Sunday, July 31, 2005
But this will be a long-term project. And the reality is that if the Americans want the Iraqi Army to take responsibility for a large swath of country next year, the United States will have to provide the supplies, the transportation, and the logistics know-how. General Sattler says that when his force returns to Iraq, its priorities will be different from what they were before. Rather than fighting insurgents, his marines' top priorities will be training the Iraqis and providing them logistics support. That, Sattler says, could mean that his marines bring fewer riflemen and more logisticians and other "combat enablers." Says Sattler: "As Iraqis come on line, our commitment should come down. We may have to increase these enablers at the same time we decrease some of the infantry." Given that even the best military minds don't know what the state of the insurgency will be next spring, predicting the level of troops needed is still largely a guessing game. But Iraqi leaders made clear last week that securing a troop reduction is a political imperative for them. It probably won't be bad politics in America, either.Permanent Bases: American troops have established the first long-term military base along a major smuggling route near the Syrian border in a new effort to block potential suicide bombers from reaching targets in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities. A force of 1,800 U.S. soldiers, responding to continuing concerns that foreign fighters are crossing the Syrian border into Iraq, recently began an operation that includes setting up a base 3miles from the crossroads town of Rawah. Too little too late?
"I can see the fear in the eyes of some of these soldiers," said Harith Sulaiman, a former member of Iraq's Republican Guard who has participated in more than 20 U.S. military exercises. "Some of them hadn't left their small towns. They don't know nothing about Iraq." Sulaiman has played a farmer, a religious leader and a general. He said the role players never break character. "You can't laugh," he said. "We're trying to make it most realistic so that when they go there they won't get shot." William Donnelly, a historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, said it is the first time the Army has done such realistic training and on such a large scale.Eviction notice confirmed: Uzbekistan has formally evicted the United States from a military base that has served as a hub for its combat operations in Afghanistan, a move confirmed by the US State Department. "I can confirm that our embassy in Tashkent received a diplomatic note from the Uzbek government late last week to terminate the agreement for use of the K-2 air field," Nancy Beck, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said on Saturday. Opinion and Commentary Sham:
This week's talk of "withdrawal in 2006" (20,000 troops, possibly, if the Constitution gets finished, things go well with the elections, the insurgents convert to Tibetan Buddhism, etc.) is a sham, as the New York Times' Bob Herbert points out. The long-term goal was, and still is, to establish a permanent base of operations in Iraq to control the world's last great oil reserves. That doesn't mean there couldn't very well be troop reductions next year. But they may have more to do with human resources than human rights.Balls of Brass:
Even his most bitter rivals exhibit a grudging admiration for Chalabi's phoenix-like ability to reinvent himself, though some complain he deals without principle to advance himself. "This is his problem," said Sheik Homam Hamoodi, a senior Shiite politician who leads the drafting committee for the Iraqi constitution. "This comes from his background as a banker. ... He sells and buys without a specific strategy." Chalabi rejects claims that he lacks popular support. While he said it's "too early" to talk about his plans for the December elections, he's obviously hard at work on his latest makeover. This time, he's fashioning himself as an Iraqi patriot able to reach across Iraq's sectarian lines. He's even become something of a populist, as one of the very few leaders to live outside the U.S.-guarded Green Zone compound or to risk the perilous roads leading out of the capital. Last week, he made a dangerous foray south along a route where gunmen had previously ambushed his convoy. Chalabi wanted a firsthand look at the aftermath of the inferno in Musayyib, a tiny, mostly Shiite village where a suicide bombing killed nearly 100 people this month. He pored over maps with local Iraqi authorities, recreating the bomber's path. He comforted survivors in a rank hospital. He paused to gaze at the shimmering Euphrates River. He glad-handed two American soldiers stationed in the area, thanking them for helping to get rid of Saddam. Then he was gone. "Um, who did I just meet?" asked a bewildered Lt. Col. John Rhodes of the 155th Separate Armored Brigade. "Remember the guy the CIA cut off, the one pumping the bad intelligence that got us over here in the first place? That was him," the other soldier replied. "Oh, yeah. That guy," Rhodes said with a shrug.Mrs Ali:
Glad to see Saddam ousted, Mrs. Al Ali’s family welcomed the American invasion and still supports the basic tenets that led to it. But like many other Iraqis, some of her family members are growing impatient with the occupation. The problem as she saw it was poor planning after the war. "The Americans didn’t do their best," she said. "They have bad post-war policy. Everything could be in better shape if they had a better post-war policy." As an example, she said in Baghdad there is only one hour out of every seven when the electricity works, the garbage is not collected and schools are not operating regularly. Recently she spoke to a niece in Baghdad who was lamenting these facts. Mrs. Al Ali counseled patience, which was hard for her niece to accept. "You are sitting in an air-conditioned house and you say ‘be patient,’" her niece scolded. Recalling the conversation, Mrs. Al Ali shrugged, acknowledging the rebuke and the truth behind it. The frustration is hard to explain because the whole country is not wracked with the violence that has consumed Baghdad under the American occupation. According to Mrs. Al Ali, one sector of the country occupied by Japan was much safer than American areas because the Japanese got garbage trucks on the streets, immediately started rebuilding schools and have been very sensitive to the locals. It’s a fact that Mrs. Al Ali was not sure most Americans were aware of. "Americans need to know what is going on on the ground there," she said.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
General Rives and the other military lawyers argued strongly against declaring that Mr. Bush was above the law when it came to antiterrorism operations. But the president's team ignored them, offering up a pretzel logic that General Rives and the other military experts warned would not fool anyone. Rear Adm. Michael Lohr, the Navy's judge advocate general, said that the situation at the American prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba might be so legalistically unique that the Geneva Conventions and even the Constitution did not necessarily apply. But he asked, "Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values?" General Rives said that if the White House permitted abusive interrogations at Guantánamo Bay, it would not be able to restrict them to that single prison. He argued that soldiers elsewhere would conclude that their commanders were condoning illegal behavior. And that is precisely what happened at Abu Ghraib after the general who organized the abuse of prisoners at Guantánamo went to Iraq to toughen up the interrogation of prisoners there. The White House ignored these military lawyers' advice two years ago. Now it is trying to kill the measure that would define the term "illegal combatants," set rules for interrogations and prohibit cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. The president considers this an undue restriction of his powers. It's not only due; it's way overdue.Casualty Reports Local story: Wisconsin soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Missouri soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Two Ohio Marines killed in Iraq. Local story: California soldier dies in Iraq. Local story: Wisconsin soldier dies in Iraq. Rant of the Day It was the best of times. "Those with much to gain from the repeal include the President and his Cabinet. Based on estimates of the net worth of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and each of the Cabinet members, the President, Vice President, and the Cabinet are estimated to receive a total tax benefit of between $91 million and $344 million if the estate tax repeal is made permanent. The President himself is estimated to save between $787,000 and $6.2 million, while Vice President Cheney is estimated to save between $12.6 million and $60.7 million." It was the worst of times. "Sweethearts since their days at Lincoln County High School, the couple had moved to McDuffie County seven years ago to raise their family. Sunday night, Spc. Kinlow - a reservist with the Georgia National Guard - died while on patrol in Iraq, the victim of a roadside bomb that demolished the Humvee he was in. His death came just weeks before the 35-year-old soldier was set to return to McDuffie County on a two-week hiatus from the rigors of battlefield life. 'I feel like I've just been cheated out of my life,' his wife said through tears Tuesday night. 'We were supposed to grow old together. ... When you can finally smooth out the edges and you are supposed to have the American dream, he's gone. You are supposed to buy your house and your white picket fence and ... he's gone.' Spc. Kinlow is survived by his wife and two children - Chauncey, a rising sophomore at Thomson High School, and Chelsea, a rising fifth grader at Norris Elementary School in Thomson. His parents, Alchester and Carrie Mae Kinlow, his sister, Sophia, and his niece, Kendra, live in Lincoln County." It was the age of wisdom “Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents show. Despite the military lawyers' warnings, the task force concluded that military interrogators and their commanders would be immune from prosecution for torture under federal and international law because of the special character of the fight against terrorism. In memorandums written by several senior uniformed lawyers in each of the military services as the legal review was under way, they had urged a sharply different view and also warned that the position eventually adopted by the task force could endanger American service members.” It was the age of foolishness. "Study after study has replicated the findings that human activity is the cause. Americans, with our exponentially disproportionate consumption of fossil fuels and our resulting belch of pollution, bear prime responsibility for it. Yet Barton, the House member most beholden to energy interests, keeps telling us to wait a few hundred more years and it will get cold again. He wants to probe the financial records, study methods, sources, proof of objectivity and proof of ethical independence of climate change researchers. He asked them: ``In the area of climate or paleoclimate research, are you aware of any violation of requirements or obligations concerning the sharing and dissemination of data and research, pursuant to applicable agency and federal policies? If so describe each violation.'' It was the epoch of belief. "There is still no indication that the Bush administration recognizes the utter folly of its war in Iraq, which has been like a constant spray of gasoline on the fire of global terrorism. What was required in the aftermath of Sept. 11 was an intense, laserlike focus by America and its allies on Al Qaeda-type terrorism. Instead, the Bush crowd saw its long dreamed of opportunity to impose its will on Iraq, which had nothing to do with the great tragedy of Sept. 11. Many thousands have paid a fearful price for that bit of ideological madness." It was the epoch of incredulity. "It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile." It was the season of light. "Even as Maxwell recovers physically and psychologically, he patrols military hospitals and barracks to comfort and counsel a handful of the U.S. service members injured in Iraq, which number about 14,000. Sometimes Maxwell's speech is halting, and often his right foot 'flops,' as he puts it. He struggles to recall mundane words, like 'strawberry' or 'compass.' But Maxwell, who has endured depression and self-doubt during his recovery, says he is determined to make sure that no wounded Marine is left alone to sink into depression or despair. 'People who haven't been wounded can't possibly understand the sense of loneliness and abandonment you feel,' Maxwell, a slender, sharp-featured figure in a tan Marine uniform, said as he hustled through the therapy ward. Maxwell, one of the highest-ranking U.S. service members wounded in Iraq, recalls encountering a 20-year-old Marine sitting alone inside a Camp Lejeune barracks in May. 'The kid couldn't use his arm. He'd seen his buddy killed. His family was in Florida,' Maxwell said. 'And he told me he felt so lonely and lost. I decided no Marine was going to be left all alone like that.'" It was the season of darkness. "Iraq was supposed to be a first step. Iran was also in the neoconservatives' sights. The neocons envisaged U.S. control of the region (and its oil), to be followed inevitably by the realization of their ultimate dream, a global American empire. Of course it sounds like madness, which is why we should have been paying closer attention from the beginning. The madness took a Dr. Strangelovian turn in the summer of 2002, before the war with Iraq was launched. As The Washington Post first reported, an influential Pentagon advisory board was given a briefing prepared by a Rand Corporation analyst who said the U.S. should consider seizing the oil fields and financial assets of Saudi Arabia if it did not stop its support of terrorism. Mercifully the briefing went nowhere. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it did not represent the 'dominant opinion' within the administration." It was the spring of hope. "Marsh & McLennan Cos. the world's largest insurance broker, on Friday said it will pay Chief Executive Michael Cherkasky at least $3.5 million in salary and bonus for 2005 under a new three-year employment contract. Cherkasky became chief executive last October, replacing Jeffrey Greenberg less than two weeks after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer accused Marsh of conspiring with other insurers to rig bids. Marsh in January agreed to pay $850 million to settle the bid-rigging probe." It was the winter of despair. "But the miracle metamorphosis didn't happen. Ayad thought he was going to get a new eye; instead he got a contact lens. And the laser surgery that was promised to erase his facial scars will only lighten them, unless he can receive follow-up treatment in the United States or another modern country, which is highly unlikely once he leaves behind the silky sheets and first-class hotels for his mud hut. Just the sight of an Iraqi flag yesterday, at the Iraqi mission to the United Nations, jolted his father back to reality. 'Can't I stay here and work?' he asked Ambassador Samir Shakir M. Sumaida'ie, Iraq's permanent representative to the United Nations. When the ambassador gently shook his head, Ayad's father covered his face and cried." We had everything before us. "The Senate agreed to shield gun manufacturers and dealers from liability lawsuits on Friday, as Congress broke for a monthlong recess after sending President Bush energy and transportation bills that had been years in the making. Long sought by the gun lobby, the Senate measure - approved 65 to 31 - would prohibit lawsuits against gun makers and distributors for misuse of their products during the commission of a crime. Senate supporters said the plan was needed to protect the domestic firearms industry from a rash of lawsuits that threatened its economic future." We had nothing before us. "According to the Marine Corps League, one Bush administration 2006 budget proposal would have charged one group of veterans a $250 application fee. Another would have doubled individual prescription medication costs from $7 to $15. A Veterans Affairs study in 2002 showed that nationally 310,000 veterans were waiting for appointments, half for more than six months, and veterans filing disability claims waited an average of six months for service - and sometimes as long as two years. Steve Robertson, legislative director of the American Legion, said of Bush administration VA proposals in a Washington Post write-up earlier this year: 'Their policies are inconsistent with a nation at war" and violate the basic military value of "an army of one, teamwork, taking care of each other.'"
Friday, July 29, 2005
For 15 months now the Bush administration has insisted that the horrific photographs of abuse from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were the result of freelance behavior by low-level personnel and had nothing to do with its policies. In this the White House has been enthusiastically supported by the Army brass, which has conducted investigations documenting hundreds of cases of prisoner mistreatment in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but denies that any of its senior officers are culpable. For some time these implacable positions have been glaringly at odds with the known facts. In the past few days, those facts have grown harder to ignore. The latest evidence has emerged from hearings at Fort Meade about two of those low-level Abu Ghraib guards who are charged with using dogs to terrorize Iraqi detainees. On Wednesday, the former warden of Abu Ghraib, Maj. David DiNenna, testified that the use of dogs for interrogation was recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison who was dispatched by the Pentagon to Abu Ghraib in August 2003 to review the handling and interrogation of prisoners. On Tuesday, a military interrogator testified that he had been trained in using dogs by a team sent to Iraq by Gen. Miller. In statements to investigators and in sworn testimony to Congress last year, Gen. Miller denied that he recommended the use of dogs for interrogation, or that they had been used at Guantanamo. "No methods contrary to the Geneva Convention were presented at any time by the assistance team that I took to [Iraq]," he said under oath on May 19, 2004. Yet Army investigators reported to Congress this month that, under Gen. Miller's supervision at Guantanamo, an al Qaeda suspect named Mohamed Qahtani was threatened with snarling dogs, forced to wear women's underwear on his head and led by a leash attached to his chains -- the very abuse documented in the Abu Ghraib photographs. The court evidence strongly suggests that Gen. Miller lied about his actions, and it merits further investigation by prosecutors and Congress. But the Guantanamo commander was not acting on his own: The interrogation of Mr. Qahtani, investigators found, was carried out under rules approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002. After strong protests from military lawyers, the Rumsfeld standards -- which explicitly allowed nudity, the use of dogs and shackling -- were revised in April 2003. Yet the same practices were later adopted at Abu Ghraib, at least in part at the direct instigation of Gen. Miller. "We understood," Maj. DiNenna testified, "that [Gen. Miller] was sent over by the secretary of defense." The White House and Pentagon have gotten away with their stonewalling largely because of Republican control of Congress. When the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted, GOP leaders such as Sen. John W. Warner (Va.) loudly vowed to get to the bottom of the matter -- but once the bottom started to come into view late last year, Mr. Warner's demands for accountability ceased. Mr. Rumsfeld and other senior officials have never been the subject of an independent investigation. A recommendation by the latest Army probe that Gen. Miller be reprimanded for his role in the Qahtani interrogation was rejected by Gen. Bantz Craddock of Southern Command. Emphasis added.War News Bring 'em on: Twenty-five Iraqis killed, 35 wounded by suicide bomber at recruiting center in Rabia. Bring 'em on: Two US Marines killed in heavy fighting near Haditha. Bring 'em on: Six Iraqi soldiers killed in two attacks near Baquba. Bring 'em on: US convoy attacked by roadside bombs near Ramadi. Bring 'em on: Iraqi civilian translator killed in convoy ambush near Tikrit. Bring 'em on: Five Iraqi policemen, two civilian translators found beheaded near Mahmudiya. Report from Rummyworld.
The distinction between resistance and terror is an important one—and one not often made by U.S. officials in Iraq. Take, for example, the daily press releases from the U.S. military via their combined public information center, a.k.a. CPIC—here in Baghdad. A military operation in Mosul: 10 terrorists captured, is a typical comment. A firefight in outside Baghdad: three terrorists killed. A security sweep based on good intelligence—a terrorist operation thwarted. It all sounds pretty clear. But it's not. The vast majority of these so-called terrorists that the U.S. military brags about killing and capturing are actually insurgents fighting the American occupation and the fledgling Iraqi government. Categorizing them as terrorists has probably played well with a gullible American public—indeed, it probably makes them feel safer—but factually speaking it's wrong. The vast majority of attacks against U.S. and Iraqi security forces are perpetrated by former members of Saddam Hussein's regime and Sunnis fearful of being politically marginalized by the Kurds and majority Shiites. Then there are the foreign Muslims coming into Iraq to wage jihad against the United States and its allies, primarily through suicide bombings. The first group sees itself as resisting an army of occupation, the second neither cares about the Iraqi people nor the country's political status, wanting only to thwart the Americans by creating fear and chaos. The latter group can fairly be called terrorists.Recruiting crisis. "The Army National Guard has fallen 23 percent behind its recruiting goal so far this year and is unlikely to meet its annual quota - largely because of a dramatic drop in recruits from the South. With tens of thousands of Guardsmen deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan during hurricane and wildfire seasons, some experts worry the Guard is being stretched thin while unable to fill the ranks. The Pentagon announced last week that the Army National Guard has fallen about 10,500 enlistees behind its goal. So far, nearly 34,600 have enlisted." Mission creep. The US military is to consider protecting foreign diplomats in Baghdad after al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the killing of three Algerian diplomats this month, the new American ambassador said. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on Thursday told reporters in Baghdad: 'Coalition forces... are planning to look at this problem and see what could be done to fix the security for the diplomats.'" Philippines evacuates diplomatic mission from Baghdad to Amman. Reconstruction costs.
Efforts to rebuild water, electricity and health networks in Iraq are being shortchanged by higher-than-expected costs to provide security and by generous financial awards to contractors, according to a series of reports by government investigators released yesterday. Taken together, the reports seem to run contrary to the Bush administration's upbeat assessment that reconstruction efforts are moving vigorously ahead and that the insurgency is dying down. The United States, Iraq and international donors have committed more than $60 billion to run Iraq and revive its damaged infrastructure. But security costs are eating away a substantial share of that total, up to 36 percent on some projects, the Government Accountability Office reported yesterday. The higher security costs are causing reconstruction authorities to scale back efforts in some areas and abandon projects in others. For instance, in March, the U.S. Agency for International Development canceled two electric power generation programs to provide $15 million in additional security elsewhere. On another project to rehabilitate electric substations, the Army Corps of Engineers decided that securing 14 of the 23 facilities would be too expensive and limited the entire project to nine stations. And in February, USAID added $33 million to cover higher security costs on one project, which left it short of money to pay for construction oversight, quality assurance and administrative costs.More CPA follies. "Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, said on Thursday that the US Justice Department was looking into fraud that he had uncovered. Giving details of his latest report, which is to be released on Saturday, Bowen also told National Public Radio (NPR) that US-backed reconstruction projects in Iraq were speeding ahead. 'The reconstruction for Iraq is peaking, 1000 projects are completed and 1000 more are ongoing,' he said. The US has allocated $23 billion for new infrastructure and Bowen's previous reports have already highlighted huge sums of missing money. He said his latest report looks at four water projects and 'the results are all over the map'. He also told how $7 million intended for the troubled Hilla region south of Baghdad had disappeared. The money came from the Development Fund for Iraq, money from oil sales that the US-run former Coalition Provisional Authority used for development projects." A tale of two cities. "At 11 a.m. in the Iraqi capital, the popping of automatic-weapons fire broke out from one end of a Tigris River bridge to another. Pedestrians jaded by gunfire walked for cover. It was Baghdad's equivalent of a car horn -- guards shooting into the air to clear the way for some dignitary. Across the Tigris, gray smoke billowed over the city from a bomb. Under the bridge, ski-masked Shiite Muslim commandos cruised through checkpoints in pickups mounted with machine guns. Nearby, a man stood in the middle of the street holding a gun to the head of another man in a car. Other drivers steered around them. No one stopped to help, or looked that carefully. After more than two years of war, Baghdad's people have learned to choose their battles, and this one didn't qualify. On the city's streets, the daily reality involves death, random violence and routine deprivations for people who are beyond anger. But a different view has been presented in the Green Zone, the concrete-barricaded headquarters for U.S. troops, diplomats and contractors, and the interim Iraqi government. There, the situation is described as progressing toward a gradual handover from U.S. forces to Iraqi control. During a visit to Baghdad this week by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, said a partial troop withdrawal might begin in early spring. His assessment was repeated Thursday at a weekly briefing. 'Every day you see the Iraqi people going about their lives -- sometimes under challenging circumstances -- gives confirmation we've got a good program,' said the military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Donald Alston." Burn out.
The frequency with which troops are being sent back to combat is unprecedented in the all-volunteer U.S. military, which was created in 1973 after the draft ended. To boost morale, commanders draw comparisons to the sacrifices of Greatest Generation, those who fought for the duration of World War II. But that war is dust-covered history to those fighting here, and defense researchers concede that they do not yet know what back-to-back-to-back tours of duty will do to this military — or to those fighting. "It's an open question as to how much we can ask of them," says James Hosek, a RAND Corp., specialist on military retention. The Marines send troops to Iraq more frequently than the Army, but do so for shorter combat stints that don't last longer than seven months. Three Marine battalions, including the one in which Welter serves, are now fighting for the third time; two more are preparing for third combat hitches. The Army deploys units for longer periods — usually 12 months — but less often. Some Army units are starting a second tour in Iraq this year. Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the Army's personnel division, says re-enlistments have held steady so far. "But we are keeping an eye on that," he says. Studies about Vietnam veterans are of little use because the nation had a larger, conscript military then and combat was typically limited to a single 12- or 13-month tour. Hosek testified before Congress last year that what limited data exist suggest a third tour could sour the troops and their families and hurt re-enlistments. Interviews with two dozen Marines in Ramadi, their commanders, and friends and family back home reveal the cost in human terms. Like Jimmy Welter, some Marines in this unit enlisted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But that patriotic fervor now seems spent. And what the Marines have endured — Welter's story is typical — speaks to the changes that come with war. During their first tour, Welter and his unit were greeted as liberators. During the second, they fought a growing rebellion. Now, on the third, many say they are angry to be back, shaken by the loss of more friends and feeling old beyond their years. "I'm 22 years old. It really feels like I'm 30," Welter says. "I've seen more and done more things at 22 than most people have in 40 years."Veterans' health. "Thirty percent of U.S. troops surveyed have developed stress-related mental health problems three to four months after coming home from the Iraq war, the Army's surgeon general said Thursday. The survey of 1,000 troops found problems including anxiety, depression, nightmares, anger and an inability to concentrate, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley and other military medical officials. A smaller number of troops, often with more severe symptoms, were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a serious mental illness. The 30 percent figure is in contrast to the 3 percent to 5 percent diagnosed with a significant mental health issues immediately after they leave the war theater, according to Col. Elspeth Ritchie, a military psychiatrist on Kiley's staff. A study of troops who were still in the combat zone in 2004 found 13 percent experienced significant mental health problems." Commentary Editorial:
The background noise to all this, of course, comes from the insurgents' bombs going off every day. The stepped-up pace of ambushes and suicide bombings has killed hundreds of Iraqis this month. A U.S. Army report found that ill-trained Iraqi police officers were being thrown into the front lines like so much cannon fodder. It also said the likelihood that insurgents have infiltrated the police is very high. At the same time, it is also clear that Iran is strengthening its ties to the Shiite leadership and redoubling its influence in Baghdad. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Shiites' tolerance of the mostly Sunni insurgency has about run out. More militias are being set up, amid more calls for active self-defense. Sunni politicians, in turn, have complained about secretive Shiite death squads. When the constitution is put up for a referendum, the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds will each have the power to reject it, because the voting will be organized by region. That will tend not to foster compromise, as might be expected, but to strengthen ethnic or sectarian identification. The process is more apt to increase violence than reduce it. The likelihood, in other words, that U.S. troops will start coming home next spring, as predicted Wednesday by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., is small. He himself acknowledged that if the security situation does not improve, all bets are off. Similarly, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he wants American troops out as soon as possible - but that was chiefly rhetorical. His government would be lost without U.S. firepower. It could happen that Iraqis of every description decide to give the constitution a try. It seems likely that Washington, which tried to influence the last elections under the table (but failed), will try again. At best, Iraqis will be at each other's throats but not killing each other. That's the rosy view. The American invasion of Iraq let loose an avalanche, or set up a train wreck, or started a chain reaction - choose your metaphor - and the danger is that it will end with a bitter and intractable sectarian bloodletting.Casualty Reports Local story: Michigan soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Virginia sailor killed in Iraq. Local story: Georgia soldier killed in Iraq.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
The licenses to operate Iraq's three cell phone companies are running out and potential new operators are assembling in the United Kingdom this week to sort out the risks and rewards involved in what is one of the world's most dangerous, but lucrative business opportunities. The risks are clear. Employees at the three existing Iraq cell phone operations have been kidnapped, according to published reports, and U.S. military forces have had to jam service to prevent insurgent cell phones from detonating bombs along convey routes. But the operations are profitable and offer unbridled growth possibilities to companies willing to take the risk. "You can actually make handsome returns in Iraq despite the risks," said Jonas Lindblad of Pyramid Research in an interview Wednesday. "There's a lot of money chasing around a few deals in the [Middle East] region. In one way or another, they are linked to oil money." Lindblad, senior analyst Middle East for Pyramid, believes the initial licensees probably have already made money on the existing franchises.Torture policy. “Two Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison were bitten by dogs as they were being handled by sergeants who were competing to see who could scare more detainees, a witness testified Tuesday. Pvt. Ivan L. ''Chip'' Frederick II -- himself convicted of abusing inmates at the military prison -- testified by phone in the Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, for Sgts. Santos A. Cardona and Michael J. Smith.” Torture policy. “Senior military lawyers lodged vigorous and detailed dissents in early 2003 as an administration legal task force concluded that President Bush had authority as commander in chief to order harsh interrogations of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, newly disclosed documents show. Despite the military lawyers' warnings, the task force concluded that military interrogators and their commanders would be immune from prosecution for torture under federal and international law because of the special character of the fight against terrorism. In memorandums written by several senior uniformed lawyers in each of the military services as the legal review was under way, they had urged a sharply different view and also warned that the position eventually adopted by the task force could endanger American service members.” Progress report. “The electricity ministry said six attacks in the last 10 days on the power grid has led to a reduction in the electricity supplies to Baghdad and nearby southern provinces, according to government newspaper al-Sabah. Power in Baghdad is down to a half an hour of electricity followed by a six-hour blackout.” Recruiting.
Deep into a four-hour congressional hearing on why the active Army and its reserve components are missing recruiting goals, Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., turned a spotlight on the elephant in the room. The war in Iraq, Snyder said, is unpopular with many Americans, a fact that needs airing, given the all-volunteer nature of the U.S. military. Until that moment in the July 19 House armed services subcommittee hearing, blame for recruiting shortfalls had focused on negative news coverage of the war, an improving economy, the pace of military operations and an unexplained drop in propensity of parents and other “influencers” of American youth to recommend military service. Nothing was said of a nation that, polls show, is souring on a war that was launched to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and shifted, after none was found, into an open-ended occupation and a Herculean effort to turn a fractionalized Muslim nation into a democracy.Morale indicator. “A company of the California Army National Guard has been put on restricted duty and its battalion plunged into disarray amid allegations that battalion members mistreated detainees in Iraq and extorted money from shopkeepers, according to military officials and members of the unit. Col. David Baldwin, a California state Guard spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that investigations are underway into the allegations of mistreatment of prisoners by members of Fullerton-based Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment. The company, made up of roughly 130 soldiers, is deployed at Forward Operating Base Falcon outside Baghdad. It has been put on restricted duty while the Army reviews its performance, Baldwin said. Baldwin also confirmed the existence of the investigation of the alleged extortion, which involves members of another company in the battalion. The battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, has been suspended while the investigation is conducted, Baldwin said.” Supply and demand. “Coffin makers are unable to keep up with the demand for caskets in Iraq where tens of people die every day due to the continual armed attacks and bombings.” Via Hairy Fish Nuts. Commentary Editorial:
In spite of expressions of determination by President Bush and members of his administration to stay the course, the flow of bad news out of Iraq indicates that it is a mess which will get worse before it gets better. The fighting has transformed itself largely into civil war. The 170,000 Iraqi security forces, largely Shiite in composition, represent the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. They are opposed and targeted by the largely Sunni insurgents. The Kurds of the north mostly go their own way, except that their autonomy is encouraging Kurds in Turkey and Syria to bestir themselves against their host governments. Mr. al-Jaafari's government is taking steps to improve its relations with the Shiite-dominated Iranian government. Minister of Defense Saadoun Duleimi visited Iran earlier this month and concluded a military cooperation pact that provides for Iranian training of Iraqi military forces. This is a step that is painful to the Bush Administration, given its antagonism with the government in Tehran. Iraqi insurgent attacks focus on Americans, when they can get a crack at them, and on the Shiite security forces. U.S. war losses are climbing toward 1,800, from a force now standing at about 140,000. Mr. Bush claims not to want to set a timetable for U.S. withdrawal because that would encourage the insurgents to wait the Americans out. That is, of course, what they are doing in any case; progressive American withdrawal will give increasingly free rein to intra-Iraqi warfare as the Iraqis dispute post-American control of the country among themselves.Analysis:
Iraq's military and police forces well may become an instrument of Kurdish and Shi'ite domination of the Sunni minority. Assuming the putative worst case, namely that Shi'ites increasingly wage civil war against a Sunni resistance, their young men will continue to fill uniforms even if casualty rates rise drastically. Iraq's Shi'ites have no choice about it. The alternative would be to capitulate to a combination of Ba'athist remnants and Islamists whose agenda would be to restore the Sunni dominance of the status quo ante. "Iraqification" bears no resemblance to "Vietnamization". Hanoi commanded a regular army of more than half a million men, with a record of conventional military victories going back to the siege of Dien Bien Phu in 1953-1954. It could count upon unlimited Russian materiel. After "Vietnamization", Northern regulars beat the army of the Republic of Vietnam in conventional war. The new Iraqi armed forces, haphazard as their organization might be, face no challenge from regulars, only the constant annoyance of suicide attacks. As noted, the Shi'ites have nowhere else to go. "Iraqification" may turn out to be a dog's breakfast, but no one will have to consume it on the Potomac. Washington is embarrassed by this turn of events, but has no other choice than to adapt to it by removing American troops from the line of fire. Although President George W Bush and his advisors would prefer a stable and democratic Iraq, no degree of violence among Iraqis will undermine American interests. In an earlier era, the British would have encouraged such things. America lacks the sophistication, not to mention the cynicism, to stir the pot, but the pot appears to be stirring itself briskly enough without outside encouragement.Opinion:
Recent events on Capitol Hill and new resounding statements made by top US administration officials prove that sanity is not much of a priority on the agenda of President George W Bush. On Wednesday, July 20, the House of Representatives resolved that an early withdrawal from Iraq would "embolden terrorists", therefore any such notion must be scrapped. Written off as well by the House decision was the idea of a measurable timetable for any pullout. A withdrawal of the 160,000-strong US forces is only possible when national security goals are met, according to the measure. It also argued that such a move would "undermine the morale" of US and allied forces. Capitol Hill's elite, as ever detached, perhaps willingly, from national and international realities, are determined to disregard or diminish the untold losses suffered by the military, economy, and their country's reputation, not to mention the morale of the entire nation. According to a recently disclosed US Army report, triggered by an inquiry into the alarmingly high suicide rate among American soldiers in Iraq, morale among troops is at its lowest, as is the confidence in their units' ability to perform their mission. Fifty-four percent of soldiers rated their units' morale as low or very low, reported the Associated Press. This dwindling spirit and lack of confidence on the battlefield is met with increasing agitation with Bush's war, as more than half of the American population now believes that the war has made their country "less safe". The tiring argument that terrorists are attacking us because of our freedom and way of life is losing its constituents, and it is becoming clearer by the day that the price for such hollow rhetoric can no longer be swallowed. One must not subscribe to the illusion that the Iraq debacle is just a temporary nuisance that can be weathered by a few billion dollars and a few thousand lives; that questioning the Bush administration's actions is not only unpatriotic, but in fact it provides the enemy with a moral boost and fuels their insurgency; that the insurgents are a bunch of disgruntled Sunnis without a cause, randomly blowing up people because they despise democracy and the spreaders of democracy for marginalizing them, and so forth. Even the US administration finds it difficult to stick to such simplistic views.Opinion:
Iraq was supposed to be a first step. Iran was also in the neoconservatives' sights. The neocons envisaged U.S. control of the region (and its oil), to be followed inevitably by the realization of their ultimate dream, a global American empire. Of course it sounds like madness, which is why we should have been paying closer attention from the beginning. The madness took a Dr. Strangelovian turn in the summer of 2002, before the war with Iraq was launched. As The Washington Post first reported, an influential Pentagon advisory board was given a briefing prepared by a Rand Corporation analyst who said the U.S. should consider seizing the oil fields and financial assets of Saudi Arabia if it did not stop its support of terrorism. Mercifully the briefing went nowhere. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it did not represent the "dominant opinion" within the administration. The point here is that the invasion of Iraq was part of a much larger, long-term policy that had to do with the U.S. imposing its will, militarily when necessary, throughout the Middle East and beyond. The war has gone badly, and the viciousness of the Iraq insurgency has put the torch to the idea of further pre-emptive adventures by the Bush administration. But dreams of empire die hard. American G.I.'s are dug into Iraq, and the bases have been built for a long stay. The war may be going badly, but the primary consideration is that there is still a tremendous amount of oil at stake, the second-largest reserves on the planet. And neocon fantasies aside, the global competition for the planet's finite oil reserves intensifies by the hour. Lyndon Johnson ignored the unsolicited advice of Senator George Aiken of Vermont - to declare victory in Vietnam in 1966. The war continued for nearly a decade. Many high-level government figures believe that U.S. troops will be in Iraq for a minimum of 5 more years, and perhaps 10. That should be understood by the people who think that the formation of a permanent Iraqi government will lead to the withdrawal of American troops. There is no real withdrawal plan. The fighting and the dying will continue indefinitely.Casualty Reports Local story: Alabama soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: North Dakota Marine wounded in Iraq.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
War News for Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Bring ‘em on: Four US soldiers killed Sunday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in southwest
Bring ‘em on:
Bring ‘em on: Seven Iraqi soldiers guarding a water plant killed by attackers armed with hand grenades and light weapons.
Bring ‘em on: Three killed and 37 wounded in mortar attack on downtown
Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi soldier killed and five wounded when they tried to dismantle a roadside bomb near
Donny Dickhead, Diplomat: Visiting US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Iraqi leaders to "get on with it" in preparing a new constitution on Wednesday, while an Iraqi official said US-led forces could hand over security for 10 cities by December.
"Now's the time to get on with it," Rumsfeld told the travelling press as he flew in from
Any delay "would be very harmful to the momentum that is necessary."
A parliamentary committee has until Monday to decide on whether to seek a six-month postponement of a referendum on the vital document, tentatively scheduled for October.
Barring such a delay, the draft constitution is to be debated and voted on by parliament by August 15.
"People are simply going to have to recognize that in a constitutional process, compromise is necessary," he said of the process that has been dogged by sectarian differences.
Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot: Donald Rumsfeld, the
Mr Rumsfeld was speaking during an unannounced visit to
He said: "It's important for them (the Iraqis) to work with their neighbours to see that the behaviour of particularly
"They need to be aggressively communicating with their neighbours to see that foreign terrorists stop trying to cross those borders and their neighbours do not harbour insurgents."
Jaafari senses a trapdoor beneath his feet: Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari on Wednesday called for speedy and coordinated withdrawal of the
At a joint press conference held with visiting US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Jaafari said it is time to work on acoordinated transition of military control in the country from Americans to Iraqis.
"Firstly, we should quicken the pace of training the Iraqi security forces, and secondly, there should be a close coordination in planning between the US-led coalition and the Iraqi government on security transition," Jaafari said.
"We do not want to be surprised by a withdrawal that is not in connection with our Iraqi timing," he added.
Ready or not, suckah!: The United States hopes to sharply reduce its forces in
The remarks by General George Casey appear to have been the first time since the insurgency worsened sharply in April that top Pentagon officials have suggested a timeline for withdrawal.
Casey's comments came as a new poll showed most Americans now think the
"I do believe that if the political process continues to go positively, if the developments with the (Iraqi) security forces continue to go as it is going, I do believe we will still be able to make fairly substantial reductions after these elections -- in the spring and summer of next year," Casey said at a briefing with visiting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Note: This is not a timetable! Remember the words of Dear Leader: Setting a timetable for withdrawing
And now, just in from Bizarro Dimension: Pentagon officials confirmed yesterday that they have identified the top eight to 10 leaders of the insurgency in
This is a real propaganda piece but worth a look for the insight it gives into how some of our ‘leadership’ is thinking. Do any of you readers know anything about the World Peace Herald or the Washington Institute for Near East Policy?
The right hand man of the second in command...kinda catchy, eh?: Iraqi police said Wednesday it arrested one of the "dangerous terrorists" in southern
I swear, these guys must have more right hands than one of those Hindu gods…
Maybe Rummy should tell them to get on with it: Iraqi Kurds will never back down from demands for a federal state despite problems this may create in efforts to draft a new constitution, a top Kurdish leader said Wednesday.
But there is one thing all the Iraqi parties seem to agree on: Very little can be said on behalf of former dictator Saddam Hussein's murderous regime. But it is true that women long had more rights in Iraq than in a number of other countries in the Islamic world. And the possibility that a new constitution could strip away many of those rights is alarming.
A committee working on a constitution for Iraq is supposed to complete its work by Aug. 1, and the National Assembly is supposed to conclude debate on the document by Aug. 15. If the final version bears any relationship to a current draft now circulating, Iraqi women are at great risk.
Individual scholars and individual sects interpret Islamic law in different ways, but it's likely that the religious politicians pushing for these changes would insist on rules that are highly unfavorable to women. Depending on the inclinations of clerics, Iraqi women could be denied the right to marry without permission from their families, could inherit only half what male heirs do and could see their marriages dissolved solely at their husbands' discretion.
These policies would be a major departure from decades of Iraqi law that, for all its flaws, gave women considerably more power within their own families and over their own fates.
Torture Is Now Part Of Our National Heritage
Deliberate violation of accepted rules against torture: Military interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq learned about the use of military working dogs to intimidate detainees from a team of interrogators dispatched from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court testimony yesterday.
One interrogation analyst also testified that sleep deprivation and forced nudity -- which were used in Cuba on high-value detainees -- later were approved tactics at Abu Ghraib. Another soldier said that interrogators would regularly pass instructions to have dog handlers and military police "scare up" detainees as part of interrogation plans, part of an approved approach that relied on exploiting the fear of dogs.
The preliminary hearing at Fort Meade, Md., for two Army dog handlers accused of mistreating detainees provided more evidence that severe tactics approved for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo migrated to Iraq and spiraled into the notorious abuse at Abu Ghraib in the late summer and early fall of 2003. The testimony came days after an internal military investigation showed the similarity between techniques used on the suspected "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and tactics seen in photographs at the prison that shocked the world.
Several Republican senators are pushing legislation -- opposed by the White House -- that would regulate the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and other military prisons. One of them, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), released recently declassified internal memos written in 2003 by the military's top lawyers in which they warned the Pentagon about developing severe tactics, arguing that they would heighten danger for U.S. troops caught by the enemy, among other problems.
"We have taken the legal and moral 'high-road' in the conduct of our military operations regardless of how others may operate," Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives wrote in a Feb. 5, 2003, memo. "We need to consider the overall impact of approving extreme interrogation techniques as giving official approval and legal sanction to the application of interrogation techniques that U.S. forces have consistently been trained are unlawful."
Let’s repeat that last statement, shall we?
"We need to consider the overall impact of approving extreme interrogation techniques as giving official approval and legal sanction to the application of interrogation techniques that U.S. forces have consistently been trained are unlawful."
This is torture: Military dogs bit at least two detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, one severely enough to require stitches, witnesses testified Tuesday at a pretrial hearing for two Army dog handlers.
The unmuzzled dogs were also used to terrify inmates at the direction of the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the prison, one witness said.
The allegations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and the surfacing of photos last year of American soldiers humiliating the detainees triggered international concern over the U.S. military's treatment of war prisoners, in Iraq and at other sites including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"They were trying to Gitmo-ize Abu Ghraib," argued Harvey J. Volzer, a civilian attorney for Sgt. Santos A. Cardona, one of the Army dog handlers.
This is torture: CIA officials used a sledgehammer handle to beat various prisoners in Iraq, and one official, whose name is classified, would often brag about his abuse of prisoners, according to testimony in a closed session of a military hearing.
The transcript, obtained this week by The Denver Post under a court order, was of a March hearing to determine whether three Fort Carson Army soldiers should stand trial for the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush during an interrogation in 2003.
While allegations about CIA officials and special forces beating Mowhoush with fists and a rubber hose have been previously reported, the court transcript is the first evidence that those officials repeatedly beat other detainees in northwestern Iraq.
Bush will veto the entire defense spending bill if it limits his ability to torture: The Republican-run Senate postponed fights with the Bush administration over the treatment of terror suspects and military base closings Tuesday after GOP leaders failed to derail proposals opposed by the White House.
The decision by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to shelve the $491 billion defense bill means debate over the wartime defense measure and the detainee and base-closing amendments almost certainly won't occur until after Labor Day. The Senate is to leave for a monthlong break at week's end.
The inability to thwart the controversial defense amendments was the latest setback for Frist this year. The majority leader has watched a handful of Republicans join minority Democrats in holding up John Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador and blocking Frist from banning filibusters of the president's judicial nominees.
The defense bill outlines next year's spending for the Pentagon, including $50 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Defense Department policy.
The White House said last week that advisers would recommend that President Bush veto the entire bill if it contains provisions that govern the treatment of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody or "weaken, delay or repeal" the Pentagon's plan to close domestic military bases.
Bush’s SCOTUS nominee has already provided legal justification for an official policy of torture: Roberts was also part of a three-judge panel that handed Bush an important victory the week before Bush announced Roberts nomination to the bench. In fact, the day before the ruling was issued, President Bush interviewed Roberts at the White House. The next day, the court released their ruling that the military tribunals of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could proceed. The decision also found that Bush could deny terrorism captives prisoner-of-war status as outlined by the Geneva Conventions.
The spinelessness and moral pusillanimity of the Democrats is tacit approval of torture: Of the 257 votes cast Thursday for the Bush's administration's version of the Patriot Act, 214 came from Republicans, while 43 came from Democrats -- including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, and Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois representative who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Of the 171 votes against the administration's version of the Patriot Act, 156 came from Democrats, 14 from Republicans and one from Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders.
Had the 43 Democrats who voted with the White House and the Republican leadership instead sided with House Democrats and Republicans who were worried about the threat to civil liberties posed by the Patriot Act, the opposition total would have risen to 214 while support for the measure would have fallen to 214.
On a tie vote, the legislation would not have advanced.
That would have been more than just a setback for the White House's draconian approach to civil liberties. It would have dramatically improved prospects for a bipartisan move by members of the Senate to clean up the Patriot Act. On Thursday, as the House was debating the issue, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously for legislation that would require greater oversight of the Justice Department's role in implementing the act and that would place new restrictions on surveillance and secret searches.
Foreign Affairs
Australia hits its ceiling: The Australian military presence in Iraq is unlikely to be increased after the deployment of extra US troops in southern Iraq to replace British forces. The number of American soldiers in the southern province of Al-Muthanna has risen markedly in the past few weeks and Australian forces are expecting another 2000 in the next month.
Oh, good: Russian President Vladimir Putin told the country's military and law enforcement officers Wednesday to take preemptive actions in fighting terrorism, which he said remains a major threat to the world.
"Your activities in this area should be preemptive in nature," Putin told top military, law enforcement and security officers at a meeting in the Kremlin, the Interfax news agency reported.
"We perfectly understand how serious the tasks are that face Russia's law enforcement and security agencies," primarily police and interior forces, Putin said.
The recent attacks in London, Egypt and in Russia's Caucasus region show "terrorism remains one of the main threats to the world," and Russia will play an important part in the joint work to fight terrorism, Putin said.
Go Figure
This does not compute: For the first time, a majority of Americans, 51%, say the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — the reason Bush emphasized in making the case for invading. The administration's credibility on the issue has been steadily eroding since 2003.
By 58%-37%, a majority say the United States won't be able to establish a stable, democratic government in Iraq.
About one-third, 32%, say the United States can't win the war in Iraq. Another 21% say the United States could win the war, but they don't think it will. Just 43% predict a victory.
Still, on the question that tests fundamental attitudes toward the war — was it a mistake to send U.S. troops? — the public's view has rebounded. By 53%-46%, those surveyed say it wasn't a mistake, the strongest support for the war since just after the Iraqi elections in January.
Okay, lemme figure this out…51% say we were lied into the war…53% think we aren’t going to win…58% don’t think we have a hope of a stable government on top of the second largest oil reserves in the world…but 53% think the war wasn’t a mistake? Hmm. By my calculations this indicates that a minimum of half the American people have their heads so far up their butts they can lick their own uvulas.
Commentary
Plea: I am no traitor. What I have done and will continue to do is to exercise my Freedom of Speech as I talk about how I feel about this illegal war. To do otherwise would be to become a complacent citizen, something I do not want to be. The truth is George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell and so many others betrayed the trust of my son and the rest of the country. If I do not speak my truths and share my story, the story of Jeremy and over 1780 American sons and daughters, I would be doing them a great dishonor.
Every day I hear stories from other Americans that will break your heart. These stories are about their beloved soldiers who are serving in Iraq and stories about loved ones who have died. Some of these stories give me nightmares and I can't stop thinking about them. They make me want to scream from at the top of my lungs about the unfairness of it all.
Please, I ask of all of you to help me so that no more of America's sons and daughters get killed for an illegal and immoral war. Do not let our children be cannon fodder for the lies of Bush & Co. Tonight there will be yet another knock on the door in some neighborhood in America by the messenger of death. Another family's heart will be broken, never to be healed.
Join with me to bring a stop to this. Join with me to end this war.
Amy Branham Houston, TX Mother of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith Gold Star Families for Peace
Opinion: The bombings in London illustrated that Iraq has increasingly replaced Afghanistan as the primary training ground for terrorists, and the devices used by the suicide bombers appear to have been a form of the explosives developed in Iraq. One recently killed 24 children and an American soldier who was passing out candy to them in Baghdad.
U.S. efforts to encourage other Arab countries to appoint ambassadors to the al-Jaafari government in Iraq were set back when the insurgents kidnapped and killed Egyptian envoy Ihab al-Sherif earlier this month, calling him "an enemy of God."
The next step toward making the government self-sufficient is the development of a draft constitution, now set for Aug. 15, a deadline that will probably not be met.
In the meantime, the U.S. Army said this month that it has signed another extension of its contract with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root for another $5 billion to support U.S. forces in Iraq. The Army had not seen fit to announce the extension when it awarded it in May, in spite of the fact that some of Halliburton's previous billing, which has netted it $9 billion so far in the war, was disputed.
None of this has much to do with American elections, or Republican and Democratic wrangling. Mr. Bush will be president until January, 2009, whatever his ratings might be. The Congress shows itself as largely irrelevant to what is going on in Iraq, apart from being required to vote the money to finance the war, now running at about $5 billion a month.
It is increasingly clear that this war will not be won in any way that can be discerned as victory, and, in the meantime, it is draining America's blood away, in the lives of our soldiers and in resources that could be used to meet other needs.
Editorial: The Plame-Wilson-Novak-Rove-Libby-Cooper-Miller-Fitzgerald drama is more than a case of the usual hardball style of White House politics straying a little too far over the line. It's different, because it gets at the very heart of the way in which the U.S. went to war in 2003.
The Bush administration decided to justify a war with Iraq on the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction. Plenty of people thought it likely that Iraq possessed nerve agents and biological arms, because the circumstantial evidence was fairly persuasive. Yet there was an unavoidable problem, from the administration's point of view: Even if those stocks had existed, they were a fundamentally insufficient reason to launch an attack. Containment was clearly working. Iraq had putatively possessed such arms for years, and had not used any of them since before the first Persian Gulf war. Iraq, moreover, had no means to launch a biological or chemical attack on New York or St. Louis or Oshkosh, Wis. It posed no threat to the United States.
There were two ways of getting around this obstacle, and the Bush administration used both. The first was to argue that Iraq might now ally itself with al-Qaida. Baghdad had the deadly goods; al-Qaida could use its sneaky, cunning means to deliver them against American territory. Vice President Dick Cheney in particular pushed this line. There wasn't, however, a shred of evidence to support it.
The second way to goose the process along was to bring up nuclear weapons. A half-century of Cold War with the Soviet Union had made the horror of nuclear war a touchstone of anxiety in the American mind, and the idea of Saddam Hussein having a few nukes in his arsenal - even if he did lack an intercontinental ballistic missile to shoot them our way - was enough to worry anyone. President Bush remarked that he didn't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
This then became the capstone - the one piece of the argument that lent urgency to the march to war. It was the nuclear option that put the wheels in motion, because delay could potentially be fatal.
The White House presented two pieces of evidence that it said pointed to nukes. There was an Iraqi order for aluminum tubes that supposedly might be for use in a centrifuge, though experts quickly threw cold water on this idea. And then there was the story about Iraq going shopping for "yellowcake" uranium in Niger. President Bush brought it up in the 2003 State of the Union speech. But, again, it was Mr. Cheney who was most enthusiastic about beating this drum.
In March 2003, just before the war broke out, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, convincingly declared that the Niger story was a fake. But the war clouds had gathered by that time, and it wasn't difficult for the administration to press onward; maybe some particular papers had been faked, but this was a detail, and - better safe than sorry - it was full speed ahead.
That July brought the article by Joseph C. Wilson IV, the diplomat and husband of Valerie Plame, in which he wrote that he had gone to Niger and reported back to Washington - a full year earlier - that the story was groundless. What this did was to demonstrate that the excitement over Iraq's supposed uranium purchases in the months leading up to the war wasn't a mistake, or an exaggeration. It was a lie.
This was Mr. Wilson's sin. The nuclear threat was the only justification for the urgency of war, and not only was it baseless but because of what he wrote, it was now clear that the architects of the war knew it was baseless.
Here is the motivation for the outing of Ms. Plame, a CIA agent. It appears that the White House was not intent so much on punishing Mr. Wilson as on discrediting him, by suggesting that his trip had been some sort of junket arranged by his wife. Mr. Wilson's revelation, if true, exposed the dishonesty at the core of the administration's maneuverings over Iraq. And of course it was true.
This is the context in which the continuing investigation by the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, must be viewed. This is not simply about the Karl Rove brand of politics taken too far, but about the fabrication that launched a war.
Casualty Reports
Local story: Princeton, MI, Marine killed in IED attack near Ar Rutbah.
Local story: Northwest Indiana soldier killed when an explosive detonated near his vehicle in Samarra.
Local story: Jamestown, ND, Marine recovering from wounds suffered in a roadside bombing of his Humvee.
Local story: Walton, KY, soldier killed in Iraq when his tank flipped over into a ravine.
Local story: Parkston, SD, soldier killed in roadside bombing in Iraq.
Local story: Worth, GA, National Guardsman killed in roadside bombing in Iraq.
Local story: Memorial service held for Pago Pago, American Samoa, soldier killed in bombing near Balad.
Local story: Cedar City, UT, National Guardsman killed in explosion in Kirkuk memorialized.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
War News for Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Bring ‘em on: Twelve Iraqis killed and 16 wounded in car bombing at the checkpoint for the Sadeer hotel in
Bring ‘em on: Forty people killed, unknown number wounded in suicide truck bombing aimed at an Iraqi police station in east Baghdad. (Note: This is probably an update on the truck bombing attack Friendly Fire covered in yesterday’s post.) One
Bring ‘em on: Head of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Baquba office shot dead while stepping out of his car. One Iraqi paramedic and one Iraqi woman killed, six others injured during clashes between the Iraqi army and insurgents in
Bring ‘em on: Up to 17 people killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying employees home from a factory in Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad. Police reports said 12 were killed and nine wounded.
Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi police officer killed by gunmen in
Your piece of good news for today: Weeks before an important deadline for the new constitution, Sunni Arab leaders said today that they had ended their boycott of the drafting process.
The Sunni leaders said the original constitutional committee, made up almost entirely of Shiites and Kurds, had agreed to the conditions the Sunni Arabs had set for their return, including having the government provide bodyguards. The Sunnis said they expected an agreement in writing to formalize the accord. The Sunni Arab boycott began last week after two colleagues were assassinated in downtown
Back to our usual programming: Six months after
Indeed, the insurgents appear closer than ever to tipping the country into civil war, leaving many Iraqis profoundly gloomy in this summer of relentless car bombs, scorching heat and sporadic electricity.
Spinning out of control: From the outside, it seems like chaotic violence. But it's worse than that. In
The daily pattern of murder in
No need to hide: Gunmen shoot a father in the head in front of his children. Grocers are gunned down in broad daylight. The killers don't bother hiding their faces in the chaos of Amiriya. Hit squads roam freely in the mixed Sunni and Shi'ite western district of Baghdad, killing ordinary Iraqis in a campaign government officials fear will spark civil war. "Most of the murdered ones are simple people with no obvious political activities that can justify the killing," said Abu Sami, 43, an employee in the Ministry of Finance. "We as a family think that we might be targeted so I really think of leaving for another place. But I can't afford it so I have to live in the middle of chaos."
Last throes: They just keep getting stronger.
Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever.
A string of recent attacks, including the execution of moderate Sunni leaders and the kidnapping of foreign diplomats, has brought home for many Iraqis that the democratic process that has been unfolding since the Americans restored Iraqi sovereignty in June 2004 has failed to isolate the insurgents and, indeed, has become the target itself.
After concentrating their efforts for two and a half years on driving out the 138,000-plus American troops, the insurgents appear to be shifting their focus to the political and sectarian polarization of the country - apparently hoping to ignite a civil war - and to the isolation of the Iraqi government abroad.
And the insurgents are choosing their targets with greater precision, and executing and dramatizing their attacks with more sophistication than they have in the past.
Lucky thing we’ve done so many in, eh?: U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed or arrested more than 50,000 Iraqi insurgents in the past seven months, a former top general who has headed repeated Pentagon assessment missions to Iraq said yesterday.
Gen. Jack Keane, a former deputy chief of staff for the Army, also said the
Pentagon officials previously had been quoted as saying 15,000 to 16,000 Iraqis were in custody in Iraq, but spokesman Lawrence DiRita was unable to comment last night on the 50,000 figure offered by the general. "I would highly doubt that anyone has a good handle on the numbers," he said. "I'm not aware of what General Keane has been told, but I know of no number that has been provided to the secretary, briefed by the commanders, or is being tracked by anyone."
A Defense Department consultant, retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, said Gen. Keane's figure likely includes some Iraqis who were swept up in military operations and subsequently released. "Does that mean all of them are terrorists or still being held? Probably not. It means we are making inroads, but not that we captured 50,000 terrorists," he said.
Look! Got another! And winged two more! Put ‘em on the tote sheet, General!: Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit. The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car. At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass. Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other. The sedan's driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments.
The soldiers drove on without stopping. This kind of shooting is far from rare in Baghdad, but the driver of the car was no ordinary casualty. He was Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit. His passengers were unarmed hitchhikers whom he was dropping off on his way to work. "The reason they shot us is just because the Americans are reckless," the general said from his hospital bed hours after the July 6 shooting, his head wrapped in a white bandage. "Nobody punishes them or blames them."
Now, General, if an guerilla masked as a policeman kills a citizen and calls him an insurgent do we get to put another notch on the tote board?: A US government report has concluded that likely insurgents have infiltrated Iraq's police service, while other recruits have criminal records or are barely literate.
In a more controversial opinion, according to Time magazine, the report by the Department of Defense and State Department inspector generals also says that the Pentagon has been using Iraqi police as "cannon fodder" in Iraq.
The so-called progress report, which is expected to be released in Washington this week, also states that the training of Iraqi police recruits is badly behind schedule.
It notes that "too many recruits are marginally literate; some show up for training with criminal records or physical handicaps," Time said, citing the conclusions of the inspectors general.
Here is a PDF file of the actual report.
Ah crap, now we're gonna have insurgents recruited into the US officer corps: The Pentagon announced Friday that Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has been in charge of efforts to train Iraqi security forces, has completed his yearlong tour of duty and will become commander of the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Named to replace him was Maj. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who also was nominated for promotion to lieutenant general, the Pentagon statement said.
A newly declassified Pentagon assessment released to Congress said only "a small number" of Iraqi security forces can fight insurgents without American assistance, although about a third of the Iraqi Army is capable of "planning, executing and sustaining counterinsurgency operations" with support.
In his new job, General Petraeus will be in charge of the Command and General Staff College, where the Army gives advanced training to its most promising officers.
Gosh, if only we could figure out why there are so many insurgents, maybe we could do something…: Talib Abu Younes put his lips to a glass of tap water recently and watched worms swimming in the bottom.
Electricity flickers on and off for two hours in Muthana Naim's south Baghdad home then shuts off for four in boiling July heat that shoots above 120 degrees.
Fadhel Hussein boils buckets of sewage-contaminated water from the Tigris River to wash the family's clothes.
The capital is crumbling around angry Baghdadis. Narrow concrete sewage pipes decay underground and water pipes leak out more than half the drinking water before it ever reaches a home, according to the U.S. military.
Over 18 months, American officials spent almost $2 billion to revive the capital ravaged by war and neglect, according to Army Gen. William G. Webster, who heads the 30,000 U.S. and foreign troops and 15,000 Iraqi soldiers known collectively as Task Force Baghdad. But the money goes for long-term projects that yield few visible results and for security to protect the construction sites from sabotage.
As a result, Iraqis have seen scant evidence of improvement in their homes, streets or neighborhoods. They blame American and Iraqi government corruption.
"We thank God that the air we breathe is not in the hands of the government. Otherwise they would have cut it off for a few hours each day," said Nadeem Haki, 39, an electric-goods shop owner in the upscale Karrada district in the east of the capital.
Cannon Fodder
Three times more and rising: I am not privy to the details of American military deployments, but the shift in casualty figures towards Iraqi soldiers and policemen and away from coalition personnel strongly suggest that CENTCOM is keeping Americans out of harm's way. Sunni terrorists, both homegrown and imported, display fearful abandon in suicide attacks, and no doubt wish to kill as many Americans as they can. The fact that they are killing Iraqis instead indicates that American soldiers are holed up in their compounds out of reach. At the beginning of 2005, the monthly rate of Iraqi casualties was the same as coalition casualties. Since then coalition casualties have fallen by half while Iraqi casualties have tripled. There is no reason for these trends to change.
Tuning it out: Two years into the occupation of Iraq the menace of drug abuse appears to be afflicting American troops.
Aware of the debilitating effect drugs had on the morale and effectiveness of GIs in the Vietnam War, the authorities are attempting to stifle a repeat in Iraq.
Aside from random urine tests and barrack room searches, commanders have asked their troops to inform on colleagues.
Which One Is Not Like The Others?
Is it John Major?: The war in Iraq has heightened the threat of terrorist attacks in Britain, former Prime Minister Sir John Major has claimed. His intervention is a setback to Tony Blair's attempt to play down any link between the London bombings and the Iraq conflict.
Or could it be JTAC?: High-ranking security and intelligence officials warned in the weeks before the London bombings that the war in Iraq had increased the risk of terrorism in Britain, it was reported today.
A report by the Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre - which includes officials from MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the police - explicitly linked US-led involvement in Iraq with terrorist activity in the UK although it concluded that no group currently had the "intent and the capability" to mount an attack, the New York Times said.
"Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK," the report - a copy of which was leaked to the paper by a foreign intelligence agency - said.
How about the Home and Foreign Offices?: A joint Home Office and Foreign Office dossier — Young Muslims and Extremism — prepared for the prime minister last year, said Britain might now be harbouring thousands of Al-Qaeda sympathisers.
The Iraq war is identified by the dossier as a key cause of young Britons turning to terrorism. The analysis says: “It seems that a particularly strong cause of disillusionment among Muslims, including young Muslims, is a perceived ‘double standard’ in the foreign policy of western governments, in particular Britain and the US.
Or wait – maybe it’s Jack!: Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday stepped back from his earlier denials that the war on Iraq had nothing to do with the terror attacks in London.
The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was believed to be incensed at Mr Straw's refusal to admit that the two events could be linked last week, as he believed this clashed with wider public opinion.
Or Robin?: Former foreign secretary Robin Cook has said the invasion of Iraq had "undoubtedly" boosted terrorism around the world.
Mr Cook, who quit the Cabinet over his opposition to the war, said that unless the Government addressed the issue it would struggle to win over young Muslims in Britain.
He stressed that he was not arguing that the attacks on London would not have occurred if Britain had not joined the invasion.
However he said intelligence agencies had warned Tony Blair on the eve of conflict that military action would increase the terrorist threat to Britain.
"The problem is that we have handed al Qaida an immense propaganda gift, one that they exploit ruthlessly," he told the BBC News 24 Sunday programme.
"There have been more suicide bombings in the two years since we invaded Iraq than in the 20 years before it. Yes, it has happened around the world. I don't think you can make a simple link between any one event and Iraq, but undoubtedly it has boosted terrorism.
Or even maybe a bunch of intelligence guys from two years ago?: Tony Blair faced fresh controversy over his case for war against Iraq last night after a parliamentary committee disclosed that intelligence chiefs had warned him that toppling Saddam Hussein would increase the risk of terrorist attacks against Britain.
Nope. It’s just the usual dickhead: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said tying the recent terrorist attacks in Britain and Egypt to the US-led war in Iraq was "ridiculous". "There was no war in Iraq on 9/11," Rumsfeld said Monday, referring to the Sep 11, 2001 attacks on the US. "Terrorist attacks have been happening well before the war in Iraq," he said, adding that a connection to Iraq war is "just utter nonsense".
Catapulting The Propaganda
Misfire: The U.S. military on Sunday said it was looking into how virtually identical quotations ended up in two of its news releases about different insurgent attacks.
Following a car bombing in Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military issued a statement with a quotation attributed to an unidentified Iraqi that was virtually identical to a quote reacting to an attack on July 13.
After questioning by news media, the military released the statement without the quotation.
Busted!: The U.S. military expressed regret Monday for issuing news releases about two separate attacks in Iraq that included almost identical quotes attributed to an unidentified Iraqi.
"Task Force Baghdad Public Affairs regrets the confusion regarding two press releases issued in support of our operations July 24," said a statement Monday.
Although not referring to the quote in Sunday's release, it said there was "a draft press release which, due to an administrative error, was mistakenly issued on behalf of the 3rd Infantry Division."
Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, spokesman for the 3rd Infantry Division, also spoke Sunday of an "administrative error."
Kent did not explain why the quote apparently was changed to apply to the latest attack.
Global Terrorism
We’ve eliminated a major backer of terror…er, wait…we’ll get him dead or alive…no, no, no…we’ll fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here…ah, screw it: The back-to-back nature of the deadly attacks in Egypt and London, as well as similarities in the methods used, suggests that the al Qaeda leadership may have given the orders for both operations and is a clear sign that Osama bin Laden and his deputies remain in control of the network, according to interviews with counterterrorism analysts and government officials in Europe and the Middle East.
Investigators on Saturday said that they believed the details of the bombing plots in Egypt and Britain -- the deadliest terrorist strikes in each country's history -- were organized locally by groups working independently of each other. In Sharm el-Sheikh, where the death toll rose to 88 people, attention centered on an al Qaeda affiliate blamed for a similar attack last October at Taba, another Red Sea resort. In London, where 52 bystanders were killed in the subway and on a bus, police have identified three of the four presumed suicide bombers as British natives with suspected connections to Pakistani radicals.
But intelligence officials and terrorist experts said they suspect that bin Laden or his lieutenants may have sponsored both operations from afar, as well as other explosions that have killed hundreds of people in Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Morocco since 2002. The hallmarks in each case: multiple bombings aimed at unguarded, civilian targets that are designed to scare Westerners and rattle the economy.
The officials and analysts also said the recent attacks indicate that the nerve center of the original al Qaeda network remains alive and well, despite the fact that many leaders have been killed or captured since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings in the United States. Bin Laden may be in hiding, the officials and analysts said, and much is still unknown about the network. But they added that his organization remains fully capable of orchestrating attacks worldwide by recruiting local groups to do its bidding.
US Military Recruitment
Making the obvious official: The Army's top personnel officer acknowledged this week that the service will probably miss its recruiting goal this year, the first public admission by a senior Army official and a stark reminder of the Iraq war's impact on enlistments.
The officer, Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, said in testimony to the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee on Tuesday that an improving economy, competition from private industry and an increasing number of parents who are less supportive of military service meant that the active-duty Army, as well as the Army Reserve and Army National Guard, would fall short of their annual quotas.
"We will likely miss recruiting missions for all three components," said General Hagenbeck, voicing publicly what many senior Army officials have said privately for weeks.
The Army has not missed its annual enlistment quota since 1999, when a strong economy played havoc with recruiters' efforts. Damn that traitor Clinton anyway...
Who let him in the room?: Deep into a four-hour congressional hearing last week on why the Army and its reserve components are missing recruiting goals, Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., turned a spotlight on the elephant in the room. The war in Iraq, Snyder said, is unpopular with many Americans - a fact that needs airing, given the all-volunteer nature of the U.S. military.
Until that moment in Tuesday's House Armed Services subcommittee hearing, blame for recruiting shortfalls focused on many things. Those included negative coverage of the war, an improving economy, the pace of military operations, and an unexplained drop in propensity of parents and other "influencers" of U.S. youths to recommend military service. Nothing was said of a nation that, polls have found, is souring on a war begun to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and shifted - after none was found - into an open-ended occupation and herculean effort to turn a fractionalized Islamic nation into a democracy.
Think it’s going to get better?: The Bush administration's rallying call that America is a nation at war is increasingly ringing hollow to men and women in uniform, who argue in frustration that America is not a nation at war, but a nation with only its military at war.
From bases in Iraq and across the United States to the Pentagon and the military's war colleges, officers and enlisted personnel quietly raise a question for political leaders: if America is truly on a war footing, why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?
There is no serious talk of a draft to share the burden of fighting across the broad citizenry, and neither Republicans nor Democrats are pressing for a tax increase to force Americans to cover the $5 billion a month in costs from Iraq, Afghanistan and new counterterrorism missions.
There are not even concerted efforts like the savings-bond drives or gasoline rationing that helped to unite the country behind its fighting forces in wars past.
"Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," said one officer just back from a yearlong tour in Iraq, voicing a frustration now drawing the attention of academic specialists in military sociology.
Meanwhile, not everyone has recruitment problems: With the frequency of terror attacks apparently mounting, experts searching for common threads behind the attacks suggest that the war on terror is being waged against an ever-increasing well of recruits, bound together by motives and cause -- rather than a single al-Qaida mastermind.
Anger over the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also seems to be providing some inspiration, despite early arguments from Bush administration officials that fighting insurgents in Iraq would help prevent them from launching attacks on Western targets. The war has instead turned into a recruiting tool, experts said.
The constant images on Arab-language networks of dead and dying civilians -- coupled with U.S. soldiers conducting operations -- have only heightened sensitivities.
''Iraq has been an absolute gift to al-Qaida,'' said Paul Rogers, a professor of peace studies at England's Bradford University. ''[Al-Qaida] seems to have no difficulty in getting more and more recruits.''
Fighting To Make The World Safe For…Torture
Hey, maybe we’ll finally see a veto this term: Vice President Dick Cheney is leading a White House lobbying effort to block legislation offered by Republican senators that would regulate the detention, treatment and trials of detainees held by the American military.
The legislation, which is still being drafted, includes provisions to bar the military from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross; prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees; and use only interrogation techniques authorized in a new Army field manual.
On Thursday, just before Mr. Cheney's meeting, the White House warned in a blunt statement that Senate approval of a Republican or Democratic amendment was likely to prompt Mr. Bush's top advisers to recommend he veto the measure.
The values administration: The Bush administration in recent days has been lobbying to block legislation supported by Republican senators that would bar the U.S. military from engaging in "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees, from hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, and from using interrogation methods not authorized by a new Army field manual.
Vice President Cheney met Thursday evening with three senior Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to press the administration's case that legislation on these matters would usurp the president's authority and -- in the words of a White House official -- interfere with his ability "to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack."
It was the second time that Cheney has met with Senate members to tamp down what the White House views as an incipient Republican rebellion. The lawmakers have publicly expressed frustration about what they consider to be the administration's failure to hold any senior military officials responsible for notorious detainee abuse in Iraq and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman: Yesterday, news emerged that lawyers for the Pentagon had refused to cooperate with a federal judge's order to release dozens of unseen photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by Saturday. The photos were among thousands turned over by the key “whistleblower” in the scandal, Specialist Joseph M. Darby. Just a few that were released to the press sparked the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal last year, and the video images are said to be even more shocking. The Pentagon lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material. They had been ordered to do so by a federal judge in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU accused the government Friday of putting another legal roadblock in the way of its bid to allow the public to see the images of the prisoner abuse scandal. To get a sense of what may be shown in these images, one has to go back to press reports from when the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was still front page news.
"’The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,’ Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. ’We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.’ “Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.’”
Murder
Eighteen months: An Indiana National Guard soldier charged with murder in the death of an Iraqi police officer unraveled the truth behind months of conflicting stories with a clear statement of guilt.
Cpl. Dustin Berg, 22, pleaded guilty Monday to a lesser charge of negligent homicide in a shooting he had previously claimed was self-defense. But during his court-martial, Berg said the November 2003 shooting was a rash judgment. He said it was a mistake to try to cover up the incident by shooting himself in the stomach.
Berg, of Ferdinand, Ind., will spend 18 months in prison under a plea agreement. He will also be discharged from the Army for bad conduct.
Wising Up ?
So why does he still have an approval over 40%?: Many adults in the United States believe their president has not developed a specific plan to conclude the coalition effort in Iraq, according to a poll by Princeton Survey Research Associates for the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 64 per cent of respondents believe George W. Bush does not have a clear strategy for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion.
Commentary
Editorial: My mind of late has been entertaining a heresy: that the Bush White House doesn't take its own war on terrorism seriously.
Rather, the war is a sham, concocted to pursue political ends - to wit, a brushback of civil liberties, support for an invasion of Iraq, an increase in Republican representation in Congress and a second term for President Bush.
Opinion: There was a time when the first and greatest loyalty of any military officer was to the truth, and his obligation was to tell the truth as he knew it to his superiors, military or civilian.
They still teach it that way at West Point in the honor code that guides a cadet: I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate anyone who does. Even quibbling -- any semblance of an evasion of the truth -- can lead to expulsion from the academy.
Before the invasion of Iraq, when the planning was under way, the civilian leadership made it clear that this war was going to be done their way and anyone who got in the way would regret it.
Ask Army Lt. Gen. John Riggs. In September 2004 while Rumsfeld and Army chief Gen. Peter Schoomaker were doing their best to keep Congress from adding more troops to the Army, Riggs was quoted in a newspaper article (Baltimore Sun, Sept. 13, 2004) that even 10,000 more soldiers would not be enough.
''You probably are looking at substantially more than 10,000,'' Riggs told the paper. ``I have been in the Army 39 years and I've never seen the Army as stretched in that 39 years as I have today.''
Riggs had already requested retirement. It usually takes 60 days for the paperwork to get done. Two days before that period ended Riggs was told that he was being demoted to two-star rank and would retire at that rank and pay. Riggs has appealed.
Meanwhile the Pentagon leadership continues to respond to all questions about the troop strength in Iraq by singing the old song: Anything the military commanders over there ask for they will get.
That is the answer even though those same commanders don't have enough troops to permanently base any of them along the wide-open Syrian border crossings where hundreds of foreign Jihad terrorists have crossed into Iraq on their way to become suicide bombers killing Americans and Iraqis alike.
That is the answer even though those same commanders have never had enough troops to secure the hundreds of old ammunition dumps scattered all over Iraq, which contain more than a million tons of bombs, artillery shells, bullets, rockets and launchers.
No doubt that will still be the answer when the Army and the Marine Corps have been utterly broken by unending combat deployments that grind up soldiers and equipment alike. When the Army cannot recruit enough replacements for those who are leaving something they love because they love their families more.
Comment: The Duke of Wellington, warning hawkish politicians in Britain against ill-considered military intervention abroad, once said: "Great nations do not have small wars." He meant that supposedly limited conflicts can inflict terrible damage on powerful states. Having seen what a small war in Spain had done to Napoleon, he knew what he was talking about.
The war in Iraq is now joining the Boer War in 1899 and the Suez crisis in 1956 as ill-considered ventures that have done Britain more harm than good. It has demonstrably strengthened al-Qa'ida by providing it with a large pool of activists and sympathisers across the Muslim world it did not possess before the invasion of 2003. The war, which started out as a demonstration of US strength as the world's only superpower, has turned into a demonstration of weakness. Its 135,000-strong army does not control much of Iraq.
For future historians Iraq will probably replace Vietnam as the stock example of the truth of Wellington's dictum about small wars escalating into big ones. Ironically, the US and Britain pretended in 2003 that Saddam ruled a powerful state capable of menacing his neighbours. Secretly they believed this was untrue and expected an easy victory.
Now in 2005 they find to their horror that there are people in Iraq more truly dangerous than Saddam, and they are mired in an un-winnable conflict.
Opinion: I remember the arrogance that accompanied the "shock and awe" bombing campaign that kicked off the war in Iraq more than two years ago. The war was supposed to be quick and easy, a cakewalk. The enemy, we were told, would fold like a dinner napkin. And then, in the neoconservative fantasies of some of the crazier folks in the Bush crowd, the military would gear up for an invasion of Iran.
In one of the great deceptions in the history of American government, President Bush insisted to a nation traumatized by the Sept. 11 attacks that the invasion of Iraq was crucial to the success of the so-called war on terror.
"Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror," said Mr. Bush in a speech in the fall of 2002 that was designed to drum up support for the invasion. "To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror."
There is still no indication that the Bush administration recognizes the utter folly of its war in Iraq, which has been like a constant spray of gasoline on the fire of global terrorism. What was required in the aftermath of Sept. 11 was an intense, laserlike focus by America and its allies on Al Qaeda-type terrorism.
Instead, the Bush crowd saw its long dreamed of opportunity to impose its will on Iraq, which had nothing to do with the great tragedy of Sept. 11. Many thousands have paid a fearful price for that bit of ideological madness.
Comment: Basically, the military equation in Iraq comes down to demographics. Sunni Arabs are no more than 20 percent of Iraq's population. Even in Baghdad—once the seat of Sunni Arab power—Sunni Arabs are a minority. To succeed, the insurgency would have to win support from Iraq's other major communities—the Kurds at 20 percent and the Shiites at between 55 and 60 percent. This cannot happen.
While the Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslims, they have a history of repression at the hands of Sunni Arabs. A few dozen Kurds have been involved in terrorist acts, but al-Qaeda and its allies have no support in the Kurdistan population, which is one reason Kurdistan has largely been spared the violence that has wracked Arab Iraq.
The Shiites are completely immune to any appeal by insurgents. Sunni fundamentalists consider Shiites as apostates, and possibly a more dangerous enemy than even the Americans. (The Americans, they know, will leave. The apostates want to rule.) For the last two years, Sunni Arab insurgents have targeted Shiite mosques, clerics, religious celebrations, and pilgrims—with a toll in the thousands. The insurgent goal is to provoke sectarian war, and they seem to be succeeding. In spite of calls for restraint by Shiite leaders, there are growing numbers of retaliatory killings of Sunni Arabs by Shiites.
But while the insurgents cannot win, neither can they be defeated.
For most of his thirty-five-year rule Saddam Hussein faced guerrilla warfare from Kurds or Shiites—and sometimes both. Even the most brutal of tactics could not pacify communities that did not accept Sunni Arab rule. Today Sunni Arabs reject rule by Iraq's Shiite majority. It is unrealistic to think the American military—operating with a fraction of the intelligence of the Saddam Hussein regime and with much less brutality (Abu Ghraib notwithstanding)—can quell a Sunni Arab resistance that is no longer solely anti-American but also anti-Shiite.
Comment: According to former FBI agent Mike German, who worked against right-wing terrorist gangs in America and later on an Islamist case, there are many more similarities than differences between the way Muslim suicide bombers and 'ordinary' terrorists operate and, hence, between effective ways of defeating them. Even their structures - loose networks whose command and control may not consist of anything more organised than access to a website and a grapevine for passing on those with technical, bomb-making expertise - are much the same, German says.
This lack of hierarchy can be a strength - there is no 'Mr Big' whose interrogation might unravel a whole terrorist army - but also a weakness. 'It means they are open to infiltration,' he says. 'In both cases, the successful agent may well find he gets the best evidence from not saying much about himself, and not asking questions about the others.'
German not only penetrated neo-Nazi groups, he also gathered evidence of sufficient quality to take them to court and send them to prison. Yet after 9/11, he and his colleagues with anti-terrorist experience found themselves derided as mere 'gumshoes', unsuitable for use in the new 'war on terror'. In his view, America made a grave error in rejecting the traditional law-enforcement model in favour of this more abstract concept and its associated methods, such as internment and torture at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, which has, just about everyone but Bush and Donald Rumsfeld now accept, produced very little hard, 'actionable' intelligence.
Opinion: As the Senate deliberates the qualifications of Judge John Roberts Jr. for elevation to the nation's high court, it should closely consider the implications of one case decided this month that will probably receive short shrift, because it isn't one he authored, but merely joined.
The case of Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld involves a man purported to be Osama bin Laden's personal bodyguard and driver, who was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 by militia forces and transferred to American custody. Salim Ahmed Hamdan has been a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2002 and is now up on charges of murder and terrorism. He is being tried under a military tribunal system, established by President Bush for the express purpose of sending accused terrorists through a separate legal system.
Hamdan's guilt or innocence was not the question before Roberts and his two colleagues on the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Rather, the question was whether President Bush had the authority to contravene the Geneva Conventions and establish an unreviewable regime of military tribunals to try detainees.
Together, the three Republican-appointed judges issued a resounding "yes." According to the court, no matter how little due process would be afforded the defendant or how dismissive the process was of the rules spelled out in the Conventions, the proceedings could go forward.
Welcome to Roberts' Rules of Order: Geneva Conventions = Paper Airplane.
Casualty Report
Local story: Macon, MS, National Guardsman killed in IED explosion in Baghdad.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Another successful landmark has been reached in our occupation of Iraq: The World Monuments Fund has just placed the country on its list of the Earth's 100 most endangered sites. ("Widespread looting, military occupation, artillery fire, vandalism, and other acts of violence are devastating Iraq, long considered the cradle of human civilization.") This is the first time that the Fund has ever put a whole nation on its list and so represents a singular accomplishment for the Bush administration, which knew not -- and cared less -- what it wrought. The destruction began as Baghdad fell. Words disappeared instantly. They simply blinked off the screen of Iraqi history, many of them forever. First, there was the looting of the National Museum. That took care of some of the earliest words on clay, including, possibly, cuneiform tablets with missing parts of the epic of Gilgamesh. Soon after, the great libraries and archives of the capital went up in flames and books, letters, government documents, ancient Korans, religious manuscripts, stretching back centuries -- all those things not pressed into clay, or etched on stone, or engraved on metal, just words on that most precious and perishable of all commonplaces, paper -- vanished forever. What we're talking about, of course, is the flesh of history. And it was no less a victim of the American invasion -- of the Bush administration's lack of attention to, its lack of any sense of the value of what Iraq held (other than oil) -- than the Iraqi people. All of this has been, in that grim phrase created by the Pentagon, "collateral damage." Worse yet, the looting of antiquity, words and objects, not only never ended but seems to have accelerated. From well organized gangs of grave robbers to American engineers building bases to American soldiers taking souvenirs, the ancient inheritance not just of Iraqis but of all of us has simply headed south. According to Reuters, more than 1,000 Iraqi objects of antiquity have been confiscated at American airports; priceless cylinder seals are evidently selling on-line at eBay for a few hundred dollars apiece; and this represents just the tiniest fraction of what's gone. The process is not only unending, but in the chaos that is America's Iraq beyond counting or assessing accurately. Though less attended to than the human costs of the war (which, in turn, have been poorly attended to), such crimes against history are no small matter, as Chalmers Johnson indicates below. Johnson, who produced Blowback, a now classic account of how we got to September 11, 2001 (though published well before those attacks occurred), and a singular study of American militarism, The Sorrows of Empire, is now working on the third volume of his Blowback Trilogy, Nemesis: The Crisis of the American Republic.Stick to cricket, mate:
The impasse was broken when then SAS Commanding Officer Lt-Col Gus Gilmore flew back to America and nailed down the result for the Australians. They also made it clear that Australian forces would not participate in a "regime change" mission. It had to be about weapons of mass destruction. "When they were at loggerheads you'd send the signaller in first and he'd do his Steve Irwin impersonation, going, 'Crikey, what's going on here' . . . so they'd fall off their chairs laughing," Mr Tinley said. "It broke the tension." The ploy usually worked, but it was the Australians' close relationship with US Special Forces honed during the Afghanistan campaign that won the day. "The support we got and the jobs we got in western Iraq were largely delivered by the goodwill that we'd developed in Afghanistan," Mr Tinley said.This is what depresses me when I post on Today in Iraq:
Body parts that had been hurled by an explosion over the 30ft high concrete wall a week earlier were still being picked up when the second suicide bomber struck last week. But, in an extraordinary display of optimism, the youngsters hopeful of being recruited into the forces still come to queue. In the last attack a group of potential recruits had crossed the road to buy a soft drink when their killer, spotting the soft target, detonated himself in their midst, killing 10 of them.Just read Billmon.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
There is a paralysis inside Parliament. Atavistic political structures have insulated the Blair regime from public opinion. The first-past-the-post electoral system is an affront to democratic functioning. The conformism and timidity of the opposition parties have played a vital role in reinforcing Blair's weightless hegemony. This is reflected by a neutered public television service which rarely allows programmes outside the narrow parliamentary spectrum to achieve a hearing. It is time for Blair to go. He took a calculated risk when he decided to back Bush and US foreign policy. He proclaimed proudly that in order to defeat Saddam Hussein a 'blood price would have to be paid.' It is being paid by tens of thousands of Iraqi dead and now by innocent Londoners. A British Colonel has been charged with committing crimes in Iraq. If we were to apply the norms of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, it is the politicians who gave the orders and justified the war who should also be in the dock as real war criminals.History lesson:
The root cause of suicide terrorism is occupation, not Islam, and not the other way around, as the War Party and its ill-informed adherents so righteously claim. "Don't you remember Sept. 11? We were attacked!" As Harry Browne has pointed out, history does not begin on 9/11. In fact, American intervention in the Middle East dates back to 1919, when U.S. participation in World War I helped turn the entire region over to the British and the French, who then drew borders to their own liking for the states of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, what was Palestine, etc. Since the Second World War, the U.S. government has dominated each of the Middle Eastern states at one time or another, and consistently a majority of them. It has supported bloody coups; backed fascist monsters like Shah Reza Pahlavi, Saddam Hussein, and Hosni Mubarak; armed and financed bothsides of wars; propped up puppet kings, sultans, and emirs; and helped the Israeli government kill, steal, and destroy with our money. To top it off, it has now waged a bloody war and a terrible blockade of Iraq – all from bases in the "land of two Holy Places," the Arabian Peninsula. Surprised that revenge was taken? We're lucky it took so long.They write books:
For years politicians have boosted their pensions and burnished their memorials by publishing heavyweight accounts of their time at the top. Now even civil servants such as the former Washington ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, once our man in Baghdad, are getting in on the act. Both have books due out in the autumn. "One of the most important political memoirs of the decade ... a riveting and candid memoir of life behind the diplomatic scenes," say Sir Christopher's publishers about his forthcoming book DC Confidential. One of its more eyecatching claims is that Jonathan Powell, the prime minister's chief of staff, told the new Washington ambassador that Downing Street wanted him "to get up the arse of the White House and stay there". Meanwhile the diaries of former Downing Street spin doctor Lance Price, also due in the autumn, are being promoted as "doing for the Blair administration what Yes, Minister did for the Thatcher years". A letter from Sir Andrew Turnbull, the cabinet secretary, has arrived at Mr Price's home in France warning him that his account is "completely unacceptable" - a line which will surely end up in big print on the cover of his book, if his publishers are prepared to defy the ban. But will they? That is in doubt after Sir Andrew warned Mr Price that he could not consent "to the publication of a book of this nature". Sir Andrew's attempt at a total prohibition is a first, but has boosted the book's chances of inclusion in the Westminster blockbusters' traditional niche in publishers' Christmas lists. It is a niche which used to be dominated by former ministers. But this year something is different. The few political books that have attracted attention are all by former officials, not ministers. "There is no really big political book out this autumn," says Iain Dale, founder of Politico's publishers. "Nobody is publishing them". This has puzzled those who expected that Tony Blair's impending departure would unleash a crop of racy insider accounts of the Blair years, in the way Thatcher's downfall did in the 1990s. So far, it hasn't happened. Or not by his colleagues anyway. Above stairs, lips stay sealed. "It's when a government starts to go down that all the good books usually come out," says Michael Fishwick, publishing director of HarperCollins. "Like a meteorite entering the earth's atmosphere, bits start to come off."Do mention the War:
That consolation has now been shattered by a week which produced another unprecedented event in Britain: armed police shooting dead a suspected suicide bomber at point-blank range in front of commuters. More alarm in the capital; more sheer fear for some Londoners and twitchiness and great inconvenience for many others; more evacuated tubes, wailing sirens, clattering helicopters and anxious phone calls to loved ones. And more of Tony Blair solemnly declaring that the most important thing is not to let the terrorists disrupt normal life even as he and key cabinet ministers abandoned their usual business to scramble to the basement of Number 10 for another crisis session of Cobra. Ministers found it trickier to calibrate the most appropriate response to the second week of emergency. The first time around, the Home Secretary went into default crisis mode and got himself over to the House of Commons to make a statement to MPs. At the Cobra meeting, Charles Clarke discussed whether he should make another emergency appearance on Thursday night before MPs departed for their 80 day break.Grief for White people only:
I've been stunned these last few days by the juxtaposition of American reactions to the July 7 terrorist attacks in London, where 59 died, and the huge July 17 attack of a single suicide bomber in Musayyib, Iraq, where 71 people died. The attacks in London hit us like a mini-9/11, our horror augmented by their occurrence in a kindred Western country. We know the stories and names of the people of all walks of life, including tourists, who were wantonly struck down in London. Our distress is heightened by hearing and reading eyewitness accounts in our own mother tongue. Would that we all knew Arabic fluently and had it streaming into our kitchens and living rooms. If we did, I doubt that we could live with ourselves as Americans. Musayyib's dead are not known by name and are never seen. They count only as statistics, human lives dispensable for the sake of an allegedly greater good. But what happened in Musayyib last weekend has occurred all over Iraq on a daily basis, ever since we declared victory in 2003. The equivalent would be random daily bombings all over the United Kingdom over the last two years.The Law of Unintended Consequences:
I wish it were so. But it's not. Consider that while in Tehran, Jafari also paid tribute to the father of the Iranian theocracy, visiting the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That the fanaticism of Khomeini is very much alive in today's Iran was clear from the election last month of one of his original Revolutionary Guards to be the country's new president. In making a pilgrimage to Shiite Iran, the Shiite Iraqi government also was paying homage to the longtime refuge and supporter of Iraqi Shiite revolutionaries, including Jafari himself, who spent 10 years in exile there. Jafari also reiterated an earlier statement in which his government apologized for Iraq's role in the long war with Iran. Now, thanks to the U.S. invasion, a new alliance is being formed between Iran and Iraq that threatens to further destabilize the politics of the Middle East. It wasn't supposed to work out this way. Forced democratization of Iraq, according to its neocon architects, was supposed to secure oil for the U.S., protect Israel, open markets to Western corporations and, oh yeah, maybe even decrease terrorism. After the invasion, however, the U.S., faced with decidedly more hostility and fewer flowers than expected, was loath to allow elections, because their outcome would probably not produce a pliant government. Then Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Shiite religious leader, threatened to take his followers into the streets against the foreign occupation if one-person-one-vote elections were not allowed. And when it became clear the "wrong" guys might win the elections the U.S. was forced to hold, the Bush White House, according to an investigative article by Seymour Hersh in the current New Yorker, tried to buy the vote for former CIA asset Ayad Allawi.Not coming to a cinema or movie screen any time soon:
The War of the Words.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
The Sunnis' temporary withdrawal from the process has worried the Bush administration, which views their inclusion in the political process as the decisive factor in deflating the Sunni-led insurgency. Additionally, many Sunni Arabs boycotted elections in January, and the Bush administration's fear is that should Sunni Arabs not help finish the constitution-writing process, their sense of alienation from the new Iraqi government could deepen, with catastrophic results. Arguably the most contentious remaining issue is regional autonomy. The Western diplomat said that while the Shiites and Sunni Arabs have agreed that the Kurds should keep their autonomous powers, a debate remains over whether and how the borders of Iraqi Kurdistan should be redrawn. At the same time, the Sunni Arabs appear adamant that no other part of Iraq, namely the Shiite-controlled south, should be able to declare autonomy. The Sunnis are concerned that with Kurdish autonomy in place in the north and Shiites agitating for an autonomous region in the oil-rich south, they will be left with an impoverished region barren of any natural resources. A prominent Sunni Arab cleric on Friday criticized proposals to transform Iraq into a federal state, saying such a "division of the country" would be a betrayal of the population. "The voices that call for federalism are not those of loyal people," the cleric, Sheik Mahmoud al-Sumaidie, said Friday at the prominent Umm al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad, Agence France-Presse reported. "The patriots are against dividing the country, and I call on them to fight for maintaining a united Iraq."Opinion and Commentary Helena in the Christian Science Monitor comments:
Washington's policy toward Iraq is dangerously adrift, showing no convincing signs of crushing or even containing the insurgency there. No insurgency can be beaten using military means only - and Washington has produced no plan for a political endgame capable of rallying the Iraqi citizenry around an anti-insurgent platform. Some have argued that the US needs to "stay the course" in Iraq and increase the numbers of US troops there, if needed. But the US simply doesn't have enough troops to do this, or even to sustain present troop levels past the end of the summer. Anyway, for the US, Iraq is not primarily a military problem. It's a political problem - one that the Bush administration has shown itself incapable of resolving. The interests of both Americans and Iraqis have been badly harmed by the three-year US occupation of Iraq (though far more Iraqis have suffered than Americans). If these two peoples are to be saved from further - even cataclysmic - harm, then Washington must quickly devise and implement a withdrawal strategy that's total, speedy, and generous to the Iraqi people. Some Americans seem not to understand how deeply, in most postcolonial societies, including Iraq, the fears of foreign domination still linger. So long as President Bush refuses to set a date for withdrawal, these fears will continue to multiply. No Iraqi political forces, except some in the Kurdish north, can be expected to support a long-term US troop presence in their country. (Kurdish leaders who think this might be a good idea would do well to remember the lawless condition of Kosovo, six years after its partial "liberation" by Western armies.) Here's how I'd answer the most common objections to such a proposal: • How can the US negotiate a withdrawal when the political forces inside Iraq are still so fragile and mutually contentious? A negotiated withdrawal is generally better, but unilateral withdrawals, like Israel's 2000 exit from southern Lebanon, can work well, too. Despite Israeli fears of postwithdrawal mayhem and revenge (in Lebanon), none came to pass. Likewise, as Iraqis see the US starting to withdraw, political figures at all levels will undoubtedly be happy to make the arrangements needed for that process to continue. A prior US announcement of imminent total withdrawal will focus the minds of Iraqis considerably and show them they'll truly be masters of their own fate. They'll see the need to work together politically to figure out what follows. And they'll be far less hospitable to insurgents, especially those who get their impetus from the prospect of a prolonged foreign occupation. • But the Iraqi security forces seem so incapable of taking over! The Iraqi troops' main problem is not one of raw military expertise. (Most Iraqi men have had years of military training.)It's one of unit cohesion and motivation. In other words, it's a political problem, and will become resolved as the political situation becomes clearer and more stable. • Won't the US strategic posture in the world be dented by a speedy withdrawal from Iraq? Realistically, yes, a little. But steps can be taken to minimize this. As when President Reagan withdrew US troops from Lebanon in 1984, the maneuver can be labeled a "redeployment offshore." And if the various steps of the withdrawal are accompanied by generous reparations to Iraq, some Iraqis may stand up and laud American wisdom and foresight. Washington's global strategic posture is already being eroded with every additional week US troops stay in Iraq. And imagine if there were one or more Beirut-style cataclysms inside Iraq, or an undignified Saigon-style exit. • But there might be a bloodbath in Iraq if we leave... To argue this is to assume that the US presence is a stabilizing factor there. It's not. In the week of July 10 alone, 152 Iraqis died in four major acts of violence, and scores more in "smaller" incidents. It would be difficult for Iraqis to judge that the US presence has brought them stability. If the US leaves, it's likely there will be some continuing violence in Iraq. But the US will no longer be responsible - either morally, or under international law - for that situation, as it now is. In addition, if the US exit policy is "generous," then the US can, working through the UN and other friends, deliver aid that Iraqis themselves can use to start the long-awaited rebuilding of their country. After Israel's 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon, the focus on postwithdrawal reconstruction did much to keep the border area calm. No reason the same could not happen in Iraq.The ever great and lucid Billmon comments upon Juan Cole's opinion piece that was discussed on Thursday:
It may be that an Iran with nukes would not lead to Armageddon in the Middle East (well, actually Armageddon is in the Middle East, about 30 miles east of city of Haifa. But you know what I mean.) Some analysts argue that the same balance of mutually assured destruction that kept the peace between the US and the USSR for fifty years would also prevail between a nuclear Iran and a nuclear Israel. Maybe so -- although if you throw a nuclear Saudi Arabia (not to mention a nuclear Pakistan, a nuclear India and, of course, a nuclear America) into the mix, you have to wonder how stable the "balance of terror" would be. Melman quotes some Israeli hawks who argue that the Jewish state is too small and too vulnerable, vis-a-vis Iran, for a durable strategic balance to emerge. snip: Seriously, though, I we should all pray (long and hard) that this is just Dick Cheney trying out Dick Nixon's "madman theory" -- acting like a genocidal maniac in hopes of convincing the other side that you really might be a genocidal maniac. (like the Chinese generals I mentioned above.) It's also possible that this is part of some kind of smokescreen being blown to convince the Frank Gaffneys of the world that the administration isn't about to pull a U-turn on Iran policy. But then why leak it to the neoconphobes at the American Conservative? It should be obvious why I badly want to believe that this is a bluff or a ruse. The alternative is that the Vice President of the United States and his trained seal are contemplating the ultimate war crime. And the good little Germans in the Air Force are going right along with it -- lest they injure their promotion potential. It doesn't get any worse than that.Fan of this site links that:
If he were a thinking person, George W. Bush might today be increasingly concerned that any positive legacy he had ever hoped for was slipping into oblivion. Many observers have long understood that Bush's first target for solidifying U.S. global domination has been the Middle East rather than East Asia or any other area. By now it should be evident even to him that U.S. imperial dreams are already disintegrating into the dust of Iraq. But Bush by nature is disinclined to think any problem through with care, and glories instead in his chosen image of macho, frontier-American decisiveness -- a "decisiveness" that unfortunately looks much like common stubbornness because it is not buttressed by a rigorously curious or honest intellect. This self-chosen image rather than facts determines Bush's policies when it comes to war and peace, and he still clings to the goal of "transforming" unfriendly nations of the Middle East into neocolonial territories of the U.S. Specifically, despite the continuing drain of Iraq on U.S. resources, he has given no sign of moderating his desire for quick regime change in both Iran and Syria. The point that should be made here is not new, but it deserves constant reemphasis: Bush now believes the most important objective of his foreign policy, to be accomplished well before his time as president comes to an end, is to oust the regimes of both Iran and Syria, using as much violence as he finds necessary.Spy Thriller:
At one level, the affair about who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, former diplomat's wife and CIA undercover operative, is utterly baffling. A special prosecutor has been on the case for almost two years, but no one has been indicted; indeed it is not even clear any crime has been committed. The journalist who published the agent's name goes about his business seemingly without a care in the world, but another reporter who never wrote a word about Ms Plame languishes in a suburban Washington jail for refusing to divulge her source for the same information. For once in a city where everyone claims to have the inside track, no one is sure what is going on. But in another way, everything is blindingly simple. The Plame leak may not be a scandal in itself. Unquestionably, it is a dirty outgrowth of a real Washington scandal for which no one has been held accountable: the misuse and distortion of prewar intelligence about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction, that the US and Britain used to justify their unprovoked invasion of Iraq.It was a mistake:
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on the last day of his three-day visit to the US, said that the invasion of Iraq by the United States was a mistake. “In my sincere view, the invasion (by the US) was a mistake,” said Dr. Singh when asked what he felt about the US attack on Iraq to topple the government of Saddam Hussain on charges of possessing weapons of mass destructions. Dr. Singh was addressing members of the National Press Club, the largest and most prestigious club in the world with membership that includes national and international reporters, in Washington on Wednesday afternoon.Avoiding Linkage:
One of the noticeable differences between Thursday`s failed terror attempts on the British capital and the bombings that claimed 56 lives exactly two weeks earlier was the relative absence of Prime Minister Tony Blair from the public airwaves. After issuing a statement during a news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in London for talks, the British premier disappeared, returning, he said, to his normal schedule of events. While this may have been an effort to minimize disruption and maintain public calm, it came in marked contrast to the day of the July 7 blasts, when there was little respite from the torrent of public statements and news conferences. Of course this was not the only difference. Thursday`s attempts -- taking place, as those two weeks ago, on three underground trains and a bus -- were largely unsuccessful, with devices only partially detonating and only one person suffering injuries. However Blair may have been avoiding the public gaze for an entirely different reason. Having enjoyed a brief period of public and political acclaim for his show of strength in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 attacks, he is now facing mounting charges that Britain`s role in the Iraq war increased the threat of such attacks, and that he, as the instigator of that policy, must take at least some of the blame.
Friday, July 22, 2005
War News for Friday, July 22, 2005
Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi police officers killed and one wounded when their patrol came under fire in
Bring ‘em on: Two policemen killed and one injured when gunmen opened fire on their car in New Baghdad. One traffic policeman killed and another wounded when attacked by gunmen in the Mashtal district of Baghdad. One
Bring ‘em on: One US Marine killed by IED attack near Zaidon.
Bring ‘em on: Two women, one a new bride and the other her mother, killed and two men, the groom and his brother, wounded when gunmen fired on their car in
No kidding, Chuck: During more than seven hours of testimony this week, a Senate committee heard that
From experts on the war in
They heard that the oil industry is sabotaged for profit, not just politics, and that much of the billions of dollars spent on reconstruction so far have accomplished nothing.
"Discount half of what you said, it's still damn disturbing," Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told the witnesses.
“Partially capable”: The Iraqi government's forces are nowhere near battle ready and only a small number are capable of fighting the insurgency on their own, according to a newly declassified Pentagon document.
The assessment, provided to the Senate by General Peter Pace, the newly appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, paints a stark picture of Iraqi military readiness that contrasts with the Pentagon's upbeat official tone.
According to excerpts in US newspapers yesterday, Gen Pace said about half of
"Only a small number of Iraqi security forces are taking on the insurgents and terrorists by themselves," Gen Pace wrote.
Sunni demands: Sunni Arabs laid out the demands Thursday that they say must be met by the Iraqi government if they are to rejoin the committee drafting a permanent national constitution, warning that it would be a dire mistake to move ahead without Sunni participation. The 14 remaining Sunni Muslim Arab delegates to the constitutional committee suspended their membership Wednesday, a day after one of their number and a Sunni legal advisor to the committee were gunned down in broad daylight.
Sunni demands include the appointment of an international panel to investigate the assassination this week of Mijbil Issa, the Sunni member of the constitutional committee; the appointment of armed security guards for the Sunni members of the constitutional committee; and the retraction of statements made Wednesday by Humam Hamoodi, the Shiite chairman of the committee, who suggested that work on the charter was almost completed — even though Sunnis have yet to agree to any of the major provisions. The Iraqi government did not immediately respond to the demands.
The Indian perspective: In a candid submission made on the American soil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the 2003
Singh is perhaps the first foreign leader to criticise the
Hey Friendly Fire, Here’s One Just For You
I hope they don’t question you all the way to organ failure:
US Military And Veterans Affairs
Bush comes up short: Fellow Republicans warned House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay more than a year ago that the government would come up short — by at least $750 million — for veterans' health care. The leaders' response: Fire the messengers.
Now that the Bush administration has acknowledged a shortfall of at least $1.2 billion, embarrassed Republicans are scrambling to fill the gap. Meanwhile, Democrats portray the problem as another example of the GOP and the White House taking a shortsighted approach to the cost of wars in
New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, as chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, had told the House GOP leadership that the Veterans Affairs Department needed at least $2.5 billion more in its budget. The Senate passed a bill with that increase; the House's bill was $750 million short.
Smith and 30 other Republicans wrote to their leaders in March 2004 to make the point that lawmakers who were not the usual outspoken advocates for veterans were troubled by the move. Failure to come up with the additional $2.5 billion, they contended, could mean higher co-payments and "rationing of health care services, leading to long waiting times or other equally unacceptable reductions in services to veterans."
Still, the House ignored them.
Smith was rebuked by several Republicans for sounding the spending alarm, and House leaders yanked his chairmanship in January. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., lost his chairmanship of the VA health subcommittee, and Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., is no longer on the committee. They too had signed the letters to Hastert, R-Ill., and DeLay, R-Texas.
Fighting for recruits: Somewhere in Washington State, in a conservative town he would rather not name, is a lonely liberal man with a high-speed internet connection, a sarcastic wit, and a suggestion for how the U.S. military might fill its recruiting gaps: With pro-war College Republicans.
The man calls himself General J.C. Christian, Patriot, and he runs the online campaign "Operation Yellow Elephant," which has been exhorting young conservatives to carry their support of the
The General, as one might guess, is not having much luck. But the more he fails, the more he highlights a division between the war's political enablers and those who end up dying while fighting in support of a mission that was supposedly "accomplished" long ago. It is the same division that existed in the Vietnam era, when President Bush and other sons of privilege dodged active-duty service, a class division that allows the comfortable to pontificate on the theoretical virtues of war while those in lower tax brackets bear the brunt of its human cost.
This pisses the General off, as do Republicans in his small town who lecture him about his lack of patriotism when he voices opposition to the war. So when the General heard about the military recruiting shortfalls, his mind immediately turned to the young Republican movement: "I thought, 'Well, these people are always talking about patriotism, and always equating patriotism with support for the war, it's time that they walk the walk.'" That sentiment is summed up on his web site, operationyellowelephant.blogspot.com, with the motto: "It's their war. Why aren't they fighting it?"
Sixty percent: Many adults in
On Mar. 15, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced "a gradual reduction of the number of our soldiers in
In 2003, Berlusconi committed more than 2,000 Italian soldiers to the war in
Too bad for the majority: Italian legislators have approved a bill extending the stay of the country`s 3,000 troops in Iraq.
The BBC reported the measure allows the contingent to remain until the end of 2005. Defense Minister Antonio Martino has promised to begin a gradual withdrawal, with 300 troops coming home in September.
The bill passed the lower house and goes to the upper house of Parliament next week for a final vote.
Homeland Defense
More in three days: Every nation, even one as rich as the
"The degree to which the Bush administration is willing to invest in conventional national security spending relative to basic domestic security measures is considerable," Flynn argues in an article he wrote for Foreign Affairs magazine based on his book.
"Although the CIA has concluded that the most likely way weapons of mass destruction (WMD) would enter the
Flynn accuses the administration of a "myopic" focus on conventional military forces at the expense of domestic security. He draws this comparison: "In fiscal year 2005, Congress will give the Pentagon $7.6 billion to improve security at military bases. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security will receive just $2.6 billion to protect all the vital systems throughout the country that sustain a modern society."
US Politics
Not that the Republicans will pass it: Congresswoman Barbara Lee (Dem., Calif.) today introduced - along with 26 co-sponsors - a Resolution of Inquiry in the House of Representatives which, if passed, will require the White House and the State Department to "transmit all information relating to communication with officials of the United Kingdom between January 1, 2002, and October 16, 2002, relating to the policy of the United States with respect to Iraq."
Grotesque: Calls for an early withdrawal from
The measure, approved 291-137, says the United States should leave Iraq only when national security and foreign policy goals related to a free and stable Iraq have been achieved.
"Calls for an early withdrawal embolden the terrorists and undermine the morale" of
"To establish such a deadline," added House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, "all but ensuring disaster, would be morally and strategically indefensible."
But Democrats said the proposal was aimed mainly at putting critics of the war, and those seeking an exit strategy, in a bad light. To suggest that "those of us who oppose this war are somehow 'emboldening terrorists' is, to say the least, grotesque," said Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass.
Opposing PATRIOT: House Judiciary Democrats have prepared a 70-page dissent opposing the renewal of the U.S. Patriot and Intelligence Reform Reauthorization Act, RAW STORY has learned.
Unlike some Democratic opposition, those decrying the Patriot Act include a diverse panoply of voices: 389 communities and seven states have passed resolutions opposing parts of the PATRIOT Act, representing over 62 million people, they note.
Groups running the gamut of the political spectrum oppose certain sections of the PATRIOT Act, including the American Civil Liberties Union, American Conservative Union, American Immigration Lawyers Association, American Library Association, Gun Owners of America and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The dissent cites repeated abuse of the Act by police and law enforcement.
Among the more troubling, perhaps, for RAW STORY readers: "It has been used to unconstitutionally coerce an Internet Service Provider to divulge information about e-mail activity and web surfing on its system, and then to gag that Provider from even disclosing the abuse to the public."
Did You Know The
When Weiners attack: "Hush Bimbo" and "Sean Vanity" are the names Savage has pinned on Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. In doing so, he has sparked a war between the members of his "Savage Nation" (slogan: "Borders, language, culture") and the so-called "Bushbots," that sizable number of gullible Americans who can be convinced that whatever policy Bush adopts is a conservative policy.
"What makes Bush a conservative?" Savage asked when I got him on the phone the other day. "On the economy, Bush has got more governmental workers than anybody before him. He's ballooned the government."
As regards the so-called "war on terror," Savage points out that you can't win a war when you're afraid even to name the enemy.
"He's never mentioned Islamo fascism," said Savage.
No, he hasn't. Even the French have been more willing to defend their borders, language and culture than Bush. He's a multiculturalist and a mushy one at that. Instead of reducing the reach of Islamic fundamentalism, Bush has managed in
That's why we right-wing commentators believe the
Commentary By The Non-Insane
Editorial: The talking point for the next election: Republicans stand for Treason; Democrats stand for Reason. This was established during a Senate vote this week for an amendment to a homeland security appropriations bill that would deny access to classified material to any federal employee who discloses a covert CIA agent's identity. The bill was defeated, the vote breaking down along straight party lines, 53 to 44. The ruling party -- the Ruling Class -- has ossified, a sure sign of a government that will soon (but not soon enough!) collapse under the sheer weight of its own bullshit.
First, one undeniable fact: Karl Rove, Pres. Bush's closest advisor -- the man on whom Bush has affixed the loving nickname "Turd Blossom" -- revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent. He did this more than two years ago. In fact, in this space on Oct. 16, 2003 ("We See Nothing"), I wrote, "Besides the Big Lie that has, as of this week, cost more than 300 American lives [in Iraq], the loss of Plame's cover may lead to as many as 70 deaths of her 'assets' around the world ... The prime suspect in this vindictive act -- a felony, perhaps treason -- is Karl Rove."
My point is not that I'm so prescient, so far ahead of the pack. Quite the contrary. That is, if a person like me, with a 9-year-old dog and a 4-year-old son competing for my attention in my cramped office picked up on this two years ago, then IT WAS KNOWN ALL OVER THE WORLD. Why all the hoo haw now? Nothing has changed in two years. Rove is no more or less guilty of treason than he was then. Somehow this heinous chapter in our nation's history was allowed to drag out and 1,500 more Americans and 100,000+ more Iraqis have died as a result of this administration's culture of lies.
I've heard the press is really pushing this story because they're angry the White House lied to them. Puh-leeeeeze. The White House press corps would wet their collective pants and melt into a giant collective puddle if Ari or Scott or Condi or Bush ever told them the truth. Had these same pencil-asses been this aggressive four or even two years ago, we'd never be in this mess now.
I think it has more to do with pack mentality, the barking dog syndrome. In Oct. 2003, I was simply a barking dog on an empty cul-de-sac. Now the dogs are out on
So, why is the Republican Party allowing itself to be dragged down with Turd Blossom? According to the Washington Post this week, "The emerging GOP strategy ... is to try to undermine those Democrats calling for Rove's ouster, play down Rove's role and wait for President Bush's forthcoming Supreme Court selection to drown out the controversy."
Have you ever read a more cynical sentence in a news story than that last one?
Opinion: As I traveled in different parts of
On July 18, a Foreign Office think-tank, the Royal Institute of International Affairs published a special report which argued that the wars in
On July 19, a special opinion poll commissioned by The Guardian/ICM has made this view public. 66 percent of the British public believes there was a link with
Unless you give people a political explanation for what has happened, the only other explanation is an apocalyptic one, which the prime minister duly gave - barbarians versus civilisation. Blair says this, his parrot cabinet members have been repeating it, and even Bush has picked up a few phrases.
We have to be clear. If the killing of innocent civilians in
Comment: Three years ago, I wrote an article entitled “Bush’s Grim Vision.” It began with the observation that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, “George W. Bush has put the
Since then, the dots have not only been connected, but many of the shapes have been colored in. The immediate fear and anger following the Sept. 11 attacks have given way to the grinding permanence of a never-ending state of emergency. In many ways, the reality has turned out worse than the article's expectations.
For the last two-plus years, the bloody war in
The war – and the animosities it engendered – have, in turn, added to the likelihood of terrorist attacks, like the July 7 bombings in
Opinion: The
But now the very legal structures of the Republic are being dismantled. The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is being openly established, through a series of unchallenged executive orders, perverse Justice Department rulings and court decisions by sycophantic judges who defer to power - not law - in their determinations. What we are witnessing is the creation of a "
George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on earth - including any American citizen - an "enemy combatant," for any reason he sees fit. He can render them up to torture, he can imprison them for life, he can even have them killed, all without charges, with no burden of proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative oversight, no appeal, no judicial process whatsoever except those that he himself deigns to construct, with whatever limitations he cares to impose. Nor can he ever be prosecuted for any order he issues, however criminal; in the new American system laid out by Bush's legal minions, the Commander is sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.
This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the
There has been virtually no institutional resistance to this open coup d'etat. It's now clear that the American Establishment - and a significant portion of the American people - have given up on the democratic experiment. They no longer wish to govern themselves; they want to be ruled, by "strong leaders" who will "do whatever it takes" to protect them from harm and keep them in clover. They have sold their golden birthright of American liberty for a mess of coward's pottage.
Casualty Reports
Local story:
Local story:
Local story:
Local story:
Local story:
Local story:
Thursday, July 21, 2005
War News for Thursday, July 21, 2005
Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi soldier killed and six injured in suicide car bombing at a checkpoint in the
Bring ‘em on: Three members of the Qhadisiyah provincial council assassinated in
Bring ‘em on: Two Algerian diplomats kidnapped in
Bring ‘em on: One US sailor died Thursday of wounds sustained July 15 during combat operations in Hit.
Twenty-six: Many of the boys in the dusty al-Khalij neighborhood of east
Hamza Firas Khuzai, 11 years old, and his friends, many of them boys ages 9 to 12, rushed out without breakfast and mounted their clunky, hip-high bicycles, said Hadi Firas Khuzai, Hamza's father.
To boys Hamza's age, the words "American soldiers" meant mingling among armored troops who looked to them like action figures come to life. It meant laughs while clowning with the Americans, and candy, cookies or toys waiting to be dropped into their waving hands. Hamza's friends pedaled away, rushing toward the soldiers' Humvees at the far end of one block. Younger brothers and sisters trailed them, without wheels.
About 10 a.m. last Wednesday, a suicide bomber drove his brown Suzuki sedan and its load of explosives into the crowd of American soldiers and Iraqi children clustered around the Humvees, residents said. Twenty-six of al-Khalij's children died.
Conservative side: There has been no bigger grey area in the
More than 1,700 US and dozens of other coalition troops are known to have died. But the figures for civilian dead had never been more than rough estimates, ranging wildly from 10,000 to 100,000.
A report by the UK-based group Iraq Body Count (IBC), in combination with the Oxford Research Group, says it aims to remove some of the uncertainty by producing the most detailed picture yet of civilian casualties in the two years since the 2003 invasion.
But some critics have questioned the groups' methods of compiling statistics, and indeed the ability to produce reliable data. The Iraqi government has already responded by describing the report's results as "mistaken".
"It's on the conservative side, if anything it underestimates the casualty figures," he said.
The report attempts to show that Western governments are at least partly wrong in their assertion that counting bodies is futile.
"Nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the
"Our report has shown that what is lacking is not the capacity to do this work but the will."
Ordinary people: Iraqis stepped from their cars, emerged from shops and stood under the blazing sun Wednesday in a moment of silence to honor victims of suicide attacks, the first such memorial in this war-ravaged nation.
Traffic came to a halt in
Some Iraqis said it was a futile gesture that could do nothing to stop the violence. Just three hours before the memorial, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside an army recruiting center in central
But for many, the silence was a small but symbolic step aimed at telling the world they oppose terrorism.
Simmering again: Some insurgents whose bases were flattened by
Falluja is simmering again eight months after a U.S. Marine offensive that crushed the nerve centre of
The Iraqi government was hoping the
Muslim militants no longer behead people in the basements of Falluja houses and Saddam Hussein's former agents don't operate freely in the town 50 km (32 miles) west of
Residents said there have only been about 10 car bombs since the offensive ended, a small number compared to the daily blasts that shook the town.
But police and residents said guerrillas are active again, laying landmines on the town's edge. U.S.-trained Iraqi forces are resented in a town known for its defiance, even in Saddam Hussein's
Iraqi Politics
Sunni warnings: Sunni Arabs boycotting the committee drafting
Sunni Arabs suspended participation in the constitution-drafting committee on Wednesday after a Sunni Arab committee member and two fellow-members of the Sunni Arab umbrella group Iraqi National Dialogue were shot dead.
The committee is the main vehicle the government and its
The committee's Shi'ite chairman Humam Hamoudi said on Wednesday he believed the Sunnis' demands were for improved security, which could be swiftly met, and predicted they would sign on to a new constitution that would be ready in weeks.
But Iraqi National Dialogue spokesman Salih Mutlaq said Hamoudi's comments implied he was rushing through a draft constitution without waiting for Sunnis to return to the table.
"He should withdraw his remarks," Mutlaq said. "We will not resume work with the committee until our demands are met."
Kurdish demands: Kurdish leaders have presented a redrawn map with a larger
The map reflected long-standing Kurdish claims that stretches their territory south toward the capital of Baghdad — well beyond the boundaries of the current Kurdish autonomous area.
"The
The Kurdish demand was unlikely to be well-received by Sunnis and Shiites on the constitutional commission and could further complicate efforts to complete the draft charter by the Aug. 15 deadline.
Chalabi’s “de-Baathification”: Nine staff members of the Iraqi Special Tribunal preparing to try Saddam Hussein have been dismissed because of links to the ousted dictator's Baath Party, an official said Wednesday.
The cases of 19 others, including the chief investigative judge, are under review.
The executive director of the Supreme National Commission for de-Baathification, Ali al-Lami, said the nine dismissed staffers held administrative jobs such as the witness security protection program and tribunal security.
Al-Lami said that the committee is preparing another list of 19 people, mostly judges, for possible dismissal. They include chief judge Raid Juhi, he said.
The head of the government committee in charge of purging former Baath officials is Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a former Pentagon favorite.
Hiring or firing: At
Although ships are trickling back two years after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, the port is more than a year from international accreditation, which could increase ship traffic fivefold. For now, Hearn can't even get the
Thousands of
"That's our big challenge — hiring people so they're not shooting at us. They just want some money," said Hearn, who oversees a multimillion dollar project that has cleared away several sunken ships and repaired some loading docks.
It’s all looking good to Donny, though: There has been encouraging progress toward stabilizing
Rumsfeld previewed a comprehensive
Rumsfeld said information about the readiness and performance of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces — one of the most telling measures of progress — would be included in a classified annex to the report but not made public.
Rumsfeld indicated Tuesday that the report, which he said would be provided to Congress on Thursday or Friday, would not include an estimate of how many
Maybe his view would be clearer if he’d pull his head out of his ass: About half of Iraq's new police battalions are still being established and cannot conduct operations, while the other half of the police units and two-thirds of the new army battalions are only "partially capable" of carrying out counterinsurgency missions, and only with American help, according to a newly declassified Pentagon assessment.
Only "a small number" of Iraqi security forces are capable of fighting the insurgency without American assistance, while about one-third of the army is capable of "planning, executing and sustaining counterinsurgency operations" with allied support, the analysis said.
The assessment, which has not been publicly released, is the most precise analysis of the Iraqis' readiness levels that the military has provided. Bush administration officials have repeatedly said the 160,000 American-led allied troops cannot begin to withdraw until Iraqi troops are ready to take over security.
Our Brave New World
Just in case this blog isn’t making you depressed enough already:
Worst Weapons in Worst Hands:
Now we can use the Iraqis as weapon test subjects too: Scientists are questioning the safety of a "Star Wars"-style ray gun due to be deployed in
The Active Denial System weapon, classified as “less lethal” by the Pentagon, fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds.
The idea is that people caught in the beam will rapidly try to move out of it and therefore break up the crowd.
“What happens if someone in a crowd is unable for whatever reason to move away from the beam,” asked Neil Davison, coordinator of the non-lethal weapons research project at
The magazine said a vehicle-mounted version of the weapon named Sheriff was scheduled for service in
Six more warrants: An Egyptian man who was whisked off the streets of
Montasser Zayat said the abducted man, Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, was briefly freed from an Egyptian prison in April 2004, then taken back into custody after he telephoned his wife, Nabila Ghali, in
Two former
In June, Nasr's case became a major source of friction between the
On Wednesday, an Italian prosecutor asked a court to issue arrest warrants for six more people said to be CIA operatives who helped in the abduction.
US Military News
A landmark:
A combination of more than 25,000 troops, civilians and coalition members from 37 countries involved in the global war on terrorism has received treatment at Landstuhl.
The medical center, which treated its first patient from OEF in fall 2001, reached the 25,000 patient mark this July Fourth.
Opened in 1953, Landstuhl is the largest American hospital outside the
Prior to the war on terrorism, a day when Landstuhl would receive 30 to 40 patients was considered a mass casualty event. Now, such pace is the norm, and the hospital takes in stride what was once a logistical nightmare.
Thirteen out of a hundred mentally ill, what an improvement: A majority of
Still, soldiers' mental health has improved from the early months of the insurgency, and suicides have declined sharply, the report said. Also, substantially fewer soldiers had to be evacuated from
The Army sent a team of mental health specialists to Iraq and Kuwait late last summer to assess conditions and measure progress in implementing programs designed to fix mental health problems discovered during a similar survey of troops a year earlier. Its report, dated Jan. 30, 2005, was released Wednesday.
The overall assessment said 13 percent of soldiers in the most recent study screened positive for a mental health problem, compared with 18 percent a year earlier. Symptoms of acute or post-traumatic stress remained the top mental health problem, affecting at least 10 percent of all soldiers checked in the latest survey.
In the anonymous survey, 17 percent of soldiers said they had experienced moderate or severe stress or problems with alcohol, emotions or their families. That compares with 23 percent a year earlier.
An “urgent wartime support initiative”: The Defense Department quietly asked Congress on Monday to raise the maximum age for military recruits to 42 for all branches of the service.
Under current law, the maximum age to enlist in the active components is 35, while people up to age 39 may enlist in the reserves. By practice, the accepted age for recruits is 27 for the Air Force, 28 for the Marine Corps and 34 for the Navy and Army, although the Army Reserve and Navy Reserve sometimes take people up to age 39 in some specialties.
The Pentagon’s request to raise the maximum recruit age to 42 is part of what defense officials are calling a package of “urgent wartime support initiatives” sent to Congress Monday night prior to a Tuesday hearing of the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee.
Red states pay the price: Which American communities pay the highest price for the war in
Altogether, a nearly equal percentage of Americans aged 18 to 54 live in counties with a million or more inhabitants as live in counties of 100,000 or fewer. And yet, of the soldiers who have died in
Why should this be? It's not that Iraqi insurgents are singling out rural soldiers, or that commanders are putting them at particular risk. Rather, the armed forces themselves must be disproportionately drawn from rural communities - a fact not immediately discernible from recruitment data, which report the race, age and education of recruits, but not their home counties.
This is above all an economics story. Military studies consistently find that a poor economy is a boon to recruiting. The higher rate of deaths from rural counties likely reflects sparse opportunities for young people in those places.
Don’t Forget
Three years: Saturday, July 23, is the three-year anniversary of the meeting at
To highlight these disclosures, there are more than 150 events, dramatic performances, house parties and study circles planned coast to coast next week. In
Commentary
Editorial: Every now and then, someone will ask: Why is the press reporting just the bad news from
The simple, difficult truth is that not very much is going well in
One Knight-Ridder reporter recently described the problem. When she went to lunch with a friend in the military, he "picked me up in his air-conditioned Explorer, took me to Burger King for lunch and showed me photos of the family he misses so terribly." It's "not politics that blind him from seeing the real
Opinion: If the American republic was built on any core principle, that principle is the rights of people to be free from the abuses of unchecked power. The Constitution's framers gave those rights not to ''citizens" but to ''persons." In
In
Now there is a perfect authoritarian storm -- a genuine terrorist threat coupled with an administration that disdains the Constitution and will soon control all three branches of government. As a pretext for arbitrary rule, we have the premise of permanent warfare predicted by Orwell combined with the unchallengeable denial of rights described by Kafka.
Left and right are bitterly divided today. But if there is one issue that unites nearly all liberals with principled conservatives, it's that we must resist the assault on precious rights. In exploring the views of proposed Supreme Court nominees, the Senate should give the issue of rights priority above all others, since the courts are the last bastion of our freedoms.
There's one more recent news story worthy of special note. The American Civil Liberties Union, the one organization whose entire purpose is to defend rights, finds that the FBI has assembled more than 1,000 pages of files on it as a possible security risk. These files, of course, are classified, in the name of national security. Orwell, meet Kafka.
I'm donating the fee for this column to the ACLU, and everyone who cares about liberty should join it. Look at ACLU.org, or write ACLU,
Editorial: Most of the Bush administration's justifications for invading
Most chilling of all are the prospects for Iraqi women. As things now stand, their rights are about to be set back by nearly 50 years because of new family law provisions inserted into a draft of the constitution at the behest of the ruling Shiite religious parties. These would make Koranic law, called Shariah, the supreme authority on marriage, divorce and inheritance issues. Even secular women from Shiite families would be stripped of their right to choose their own husbands, inherit property on the same basis as men and seek court protection if their husbands tire of them and decide to declare them divorced.
Less severe laws would be imposed on Sunni women, but only because the draft constitution also embraces the divisive idea of having separate systems of family law in the same country. That is not only offensive, but also impractical in a country where Sunnis and Shiites have been marrying each other for generations.
Unless these draft provisions are radically revised, crucial personal freedoms that survived Saddam Hussein's tyranny are about to be lost under a democratic government sponsored and protected by the United States. Is this the kind of freedom President Bush claims is on the march in the
Women are not the only ones facing big losses in the new
In considering whether to put their lives on the line again, these Sunnis will not be encouraged by the latest destructive antics of Ahmad Chalabi, the former American favorite who is now a powerful deputy prime minister. Mr. Chalabi, who has long advocated barring even low-level former Baathists from official employment, has now succeeded in disrupting and discrediting the judicial tribunal preparing for the trial of Mr. Hussein. He is pressing for the dismissal of senior staff members, including a top judge, because of former Baathist associations.
The single most crucial requirement for Mr. Hussein's trial is preserving the appearance of impartial justice in the name of the whole Iraqi nation. Mr. Chalabi's actions, which his nominal boss, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, seems powerless to oppose, risk turning the proceedings into a tawdry spectacle of sectarian revenge, which would only fuel divisive and deadly hatreds.
Mr. Bush owes Americans a better explanation for what his policies are producing in Iraq than tired exhortations to stay the course and irrelevant invocations of Al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Most days, the news from
The ongoing chaos in Iraq has made it impossible for Bush administration hawks to carry out their long-held dream of overthrowing the Iranian regime, or even of forcing it to end its nuclear ambitions. (The Iranian nuclear research program will almost certainly continue, since the Iranians are bright enough to see what happened to the one member of the "axis of evil" that did not have an active nuclear weapons program.) The United States lacks the troops, but perhaps even more critically, it is now dependent on Iran to help it deal with a vicious guerrilla war that it cannot win. In the Middle East, the twists and turns of history tend to make strange bedfellows -- something the neocons, whose breathtaking ignorance of the region helped bring us to this place, are now learning to their dismay. More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, it is difficult to see what real benefits have accrued to the United States from the Iraq war, though a handful of corporations have benefited marginally. In contrast, Iran is the big winner. The Shiites of Iraq increasingly realize they need Iranian backing to defeat the Sunni guerrillas and put the Iraqi economy right, a task the Americans have proved unable to accomplish. And Iran will still be Iraq's neighbor long after the fickle American political class has switched its focus to some other global hot spot.Well worth reading in full.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
War News for Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Bring ‘em on: Two policemen killed and four wounded in a roadside bombing between Mahmudiyah and Latifiyah. Member of the Buhriz municipal council killed by gunmen in the
Bring ‘em on: At least 10 people killed and 21 wounded in suicide bombing attack outside an army recruiting center in
Bring ‘em on: Two insurgents killed, one man detained, and an explosives-rigged gasoline tanker confiscated in raid by Iraqi police in Babil where rebels fought police for thirty minutes with machine guns and RPGs. Many rebels were said to have escaped. Imam of al-Taqwa mosque shot to death in
Bring ‘em on: The vice president of
Thirty-four a day: Almost 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the two years of war and insurgency that began with the US-led invasion in March 2003. More than a third have died as a result of action by allied forces.
The first detailed and authoritative study of non-combatant casualties claims that an average of 34 Iraqi civilians have died each day since the conflict began, a total of 24,865 deaths.
The authors of the report, published yesterday by a group called Iraq Body Count, said the figures showed the country was descending into "anarchy" under the
Professor John Sloboda, one of the report's authors, said: "The failure of Western governments to recognise the lack of respect in not counting the civilian casualties must be a contributing factor to Muslim disaffection and anger.''
The report shows the anti- occupation or insurgency forces were solely responsible for the deaths of only 9 per cent, or 2,353 of the civilian total, despite the almost daily suicide bombings, that have accounted for more than 200 deaths this month alone.
American forces were responsible for 98.5 per cent of the 9,270 civilians assessed to have been killed by allied forces, or 37 per cent of the total who have died. Out of the remaining 1.5 per cent of the total killed by allied forces, British soldiers were responsible for the highest total, with 86 people.
“Genocidal war”: The slaughter of hundreds of civilians by suicide bombers shows that a "genocidal war" is threatening
So far he has persuaded most of his followers not to respond in kind against the Sunni, from whom the bombers are drawn, despite repeated massacres of Shia. But sectarian divisions between Shia and Sunni are deepening across Iraq after the killing of 18 children in the district of New Baghdad last week and the death of 98 people caught by the explosion of a gas tanker in the market town of Musayyib. Many who died were visiting a Shia mosque.
There are also calls for the formation of militias to protect Baghdad neighbourhoods. Khudayr al-Khuzai, a Shia member of parliament, said the time had come to "bring back popular militias". He added: "The plans of the interior and the defence ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed to stop the terrorists."
“It’s very sad”: It is early afternoon in the emergency room of Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital.
Medics are on stand by for a big influx of casualties from a bomb south of Baghdad.
But right now they have a more pressing job.
Several doctors, blood spattered on their white coats, are calmly trying to save the life of a young man who has just been rushed in with a bullet-wound that has punctured his lung.
He appears to have been shot, by mistake, by US troops on the road to Baghdad airport.
On an average day, between 20 and 50 people, injured in unrelenting violence, are treated in the emergency room at Yarmouk alone.
Most have been hurt in insurgent bombs, doctors say. But there is also a steady flow of people coming into Iraqi hospitals who have been injured by US soldiers.
"It's very sad," says Dr Mohaned Rahe, "but things aren't improving."
Reach out and touch someone: A cellular phone's main job is to connect people for various reasons. But in occupied Iraq, where everything is out of context, mobiles are certainly no exception.
Iraqi resistance groups use mobiles in innovative ways that started to cause real concerns for US forces, so much that the hi-tech device is now topping the agenda of items to be confiscated during search operations.
Iraqi armed groups fighting foreign troops use the device to compile information on US military targets and "collaborators" with the occupation forces, making the tiny device a "source of horror" for the occupation forces.
Iraqi Politics
Constitution writing derailed?: Four Sunni Arabs on the team charged with writing Iraq's constitution suspended their membership on Wednesday after the killing of three colleagues, a move that could delay the drafting of the landmark charter.
Tuesday's assassinations struck a blow to the constitution-writing body, seen as providing a chance for a political end to the insurgency, and Wednesday's move is likely to further hinder its work.
A draft constitution is due by mid-August.
"The environment in Iraq isn't right for anyone to get work done," said Salih al-Mutlaq, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Dialogue, a Sunni Arab organisation, in explaining why the group's representatives had suspended their membership.
Another official on the constitutional body said all Sunni Arabs -- 15 in all -- had suspended their membership, but there was no confirmation of that. The committee was due to hold a news conference later on Wednesday.
Head of the team says no: Iraq's constitution will be ready before a mid-August deadline, the head of the drafting team said on Wednesday, trying to calm fears that insurgent pressure on Sunni Arab participants might derail the process.
His reassurances followed the killing on Tuesday of three Sunni Arabs associated with the drafting committee and a walkout on Wednesday by four other Sunni members in protest at the murders and what they said was a general lack of security.
"A draft will be presented to the national assembly in the first week of August," Sheikh Humam al-Hammoudi told a news conference in Baghdad.
Oh, by the way, here’s what almost 1800 Americans died for: A working draft of Iraq's new constitution would cede a strong role to Islamic law and could sharply curb women's rights, particularly in personal matters like divorce and family inheritance.
The document's writers are also debating whether to drop or phase out a measure enshrined in the interim constitution, co-written last year by the Americans, requiring that women make up at least a quarter of the parliament.
The draft of a chapter of the new constitution obtained by The New York Times on Tuesday guarantees equal rights for women as long as those rights do not "violate Shariah," or Koranic law.
Foreign Affairs
British government vs. the f***ing obvious: Two-thirds of Britons believe there is a link between Tony Blair's decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings despite government claims to the contrary, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today.
The poll makes it clear that voters believe further attacks in Britain by suicide bombers are also inevitable, with 75% of those responding saying there will be more attacks.
The research suggests the government is losing the battle to persuade people that terrorist attacks on the UK have not been made more likely by the invasion of Iraq.
Tony, here's another thing that might up the terrorist threat level: Three British servicemen have been charged with war crimes relating to the inhuman treatment of detainees in southern Iraq, the Attorney General confirmed last night.
The soldiers, among 11 charged over two cases in which detainees died, have been charged with "inhuman treatment of persons" under the International Criminal Court Act 2001. Lord Goldsmith announced the charges in a House of Lords statement last night. It is thought to be the first time the Act has been used, although inhuman treatment has been a crime under English law since the 1950s.
In total, seven men were charged over incidents in September 2003 when a detainee, Baha Mousa, was killed, including the unit's commanding officer, Col Jorge Mendonca, 41, who was charged with negligently performing a duty.
In another case, four men have been charged with the manslaughter in May 2003 of Ahmed Kareem, who drowned after he was allegedly punched and kicked and forced into a canal.
The men were formally told of the charges yesterday and will stand trial at a British court martial. Officials said that none of the men charged under the International Criminal Court Act would stand trial in The Hague.
Turkey responds to provocation by terrorists: Turkish officials have been increasingly vocal in recent days over their desire to launch cross-border operations to rein in Kurdish fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK or Kongra-Gel) based in the mountainous areas straddling Iraq and Turkey. After months of what they deemed as stalling on the part of the U.S. and Iraqi governments to deal with the PKK, Turkish officials proposed two new plans. Officials first contended that Turkey would carry out cross-border operations with or without the consent of the Iraqi government. They then suggested at a 19 July meeting of the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighboring countries that Iran, Syria, and Iraq join forces to help eliminate the Kurdish group, which is considered by its supporters a rebel group, and by the governments involved, including the United States, a terrorist organization.
Fighting has escalated between the PKK and the Turkish government since May, leaving at least 24 PKK fighters and 30 soldiers dead, and by some accounts, dozens more. The recent spate of terrorist attacks, claimed by the PKK and groups affiliated with it, have targeted civilians and soldiers.
Turkey responds to provocation by an idiot: Turkey's foreign minister Tuesday condemned comments made last week by a U.S. congressman that the United States could ``take out'' Islamic holy sites if there was a nuclear attack on America by Muslim fundamentalists.
``This was nothing but a fanatic speaking completely personally, irresponsibly and without thought of how far his statements would reach or what kind of problems they would create,'' Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said, according to the Anatolia news agency. The Foreign Ministry confirmed Gul's remarks.
On Friday, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., was asked by a talk show host how the United States should respond if terrorists struck several of its cities with nuclear weapons.
``Well, what if you said something like - if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites,'' Tancredo answered.
``You're talking about bombing Mecca,'' said talk show host Pat Campbell of WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla.
``Yeah,'' Tancredo responded.
Giving victory to the terrorists: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is personally the closest ally of George W. Bush in the war on terrorism. On July 1, he publicly demanded, as The New York Times reported, that this country and implicitly its president "show 'full respect' for Italian sovereignty, after summoning the American ambassador and asking him to explain the reported abduction of a Muslim cleric by people associated with the CIA."
Already, Judge Chiara Nobili issued arrest warrants for the 13 CIA kidnappers whose identities had been solidly documented by Italian intelligence operatives. Those warrants, as reported too deep in the Times story, "will also be passed to Interpol, effectively requiring countries around the world to assist the Italian investigation."
The judge, moreover, has appointed public defenders to represent each of the CIA agents who planned and carried out the snatch.
Armando Spataro, Milan's deputy chief prosecutor, made a statement that someone in the White House should show the president, who purportedly does not read newspapers:
"I feel the international community must struggle against . . . international terrorist groups in accordance with international laws and the rights of the defendant. . . . Otherwise we are giving victory to the terrorists."
Tweedledum and Tweedledumber: Australian Prime Minister John Howard agreed Tuesday with President Bush that it would be unwise to set a deadline for bringing troops home from Iraq.
Both leaders resisted pressure to say how much longer their countries' soldiers will remain overseas.
The two leaders stood firm as well on the need to keep an outside military presence in Afghanistan. Howard announced last week that another 150 elite Australian troops would go to Afghanistan by September to help quell insurgent violence there.
US Politics
A distinct pattern: Long before the Karl Rove scandal grew into today’s political maelstrom, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to President Bush on January 28, 2004 asking that he call upon the White House Counsel to investigate Vice President Cheney's confirmation of leaked classified information in an interview with the Rocky Mountain News on January 9, 2004. As of today, no such investigation has taken place.
Federal law prohibits leaking classified information. In addition, every government employee must also sign a nondisclosure form which prohibits confirming information that has already been leaked. A briefing booklet explaining the form warns that “further dissemination of the [classified] information or confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.”
"Mr. Cheney's reference to classified information and Mr. Rove’s confirmation of Ms. Plame’s identity, accompanied by the ensuing silence from the White House, shows a distinct pattern: leaking classified information that the administration deems beneficial, without any consequences for those who disclose, is standard operating procedure," Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of CREW said today. “White House officials are simply not abiding by federal law.”
Don’t forget Downing Street!: The Downing Street memo serves, among other things, as a not very subtle reminder that much of the press was duped by the government in a rather premeditated and quite successful way. No one likes to be reminded of this, certainly not reporters and the institutions they work for; claiming the memo is "not reportable," in Smith's words, not only avoids revisiting a painful passage in American journalism but does so by asserting that the story "had already been covered" -- that is, that it had never been missed in the first place. When it comes to the war, much of American journalism has little more institutional interest in reexamining the past than the Bush administration itself.
We must be grateful that the American polity is broader and more complex than the American press. Kinsley claims that the Downing Street memo "will not persuade anyone who is not already persuaded. That doesn't make it wrong. But it does make the memo fairly worthless." But it is Kinsley who is quite demonstrably wrong on this question. Whether or not the memo will "persuade anyone who is not already persuaded" is of course an empirical question and I know myself a number of people who have been so persuaded. And the fact that more than half of all Americans now believe the President and his administration intentionally "misled the American public before the war" seems a rather strong suggestion that, as a matter of persuasion and of politics, the Downing Street memo is very far from worthless.
The number of Americans who hold this view is likely to continue to grow. These are simply people who have begun to notice the widening gap between what they are told and what they see -- a gap that, when it comes to the Iraq war, is becoming harder and harder to ignore. I would not call these people, in Kinsley's phrase, "Downing Street memo enthusiasts." Better to adopt a denigrating phrase from a Bush administration adviser and dub them members of the "reality-based community." Their ranks are growing, and it may be that in the coming days some in the press will leave off the increasingly hard work of avoiding recent history and come and join them.
Reality-based in CA: Members of Congress — including Oakland's representative — will mark the third anniversary of a British government meeting detailed in the "Downing Street memo" by taking criticism of the Iraq war to the masses.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, will host a town hall meeting from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand Lake Ave. in Oakland. Eight other lawmakers from New York to Michigan to New Mexico to California will hold district meetings this weekend as well.
Lee will be joined by Berkeley's Daniel Ellsberg, a former government worker famed for leaking the "Pentagon Papers" on U.S. decision-making in Vietnam in 1971; Steve Cobble, an activist and co-founder of afterdowningstreet.org; Bill Mitchell of Atascadero, a Gold Star Families for Peace co-founder whose son, U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Mitchell, 25, was killed in Baghdad; and Iraq Veterans Against the War members.
Lee intends to introduce a resolution of inquiry this week calling on the Bush administration to release all materials related to its meetings with British officials before the congressional vote authorizing use of force in Iraq.
Resources For Readers
I just discovered today that FindLaw has an amazing Iraq-war-related archive of source documents here. It’s a wonderful trove for serious researchers.
Also, via Hoffmania, here is a nifty little website called BugMeNot that allows you to bypass all the annoying registration forms that so many news sites insist you fill out to read a story. Naturally I didn’t learn about it until after this post was already researched so I haven’t tried it yet but Mr. Hoffmania has shown himself to be a very reliable fellow so I’m betting it works just fine.
Finally, after far too long an absence I stopped by Just World News, the website run by Helena Cobban, who often graces our Comments with her perceptive observations. If you haven't gone by recently, pay her a visit - interesting articles and links galore.
Commentary
Editorial: Most Americans have not been asked to sacrifice a single thing for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Other Americans have sacrificed time with their families, their jobs or, in many cases, life and limb.
Charlie Company's homecoming can help the people of Western Virginia remember and honor that sacrifice, but some congressional leaders appear to need a more forceful reminder.
During recent congressional hearings about a $1.2 billion shortfall in the Veterans Administration's health care budget, Republican representatives chastised VA Secretary Jim Nicholson for failing to warn Congress soon enough.
If Nicholson had come to them earlier, they said, Congress could have added more money to the recent supplemental appropriation for Iraq.
Yes, or congressional leaders might have followed past form and simply taken it out on the messenger.
That's what House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay did when fellow Republicans warned them last year of impending budget problems as the VA faced caring for thousands of wounded returning vets.
Instead of listening to their own colleagues, Hastert and DeLay punished them, removing U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., as chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, and reassigning others who signed a letter about the problem.
While tens of thousands of American soldiers give their best, congressional Republicans play shameful politics.
It is unforgivable.
Opinion: My travels to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq in recent weeks to look at the prospects for democratic change in the Middle East led me to one clear conclusion: The chance for more representative Arab governments rests on what happens in Iraq. President George W. Bush contends that Iraq will inspire democratic change in the region. But, far from being an inspiration, Iraq has turned into a bogeyman. It is the nightmare example cited by authoritarian Arab regimes as proof of the looming chaos if they open their systems too fast.
Even Arab democrats no longer talk of the January moment when millions of Iraqis voted. In Syria, political dissidents told me they don't want swift "regime change" in their country lest it lead to Iraq-style chaos. In Lebanon, leading members of the newly empowered political opposition worry Iraq will unsettle the region. In Egypt, government officials warn that rapid political change will enable Islamists to take power. As proof, they point to the victory of Shia religious parties in Iraqi elections. And, throughout the region, Arab democrats nervously watch the flow of radical Islamists into Iraq. The CIA has warned that Iraq may become another Afghanistan where Arabs train for jihad and then export their new skills elsewhere.
Comment: On Sunday, George W. Bush's war against terror was turned upside down -- and this time the president might even notice. That's because when "our guys" in Iraq start firmly allying with an "axis of evil" nation, it’s got to ring some warning bells, no?
I am referring to the joint declaration issued in Tehran by the leaders of Iraq and Iran: "Today, we need a double and common effort to confront terrorism that may spread in the region and the world," said Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, visiting Iran along with 10 of his ministers, following a similar visit from his defense minister. The statement he and his Iranian counterparts produced heralds mutual cooperation between the two neighbors, which will include a cross-border oil pipeline, joint security proposals and shared intelligence information.
Suddenly everyone's against terror!
I wish it were so. But it's not. Consider that while in Tehran, Jafari also paid tribute to the father of the Iranian theocracy, visiting the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That the fanaticism of Khomeini is very much alive in today's Iran was clear from the election last month of one of his original Revolutionary Guards to be the country's new president.
In making a pilgrimage to Shiite Iran, the Shiite Iraqi government was also paying homage to the longtime refuge and supporter of Iraqi Shiite revolutionaries, including Jafari himself, who spent 10 years in exile there. Jafari also reiterated an earlier statement in which his government apologized for Iraq's role in the long war with Iran. (How awkward for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. envoy who carried a message of support to Saddam Hussein 20 years ago, when that war was considered by President Reagan's government as a convenient, if terribly bloody, way to distract and weaken Iran.)
Now, thanks to the U.S. invasion, a new alliance is being formed between Iran and Iraq that threatens to further destabilize the politics of the Mideast. It wasn't supposed to work out this way.
Opinion: We suffer the worst attack on this country since Pearl Harbor, and the Bush administration sends the FBI after the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU exists to protect every citizen's rights as defined in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the United States. The ACLU works solely through the legal system: It does not advocate violence, terrorism or any other damn thing except the Bill of Rights. Since when is that extremist? Why in the name of heaven are we wasting the FBI's time on this idiocy? I don't pretend to be an expert on counter-terrorism, but if it were up to me, I wouldn't start looking for the violence-prone in pacifist groups either. Your pacifists, you see -- oh, just look it up.
I know that sludge-for-brains like Bill O'Reilly attack the ACLU for being "un-American," but when Bill O'Reilly's constitutional rights are violated, the ACLU will stand up for him just like they did for Oliver North, Communists, the KKK, atheists, movement conservatives and everyone else they've defended over the years. The premise is easily understood: If the government can take away one person's rights, it can take away everyone's.
We are living in a time when our government is investigating an organization that stands for the highest and best American ideals. And claiming the mantle of patriotism while they are about it. This is cuckoo -- and such an idiotic waste of the FBI's time and the taxpayers' money that whoever thought up this idiocy should be fired yesterday.
But even that is superseded by what lies at the heart of Plamegate, and that is lying in order to get this country into war. If the Washington press corps had a memory bank longer than 10 minutes, they could have exposed this years ago: the lies so often directly contradict one another. Before the war, the CIA was such a wussy organization it kept trying to downplay weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: After the war, it was all the CIA's fault, they had exaggerated the weapons of mass destruction. And so on and so on.
The trouble with piling lies on top of lies is that we can't even agree on facts anymore. I read the right-wing commentators, and it's not that we're not on the same page -- we're not even in the same library. They read the Downing Street memos and convince themselves they don't mean what they say. I really don't understand: Is it that hard to admit you're wrong when you're wrong? Is it that hard to admit that the invasion of Iraq has been a disaster? Isn't it self-evident?
Casualty Reports
Local story: Florissant, MO, soldier died near Balad from non-combat related injuries.
Local story: Pontotoc, MS, Marine killed in bombing near Trebil.
Local story: Flomaton, AL, Marine killed in bombing near Trebil.
Press release: Port Chester, NY, Marine killed in a non-hostile incident in Ramadi.
Local story: Pago Pago, American Samoa, soldier killed in IED explosion in Balad.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
War News for Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Bring ‘em on: Thirteen Iraqis killed in ambush of a minibus carrying workers to a
Bring ‘em on: Three Sunni members of the committee drafting
Bring ‘em on: Eight policemen killed in gunbattle in Khadra, insurgent casualties unknown. Six police officers, including a colonel, killed in five separate attacks across
Bring ‘em on: At least one person, believed to be a civilian, killed in car bombing targeting US and Iraqi troops in Rawah. Two Iraqi soldiers killed in eastern
Ever-mounting toll: Nearly 25,000 civilians have died violently in
Based on more than 10,000 media reports, the dossier is the first detailed account of such deaths.
"The ever-mounting Iraqi death toll is the forgotten cost of the decision to go to war in
The Iraq Body Count and Oxford Research Group, made up of academics and peace activists, carried out the survey.
The Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005 says 37% of all non-combatant deaths were caused by US-led forces.
Almost a fifth of the 24,865 deaths were women or children and nearly half of all the civilian deaths were reported in the capital
"On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003," said Mr Sloboda.
"It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the
Markedly worse: I visit
Each time the security situation has been markedly worse than the time before.
Briefly, after the election in January, which brought an Iraqi government to power, things seemed to improve; then, after some weeks of fewer bombs and fewer deaths, the level of attacks rose again.
Now it is higher than it has been at any time since May 2003. The supply of suicide bombers seems endless.
Two separate campaigns appear to be going on: the Baathist resistance movement which Saddam Hussein planned and provided vast stocks of weapons and money for, is targeting the Iraqi army and police, and to a lesser extent the American and British forces.
As far as anyone can tell, this is the larger and better equipped of the two main underground movements.
The other is the extremist religious movement headed (we assume) by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which announced last year that it was associating itself with al-Qaeda. Foreign Muslims in sizeable numbers have come into the country to support it.
Intelligence officials in
But to be honest, who does what is largely a matter of guesswork.
Iraqi Politics
Working overtime: In the face of seemingly irreconcilable differences, Iraqi politicians are working overtime to put together a permanent constitution that can eventually guide the country to a peaceful future.
Keeping the political process on track is the only way to keep an edge vis-à-vis the insurgency, Iraqi and US officials say. And sticking to the schedule, increasingly, looks to be the key to preventing full-scale civil war.
Finding a sectarian compromise appears especially urgent amid a spike in suicide bombings over the past week, including Saturday's attack at a gas station next to a Shiite mosque in Musayib, south of
At each critical juncture in the political process, the Sunni-dominated insurgency is under pressure to prove its continued relevance, US officials argue.
However, the main factions on the drafting committee - Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis - say they agree on the rough shape of the constitution. They are now working "day and night" to hammer out a mutually acceptable draft by Aug. 15, the deadline for parliament to approve the document prior to a nationwide referendum to be held by Oct. 15.
They could finish by the end of the month, unless they don’t:
"The committee is working on the constitution and about to complete the constitution which could be ready by end of the current month," Talabani told reporters after a meeting with former prime minister Iyad Allawi.
He said the committee has made a good progress "but there are some Arab brothers who have some reservations that are under discussion," Talabani said, referring to the Sunni Arabs who were at odds with fellow Kurds and Shiites over the definition of federalism.
This may slow things a bit: Gunmen shot dead three Sunni Arab members of the team drafting
Drawing Sunni Arabs on to the committee, due to deliver a new constitution by Aug 15, was the cornerstone of the U.S.-backed strategy of persuading members of the restive minority to move off the streets and into peaceful politics.
The three men represented a Sunni umbrella group called the Iraqi National Dialogue.
Hours earlier, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, issued a statement saying he hoped the draft constitution could be ready early -- by the end of this month -- if Sunni concerns could be quickly addressed.
How will this fit into that constitution?: Shiite parliamentarian Khudayr al-Khuzai called on the government Sunday to "bring back popular militias" to protect vulnerable Shiite communities. "The plans of the interior and defense ministries to impose security in
Following Mr. Khuzai's outraged speech in parliament, other members of the Shiite-led majority bloc said they also wanted militias to help stop such attacks. "We need militias to provide protection," said Saad Jawad Kandil, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a key party in the Shiite-led alliance that dominates parliament.
Under US-drafted provisional legislation, nongovernmental militias are meant to be either disbanded or integrated into the government security apparatus as part of
"Correct course of action": Moqtada Sadr, the radical Iraqi Shia cleric whose militia led uprisings against
Speaking to Newsnight, Mr Sadr said that even US President George W Bush would agree that fighting an occupation force was a correct course of action.
However, he did call upon Iraqis to exercise restraint with US troops.
And he said he would not interfere with the democratic process, saying "Whoever wants to take part, let him do so".
"Resistance is legitimate at all levels be it religious, intellectual and so on," Mr Sadr said, in his first interview with Western media.
"The first person who would acknowledge this is the so-called American President Bush who said 'if my country is occupied, I will fight'."
Hey, they absorbed about $9 billion with no trouble: As fresh violence engulfs
But in a finely balanced argument, the Iraqi officials also said their country and its fledgling financial institutions were stable and secure enough to manage the influx of that much money.
Your money or your security: Iraqi officials warned the international community today that more delays in delivering on aid pledges would further destabilize the country and threaten global security.
Planning Minister Barham Salih thanked the
Bungled reconstruction: In language both sharp and subtle, Iraqi and international officials on Monday criticized the U.S.-led rebuilding effort for moving too slowly to improve the lives of Iraqi citizens.
They said the
Medical crisis: More than two dozen doctors walked out of one of
Physicians said the troubles started when soldiers barged into a woman's wing at Yarmouk hospital, opened curtains and conducted searches as patients lay in their beds on Monday.
A 27-year-old internal medicine specialist said a soldier began intimidating and abusing him.
"Before he left he said, 'Why are you looking in disapproval?' Then he came and punched me lightly on my arm before sticking his rifle into my stomach and cocking it," the doctor, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, told Reuters.
"I stayed quiet but relatives of the patients told him to calm down before pulling him out of the room. Just then, four more soldiers came in and pointed a rifle at my head. At that point I became scared and begged them to leave me alone."
General Ilker Basbug, second in command at
"The
The
Blair says no connection: Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Tuesday against making a connection between the
A third of the people sampled in a British opinion poll published Tuesday thought Blair bore "a lot of responsibility" for the attacks, because he joined the U.S.-led invasion of
"Of course these terrorists will use
"Sept. 11 happened of course before both of these things, and then the excuse was American policy, or
Chatham House begs to differ:
The British government "has been conducting counter-terrorism policy 'shoulder to shoulder' with the U.S., not in the sense of being an equal decision-maker, but rather as pillion [back-seat] passenger compelled to leave the steering to the ally in the driving seat," said the report published by Chatham House, also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which has close ties to the government.
The policy, it added, "has proved costly in terms of British and
British government denies link: The government reacted sharply on Monday to a private research report that said Britain was particularly exposed to a terrorist attack because of its role in Iraq as an ally and "pillion passenger" of American policy.
Coming 11 days after four bombers struck
"The time for excuses over terrorism is over," Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said in
The government's response added to indications that Britain's role in Iraq is again returning as a political specter, likely to be linked with accusations of a failure by Britain's intelligence agencies to focus sufficient attention on Al Qaeda, whose "evil ideology" Prime Minister Tony Blair has blamed for the attacks. That failure was also cited in the report by Chatham House, a nonpartisan research group.
The government has sought to define the
But, in denying a link between the July 7 attacks and its policies in
Richard Clarke begs to differ: The carnage in the London Underground follows an even more horrendous attack on
Earlier this year the administration revealed that Osama bin Laden had communicated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of ''Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia,'' urging him to send some of his many fighters to the homelands of the
A recent C.I.A. analysis reportedly concluded that those being recruited by Zarqawi are receiving better training and preparation by fighting in
British government sticks its fingers in its ears and goes la la la: A controversial fly-on-the wall account of the
Publication of The Costs of War by Sir Jeremy Greenstock,
Regarded as a career diplomat of impeccable integrity, during his time in post-invasion
The decision to block the book until Greenstock removes substantial passages will be interpreted as an attempt by ministers to avoid further embarrassing disclosures over the conduct of the war and its aftermath from a highly credible source.
Of course, none of the above could have anything to do with this:
The British government has long declined to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from
A New Revelation From
Manipulated elections?: The January 30th election in Iraq was publicly perceived as a political triumph for George W. Bush and a vindication of his decision to overturn the regime of Saddam Hussein. More than eight million Iraqis defied the threats of the insurgency and came out to vote for provincial councils and a national assembly. Many of them spent hours waiting patiently in line, knowing that they were risking their lives. Images of smiling Iraqis waving purple index fingers, signifying that they had voted, were transmitted around the world. Even some of the President’s harshest critics acknowledged that he might have been right: democracy, as he defined it, could take hold in the
Whether the election could sustain its promise had been in question from the beginning. The Administration was confronted with a basic dilemma: The likely winner of a direct and open election would be a Shiite religious party. The Shiites were bitter opponents of Saddam’s regime, and suffered under it, but many Shiite religious and political leaders are allied, to varying degrees, with the mullahs of
Random News From The
On your kid’s charge card: The wars in
The could make the combined campaigns, especially the war in Iraq, the most expensive military conflicts in the last 60 years, causing even some conservative experts to criticize the open-ended commitment to an elusive goal. The concern is that the soaring costs, given little weight before now, could play a growing role in
"Osama (bin Laden) doesn't have to win; he will just bleed us to death," said Michael Scheuer, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA who led the pursuit of bin Laden and recently retired after writing two books critical of the Clinton and Bush administrations. "He's well on his way to doing it."
Frontline: Private Warriors: Watch the PBS television documentary on the 120,000 private contractors working in
Three myths about
THE DEMOCRACY MYTH -- IRAQI ELECTIONS WERE FREE AND FAIR: In last month's major Iraq address, President Bush recalled that "In January 2005, more than eight million Iraqi men and women voted in elections that were free and fair."
THE PROGRESS MYTH -- HIGH-INTENSITY VIOLENCE ON THE DECLINE: On July 8, Maj. Gen. William Webster, who oversees coalition forces in
War photos: In May, the Los Angeles Times released a survey revealing how few photographs of wounded or dead American service members in
The Times' survey of six months of coverage found almost no pictures of Americans killed in action at a time when 559 Americans and Western allies died; the same publications ran just 44 photos from
AP's
Commentary
Comment: Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how
Enough is known to surmise that the leaks of Rove, or others deputized by him, amounted to retaliation against someone who had the temerity to challenge the president of the United States when he was striving to find some plausible reason for invading Iraq.
The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal - the effort to delude
Editorial: Even by the standards of insurgent violence in
The disavowal could indicate worry about a backlash against the deaths of youngsters. Iraqis have asked why insurgents were killing their fellow citizens in an attempt to force coalition troops to leave. Now they ask again, "Why kill children?"
Since the invasion in March 2003, insurgents have killed the top United Nations official in the country, the Egyptian ambassador, clerics and many police recruits. They have planted bombs by the road, dispatched suicide bombers and beheaded some of their victims. Security forces can't stop all attacks; they depend on help from Iraqis to provide intelligence about guerrilla plans. Even those who want coalition troops to leave immediately should understand that a nation can't be built on the bones of murdered children.
Opinion: There is a widespread view, even among many who opposed the invasion, that we have a responsibility to keep our troops in place until certain minimum conditions are achieved: some degree of security for the Iraqi people; a reasonable start on stable and representative self-government; and partial reconstruction of the civilian infrastructure. Prompt withdrawal is considered unthinkable by most Republicans and Democrats, because it is difficult to envision a pullout that leaves a peaceful
So the expectation is that we will be in Iraq for several more years, perhaps with a somewhat reduced presence, but spending considerable money (more than $1 billion per week) and sacrificing lives ( one dozen to two dozen deaths and serious casualties per week), while working to achieve those minimum objectives required for withdrawal.
This conventional view, however, ignores two important questions. The first is, how much are American interests in the Arab world being harmed by our continued presence in
I do not believe that we are making progress on any of our key objectives in
The insurgency cannot be overcome easily by either
Our best strategy now is a prompt withdrawal plan consisting of clearly defined political, military and economic elements. Politically, the
Opinion: I hate to introduce this hoary old idea, but I believe it is true: an American withdrawal will be interpreted as a sign of weakness by aggressive enemies (and we do have enemies). If the US diminishes or gives up its military presence (that is, our police station) in the Middle East, it may only be a matter of time before we lose access to two-thirds of the world's remaining oil supplies that happen to be located there. We would also have to wonder how long our military bases in
What I believe will happen: the Jihadi violence will continue, the American public will lose patience with the attrition in Iraq, other flash points (North Korea, Pakistan, Venezuela, Mexico) will make it clear that the US Army is not capable of conducting land operations elsewhere, events will evolve to choke off oil imports to the US as our hegemony slips away, terror events in Europe will continue and provoke a backlash against Islamic imigrants, which will only inflame the Islamic world further, the US will revert to a naval strategy of attempting to protect our interests -- namely access to oil -- which will not be effective, and America will be plagued at home by political recrimination, blaming, scapegoating, and a futile campaign to keep the car-dependent utopia going.
Ultimately, the world will enter The Long Emergency, a horizonless era of conflict, withering global economic relations, and energy starvation -- with plummeting standards of living.
Meanwhile, we are doing nothing at home to prepare for this future, for instance a crash program to restore the American railroad system, or to restore true fiscal discipline to the mortgage industry in order to stem the insane spread of even more car-dependent suburban sprawl (a.k.a. the housing bubble). Where is the Democratic party (my party) on this? Lost in the raptures of sexual and racial pandering.
Comment: Most of the time you'd hardly know there's a war going on, that boys and young men in America's all-volunteer army are fighting and dying in places like Falluja and the remote mountain provinces of faraway Afghanistan.
Sixty years ago, the beaches of
Today, war is perfectly OK as long as nobody is inconvenienced, as long as the Red Sox keep winning and topless young women continue lining up on the Howard Stern Show to reveal what's under their thongs.
Most of us can rattle off David Ortiz and Johnny Damon's batting averages. We can also repeat more than anybody needs to know about celebrities like Johnny Depp and Mariah Carey. But when it comes to understanding why America's No. 1 enemy, Osama bin Laden, is considered a hero in so many parts of the world, we're completely in the dark.
Even television has distanced itself from the terrorist and Iraqi conflicts and their underlining causes. But then one must keep in mind who owns and controls the news and entertainment industry, an industry that has a far greater stake in selling cars, beer, hamburgers, toothpaste and deodorant than in exposing the real reasons why the nation is bogged down in a bloody war not only in the
Casualty Reports
Local story:
Local story:
Local story:
Monday, July 18, 2005
Yes, just one day after London's agony, the state terrorists who perpetrated the ongoing mass atrocity of aggressive war in Iraq celebrated an important victory in their campaign of violence and fear: 11 juicy oil fields are being put up for tender to international investors, AdnKronos International reports. The corporate cornucopia of these fertile fields in oil-laden southern Iraq -- 3 million barrels per day, said Jihad -- will surpass the nation's entire current output of 2.2 million bpd: rich pickings for the oil barons whose branch office in the White House has done such outstanding advance work for them. With oil prices soaring past $60 per barrel -- on their way to the $100 mark in the near future, some experts say -- the $25 billion ante that the Iraqis are seeking will be a small price to pay for a seat at this game.15,000 Basra oil workers go on strike. Covert Support: In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday. The article, by Seymour M. Hersh, reports that the administration proceeded with the covert plan over the Congressional objections. Several senior Bush administration officials disputed that, although they recalled renewed discussions within the administration last fall about how the United States might counter what was seen as extensive Iranian support to pro-Iranian Shiite parties. British Army Crisis: A senior Army officer said that the ammunition crisis was "shambolic" and came at the worst possible time for the Army. He said: "There is nothing more dispiriting than soldiers having to go on exercise and shout 'bang, bang' because there is not enough blank ammunition. Any benefit from the exercise will be lost because soldiers just won't take it seriously. Why should soldiers who are being sent to Iraq, where their lives will be endangered, be forced to shout 'bang' in training because someone in the Ministry of Defence can't do basic arithmetic? It's a disgrace." Shoot Me: A Chicago Marine and his cousin have been charged with felonies after the Marine begged to be shot to avoid returning to Iraq and his cousin acquiesced. Moises Hernandez had recently returned home from Iraq and was reportedly having nightmares about going back to the war, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. "Shoot me," the 19-year-old Hernandez allegedly told his cousin, who, hesitant at first, then allegedly shot Hernandez in his leg last weekend. Gravy Train: "If the Department of Defense were a business, they'd be out of business," David Walker, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, said at a breakfast with reporters yesterday. "They have absolutely atrocious financial management." The GAO has been examining the Pentagon's Iraq expenses, and "we're having extreme difficulty in getting the Department of Defense to provide a full accounting of what they're spending" there, Walker said. "I can't understand how we're spending $1 billion a week." Billmon has a post about this. Linkage to Iraq: Bombing London was not an act of revenge for the Iraq war but the latest manifestation of an "evil ideology" responsible for a 12-year terror campaign in 26 countries, Tony Blair insisted yesterday. His words reflected a worry among ministers that public opinion will link the London terrorist attacks with the unpopular war in Iraq. The Prime Minister's critics within the Labour Party maintained an informal truce for the first week after the bombings, avoiding reference to the Iraq war out of respect for the victims. That truce has been broken this weekend, with two Labour MPs claiming publicly that the Iraq war and the terrorist attack are linked. Opinion and Commentary More Dehumanization:
Having grown up the Southern U.S. and having a very racist father, it was a very bizarre experience hearing almost the same comments being made against Iraqis that I heard as a child being made against blacks. The same venom, for lack of a better word, was coming out of their mouths as they denigrated the people, culture and societal norms of Iraq. Equally disturbing for me was the colonialist attitude of most of the business- connected internationals (most of the contractors I talked to were South African or English and most of the businessmen were American and all except one were white males). Remarks like, "We have to show them how it's really done", or "They don't have a clue how it's done in the West". There seemed, to me at least, to be no attempt at understanding, much less respecting, the culture of the people they ostensibly are here to work in partnership with. I have to assume the racist attitudes of the security contractors stems from the necessity for a human being to dehumanize and marginalize another human being in order to kill them. Dehumanization is a mind game military-leaders the world over have used to indoctrinate recruits with and it also seems to be the case with these mercenary soldiers. The colonialist attitudes are harder to grasp. Is colonialism something unique to white, male Westerners? (And I include myself in this category.) Do we see Iraq the same way as Kipling saw India, that of being "the white man's burden" to bring Western civilization to the uncivilized Arabs and Kurds? Those three days at the airport are woven deeply into my spirit. I'm wondering if I have swallowed poison that will harden or embitter me. Or perhaps I have been blessed with a homeopathic remedy of absorbing just enough poison to begin to cure me of my own subconscious racist and colonist tendencies and then be able to help others cure themselves. Time will tell.Splitting Iraq:
America's Founding Fathers spent nearly four months hashing out a constitution. Iraq's drafting committee has been trying to crank one out in half that time. With an Aug. 1 deadline rapidly approaching, the chief sticking point appears to be how the government can avoid another Saddam-like concentration of power. Both the Shi'ites and the Kurds are pushing for varying degrees of federalism, and the U.S. is supporting the plan. The Kurds have long sought a large degree of autonomy for their region in the north. The Shi'ites too are now calling for an autonomous region in the south, to be called Sumer, home to Iraq's only ports, as well as at least 80% of its oil reserves. The stumbling block is the Sunni contingent, which opposes a partition along sectarian or ethnic lines and wants a strong central government. "The Sunni Arabs are already pushing back on this. They all hate it," said a U.S. embassy official familiar with the drafting process. Jawad al-Malaki, a Shi'ite committee member and adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, calls the Sunni approach a nonstarter, warning that it could lead to a new dictatorship. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to convince the Sunnis that federalism is in their interest. "If you had the kind of system the Sunnis want, what you'd probably get is a Shi'a Prime Minister appointing a Shi'a Islamist to go run Anbar [a mainly Sunni province where much of the insurgency is raging]," the official said. "Do you really think that's what they want?" Unless the constitution committee asks for a six-month extension, these squabbling groups plan to submit a draft by month's end so that Parliament can vote on it by Aug. 15. Already some fear that the Sunnis may want to keep up their recalcitrance in order to force new elections. But Shi'ite and Kurdish members say they will vote the constitution out of the committee without the Sunnis if they must, and the U.S. is willing to back them up. If the Sunnis derail the process, says the U.S. official, "we'll know who to blame."Update Carl Conetta of Project on Defence Alternatives sent us an email about a report released today entitled "400 days and out: A strategy for resolving the Iraq impasse". I am reading it now.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
New investigations by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank - both of which painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States - have found that the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists and became radicalized by the war itself. The studies, which together provide the most detailed picture available of foreign fighters, cast serious doubt on President Bush's claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the "central front" in a battle against the United States. Interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a U.S.-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence. A separate Israeli analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al-Qaida operatives who are organizing the volunteers, "the vast majority of 1/8-non-Iraqi, 3/8-Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq." "Only a few were involved in past Islamic insurgencies in Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya," the Israeli study says. Out of the 154 fighters analyzed, only a handful had past associations with terrorism, including six who had fathers who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, said the report, compiled by the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Herzliya, Israel.Suspicions focus on Kurds in yesterday's bomb attack in Turkish resort, who may have brought in large amounts of explosives from Iraq. No Blacks, Irish, Jews and Iraqis need to apply: On the way out of Camp Lima Base were two latrines, one marked "Iraqis Only" and the other "No Iraqis -- Americans Only". Asked for an explanation, Major Booth replied that this was due to 'cultural differences'. Opinion and Commentary Blowback:
That three of the suspected perpetrators of the bomb attacks on London on July 7 were British youths of Pakistani origin should not only have been no surprise to British intelligence, it should have been anticipated: the radicalization of Britain's Muslim youth of Pakistani origin began in the mid-1990s with the full knowledge and complicity of British and US intelligence agencies. In the mid-1990s, the Pakistan-based jihadi group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM - previously known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar, HUA ) sent a contingent to help Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs. They were sent by the government of Benazir Bhutto at the request of the Bill Clinton administration. The contingent, which was raised and trained by Lieutenant General (retired) Hamid Gul, former director general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who himself used to visit Bosnia, included a large number of British Muslims of Pakistani origin. According to estimates, about 200 Muslims of Pakistani origin living in the United Kingdom went to Pakistan, received training in the camps of the HUA, and joined the HUA in Bosnia with the blessings of London and Washington. Among them was Omar Sheikh, who went on to mastermind the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. A decade before Bosnia, the CIA had raised and funded a large corps of jihadis of Arab origin - including Osama bin-Laden - to help the Afghan mujahideen in their jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. By the time of the Serbian crisis, these Arabs of Afghanistan vintage had already started creating mayhem beyond Afghanistan, notably in Indian-held Kashmir, so Western intelligence wanted to avoid the use of Arabs in Bosnia. They turned to Pakistanis, particularly Pakistanis living in Britain and other countries in Western Europe. Thus began the radicalization process of Muslim youth of Pakistani origin in western Europe.Blair is angry:
One of Britain's most senior former diplomats has branded the US invasion of Iraq "politically illegitimate" in an incendiary new book that the government has moved to block, a British newspaper reported. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who was British ambassador to the United Nations during the run-up to the 2003 invasion, makes the comments in a book entitled "The Cost of War", excerpts of which were quoted in Sunday's The Observer. UN negotiations "never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration", he charges in an extract published in the paper. While "honourable decisions" were made to remove former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the opportunities of the post-conflict period were wasted by "poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution," he charges. The Observer claims that the book is being held up by Prime Minister Tony Blair's office and the Foreign Office, which it says have asked Greenstock to strike out a number of passages. Officials are said to have been "deeply shocked" by his candid accounts of talks with Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and of deliberations at the UN Security Council, the paper reports. Greenstock, who was Blair's special representative to Iraq in the aftermath of the war, has apparently been asked to remove all these sections. "Some people are really surprised that someone like Sir Jeremy has done this," an unidentified source told the paper. "In particular the way he has quoted private conversations with the prime minister." A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "Civil service regulations which apply to all members of the diplomatic service require that any retired officials must obtain clearance in respect of any publication in relation to their service. "Sir Jeremy Greenstock's proposed book is being dealt with under this procedure."Dehumanizing:
The Saturday before last saw the bombardment of Chechal village in eastern Afghanistan by US forces. At least 17 people were killed in the air strike, including women and children. According to initial reports, the US Air Force indiscriminately bombed the village in retaliation for the US loss of a Special Forces unit. While some villagers went to help recover bodies and aid the wounded, the air force launched a second raid, killing in the process many of those who had gone to help. Later, ground troops were sent to find out who the victims were and determine if any of them had actually been "terrorists". A few days later, the US issued a short statement acknowledging that civilians had in fact been killed. No wall-to-wall coverage for the fathers, mothers, sons and daughters killed then. No strong, united protests of condemnation or impartial inquiries either. But it did make a few lines in the daily news. Dehumanize, eh? Perhaps we are all guilty of falling for the illusion that is the concoction of propaganda and concealment. Telling where the truth is and what the facts really are, admittedly, is an uphill struggle. But surely, if we have been asleep before, now is the time to awaken from the slumber. It is not a time for more spin, lies and the clever redefinition and application of terminology. Terror is terror, regardless of the means chosen to deliver it. As we have found out to our detriment, sometimes it is meted out with bombs on a train. And other times it adopts the guise of destructive weapons. We must have the honesty and integrity to call a spade a spade. Let us bring sincerity to a much-needed discussion. Let us debate openly the causes of terror and put under the microscope the policies of government. Nay, let us even ponder the values that Blair believes to be under attack and consider their real meaning and impact. It may be that under this critical analysis we begin to question their very suitability as a panacea to the problems of humankind. It is a beginning at least. And one would hope, by rising to this challenge, we may even confound the magician by turning the tables when it matters. Surely, that is a thought worth holding on to.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Bring 'em on: Truck driver killed in attack on US convoy in Dhuluiyah.
Bring 'em on: At least fifty five dead and eighty two wounded in suicide bomb attack in Musayyib.
Bring 'em on: Former General in Saddam Hussein's army and his son executed by police commandos in Baghdad.
Bring 'em on: Three British troops killed in bomb attack in Al Amarah.
Bring 'em on: Gunmen kill two Iraqi policemen and wound three in Hilla.
Bring 'em on: Eight dead and twelve injured in twin suicide bomb attack on mosque in Hilla.
Bring 'em on: Curfew imposed on a city that has been liberated many times, ie Samarrah.
Bring 'em on: Iraqi legislator assassinated in Nasiriyah.
Bring 'em on: Iraq's interior minister survives assassination attempt in the Green Zone.
Optimistic Report from the Green Zone:
I’ve always been something of an optimist, but everyone has a breaking point. Mine came on Saturday as I toured the infamous “Green Zone” in central Baghdad. This fortress is quite literally the heart of the new Iraq, not to mention the only safe place in the country. Then again, maybe not. Roadblocks, blast walls and barbed wire are the most common sights in this walled-in mini-city, called the international zone, which is fitting because these days it’s guarded by soldiers from Georgia—and I don’t mean the U.S. state. The Green Zone has changed a lot since I was last here, around 18 months ago, and so has Iraq. But from what little I’ve seen in the last 24 hours, I wonder whether it’s for the worse. The security situation has deteriorated so badly that journalists rarely venture out unless they’re embedded with U.S. soldiers. That wasn’t the case early last year, when foreigners could walk the streets outside the Green Zone, shop in local markets, and, most important to journalists, talk to the Iraqi people. Those days are long gone. The situation inside the Green Zone is scarcely better. Heavily armed troops guard government buildings and hospitals, menacingly pointing their weapons at any one who approaches. Soldiers manning checkpoints can use deadly force against motorists who fail to heed their instructions, so the warning signs say, and I have no doubt they’d exercise that right in a heartbeat if they felt threatened. All this fear and tension, and inside a six square mile area that’s supposed to be safe. Amid this insecurity, confusion and oppressive summertime heat, my mind keeps returning to one thing: Dick Cheney. I don’t understand how the U.S. vice president concluded recently that the insurgency terrorizing Iraq was it its “last throes.” We’re obviously not reading the same newspapers. The mere fact that there is a Green Zone should tell you something. The optimist in me says the U.S. will eventually train up the Iraqi army and police to the point where they can fight the insurgents alone, keep the country stable enough for the government to govern, to hold elections, pass laws, recover from economic sanctions and war, and move toward democracy. These are long-term goals, but it’s difficult to imagine they’re reachable when a prominent business inside the Green Zone is a carwash that specializes in detail work on tanks. Is it really that bad in Iraq? It’s hard to say because the international media cannot adequately cover the war and Iraq’s reconstruction because it’s simply too dangerous. I would love to write about new schools being built and local village leaders learning about democracy, but I can’t go out to see such things. Maybe that’s why American friends who’ve never even been to Iraq—or read a book about the country for that matter—tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about when I say things are so bad. Say what you will about whether the United States was justified to invade this country. We’re well into the game, and it’s too late to argue over who got the ball first. But prior to April 2003, there were no suicide bombers in Baghdad, there was 24-hour electricity and people went out at night. Now, if you drive into town from the airport, there is a legitimate possibility you will get killed. How long can the insurgents keep it up? Who knows, but they haven’t let the dust and heat of summertime Iraq stop them. Let’s just say that the insurgency doesn’t take the day off because of weather conditions. Danger aside, it’s always interesting being here. Not to mention amusing and tragic. I met an American journalist Saturday in the Green Zone who’s bravely dealing with a U.S. military investigation into the death of her Iraqi colleague last month, who was apparently killed by an American sniper. Minutes later, I had a U.S. soldier telling me about a Mickey Mouse Persian rug he mailed home for his daughter’s bedroom. He then offered to help me buy my own rug, though I’m partial to Tweety Bird. For better or for worse, historic changes are afoot here, and will be for some time. The final outcome in Iraq could have a bearing on the fight against terrorism, Middle East politics and even the future of democracy. That alone is worth being here to watch—if it’s not too dangerous to take a look.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Transformed into a police state after last winter's siege, this should be the safest city in all of Iraq. Thousands of American and Iraqi troops live in crumbling buildings here and patrol streets laced with concertina wire. Any Iraqi entering the city must show a badge and undergo a search at one of six checkpoints. There is a 10 p.m. curfew. But the insurgency is rising from the rubble nevertheless, eight months after the American military killed as many as 1,500 Iraqis in a costly invasion that fanned anti-American passions across Iraq and the Arab world. Somewhere in the bowels of Falluja, the former guerrilla stronghold 35 miles west of Baghdad, where four American contractors were killed in an ambush, and the bodies of two were hanged from a bridge, in March 2004, insurgents are building suicide car bombs again. At least four have exploded in recent weeks, one of them killing six American troops, including four women. Two of five police forts being erected have been firebombed. Three members of the nascent, 21-seat city council have suddenly quit and another member has stopped attending meetings, presumably because they have been threatened. Just as disturbing, even Falluja residents who favored purging the streets of insurgents last November are beginning to chafe under the occupation. Profiteering. "The Iraqi Defense Ministry has squandered more than $300 million buying faulty and outdated military equipment in what appears to be a massive web of corruption that flourished under American-appointed supervisors for a year or longer, U.S. and Iraqi military officials said this week. Vendors are suspected of vastly overcharging for substandard equipment, including helicopters, machine guns and armored vehicles, and kicking back money to Iraqi Defense Ministry buyers. The defective equipment has jeopardized the lives of Iraq's embattled security forces and exposed a startling lack of oversight for one of the country's most crucial rebuilding projects. . . . Investigators are looking at purchases dating back to the June 28, 2004, transfer of sovereignty from American administrator L. Paul Bremer III to the caretaker government of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Many Iraqi administrators hired under Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority kept their jobs after the handover of the ministry, but after that the U.S. military no longer had the final say in awarding contracts. However, Americans still ran the show behind the scenes, said several Iraqi bureaucrats involved with the ministry at the time. It's implausible to them that U.S. officials, who held daily briefings with Iraqi defense chiefs, didn't catch wind of the alleged wrongdoing." Collateral damage reports. "Nearly 40,000 Iraqis had been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the US-led invasion, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported today. The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources. No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued, although military deaths from the US-led coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1937. The new estimate of 39,000 was compiled by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies and published in its latest annual small arms survey, released at a UN news conference." Thanks to alert reader cervantes. Truth Tour. "The U.S. Army is investigating the death of 49-year-old Kent State Professor Salah Jmor, who was shot and killed by a soldier in Iraq, NewsChannel5 reported. NewsChannel5's news partners at the Akron Beacon Journal said details are sketchy as to why Jmor was in Baghdad, but he had been mentioned as a candidate for a job with the new Iraqi government." Jody calls.
After surviving the chaos of Iraq, thousands of soldiers have become casualties of a fight they were poorly trained for: keeping control of their family lives during the separation of war. Men and women who feel lucky their units suffered few fatalities say they can name dozens who returned to empty houses, squandered bank accounts, divorce papers and restraining orders. The Army divorce rate has jumped more than 80% since the fighting began overseas in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The courts around Ft. Hood, the Army's largest post, may have to add another judge to handle the caseload. Divorce lawyers hire extra staff whenever a division prepares to come home. To a soldier in battle, the threat of a family falling apart can be a dangerous distraction. "That's probably the worst part about being over there," said Hall, now back at Ft. Hood and facing a marriage so damaged it may not survive. "Your wife's cheating on you, you know she's been spending all your money the entire time, and there's nothing you can do about it. You think about that more than you do a bomb on the side of the road."Torture policy. Three top military lawyers said yesterday that they lodged complaints about the Justice Department's definition of torture and how it would be applied to interrogations of enemy prisoners captured by U.S. forces, the first time they have publicly acknowledged that they objected to the policy as it was being developed in early 2003. At a Senate hearing yesterday, the judge advocate generals (JAGs) for the Army, Air Force and Marines said they expressed their concerns as the policy was being hashed out at the Pentagon in March and April 2003. Though their letters to the Defense Department's general counsel are classified, sources familiar with them said the lawyers worried that broadly defined, tough interrogation tactics would not only contravene long-standing military doctrine -- leaving too much room for interpretation by interrogators -- but also would cause public outrage if the tactics became known. 'We did express opposition,' said Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig, the Army's top lawyer. 'It was accepted in some cases, maybe not in all cases. It did modify the proposed list of policies and procedures.'" Civil war.
The almost daily appearance of bodies is fuelling Iraq’s already boiling sectarian hatreds, and Shia leaders, whose community has been slaughtered in car bombs by Sunni insurgents and their al-Qaeda allies, are struggling to prevent powerful Shia militias such as the Mahdi Army from seeking revenge, effectively triggering a civil war. “Every day we find innocent people killed and their bodies dumped on the streets. We don’t know who’s responsible,” said Major-General Hussein al-Kamal, head of the Interior Ministry’s intelligence department. “The minister has ordered that a special committee look into this explosive issue.” In the present tinderbox, even the smallest incident can spark tragedy. Last week a Shia family of nine were killed by gunmen in their home in Baghdad. The father, who was away when his wife and children were murdered, said the killing was sectarian. Three months earlier he had become embroiled in an argument with a local Sunni barber who had mocked pictures of the Shia saint Imam Ali that he saw on the screen of his son’s mobile phone. The father remonstrated with the barber, who was later killed by unknown gunmen. The father said he believed his family had been attacked in revenge.Access to evil. "Let us remember the real reason that White House political enforcer Karl Rove was chatting with selected reporters in the summer of 2003. It was not necessarily to blow the cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame. It was not, entirely, to mete out vicious retribution against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, for writing an op-ed article in The New York Times that discounted administration claims about an alleged Iraqi effort to acquire uranium from Niger. The malevolence was more fundamental. Rove was trying to sustain the lies that led America into Iraq." Expanding war. "Turkey said it reserves the right to make military incursions into neighboring northern Iraq to pursue Turkish Kurd rebels and renewed criticism of the United States for failing to clamp down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Back in Iraq, two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the Green Zone government compound, killing a civilian, as U.S. forces announced the capture of a suspect in the murder of Egypt's top envoy." Support the troops!
With all that's been learned from combat veterans in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, Dr. Dewey believes we have the clinical expertise to successfully diagnose and treat PTSD. But he worries about a shortage of resources -- of money -- to deal with the coming caseload. He says the local VA medical center in Boise is a case in point. The mental health department has a budget of about $4 to 5 million but Dr. Dewey says there's still not enough money to fill five critical vacancies on his staff. "We've got a budget that is inadequate for the task we need to face right now," he said. And it is not just doctors like Larry Dewey who are voicing concern. A Government Accountability Office report found that six out of seven VA medical facilities surveyed late last year said they "may not be able to meet" the increased demand for treatment.Commentary Editorial:
It appears that Mr. Rove was so intent on smearing a White House critic that he launched a personal attack on Mr. Wilson and his wife. Mr. Rove should have known better than to expose a CIA agent without knowing the harm that it could cause, particularly at a time when WMD intelligence was a deciding factor in the decision to go to war. Instead Mr. Rove sought to discredit critics. Mr. Rove used similar tactics in a campaign against Sen. John McCain after the senator bested Mr. Bush in the Republican primary in New Hampshire in 2000. Now Mr. Rove's defenders are doing the same: attacking his critics. Are these the values that Mr. Bush endorses? It's no secret that Mr. Rove plays hard-ball politics. Fair enough. Politics isn't always nice. But such tactics cross the line when they put people's lives and well-being at risk. President Bush promised that, ''If somebody did leak classified information . . . we'll take appropriate action.'' It's time that he made good on that promise.Editorial:
Americans deserve an explanation. They need to hear why any member of the Bush administration would compromise a CIA agent and why any of its members would be so intolerant of the concerns of a diplomat to put his wife's life at risk. Bush vowed the White House official responsible would be fired. As mounting evidence points to Rove, that prospect doesn't seem so certain. Despite growing calls from the media and other quarters for Rove to come clean, he has been silent. It is an odd position for the Bush administration. After all, the White House has been explicitly critical of news organizations that use unnamed sources. The administration publicly chastised Newsweekmagazine for its report of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which relied on an anonymous source. The abuse allegations, however, were largely substantiated. Now the White House is forced to defend an anonymous source who sought to punish Wilson for speaking out.Opinion: "When forced to choose between protecting its reputation and protecting Ms. Plame so that she could continue her work, the White House valued its own security first. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, had gone to Niger in 2002 to investigate whether Iraq had sought uranium there. He reported that it had not, but in his 2003 State of the Union Address, Mr. Bush said, "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a claim the White House later retracted." Analysis:
Islamist militant suicide bombers are likely to wreak havoc in Iraq for years to come, even if Iraqi leaders manage to calm a broader insurgency by drawing alienated Sunni Arabs into democratic politics. ''We see many more years of violence from certain groups, whatever political accords are made with the Sunnis and however much Iraqi forces are improved,'' said a senior Western diplomat. US and some Iraqi leaders, encouraged by millions of voters braving suicide bomb threats to vote in January polls, hope an inclusive approach can curb violence among minority Sunnis who dominated Iraq until Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003. But the strategy may have no appeal for hardline Baathists or the foreign Islamist groups blamed for many of the suicide bombings that have killed thousands of people, mainly Iraqis.Casualty Report Local story: Georgia soldier killed in Iraq.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Douglas J. Feith, a top Pentagon official who was deeply involved in planning the Iraq war, said that there were significant missteps in the administration's strategy, including the delayed transfer of power to a new Iraqi government, and that he did not know whether the invading U.S. force was the right size. In an interview as he concludes his tenure as undersecretary of defense for policy, Feith acknowledged that there were "trade-offs" and "pros and cons" to the Pentagon's plan to use a relatively small invasion force in Iraq, voicing uncertainty about whether that decision was correct. The war's "rolling start" with a streamlined ground force achieved some tactical surprise, he said, potentially averting a longer war and other catastrophes such as the destruction of Iraqi oil fields. But he acknowledged that a small force had drawbacks, and others have criticized the plan for failing to stop widespread looting and insecurity after Saddam Hussein's government fell in April 2003. "I am not asserting to you that I know that the answer is, we did it right. What I am saying is it's an extremely complex judgment to know whether the course that we chose with its pros and cons was more sensible," Feith said in a 90-minute interview Monday at his Bethesda home. Feith's resignation was announced in January. His comments are a rare public sign of doubt about Iraq policy by a Pentagon official.Get out of jail free. "A federal judge issued a ruling yesterday that will limit the applicability of a critical antifraud statute against corporate contractors in Iraq. Judge T. S. Ellis III of Federal District Court in Alexandria, Va., held that the False Claims Act does not apply to the many contractors who were paid by the American occupation authority using Iraqi oil money. The False Claims Act offers large rewards to corporate insiders who reveal misdeeds, and huge financial penalties can be imposed on errant companies. It is widely regarded as the government's most potent weapon against contractor fraud. Yesterday's ruling, the first to provide guidelines in what has been a legal void, could derail some whistle-blower lawsuits that are in their early stages and under seal, experts in procurement law said." By the numbers.
Iraqi civilians and police officers died at a rate of more than 800 a month between August and May, according to figures released in June by the Interior Ministry. In response to questions from The New York Times, the ministry said that 8,175 Iraqis were killed by insurgents in the 10 months that ended May 31. The ministry did not give detailed figures for the months before August 2004, nor did it provide a breakdown of the figures, which do not include either Iraqi soldiers or civilians killed during American military operations. While the figures were not broken down month by month, it has been clear since the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari took over after the Jan. 30 election that the insurgency is taking an increasing toll, killing Iraqi civilians and security workers at a faster rate.Abu Ghraib.
A central figure in the investigation, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who commanded the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and later helped set up U.S. operations at Abu Ghraib, was accused of failing to properly supervise Qahtani's interrogation plan and was recommended for reprimand by investigators. Miller would have been the highest-ranking officer to face discipline for detainee abuses so far, but Gen. Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command, declined to follow the recommendation. Miller traveled to Iraq in September 2003 to assist in Abu Ghraib's startup, and he later sent in "Tiger Teams" of Guantanamo Bay interrogators and analysts as advisers and trainers. Within weeks of his departure from Abu Ghraib, military working dogs were being used in interrogations, and naked detainees were humiliated and abused by military police soldiers working the night shift. Miller declined to respond to questions posed through a Defense Department liaison. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said it is not appropriate to link the interrogation of Qahtani -- an important al Qaeda operative captured shortly after the terrorist attacks -- and events at Abu Ghraib. Whitman said interrogation tactics in the Army's field manual are the same worldwide but MPs at Abu Ghraib were not authorized to apply them, regardless of how they learned about them. Some of the Abu Ghraib soldiers have said they were following the directionsof military intelligence officials to soften up detainees for interrogation, in part by depriving them of sleep. Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr., characterized as the ringleader of the MP group, was found guilty of abusing detainees and is serving 10 years in prison. Others have pleaded guilty and received lesser sentences.Cheneyburton. "Senate Democrats on Wednesday called for an investigation into allegations that Halliburton Co. served food that had passed its expiration date by as much as a year to U.S. troops in Iraq. Rory Mayberry, a former food production manager for Halliburton subsidiary KBR, told lawmakers last month that when outdated food arrived, 'we were told by KBR food service mangers to use these items anyway.' He also said food packages damaged in insurgent attacks were still used 'after removing the bullets and any shrapnel from the bad food that was hit.'" Army strength. "A group of Democrats and retired Army generals on Wednesday urged Congress to increase the Army’s end strength by about 80,000 soldiers over the next four years, calling the current troops levels 'a crisis.' 'The men and women in today’s Army are as good as any who have ever worn the uniform,' said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. 'The crisis is there are simply not enough of them.' Legislation introduced by the group would lift the Army’s end strength cap to 582,000, adding 20,000 a year and leveling off in 2009. The Army’s current authorized end strength is 502,400, according to the Congressional Budget Office." Blood economy. "According to reports, every day hundreds of donors can be seen standing outside the blood bank at the Iraqi National Centre for Blood Donations (INCBD) in Baghdad. However, people queuing and willing to donate for free are being intercepted before they reach the centre. So-called negotiators approach donors paying them between U.S. $ 15 - $20 per blood bag. At a time when unemployment stands at 33% and most of the country is still dependent on food rations, the sale of blood is seen as an attractive option for many." How low will he go? "Furthermore, only 41 percent give Bush good marks for being “honest and straightforward” — his lowest ranking on this question since he became president. That’s a drop of nine percentage points since January, when a majority (50 percent to 36 percent) indicated that he was honest and straightforward. This finding comes at a time when the Bush administration is battling the perception that its rhetoric doesn’t match the realities in Iraq, and also allegations that chief political adviser Karl Rove leaked sensitive information about a CIA agent to a reporter. (The survey, however, was taken just before these allegations about Rove exploded into the current controversy.)" Commentary Editorial:
It is instructive to remember that the investigation into who revealed Plame's identity was initiated by Tenet, not by administration critics. Remember also that Wilson was correct; ultimately the White House had to retract Bush's State of the Union statement on the Niger connection. In addition to discrediting critics of the Niger connection, the Bush administration, through the actions of John Bolton -- now nominee to be U.N. ambassador -- sought to intimidate intelligence analysts who objected to conclusions about Iraq's WMD, and to get a U.N. chemical weapons official fired so he wouldn't be able to send inspectors back to Iraq, where they might disprove more of the case for war. In the scheme of things, whether Rove revealed Plame's identity, deliberately or not, matters less than actions by Rove, Bolton, Cheney and others to phony up a case for war that has gone badly, has cost thousands of lives plus hundreds of billions of dollars, and has, a majority of Americans now believe, left the United States less safe from terrorism rather than more. That's the indictment which should matter most.Editorial:
American intelligence got just about everything wrong concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What has never been investigated, however, is whether President Bush deliberately manipulated the information he received in order to make his case for war. That is the root of the affair that has sucked several journalists and deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove into its vortex, and why it is important. In January 2003, President Bush told the world that British intelligence had uncovered a plot by Iraq to buy uranium from Niger. However, the evidence of the supposed Niger purchase has been debunked as a forgery. In July 2003, in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV wrote in The New York Times that the CIA had sent him to Niger in 2002 to check into the supposed purchase and he had reported it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had taken place. The administration should have known that, he argued. Eight days later, Robert Novak wrote a column arguing that Wilson's mission was a low-level CIA affair, probably was unknown to CIA director George Tenet and was "less than definitive." The spin here was to discredit Wilson.Opinion:
More than anything else, as I watched him that morning in Scotland, I was filled with a sense of sadness that we had reached such a perilous moment with such a man, or really - for here is my deepest suspicion - such a man-child in power. Yes, he genuinely believes in his "war on terror", even as he and his advisors use it to his own advantage. And yes, he's good at being, or rather enacting with all his being, the role of the "war on terror" president. And yet there's something so painfully childlike in the spectacle of him. Here, after all, is a 59-year-old who loves to appear in front of massed troops, saying gloriously encouraging and pugnacious things while being hoo-ah-ed - and almost invariably he makes such appearances dressed in some custom-made military jacket with "commander in chief" specially stitched across his heart, just as he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln back in May 2003 in a navy pilot's outfit. Who could imagine Abraham Lincoln himself, that most civilian of wartime presidents, or Franklin D Roosevelt, or Dwight D Eisenhower, a real general, wearing such GI Joe-style play outfits? Let's face it. Bush likes dress up. What a video game is to a teenager, the presidency seems to be to this man. It's a free pass to the movies, with him playing that brave warrior part. All-in-all, I'm afraid to say, it must be fun. When he so cavalierly said, "Bring 'em on," he was surely simply carried away by the spirit of the game. What it wasn't, of course, was the statement of a mature human being, an adult. I don't usually say such things, but there's something unbelievably stunted about all this. He and his top officials seem almost completely divorced from any sense of the actual consequences of their various acts and decisions. They live in some kind of dream world offshore of reality, which would perhaps not be so disturbing if they didn't also control the levers of power in what, not so long ago, was regularly referred to as the "lone" or "last superpower" or the globe's only "hyperpower". (Even in their own terms, it's a sign of their failed stewardship that almost no one uses such phrases anymore or, say, Pax Americana, another commonplace term of 2002 and 2003.) It may be that nations deserve the leaders they get and perhaps it's no mistake that Bush ended up as our leader - twice no less - in a period that otherwise seemed to cry out for having your basic set of grown-ups in power, or that his secretary of defense likes to play stand-up comic at his news conferences, or that his first attorney general just loved to sing songs of his own creation to his staff, or that none of them can get it through their heads that it's not just the terrorists who, in our world, have been taking "the lives of the innocent".Opinion:
When people see servicemen and women return from the war, and they count all the limbs and see no physical injuries, they figure all is well. They could not be more wrong. Many people who have been to war know that war cannot ever be left behind. It stays in us: the images, the smells, the sounds, the things we did and, what's worse, the things we failed to do. Recruiting numbers for the armed forces are down, and the military is working hard to appeal to our young folks to enlist. During a June 17 news conference at Fort Meade, Md., Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, leader of the Army recruiting command, said Army recruiters simply want to tell their story. What the recruiters are failing to tell in their stories, however, are the stories of the dead and wounded soldiers. Or the post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide. Or Iraqi civilian casualties, which may exceed 100,000. Recruiters aren't talking about the lack of purpose for this war, or about the thousands of service members who are deciding not to fight. Or about those of us who are speaking out against this war of aggression. Those who already have been recruited and who already have served in war and are speaking against the Iraq occupation -- we, too, are troops. And we, too, have an Army story to tell.Opinion:
Washington loves farce the way Vienna loves the waltz. It once extravagantly inflated a sex act into the impeachment of a president, and it has now reduced the momentous debacle of the Iraq war into a question of what Rove or someone else said to a reporter on the phone. Soon, the question will turn on whether Rove or others actually cited Plame by name and whether the president's oath to fire anyone who identified Plame as a CIA operative applies to someone who just mentioned her job title. It will all depend on what "is" is or, to put it another way, whether Bush will concede that he inhaled. None of this matters -- not really. The persistent criminalization of politics does no one any good. This is a parody of Clausewitz. He said war is the continuation of politics by other means. Now, we have special prosecutors as the continuation of politics by other means. The New York Times called for one and now, as a result, its own reporter is in jail. Washington is electrified with the abundant energy of buzz from a scandal -- speculation about Rove, about Bush, about Cheney's aide, Scooter Libby. Who leaked? Who may have lied? How did Novak slip the noose? But the real scandal is the ongoing mess in Iraq, the murder just the other day of innocent children (is there any other kind?) and the false notion that, somehow, taking out Hussein would make us all safer. London gives the lie to that.Casualty Reports Local story: Colorado soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Texas soldier killed in Iraq.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
War News for Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi human rights activists killed and one wounded when their
Bring ‘em on: Twenty-four Iraqi children and one US soldier killed, 20 children and three US soldiers wounded in suicide car bombing that targeted American soldiers handing out sweets in Baghdad. Bodies of eleven Sunni Arabs, shot in the head and bearing signs of torture, found in
Bring ‘em on: One seven-year-old child killed and a woman seriously injured in a roadside bombing near a
Bring ‘em on: Four policemen injured in attempted assassination of the mayor of northern
An optimist:
But
"There is a plan and a threshold that the security forces, whether interior or defense, have to meet in terms of the growth in their capabilities," Jaafari said. "We believe some provinces are safe ... we can withdraw foreign troops from these cities ... which can then encourage an overall timetable."
Jaafari's comments came as
Iraqi security forces: The rank smell of sweat, stale cigarettes and garbage engulfs the cavernous aircraft hangar where hundreds of Iraqi men in khaki fatigues lounge on black metal bunk beds with bare mattresses. A door in the corner leads to the bathroom — a dozen or so metal cubicles reeking of human filth. For many of the more than 2,000 men who make up the Iraqi army's fledgling 5th Brigade, this dank metal shed with sporadic electricity and no running water has been their home for the last six months as they prepare to take their place on the front lines against the country's insurgency.
Foreign Affairs
Angry Egyptians: The Egyptian government has vowed to avenge the apparent slaying of its top envoy in
On Egyptian television, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit vowed to "take vengeance on the killers of the head of the Egyptian mission in
Though he did not specify how
Happy Iranians:
A new chapter is expected to open in bilateral relations between
Jaafari, leading a ranking Iraqi delegation, is to arrive in Tehran on Saturday to kick off a landmark official visit, which will mark a culmination of the recent intensive diplomatic activities between the two neighbors.
Qomi said that the expansion of ties is based on deep religious commonalties, extensive social and cultural exchanges, historical background, geographical conditions and the long common borderline between the two states.
Bush Administration Scofflaws
Long past due: The Bush administration yesterday came under more pressure to outline the number of American forces that may need to stay in Iraq over the next two years after the Pentagon failed to meet a 60-day deadline set by Congress to provide a detailed plan for training Iraqis and for likely US troop levels.
The report to Congress, due yesterday, was required under the $80 billion war spending legislation approved in May. It is intended to help answer one of the most pressing questions hanging over the American-led occupation: when the United States might be able to begin drawing down the estimated 140,000 forces in Iraq.
The White House and Pentagon are facing rising calls from Democrats and Republicans for a more detailed strategy in Iraq -- calls that grew louder yesterday.
''I am deeply disappointed that the administration failed to comply with this initial . . . deadline," Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat and senior member of the Armed Services Committee, told Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in a letter. ''It is long past due for the administration to provide Congress with meaningful information to evaluate our progress in Iraq."
The Pentagon yesterday maintained that it is still compiling the report, but did not say when it would be complete.
U.S. National Guard
Lt Gen Blum should go walk foot patrols in Mosul for a year: The dangers faced by American troops in Iraq have been exaggerated, adding to the difficulty of recruiting soldiers at home, the Army general in charge of National Guard forces said Tuesday.
The casualty rate for Guardsmen is low compared with any previous armed conflict, said Lt. Gen. Steven Blum.
He said he recognizes that every death is a tragedy for that person's family. "But I lose, unfortunately, more people through private automobile accidents and motorcycle accidents over the same period of time," he added.
"It is dangerous, but it is — I shouldn't say it to this group but I'm going to — it is misrepresented, how dangerous it really is," Blum said during a breakfast with defense reporters.
Surveys of recruit-age Americans and their parents have shown that fear of being killed or wounded in Iraq is one of the major reasons that young people are choosing other careers after high school. The National Guard also has been squeezed by a slowdown in the number of active-duty soldiers switching to the Guard.
Blum said more than 250,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen have been mobilized for active duty since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and 262 of them have been killed in the global war on terrorism. Pentagon casualty statistics show more than 90 percent of those deaths were in Iraq.
In all, more than 1,750 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003 — the vast majority since President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1, 2003. More than 170 have died in and around Afghanistan as part of the ongoing offensive against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.
Military discipline: An Arizona Army National Guardsman whose Web log comments have criticized the Iraq war and who has filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jon Kyl, is the subject of a military investigation in Iraq, the Army said Tuesday.
What exactly Leonard A. Clark is being investigated for is unclear. Clark, 40, of Glendale, is a kindergarten teacher, activist and perennial candidate for public office, and holds the rank of specialist in Arizona’s 860th Military Police Company.
“Specialist Clark is under investigation, but not under arrest,” confirmed Army Capt. Patricia Brewer, a spokeswoman with the military’s combined press information office in Baghdad. She said no other details were available regarding Clark from the 42nd Military Police Brigade’s Judge Advocate General’s office.
Liars And Thieves
“If it’s someone else’s money, too bad”: A whistle-blower's lawsuit against alleged contract fraud in Iraq can continue, but the U.S. government lacks the authority to police the spending of billions of dollars of Iraqi oil money, a federal judge in Alexandria has ruled.
The decision in the case involving Fairfax security firm Custer Battles LLC was issued yesterday by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. The ruling was the first to decide how far the federal False Claims Act can be stretched to cover alleged theft in contracts on the battlefield.
Two former employees had sued Custer Battles over the company's work on two contracts in Iraq. One contract was to provide security to Baghdad International Airport and another was for helping move new currency around the country. The workers claimed the company used shell companies in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere to submit phony bills to the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq for the first year after the war.
If the authority were an American agency, there would be little question that the whistle-blowers could pursue their suit under the Fair Claims Act, Ellis said. But because "the essential nature" of the CPA is "shrouded with ambiguity," he ruled, the case depends on the origins of the money at the heart of the allegations.
The judge noted that aid used in rebuilding Iraq came from four sources: U.S. funds appropriated by Congress, "vested" Iraqi funds seized by the United States, "seized" Iraqi funds -- mostly cash -- uncovered by coalition forces occupying the country, and funds from the Development Fund for Iraq.
It was the last pot of money that Ellis said could not be reached by the federal fraud law. DFI funds included those from the sale of Iraqi oil after the war, transfers from the United Nations oil-for-food program and international donations. But Ellis said the whistle-blowers can continue their suit because they contend that not all of the money in question came from the DFI.
Steven L. Schooner, a contract law expert at George Washington University law school, said the message is that the courts will oversee fraud claims if U.S. tax funds are involved, but "if it's someone else's money, too bad."
He added: "On one level it is an incredibly ugly result, but probably legally proper. If I were a donor country I wouldn't be amused by this."
I’ve Said It Before And I’ll Bet I Get To Say It Again
Fuck you, Bantz Craddock: A military investigation into FBI reports of prisoner abuse at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, recommended that the base's former commander be reprimanded, but a top general rejected the recommendation, according to a congressional aide familiar with the inquiry's findings.
In the latest examination of a facility that has become a battleground over the U.S. treatment of detainees from the war against terrorism, the aide said investigators recommended that Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller be reprimanded for failing to oversee the interrogation of a high-value detainee, which was found to have been abusive.
But Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command, instead referred the matter to the Army's inspector general, said the aide said, who described the still unreleased report on the condition of anonymity because the Pentagon has not released it.
Craddock concluded that Miller did not violate any U.S. laws or policies, the report said, according to the aide.
The investigation also found that interrogators violated the Geneva Convention and Army regulations three times at the base, the aide said. It was unclear from the aide's description whether the report specified those three instances.
Poodle News
“Can hardly be surprised”: Tony Blair has won broad support for his handling of London bombings, but may soon face scrutiny over a question striking at the heart of his premiership; were the deadly attacks triggered by Britain's role in Iraq? In the immediate aftermath of bus and underground railway attacks that killed at least 52, only mavericks like firebrand George Galloway dared criticize the prime minister, airing arguments many would prefer not to hear.
Galloway, thrown out of Blair's Labour party only to enter parliament as an independent, said invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq had fed hatred throughout the world's Islamic communities.
Certainly, Britain's military role in Iraq cost Blair many votes in May's election, not least among young Muslims.
Now Charles Kennedy, head of Britain's Liberal Democrats who always opposed the Iraq war, has explored the same theme.
"I am not here implying some causal link between Britain's involvement in Iraq and the terrible terrorist attacks in London last week," he said by way of qualification in a speech.
But he went on: "Those like President Bush and Tony Blair, who have sought to link Iraq with the so-called 'war on terror' can hardly be surprised when members of the public draw the same link when acts of terrorism occur here in the United Kingdom."
Britain is part of the flypaper now: "We're fighting the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and across the world so we do not have to face them here at home."
That's what President Bush said in his speech Monday at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. After the terrorist attacks on Britain, our very closest ally in the war on terror, it is an astonishing thing to say. "It's a very insensitive statement with regard to the British," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "Tony Blair must absolutely have blanched when he heard that."
What does Bush's statement mean? Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Fran Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, said that the war in Iraq attracts terrorists "where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London."
Huh? If British troops fighting in Iraq did not stop the terrorists from striking London, what is the logic for believing that American troops fighting in Iraq will stop terrorists from striking our country again? Intelligence reports -- and Townsend's own words -- suggest that Iraq has become a terrorist breeding ground since the American invasion. How, exactly, has that made us safer?
Commentary
Opinion: The speed of the Taliban's collapse gave the Bush administration the idea that with our military might, we could easily reshape the international landscape to our liking. Instead of keeping its eye on the ball in Afghanistan and other Al Qaeda hotbeds, it let itself be distracted by Saddam Hussein--a minor-league nuisance who posed no significant threat to our safety and well being. For more than a decade following the first Gulf war, the United States and its allies had managed to contain him. But suddenly, that wasn't good enough. President Bush decided to liberate Iraq from his rule--and in doing so, he blundered into a long and costly war that has stretched our military to the breaking point. What we are hearing already in response to the London bombings is that we must not be tempted into appeasement. But it is not appeasement to do now what we should have done before the London bombings--namely, make an early and orderly departure from Iraq. That would not, as conservatives claim, suggest weakness. It would instead demonstrate a new appreciation of the obvious: that we can't marshal all the energies we need for the war on terror while we are bogged down in a conflict that had nothing to do with the war on terror. We've poured more than $200 billion down the drain in Iraq. If even a small part of that money had been spent on homeland security, Americans would undoubtedly be safer today. U.S. soldiers might have been used to hunt down those enemies who want to carry out atrocities here or in Britain, instead of fighting insurgents who merely want us out of Iraq. The war on Iraq was never vital to our security. The war on terror is. So why do we keep fighting the former at the expense of the latter?
Editorial: The outrage triggered by last week's horrific terrorist attacks in London has been powerful and fitting.
But it must be remembered that similar or even bloodier attacks have been occurring regularly in Iraq for the past two years. Yet those terrorist attacks have generated only a fraction of the anger and media attention of the London bombings.
How many of us remember the horrific suicide-car bombing on Feb. 28 of this year that killed 135 people lining up to obtain medical-identification cards in Hilla? Or the March 2, 2004, killing of 121 making pilgrimages to Shiite shrines by another suicide bomber? Or the attack on a mosque in Najaf on Aug. 29, 2003, that killed 83?
In the few times that President Bush and other senior officials in Washington even mention these attacks, they are usually portrayed as unfortunate incidents on Iraq's inexorable march to democracy.
There's another danger -- the danger of relating to victims of terrorism in Iraq as mere casualty figures has helped to obscure the full extent of the bloodbath taking place in that country.
There are obvious reasons why Americans would empathize more with victims of terrorism in London -- a place far removed from the daily reality of war -- than in Iraq. But there is no distinction between them in human or moral terms. Many of the noncombatant fatalities in Baghdad, as in London, were people just going about their daily lives when they became random casualties of this campaign of fear. Each left this world with a wrenching story of how he or she landed in fate's way, and each left behind devastated loved ones and lost opportunities to make a contribution to society.
If there is anything positive that we can extract from the London horror, it should be to focus our attention and humanity on all victims of terrorist violence, wherever it occurs.
Casualty Reports
Local story: Greensburg, KY, National Guardsman killed in Baghdad.
Local story: Avella, PA, Marine killed by indirect fire during fighting in Hit.
Local story: Pittsburgh, PA, Marine, formerly a police officer in McKeesport, killed by indirect fire during fighting in Hit.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Discussion Topic for Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Will You Ever Again Dare Claim We’re In A Quagmire After Such A Refutation?
Secretary Refutes Claims Military Stuck in Quagmire in
By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, July 7, 2005 – America is not losing the war on terror, nor is the U.S. military stuck in a quagmire in Iraq as media reports have suggested, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said this week, speaking on two Midwestern radio talk shows.
"Any objective person who looks at this situation has to know that we're not losing," Rumsfeld said on "Hot Talk with Scott Hennen," on 970 WDAY in
"We're not losing tactical battles; we're not losing strategic battles," he said. "The political process is going forward, which is a part of winning; the economic progress is going forward, which is a part of winning; the development of the Iraqi security forces are going forward, which is a part of winning."
The secretary also commented on media reports that suggest support for military action in
Although "it's fine" to have "debate and discussion" on the military situation in
When people make inaccurate statements that the United States in is a quagmire in
"Our goal is not to give encouragement to them," he said.
Commenting on the effect the media can have on public opinion, the secretary told Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW in Cincinnati, "If people constantly hear only negative things on television and read it in the media or a large measure they hear eight negatives for one positive, one ought not to be surprised that they're concerned about it."
However, he added, "Given sufficient information they (Americans) find their way to right decisions, and I have a lot of confidence in the American people."
Rumsfeld said there is "no doubt" about the reality of what's taking place in the world and the situation with the war in
"We were attacked. We lost 3,000 people. There are some very dangerous people out there trying to get still more powerful weapons to do additional killing in our country," he told Cunningham's listeners. "I think most people with any sense would rather fight them overseas than they would here at home."
Meanwhile, the secretary also pointed out that he is confident the Iraqi people and Iraqi government will ultimately be the ones to defeat the insurgency.
"Regardless of how long the insurgency lasts, in the last analysis it will be the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government that will effectively deal with that insurgency," he told Hennen. "It's going to be a function of how successful they are in moving their political process forward, how successful they are in seeing that they have an effective criminal justice system, and how effective they are in moving the economic progress forward."
War News for Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Bring ‘em on: Five civilians, including one child, killed and 18 wounded in shelling in Tal Afar, unclear which side was responsible. US forces claim to have killed 14 “terrorists” in Tal Afar. It is notable that this Reuters article not only puts the word terrorists in quotes but also goes on to state that it is unclear whether the killings were related to the shelling reported above. One gets the impression that the reporters suspect the
Bring ‘em on: The AP reports that, in addition to the 14 insurgents killed as reported above, six civilians were killed and 22 wounded in the Tal Afar fighting.
Bring ‘em on: Iraqi karate association chief, apparently shot to death, found floating in
Bring ‘em on: Baghdad’s main oil refinery attacked by mortar fire causing a “huge fire” which took 150 firefighters two hours to bring under control. Four US soldiers wounded in suicide car bombing just north of
Bring ‘em on: At least seven Iraqi customs officials killed by two suicide car bombers at the Walid border crossing with
Body counts: Some 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since the U.S.-led invasion, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates, a Swiss institute reported on Monday.
The public database Iraqi Body Count, by comparison, estimates that between 22,787 and 25,814 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 invasion, based on reports from at least two media sources.
No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued, although military deaths from the U.S.-led coalition forces are closely tracked and now total 1,937.
The new estimate was compiled by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies and published in its latest annual small arms survey, released at a U.N. news conference.
It builds on a study published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, last October, which concluded there had been 100,000 "excess deaths" in
Iraqi News and Politics
This should keep things moving right along: Two of the 15 Sunni Arabs on a committee drafting
Not that they’d admit it or anything: Iraq's defense minister said Monday that a military agreement reached with Iran last week does not include any provision for the Iranian armed forces to help train Iraqi troops, contradicting reported assertions by his Iranian counterpart.
Defense Minister Sadoun Dulaimi said during a news conference here that the five-point memorandum of understanding that he and
Asked whether Shamkhani had misrepresented the content of the accord, Dulaimi said only that "he has the right to mention what he wants. We, as Iraqis, are not responsible for that."
Dead envoy denials: Egyptian and Iraqi officials denied yesterday that a slain Egyptian envoy had been meeting with Iraqi insurgents before his
The denials are an apparent bid to contain Cairo’s anger at Baghdad over remarks made by Iraq’s government spokesman that envoy Ihab El Sherif may have been holding talks with insurgent groups before his July 2 abduction.
The Al Qaeda in
Allawi offers an opinion:
“The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in
In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited
Hard to know what to make of this story: Kurdish security officials said Sunday they had arrested suspects from six different terrorist groups that they believe help form wide insurgent training and support networks inside Iraq and have links with international terrorist organizations.
The officials, including senior members of the Kurdish security police and the intelligence arm of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, say the groups, most of them previously unknown to the Kurdish authorities, appear to have ties to more established jihadist organizations like Ansar al-Sunna.
That group in turn can be traced to a collection of militants who fought United States forces in the mountains near Halabja, on the Iranian border, in the weeks leading up to the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
A petition: Radicals within
Supporters of firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr, who led a bloody six-month uprising against the coalition last year, said they were aiming to secure one million signatures inside four days.
"We started this morning and so far we have had a good response, not only from Shiites -- Sunnis and Christians have also been coming to our office to show their support," said Ibrahim al-Jaberi, an official in Sadr's movement.
"We have also received more than 100 calls from Iraqis living abroad in support of our initiative," he said, adding that more than 400,000 people had signed the petition by midday (0800 GMT).
No Deadlines, No Timetables, No Benchmarks…No Plan
Looks like he missed this one: President Bush is facing a legal deadline to deliver what he has been most resistant to providing: a set of specific benchmarks for measuring progress toward military and political stability in
Under a little-noticed provision of the defense spending bill passed by Congress in May, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld has until July 11 to send Capitol Hill a "comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security" two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
If and when it comes in, it could do much more than the president's Tuesday night speech at
In that address, Bush once again demolished a straw man, denouncing any talk of a deadline for withdrawal of
What serious people are asking of the administration is a set of yardsticks by which the situation is
But there’s no timetable for withdrawal! Err...: Britain and the United States are privately planning to withdraw most of their forces from Iraq by early next year, according to a secret memo written by John Reid, the United Kingdom defence secretary.
Under the plans,
Reid's memo, Options for Future UK Force Posture in
Keeping The Homelands Secure
“I think most people with any sense would rather fight them overseas than they would here at home." – Donald Rumsfeld, July 7, 2005
They aren’t buying it in
They’re starting to doubt it here, too: The number of Americans who believe the war in
The proportion of respondents who said they believe the war in
Of the 489 people asked that specific question, 40 percent believed the
The other 517 poll respondents were asked whether the
Those two questions on
TIME magazine is starting to get it: Sir Ivor Roberts,
With the American election entering its final furlongs, he added, "If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush, it is al-Qaeda." The remarks, made at an off-the-record conference, were leaked in the Italian press, and Sir Ivor, facing the displeasure of his Foreign Office masters for committing the sin of candor, disowned the comments.
But now, as the soot settles in the London Underground, the words hang again in the air.
It is, of course, bad manners to point the finger at anyone but those responsible for the killings in
But as the trail of bodies that began with the first bombing of the
One key reason is that Osama bin Laden's "achievements" in standing up to the American colossus on 9/11 have inspired others to follow his lead.
Another is that American actions--above all, the invasion and occupation of
A big step backward:
When will it end? Where will it all lead?
The experts aren’t encouraged. One prominent terrorism researcher sees the prospect of “endless” war. Adds the man who tracked Osama bin Laden for the CIA, “I don’t think it’s even started yet.”
An Associated Press survey of longtime students of international terrorism finds them ever more convinced, in the aftermath of
In fact, says Michael Scheuer, the ex-CIA analyst, rather than move toward solutions, the
Now, he said, “we’re at the point where jihad is self-sustaining,” where Islamic “holy warriors” in
The cold statistics of a RAND Corp. database show the impact of the explosion of violence in
Rumsfeld vs reality: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has consistently rejected any contention that the Army is stretched too thin in fighting simultaneous wars in
Numerous critics and outside defense policy groups have warned that the fighting in
"The challenge the Army faces is profound," senior
Even as the Army was studying the report, it announced Monday that it is augmenting its troop strength in
Goal at risk: The Army National Guard, struggling more than any other part of the
In danger of missing a third straight annual recruiting goal, the Army National Guard fell 14 percent short of its June recruiting target, the Pentagon said. Three quarters through fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30, the Army National Guard stood 23 percent behind its year-to-date goal.
"I can tell you their goal is at risk, so we're concerned," Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said of the 2005 goal of 63,002 new soldiers.
The Army National Guard has missed its recruiting target in every month of the fiscal year, last achieving a monthly goal in September 2004, said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman. It sent 4,337 new soldiers into boot camp in June, short of its goal of 5,032, the Pentagon said.
Good news for the soldiers but not for the Army: The number of Reserve and National Guard troops on domestic and overseas missions has fallen to about 138,000, down from a peak of nearly 220,000 after the invasion of
The decrease comes as welcome relief to tens of thousands of formerly part-time soldiers who, with their families, employers and communities, have been badly stressed by their long call-ups for duty in
Reserve and National Guard members from all of the armed services make up about 35 percent of the troops in
But as these returning troops settle back into their civilian lives, the Army is running perilously low on its Reserve and National Guard soldiers who largely fill certain critical support jobs, like military police and civil affairs officers and truck drivers. Marine Corps reservists are facing similar constraints.
But the damage is not just in troop strength and readiness: The military prides itself, as do physicians, on being professional in every sense of the word. It fosters leadership and discipline. When I served as White House physician, my entire professional staff was drawn from the military, and they were among the best and most competent people I have met, without qualification.
The military ethics that I know absolutely prohibit anything resembling torture. There are several good reasons for this. Prisoners should be treated as we would expect our prisoners to be treated. Discipline and order in the military ranks depend to a large extent on compliance with the prohibition of torture -- indeed, weak or damaged psyches inclined toward torture or abuse have generally been weeded out of the military, or at the very least given less responsibility. In addition, military leaders have long been aware that torture inflicts lasting damage on both the victim and the torturer. The systematic infliction of torture engenders deep hatred and hostility that transcends generations. And it perverts the role of medical personnel from healers to instruments of abuse.
Today, however, it seems as though our government and the military have slipped into Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." The widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment -- frequently based on military and government documents -- defy the claim that this abusive behavior is limited to a few noncommissioned officers at Abu Ghraib or isolated incidents at
Real Americans In The Heartland
The Iowa Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility is sponsoring the event, called Eyes Wide Open.
The boots will be on display on the
Names of U-S soldiers and Iraqis killed in the war will be read and participants will pray.
Money from the event will go directly to a
Hines is at
He suffered two fractures and tissue damage in his left leg and renal damage to both kidneys. Recently he developed pneumonia, according to the family.
Preemption and the Evolution of America’s Strategic Defense
Discussion points: Will preemption provide an overarching framework for fighting a decades-long conflict as containment did during the Cold War? If not, a new strategic doctrine, perhaps one that emphasizes nonmilitary and special forces operations, must be crafted to counter successfully the radical extremist threat. On the other hand, maintaining preemption raises its own challenges. Diplomatic initiatives will need to address the international community’s perception that the