group of anti-American Sunni leaders pledged to enter the political process, a rebel Shiite cleric who led uprisings against the American military suggested Sunday that he would forgo military efforts and work to ease rising sectarian tensions throughout Iraq.

The cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, led bloody revolts against American forces last year and was accused of murdering a rival Shiite cleric the year before. Many American officials view him as untrustworthy and continue to fear that he has been lying low so he can bring his militia back in force.

In an interview Sunday night with the Arabiya satellite news channel, Mr. Sadr declared that he now wanted to solve problems "politically, socially and peacefully."

Daily Life in Occupied Iraq

Entrepreneur: Ali Hameed quit his job as a taxi driver because he no longer felt safe on Baghdad's streets. Increasingly desperate for money to help him get married, he hit on a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity - selling one of his kidneys.

Last week, in a shabby ward in the city's Al Karama hospital, he lay bandaged on a bed, one kidney lighter and $1,400 (about £765) richer after a three-hour operation.

In a nearby room, his body similarly bandaged, lay the man who had paid for it - the other player in a grim new black market trade in organs that is one of Iraq's few growth industries.

Mr Hameed received a good price for his kidney. Would-be buyers with an eye for a bargain can now pick up a new kidney for as little as $700, given the desperation of fit and healthy Iraqis for money.

School days: For Khalid and her classmates at Baghdad University, focusing on the books isn't easy. With only days to go before the all-important national exam, the Class of '05 feels spent, its spirits threadbare. "We're really tired," said student Noor Sabaah, 23. The power routinely falters, turning classrooms into caldrons — without fans, warm heads grow drowsy, the hours long. The drive to campus can be dangerous and slow. Students miss lectures, held back by roadblocks and gridlock. Even in front of the university gates, cars idle as guards check for weapons and bombs. At times, professors don't show up either. Some have taken early retirement or left the country. Amid the unrest that followed the shooting of Masar Sarhan, the Shiite student, a number of Sunni professors fled, fearing retribution. At least 100 university lecturers have been assassinated during the last two years, said Isam Alrawi, who heads the Assn. of University Lecturers. The majority of the killings had political or sectarian motives, he said. "They were all highly qualified Iraqis including Muslims as well as Christians, Shiite as well as Sunni and Turkmen." Sometimes death is random. This month, a mortar round hit another Baghdad campus, killing four at the College of Engineering.

How To Win Muslim Hearts And Minds

New Testament Tank

Chicanery, Fraud And Profiteering

The Justice Department takes an unexpected position: To its accusers, the security company Custer Battles exemplifies corporate profiteering in postinvasion Iraq, when officials were pumping out hastily written contracts for everything from air conditioners to armed guards.

In a lawsuit now in federal court, two former associates of the company say it bilked the American-led coalition out of millions, turning in hugely inflated invoices from phantom supplier companies among other misdeeds. If successful, the suit, brought under the False Claims Act, could recover triple damages for the government and handsome rewards for the whistle-blowers.

Custer Battles has denied wrongdoing and the accusation remains to be proved. But before a trial can proceed at all - before any company can be sued for fraud in the chaos of occupied Iraq - a federal judge in Virginia must issue another, more basic ruling that is now anxiously awaited by the company, its accusers and the Justice Department.

Lawyers for Custer Battles argue that the False Claims Act - the prime legal tool against contractor fraud - does not apply because the company signed contracts with the Coalition Provisional Authority, not the American government, and was mainly paid with Iraqi money seized or managed by the United States, rather than with money appropriated by Congress.

Lawyers for the whistle-blowers and the Justice Department argue that the law does apply. All sides agree that the case will set a precedent and that the stakes are high, and not only for Custer Battles.

"This is an important case because there are a lot of companies over there with poorly constructed contracts and little oversight," said Steven L. Schooner, an expert on procurement at the George Washington University Law School. "The potential for chicanery is great and the potential universe of whistle-blowers is mind-boggling."

Renditions, Doublespeak And Murder

Renditions: The CIA Gulfstream V jet touched down at a small airport west of here just before 9 p.m. on a subfreezing night in December 2001. A half-dozen agents wearing hoods that covered their faces stepped down from the aircraft and hurried across the tarmac to take custody of two prisoners, suspected Islamic radicals from Egypt.

Inside an airport police station, Swedish officers watched as the CIA operatives pulled out scissors and rapidly sliced off the prisoners' clothes, including their underwear, according to newly released Swedish government documents and eyewitness statements. They probed inside the men's mouths and ears and examined their hair before dressing the pair in sweat suits and draping hoods over their heads. The suspects were then marched in chains to the plane, where they were strapped to mattresses on the floor in the back of the cabin.

So began an operation the CIA calls an "extraordinary rendition," the forcible and highly secret transfer of terrorism suspects to their home countries or other nations where they can be interrogated with fewer legal protections.

The practice has generated increasing criticism from civil liberties groups; in Sweden a parliamentary investigator who conducted a 10-month probe into the case recently concluded that the CIA operatives violated Swedish law by subjecting the prisoners to "degrading and inhuman treatment" and by exercising police powers on Swedish soil.

"Should Swedish officers have taken those measures, I would have prosecuted them without hesitation for the misuse of public power and probably would have asked for a prison sentence," the investigator, Mats Melin, said in an interview.

Doublespeak: For shock and awe, there's nothing to beat an American government spokesperson discussing humanitarian action and revealing both double standards and a failure to grasp the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence.

Like precision bombing that does "collateral damage" to their own troops, the officials making these pronouncements often miss the point, whether it’s the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) urging NGOs to promote their American funding in high-risk war zones or the latest State Department verdict on Uzbekistan.

After the Uzbek regime of President Islam Karimov mowed down perhaps hundreds of its citizens following a politically-inspired jailbreak, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher carefully urged restraint by both sides.

He added: "We urge the government … to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other humanitarian organisations full access to the region so we can get the facts, so that they can help take care of people that may need their help."

Leaving aside whether humanitarian agencies are there to "get the facts" for America, the U.S. stance on ICRC access to those in need in Uzbekistan is directly at odds with its blocking of ICRC and Iraqi Red Crescent Society access to the Falluja enclave in Iraq during a 2004 siege.

That siege that mocked almost every aspect of the Geneva Conventions that make up international humanitarian law.

Murder: The highly-decorated commanding officer of a regiment at the centre of allegations of brutality in Iraq is being investigated as part of a murder inquiry, Government sources confirmed yesterday.

Col Jorge Mendonca, who received the Distinguished Service Order for his command of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) in Iraq in 2003, is one of a number of soldiers against whom charges are being considered.

Baha Mousa, 26, a hotel receptionist in Basra, was arrested in a raid on his workplace in September 2003. Eight others arrested with him allege that he died of injuries received in the QLR's barracks and claim they were severely beaten on the same night.

The investigation will focus on allegations that at least one of the regiment's officers was aware of the nature of the prisoners' interrogation.

Regional News

Iranian Kurdistan: Some 200 Iranian Kurds marched in single file up an icy mountain path, carrying automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. They were training for the day when they hope to cross the nearby Iraqi border into Iran, recruit supporters and reopen a rebellion they reluctantly abandoned long ago.

After more than 20 years of calm, fighters based in northern Iraq are itching to resume the Iranian Kurds' campaign for greater autonomy, emboldened by the success of their brethren in post-Saddam Iraq.

''We want to break the peace we were forced to accept,'' Piryar Gabary told an Associated Press reporter visiting Qandil Mountain, the group's base in northeast Iraq.

Such talk, however, doesn't sit well with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, which is wary of provoking Iran and disturbing its new stature in Iraq's government and has vowed to prevent cross-border attacks.

The situation illustrates the Iraqi Kurds' delicate position in the reshuffled deck that has emerged in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Uzbekistan: Uzbek authorities have shrugged off calls from UN secretary general Kofi Annan for an international investigation into a government crackdown on protesters that witnesses say left hundreds of people dead.

The Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, told Mr Annan that he was opposed to any foreign involvement in the aftermath of his country's worst bloodshed since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

"He said he had the situation under control and was taking every measure to bring those responsible to account, and didn't need an international team to establish the facts," Mr Annan said in New York last night. Mr Karimov has blamed Islamic militants for the unrest and denies that his troops fired on unarmed civilians, dismissing claims of human rights activists who put the death toll at over 700.

Massive cover-up: The number of people murdered on "Bloody Friday" 13 May in the Uzbek town of Andizhan is at least 500, not 169 as the authorities now claim, an investigation by The Independent on Sunday can reveal. It is also highly probable that, separately in other towns at different times, at least a further 200 people were killed.

But our inquiries have also established that the incident which sparked the massacre was initiated by the storming of a prison which led to the "insurgents" themselves also murdering 54 men and women in cold blood.

While some of these "insurgents" that the autocratic government of Islam Karimov was seeking to quell in Andizhan were armed, the majority of those killed were civilians. Most were men but women and children were also murdered and are now buried in unmarked mass graves as part of what witnesses say is "a massive cover-up". This extends to officials lying on death certificates, concealing bodies from public view and blasting the town's blood-stained streets with high-velocity water cannons.

Top 10: Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov has put the lid on a rebellion, but it's just a matter of time before he gets burned so badly that he has to run for his life from a country that ranks in the world's top 10 in both natural wealth and torture.

While we're waiting for the 25 million angry and poor Uzbeks to come to a boil again, here's evidence that George W. Bush doesn't neglect human rights—at least when the human is one of his low friends in high places.

It's also proof that Bush has been nothing more than a puppet, a front man, for his entire public life.

US Military Affairs

Eye-opener: Army Capts. Dave Fulton and Geoff Heiple spent 12 months dodging roadside bombs and rounding up insurgents along Baghdad's "highway of death" — the six miles of pavement linking downtown Baghdad to the capital city's airport. Two weeks after returning stateside to Ft. Hood, they ventured to a spartan conference room at the local Howard Johnson to find out about changing careers. Lured by a headhunting firm that places young military officers in private-sector jobs, the pair, both 26, expected anonymity in the crowded room.

Instead, as Fulton and Heiple sipped Budweisers pulled from Styrofoam coolers next to the door, they spotted nearly a dozen familiar faces from their cavalry battalion, which had just ended a yearlong combat tour in Iraq. The shocks of recognition came as they exchanged quick, awkward glances with others from their unit, each man clearly surprised to see someone else considering a life outside the military. "This is a real eye-opener," said Fulton, a West Point graduate who saw a handful of cadets from his class. "It seems like everyone in the room is either from my squad or from my class." More than three years after the Sept. 11 attacks spawned an era of unprecedented strain on the all-volunteer military, it is scenes like this that keep the Army's senior generals awake at night. With thousands of soldiers currently on their second combat deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan and some preparing for their third this fall, evidence is mounting that an exodus of young Army officers may be looming on the horizon.

Letter to the editor: The May 15 article “Women fight policies on road to combat roles” (Europe edition; “Women fighting policies on road to combat roles,” Mideast edition) was thought-provoking. Having served in the Army 13 years — as an enlisted soldier, a noncommissioned officer and an officer — and after serving 15 months as an artilleryman in Iraq, I believe I can rebut these proposals, which betray our female soldiers.

Current conflicts aren’t conventional and they aren’t linear. We are fighting on an asymmetrical battlefield where units must be co-located to accomplish the mission. Arguments attempting to use “geography of the battlefield” to keep females from a theoretical “front line” are not valid.

Those who attempt to prevent females from serving their nation in combat should recognize that we have a volunteer Army. Women raise their hands voluntarily to support and defend the Constitution, and they are willing to fight to protect others. Isn’t it ironic that we are willing to fight for the rights of women in other countries, while some in our nation’s capital suggest women don’t have the right to contribute to that fight?

Newsweek

Nothing new: Senior Bush administration officials reacted with outrage to a Newsweek report that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, and the magazine retracted the story last week. But allegations of disrespectful treatment of Islam's holy book are far from rare. An examination of hearing transcripts, court records and government documents, as well as interviews with former detainees, their lawyers, civil liberties groups and U.S. military personnel, reveals dozens of accusations involving the Koran, not only at Guantanamo, but also at American-run detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The allegations, both at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, contain detailed descriptions of what Muslim prisoners said was mishandling of the Koran — sometimes in a deliberately provocative manner. In one instance, an Iraqi detainee alleged that a soldier had a guard dog carry a copy of the Koran in its mouth. In another, guards at Guantanamo were said to have scrawled obscenities inside Korans. Other prisoners said Korans were kicked across floors, stomped on and thrown against walls. One said a soldier urinated on his copy, and others said guards ridiculed the religious text, declaring that Allah's words would not save detainees. Some of the alleged incidents appear to have been inadvertent or to have resulted from U.S. personnel's lack of understanding about how sensitive Muslim detainees might be to mishandling of the Koran. In several cases, for instance, copies were allegedly knocked about during scuffles with prisoners who refused to leave their cells. In other cases, the allegations seemed to describe instances of deliberate disrespect.

My thoughts exactly: Newsweek's editor-in-chief, Richard Smith, engages today in yet another public mea culpa over the Koran desecration story: "Trust is hard won and easily lost," he writes anxiously, "and to our readers, we pledge to earn their renewed confidence." And make no mistake: procedures will be changed to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

This is like watching Darkness at Noon in real life. Newsweek made a small error in a 300-word blurb a couple of weeks ago, and since then the right-wing media hate machine, like a jackal sensing a rare opportunity for blood, has somehow managed to convince them they bear responsibility for riots in Afghanistan that were staged by extremists who obviously used the Newsweek article as nothing more than pretext.

This is really pissing me off. For the record, let's recap what we've learned over the past year or so:

Pictures from Abu Ghraib showed naked prisoners being stacked like cordwood and mocked by female guards — and there's worse stuff in Pentagon files that Congress has decided not to allow out of its locked vaults. There have been confirmed reports from Guantanamo of beatings, shacklings, and lighted cigarettes being stuck in prisoners' ears. 36 prisoners have died during interrogations. The Red Cross wrote detailed reports documenting abusive conduct in Iraq and was laughed off. The officers reponsible for overseeing abusive interrogations weren't punished, they were lauded for their work and transferred to other prisons. Hardened FBI agents wrote emails expressing their disgust at what they had seen. Innocent men have been tortured to death in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The White House counsel wrote memoranda justifying torture as an inherent right of the president. Rendition of suspects to other countries that have long histories of torturing prisoners is routine. Reports of Koran desecration have been circulating for a long time,

Needless to say, this isn't exhaustive. In the light of this, Newsweek's offense, which was pretty minor to begin with, is about the equivalent of jaywalking across a busy city street.

Newsweek and the rest of the media need to get up off their knees and start fighting back. They've done enough apologizing.

Even Kathleen Parker doesn’t buy it: Even the most liberal-bashing, war-mongering, beef-eating American surely struggled to keep a straight face as the Bush administration expressed moral indignation about a Newsweek story that went belly-up on account of ... bad intelligence. If anyone on God's green earth should understand that sometimes information is flawed, that one would be President George W. Bush, whose arguments in favor of invading Iraq proved to be similarly false.

I can't ignore the absurdity of the White House's new role as institutional victim. My eyes have rolled so many times, my sockets are sore.

Commentary

Editorial: At present, there are only two Sunni Arabs among the 55 members of the committee the government has chosen to draw up a constitution. A principal challenge facing the drafters will be to create a structure unified enough to hold the disparate communities of Iraq together in a single national identity, yet loose enough to protect the Kurdish minority from the Arab majority -- and moderate or secular Muslims from partisans of Islamic law, or shariah. If Sunni Arabs sense they are being excluded from drafting such a rule book for the new Iraq, they are unlikely to support those Sunni tribal leaders and political figures who have signaled a readiness to participate in the legislative elections scheduled for December.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made this point during her trip to Iraq last Sunday, but she and the Bush administration should be careful how they preach their gospel of inclusiveness. Too many US officials have for too long treated their Iraqi interlocutors with misplaced condescension, earning a reputation for arrogance even among Iraqis happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein's despotic regime. Now that Iraqis have elected an interim government and are suffering most of the casualties from car bombings, ambushes, and kidnappings, American envoys with little knowledge of Iraqi complexities will meet heavy resistance if they dictate policy choices in the manner of imperial proconsuls.

Opinion: How does Donald Rumsfeld survive as defense secretary?

Much of what has happened to the military on his watch has been catastrophic. In Iraq, more than 1,600 American troops have died and many thousands have been maimed in a war that Mr. Rumsfeld mishandled from the beginning and still has no idea how to win. The generals are telling us now that the U.S. is likely to be bogged down in Iraq for years, and there are whispers circulating about the possibility of "defeat."

The military spent decades rebuilding its reputation and regaining the respect of the vast majority of the American people after the debacle in Vietnam. Under Mr. Rumsfeld, that hard-won achievement is being reversed. He invaded Iraq with too few troops, and too many of them were poorly trained and inadequately equipped. The stories about American troops dying on the battlefield because of a lack of protective armor have now been widely told.

The insurgency in Iraq appeared to take Mr. Rumsfeld completely by surprise. He expected to win the war in a walk. Or, perhaps, a strut.

Now the military is in a fix. Many of the troops have served multiple tours in Iraq and are weary. The insurgency remains strong, and the Iraq military has proved to be a disappointing ally.

A senior American officer, quoted last week in The Times, said that while he still believed the effort in Iraq would succeed, it could take "many years."

As if all this were not enough, there is also the grotesque and deeply shameful issue that will always be a part of Mr. Rumsfeld's legacy - the manner in which American troops have treated prisoners under their control in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There is no longer any doubt that large numbers of troops responsible for guarding and interrogating detainees somehow loosed their moorings to humanity, and began behaving as sadists, perverts and criminals.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Obetz, OH, soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Tampa, FL, soldier killed in Ramadi

War News for Sunday, May 22, 2005

Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqis shot dead on the southern outskirts of Baghdad after they acted suspiciously. Bodies of three civilians shot dead found in Latifiyah.

Bring ‘em on: Eight members of an elite Interior Ministry force known as the Wolf Brigade killed in ambush of their 20 vehicle convoy in downtown Beiji. Two US Apache helicopters responded and opened fire on targets near the ambush site. Seventeen people wounded in a gunfight between al-Sadr supporters and guards protecting a local provincial governor's office in Nasiriyah.

Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi civilian killed and another wounded in bombing near Oyoun, west of Kirkuk.

Bring ‘em on: Twelve Interior Ministry commandoes killed in a series of clashes in and around Samarra. Police station bombed in Tikrit. Six civilians injured in mortar attack in western Baghdad. One civilian killed in roadside bombing in Azab. Two policemen wounded by suicide car bomb in Tikrit.

Bring ‘em on: Director general of the Iraq Trade Ministry and his driver shot to death in western Baghdad.

A bit of good news for a change: The Three Romanian reporters and their translator, held in Iraq since March 28, were safely released on Sunday and are currently under the control of Romanian authorities, said a Romanian presidency statement.

"They are well and safe and they'll be brought home as soon as possible," the statement said.

Shiites and Sunnis

Mosques closed: Sunni mosques in Baghdad have been closed to worshippers as part of a three-day protest against a recent series of killings of Sunni Muslims.

Traditional calls to prayer came with an additional request that the faithful say their prayers wherever they were.

The action comes at a time of growing tension between the Sunni community and Iraq's Shia majority.

Sunni clerics have accused a Shia militia known as the Badr brigades of involvement in the killings.

New Sunni alliance: A thousand Sunnis assembled in the Iraqi capital Saturday and formed an alliance of religious, political and tribal groups to push for a stronger role in the country's Shiite-dominated power structure.

With sectarian tension and violence on the rise, the new organization immediately called for the resignation of the interior minister, a Shiite whose office, it said, had a role in killing several Sunni clerics.

Bayan Jabr, the minister, denied allegations government involvement in the killings and said he would not step down.

Legitimate right: More than 1,000 Sunni Arab clerics, political leaders and tribal heads ended their two-year boycott of politics in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq on Saturday, uniting in a Sunni bloc that they said would help draft the country's new constitution and compete in elections.

Formation of the group comes during escalating violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that has raised the threat of sectarian war. The bloc represents moderate and hard-line members of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the Iraqi Islamic Party and other main groups of the disgruntled Sunni minority toppled from dominance when U.S.-led troops routed Hussein in April 2003.

In a statement adopted at the meeting, the Sunni leaders called for "liberating'' Iraq from U.S.-led forces "by all legal means.'' The statement condemned "all terrorist acts that target civilians, no matter the reason,'' but said, "resisting the occupier is a legitimate right.''

Speakers accused the Shiite-dominated security forces of raiding mosques, killings and committing other violence against the Sunni minority.

"I swear to God, if the government or someone does not take care of this and solve our problem, then we will all fight them. No one will stop us, and no one will blame us,'' Lateef Migual Dulaymi, a tribal leader from the southeast, told delegates as he detailed allegations of harassment, drawing cries of approval.

They’ll have to kill us all: At a humble, green-domed mosque in the heart of Baghdad, a grizzled preacher named Sheik Ahmed Yassin was standing his ground. Gunmen had killed five of his followers and kidnapped two of his sons. Threats had thinned his congregation, and the worshipers who still came rushed to their cars after prayers to avoid becoming the latest victims.

To Yassin, every drop of blood is worth the fight to keep his sanctuary in the hands of Sunni Muslims, who built it 25 years ago, and away from the rival Shiite sect.

"They'll have to kill us all before they take this mosque," Yassin vowed last week.

The battle over the Hassan bin Ali Mosque is perhaps the bloodiest in a two-year power struggle that has turned Iraq's holiest places into sectarian battlegrounds. Shiites have seized up to 40 Sunni mosques since Saddam Hussein's regime fell, according to Shiite and Sunni clerics. While Sunnis view the campaign as a land grab, Shiites say they're reclaiming plots that Saddam stole from Shiite landowners.

Hopeful step: It's a step toward easing tensions between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq.

Aides of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr met today with a key Sunni group, amid a wave of sectarian violence.

At least 550 people have been killed since the new Shiite-dominated government was announced late last month.

Al-Sadr said in a television interview aired today that the talks are aimed at settling the feud between the association and the Badr Brigades. More talks are expected in the future.

"Reconstruction"

Still too early: Washington is far behind in plans to pump $21 billion into Iraq's reconstruction, bogged down by an insurgency that has killed hundreds of contractors and diverted funds to security, a U.S. official said on Saturday.

"There is a long way to go. We recognize a lot of work needs to be done," said William Taylor, the U.S. official overseeing American rebuilding work in Iraq.

He told reporters it was still too early to predict when Iraqis will enjoy adequate electricity and other essential services -- more than two years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Almost 300: In another measure of the difficulties besetting the American effort here, United States officials who met with reporters on Saturday for an update on the $21 billion American-financed reconstruction said that 295 contractors working on American projects had been killed in attacks since the rebuilding began two years ago. Most of the deaths came in the past year, and 19 were in the last month.

I’ll bet it’s more than 16%: Too much money earmarked for rebuilding Iraq is being diverted to tackle security demands, the US official in charge of post-war reconstruction says.

William Taylor, who heads the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, said rebuilding the country was a costly and dangerous business.

"Because of the increase in insurgent activity, contractors have had to include better site protection, hardened vehicles for personnel transportation and trained security teams," he said, adding this accounted for up to 16% of all project costs.

"Even oil companies, which usually go to dangerous places, are waiting," he said.

A glass of sewage: When Mahmud Abdullah turns on his tap, the same stench that envelops his small and nameless Baghdad street fills the air even more strongly.

"This is what my family drinks every day: sewage water," he said.

"The pipes are old so drinking water and sewage are mixing. Sometimes the water smells so much ... Nobody deserves to drink this," said Mahmud, 53, who has white stubble on his face and wears a grimy dishdasha robe.

In his neighbourhood, a sprawling Shiite slum of two million called Sadr City, some unpaved streets are completely cut by pools of dark green sewage baking in the 40-degree Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) heat.

According to a report released a few days ago by the United Nations Development Programme, lack of a decent water supply and sanitation are among the main hardships endured by Iraq's 27-million-strong population.

Close to 40 percent of Iraqis have an unreliable supply of drinking water and almost the same percentage live in areas where sewage can be seen in the streets, the survey said.

But no fear, we can still get stuff built when we have to: U.S. military commanders have prepared plans to consolidate U.S. troops in Iraq into four large air bases as they look ahead to giving up more than 100 other bases now occupied by international forces, officers said.

Several officers involved in drafting the consolidation plan said it entailed the construction of longer-lasting buildings at the sites, including barracks and office structures made of concrete block instead of the metal trailers and tin-sheathed buildings that have become the norm at bigger U.S. bases in Iraq. The new, sturdier buildings will give the bases a more permanent character, the officers acknowledged.

The consolidation plan appears to reflect a judgment by U.S. military commanders that American forces are likely to be in Iraq for some years, even after their numbers begin to decline, and that they probably will continue to face danger. The new buildings are being designed to withstand direct mortar strikes, according to a senior military engineer.

Iraqi Security Forces

Series of successes: Iraq's new interior minister expressed confidence Saturday that his security forces will defeat a foreign-backed insurgency, citing a series of successes amid the recent relentless wave of violence.

Bayan Jabr said in the three weeks since he took over the post, over 250 insurgents have been captured and more than 200 killed. Insurgent violence since the government was approved on April 28 has killed more than 520 people.

"We are fighting international terrorism supported by all the forces of darkness, therefore our battle is a war of justice against injustice and, God willing, justice will end victorious," said Jabr, a Shiite Muslim.

Wolf Brigade: Abul Waleed rifled through a pile of papers, considering the latest accusations against the elite brigade of Iraqi police commandos he leads from a dusty fortress.

The complaints against the Wolf Brigade were the usual: excessive force, renegade patrols, kidnapping, murder.

The charges came from Iraq's most powerful Sunni Muslim leaders, and Abul Waleed clearly relished reading them. It's precisely this take-no-prisoners reputation that's made his Wolf Brigade the most feared and revered of all of Iraq's nascent security forces.

"The Muslim Scholars Association? They're infidels," Abul Waleed said, tossing his detractors' complaints into the wastebasket. "The Islamic Party? Humph. More like the Fascist Party."

Interpreters: It's one of the most dangerous civilian jobs in one of the world's most dangerous countries: translating Arabic for the U.S. military in Iraq.

One by one, seldom noticed in the daily mayhem, dozens of interpreters have been killed -- mostly Iraqis but 12 Americans, too. They account for 40 percent of the 300-plus death claims filed by private contractors with the U.S. Labor Department.

Riding in bomb-blasted Humvees, tagging along on foot patrols in Fallujah or dashing into buildings behind Marines, translators are dying on the job, but also facing danger at home: hunted by insurgents who call them pro-American collaborators.

"If the insurgents catch us, they will cut off our heads because the imams say we are spies," said Mustafa Fahmi, 24, an Iraqi interpreter with Titan Corp., the biggest employer of linguists in Iraq.

"I've been threatened like 15 times, but I won't quit. A neighbor saw me driving and said, 'I am going to kill you.'"

That fate befell Luqman Mohammed Kurdi Hussein, a Titan linguist and Iraqi Kurd captured by insurgents in October. A video of the 41-year-old's beheading was posted on the Internet.

Foreign Affairs

Syria: The United States said Syria must stop supporting the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and meddling in Iraq, as Washington kept up diplomatic pressure on Damascus.

"Our prime role, having a united front (with Europe), is to insist that the Syrians apply (UN Security Council Resolution) 1559," US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick told reporters.

"If Syria wants good ties with the United States, it can't be supporting Hezbollah and undermining the situation in Iraq," Zoellick said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting here.

Britain: The British government declined a request from the families of soldiers killed in Iraq for an investigation into the legality of the war, according to a letter made public Friday.

Lawyers for the Treasury wrote to the 10 families' lawyers that their contention that the European Convention on Human Rights obliged the government to set up an independent inquiry was ''fundamentally misconceived.''

The families made the Treasury's May 18 letter public and said they would seek a judicial review of the government's denial.

Prime Minister Tony Blair had already rejected publicly their request for an inquiry, saying it was not necessary to go ''back over this ground again and again.''

Ancient History

Amateurish and unrealistic: Planning for the Iraq war was hobbled by tensions between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and military planners over the staying power of Saddam Hussein's regime, by leaks of highly classified war plans and by little attention to the war's aftermath, according to a new insider account.

A top intelligence analyst at the U.S. military's Central Command writes that demands from Rumsfeld and his aides for new versions of the war plan using fewer American troops wasted time and diverted attention from fleshing out a blueprint for the March 2003 invasion.

Civilians in Washington, convinced that Hussein's regime would topple easily, "injected numerous ideas into the dialogue, many of which were amateurish and unrealistic," wrote the analyst, Gregory Hooker.

Many of those ideas were discarded, but the conflicting approaches never were resolved before the invasion, he says.

Hooker adds some new details.

For example, he says some officers at Florida-based CENTCOM were so stunned by leaks of the classified war plans that they assumed they must have been part of a U.S. propaganda campaign to unsettle Hussein.

"To some planners, this theory seemed the only logical way to explain the seemingly outrageous and reckless revelations of classified material by senior officials," he wrote.

Early doubts: On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq, the National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs.

The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

It has been clear since the September report of the Iraq Survey Group -- a CIA-sponsored weapons search in Iraq -- that the United States would not find the weapons of mass destruction cited by Bush as the rationale for going to war against Iraq. But as the Walpole episode suggests, it appears that even before the war many senior intelligence officials in the government had doubts about the case being trumpeted in public by the president and his senior advisers.

Kidnapping And Torture

We do get around: Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.

In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials "kidnapped" an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a U.S. base from where he was flown home.

In Germany, a Munich prosecutor is preparing a batch of questions to U.S. authorities on the case of a Lebanese-born German who says he was arrested in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown by U.S. agents to a jail in Afghanistan.

And in Sweden, a parliamentary ombudsman has criticized the security services over the expulsion of two Egyptian terrorism suspects who were handed over to U.S. agents and flown home aboard a U.S. government-leased plane in 2001.

American values successfully exported: Survivors of torture and the Australian Greens are calling for a Victorian academic to be sacked from the Commonwealth's Refugee Review Tribunal because of his support for legalised torture.

But the head of the Deakin Law School, Mirko Bagaric, has defended his position on the tribunal.

A torture survivors' group has expressed concern about Professor Bagaric, who has written a paper advocating torture as a legal method of interrogation.

Professor Bagaric is the co-author of a paper suggesting torture is a justifiable way of obtaining information about an emergency situation like a terrorist threat.

The paper, entitled "Not enough (official) torture in the world?: The Circumstances in which Torture is Morally Justifiable", will be published in the University of San Francsico's Law Review Journal in July.

Professor Bagaric says a society that protects the interests of wrongdoers over the innocent is morally warped.

He believes absolute bans on torture are unrealistic but says the practice should be reserved for life-and-death situations.

Security risk: The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is demanding an explanation from U.S. and Iraqi military forces regarding the whereabouts of least eight Iraqi journalists who have been detained since March 2005.

CPJ called on U.S. and Iraqi officials to publicly explain the basis for the journalists' continued detention.

According to CPJ, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said that the journalists pose a "security risk to the Iraqi people and coalition forces."

No further details were given.

Systematic abuse: A leaked report on a military investigation into two killings of detainees at a US prison in Afghanistan has produced new evidence of connivance of senior officers in systematic prisoner abuse.

The investigation shows the military intelligence officers in charge of the detention centre at Bagram airport were redeployed to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003, while still under investigation for the deaths of two detainees months earlier. Despite military prosecutors' recommendations, the officers involved have yet to be charged.

The Bagram case also suggests that some of the prison guards were given little if any training in handling detainees, and were influenced by a White House directive that "terrorist" suspects did not deserve the rights given to prisoners of war under the Geneva convention.

"Apparent missteps": Despite autopsy findings of homicide and statements by soldiers that two prisoners died after being struck by guards at an American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, Army investigators initially recommended closing the case without bringing any criminal charges, documents and interviews show.

Within days after the two deaths in December 2002, military coroners determined that both had been caused by "blunt force trauma" to the legs. Soon after, soldiers and others at Bagram told the investigators that military guards had repeatedly struck both men in the thighs while they were shackled and that one had also been mistreated by military interrogators.

Nonetheless, agents of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command reported to their superiors that they could not clearly determine who was responsible for the detainees' injuries, military officials said. Military lawyers at Bagram took the same position, according to confidential documents from the investigation obtained by The New York Times.

The investigators' move to close the case was among a series of apparent missteps in an Army inquiry that ultimately took almost two years to complete and has so far resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers. Early on, the documents show, crucial witnesses were not interviewed, documents disappeared, and at least a few pieces of evidence were mishandled.

Utterly unacceptable: The United Nations Sunday condemned as "utterly unacceptable" the alleged abuse of detainees at the main U.S. base in Afghanistan and called on the American military to allow an investigation by Afghan human rights officials.

The world body was responding to a New York Times article Friday reporting that poorly trained U.S. soldiers had repeatedly abused detainees. Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday called for tough punishment for the abusers, and for the United States to hand over all Afghans still in its custody.

The report cited a 2,000-page confidential file on the Army's criminal investigation into the deaths of two Afghans at the Bagram base north of the capital, Kabul, in December 2002.

"Such abuses are utterly unacceptable and an affront to everything the international community stands for," said Richard Provencher, spokesman for the United Nations in Afghanistan. "The gravity of these abuses calls for the punishment of all those involved in such inexcusable crimes."

Seymour Hersh: It's been over a year since I published a series of articles in the New Yorker outlining the abuses at Abu Ghraib. There have been at least 10 official military investigations since then - none of which has challenged the official Bush administration line that there was no high-level policy condoning or overlooking such abuse. The buck always stops with the handful of enlisted army reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company whose images fill the iconic Abu Ghraib photos with their inappropriate smiles and sadistic posing of the prisoners.

It's a dreary pattern. The reports and the subsequent Senate proceedings are sometimes criticised on editorial pages. There are calls for a truly independent investigation by the Senate or House. Then, as months pass with no official action, the issue withers away, until the next set of revelations revives it.

Playing The Press For A Patsy

It’s not a fib, it’s a frickin' lie: The Bush administration really knows how to exploit a tragedy and deflect attention in order to duck responsibility. After Newsweek retracted its ten-sentence Koran-in-a-john item, Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, claimed that the Pentagon had never received any "credible allegations" about "the willful desecration of the Koran as a component of interrogations" at Guantanamo. At a press briefing on Tuesday, Di Rita said that after the Pentagon had checked logs and found "several instances...that suggested that detainees have, for whatever reason, torn pages from the Koran." But these log reports, he added, were not corroborated.

How then does Di Rita explain the International Committee of the Red Cross' claim--which became news yesterday and today--that in 2002 and 2003 it told the Pentagon multiple times that prisoners in Guantanamo had said that US officials there showed disrespect for the Koran.

This report does undermine Di Rita's assertions that there were no hints of any problems with the Koran in Gitmo except for a few log entries that raised the possibility the prisoners themselves had defaced their holy book. Will there be pressure on Di Rita to retract his remarks? To apologize? Has he undermined US credibility abroad? Has he been caught in a fib?

Dodging the question: OK, so the retraction should have come quicker. But now the administration should stop trying to shift blame for the deadly protests to a magazine. It has yet to explain why the Defense Department passed up the chance to correct the source's assertion when the magazine took the unusual step of submitting the report for review prior to publication. The reporter took silence as confirmation. Wrong in retrospect? Sure. Silence is always ambiguous. But the Pentagon has managed to dodge the inconvenient question of why it didn't raise a red flag when given the opportunity, or at least warn Newsweek of the potentially grave consequences of publishing. The administration is also ignoring the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, who told of a senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan saying that the protests were "not at all tied to the article." That didn't stop the White House from insisting the opposite. "The report had real consequences," spokesman Scott McClellan said. "People have lost their lives." Tuesday, when Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita was asked if, in light of Myers' statement, he still believed that people died because of the erroneous report, he said, "I do, I absolutely do." It's understandable that the administration might want to flush Newsweek down the toilet and pawn off the blame for its own mistakes. How cathartic it must be to have something other than those famous photos from Abu Ghraib to blame for rampant anti-Americanism. How comforting, after Ahmad Chalabi, to have someone other than the CIA or White House publicly burned by a bad source. No one excuses Newsweek. But in its long adventure in the Arab world, the administration has hatched few strategies as hollow as holding a magazine responsible for its own failings.

No diagrams needed: You don't have to draw a diagram for the Arab world to know what country invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003 -- against the wishes of every nation in the region -- and tried to justify the attack with a rationale that shifted each time the previous version was shown to be false.

There's a sense of hypocrisy that pervades the huffing and puffing by Bush administration officials as they rush to criticize Newsweek. Where was their outrage when they saw the photographs of the shameful mistreatment of the prisoners of war at the Abu Ghraib facility, with forced nudity, humiliation, sexual harassment, brutal interrogation and dogs?

After those shocking photos were published around the world, Rumsfeld banned cameras from military prisons.

Daoud Kuttab, a news media critic and professor in Bethlehem, referring to claims by former prisoners of Koran desecration, told The New York Times:

"Newsweek can recant as long as they want, but as long as people are coming out of prison and telling the same story, it will not matter."

Mistakes and deceit: Newsweek's bad mistake is very good news for the Bush administration. The commander-in-chief is playing editor-in-chief. Instead of answering questions about what is really happening in Iraq, the White House is asking what happened at Newsweek.

Newsweek published a mistake; get angry about that, if you like. But the Bush administration went to war over a mistake -- the alleged existence of WMD -- and a deception -- the never-proven link between Iraq and Sept. 11. So far, 1,623 American soldiers are dead and another 15,000 are wounded. Insurgents continue to slaughter Iraqis; nearly 500 have been killed since the April 28 announcement of a Shi'ite-dominated government.

There is still no obvious end game in Iraq, just the hope that somehow, over time, some version of democracy will win out over suicide bombers and religious fanatics. The course chosen by the Bush administration spawned anti-American sentiment around the world. And the Bush administration continues to deceive, as demonstrated by Rice's recent remarks.

In Baghdad, Rice said, ''Our children and our children's children will look back, and they will say, we are so grateful that there were Americans willing to sacrifice, so that the Middle East could be whole, and free and democratic and at peace. And that never again would we have to fight terrorists on our soil, in America."

Her expectation is pinned upon an administration's mistakes and deceit. The Bush legacy truly rests on whether the end, if it ever comes, justifies the means.

The central claim still stands: How did a short item in Newsweek reporting that U.S. interrogators had desecrated a Koran at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, spark massive riots in several Muslim countries last week, leading to the deaths of least 16 people? And who, exactly, should bear the blame for these tragic events?

Certainly not Newsweek. The magazine eventually retracted and apologized for its story because it could not properly defend the particular point it had made - that the United States was investigating claims of desecration of the Koran at Guantánamo. But the central claim about desecration - which is what set off the riots - remains very much alive.

For more than two years before the magazine ran its story, newspapers in the United States, Britain and throughout the Muslim world published interviews in which detainees held by the United States at Guantánamo, in Afghanistan and in Iraq claimed that their guards and interrogators had denigrated Islamic religious symbols and, in particular, desecrated copies of the Koran by kicking them across the floor, tearing out pages and tossing them into toilets. Several former detainees held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan told Human Rights Watch how prisoners at the U.S. air base in Kandahar protested after a guard allegedly kicked a copy of the Koran while searching a cell.

It's the Bush administration, not Newsweek, that bears responsibility for policies that have sullied the reputation of United States in the Muslim world and beyond. It is difficult to imagine that the anti-U.S. riots that took place last week would have been so virulent if the Newsweek article hadn't appeared against a backdrop of abuses in U.S.-run detention sites. Outrage about American abuses was and remains a tinderbox.

A bridge too far?: In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Fareed Zakaria wrote a 6,791-word cover story for Newsweek titled "Why Do They Hate Us?" Think how much effort he could have saved if he'd waited a few years. As we learned last week, the question of why they hate us can now be answered in just one word: Newsweek.

"Our United States military personnel go out of their way to make sure that the Holy Koran is treated with care," said the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, as he eagerly made the magazine the scapegoat for lethal anti-American riots in Afghanistan. Indeed, Mr. McClellan was so fixated on destroying Newsweek - and on mouthing his own phony P.C. pieties about the Koran - that by omission he whitewashed the rioters themselves, Islamic extremists who routinely misuse that holy book as a pretext for murder.

That's how absurdly over-the-top the assault on Newsweek has been. The administration has been so successful at bullying the news media in order to cover up its own fictions and failings in Iraq that it now believes it can get away with pinning some 17 deaths on an errant single sentence in a 10-sentence Periscope item that few noticed until days after its publication. Coming just as the latest CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll finds that only 41 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq is "worth fighting" and only 42 percent think it's going well, this smells like desperation. In its war on the press, this hubristic administration may finally have crossed a bridge too far.

No Television War – Not Even A Newsprint War

No consequences shown: A remarkable survey by the Los Angeles Times of six leading newspapers and two newsmagazines during a recent six-month period found almost no pictures from Iraq of Americans killed in action. They only ran 44 photos of the wounded.

The Times survey covered the period from Sept. 1, 2004 until Feb. 28, 2005. During that time, 559 Americans and Western allies died, but readers of the L.A. Times, The New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Post and Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not see a single photo of a dead U.S. serviceman. Nor did readers of Time and Newsweek. The Seattle Times carried a photo three days before Christmas of a dead U.S. soldier, killed in the mess hall bombing, but his body was covered. The L.A. Times and New York Times each carried 10 photos of the wounded, with the other six publications combined for a total of 24. That means that for six months, in eight top publications, only 44 such pictures appeared—when thousands were injured.

"There can be horrible images, but war is horrible and we need to understand that," Chris Hondros, a veteran war photographer, told Rainey. "I think if we are going to start a war, we ought to be willing to show the consequences of that war."

Incomplete portrait: Many photographers and editors believe they are delivering Americans an incomplete portrait of the violence that has killed 1,797 U.S. service members and their Western allies and wounded 12,516 Americans. Journalists attribute the relatively bloodless portrayal of the war to a variety of causes — some in their control, others in the hands of the U.S. military, and the most important related to the far-flung nature of the conflict and the way American news outlets perceive their role. "We in the news business are not doing a very good job of showing our readers what has really happened over there," said Pim Van Hemmen, assistant managing editor for photography at the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. "Writing in a headline that 1,500 Americans have died doesn't give you nearly the impact of showing one serviceman who is dead," Van Hemmen said. "It's the power of visuals."

Recruitment Ills

Values stand-down day: Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?

This flower-bedecked poster slogan from the '60s will surely be haunting the Army's "values stand-down" day today, when the service branch's 7,500 recruiters and their COs take the day off for a little ethics force-feeding.

The Army's - the whole military's - desperation is showing. None of the four branches is meeting recruitment goals as a brutal, unpopular war drags on, and the recruiters, who are all under heavy pressure to snare two warm bodies a month for this lost cause, are getting outed in the media for appallingly unethical and illegal practices.

These include advising potential (bottom of the barrel) enlistees about how to circumvent drug-screening tests and create fake high-school diplomas, how to pass the physical (one overweight young man was given laxatives and the advice, "Don't tell your parents"), along with blatant threats and even, apparently, abduction.

Recruiting for the wrong guys: The U.S. Army has missed its recruiting goals for the last three months. On Friday, May 20 they stopped recruiting to retrain recruiters who were misleading and threatening potential recruits. At the same time the resistance in Iraq is growing. Is the U.S. military more successful in recruiting for the resistance than it is for the U.S. Army?

The level of insurgent activity in Iraq today is four or five times higher than it was in early summer 2003 when there were 10-13 attacks per day. Currently, there are approximately 50 per day. A report released by the Project for Defense Alternatives explains why the resistance to U.S. occupation is expanding – the root cause is the U.S. occupation itself. In a March-April 2004 poll sponsored by USA Today, CNN, and Gallup, 58 percent of Iraqis said US forces have behaved very or fairly badly. Indeed, nearly one in four Iraqis – 22 percent – have been "directly affected by violence in terms of death, handicap, or significant monetary loss" during the occupation according to a survey by the International Republican Institute.

Where they’ll end up: Fernando Suarez del Solar feels a sense of urgency about the war in Iraq -- and not just because he lost his only son there two years ago.

It is his duty, he says, to warn young Latinos about the perils of joining the U.S. military and becoming, like his son, a "green card Marine," lured by promises of a college education, post-service career and fast-track citizenship.

Three years ago, President Bush offered accelerated citizenship to any green card holder who has served in the military since Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead, the bereaved father tells would-be recruits, they could wind up like Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez, killed at age 20 after he stepped on an unexploded cluster bomb in March 2003, during the first week of the war.

"Immigrants are generally the first on the front lines," Suarez said. "They should know where they'll end up."

Commentary

Interview: James Carroll: The positive story of the Crusades is that they were chivalrous attempts to win back for Christian Europe the Holy Land -- the sites of the life of the story of Jesus, and take them back from the infidel. Of course, what’s really at work in the Crusades is Europe’s desperate response – quite threatened response – to the growth of Islam. The Crusades are a religiously justified violent campaign against a whole other civilization that defines itself differently. The Crusades are most notable, in my view, for Christian history, for being the first time the Church formally defined a work of violence as a source of salvation. You could go to heaven if you got killed in the Crusade. BuzzFlash: And, today, you can go to heaven if you die in a jihad, so ... James Carroll: Exactly. It’s the same mentality, the holy war mentality, which is that the killing of the other is sanctioned by God, and you're blessed if you die in the act of it – as we see expressly articulated among extremist Muslims today.

But it’s actually just an inch below the surface of the culture of patriotic valor, the way in which we valorize our own war dead. There is a kind of salvation and redemption offered by the act of dying in a nation’s wars. It’s one of the corruptions of a nationalist ideology, if you ask me. And there’s a way in which it does really take firm root in the European imagination with the Crusades – dying for the cause. In those days, it was religiously defined as an act of salvation. Also just at that time, Christian theology began to define the death of Jesus in a new way. In 1096, the absolute beginning of the Crusades, the most important theologian of the day, Saint Anselm, wrote a treatise called "Why God Became a Man," which was a definition of the death of Jesus as a sacred act of violence willed by God the father. And that’s the Christian theology that holds sway today.

Comment: More than two years and 1,600 dead U.S. soldiers later, George W. Bush’s defenders concede Iraq may not have had weapons of mass destruction, but the defenders still get their backs up when someone accuses Bush of lying. A mistake maybe, but a lie never!

That defense is anchored in their assessment of Bush’s fundamental decency as a born-again Christian who would never knowingly mislead the American people, especially on something as important as sending U.S. soldiers off to war.

Which is why it’s important to look at Bush’s assertions about his supposed desire to avert the war through good-faith diplomacy in late 2002 and early 2003. Since the entire world watched those events unfold, the known facts can be matched against the more recent words of Bush and his senior advisers.

If Bush has lied about that pre-war history as a way to justify his actions – especially after the WMD rationale collapsed – it follows that he shouldn’t be trusted on much of anything about the war. That’s especially true when contemporaneous records contradict his version of the facts.

Comment: From Fallujah to Ramadi and now to the desert villages around Qaim, our commanders ultimately fall back on the big kaboom. Leveling towns, bombing every suspicious target in sight—this is not how hearts and minds are won or how persistent insurgencies are defeated.

Second and more disheartening still, U.S. officials have realized for some time now that a crucial strategic task in this war must be to separate Iraq's Sunni nationalists from the jihadist fighters in their midst. Most nationalists despise the U.S. occupation, but many also resent the jihadists, whose presence they tolerate either out of fear or as (in their bitter, dispossessed eyes) the lesser evil. The trick for American policymakers is, 1) to distinguish the nationalists from the jihadists (the passive abetters from the active enemy); 2) to drive a wedge between them; and 3) to kill and defeat the latter without alienating the former.

Operation Matador offered a golden opportunity to try out both categories of new thinking: a) smarter counterinsurgency tactics that b) distinguish and separate the nationalists from the jihadists. Here was an unusual, perhaps unique, case of real Sunni tribal leaders asking us to come in and help them fight the common enemy. And we bungled it by confusing victory with mere firepower and by brushing aside—not even consulting with—a serious group of aspiring allies.

Opinion: Sciri is just one of several parties in the current government coalition. But none of the others, including the Dawa Shiite religious party and the two secular Kurdish parties, have done much to resist Sciri's exclusionary views and vetoes of prospective Sunni nominees. As a result, qualified and representative Sunnis have been kept out of key positions in the new security forces, the cabinet and now the constitution-drafting process. Shockingly, only two Sunni Arabs were chosen to sit on the 55-member parliamentary panel named to draft Iraq's new constitution.

It is understandable that Iraq's Shiites and Kurds, who suffered so much under Saddam Hussein, are uncomfortable about letting people who served his predominantly Sunni regime back into positions of power. But unless lower- and middle-echelon Baathists are allowed to serve, much of the Sunni professional class will remain excluded from government and sympathetic to the insurgents.

Millions of Shiites and Kurds risked their lives to vote in January because they wanted to help build a better, more democratic Iraq. The intervening months have been hugely disillusioning, with polls now showing a stunning 40-percentage-point drop in public confidence since January, as politicians have squabbled, insurgent attacks have soared and public services have further deteriorated. The dream of a new Iraq will ebb away unless leaders of the ruling Shiite and Kurdish coalition reach out boldly and bravely to their Sunni neighbors.

Analysis: However, growing political ties between the Shiite political leadership in Iraq and the neighboring Islamic Republic of Iran could transform what is currently at worst a holding situation in Iraq and make it dire. For they open the possibility that if the U.S. confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program escalates into pre-emptive U.S. or U.S.-approved Israeli air strikes against Iranian nuclear installations, or if, even worse, U.S.-backed insurgents try and topple the Islamic Republic, then the mainstream Shiites in Iraq could rapidly be radicalized against U.S. forces in their country. In that case, the security challenges facing U.S. and allied forces would vastly become exponentially worse than they are now. And even if a U.S. clash with Iran is averted, the continuing failure of U.S. forces in Iraq to either defeat the insurgency or produce effective Iraqi security forces could further propel the country's Shiite leaders, fearful of their vengeful Sunni minority, further into Tehran's arms. Those developments would make even the current dilemmas facing U.S. forces in Iraq look like child's play.

Editorial: New reports of American troops inflicting prolonged, gratuitous torture on Afghan detainees - and murdering two - make a mockery of Bush administration claims that prisoner abuse is the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

How stupid does this administration think the American people are?

It's been a year since President Bush first used the "few bad apples" excuse following abuse revelations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Since then, other reports have rolled in of torture of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the far-flung countries where the United States has outsourced prisoner abuse.

When anyone is held responsible, it is low-ranking service people. High-ranking officers have almost without exception been found blameless. And Mr. Bush feigns horror at every new revelation, even though he set the stage for torture when he determined in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions don't apply to terror suspects.

The only way for the United States to salvage its reputation in the world and among its own citizens is through the appointment of an independent federal investigator on detainee abuse.

Editorial: In commemoration of Memorial Day, and specifically in remembrance of those who gave their lives for their country, thousands of American flags will be placed at grave sites in national cemeteries and private burial grounds throughout the land next weekend.

The nation respectfully will pause to honor men and women whose duty to country and commitment to freedom must never be forgotten.

While we ought to show reverence for every loss of life in the service of this country, regardless of the circumstances, we should not become so engrossed in our ceremonials that we stop asking questions about the state of the current war in Iraq.

Sadly, in the last two years, more than 1,600 other names have been added to the list of those who have died in the line of duty.

Even more sadly, they all have died in a war that was unnecessary.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Hughes Springs, TX, soldier killed in Al Asad.

Local story: Two Louisiana National Guardsmen, one from Shreveport and one from Bossier City, killed by sniper fire in Baghdad.

Local story: Orwell, OH, soldier killed near Abu Ghraib.

Local story: Brookfield, CT, Marine killed in Iraq to be interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

Commentary of the Day, Saturday, May 21, 2005 Opinion:

George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the United States. America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable. As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush’s far more serious lies. Bush’s lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America’s reputation, caused 1 billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting.

Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin fellow at the Institute for Political Economy, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, and senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution.

War News for Saturday, May 21, 2005 Bring 'em on: Thousands of Shia protest against the American occupation in Najaf. Bring 'em on: Al Sadr supporters clash with guards at the headquarters of Dhi Qar provincial governor in Nasiryah. Bring 'em on: Seven killed in insugency attack on the home of Sunni politician in Mosul. In another press report of this incident: An Iraqi lawmaker said 10 of his private guards were killed here on Thursday during a 1-1/2 hour-long battle with insurgents and Apache helicopter-backed U.S. forces, who he accused of killing several of his aides. Bring 'em on: Two US soldiers killed Thursday in gun attack on convoy in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: One US soldier killed Friday while on "combat logistic patrol" in Taji. Bring 'em on: Senior Iraqi oil ministry official gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Iraqi university professor gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi journalists executed last Sunday whilst travelling to Kerbala. Bring 'em on: Iraqi police officer and his father shot dead in Samarra. Bring 'em on: US soldier killed by IED explosion whilst travelling on an escort mission in Mahmudiyah. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi soldiers killed and five injured in car bomb attack on a military convoy in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Civilian killed by roadside bomb in Latifya. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi policmen killed by roadside bomb in Baqubah. Bring 'em on: US soldier killed in indirect fire attack in FOB Ramadi. Who would have guessed it? There was a spending blitz in June 2004:

Bill Keller knew that rebuilding Iraq's shattered telecommunications network meant throwing money into a black hole. As the clock ticked down to the end of the U.S. occupation last June, reconstruction projects were hopelessly mired in delays, and financial controls at the Iraqi Communications Ministry appeared non-existent. Yet instead of putting the brakes on spending, top U.S. officials urged that contracts be accelerated, Keller said. "We were squandering the money we were entrusted to handle," said Keller, at the time was a deputy adviser to the Communications Ministry. "We were a blind mouse with money." This apparent indifference toward accountability when it came to spending Iraqi money was common among U.S. officials last year as they rushed to sign contracts in the waning days of U.S. control of Iraq, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times. In recent audits and interviews, June 2004 has emerged as a month when money and accountability were thrown out the door. The United States played the role of frenzied shopper, leaving the Iraqis to pay the bill. More than 1,000 contracts were issued by U.S. officials in June, about double the usual number. Auditors disclosed this month that several U.S. officials are under investigation for possible embezzlement during the June spending blitz. "There were lots of examples of bad management because of the chaos around the turnover," said Ginger Cruz, chief of staff for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, who oversees U.S. spending in Iraq. "There was a greater opportunity for fraud."

More on the UN oil for food $cam:

In mid-February 2003, just weeks from the onset of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, oil tankers began loading Iraqi crude at the Iraqi port of Khor al-Amaya. The Bush administration-approved sanction-busting oil shipments involved a Jordanian company named Millenium, owned by the Shaheen Business Investment Group and a Connecticut-based shipbroker called Odin Marine, Inc. Oil tankers were permitted to off load their oil at the UAE port of Fujairah for reshipment on larger tankers without any interference from the U.S. Navy-led Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF), set up to enforce the sanctions. Giangrandi's company, Italtech, was involved in a number of the shipments as a U.N. contract holder (lifter). When Iraq's Oil Minister expressed his suspicion that the oil shipments would never get by the U.S. Navy defenses, a mysterious high-ranking visitor told him the Iraqi oil was "for the sake of the people who work for the defense of the United States. It will pass through safely." When the unknown visitor later asked for additional oil shipments from Khor al-Amaya he assured the minister that "you will never hear about this in the press any more. The U.S. forces will make them be quiet." Millennium chartered seven ships through Odin. Shipping communications obtained by the committee proved that the tankers traveled with the full knowledge and acquiescence of the Maritime Interdiction Force, then under the command of a U.S. naval officer, Commander Harry French. The MIF permitted all the ships loading oil from Khor al-Amaya to leave the Gulf without interference. Odin became concerned about the legality of the shipments and eventually contacted U.S. State Department official Amy Schedlebauer. Two hours after Odin's general counsel contacted Schedlebauer, she responded in an e-mail: 'AWARE OF THE SHIPMENTS AND HAS DETERMINED NOT TO TAKE ACTION." Coleman and Levin wrote a February 8, 2005, letter to Rumsfeld asking about the operations of the Maritime Interdiction Force in the Gulf prior to the war. A similar letter was sent to the State Department inquiring about the illegal Khor al-Amaya oil shipments. To date, the committee has not received an answer from either Rumfeld or Rice. Minority report documents indicate that one of the largest recipients of Bayoil Iraqi oil shipments was Enron, the bankrupt company that served as a virtual slush fund for the political campaigns of George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the same time Enron Chairman Kenneth ("Kenny Boy") Lay was involved in Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force secret dealings and when he was stuffing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of George W. Bush and Cheney's political campaign, he also managed to illegally stick $206, 757 into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and his cohorts. The Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal also involves one of the Bush children—Dorothy "Doro" Bush Koch, sister of George W. Bush and married to Bobby Koch, reportedly a cousin in the oil industry Koch family, the owner of Koch Industries, which is also one of Bush's largest political donors. The minority committee report indicates that Koch Industries was also a major recipient of illegal Iraqi oil and a huge source of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. The total sum in kickbacks from George W. Bush's cousin-in-laws to Saddam's bank accounts: $1,294,620. George Galloway was correct when he called the Coleman Committee the "mother of all smoke screens." Major political contributors and friends of Bush not only paid illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein but personally profited from sanctions-busting with Iraq. Those involved in the scheme included individuals who date back to the Reagan/Bush 41 "cluster bombs and biological and chemical weapons-for-oil" scandal of the 1980s. Galloway is correct when he stated that there is enough evidence on Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair and their neocon advisers to park them in prison cells in The Hague for an awfully long time.

Tip of the iceberg?

McMillion's booty included about 30 automatic rifles, six rocket-propelled grenade launchers and dozens of magazines, scopes and sights. There also were several dummy land mines and grenades, 1,183 Iraqi army berets, more than 600 pairs of socks and eight full uniforms. Other items included a statue looted from an Iraqi museum. The judge found McMillion guilty of violating an order against taking, retaining, storing and transporting war trophies for nonofficial purposes.

Bloggerheads say what needs to be said of the Saddam underpants saga:

By sheer coincidence, these photos were published on the very same day as... BBC - US report reveals Afghan abuses: Fresh details have emerged of abuse of prisoners by US troops in Afghanistan. The deaths of two inmates and alleged abuse of others is detailed by the New York Times citing a 2,000-page document leaked from a US army investigation. The report says some prisoners were chained to ceilings, and that a female interrogator stepped on a man's neck and kicked another in the genitals. The White House said the abuses were being investigated and those responsible would be held to account.

Note to Readers, Friday, May 20, 2005 Earlier this week I found my email in-box stuffed with notices of undeliverable emails. However, I didn't send any of those emails. I also received a tremendous amount of email responses, mostly written in German. I also received a few emails from “Today in Iraq” readers complaining that they had received spam from my email account. The spam sent out under my email address mostly concerned German history and contained links to German media sources. Worried that my email account had been hacked, I consulted the experts - my fellow moderators at the Bartcop forum. I received the following reply from Von Rex, one of the other Bartcop moderators and an expert on cyber-matters. It is a very succinct answer explaining a complex topic. I’m posting Von Rex’s reply here (including his good-natured jibe at Fud, another moderator and technical guru) as a public service for readers:

Spambots Explained It's not being sent from your account, and there's nothing you can do about it except explain this to anyone irate that responds to "your" spam. See, the problem here is that anyone can send an email with any value at all for the "from" field. Closer examination will reveal that the email isn't legit as the sending servers won't be correct, but of course hardly anyone does this. So with spam like yours, what's happening is that someone with your address in their address book as been infected and the spam program is sending out random emails based on their address book. For example if I was infected it might search through my address book and find Fud's address. Then the spambot might configure a message selling penis enlargers and send it out from my account but with Fud's name in the sender fields. If this pisses someone off and they reply to the spam, Fud would get the reply even though his machine has not been compromised. In the end there's nothing you can do. This is a problem with the basic protocol of email. Eventually someone will have to make an email version two and push it to become a standard. Bill Gates is pushing for such a thing right now. This is also a reason why you shouldn't retaliate against spam emails. You'll probably hit an innocent target. To check your system of malware, you need some kind of detection/cleaning program. The best free ones are Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware. I've always used Spybot but I've heard they're starting to lag with their updates a bit, so I'm not sure which one to recommend right now. Either will be good though. I also run a small app called "Hijack This!" once in a while. It's not as user friendly but it will detect certain especially nasty malware, though those kind usually require you to screw around manually to get rid of them. As far as prevention, there's two things to keep in mind. The first is don't use Outlook Express or Internet Explorer. Especially Internet Explorer. Use Firefox as your browser instead. Not only is it far more secure, it's also a better browser. The second thing to keep in mind is don't run executable content from an untrusted source. Don't run .exe files or scripts that get passed around in email or downloaded from kazaa or untrusted web sites. Be familiar with file extensions. Some are safe, like .mpg or .jpg. Others are dangerous, like .vbs, .bat, .exe and so on. Turn on the viewing of extensions if you have a default windows install which extensions turned off. If in doubt about any file, don't run it.

Melic, another moderator, thoughtfully provided a link to an MSNBC article further explaining the mysterious German email infestation:

Technology correspondent MSNBC Updated: 2:56 p.m. ET May 16, 2005 Some e-mail inboxes filled up with German-language spam over the weekend, as the well-traveled Sober virus was apparently turned into a propaganda machine by its author. Sober has infected millions of computers around the globe since it first launched in 2003, and it's gone through nearly 20 variations. But this weekend's version was different — it wasn't designed to spread itself, or to infect other computers with toxic e-mail messages. It was designed to simply get a point across. Some time during the weekend, thousands of Sober-infected machines under the control of the virus writer were instructed to download a new version of the program, called Sober-Q, according to antivirus firm MessageLabs. The new version turned infected computers into spam machines. The infected computers were then told to send out hundreds of messages, mostly in German, linking to Web pages containing information on conservative German political issues. Many of the e-mails actually linked to legitimate news stories, at Web sites like Der Spiegel Online. But the worm isn't spreading, and only previously infected computers were at risk of infection, experts said. "It is a one-time political message," said McAfee's Vincent Gullotto, vice president of the firm's virus research lab. There are 72 variations of the spam. Some are in English, with crass messages, containing subject lines such as "The Whore Lived Like a German." But others are obviously laced with politics. Some of the messages bemoan the bombing of Dresden by Allied armies in 1945. The e-mail may be timed to the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, celebrated last week. Other messages contain arguments against allowing Turkey into the European Union. One message in English links to a story about the politically sensitive topic of alleged Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, "Armenian Genocide Plagues Ankara 90 Years On." A public apology has been proposed as a condition of Turkey's EU membership. This technique for sending spam was very effective, spam experts say, because the messages were sent by innocent-looking computers. Most the the messages breezed through spam filters. "Almost all of the spam e-mails have been sent from otherwise clean IP addresses and will have gone largely undetected by spam filters," said Stephen White, head of anti-spam technical operations at MessageLabs. "It would seem that the virus author has stored up networks of infected machines around the world, holding them on standby to deploy at specific times." The virus is not considered dangerous, said McAfee's Gullotto. Very few infections have been reported. But it is generating a lot of spam, he said, with some customers receiving hundreds of messages. Symantec Corp's Alfred Huger estimated that Sober-Q had generated "tens of millions" of spam messages. Each infected machines is probably capable of sending out 10,000 spams per hour, he said. "To spread a signifcant amount of spam you don't need too many (infected computers)," he said. This is not the first time a virus has contained a political message, but it is one of the most effective in recent memory, Gullotto said. "It is generating a lot of spam," he said. "With the success of it, you would expect it to be used again."

So if you’re getting spam from yankeedoodle@gmail.com, it’s not coming from my machine. Thanks for reading, YD Rant of the Day, Friday, May 20, 2005 A long, revealing and depressing article, drawn from an Army criminal investigation report, describing intelligence “interrogations” in Afghanistan. As one Afghan interpreter notes, these are not intelligence interrogations, but simply gratuitous prisoner abuse. As a former counterintelligence officer I want to know why 21-year old enlisted men and junior NCOs are conducting interrogations without direct officer supervision - and I‘m not talking about the poorly-trained-but-ambitious Military Intelligence lieutenants and bright-eyed MI captains. Where are the counterintelligence and interrogation Warrant Officers who approve interrogation plans, read interrogation reports, train and supervise enlisted soldiers? This report is a disgrace to my country and a dishonor to the uniform dear to my heart. It’s why I didn’t post today. I’m too fucking angry. YD

Discussion Thread, Thursday, May 19, 2005 CINCINNATI: This is the text of WLWT's report exactly as it appeared on the 11 p.m. newscast on May 18, 2005: Announcer: "An explosive Target 5 investigation. Our hidden cameras catch military recruiters making the Tri-state sound more dangerous than Iraq."

Recruiter: "You've got more chance of dying over here than you do over there." Announcer: "So, why are Tri-state recruits ready to risk their lives not getting honest answers?" Anchor: "The problem is so bad the military is planning a nationwide stand-down day. That means this Friday the Army won't do any recruiting. Why? ecruiters using outrageous tactics to get your son or daughter to enlist. "You won't believe how bad the problem is. "Dave Wagner has the shocking Target 5 investigation." Dave Wagner: "Each day, thousands of American teenagers consider the merits of military service, young men and women willing to wear a uniform and put their lives on the line. Tonight, a revealing look at what goes on when teenagers go behind closed doors with Tri-state military recruiters. In a startling number of cases, it's high pressure, false statements and 'Conduct Unbecoming.'" Bill Fisher, retired Army recruiter: "Their job is to call you and try to get your interest sparked." Recruiter: "I'm not trying to do a sales pitch." Wagner: "In the world of sale, every pitch has a price." Fisher: "I think with honesty and integrity you can fill any quota." Wagner: "In the land of a free-market economy, facts can get in the way of a good prospect." Recruiter: "You have more chance of dying here in the United States." Wagner: "Even when the pitchman is in uniform." Fisher: "It's insane. That's ludicrous. You just don't do that." Larry Clock: "My name is Larry Clock and I'm a senior." Wagner: "They are the fresh faces of our future." Adrienne Morrison. "I'm a senior." Wagner: "High school seniors in the prime of their lives." Morrison: "I've received phone calls, letters in the mail." Wagner: "Kids in the crosshairs of U.S. military recruiters." Fisher: "In recruiting throughout all the branches, they're looking for the good students, the ones that you consider the good students in high school." Fisher: "I'm Bill Fisher. I'm a retired master sergeant with the United States Army. I recruited for 13 years. Yea, I'll talk to anybody." Wagner: "These days, it's a lot easier talking to high school students because military recruiters have easier access to your kids. As part of the No Child Left Behind Act, all schools that receive federal funding, and nearly all of them do, are required to give military recruiters access to your child's name, address and phone number." Fisher: "From a recruiting standpoint, that's a great thing because a lot of people we couldn't get numbers to actually tell the Army story or the armed forces story we now can." Recruiter: "I'm not trying to do a sales pitch." Wagner: "But as Target 5 discovered, those military pitches can turn from fact to fiction in a matter of seconds. Target 5 sent four young men, with hidden cameras, into every Tri-state armed forces recruiting center. The conversations began with talk of job security." Recruiter: "We guarantee you a job." Wagner: "Signing bonuses." Recruiter: "Up to $20,000." Wagner: "And cash for college." Recruiter: "Up to $70,000 for college." Wagner: "But when the questions turn to safety, some Tri-state recruiters make Iraq sound more like a trip to Tahiti than a journey to war." Recruiter: "You have more chance of dying here in the United States at, what is it, 36-percent die, kill rate here in the United States, people here just dying left and right, you have more chance of dying over here than you do over there." Wagner: "The U.S. does not have a 36-percent kill rate. If that were true, more than 100 million people, one-third of the U.S. population, would be killed each year." Fisher: "To just openly not tell the truth, to push it aside, that's just wrong." Wagner: "Back at the recruiting center." Recruiter: "The way I am, I'm a no-bull type of guy." Wagner: "But you'd never know that based upon what he tells our young recruit." Recruiter: "If you get on the Internet and look up how many deaths are in Columbia, S.C., in the past year, year and a half, and then compare that to how many deaths there are in Iraq, there's more deaths going on in Columbia, S.C., for no reason, none, over a pair of Nikes, over a jacket, people stealing people's wallets, shooting people. There's more deaths going on in Columbia, S.C. -- I know, I just got back from there -- than there was in the whole time when I was in Iraq." Wagner: "So Target 5 called the Columbia, S.C., police department, and despite the words of our Tri-state recruit, this city is hardly a hotbed for crime." Sgt. Thomas Thomas of Columbia, S.C., police department: "There were 16 homicides in the city of Columbia in 2004. This year to date we have five in the city." Wagner: "And if that recruiter thinks Columbia, S.C., listen to what this GI Joe Isuzu says about the danger of driving around Dayton, Ohio." Recruiter: "Dayton area alone, which is about four or five counties, Dayton area alone, 1,500 people died in two weeks. You know what that was from? Car wrecks. Those numbers that we get, we get from the actual highway patrol. So, I mean, all that stuff's factual. So, you look at that way. We've lost 1,500 soldiers so far over in Iraq. We've been over there for three years. If you add it together, 1,500 people died in five counties alone within two weeks, just from car wrecks." Wagner: "The truth is, there aren't 1,500 deaths from car wrecks in the entire state of Ohio for an entire year." Fisher: "Conduct unbecoming a non-commissioned officer is what those statements are. I don't know where he came up with it. It's just insane. Yea, yea, he could be your car salesman of the Isuzu." Wagner: "The national spokesman for the Army recruiting command at Fort Knox tells Target 5: "I don't know why anybody would even let that phrase even come out of their mouth. For whatever reasons, these recruiters must have found these talking points somewhere on their own. I don't know." Wagner: "Do you think that in the private conversations they're having with recruits here, that they're thinking, no one will ever check this, no one will ever know?" Fisher: "I'm sure that anyone who could tell that, I'm sure that's exactly what they're thinking." Wagner: "Still to come, the pressure to fill quotas, the pressure put on recruits, more tall tales and the immediate action the military has taken in response to our Target 5 investigation. "Now, more of our Target 5 investigation into Tri-state military recruiters offering big bonuses and tall tales to Tri-state teenagers. "Since the war began, about 1,500 U.S. servicemen and women have been killed in Iraq. The violence has made military recruiting more difficult, often because parents worry about their kids' safety. But recruiters are tracking down teens when parents aren't around, and the pressure can be immense. As we continue our Target 5 investigation, 'Conduct Unbecoming.'" Wagner (in Milford High School classroom): "How many of you have been approached by a military recruiter in the past year?" (Several students raise hands). Wagner: "In Mr. Jewell's American government class …" Student: "I think they're really biased." Wagner: "Students are talking about military recruiters." Student: "A recruiter called me up and told me they got a new deal going on, $5,000 to enlist now for the Army." Student: "I was told that if I signed up for the Marines they'd give me a $10,000 signing bonus on the spot. I didn't believe that one." Wagner: "Signing bonuses and college cash are being used to attract fresh faces to the armed forces. But Army recruiters have missed their quotas for the past three months; the Marines, short of their goal for the past four months. When this high school senior says his parents are concerned about his safety in the military, this recruiter puts on the full-court press." Recruiter: "Don't hesitate. Don't leave me hanging. Even if they really don't want to talk about it, we can still sit down and talk, all right? Because by you walking in here, that shows that you're interested, and I'd hate for you to be denied this United States Army opportunity. Honestly." Fisher: "Recruiters are supposed to be at the top of their career field throughout the United States, the best infantry, the best cooks, the best medical technicians, the best, the people you want to represent your service. These are the ones you bring out on recruiting day. "There are some soldiers who are great soldiers but pitiful salesman." Recruiter: "Of course, the news media is going to blow it way out of proportion." Wagner: "While some recruiters blame the media for hyping the danger in Iraq, this recruiter, who served on the front lines, has a more straightforward approach." Student: "I'm curious about how dangerous it really is over there, because in the news and everything people are dying." Recruiter: "Yea, it's war, you know?" Wagner: "This week in the Tri-state the realties of war are tragically clear, another goodbye for two young men who fought and died. early a third of those killed in Iraq are under the age of 22, the vast majority from the Army and Marine Corps, 111 of them from Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. As a country honors their sacrifice, these high school seniors get ready for their military service with a sendoff and straight talk from their local congressman." Rep. Steve Chabot: "We need to make sure that those kids who are considering a military career get the true facts. They're great young men and women, they're serving their country or will be in the near future, and we ought to be honest with them. We ought to let the kids know the truth and what's really happening. And there's no question, that Iraq can be a dangerous place." Recruiter: "I was watching the news the other day. In Cincinnati alone, as of April, there were 867 deaths in Cincinnati." Wagner: "While some recruiters play it loose with the facts." Recruiter: "Eighty-eight people over there have died from gunshot wounds." Wagner: "Bill Fisher says it worked for him to play it straight." Fisher: "We have like the greatest armed forces in the world right now. The kids are just fantastic. And to sit back and say something like this is just silly. You don't need to. You don't have to sway them by innuendos or lies. You just have to search for those who want to join, and there are tons of them." Recruiter: "I can at least provide you with honest answers. OK? I can be the Honest Abe around the corner." Wagner: "Tonight the spokesman for the U.S. Army recruiting command at Fort Knox say he believes the recruiters aren't deliberately making false statements. "This Friday, Army recruiting will be suspended nationwide so recruiters can be retrained, and Target 5 is assured all recruiters will be told to stop making these statements without evidence to back them up."

War News for Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi Interior Ministry Brig. Gen. shot to death and his wife and driver injured in Baghdad attack. Two Iraqis killed and eight wounded, including seven children, in mortar attacks in Mosul. Baquba car bombing aimed at a police convoy injured 14, including 12 police officers. Seven Iraqis injured in a Baghdad bombing aimed at an American convoy. Iraqi Transport Ministry driver shot dead in Sadr City.

Bring ‘em on: Iraqi intelligence official and his wife killed and their three children injured in an ambush south of Baghdad. Bodies of three Iraqi civilians believed to have been working as contractors for the US military found in Dujail. Footage released of the execution of two more Iraqi contractors kidnapped from Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Bodies of seven men, blindfolded and shot in the head, found in Amiriyah.

Bring ‘em on: Twenty people killed in clashes between militants and US forces backed by attack helicopters in a neighborhood in Mosul. Former Baath Party member and his three sons abducted and killed in Tunis, a village south of Baghdad.

Progress Report

Quality of life: In the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the country still struggles with high unemployment, inconsistent utility services and widespread poverty, a joint survey from the Iraqi government and United Nations indicates.

Released Thursday, the report from Iraq's Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation and the U.N. Development Program in Iraq surveyed nearly 22,000 households in the country's 18 provinces during 2004.

The survey estimated that the minimum number of war-related deaths ranges from 18,000 to 29,000 and is probably higher.

The report said the survey didn't attempt to count entire families who died and therefore underestimates the total number of people killed.

Children under 18 accounted for 12 percent of the deaths, the report said, while the information on infant mortality and malnutrition shows that "the suffering of children due to war and conflict in Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or killed by military activities."

Children also are affected by widespread malnutrition. About 43 percent of boys and girls between the ages of 6 months and 5 years suffer from some form of the condition -- chronic, general or acute malnutrition.

Iraq's unemployment rate was 10.5 percent of a population of 27 million people, the report found. When the figure of workers who had given up looking for a job -- discouraged workers -- was included, the unemployment number increased to 18.4 percent.

According to the survey, 98 percent of Iraqi households are connected to the national electricity grid, but only 15 percent find the supply stable.

As for water availability, the figures were 78 percent (had water) and 66 percent (had problems).

More than a fourth of Iraqis surveyed described themselves as being poor and 96 percent said they receive monthly food rations under the public food system set up through the oil-for-food program.

The median income in Iraq was equivalent to about $255 (366,000 dinars) in 2003 and decreased in the first half of 2004 to about $144 (207,000 dinars).

Medical care: Doctors in Iraq are to be equipped with not only stethoscopes and thermometers but also an automatic rifle under a government directive aimed at halting violent attacks from criminals masquerading as patients.

Instructions from the health ministry encourage GPs and hospital doctors to carry a weapon for their protection alongside more traditional medical tools in what is the latest illustration of the breakdown of law and order in the country. The ministry has also authorised the setting up of its own militia to protect 40 hospitals and medical centres in Baghdad.

In future patients seeking treatment at these sites will first be required to persuade a unit of armed guards - sporting AK-47s and distinct uniforms - that they are genuinely unwell.

As often in Iraq the official authorisation, which follows the murder of at least 25 doctors and the kidnapping of a further 300 in the last two years, has belatedly followed the real situation on the ground where many medics had already taken measures to ensure their safety. Private surgeries in Baghdad already resemble mini-fortresses with iron railings on the windows and reinforced steel doors. A Kalashnikov is an increasingly common sight in a doctor’s treatment room.

Religious freedom: In a gesture calculated to ease tensions with Iraq's dispossessed Sunni Arab minority, the new Shiite majority government announced Monday that it had ordered the army to stop raiding mosques, arresting clerics and "terrifying worshipers."

The American military command had no immediate comment on the order, which seemed likely to have a significant effect on operations in Sunni Arab areas that had been insurgent strongholds. American policy has been to attack mosques and religious schools only when they are used as firing positions, as occurred frequently, according to American commanders, during the offensive that recaptured Falluja in November.

But Iraqi troops operating under American command have raided scores of mosques in the past 18 months, arresting dozens of clerics and often carrying away large hauls of weapons and ammunition, including bomb-making equipment and antitank rockets. During two uprisings last year led by Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric with a mass following, raids were conducted against Shiite mosques, too, but the main targets have been Sunni.

Security: When foreign fighters poured into villages with jihad on their minds and weapons in their hands, some Iraqi tribesmen in western desert towns fought back.

They set up checkpoints to filter out the foreigners. They burned down suspected insurgent safe houses. They called their fellow tribesmen in Baghdad and other urban areas for backup.

And when they still couldn't uproot the terrorists streaming in from Syria, tribal leaders said, they took a most unusual step: They asked the Americans for help.

The U.S. military hails last week's Operation Matador as a success that killed more than 125 insurgents. But local tribesmen said it was a disaster for their communities and has made them leery of ever again assisting American or Iraqi forces.

"The Americans were bombing whole villages and saying they were only after the foreigners," said Fasal al Goud, a former governor of Anbar province who said he asked U.S. forces for help on behalf of the tribes. "An AK-47 can't distinguish between a terrorist and a tribesman, so how could a missile or tank?"

Women’s rights: “If I would have not killed her, everyone would insult me and ask why I am not defending my family's honour. Killing men is shameful, killing women is respected.”

The testimony was given by a man who recently murdered his daughter in law. In colaboration with others, he had forced his victim, Gulstan, who was just behind her teen ages, into a field close to their village and shot her with a rifle from close distance into her face. The testimony was neither given in custody nor during interogation. Professionals from one of the women centers in Iraqi-Kurdistan visited the village after having learned of the “honour killing” case and interviewed the familiy members. Even though he openly confessed to have murdered his daughter in law, no efforts were made to put the man on trial. The reason is simple: Gulstan “dishonoured” her family by trying to escape from a forced marriage. Additional rumours accused her of having a sexual relation to another man. Thus, her assassination is regarded as legitimate by the villagers.

Cases like Gulstan's are not unusual in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. Even though, so called “honour-crimes” are regarded as statutory offence, authorities let perpetrators oftenly pass without questioning. About 200 of cases of murdering women and girls due to reasons of “honour” have been documented by the Rewan Women's Center in Suleymaniyah in three years only. Women and girls have been shot, strangled or drowned mainly because they were said to have sexual relations or “dishonoured” the family in another way. The real number of casualties is expected to be much higher. Especially in rural areas, where tribal and primordial belonging still is the most important essential tie, “honour killings” are widely regarded as “necessary” to secure a family's social status.

War and Politics News

Secret headquarters: The reconstituted Iraqi army took another step Sunday toward leading stabilization efforts in its own country, opening its first national headquarters since the U.S.-led invasion.

The Iraqi Ground Forces Headquarters was inaugurated by a “small group of Iraqi and Coalition dignitaries” at an undisclosed location in Baghdad, according to Multi-National Force-Iraq officials Monday.

A rebuilt Iraqi military — capable of confronting the months-long insurgency on its own — has become the cornerstone requirement for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, U.S. military commanders have repeatedly said.

In the $82 billion supplemental budget request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon said 90 Iraqi battalions have been created so far. But, the report concedes, “All but one of these 90 battalions … are lightly equipped and armed and have very limited mobility and sustainment capabilities.”

This should do it: The Iraqi government said Tuesday that it would push for new laws to punish people who provide logistical support for networks of insurgents, aiming to toughen its stance after a surge of violence that has claimed 450 Iraqi lives in two weeks.

The new laws would also make it a crime not to share information about the insurgents' networks with the government.

``People who keep information from the authorities, who give material support or cooperate with terrorists, they will be held accountable,'' said Laith Kubba, speaking for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, adding that punishments would include detention, longer-term imprisonment and the seizure of private assets. ``If people know there will be legal consequences, they will stop.''

Widening cracks: Iraq’s main Sunni religious authority called on Wednesday for the resignation of the interior and defence ministers, blaming them for the murder of several clerics.

“The Committee of Muslim Scholars demands the resignation of the interior and defence ministers, who are responsible for the inhumane and reckless behaviour of their services,” it said in a statement.

“These actions, if not stopped, could lead to the civil war that some people inside and outside Iraq want,” said the committee, which has authority over some 3,000 Sunni mosques across the country.

Educational tool: Web sites maintained by Iraqi insurgents and their supporters contain chilling instructions that tell recruits how to become snipers and how to inflict the maximum damage, reports ABC News.

A Defense Department document is being disseminated to US commanders in Iraq to inform them about the insurgency's newest tactic, said ABC.

According to ABC, the document contains information from pro-insurgency websites, translated by Pentagon analysts, which instructs would-be snipers to target US and coalition military commanders, officers and pilots because replacing them "may take two to four years and cost more than $500,000 to put someone through the famous West Point."

The report said the website also asks snipers to target US special forces because, "they are very stupid because they have a Rambo complex, thinking that they are the best in the world. Don't be arrogant like them."

Hope it works better than US airport security systems: The Defense Department is fine-tuning a $75 million biometric identification system designed to improve force protection at U.S. military bases in Iraq, according to officials involved with the project. At a recent system demonstration, DoD officials said the state-of-the-art system will use biographical data, facial photographs, fingerprints and iris scans collected from Iraqis and other non-U.S. citizens who want to work on U.S. bases in Iraq to develop ID cards that can't be counterfeited. The need for a better way to screen people coming onto U.S. bases in Iraq was illustrated by the Dec. 21, 2004, bombing of a military dining facility in Mosul. That blast killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers, and wounded at least 50. It was first thought the dining hall had been hit by a rocket attack. Further investigation of the Mosul bombing pointed to the likelihood that a suicide bomber had infiltrated the base -- one non-U.S. person killed couldn't be identified -- and set off the explosion.

Oil For Food

US facilitation: A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.”

US incompetence: The U.S. Treasury Department failed to adequately monitor U.S. companies that violated U.N. sanctions against Iraq, permitting a Houston-based oil company to avoid scrutiny as it paid Saddam Hussein's government more than $37 million in illegal kickbacks, according to a report released yesterday by Democrats investigating abuses in the U.N. oil-for-food program.

The report's release follows allegations in recent days by the subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), that the former Iraqi government used its oil wealth to curry favor with senior government officials, politicians and businessmen in Russia, France and Britain.

Yesterday's report contains documents that bolster previous allegations that the State Department and the U.S.-led naval force may have assisted efforts by a key ally, Jordan, to smuggle $53 million worth of oil from Iraq in seven supertankers in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq.

"The United States not only failed to exert an effort to stop the oil tanker shipments, it appears to have facilitated them, despite widespread recognition that the shipments were a blatant violation of U.N. sanctions," the report states.

Galloway’s stinging rebuttal: I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

I don’t know who came off looking the worst in this – the Republicans, who received a well deserved and long-overdue slapdown (go read it, or better, watch it – it’s wonderful) or the Democrats, once again revealed as the rankest cowards for not having already done it repeatedly. Why are they all so gutless?

The Newsweek Koran Flushing Flap

First, the reality: To understand what Newsweek magazine has retracted, it is necessary to understand what it had initially reported. The allegations that interrogators at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have mentally tortured prisoners there by offending deeply held religious sensitivities are not new. Nor is the specific allegation that guards flushed copies of the Quran, Islam's holy book, down a toilet. Those reports have been circulating for more than two years. What was new in the initial Newsweek report - a 330-word item in the magazine's generally breezy Periscope section - was the statement that our military's own investigators were prepared to confirm those allegations. That angle of the story - that the government was about to fess up to such abominable behavior - is what was unique about Newsweek's reporting. And it was that angle - now traced to a single not-so-informed source - that has now been retracted. Would that our government was as quick to admit and recant its own errors.

Then some government lies: The Pentagon is outraged that Newsweek would suggest that the military is desecrating Korans of Muslim detainees without definitive proof. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita, however, apparently has no problem floating allegations that detainees are desecrating their own Korans based on an uncorroborated, anonymous source. From today’s Pentagon press briefing:

DIRITA: We’ve found nothing that would substantiate anything that you just said about the treatment of a Koran. We have, other than what we’ve seen – that it’s possible detainees themselves have done with pages of the Koran. And I don’t want to overstate that, either, because it’s based on log entries that have to be corroborated.

Sounds like DiRita is well on his way to repairing relations with the Arab world.

Media whores used and abused: Arguably the gullible U.S. reporting about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in 2002-03 contributed to more death and destruction than the Koran story did, including more than 1,600 dead American soldiers. But no one news organization has faced the condemnation that Newsweek has for its mistake.

Already some right-wing media critics are citing the Newsweek case as proof of dishonest “liberal” journalism, even though top Newsweek editors often have sided with conservative or neoconservative foreign policy agendas. They certainly did during my three years at the magazine when Editor Maynard Parker regularly lined up with Reagan-Bush policymakers.

Indeed, over the past three decades, Newsweek seems to have served as a vehicle of choice for planting stories favored by the national security establishment, including disinformation to sabotage political enemies or to frustrate troublesome investigations.

A slightly better-than-usual Democratic response: Mr. Speaker, the pot is calling the kettle black. The Administration is chastising Newsweek magazine for a story containing a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same Administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war. The same Administration responsible for the death of over 1,500 American servicemen and women and countless Iraqi civilians; the same Administration which shields its highest officials from responsibility for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Under those circumstances, how can the Bush Administration, with a straight face, denounce a journalist for not checking all the facts before going public with a story?

The hypocrisy of this Administration is astonishing and this most recent episode is, unfortunately, merely one example of many. Just yesterday Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said in reference to the Newsweek article, “People lost their lives. People are dead. People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be very careful about what they do." I couldn’t agree more. People should be very careful about what they say and do; President Bush and his Cabinet, most of all.

And our whore media wallows deeper into the muck: It is a darn shame that Wolf Blitzer and other leading American journalists did not journalistically probe and bravely demand the truth about White House and Pentagon creativity on that "good story" about why we had to go into Iraq.

Instead, Wolf is blitzed and ditsy about Newsweek. He, like the White House, feels that Newsweek’s "apology" is not enough.

Wolf, I feel your pain.

Retracting a false story that led to the deaths and debilitating injuries of hundreds of thousands of people is something reporters in American ought to do.

Retracting a false story that led to the destruction of a nation is probably consistent with journalistic ethics, wouldn’t you think, Wolf?

Retracting a false story that incited a civil war and placed 150,000 U.S. troops right in the middle of it – each young American man and woman the easy target of every faction – yes, that would be journalistically noble.

Oh, I’m sorry, Wolf. I was confusing you with a real journalist, and not a government apologist, collaborator, propagandist and in the ways that count, a culpable war criminal.

They didn’t hang Joseph Goebbels, of course. That old master of the government spin and the big lie stayed with his government leader until the end. When the end became undeniable, first he murdered his children, and then his wife. Finally, he committed suicide.

Just like U.S. journalism in the 21st century. To end on a happy note, let me say it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.

US Military News

They should have flushed a Koran – it’s much safer: Two Army officers staged mock executions of Iraqi prisoners in 2003 and were given career-ending punishments, according to military officials and newly released documents.

Mock executions - in which a prisoner is made to believe his death is imminent - are expressly prohibited as a form of torture, according to the Army field manual.

The details of the investigations into the two officers were described in documents sought by the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The Army provided the documents to reporters on Tuesday.

Ominous numbers: Last month, Army recruiters fell 42 percent short of their goal, according to the Army Recruiting Command. They had hoped to sign up 6,600 volunteers; but despite bonuses of up to $20,000 for those willing to report by May 30, they fell 2,779 recruits short.

Those numbers are ominous. If they continue in the months to come, as seems likely, they threaten not merely our ability to stick it out in Iraq, but also the Army's long-term ability to perform its duties worldwide. And the reason for that decline is obvious.

In April of 2004, around the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, 73 percent of Americans believed the war was worthwhile; only 23 percent did not, according to a CNN/Gallup poll. So recruiters had little trouble filling their quotas.

Today, though, only 41 percent of Americans believe the war was worthwhile, while 57 percent do not.

Oh, yes, and don't forget to screw the vets: Plans by the Department of Veterans Affairs to overhaul the hospital computing system suffered a blow on May 12 when the House Appropriations subcommittee recommended that the project's funding be significantly cut for next year. The VA had requested $311 million for fiscal year 2006, which was expected to be the first installment on a 10-year plan totaling $3.5 billion. The committee recommended that the computer overhaul, called HealtheVet-VistA, receive only $11 million of the $311 million request.

Today In Turkey

Regional destabilization, part 1: The juxtaposition--lentils and land mines--sums up the day-to-day existence of life in this troubled region where people are trapped in the middle of a newly resurrected struggle between the Turkish military and Kurdish separatists. The 15-year conflict in this part of Turkey claimed 37,000 lives and ended officially in 1999 when Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, was captured and called for a unilateral cease-fire.

But sporadic violence returned to the region after the PKK called off the truce last year and Turkey said that rebels were slipping across the border from training camps in northern Iraq. The violence has spiked in the past month, with more than 20 reported dead in the last week alone. Kurdish rebels now are threatening to bring the battle from the sparsely populated southeast to Turkey's cities and tourist destinations.

Turkey has complained repeatedly over the last year that U.S. has ignored the presence of PKK camps in northern Iraq. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to take up the issue with President Bush when he visits Washington early next month.

Regional destabilization, part 2: Turkish Police in Siirt province, near Iraq border, said two suicide bombers were killed late on Monday after officers foiled their attack on the governor's house. One bomber had killed himself, while another died trying to escape police. A police officer was wounded. Four Kurdist terrorists and four Turkish soldiers were killed in separate incidents in Turkey's southeast. The PKK threatens to expand the attacks in the region. The PKK has military bases in Northern Iraq and uses the region as a centre for its attacks. Another two PKK terrorists, including a Syrian national, died in a gun battle with security forces in remote Hakkari province, which borders Iraq and Iran.

Talk Is Cheap

But it’s a start: This past weekend, at the California State Democratic Party Convention in Los Angeles, the largest gathering of state-party Democrats in the nation, activists with Progressive Democrats of America successfully lobbied 2,000 delegates to pass a resolution calling for the termination of the occupation of Iraq. The resolution included specific language demanding the withdrawal of American troops from that country. "The California Democratic party," reads the resolution in part, "calls for the termination of the occupation...of American troops in Iraq."

This victory is a powerful statement not only to the national Democratic party but to the Republican administration and the majority in Congress.

The resolution passed in California this weekend is more than mere words on a piece of paper. The document itself, along with the activism that created it, is a starting point, a blueprint for future action that must be taken in every state in the nation. PDA, with your help, intends to take the work from this weekend and duplicate it in legislature after legislature, until our combined voices carry our soldiers out of Iraq and home to their families.

Commentary

Interview:

MARGARET WARNER: Ellen Knickmeyer, welcome. Thanks for joining us. Give us a sense, first of all, how big this Marine offensive was in the west, and why did they launch it now?

ELLEN KNICKMEYER: It was the largest operation they've had since Fallujah. At one point they had -- when I was watching, they had helicopters up in the air, they had bomber planes above and Marines on the ground and U.S. Army people on the River Euphrates. So it was a pretty big and coordinated attack.

MARGARET WARNER: And then you wrote a gripping account of the combat in Ubaydi, including the fact that the insurgents seem incredibly well-equipped in the form of armaments; in some degree better than the Marines?

ELLEN KNICKMEYER: Right. Right. The Marines had everything, all the kinds of weapons that the insurgents did, and more, but Marines on a firefight don't carry all those weapons around with them, so they initially they were out-shot by the insurgents. There was the one house where the insurgents had what they thought were foreign fighters had armor-piercing bullets, so that they were lying on the crawl space of the house and firing to the floor, to the inner walls and to the outer walls at Marines as soon as they came in, as soon as they stood at the door and machine gun bullets. And they could go so hard and so fast that they were going not just through that house, but other houses next door.

MARGARET WARNER: The New York Times reported that the Marines have gone on a crash program to equip and armor themselves because they're so upset about having the lack of sufficient armor. Were the Marines that you were embedded with, did they ever complain to you about their equipment?

ELLEN KNICKMEYER: You know, about the armor, they didn't complain, but they did say they had just welded on a bunch of metals and so the vehicles that we were riding around in, they had just attached steel plates to them, or put steel plates on the bottom of the floor, to guard against mines and stuff. It's something they had to do themselves.

Editorial: The installation of a new government in Iraq has done nothing to end the fighting between adherents of the rival branches of Islam, Sunnis and Shiites. Sunni insurgents have killed more than 400 people since the new regime was announced last month. Now Shiites appear to be taking revenge on Sunnis, a nightmare threatening to fracture the nation. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Iraq Sunday was an important reminder of the large U.S. stake in having the country ruled by a government that reflects Sunni and Shiite Arabs and the Kurds, who are Sunni but not Arab. Nearly 140,000 U.S. troops remain in the nation more than two years after the invasion, and it still isn't clear whether the legacy of American occupation will be a functioning constitutional democracy or outright civil war.

Although Shiites have largely forsaken revenge since Hussein was ousted, that appears to be changing. On the day of Rice's visit, nearly three dozen bodies thought to be Sunnis slain by Shiites were found in several locations in or near Baghdad. Other large-scale killings in recent weeks also have been blamed on retaliating Shiites. If revenge attacks gain more momentum, the government's fledgling security forces may not have the ability to stop the violence.

Comment: So far this month, more than 450 Iraqis and dozens of U.S. troops have been killed by an Iraqi insurgency that, even after two years, shows signs of intensifying. Yet the Bush administration, which originally expected U.S. troops to be greeted as liberators and then promised that elections would fatally undermine the rebel cause, remains clueless as to the composition of this virulent enemy. "The Mystery of the Insurgency" was the headline on a Sunday New York Times article reporting on the consensus of U.S. guerrilla warfare experts that the insurgents' motives and actions are simply baffling. However, "it clearly makes sense to the people who are doing it," said defense analyst Loren B. Thompson. "And that more than anything else tells us how little we understand the region."

What we do know about the region is that elements from two formerly implacably opposed forces — secular pan-Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism — have come to be unified, at least temporarily, in their hatred of the U.S. occupation of the historical center of the Arab world. That foreboding alliance is a direct consequence of a White House policy based on willful ignorance of history.

Opinion: In the old days, war profiteering was a grueling round-the-clock job. You actually had to make something, like planes or guns, and then overcharge the government obscenely. Now, thanks to the Republicans, countless Americans are becoming "war profiteers" in their spare time - and you can, too. Riches once thought to be the exclusive preserve of a few unsavory arms merchants have been made available to thousands of successful Americans, many of whom pull in the cash literally as they sleep!

What's their secret? With "The Republican Guide to Wartime Tax Cuts," you can find out what's in the playbook of Republican professionals. You'll get the war you want without laying out a dime, even as you benefit from huge tax cuts to boot (note: certain income thresholds apply).

And here's the kicker: you can slip the bill for all of this - both the war and your tax cut - to unsuspecting children!

Excellent questions: Is there anyone left other than delusional neocons, Bush-admin propagandists and personality-disordered jingoists who could say we have planted a flowering democracy in Iraq rather than opened a can of virulent worms? Is there anyone left who could intelligently gainsay last week’s headline, “Iraq on edge of civil war … if nation isn't already in one”?

Is there anyone left who sees anything but lasting anarchy in just one day’s reporting? “A roadside bomb … killed two civilians and wounded four. [An] Iraqi Army unit was attacked by a roadside bomb … killing four soldiers. A mortar fell on the College of Engineering, killing two students and wounding 12 others. Armed men … opened fire on an Iraqi National Guard patrol, killing two civilians and wounding three people. An officer in the Ministry of Defense was attacked ‘by a large terrorist group.’ Escort guards opened fire, killing four of the attackers.”

Is there anyone left who could read the rest of this single-day report without a wrenching sickness in the pit of the stomach? “Armed men attacked a primary school as students were taking an examination. Two teachers were killed and many were wounded. [T]he same group opened fire on local shops, leaving at least one man dead. A police officer and his wife were killed by an unidentified armed group and their three children were badly wounded. The bodies of three beheaded men were found. This follows the discovery on Sunday of the bodies of 46 people who had been killed.”

Is there anyone left who doesn’t recall the millions of prewar voices who predicted all this?

Comment: Power, the argument runs, can shape truth: power, in the end, can determine reality, or at least the reality that most people accept—a critical point, for the administration has been singularly effective in its recognition that what is most politically important is not what readers of The New York Times believe but what most Americans are willing to believe. The last century's most innovative authority on power and truth, Joseph Goebbels, made the same point but rather more directly:

“There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be "the man in the street." Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.”

I thought of this quotation when I first read the Downing Street memorandum; but I had first looked it up several months earlier, on December 14, 2004, after I had seen the images of the newly reelected President George W. Bush awarding the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor the United States can bestow, to George Tenet, the former director of central intelligence; L. Paul Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq; and General (ret.) Tommy Franks, the commander who had led American forces during the first phase of the Iraq war. Tenet, of course, would be known to history as the intelligence director who had failed to detect and prevent the attacks of September 11 and the man who had assured President Bush that the case for Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction was "a slam dunk." Franks had allowed the looting of Baghdad and had generally done little to prepare for what would come after the taking of Baghdad. ("There was little discussion in Washington," as "C" told the Prime Minister on July 23, "of the aftermath after military action.") Bremer had dissolved the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police and thereby created 400,000 or so available recruits for the insurgency. One might debate their ultimate responsibility for these grave errors, but it is difficult to argue that these officials merited the highest recognition the country could offer.

Of course truth, as the master propagandist said, is "unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology." He of course would have instantly grasped the psychological tactic embodied in that White House ceremony, which was one more effort to reassure Americans that the war the administration launched against Iraq has been a success and was worth fighting. That barely four Americans in ten are still willing to believe this suggests that as time goes on and the gap grows between what Americans see and what they are told, membership in the "reality-based community" may grow along with it. We will see. Still, for those interested in the question of how our leaders persuaded the country to become embroiled in a counterinsurgency war in Iraq, the Downing Street memorandum offers one more confirmation of the truth. For those, that is, who want to hear.

Casualty Reports

Local story: West Hartford, CT, Marine, killed near Qaim, buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Local story: Lake Oswego, OR, soldier killed in explosion south of Tikrit.

Local story: Farfield, OH, Marine killed in Iraq.

Local story: Manassas, VA, soldier seriously injured in roadside explosion in Ramadi.

Local story: Eggville, MS, Marine killed in Nasser Wa Salaam.

Local story: Bordentown City, NJ, security contractor on his third Iraq tour working for Blackwell killed by sniper fire in Ramadi.

Local story: Oneco, FL, American Legion post renamed to honor a local Marine killed in April, 2004, in Al Anbar province. He was 19 years old.

War News for Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Bring ‘em on: The bodies of at least 21 Iraqi males, blindfolded and with bound hands, have been found in Al-Sha’ab and Ur neighborhoods of Baghdad and in the town of Al-Mada’in. Two survivors were found and reported that they had been arrested and shot by men dressed in Iraqi army uniforms. (These bodies are in addition to the 34 reported in yesterday’s post.) Two Iraqi security contractors killed, two Iraqi and one American contractors wounded in eastern Baghdad roadside bombing. Five Iraqi soldiers killed, seven soldiers and three civilians wounded in bombing in Baquba. One Iraqi security guard killed and two female students wounded in mortar attack at Baghdad University School of Engineering. One Iraqi civilian killed and one wounded in drive-by shooting in Mosul. One of Ayatollah Sistani’s aides and the aide’s nephew killed in Baghdad drive-by shooting.

Bring ‘em on: Three clerics, two Shiite and one Sunni, assassinated in Baghdad in separate incidents. An engineer working for the Commission on Public Integrity, which probes corruption in Iraq, assassinated in Baghdad. Bodies of three Iraqi soldiers, one beheaded, found near Qaim. One US soldier killed, one wounded, in roadside bombing just south of Tikrit. Four Iraqi soldiers killed and three wounded in fighting outside a power plant in Mussayib.

Bring ‘em on: US troops, backed by attack helicopters, battled insurgents in Mosul. Heavy exchanges of gunfire were reported.

Lines in the sand: The morning news from Iraq today brought fresh chronicles of slaughter. Yes, even more than usual. American troops are waging an offensive they call Operation Matador in a remote stretch of desert near the Syrian border, while suicide bombs are going off in Iraq’s towns and cities, including the capital. Who’s winning? Who’s losing? Who knows?

The military and political future of Iraq remains so uncertain that the Pentagon in recent months has gone back to the Vietnam-era practice of citing bodycounts as measures of success. We’re told, for instance, that “as many as 100” insurgent fighters have been killed by the Matador forces. But of course that’s just a guesstimate, while the toll on the Americans and their Iraqi allies is all too concrete. Today alone, the insurgents managed to kill more than 60 would-be Iraqi military recruits and civilian bystanders in urban Iraq. The Americans are drawing lines in the sand, it would seem, while Tikrit and Baghdad are bathed in blood. Meanwhile, the total number of American dead in this war is now more than 1,600. And the Iraqi civilians killed by U.S. troops? Well, we’ll get back to that.

Iraqi sentiment: The occupation of Iraq is today less about rolling back Iraqi military power, dislodging a tyrant, or building a stable democracy than it is about fighting an insurgency -- an insurgency that is now driven substantially by the occupation, its practices, and policies. We can take a first step toward understanding the insurgency by locating it within the broader field of popular Iraqi opposition to the occupation, which is widespread. Iraqi public opinion has been polled repeatedly since the beginning of the occupation by a variety of firms. Their findings leave no doubt about the main contours of Iraqi sentiment regarding the occupation:

- On balance, Iraqis oppose the US presence in Iraq, and those who strongly oppose it greatly outnumber those who strongly support it.

- US troops in Iraq are viewed broadly as an occupying force, not peacekeepers or liberators.

- On balance, Iraqis do not trust US troops, think they have behaved badly, and -- one way or another -- hold them responsible for much of the violence in the nation.

- There is significant popular support for attacks on US forces, and this support probably grew larger during the course of 2004, at least among Sunni Arabs.

- A majority of Iraqis want coalition forces to leave within a year or less. Formation of a permanent government early in 2006 is the "tipping point" after which a very large majority of Iraqis may desire immediate withdrawal.

Although disconcerting, these results provide the most reliable view of Iraqi attitudes available. The fact that they have played little role in the public discourse on the Iraqi mission imperils US policy and contributes to the present impasse.

Warnings and laughter: British defence chiefs have warned United States military commanders in Iraq to change their rules for opening fire or face becoming bogged down in a terrorist war for a decade or more.

The Telegraph has learnt that the warning was issued last month in response to a series of incidents that led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians, mainly at checkpoints, after soldiers opened fire in the mistaken belief that they were being attacked by suicide bombers.

According to senior British officers, US military operations are typified by "force protection" - the protection of troops at all costs - that allows American troops to open fire, using whatever means available, if they believe that their lives are under threat.

By contrast, the British military has a graduated response to a threat and its rules of engagement are based on the principle of minimum force. Troops also have to justify their actions in post-operation reports that are reviewed by the Royal Military Police, and any discrepancy can lead to charges including murder.

The officer said: "US troops have the attitude of shoot first and ask questions later. They simply won't take any risk.

"I explained that their tactics were alienating the civil population and could lengthen the insurgency by a decade. Unfortunately, when we explained our rules of engagement which are based around the principle of minimum force, the US troops just laughed."

Essential services not impeded: Marines said Saturday they "successfully completed Operation Matador," a weeklong hunt for insurgents along the Syrian border that left nine Marines and more than 125 insurgents dead.

The offensive was launched May 7 to counter the escalation in insurgent attacks throughout Iraq. The rise in violence coincided with the period in which the Shiite and Kurdish-dominated transitional government took power. The insurgency is regarded as largely comprised of Sunni Arabs as well as foreigners.

The Marines complimented the hospitality of residents and said essential services and health care were not "impeded" during the operation.

Martial law: Iraq's transitional prime minister has extended the country's state of emergency for another 30 days.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's decree comes amid a deadly insurgent onslaught that started when the new Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated Iraqi government came to power a couple of weeks ago.

The decree essentially puts the country, except for the Kurdish north, under martial law and allows the prime minister to restrict freedom of movement and impose curfews.

The Downing Street Memo

Ignored: For more than 10 days, the U.S. media nearly ignored it, but finally the so-called “Downing Street Memo” is finally gaining traction in the U.S. press. The Los Angeles Times featured a lengthy report on Thursday, and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post followed on Friday. The memo, obtained by the The Sunday Times in London and published on May 1, became a major issue in the closing days of the British elections but received little attention in the United States until a Knight Ridder report on May 6, which E&P carried. A Knight Ridder editor later told E&P that it received surprisingly little pickup. The New York Times has given it little notice. The Washington Post ignored the memo until Pincus’s article, which appeared Friday on page A18. It arrived five days after Post ombudsman Michael Getler revealed that readers had complained about the lack of coverage.

Excuse me, but WTF? A major paper refuses to cover a major story until its readers complain so much that it has to? Merciful heavens. Remember the NYT just a week or so ago did some articles on why the traditional media has no credibility any more? The one where they concluded they have to increase their religion coverage and spend more print on the red states? Hey guys – here’s a clue for you. Want people to take your news coverage seriously? Try covering the god damned news!

Denied: Claims in a recently uncovered British memo that intelligence was "being fixed" to support the Iraq war as early as mid-2002 are "flat out wrong," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday.

McClellan insisted the process leading up to the decision to go to war was "very public" -- and that the decision to invade in March 2003 was taken only after Iraq refused to comply with its "international obligations."

However, McClellan also said he had not seen the "specific memo," only reports of what it contained.

A Billion Here, A Billion There…

More than the rest of the world together?: A Senate committee has approved a $441.6 billion defense bill for fiscal 2006 that envisions spending an additional $50 billion next year for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congress had approved on Tuesday an additional $82 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and to combat terror worldwide, boosting the cost of the global effort since 2001 to more than $300 billion.

Commentary

Opinion: Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA analyst who is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, wrote a piece last week, arguing that the leaked memo offers solid "proof (that) Bush fixed the facts. As long as our evidence, however abundant and persuasive, remained circumstantial, it could not compel belief. It simply is much easier on the psyche to assent to the White House spin machine blaming the Iraq fiasco on bad intelligence than to entertain the notion that we were sold a bill of goods."

Now, given this latest WMD-hype revelation, coupled with former Bush supporters like Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke and Scott Ritter trying to warn the American public that something smells fishy, I would say this is one "conspiracy theory" that merits an independent investigation.

And aren't Bush-backers the same ones always railing about "values" and The Ten Commandments? Interesting that the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness" doesn't seem to matter much to conservatives when it comes to Bush.

A War Crimes Special Counsel -- Why it is Important

by Congressman John Conyers Sat May 14th, 2005 at 20:15:26 PDT On May 5, 2004, shortly after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, President Bush pledged a full investigation, stating "That's what we do in America. We fully investigate; we let everybody see the results of the investigation; and the people will be held to account."

One year later - and now that the election is over -- it appears that this statement was just one in a series of unmet Bush promises. There was never a full investigation - just a few sham hearings in the House and Senate and internal Administration inquiries that never went anywhere. The results were never made fully public. And the only ones held to account were low ranking soldiers, even though we all know that the lax controls and atmosphere of intolerance and abuse came from on high in the White House and the Defense Department.

As a result, as those of you who regularly read Raw Story, Buzzflash, Kos (via Apian), and my own blog know, on Friday, 50 House colleagues and I wrote to Attorney General Gonzales asking him to appoint a special counsel to investigate prisoner abuse and torture in Iraq, Guantanamo and Afghanistan. While there is no guarantee that Gonzales will respond, I believe that the sheer weight of having 51 duly elected Members of Congress pose the request makes it very difficult to simply ignore it. Moreover, merely by making the request, it is my hope that additional information can come forward that will help us pursue justice in this matter. For example, I learned of many of the Ohio voting irregularities after I asked GAO to investigate. I have obtained invaluable research and tips concering the now infamous "Downing Street Memo" based on my reading of the comments to these diaries and my own blog.

This is the only Administration since Watergate that has refused to initiate a single independent inquiry into its own misconduct. I asked for special counsels to investigate the Haliburton, Enron, and Valerie Plane matters to know avail. But now that we have allegations that go to the very core of our international credibility - including the recent charges concerning desecrating the Koran -- it is more important than ever that we have an independent investigation. After all, how can any country take our pleas for democracy and accountability seriously, when we won't even conduct a complete, independent, and credible investigation of credible allegations of war crimes by U.S. officials?

President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales, are you listening? Are you finally prepared to "investigate" to "let everybody see the results" and to hold "the people to ... account?"

Note to Readers: My sincere apologies for the lack of local casualty stories today. I simply ran out of time. I’ll try to do a thorough search tomorrow.

War News for Monday, May 16, 2005 Bring 'em on: Thirty four bodies found in Baghdad, Ramadi and Latifya. Bring 'em on: Two drivers taken hostage in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi journalists and their driver killed in ambush in Mahmudiya. Bring 'em on: Two civilians killed in bomb attack on Iraqi convoy in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Four Iraqi troops killed by mortar attack in Khan Bani Saad. Bring 'em on: Three civilians injured in mortar attack in Baqubah. Bring 'em on: Iraqi policeman and his wife gunned down in Aalgaya. Bring 'em on: Four gunmen killed in failed assassination attempt on Iraqi army general in Baghdad. Sexing up:

Sir John Scarlett, head of MI6, has been accused of trying 'to sex up' a report by the Iraq Survey Group, the body charged with finding weapons of mass destruction after Saddam Hussein was toppled. In an exclusive interview, Dr Rod Barton, a former senior weapons inspector in Iraq, has revealed extraordinary details of how Scarlett and a top Ministry of Defence official intervened in a report by the ISG early last year. Barton, who has worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, was a special adviser to the ISG in 2004 as it prepared to report that they had found no WMD or any programmes to build them. Such a report would have been politically damaging in London in the aftermath of the David Kelly affair. Speaking from Canberra, Barton describes how in January last year he received a visit in Baghdad from Martin Howard, deputy chief of defence intelligence at the MoD. Howard had been criticised for helping to 'out' Kelly as the source of Andrew Gilligan's BBC story alleging Downing Street had 'sexed up' the September dossier on Iraq's WMD. Barton alleges Howard 'spelt out' that Britain's preferred option was that a proposed 200-page ISG interim report should not be published at that stage. Barton claims the CIA overruled their UK counterparts. He alleges that after this Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, tried to get 'nuggets' placed into a shorter report to imply that Saddam did have a WMD programme. According to Barton, these were based on old evidence that had been investigated and shown to be false. It is understood to include suggestions that Saddam was developing a smallpox weapon and using research to create a nuclear programme. Barton added: 'The US has finally come to terms with the fact they got it dead wrong. The UK is lagging far behind. They still haven't come to terms with it.'

Rice the Revisionist (or liar?) "This war came to us, not the other way around."

Appearing Sunday in one of Saddam's former palaces, Rice received loud cheers and applause from U.S. troops and diplomats. "I want you to keep focused on what you are doing here," Rice told them. Although the U.S. decision to launch the war in 2003 was condemned in many nations and the original justification -- Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction -- turned out to be based on flawed intelligence, Rice said, "This war came to us, no the other way around." Referring to the attacks of September 11, 2001, Rice said, "The absence of freedom in the Middle East -- the freedom deficit -- is what produced the ideology of hatred that allowed them to fly airplanes into a building on a fine September day." The old policies of the United States and "the rest of the free world" allowed "ideologies of hatred" to fester, she said.

What about the new policies Condi? e.g. Flushing Korans down toilets. Recruitment crisis:

As the death toll of troops mounts in Iraq and Afghanistan, America's military recruiting figures have plummeted to an all-time low. Thousands of US servicemen and women are now refusing to serve their country. Sergeant Kevin Benderman cannot shake the images from his head. There are bombed villages and desperate people. There are dogs eating corpses thrown into a mass grave. And most unremitting of all, there is the image of a young Iraqi girl, no more than eight or nine, one arm severely burnt and blistered, and the sound of her screams.

Commentary: "The battlefield is a great place for liars"

Iraq is a bloody no man's land. America has failed to win the war. But has it lost it? And in Afghanistan, the Taliban rises again for fighting season "The battlefield is a great place for liars," Stonewall Jackson once said on viewing the aftermath of a battle in the American civil war. The great general meant that the confusion of battle is such that anybody can claim anything during a war and hope to get away with it. But even by the standards of other conflicts, Iraq has been particularly fertile in lies. Going by the claims of President George Bush, the war should long be over since his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech on 1 May 2003. In fact most of the 1,600 US dead and 12,000 wounded have become casualties in the following two years. The ferocious resistance encountered last week by the 1,000-strong US marine task force trying to fight its way into villages around the towns of Qaim and Obeidi in western Iraq shows that the war is far from over. So far nine marines have been killed in the week-long campaign, while another US soldier was killed and four wounded in central Iraq on Friday. Meanwhile, a car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in central Baghdad yesterday, killing at least five Iraqis and injuring 12. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the leader of one of the Kurdish parties, confidently told a meeting in Brasilia last week that there is war in only three or four out of 18 Iraqi provinces. Back in Baghdad Mr Talabani, an experienced guerrilla leader, has deployed no fewer than 3,000 Kurdish soldiers or peshmerga around his residence in case of attack. One visitor was amused to hear the newly elected President interrupt his own relentlessly upbeat account of government achievements to snap orders to his aides on the correct positioning of troops and heavy weapons around his house.

Commentary:

Could it be that we've misclassified the insurgency in Iraq--that it's an invertebrate, able to absorb bone-crushing blows because it has no bones to crush? It seems to be more like a dandelion, which, when smashed, only spreads more seeds. Seven months after U.S. forces leveled the enemy stronghold, the insurgents are causing as much trouble as ever. The lull in violence that followed the January elections was taken to mean the rebels were in disarray. If so, they've regrouped, and Iraq has reverted to chaos. Nearly twice as many Iraqi security personnel died in attacks in March as in January. April was almost as bad. May looks worse still. The last couple of weeks have been among the bloodiest since the U.S. invasion, with more than 420 people killed. The insurgents have been mounting an average of 70 attacks a day, compared to 30 or 40 in March. Fallujah was supposed to make a difference, and so is the recent U.S. offensive in western Iraq. But someone forgot to tell the insurgents. American commanders were surprised at the strength and sophistication of the resistance in this latest campaign. But this war has been full of surprises, none of them pleasant. In April, even before the latest expansion of violence, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency testified, "The insurgency has grown in size and complexity over the last year." Grown in size? We are spawning terrorists faster than we can kill them. This offensive may illustrate why. On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that residents of Qaim were angry at American forces for hitting the town with air strikes and artillery. "They destroyed our city, killed our children, destroyed our houses," one man said. The insurgents, said New York University law professor Noah Feldman, a former official of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, "are getting stronger every passing day." Contrary to assumptions in this country, he told Newsday, "there is no evidence whatsoever that they cannot win."

Opinion Poll: Nearly two-thirds say Iraq now not worth it. Scenes we would like to see.

Uzbekistan

It was my pleasure to bring to President [Karimov] the greetings of President Bush and also to extend to him our thanks for all the support we have received from Uzbekistan in pursuing this campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the world as well. They have been an important member of this coalition against terrorism, and I’m sure they will continue to be so in the future. Colin Powell Joint Press Conference with Karimov December 8, 2001

I was recently in a meeting with . . . Karimov, in which [Bush] said to him: "Yes, I appreciate what you've done in the war on terrorism, this is terrific and we're glad that we were able to deal with the [Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan ]; our relationship will get stronger as you reform economically and politically." And you can never leave those words out of any such conversation. Condoleezza Rice Remarks at School for Advanced International Studies April 29, 2002

I am delighted to be back in Uzbekistan. I’ve just had a long and very interesting and helpful discussion with the President, with the Minister of Defense, and members of the delegation. Uzbekistan is a key member of the coalition’s global war on terror. And I brought the President the good wishes of President Bush and our appreciation for their stalwart support in the war on terror . . . Our relationship is strong and has been growing stronger. Donald Rumsfeld Press Briefing in Uzbekistan February 24, 2004

FERGANA, Uzbekistan - About 500 bodies have been laid out in a school in the eastern Uzbek city where troops fired on a crowd of protesters to put down an uprising, a doctor in the town said on Sunday, corroborating witness accounts of hundreds killed in the fighting. The doctor, who spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity, said that Andijan’s School No. 15 was guarded by soldiers. Residents of the town were coming to identify dead relatives from among the dead, whom the doctor saw placed in rows. The doctor, regarded as widely knowledgeable about local affairs, said she believed some 2,000 people were wounded in the clashes on Friday but it was unclear how she had arrived at her estimate.

War News for Sunday, May 15, 2005 Bring 'em on: Shi'ite cleric and his nephew gunned down in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Senior industry ministry official and his driver assassinated in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: The bodies of thirteen executed Iraqis are found in a dump in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi policemen and two civilians killed and thirty seven injured in twin car bomb attacks on the Governor of Diyala's convoy in Baqubah. Bring 'em on: Director General in Iraq Foreign Ministry assassinated in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: US warplanes bomb targets near Fallujah.* Bring 'em on: Three beheaded corpses found and were apparently tortured in Jurf al-Sakhar. Bring 'em on: Two policemen and two civilians killed in clashes in Samarra. Bring 'em on: One Iraqi policeman killed in grenade attack in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Three Iraqi policemen injured in bomb attack in Baqubah. Bring 'em on: 30 year old detainee dies of "apparent" heart attack in Camp Bucca. Bring 'em on: Bring 'em on for three to nine years according to Richard Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. *According to military reports, the bombing attack near Fallujah was on unoccupied buildings which was an insurgent command centre, later ground troops inspecting the site after the bombings discovered mortar rounds, machine gun ammunition and homemade bomb making materials. There are no reports of casualties. Give me a fucking break; unoccupied insurgent command centre? Meanwhile Operation Matador is over; for the time being because the BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says the operation appears to have exacerbated tribal tensions in the area. Meanwhile Syria moves troops into the area. Condolezza Rice makes surprise visit to Iraq.

Rice flew immediately to the mountain stronghold of Kurdish Democratic Party Massoud Barzani. She rode in an Apache military helicopter under extremely heavy security. Most Iraqi officials learned of the visit only hours before Rice landed in the region aboard a borrowed government plane, said a senior adviser to Rice, Jim Wilkinson "We went to every length possible to keep it from as many people as possible," Wilkinson said.

Is the WAPO finally starting to admit the truth?

Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was "being fixed around the policy," according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street. "Military action was now seen as inevitable," said the notes, summarizing a report by Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, British intelligence, who had just returned from consultations in Washington along with other senior British officials. Dearlove went on, "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Truth? Maybe these guys might have some success?

Some accounts, which are now dismissed out of hand, say that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides to draw up a plan to invade Iraq within 24 hours after the Sept. 11 attacks. Blair somehow survived the revelations in the secret documents and managed to get himself reelected for a record third term for a Labour prime minister of the UK. However, things are changing now and Blair and Bush face awkward and troubling questions, the answers to which could be explosive in political terms both in Washington and London. The British government has not denied the authenticity of the leaked documents and this puts the Bush administration in a tight corner. A group of 89 Democratic congressmen has written to Bush, expressing shock at the revelations and saying that the documents raised “troubling new questions” over the legal justification for the invasion and regarding “the integrity of our administration”. The White House has not responded to the letter which says that if the revelations were correct, Bush's decision to wage war was taken months before he sought congressional authorisation for war in October 2002. Furthermore, the documents would also establish the accuracy of charges that the Bush administration manipulated and created intelligence “findings” to support its case. Effectively, it would also prove as a sinister charade all the talk that the Bush administration offered in public that all diplomatic avenues would be explored before deciding on military action. These revelations, however, pale when one takes note of a message by a group called Sept. 11 Truth Action to the 89 Congress people who have asked for an explanation demanding to know why the administration “fixed” the Iraqi intelligence in order to rationalise the invasion of Iraq. The Sept. 11 Truth Action group is made up of ex-military officials, scientists, lawyers, historians, publishers, researchers and concerned citizens who assert that they are “not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists, but sober, evel-headed analysts”. The group's allegation is startling. It accuses the Bush administration of an “even greater deception” aimed at justifying a pre-planned military agenda. Simply put, the White House is accused of being party to a conspiracy involving senior administration officials that followed the Sept. 11 attacks.

Remember the Iraqi Interim Government? Well arrest warrants are flying! A little bit late? British defence chiefs have warned United States military commanders in Iraq to change their rules for opening fire or face becoming bogged down in a terrorist war for a decade or more. The Telegraph has learnt that the warning was issued last month in response to a series of incidents that led to the deaths of Iraqi civilians, mainly at checkpoints, after soldiers opened fire in the mistaken belief that they were being attacked by suicide bombers. Double standards? Heated criticism was growing last night over 'double standards' by Washington over human rights, democracy and 'freedom' as fresh evidence emerged of just how brutally Uzbekistan, a US ally in the 'war on terror', put down Friday's unrest in the east of the country. Outrage among human rights groups followed claims by the White House on Friday that appeared designed to justify the violence of the regime of President Islam Karimov, claiming - as Karimov has - that 'terrorist groups' may have been involved in the uprising. Critics said the US was prepared to support pro-democracy unrest in some states, but condemn it in others where such policies were inconvenient. Local story: Lejeune marine dies from combat wounds suffered in January.

War News for Saturday, May 14, 2005 Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting continues near Qaim. Bring ‘em on: Eight Iraqis killed in attack on US patrol in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, eight wounded by car bomb near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Four US Marines die from wounds received in bomb attack near Qaim. Bring ‘em on: Two US Marines wounded by roadside bomb near Qaim. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi policemen wounded by car bomb in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis killed in car bomb attack on Iraqi police patrol in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi street sweepers killed, three wounded by roadside bomb in Baghdad. Twenty-five US soldiers and Marines killed in the last week. Iraqi government extends state of emergency. Qaim. “There is little information about the fate of Iraqi residents in the region, a large swath of western Iraq in the Jazira desert along the Euphrates. But an official from the Iraqi Red Crescent, the Red Cross aid affiliate, said in an interview on Friday that many families had fled amid shooting and destruction. ‘The situation is very bad there; we are sure that there are civilian victims,’ said Fardous al-Abadi, a spokeswoman for the Red Crescent. As many as 1,000 families have left the city of Qaim, she said, with most seeking refuge in Akashat, while others have traveled as far as Ramadi or have sought shelter in the desert. Iraqi residents from the area told The A.P. that the United States military was attacking with artillery rounds. ‘Most of the people have fled to the desert,’ Samran Mukhlef Abed, a tribal leader in Saadah, told the news service. ‘The Americans are all around,’ he said, ‘and medical services do not exist here. If someone is hurt, we have to take him to cities that are far away from here, and that is impossible with the situation.’" Reality TV. “’Love and War’ does not always live up to Western production standards. Most of it was filmed outdoors in Baghdad, and it sometimes has the improvised look of a student film. But improvisation is part of its charm. Often during the filming, American soldiers walked up, alarmed at the sight of all the cameras, actors and extras. Mr. Jassim often turned the camera onto the soldiers - or the helicopters - and integrated them into the episode. ‘When you put up a microphone, the helicopter pilots always think it's a rocket-propelled grenade or a gun,’ said Mr. Malakh, an elegant 60-year-old who looks, and plays, characters 15 years younger. The constant interruptions often delayed the filming, he said. But they had a side benefit. ‘In other countries getting a tank or a helicopter costs thousands of dollars,’ Mr. Malakh said. ‘Here we get it for free.’ Making the entire first season of ‘Love and War’ cost about $150,000, he said. Home front. “Home is where the news hits and the caskets come. It is where the mother of one Lima Company Marine wrote in an e-mail to another that her son had called from Iraq at 3 a.m. after the twin calamities: ‘He was crying and said 'It sucks over here' and that he was scared. (This is so out of character for him.)’ It is where another mother wrote, ‘I just heard on the news that Lima Company lost six Marines yesterday. Is this true? I can't stop crying. . . . What are they talking about? Please let me know what is happening.’ The young warriors come from Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois. They are "white-collar, blue-collar, no collar. We have college students. We have roughneck construction guys. We have business guys who have committed themselves to the Corps," said former Marine Ken Hiltz. Among them is the son of Mayor Michael B. Coleman. A patchwork of relatives, friends and colleagues has spent the week trying to reassure one another even as they have struggled to hold themselves together. Those who lost a son are seeking meaning.” Swanker of the Day: Jack Kelly. “MORE than 400 people have been killed in Iraq in the last two weeks, including at least five U.S. Marines taking part in Operation Matador in western Iraq. A reader wants to know if, in light of this upsurge in violence, I still believe, as I wrote in a column Feb. 27, that ‘the war in Iraq is all but won.’ My answer is emphatically yes. The body count is up because two offensives are under way. The insurgents have launched a suicide bombing campaign in an effort to destabilize the new Iraqi government. The Marines are clearing out the rats' nests in western Iraq to which insurgents fled after they were expelled from their stronghold in Fallujah last November.” Commentary Editorial:

Because of the slaughter and oppression Saddam Hussein visited on those who dared oppose him in his time of weakness following the 1991 Gulf War, a simple U.S. withdrawal has been deemed untenable, even unconscionable. But, with Saddam in custody and his hierarchy largely destroyed, would what might take place in the vacuum of a U.S. withdrawal be worse than what we've visited on the Iraqi people to date? It may well be time to wonder whether the U.S. military presence in Iraq is what's holding the center or what's making things fall apart. Once left to stand on its own, will any Iraqi government coddled by U.S. military force ever be considered legitimate by the majority of the Iraqi people, and the broader Arab world? Then again, having now imposed our will upon Iraq by military force, the United States may never be able to leave. Remember that liberating the Iraqi people was a kind of "Plan C" for the invasion, once the imminent threat of weapons of mass destruction and the allegations of Saddam's intimate connection with terrorists dissolved. When Americans beat the drums for war in post-9/11 shock, did they realize it was a cadence to which their grandchildren might have to march?

Opinion:

NPR reporter Philip Reeves followed American soldiers around Mosul. At one point, the soldiers decided to take over a civilian house for two hours as a surveillance post. A lieutenant said to the surprised family of the house, ''Listen to me. Let me make this really clear for you. We need to be in your house for two hours. Everybody in this house will stay here." When the family continue to appear to be ''baffled and unhappy," another soldier stepped in and said (with obscenities bleeped out by NPR): ''Look, check this out. You tell them this. You're not [bleep] leaving. Nobody's [bleep] leaving this house. You're not using the phone. Anybody comes, they're going to [bleep] stay here. OK? You give me a [bleep] hard time, I'll turn you [bleep] guys into the commandos, and they'll [bleep] you up." In the background, one soldier said, ''Hey don't translate that." Another soldier added, ''Yeah, don't say that." The soldier with the foul mouth said, ''That's what I tell them all the time." Again, a soldier said, ''You shouldn't say that." Bush has boasted how ''Iraqis have laid the foundations of a free society, with hundreds of independent newspapers." The reality was a bit more totalitarian. The featured soldiers handed out a newspaper full of favorable news about the US-installed government. When they saw that two young Iraqis had ripped up the newspaper, a soldier took one aside and asked, ''Why are you ripping up the paper? Why are you ripping up the paper?" A staff sergeant told NPR, ''When a guy tears up a paper in my face, it looks like he's disrespecting everything we're trying to do. Maybe he knows somebody. Or maybe he is somebody. But it's just blatant for him to tear it up in my face and then lie about it. It's blatant. He blatantly disrespected everything that we're trying to accomplish." Finally a supervising soldier, playing the benevolent occupier, told the young Iraqi, ''If you tore up the paper, that's fine. If you didn't tear up the paper, that's fine. Don't tear up the papers in the future, OK?" This is not to tear up the soldiers. They are but pawns of President Bush, who declared major combat operations over under the banner of ''Mission Accomplished" two years ago. If all that soldiers can now accomplish is curse at baffled Iraqi families and berate people in the streets for exercising what we consider the right of free speech to tear up a newspaper, then there is no mission.

Thanks to alert reader go long into the day. Casualty Reports Local story: Ohio Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Pennsylvania soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Pennsylvania soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: New Jersey Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Connecticut Marine dies from wounds received in Iraq. Local story: North Carolina soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Wisconsin soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Two Mississippi Marines wounded in Iraq.

War News for Friday, May 13, 2005 Bring 'em on: US convoy ambushed by roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Six US Marines killed, 15 wounded in heavy fighting near Qaim. Bring 'em on: One US soldier killed by roadside bomb near Musayaib. Bring 'em on: One US soldier killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: One US soldier killed, one wounded by roadside bomb near Samarra. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi soldiers, one civilian killed by car bomb near Baquba. Bring 'em on: Iraqi troops ambushed in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Oil pumping station at Athana bombed. Is this progress? "A suicide car bomber steered a white sedan into a street thick with traffic on Thursday and blew himself up, the most deadly in a series of bombing attacks that killed at least 21 people and wounded more than 70, officials and witnesses said. In the aftermath of the attack, an angry crowd gathered, and a policeman at the scene said the crowd turned on American troops who responded to the bombing." Maybe this is progress. "More than two years after Saddam Hussein's fall, 85 percent of Iraqis complain of frequent power outages, only 54 percent have access to clean water and nearly a quarter of Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition, a U.N.-Iraqi survey revealed Thursday. 'The survey, in a nutshell, depicts a rather tragic situation of the quality of life,' said Iraq's new planning minister, Barham Saleh. Although Saleh blamed years of wars, economic mismanagement and repressive policies under Saddam, conditions worsened after the U.S. invasion in 2003, and insurgents now are doing their best to tear down the economy, averaging 70 attacks a day at the start of May. The U.S. reconstruction effort also has drawn criticism. Last week, government investigators said U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq cannot properly account for nearly $100 million promised for projects in south-central Iraq. The survey, conducted last year by the U.N. Development Program and the Planning Ministry, paints a picture of persistent misery for many Iraqis." Asshole. "At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated Thursday that the insurgency could last for many more years. 'This requires patience,' he said at a news conference. 'This is a thinking and adapting adversary . . . I wouldn't look for results tomorrow. One thing we know about insurgencies, that they last from three, four years to nine years.'" Colonel Karpinski sounds off. "Colonel Janis Karpinski said General Geoffrey Miller introduced the use of human pyramids and dog leashes in the abuse of detainees and said in an interview on Thursday that abuse may still be continuing there. Karpinski, a former one-star Army Reserve general who was punished in the scandal, said she had no idea what was going on at the prison and blamed Miller for the methods that were used to humiliate detainees. Miller headed the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and was sent to Iraq to recommend improvements in intelligence gathering and detention operations there. 'I believe that General Miller gave them the ideas, gave them the instruction on what techniques to use,' she said in excerpts from an interview on the ABC News Nightline programme." Civil war. "With security experts reporting that no major road in the country was safe to travel, some Iraq specialists speculated that the Sunni insurgency was effectively encircling the capital and trying to cut it off from the north, south and west, where there are entrenched Sunni communities. East of Baghdad is a mostly unpopulated desert bordering on Iran. 'It's just political rhetoric to say we are not in a civil war. We've been in a civil war for a long time,' said Pat Lang, the former top Middle East intelligence official at the Pentagon." Recruiting crisis. "Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, in a telephone interview, said the Army would most likely start its fiscal year this October with the smallest pool of recruits ready for boot camp in at least a decade. He said that by then, only 9.9 percent of the roughly 80,000 new active-duty soldiers the Army needs next year to replenish the ranks in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere were expected to be in the pipeline. Normally, as the Army begins its recruiting year, it has a goal of having already-signed contracts with one in every three of the year's expected arrivals - a cushion that helps recruiters through the slow winter months. But this year, the Army started with one in five, and if General Rochelle's prediction is correct, next year will begin with only one in 10." Call for cannon fodder. "The Army, faced with a severe and growing shortage of recruits, began offering 15-month active-duty enlistments nationwide Thursday, the shortest tours ever. The typical enlistment lasts three or four years; the previous shortest enlistment was two years. Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, the head of the Army Recruiting Command, said 2006 could be even worse than this year, a continuation of 'the toughest recruiting climate ever faced by the all-volunteer Army.' Recruits in the new 15-month program could serve in 59 of the more than 150 jobs in the Army, including the combat infantry, and then serve two years in the Reserve or National Guard. They would finish their eight-year military obligation in the Guard or Reserve, volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps, or the Individual Ready Reserve, a pool of former active-duty troops who can still be called to duty but aren't affiliated with any military unit." Fifteen month active duty tours? Subtract a twelve-month combat tour in Afghanistan or Iraq, and 30 days of leave and that leaves two months for training. This sounds like a crock of shit. Female soldiers. "Dozens of soldiers interviewed across Iraq -- male and female, from lower enlisted ranks to senior officers -- voiced frustration over restrictions on women mandated in Washington that they say make no sense in the war they are fighting. All said the policy should be changed to allow, at a minimum, mixed-sex support units to be assigned to combat battalions. Many favored a far more radical step: letting qualified women join the infantry. But Congress is moving in the opposite direction. A House subcommittee, seeking to keep women out of combat, passed a measure this week that would bar women from thousands of Army positions now open to them. In Iraq, female soldiers immediately denounced the vote." But conservative chickenhawks have other opinions of female soldiers. "Republican representatives on Wednesday sought a ban on women in combat support units despite objections from the Army that the limits could confuse soldiers fighting overseas. The House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel passed a measure along party lines as part of the 2006 defense budget. It would prohibit female soldiers from joining forward support companies, defined as any unit supporting a ground combat battalion or even located in that battalion's operating area." Are we safer yet? "Anti-American violence spread to 10 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces and into Pakistan on Thursday as four more protesters died in a third day of demonstrations and clashes with the police." Snark of the day. "Baghdad: You fly in for the human rights violations, but stay for the suicide bombings. Scotland's Air Scotland, known for its low-budget flights, wants to be the first airline to offer a flight from the United Kingdom to war-torn Iraq. The owner a British national, who, incidentally, was born in Iraq, wants to offer the flight so badly he's not even waiting for things like, oh, political stability, personal security or and end to martial law to turn up in the country. Air Scotland formally petitioned the United Kingdom's Department of Transportation to launch twice-weekly flights to Iraq's capital." Wingnuts. "An Air Force chaplain who complained that evangelical Christians were trying to "subvert the system" by winning converts among cadets at the Air Force Academy was removed from administrative duties last week, just as the Pentagon began an in-depth study of alleged religious intolerance among cadets and commanders at the school. 'They fired me,' said Capt. MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran minister who was removed as executive officer of the chaplain unit on May 4. .They said I should be angry about these outside groups who reported on the strident evangelicalism at the academy. The problem is, I agreed with those reports.'" The service academy with a record of sex scandals is also infested with religion-baiting evangelical Christians. Does anybody else see a connection? Commentary Editorial: "Like Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Hagel dismissed as 'nonsense' his fellow Republicans' argument that opposing Mr. Bolton would mean opposing U.N. reform. Unlike Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Hagel said he was supporting the Bolton nomination. We agreed strongly when he said this issue should not be partisan. But Mr. Hagel couldn't come up with much to explain his decision beyond a partisan desire to support his president. Another Republican, Norm Coleman, said bluntly that Mr. Bolton should be confirmed simply because Mr. Bush won the election. That's the weak argument that has already led to the promotion of too many administration officials whose efforts to make reality conform to the White House's policy preferences have caused untold harm to American interests. Now that the Foreign Relations Committee has forwarded the Bolton nomination to the Senate floor without any recommendation, we hope that enough Republicans care enough about America's image and national security to refuse to go down that road again." Opinion: "Incompetent journalists, criminally negligent journalists or liars who are complicit in the mass deception of the American people; there are no other ways whatsoever to describe the men and women who comprise the corporate news institutions of the United States. From the hired face you see every day on the boob tube to the journalism intern every person currently employed in the corporate media today has some soul searching to do." Casualty Reports Local story: Texas soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Louisiana soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Ohio soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Louisiana soldier dies from wounds received in Iraq.

War News for Thursday, May 12, 2005 Bring 'em on: Twelve killed in car bomb attack in central Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Seventeen killed in car bomb attack in Shia market area in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Two marines killed and 14 injured in bomb attack near the Syrian border. Bring 'em on: Iraqi army general assassinated in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Iraqi police colonel assassinated in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Car bomb kills two in Kirkuk. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi civilians injured in car bomb attack on US convoy in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Oil infrastructure attacked in Kirkuk. Bring 'em on: Families flee as attacks on Al Qaim continue. Bring 'em on: Large explosions heard near Japanese base in Samara. Bring 'em on: Two Iraqi soldiers killed in attack in Baghdad. Bring 'em on: Dutch troops involved in firefight in Basra. Bring 'em on: Two killed and twenty injured in explosion in Umm Qasr. A Failed State? The UN is warning that Iraq is becoming a transient country for drug runners. The president of the International Narcotics Control Board says traffickers from Afghanistan have begun using Iraq to get to Jordan, where they send drugs to Europe and Asia. He also says the drug runners work with terrorists and insurgents, which further fuels the fighting in Iraq. The official (Hamid Ghodse) says Iraqi leaders, as well as international officials, need to do something about the matter now before the situation worsens. As he put it, "You cannot have peace, security and development without attending to drug control." Special Report Living in Iraq: Tragic.

The Iraqi people are suffering from a desperate lack of jobs, housing, health care and electricity, according to a survey by Iraqi authorities and the United Nations released on Thursday. Planning Minister Barham Saleh, during a ceremony in Baghdad, blamed the dire living conditions in most of the country on decades of war but also on the shortcomings of the international community. "The survey, in a nutshell, depicts a rather tragic situation of the quality of life in Iraq," Saleh said in English at the event, attended by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's deputy representative in Iraq, Staffan de Mistura. The 370-page report entitled "Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004" was conducted over the past year on a representative sample of 22,000 families in all of Iraq's 18 provinces. Eighty-five percent of Iraqi households lacked stable electricity when the survey was carried out. Only 54 percent had access to clean water and 37 percent to sewage. "If you compare this to the situation in the 1980s, you will see a major deterioration of the situation," said the newly-appointed minister, pointing out that 75 percent of households had clean water two decades ago. The report "shows a contrast between the potential of Iraq, with all the human and natural resources that we have, and the unfortunate lack of development and lack of quality of life we are suffering from," Saleh said. The survey put the unemployment figure at 18.4 percent, but Saleh explained that "under-employment" topped the 50-percent mark.

Near neighbour getting concerned: The opposition in Pakistan's Lower House of the Parliament on Thursday called for a full-fledged debate on the volatile situation in Iraq in the House. On behalf of the combined opposition, lawmaker Mahmood Khan Achakzai, on a point of order in the National Assembly, proposed that the House should debate on-going bloodshed in the Muslim country. He was of the view that after the debate, the House should pass a resolution and it be dispatched to the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Islamic countries. The parliamentarian stressed that the US had failed completely to restore peace and that the United Nations and Europe had their reservations over US-led invasion of Iraq. Achakzai demanded of the Government of Pakistan to adopt a clear-cut policy on Iraq, referring to sudden increase in the acts of terror. Pakistan opposed the war option vis-a-vis Iraq and declined to send troops after its occupation.

War News for Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Bring ‘em on: Newly elected governor of Al-Anbar province kidnapped by gunmen in Qaim. His son was with him at the time of the kidnapping but it is unclear whether he was kidnapped too.

Bring ‘em on: 30 people killed and 35 injured, about 15 critically, in suicide bombing outside a police and army recruitment center in Hawija. Two civilians wounded in car bomb attack in the New Baghdad area of the capital.

Bring ‘em on: 31 people killed and at least 66 injured in car bombing of a marketplace in Tikrit. Nine people wounded in car bomb attack in Baghdad’s al-Mansour neighborhood.

Bring ‘em on: Three US Marines killed in Al-Anbar province, two as a result of indirect fire in Karmah and one in an IED explosion in Nasser Wa Sallam.

Bring ‘em on: One woman civilian killed and three policemen wounded in suicide car bomb attack on a police patrol in the Yarmouk area of west Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Three people killed and 10 injured in suicide car bombing of a police station in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad. Six people injured in two other bombings, one of them targeting an American convoy in the Jamiaa neighborhood. Nine people killed and scores injured in Tuesday suicide bombings targeting an American convoy and a river police station in Baghdad.

Reuters keeps score: Suicide bombs killed at least 59 people in Iraq on Wednesday, the latest in a blitz of attacks since the formation of a new government on April 28.

Nearly 400 people have died in attacks in the last two weeks.

Here is a short chronology of some of the deadliest bomb attacks since the new cabinet was announced:

May 1 - A bombing hits a funeral for a Kurdish official in Tal Afar, near Mosul in northern Iraq, killing at least 30 people.

May 4 - Suicide bomber kills up to 60 people at Kurdistan Democratic Party office in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil. The militant Army of Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility.

May 6 - A suicide car bomb at a vegetable market in Suwayra, south of Baghdad, kills 31 people. A little known Muslim group, Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions), claimed responsibility.

May 7 - Two suicide car bombs explode beside a foreign civilian security convoy in Baghdad, killing 22 people including two Americans. Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility.

May 11 - Four suicide bombs kill at least 59 people. A car bomber in the northern town of Tikrit killed at least 28 people among a crowd of mainly Shi'ite migrant workers. In Hawija, southwest of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber killed at least 25 people at an army recruitment centre. Another car bomber killed at least three civilians near a police station in the southern Baghdad suburb of Dora. A suicide car bomb attack on a police patrol in the Mansour district of Baghdad killed two policemen and a civilian.

Stumped: The paradox that stumped the U.S. occupation forces two years ago, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, continues to stump them today. On the one hand, their efforts to provide security won't succeed until they restore essential services. On the other hand, they can't restore essential services until the country's key assets—especially its roads, oil pipelines, and electrical generators—are secure.

Oil revenue was supposed to galvanize Iraq's postwar economy. Yet crude oil production has flattened out at around 2 million barrels a day, well below its prewar level of 2.5 million. Electrical power production hovers around 80,000 kilowatt hours—considerably short of the 100,000 KWH output before the war and far below last summer's declared goal of 120,000. Baghdad homes have electricity for nine to 11 hours a day; in other cities, the figure drops to eight or nine hours.

Iraq's reconstruction was going to be funded by a massive infusion of U.S. aid, $18.4 billion worth. Yet that aid—allocated a year and a half ago—is being directed and disbursed very slowly. Just $12.8 billion (roughly two-thirds) has been appropriated—and a mere $4.8 billion (less than one-quarter) has been spent.

Yet progress in security is moving slowly, too. Of the $5 billion in U.S. aid allocated to security and law enforcement, $2 billion (or 40 percent) has been spent. The inspector general's report cites March testimony by Joseph A. Christoff, director of the Government Accountability Project's international affairs and trade division: "As of mid-December 2004," Christoff told a House government reform subcommittee, "paramilitary training for a high-threat hostile environment was not part of the curriculum for new recruits" to the Iraqi security forces. By early 2005, he continued, multinational training commanders had only "begun work on a system to assess Iraqi capabilities." Moreover, "It is unclear at this time whether the system under development will provide adequate measures for determining the capability of Iraqi police."

Symptomatic: The military offensive now under way in northwestern Iraq, coming on the heels of the November attack on Fallujah, is symptomatic of the limitations of the size of the American force assigned to the region, U.S. military officers said Tuesday.

"The enemy is trying very hard to establish a sanctuary somewhere, and the small force structure out west makes it inviting for him," said a commander with significant time spent in Anbar province. "We had been watching that linkage since pre-Fallujah," he told United Press International, a reference to the November battle that ousted insurgents from that stronghold.

The problem, according to other military commanders, is that with such a large area and relatively few troops, there are many pockets where the U.S. security presence is not felt at all.

That was exacerbated during the November Fallujah fight as some 7,000 U.S. forces were pulled from western outposts to carry out the assault. When they leave, even for a short time, it allows insurgents to gain a toehold.

This gives insurgent forces temporary sanctuaries from which they can make good on threats against those who cooperate with American forces, a second senior official said.

The problem, according to other senior officials, is that the insurgency is a mobile one, and without more troops the hunt for them has evolved into an endless cat-and-mouse game. One commander in Iraq last year compared the province to a half-filled water balloon: If you step on one end, the water just squeezes out to the other.

A month before the war in 2003, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress he believed the occupying force could require "several hundred thousand" troops, a figure Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz later called "wildly off the mark."

Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee he considered the matter closed.

"I must say I am tired of the Shinseki argument being bandied about day after day in the press," Rumsfeld said.

Syrian border: Capitalizing on a lull in fighting Tuesday, hundreds of U.S. Marines pushed through a lawless region on the Syrian frontier after intense battles along the Euphrates River with well-armed militants fighting from basements, rooftops and sandbag bunkers.

After intense fighting with militants entrenched on the south bank of the Euphrates River early in the operation, Marines saw only light resistance Tuesday and advanced through sparsely populated settlements along a 12-mile stretch to the border with Syria, according to a Chicago Tribune reporter embedded with the assault, James Janega.

Residents reached by telephone in the area reported some fighting Tuesday in Obeidi and the two nearby towns of Rommana and Karabilah. They said frightened residents were taking advantage of the relative lull to flee the Qaim area.

Foreign fighters (I guess they’re talking about the Arab ones): U.S. Marines rolling though towns on the upper Euphrates River said yesterday that they found dead insurgent fighters in bulletproof armor and wearing foreign clothes. In the towns, they reported finding caches of weapons and suicide-bomb vests, as well as car bombs rigged to explode.

Commanders said they believe the finds are strong indications that foreign fighters make up part of the resistance facing them as they conduct an offensive aimed at rooting out insurgents near the Syrian border.

Iraqi Politics

South American visit: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani appealed to South American nations to support his country's efforts to defeat its bloody insurgency, saying terrorists are indiscriminately killing innocents and hampering reconstruction efforts.

"Terrorism is not limited to Iraq, it is a global curse," Talabani said, addressing Arab and South American heads of state and ministers gathered for the first summit of South American and Arab countries in the Brazilian capital.

Talabani, on his first foreign trip since being elected president of the interim government, said Iraq is on course with its strategy to defeat militants in spite of daily attacks around the country that have limited reconstruction efforts after the U.S.-war that toppled former President Saddam Hussein.

"We hope for your help in this initiative to combat the terrorism that has been carried out against the Iraqi people, against the cause of freedom and democracy," he said, calling on 12 South American nations gathered at the summit alongside 22 Arab and North African nations to step forward with investments and to bolster business contacts.

Strongman: The party of outgoing prime minister Ayad Allawi may have been locked out of power, but many members of the country’s police and National Guard remain fiercely loyal to him. While the Iraqi List head will not be part of the new leadership that was recently sworn into office, Muhsin Kadhim of the Iraqi National Guard, ING, still believes that Allawi is the only person who can solve Iraq’s security problems – and told IWPR that he will remain loyal to him. “He is strong and he worked in the interests of the ING,” said Kadhim. “He is the only person who can establish a strong army that can control the country’s security situation.”

Haider al-Moosawi, spokesman for Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi, also a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, said the government was not in a position to measure the extent of the security forces’ loyalty to Allawi. He said some police and guardsmen are concerned that they might lose their jobs under the new government. “The new security programme for the incoming government involves reorganisation and the elimination of corrupt people, terrorists or those related to the former Saddam regime,” he said. “But we will deal with each case on its own.”

More strains: Meanwhile, a Sunni political group said several of its members were still being held after two joint raids by American and Iraqi troops Sunday night in Baghdad. Mohammed Dayini of the National Dialogue Council, which favors participation in the government, said 17 people had been detained in a raid on council offices but were released. In a simultaneous raid a few miles away, he said, soldiers detained Hassan Zaidau Lihabi, a member of the council; his son; and 13 of his guards. Eight of the guards were released, but the others remained in custody, Dayini said. A U.S. Embassy spokesman denied that Americans were involved.

Down The Rathole

$300 billion pissed away: Congress on Tuesday approved an additional $82 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan and combating terrorism worldwide, boosting the cost of the global effort since 2001 to more than $300 billion. The Senate approved the measure by a 100-0 vote. The House easily approved the measure last week. It now goes to President Bush for his signature.

The fifth such emergency spending package Congress has taken up since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the bill includes sweeping immigration changes, a nearly tenfold increase in the one-time payment for families of troops killed in combat and money to build a sprawling U.S. Embassy in Iraq. Most of the money — $75.9 billion — is slated for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while $4.2 billion goes to foreign aid and other international relations programs.

Japanese Troops

Pushing for a more aggressive Japan: After kissing their babies and hugging their wives, 200 Japanese soldiers in combat fatigues lined up at a base in central Japan last weekend under the "Rising Sun" flag for what has become a familiar ritual — the send-off for troops on their way to Iraq.

But this batch of soldiers may be among the last.

Nearly 18 months into its most ambitious overseas military operation since World War II, Japan is now considering whether to join a growing list of countries pulling out or scaling back their operations in Iraq in the coming months.

A pullout by Japan would be a blow for President Bush, who is struggling to keep such coalition supporters as Italy and Poland on board. Like many coalition partners, however, the troops' fate has presented Tokyo with a difficult dilemma.

Despite the strong backing of the deployment by popular Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, public opinion remains deeply divided over whether the troops should have gone at all. Washington, meanwhile, is pushing hard for Japan's tightly restrained military to assume a more aggressive role overseas, meaning the Iraq mission's legacy will likely loom large for years to come.

American Moral Leadership

A lightstick for this man, hold the KY: Despite reports of widespread abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Friday said much of the abuse falls short of the legal definition of torture.

Gonzales, who grew up in Houston, said many of the widely publicized incidents of abuse by the military and civilian contractors cannot be prosecuted as torture.

"Torture, as a matter of prosecution, is defined by Congress as the intentional infliction of severe physical and mental pain or suffering," Gonzales said in an interview at the offices of Houston U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby.

Gonzales, who took office Feb. 3, was criticized by Democrats during his confirmation hearing for approving a memo in August 2002 while he was White House counsel saying that laws prohibiting torture do "not apply to the president's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants."

The memo also said that to qualify as torture, the pain must include "injury such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions."

A January 2002 memo by Gonzales said the war against terrorism "renders obsolete" the Geneva Convention treatment of prisoners of war.

Commentary

Opinion: Gen. Gary Jones of the Army Special Operations Command recently released a report on Tillman's death and the Army's follow-up investigation. He said that there was no official desire to hide the truth. But why would the Pentagon persist in lying about the death of a well- known and highly admired soldier, sticking to that lie for a full year?

Is it for the same reason that they have singled out enlisted men and women for punishment as scapegoats for their own failures in preparing for and executing much of the aftermath of the Iraq War? Why would they focus on a National Guard brigadier general as the cause of the torture at Abu Ghraib if not to protect her superiors from potentially devastating disclosures? Why would they lie about the death of a celebrity soldier except to limit criticism of the war that cost his life?

The Bush administration knows the answers to these questions just as it believes that you and I will forget its lies. The tragedy is that Bush and company think they can get away with it. Do you think they should?

Opinion: We haven't seen too many pictures of our valiant military men and women returning in flag-draped coffins from Iraq. For the past year, the Bush administration maintained that releasing such photographs would be undignified and that the blackout was out of respect for the privacy of soldiers' families.

Then last month the Defense Department released hundreds of images of caskets, apparently in response to a legal challenge by Ralph Begleiter, a University of Delaware professor who once reported for CNN. A nation's war dead, he rightly argued, is of critical public concern. The human cost of any war must always be factored into the policy-making equation.

In a democratic republic that puts freedom of the press at the top of its list of constitutional demands, there's no way of getting around the reality of suicide bombers and escalating U.S. casualties (1,592 Americans dead as of last week) - or the mounting death toll for Iraqi civilians.

On the 30th anniversary of the end of another U.S. war that killed more than 58,000 Americans, the lessons of Vietnam weigh heavily on this nation's national psyche. We want democracy to triumph in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but some Americans also seem to fear the truth and prefer to sugarcoat the reality of war.

Casualty Reports

Local story: Roseburg, OR, soldier killed by roadside bomb in Iraq.

Local story: St. Mary Parish, LA, soldier killed by roadside bomb near Mosul.

Local story: Queens, NY, Marine killed in Al-Anbar province.

War News for Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi civilians found shot to death outside their vehicle in western Mosul. One Iraqi civilian killed in roadside bomb explosion directed at an Iraqi army patrol in eastern Mosul. One Iraqi civilian killed in insurgent attack near Tal Afar.

Bring ‘em on: Japanese national apparently kidnapped by militant group in western Iraq and is reported to be seriously injured. Japanese foreign ministry states it has received reports that the individual was traveling in a vehicle with more than ten other people, some of whom reportedly died in the ambush.

Bring ‘em on: Deadline set by militants for the execution of an Australian hostage has passed with no word of his fate.

Bring ‘em on: At least four car bombs exploded in Baghdad on Monday. Some of the casualties listed here may overlap with those reported in yesterday’s post: Two Iraqi policemen and one civilian killed, six policemen and three civilians wounded in suicide attack at a checkpoint in southern Baghdad. Five Iraqis wounded in suicide attack at a checkpoint in eastern Baghdad. One policeman and one civilian killed, one policeman seriously injured in explosion of a booby-trapped car in south Baghdad. In addition, the bodies of a senior Iraqi police official and five members of his family were found in Markab al-Tair. Also, a four kilogram bomb was found and dismantled 150 meters from the residence of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf.

Bring ‘em on: Six Shiite men kidnapped and killed south of Baghdad while carrying the coffin of a relative to a funeral in Najaf. Their coffins were taken to an office of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Sadr City, where hundreds of angry residents chanted, ''Revenge, revenge!''

Bring ‘em on: Seven people killed and at least 16 wounded, including three US solders, in car bombing directed at a US convoy in al-Nasr Square. Three Iraqi policemen wounded in a second car bombing several miles to the south. Fighting continued to rage in the vicinity of Qaim with the US military claiming to have killed over 100 guerillas. At least three Marines have died in this assault, and a fourth Marine was reported killed Monday but it is unclear if this death was related to the offensive. Twenty US troops reported wounded thus far. Fighting reported in Obeidi, Rommana, Sabah, and Karbilah.

Bring ‘em on: At least nine people killed and 30 wounded in car bombing aimed at two US Humvees on Baghdad’s Sadoun Street.

Another record: Total U.S. troop casualties in the Iraq war passed 1,600 Sunday, according to a CNN count, when two soldiers were killed near Khaldiya and a third died in Samarra.

All three were killed by roadside bombs, the U.S. military said.

According to news reports compiled by Pat Kniesler of the Web site iCasualties.org, more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers, police and guardsmen have been killed since U.S.-led troops began working with Iraqis to build a security force under the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003.

The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the war remains unclear. Data compiled by the Web site iraqbodycount.org suggests that between 21,000 and 25,000 civilians have been confirmed killed.

Operation Matador: American troops have killed about 100 insurgents in the first 48 hours of a large-scale offensive against the hideouts of foreign militants and arms smuggling routes in a remote border area of western Iraq, the US army said yesterday.