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6 May 2004
Today, on the United Nations International Day in
Support of Victims of Torture, the United States declares its strong
solidarity with torture victims across the world. Torture anywhere is an
affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a
world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law.
Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention
Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment,
ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since
1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical
or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control.
Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes
whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.
Beating, burning, rape, and electric shock are some of the grisly tools
such regimes use to terrorize their own citizens. These despicable
crimes cannot be tolerated by a world committed to justice.
--Statement by President G.W. Bush
United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, 26
June 2003 |
"Stress and Duress"
Human Rights Watch's Kenneth Roth says America's use of coercive
interrogation techniques inevitably leads to nightmares like Abu Ghraib.
By Tim Grieve
Salon, 6 May 2004
EXCERPT: ...Roth and other human rights activists see a pattern here, and
they say it's not an accidental one. Roth says the abuses in Iraq are part
of a "systemic problem" that arises from the U.S. government's approval of
"stress and duress" interrogation techniques and its failure to crack down
on soldiers and intelligence officers who go too far. "This is not simply a
few rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel," Roth says. Rather, he says,
what happened in Iraq is the inevitable result of a "culture of
permissiveness" that started in the highest offices in Washington and has
now spread to the jail cells at Abu Ghraib. Roth set forth his concerns
about U.S. interrogation techniques earlier this week in an open letter to
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. In it, he called on the Bush
administration to make "dramatic, and systematic, changes in the treatment
of prisoners held by the United States around the world, both to ensure
compliance with U.S. legal obligations, and to repair the damage these
abuses have caused to the credibility of the United States."
War Funding as an Election Tactic
Washington Monthly's Political
Animal, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT:
WAR FUNDING....Here's the official spin (from the Washington
Post):
"Bush included no war funding in his fiscal 2005 budget, and he had hoped to
avoid such a request until after the November election, fearing a divisive,
campaign-year debate over the war's conduct and future...."
You shouldn't believe this for a second. Here's how the voting factions will
break down:
--Republicans will support the additional funding nearly unanimously.
--A small number of Democrats will vote with the Republicans.
--Anti-war Democrats will vote against it. Bring the troops home!
--Moderate Democrats will dither, not wanting to hurt the war effort but not
wanting to give Bush a blank check when it's so plainly obvious he has no
credible plan for moving forward in Iraq. Result: public indecision,
amendments asking for this and that, and demands for tax increases to pay
for the whole thing.
Bush and his advisors know perfectly well how this script plays out: in the
short term Bush has to put up with a public debate about how things are
going in Iraq, but once the dust settles the impression left in everyone's
mind is that Bush and the Republicans are resolute while Democrats are
squabbly and indecisive when it comes to national security. Far from
"fearing a divisive, campaign-year debate," this is exactly what Bush wants.
Keeping the war front and center is pretty much his entire campaign
strategy.
We've seen this Kabuki show before. Don't fall for it.
Powell Aides Go Public on Rift with Bush
Chief of staff says secretary of state is fed up with apologising for the
administration and is disdainful of 'ideological' hawks
Gary Younge
The Guardian, 6 May 2004
EXCERPT: Mr Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, remarks on his boss's anguish
at the damage to his credibility following his speech to the United Nations
last year making the case for war and insisting there were weapons of mass
destruction. "It's a source of great distress for the secretary," he said.
Meanwhile his mentor from the National War College, Harlan Ullman, describes
the US national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as a "jerk". He said:
"This is, in many ways, the most ideological administration Powell's ever
had to work for. Not only is it very ideological, but they have a vision.
And I think Powell is inherently uncomfortable with grand visions like
that." Their candour suggests that the internecine battles within the
administration are becoming increasingly bitter and open, particularly those
between the departments of defence and the state. "None of Powell's friends
had made any pretence of speculating about or guessing at his feelings,"
wrote the journalist, Wil Hylton. "They spoke for him openly and on the
record." Mr Wilkerson even makes jibes at the war record of Mr Bush's inner
circle, comparing their desire for military conflict with their reluctance
to serve as young men: "I make no bones about it. I have some reservations
about people who have never been in the face of battle, so to speak, who are
making cavalier decisions about sending men and women out to die."
He then goes on to name former neo-conservative adviser, Richard Perle. He
said: "Thank God [he] tendered his resignation and no longer will be even a
semi-official person in this administration."
Dirty Jobs
Frank O'Donnell
TomPaine.com, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: The pollution control industry actually should face a job boom in
the coming years thanks to tougher national health standards for smog and
soot set by the Clinton EPA. (Power plants and other smokestack industries
eventually will have to clean up to meet the standards.) Yet even here the
Bush administration has intervened to delay progress. In surely one of the
most bizarre arguments ever made in Washington policy circles, the Bush
administration has argued that it must delay most power plant cleanup until
2015 or later because of a labor shortage! The Institute of Clean Air
Companies has retorted that there should be an ample supply of labor to meet
cleanup needs sooner. Which brings us back to Leavitt and mercury. Until
now, Leavitt has made the bogus argument that it would be impossible for
companies to meet mercury-specific controls before 2018. Ironically, there
are companies vying to sell mercury cleanup technologies much sooner. But
the power companies won’t have any reason to buy them—and the related jobs
they’d create—unless the EPA chief deals with the issue honestly.
Limits on Stem-Cell Research Re-emerge as
a Political Issue
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
New York Times, 6 May 2004
EXCERPT: The debate over embryonic stem-cell research, which occupied
President Bush during his early days in the White House, is re-emerging as
an election issue as advocates for patients, including Nancy Reagan, press
the president to loosen the limits on federal financing for the science.
Mrs. Reagan, whose husband, former President Ronald Reagan, suffers from
Alzheimer's disease, has made her support for the research known but has
never spoken publicly about it. She is expected to do so in Beverly Hills on
Saturday night at a star-studded fund-raiser sponsored by the Juvenile
Diabetes Research Foundation. Embryonic stem-cell studies are controversial
because they involve the destruction of human embryos; Mr. Bush's policy,
announced in August 2001, restricts the research in a way that does not
permit embryos to be destroyed with taxpayer dollars. But the diabetes
foundation says the policy is impeding science. It has been sending patients
to lobby lawmakers in Washington and has found some unlikely allies in
Congress.
Michael Moore Film Faces Disney Censorship
FAIR Action Alert, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: The Disney corporation is forbidding its subsidiary, Miramax Films,
to distribute Michael Moore's new documentary, the New York Times reported
today. The film, Fahrenheit 911, explores the Bush family's close personal
and financial ties to the Saudi royal family, and describes how the current
Bush administration helped evacuate relatives of Osama bin Laden from the
United States after the September 11 attacks in 2001. A Disney executive
told the New York Times that it was blocking the distribution of the film in
the United States and Canada because, in the paper's words, "Disney caters
to families of all political stripes and believes Mr. Moore's film...could
alienate many." The executive is quoted: "It's not in the interest of any
major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political
battle." Given that corporations like Disney control much of the public
discussion in the U.S., this avowed unwillingness to air controversial
viewpoints that might challenge the views of some customers is chilling
enough. But Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel, charges that Disney has an even more
disturbing reason for blocking the film. According to Emanuel, he had a
conversation last spring with Disney chief executive Michael Eisner, who
asked him to cancel his deal with Miramax and "expressed particular concern
that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels
and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor."
Disney may have another reason, not mentioned by the Times, to reject a film
that might offend the Saudi royal family: A powerful member of the family,
Al-Walid bin Talal, owns a major stake in Eurodisney and has been
instrumental in the past in bailing out the financially troubled amusement
park (AFP, 6/1/94). The project is facing a new cash crunch, and Al-Walid
has been mentioned as a potential rescuer again (L.A. Times, 1/26/04).
Whatever Disney's motivations for not wanting to release the film, it's not
because there is no audience waiting to see it. Moore's last film, Bowling
for Columbine, grossed $58 million worldwide. Unfortunately, when giant
corporations are making the decisions, the fact that millions of people
might want to see a film doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be able to--
if that film might conflict with the corporation's other interests. Contact
Disney to have Miramax distribute Moore's film.
5 May 2004
"Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's
not the way we do things in America." (G.W. Bush)
...Really?
Listen to the last nine minutes
of the Diane Rehm Show that was on NPR yesterday. (volume
may be low)
Listen to the entire
program. (This scandal is far from over.)
NPR's Diane Rehm Show, 4 May 2004
Prison Abuse Investigation in Iraq
Several U.S. soldiers face criminal charges in connection with the abuse of
Iraqis in U.S. military detention. Diane and her guests talk about the
allegations, the laws governing treatment of prisoners, and the possible
repercussions of the ongoing investigations.
Robert K. Goldman, professor of law, Washington College of
Law at American University
Seymour Hersh, contributor, "The New Yorker" magazine
Hisham Melhem, Washington correspondent for "As-Safir," a
Lebanese daily newspaper, and host of the weekly television program
"Al-Arabia"
Corporation quakes in fear of tax retribution by
Bush family...
Disney Forbids Distribution of Michael
Moore's Film That Criticizes Bush
The new documentary by Michael Moore highlights
connections between President Bush and prominent Saudis
By Jim Rutenberg
New York Times, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from
distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticizes
President Bush, executives at both Disney and Miramax said Tuesday. The
film, "Fahrenheit 911," links Mr. Bush and prominent Saudis -- including the
family of Osama bin Laden -- and criticizes Mr. Bush's actions before and
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Disney, which bought Miramax more than
a decade ago, has a contractual agreement with the Miramax principals, Bob
and Harvey Weinstein, allowing it to prevent the company from distributing
films under certain circumstances, like an excessive budget or an NC-17
rating. Executives at Miramax, who became principal investors in Mr. Moore's
project last spring, do not believe that this is one of those cases, people
involved in the production of the film said. If a compromise is not reached,
these people said, the matter could go to mediation, though neither side is
said to want to travel that route. In a statement, Matthew Hiltzik, a
spokesman for Miramax, said: "We're discussing the issue with Disney. We're
looking at all of our options and look forward to resolving this amicably."
But Disney executives indicated that they would not budge from their
position forbidding Miramax to be the distributor of the film in North
America. Overseas rights have been sold to a number of companies, executives
said. "We advised both the agent and Miramax in May of 2003 that the film
would not be distributed by Miramax," said Zenia Mucha, a company
spokeswoman, referring to Mr. Moore's agent. "That decision stands." Disney
came under heavy criticism from conservatives last May after the disclosure
that Miramax had agreed to finance the film when Icon Productions, Mel
Gibson's company, backed out. Mr. Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel, said Michael
D. Eisner, Disney's chief executive, asked him last spring to pull out of
the deal with Miramax. Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Eisner expressed particular
concern that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme
park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb,
is governor. "Michael Eisner asked me not to sell this movie to Harvey
Weinstein; that doesn't mean I listened to him," Mr. Emanuel said. "He
definitely indicated there were tax incentives he was getting for the Disney
corporation and that's why he didn't want me to sell it to Miramax. He
didn't want a Disney company involved."
E-Voting Oversight Overwhelms US
Agency
By Rachel Konrad
Associated Press, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: As alarm mounts over the integrity of the ATM-like voting machines
50 million Americans will use in the November election, a new federal agency
has begun scrutinizing how to safeguard electronic polling from fraud,
hackers and faulty software. But the tiny U.S. Election Assistance
Commission says it is so woefully underfunded that it can't be expected to
forestall widespread voting machine problems, which would cast doubt on the
election's integrity.
Bush Supports DoD Exemptions from
Environmental, Health Protections
BushGreenWatch, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: The Department of Defense (DoD) has asked Congress for blanket
exemptions from three major federal environmental and health laws. These
changes would effectively exempt DoD's operations on 25 million acres of
training ranges from local, state, tribal or Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) oversight and regulation for toxics releases, hazardous waste
contamination, and air pollution. Even though each law already allows for
exemptions in cases of national security, the Bush Administration wants to
enable one of the nation's largest polluters -- the Department of Defense --
to evade laws protecting public health and the environment.
Bush Team Takes Hit on Secret Files
By Charlie Savage
Boston Globe via Common Dreams, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush administration is coming under fire for allegedly allowing
political concerns to determine what it deems to be sensitive national
security material after a series of document declassifications that critics
contend were timed for strategic advantage. In several recent cases, the
administration first refused requests for information by saying that
releasing it would jeopardize national security, then released that same
information itself at a moment when it became politically convenient to do
so -- leaving the impression that it was safe to release all along. After
first refusing to allow Congress to see a memo about Al Qaeda from a month
before the 2001 attacks, and then letting only some of the 9/11 Commission
see it in private, the White House released the entire document to quell
rising public pressure. After the Justice Department fought the American
Civil Liberties Union in court to suppress statistics on how often it used
the Patriot Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft called a news conference and
announced them. Last week, President Bush himself rebuked Ashcroft for
declassifying Justice Department memos from the Clinton era showing
deliberations involving Jamie Gorelick, the number two Justice official
under Clinton who is now a member of the 9/11 Commission, over how the CIA
and FBI could share terrorism information. Concern over the integrity of the
national security secrecy system comes as a new oversight report has
revealed a surge in secrecy: the US government classified 14 million new
national-security secrets last year, up from 11 million in the previous year
and 8 million the year before. Thomas Blanton, director of the National
Security Archive project at George Washington University, said the rising
wave of national-security classifications, coupled with disclosures of
formerly secret information that "doesn't pass the guffaw test," jeopardizes
the protection of legitimate secrets, such as the names of covert operatives
or the designs of weapons systems.
Winner Takes All: Redistricting
Allows Politicians to Choose Voters before Voters Choose Them
By Steven Hill
TomPaine.com, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: Led by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and George Bush's
political mastermind Karl Rove, Republicans last year brought the blood
sport of legislative redistricting to new lows by spurring Texas and
Colorado to gerrymander (redraw to favor a particular party) congressional
districts mid-decade. While Colorado's Supreme Court tossed out the state's
plan, the Texas plan‹and with it potentially a Republican pickup of seven
seats‹was waved forward by John Ashcroft's Justice Department and the
federal courts. Now the Supreme Court has weighed in on the issue by
lamenting the state of affairs, but a plurality declared there's nothing it
can do about partisan redistricting. In Vieth v. Jubelirer, a challenge was
made to a Republican partisan gerrymander in Pennsylvania that marked the
first gerrymandering case taken by the court since 1986. In a 5-4 ruling
that echoed Bush v. Gore (the breakdown of votes on the Court was the same,
and the political implications for control of the U.S. House somewhat
comparable), the Court rejected a Democratic challenge, making it possible
that Pennsylvania Republicans will take 13 of 19 seats even as John Kerry
wins the statewide vote. Rather than the hoped-for surprise knockout,
Democrats and their allies must prepare themselves for a long reform brawl.
Time for Bush to See The Realities of Iraq
By George F. Will
Washington Post, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: Condoleezza Rice, a political scientist, believes there is
scholarly evidence that democratic institutions do not merely spring from a
hospitable culture, but that they also can help create such a culture. She
is correct; they can. They did so in the young American republic. But it
would be reassuring to see more evidence that the administration is being
empirical, believing that this can happen in some places, as opposed to
ideological, believing that it must happen everywhere it is tried. Being
steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being
blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing
facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence,
is a crippling political vice. In "On Liberty" (1859), John Stuart Mill
said, "It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say" that the doctrine of
limited, democratic government "is meant to apply only to human beings in
the maturity of their faculties." One hundred forty-five years later it
obviously is necessary to say that. Ron Chernow's magnificent new biography
of Alexander Hamilton begins with these of his subject's words: "I have
thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."
That is the core of conservatism. Traditional conservatism. Nothing "neo"
about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the
prefix.
4 May 2004
Mike Peters at
grimmy.com
Unfiltered News
"I get in the car in the morning and listen to Rush Limbaugh. On the way
home, I listen to Sean Hannity. At night I watch Fox News."
--Ralph Reed, Republican
Convention Keynote Speaker
Congressional Report: White House
Broke Law, Lied About Medicare
Associated Press, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: Bush administration officials were wrong to prevent a budget expert
from giving Congress estimates of the cost of Medicare legislation,
congressional researchers have concluded. In a report made public Monday,
the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said efforts to keep Richard
Foster, the chief Medicare actuary, from giving Democratic lawmakers his
projections of the bill's cost ‹ $100 billion more than the president and
other officials were acknowledging ‹ probably violated federal law. Recent
estimates set the bill's cost at more than $500 billion. Foster testified in
March that he was prevented by then-Medicare administrator Thomas Scully
from turning over information over to lawmakers. Scully, in a letter to the
House Ways and Means Committee, said he had told Foster "that I, as his
supervisor, would decide when he would communicate with Congress."
Congressional researchers chided the move. "Such 'gag orders' have been
expressly prohibited by federal law since 1912," Jack Maskell, a CRS
attorney, wrote in the report.
SEE ALSO:
BushWhackedUSA: The Blog
The Toxic EPA: Why Are Officials
Quitting?
By Amanda Griscom
TomPaine.com, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: The language is increasingly familiar: "I'm leaving at this time in
order to spend more quality time with my family... I realize that I need to
devote more time and energy to being [a] wife and mom." Yep, another
beleaguered Bush appointee at the U.S. EPA bites the dust. Christine Todd
Whitman flew the coop last spring, and yesterday one of her right-hand
women‹Marianne Lamont Horinko, the assistant EPA administrator for the
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response‹announced that she will follow
suit on June 1. ... Critics say, though, that while the "time with family"
line may be heartfelt and justified, it could also be interpreted as code
for, "I just can't take it anymore." "Frankly, it's hard to believe that she
lasted this long," said Barbara Elkus, a senior policy advisor at the League
of Conservation Voters and a former EPA employee who worked with Horinko. "I
think at one point in her career she had good environmental inklings, so I
was surprised to see that she put up with so much. She did everything they
told her to."
SEE ALSO:
America's Childhood Asthma Epidemic Worsened by Air
Pollution, Global Climate Change
(BushGreenWatch)
SEE ALSO:
New Study Undermines Bush Anti-Regulation Doctrine
BushGreenWatch, 28 April 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush Administration mantra that "voluntary compliance" is a far
better way to reduce pollution than "command and control" regulations
received another setback this month with the release of a carefully
documented study analyzing the volume of pollution from electric power
plants. Compiled by three organizations including New Jersey's largest
utility, the Public Service Enterprise Group, Inc.; the Natural Resourcs
Defense Council (NRDC); and the Coalition for Environmentlly Responsible
Economies (CERES), the report studied the environmental records of the
nation's 100 largest electricity companies. The study analyzed
utility-industry emissions of four pollutants -- nitrogen oxides (NOx),
sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and mercury -- using data
collected by the U.S. EPA and the Energy Information Administration from
1991 to 2002. The data revealed a marked overall decrease in emissions of
pollutants subject to mandatory federal regulations: NOx fell by 28 percent
over the period studied, and SO2 fell by 35 percent. Both pollutants,
targeted by the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, contribute to acid rain
and haze, and NOx is also a key ingredient in smog. In sharp contrast, CO2,
a greenhouse gas and major contributor to climate change, has been the
subject of a range of hopeful government initiatives and pleas, none
mandatory -- and emissions of the pollutant rose by 25 percent. The report
shows that "this notion that voluntary programs alone will work to address
global warming in the utility sector is a farce," said Dan Lashof, science
director of NRDC's Climate Center.
New Internet Site Turns Critical
Eyes and Ears to the Right
By Jim Rutenberg
New York Times via Common Dreams, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: David Brock, the former right-wing journalist turned liberal,
describes himself as once having been a rather large cog in the machinery of
the conservative media. Now Mr. Brock is starting a new endeavor built to
combat the very sector of journalism that spawned him, with support from the
same sorts of people (Democrats) about whom he once wrote so critically.
With more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals, Mr. Brock will
start a new Internet site this week that he says will monitor the
conservative media and correct erroneous assertions in real time. The site,
called Media Matters, was devised as part of a larger media apparatus being
built by liberals to combat what they say is the overwhelming influence of
conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. Mr. Brock's
project was developed with help from the newly formed Center for American
Progress, the policy group headed by John D. Podesta, the former Clinton
chief of staff. And Mr. Brock said he hoped it could help provide fodder for
fledgling liberal radio talk shows being started across the country,
including those of the comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.
SEE ALSO:
Visit Media Matters for America
Labor Chief Chao Touts New Overtime Rules
By DAVID ESPO
AP, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: Labor Secretary Elaine Chao worked in public and private Monday to
head off an embarrassing defeat in the Senate at the hands of Democrats
challenging new Bush administration overtime regulations. Speaking to
nursing students in Florida, Chao said the regulation "makes clear that
registered nurses who currently receive overtime will continue to receive
overtime when the new rule takes effect." Her claim drew a prompt rebuttal
from the leaders of several nurses' unions. "For the first time in the
history of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), hourly paid employees,
including registered nurses, may be denied overtime compensation," the
Coalition to Preserve Overtime Rights for Registered Nurses wrote members of
the Senate. ...In general, the Labor Department has said that only white
collar workers earning more than $100,000 annually will be at risk for the
loss of overtime pay. The registered nurses are not the only ones worried
about the regulation's impact. Workers in the computer, financial service
and other industries, as well as a relatively small number of police also
are uneasy.
SEE ALSO:
Workers Lose With Final Overtime Rule Changes
(Economic Policy Institute)
Good GDP Growth for the First
Quarter, But Risks to Growth Emerge
Economic Policy Institute, 29 April
2004
EXCERPT: The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a brisk 4.2% pace in
the first quarter of 2004. That increase is fast enough to generate jobs
with productivity growth near 3%, but below the average 4.7 % growth rate
for all non-recession quarters since 1947. The economy appears to have
enough momentum to sustain growth at a modest rate through the rest of this
year. Key details in today's numbers, however, are flashing warning signs
that the economy may slow in coming quarters:
-a spike in inflation (which could lead to higher interest rates),
-investment grew at a 7.2% pace, half the pace of the previous two quarters,
-defense spending spurted at an unsustainable 15% rate, and
-cuts in state and local spending seem to be accelerating.
Failing the laugh test...
Bremer Takes Back Statements About Bush
AP, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said Sunday he
regrets a statement he made more than six months before the Sept. 11 attacks
that the Bush administration was "paying no attention" to terrorism. Bremer
said any implied criticism that President Bush was not acting against
terrorism was "unfair." Ahead of the November election, Bush is facing
criticism he didn't make terrorism his No. 1 priority before the attacks on
the Pentagon and World Trade Center and then weakened the war on terror by
invading Iraq and shifting the focus from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida
network. The resurfacing of Bremer's comments added to administration
frustrations. At a McCormick Tribune Foundation conference on terrorism on
Feb. 26, 2001, Bremer said, "The new administration seems to be paying no
attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along
until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't
we be organized to deal with this?' "That's too bad. They've been given a
window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking
advantage of it." Bremer made the speech after he had chaired the National
Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan body formed by the Clinton
administration to examine U.S. counterterrorism policies. In a statement
Sunday, Bremer said his remarks three years ago "reflected my frustration"
that none of his commission's recommendations had been implemented by
Clinton or the new Bush administration. "Criticism of the new
administration, however, was unfair. President Bush had just been sworn into
office and could not reasonably be held responsible for the Federal
Government's inaction over the preceding 7 months," Bremer's Sunday
statement said. "I regret any suggestion to the contrary. In fact, I have
since learned that President Bush had shared some of these frustrations, and
had initiated a more direct and comprehensive approach to confronting
terrorism consistent with the threats outlined in the National Commission
report. "I am strongly supportive and grateful for the President's
leadership and strategy in combating terrorism and protecting American
national security throughout his first term in office."
A common characteristic of rightwing social
legislation...
Citizens Most In Need Are Least Likely to Be Able to Do
What Is Necessary to Get Help
By TARA BURGHART Associated Press Writer
AP, 4 April 2004
EXCERPT: Norma Yeates, looking for a way to shave her husband's
$385-a-month prescription drug bill, learned she has a lot of homework ahead
before signing up for one of the new Medicare discount cards. As the Bush
administration heralded the opening of enrollment for the cards on Monday,
it added a cautionary note to Yeates and others: Don't sign up just yet.
Yeates, 70, walked away with a thick stack of brochures describing her
choices after she and 200 other elderly patients met at a forum here with
House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Medicare chief Mark McClellan. Her next
move is to draw up a detailed chart to help figure out which one of 47
discount cards will save the Naperville, Ill., couple the most money.
3 May 2004
Wages of Sin: Why It's Easy for the
White House to Cut Your Pay
By Matt Bivens
The Nation, 30 May 2004
EXCERPT: I can understand why politicians raise taxes: There's a political
downside (taking away our money) but also a political upside (spending our
money and then taking credit for the result). But what's the political logic
of simply taking away money, and giving nothing back? Why do this? I mean,
imagine that you are called upon to lead our nation. You assemble your
Cabinet and declare: "Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a lot of hard-working
people in this country -- our job is to figure out a way they can get paid
less and be forced to work more. If we can also tear families asunder by
making them work on Christmas and July 4th, Sunday and Saturday -- well,
then I'll know we're on the right track." If that sticks in your throat, no
doubt you are simply not as financially evolved as a George W. Bush or a
Dick Cheney -- prime specimens (especially Cheney) of that rarified species,
homo CEOpiens. Think back to the Jurassic period of the Bush Presidency --
pre-9/11, pre-Enron. In those halcyon days, the talking points were all
about our first MBA president and his "corporate board" approach to
governing -- Bush as chairman, Cheney as CEO. But the cult of the CEO
collapsed with the Dow Jones -- and especially with Enron, the swindlers our
President counted among his loyal pals. Today our White House's
executive-suite roots are eclipsed by the cult of the "elite force aviator."
(Sadly, that George Bush action figure is now sold out; or perhaps one could
say it's gone AWOL.) Nevertheless, we are pondering the Jurassic period
today because it's important to remember one's roots. It keeps you grounded.
Bush and Cheney are CEOs at heart. That helps explain their determination to
attack something as holy as the 40-hour work week: Less money for the
average worker means more for the executives.
An Interview with Joseph Wilson
By David Corn
The Nation, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: It's not so much that I'm voicing my speculation. It is more that I
am sharing with people outside the Beltway what credible sources here in
Washington have shared with me. And what they have gleaned is that as early
as March there was a meeting in the offices of the Vice President at which
the decision was made to do a workup on me. The cause of this was my
appearance on CNN when I was asked about forged documents [that contained
the allegation about Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger] and about the State
Department spokesman's statement that the United States had simply fallen
for these forgeries. I said that I believed that if the U.S. government
looked into its files it would find that it knew far more about the Niger
business than the State Department spokesman was letting on. And I went
further and said that I thought that the State Department spokesman was
either being disingenuous or else was so far out of the loop he didn't
deserve to pick up the meager salary that they pay those guys.
Democracy Still in Jeopardy
Vanishing Votes: Further
Disenfranchisement of Black Voters in Florida
By Greg Palast
The Nation, 29 April 2004
EXCERPT: On October 29, 2002, George W. Bush signed the Help America Vote
Act (HAVA). Hidden behind its apple-pie-and-motherhood name lies a nasty
civil rights time bomb. First, the purges. In the months leading up to the
November 2000 presidential election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine
Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local election
supervisors to purge 57,700 voters from the registries, supposedly ex-cons
not allowed to vote in Florida. At least 90.2 percent of those on this
"scrub" list, targeted to lose their civil rights, are innocent. Notably,
more than half--about 54 percent--are black or Hispanic. You can argue all
night about the number ultimately purged, but there's no argument that this
electoral racial pogrom ordered by Jeb Bush's operatives gave the White
House to his older brother. HAVA not only blesses such purges, it requires
all fifty states to implement a similar search-and-destroy mission against
vulnerable voters. Specifically, every state must, by the 2004 election,
imitate Florida's system of computerizing voter files. The law then empowers
fifty secretaries of state--fifty Katherine Harrises--to purge these lists
of "suspect" voters. The purge is back, big time. Following the disclosure
in December 2000 of the black voter purge in Britain's Observer newspaper,
NAACP lawyers sued the state. The civil rights group won a written promise
from Governor Jeb and from Harris's successor to return wrongly scrubbed
citizens to the voter rolls. According to records given to the courts by
ChoicePoint, the company that generated the computerized lists, the number
of Floridians who were questionably tagged totals 91,000. Willie Steen is
one of them. Recently, I caught up with Steen outside his office at a Tampa
hospital. Steen's case was easy. You can't work in a hospital if you have a
criminal record. (My copy of Harris's hit list includes an ex-con named
O'Steen, close enough to cost Willie Steen his vote.) The NAACP held up
Steen's case to the court as a prime example of the voter purge evil. The
state admitted Steen's innocence. But a year after the NAACP won his case,
Steen still couldn't register. Why was he still under suspicion? What do we
know about this "potential felon," as Jeb called him? Steen, unlike our
President, honorably served four years in the US military. There is,
admittedly, a suspect mark on his record: Steen remains an African-American.
The Power of a Peace Candidate
By Jackson Diehl
Washington Post, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: When Ralph Nader announced his independent candidacy for president
in February, he claimed his chief target would be "the giant corporation in
the White House . . . George W. Bush." Two months later, a more plausible
agenda is beginning to emerge. The adversary is not Bush but John F. Kerry;
the main subject is not corporate greed but Iraq. And, contrary to the
conventional wisdom of win- ter, Nader may be poised for a hot summer. In
February it looked as if Iraq might not be a central issue in the fall
campaign. U.S casualties hit a postwar low that month, Iraqis signed a
transitional constitution, and Bush and Kerry seemed to agree on the goal of
establishing a democracy. Nader, according even to old friends, seemed to
have no reason for his campaign other than vanity.
By two weeks ago, when Nader met Washington political reporters at a
breakfast, all that had changed. Twice as many American soldiers had died
during the previous week in Iraq as during the entire month of February.
Support for the war was dropping quickly in polls, but Kerry and Bush still
mostly agreed on staying the course. And Nader had prepared a new pitch: The
United States should pull all of its troops, civilian contractors and
companies out of Iraq within six months.
Why should voters choose Nader? Because Kerry, Nader told the
reporters, "is stuck in the Iraq quagmire the same way Bush is." That leaves
the independent as the sole choice for "the peace movement in this country."
Polls show the potential constituency for that movement is growing
rapidly. A New York Times/CBS poll last week found that 46 percent of
Americans now believe the United States should withdraw from Iraq as soon as
possible -- a number equal to those who agree with Kerry and Bush on
sticking it out. The percentage who believed the United States should have
stayed out of Iraq had risen by 50 percent since December.
Nader's numbers, too, are rising. A Washington Post/ABC News poll
showed him at 3 percent in early March, about equal to the 2.8 percent he
polled in 2000. Five weeks later he was at 6 percent in the same poll and 5
percent in the New York Times and CNN polls. According to those polls,
almost all his support has been drawn from Kerry.
1-2 May 2004
Quote of the Day:
“As far as we know, Senator Kerry got three Purple Hearts
for risking his life in Vietnam, and President Bush got a dental examination
in Alabama.”
--Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
What Sinclair Doesn't Want You to See on
Nightline
FAIR Media Alert, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: This is not the first time that Sinclair's conservative political
leanings -- 98 percent of its 2004 political contributions have gone to
Republicans (MediaChannel.org, 4/29/04)-- have led the company into
journalistic controversy. In February, a Sinclair news crew was sent to Iraq
to cover the "good news" that was allegedly going unreported in the rest of
the media (Baltimore Sun, 2/18/04). And shortly after the September 11
attacks, Sinclair executives required stations to air editorial statements
in support of the Bush administration (Extra!, 11-12/01). Sinclair controls
about 60 TV stations, including eight ABC affiliates, some in substantial
population centers:
California Bans E-Voting in Four Counties,
Calls for Criminal Investigation Into Company
By Jim Wasserman
Associated Press, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: The state's top elections official called for a criminal
investigation of Diebold Election Systems Inc. as he banned use of the
company's newest model touchscreen voting machine, citing concerns about its
security and reliability. Friday's ban will force up to 2 million voters in
four counties, including San Diego, to use paper ballots in November,
marking their choices in ovals read by optical scanners. Secretary of State
Kevin Shelley asked the attorney general's office to investigate allegations
of fraud, saying Diebold had lied to state officials. A spokesman for
Attorney General Bill Lockyer said prosecutors would review Shelley's
claims.
SEE ALSO:
Two Voting Companies & Two Brothers Will
Count 80% of U.S. Election, Using BOTH Scanners & Touchscreens
Voters can run, but they can't hide from these guys. Meet the
Urosevich brothers, Bob and Todd. Their respective companies, Diebold and
ES&S, will count (using BOTH computerized ballot scanners and touchscreen
machines) about 80% of all votes cast in the upcoming U.S. presidential
election.
By Lynn Landers
EcoTalk.org, 27 April 2004
EXCERPT: Both ES&S and Diebold have been caught installing uncertified
software in their machines. Although there is no known certification process
that will protect against vote rigging or technical failure, it is a
requirement of most, if not all, states. And, according to author Bev
Harris in her book, Black Box Voting, "...one of the founders of the
original ES&S (software) system, Bob Urosevich, also oversaw development of
the original software now used by Diebold Election Systems." Talk about
putting all our eggs in one very bogus, but brotherly basket. Even if states
or counties hire their own technicians to re-program Diebold or ES&S
software (or software from other companies), experts say that permanently
installed software, called firmware, still resides inside of both electronic
scanners and touchscreen machines and is capable of manipulating votes. For
those who are unfamiliar with the term 'firmware', here's a definition by
BandwidthMarket.com: "Software that is embedded in a hardware device that
allows reading and executing the software, but does not allow modification,
e.g., writing or deleting data by an end user." The ability to rig an
election is well within easy reach of voting machine companies. And it does
not matter if the machines are scanners or touchscreens, or are networked or
hooked up to modems. So, for those states and counties who think they're
dodging the bullet by not buying (or not using) the highly insecure and
error-prone touchscreen voting machines (which will process 28.9% of all
votes this year), a huge threat still remains - computerized ballot
scanners. They will count 57.6% of all votes cast, including absentee
ballots. And don't count on recounts to save the day. In most states,
recounts of paper ballots only occur if election results are close. The
message to those who want to rig elections is, "rig them by a lot." In some
states, like California, spot checks are conducted. But, that will not be an
effective way to discover or deter vote fraud or technical failure,
particularly in a national election where one vote per machine will
probably be enough to swing a race.
Truckers Abandon Rigs on Los Angeles
Freeway to Protest Diesel Prices
By Robert Jablon
Associated Press, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: Independent truckers parked their rigs on a busy freeway outside
Los Angeles on Friday morning, snarling rush-hour traffic for miles in a
wildcat protest over high diesel prices. Other truckers rallied at two of
the largest ports on the West Coast. The gridlock occurred during the
morning commute on Interstate 5 south of Los Angeles when truckers parked or
jackknifed three big rigs, then sped away in a waiting car.
Chemical Plant Security Lagging Under
Bush, Kerry Tells Mayors
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post, 29 April 2004
EXCERPT: Sen. John F. Kerry accused President Bush of failing to adequately
secure the nation's chemical plants from terrorist attacks, as the
presumptive Democratic nominee on Thursday stepped up criticism of the
administration's homeland security plans. "It's nearly 21/2 years after
9/11, and the administration is still dragging its feet when it comes to
fighting to secure our chemical plants," Kerry told the National Conference
of Black Mayors. The senator from Massachusetts warned in prepared remarks
provided to reporters that 1 million people in Philadelphia could be killed
or injured if its underprotected chemical plants were attacked by
terrorists, but he omitted this warning from his speech.
Kerry Criticizes Bush's Policy in Iraq
Bush Asserts the United States Is 'Making Progress'
By William Branigin
Washington Post, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry offered sharply contrasting
assessments of the war in Iraq today, with Bush declaring that the United
States is "making progress" in pacifying the country and his Democratic
challenger calling for greater international involvement to help avoid a
civil war there. The separate remarks coincided with the end of the
deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq -- more than 120 combat deaths have
been reported in April -- and the one-year anniversary of Bush's speech
aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in which he declared an end to major combat
operations beneath a huge banner that said, "Mission Accomplished." ...While
avoiding harsh partisan rhetoric in his speech, Kerry described the Bush
administration's Iraq policy as teetering on the brink of disaster, with the
United States shouldering too much of the burden. Saying that "we are living
through days of great danger," Kerry reflected somberly on the first
anniversary of Bush's "mission accomplished" speech. "This anniversary is
not a time to shout," Kerry said. "It is not a time for blame. It is a time
for a new direction in Iraq and for America to work together so that once
again this nation leads in a way that brings the world to us and with us in
our efforts.
Back to Home Page
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6 May 2004
U.S. Troops Start Major Attacks on Shiite
Insurgents in 2 Cities
By EDWARD WONG
New York Times, 6 May 2004
EXCERPT: The American military has begun its first major assault against
Shiite insurgents, striking at their enclaves here and in Diwaniya in an
effort to regain control in southern Iraq. The coordinated attacks began
hours after powerful Shiite politicians and religious leaders met in Baghdad
on Tuesday to urge a rebellious young cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, to withdraw
his militia from here and from Najaf, both important religious sites for
Shiites. Mr. Sadr's followers have taken up positions in mosques in the
cities, stockpiling weapons and daring the Americans to come after them.
Arab World Scorns Bush's TV 'Apology'
Pressure mounts in US over Iraq torture scandal
Brian Whitaker, Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington and Rory McCarthy in
Baghdad
The Guardian, 6 May 2004
EXCERPT: In an unprecedented damage-limitation exercise, President George
Bush told Arab TV viewers last night the treatment of prisoners by some
members of the US military in Iraq had been "abhorrent" and would be
thoroughly investigated.
The people of Iraq "must understand that what took place in that prison does
not represent the America that I know," he said in an interview with al-Hurra,
an Arabic-language channel funded by the US government. ...The gravity of
the threat posed to the White House, and Mr Bush's re-election prospects,
was further underlined yesterday by the moderate Republican senator John
McCain, who told ABC television he could not rule out the prospect that the
scandal could force the resignation of the defence secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld. Officials said last night that Mr Rumsfeld, along with the joint
chiefs of staff chairman, General Richard Myers, would testify to a senate
committee tomorrow on the torture claims. Last night the pressure on Mr Bush
intensified with a request to Congress for another $25bn (about £14bn) for
US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A request for more money was not
expected until after the election. Meanwhile, new details have emerged of
the scale of abuse by US troops. Pentagon officials are investigating 35
possible instances of abuse by US personnel, and the Los Angeles Times
reported that 25 Iraqi and Afghan prisoners had died in US custody in the
last 17 months.
SEE ALSO:
Why Bush Didn't Apologize
In his Arab TV interviews, the president refused to say the words Iraqis
needed to hear: I'm sorry.
By Fred Kaplan
Slate, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: It would be a surprise if President Bush's Arab TV interviews today
went over well with Iraqi viewers. It would also be a surprise if he much
cared. His remarks seemed geared, for the most part, to American voters, who
he knew would watch replays and excerpts a few hours later. For this
audience, he pushed all the right buttons. For the other, Arab audience, he
pushed a few of the right buttons, brushed up against some of the wrong
ones, and deliberately avoided the crucial ones.
When We're the Evildoers in Iraq
by Robert Scheer
The Nation, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: So it should have been a clear and high priority to make certain
that Iraqi prisoners incarcerated in Hussein's most infamous prison did not
receive the same brand of "justice" the dictator had been doling out for
decades. That they did is now a deep and dirty stain on the reputation of
this nation. Yes, it's great that we are still worlds away from being Nazi
Germany, Stalinist Russia or Hussein's Iraq. We are a free society in which,
it is hoped, truth eventually comes out, and thanks to what seems to be one
brave whistle-blowing soldier and a responsible officer to whom he reported
the torture, these crimes have come to light. Those are the acts of true
heroes, and we should be proud of them. Yet, before we go overboard in
celebrating our virtues, let's admit that Americans too can be "evildoers,"
especially when we embrace, as the president consistently has done, the
terribly dangerous idea that the ends justify the means. The ultimate cost
of a foreign policy based on blatant lies, and that equates military might
with what is right, is that the brute in all of us will not inevitably lie
dormant.
Administration Officials Knew Of Abu Ghraib Report
Daily Mislead, 5 April 2004
Since late February, the Pentagon has been in possession of a report
produced by Major General Antonio M. Taguba that details the abuse of
Iraqis incarcerated in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. Months later,
despite knowing of the 53-page report's existence, top administration
officials responsible for the military still have not read the document.
White House officials told the Los Angeles Times that "the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners sparked so much concern that President Bush was told
about an investigation during the winter holidays." But White House
Press Secretary Scott McClellan tried to insulate the President from
criticism by suggesting that the President was surprised by the report's
findings. McClellan told reporters yesterday that Bush "only become
aware of the photographs and the Pentagon's main internal report about
the incidents from news reports last week." Yet President Bush still has
not read the report. Three weeks before the press reported the story of
the Abu Ghraib report, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard B.
Myers knew enough about it to call Dan Rather and ask him to delay
airing the story. Yet, as of this Tuesday, Myers still hadn't read the
report. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that he had
merely "seen a summary."
The perils of ideology...
Battlefield of Dreams
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: Last November the top economist at the Heritage Foundation was
very optimistic about Iraq, saying Paul Bremer had just replaced
"Saddam's soak-the-rich tax system" with a flat tax. "Few Americans
would want to trade places with the people of Iraq," wrote the
economist, Daniel Mitchell. "But come tax time next April, they may
begin to wonder who's better off." Even when he wrote that, the
insurgency in Iraq was visibly boiling over; by "tax time" last month,
the situation was truly desperate. Much has been written about the
damage done by foreign policy ideologues who ignored the realities of
Iraq, imagining that they could use the country to prove the truth of
their military and political doctrines. Less has been said about how
dreams of making Iraq a showpiece for free trade, supply-side tax policy
and privatization — dreams that were equally oblivious to the country's
realities — undermined the chances for a successful transition to
democracy. ...A number of people, including Jay Garner, the first U.S.
administrator of Iraq, think that the Bush administration shunned early
elections, which might have given legitimacy to a transitional
government, so it could impose economic policies that no elected Iraqi
government would have approved. Indeed, over the past year the Coalition
Provisional Authority has slashed tariffs, flattened taxes and thrown
Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors — reinforcing the sense of
many Iraqis that we came as occupiers, not liberators. But it's the
reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by
government workers that has really come back to haunt us. Conservatives
make a fetish out of privatization of government functions; after the
2002 elections, George Bush announced plans to privatize up to 850,000
federal jobs. At home, wary of a public backlash, he has moved slowly on
that goal. But in Iraq, where there is little public or Congressional
oversight, the administration has privatized everything in sight. ...You
may ask whether our leaders' drive to privatize reflects a sincere
conservative ideology, or a desire to enrich their friends. Probably
both. But before Iraq, privatization that rewarded campaign contributors
was a politically smart move, even if it was a net loss for the
taxpayers. In Iraq, however, reality does matter. And thanks to the
ideologues who dictated our policy over the past year, reality looks
pretty grim.
Pentagon Forced to Withdraw Leaflet
Linking Aid to Information on Taliban
Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian, 6 May 2004
EXCERPT: The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has distributed leaflets
calling on people to provide information on al-Qaida and the Taliban or
face losing humanitarian aid. The move has outraged aid organisations
who said their work is independent of the military and it was despicable
to pretend otherwise.
9/11: What Could Have Been
Tamim Ansary
TomPaine.com, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: A Missed Opportunity
The day after the Taliban fled Kabul, the United States was poised to
make enormous headway toward a new era of peace and progress. At that
historical moment, as a victim of the 9/11 attacks, America enjoyed
unprecedented goodwill around the world, even among the uncommitted
masses in the Muslim world. Had the United States focused all its
efforts at that moment on restoring Afghanistan to the course the Soviet
invasion interrupted 23 years earlier—a course pointed toward
moderation, secular modernity and development, all within an Afghan
cultural context—it would have weakened the Jihadist movement
dramatically by stripping away its most powerful arguments and examples.
This policy would have strengthened the hand of modernists in the Muslim
world, particularly those in a position to enter into theological
debates with other Muslims—debates whose importance can scarcely be
overstated. Make no mistake: the Muslim world will achieve no social
reforms until the grip of the "scholars," of the dictatorial religious
establishment, of the mullahs and of the local rural clerics has been
loosened and ordinary Muslims have attained the freedom to pursue and
express personal visions of Islam. Until that transformation has taken
place, it is pointless and indeed often ruinous for outsiders to attempt
to impose amendments to Muslim society. Changes such as democratic
elections or mandating a percentage of cabinet seats for women instead
create a colonialist dichotomy. All those who question the ossified
orthodox interpretations of Islam become the lapdogs of foreign
imperialists bent on wrecking the Muslim home. Modernists become utterly
discredited, and the deepest bases of social values remain in the hands
of the most uncompromising, least tolerant and least educated elements
of the society.
Israel Sent Millions to Illegal
Settlements
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
New York Times, 6 May 2004
EXCERPT: The Housing Ministry inappropriately funneled $6.5
million to construction projects in the West Bank in recent years, the
state comptroller said Wednesday. Much of the money went to Jewish
settlements that the government never authorized and has since agreed to
dismantle; the rest went to legal settlements, the comptroller said, but
without specific authorization. In a report, the comptroller, Eliezer
Goldberg, found that between January 2000 and June 2003, the Housing and
Construction Ministry approved 77 contracts for projects in 33 West Bank
areas without receiving the required approvals from the cabinet and the
Defense Ministry. The report found that 18 of the contracts, worth about
$4 million, were for outposts that the government had never approved.
5 May 2004
U.S. Army Report on Iraqi Prisoner Abuse
Complete text of Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th
Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
NBC News. 4 April 2004
EXCERPT: The following is the text of the Taguba report with only the names
of some witnesses removed for the sake of privacy.
Bush to apologize???
More Alleged Abuses Disclosed
Bush to Appear On Arab TV; Rice Apologizes
By Bradley Graham and Charles Babington
Washington Post, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: Two Iraqi prisoners were killed by U.S. soldiers last year, and 20
other detainee deaths and assaults remain under criminal investigation in
Iraq and Afghanistan, part of a total of 35 cases probed since December 2002
for possible misconduct by U.S. troops in those two countries, Army
officials reported yesterday. The tally emerged on a day U.S. military
officials, struggling to contain growing outrage over the handling of
detainees, insisted they had been quick to respond to allegations of abuse
at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. But Gen. George Casey, the Army's vice chief
of staff, acknowledged that the actions there of military guards and
interrogators had amounted to "a complete breakdown in discipline."
Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, publicly
apologized to the Arab world for the mistreatment, and White House officials
said President Bush would appear on Arab television in an effort to counter
the damage.
SEE ALSO:
Army Discloses Criminal Inquiry on Prison
Abuse
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: In the last 16 months, the Army has conducted more than 30 criminal
investigations into misconduct by American captors in Iraq and Afghanistan,
including 10 cases of suspicious death, 10 cases of abuse, and two deaths
already determined to have been criminal homicides, the Army's vice chief of
staff said Tuesday. To date, the most severe penalties in any of the cases
were less-than-honorable discharges for five Army soldiers, military
officials said. No one has been sentenced to prison, they said. The
disclosure of the investigations, by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army's
second-highest ranking general, was the strongest indication to date of a
wider pattern of abuse at American prisons beyond the horrific descriptions
and photographs that have emerged recently of acts of humiliation, sexual
and otherwise, at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in November.
SEE ALSO:
George Bush as Saddam Hussein
Abuse Photos Prompt Comparison to Former Iraqi Leader
By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com. 3 May 2004
While U.S. and British coverage has focused on
President Bush and Prime Minister
Tony Blair's denunciations of the abuses, many foreign
commentators are starting to compare the U.S.-led occupation to Hussein's
tyranny.. See:
Daily Mirror
Sunday Herald
Al Jazeera
Yemen Times
Bahrain
Tribune,
Jordan
Times
Asia
Times
Prison Scandal Indicates Gap in U.S. Chain
of Command
By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: Questions about the role of civilian interrogators in the abuse of
inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison have put the spotlight on the
accountability of tens of thousands of contractors in Iraq and on whether
the administrative setup at the prison gave contractors too much freedom
from and too much power over military units.
Jailed Iraqis Hidden from Red Cross, Says
US
By Julian Borger
The Guardian, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: US military policemen moved unregistered Iraqi prisoners, known as
"ghost detainees", around an army-run jail at Abu Ghraib, in order to hide
them from the Red Cross, according to a confidential military report. The
report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison - a copy of which was obtained by the
Guardian - described the practice of hiding prisoners as "deceptive,
contrary to army doctrine, and in violation of international law". The
revelations surfaced at a time when the prison abuse scandal threatened to
engulf the Pentagon and the military occupation of Iraq.
SEE ALSO:
Terror Suspect Tells of Torture
(Guardian)
SEE ALSO:
25 Prisoners Died While by US Forces
(Reuters)
U.S. Troop Levels in Iraq to Remain High
Far More Than Expected Will Stay Through 2005 to Deal With Insurgency,
Officials Say
By Josh White
Washington Post, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: Military officials plan to keep as many as 138,000 U.S. troops in
Iraq through the end of next year, maintaining a higher-than-expected level
of forces there to quell the insurgency and provide security to the country
long after it is slated to become a sovereign nation. Officials also plan to
send more heavy equipment, such as tanks and armored vehicles, into Iraq to
help secure U.S. forces against attack.The Defense Department announced
yesterday that officials plan to deploy 10,000 soldiers and Marines this
summer to replace troops in the 1st Armored Division and the 2nd Light
Cavalry Regiment who have had their stays in Iraq extended, and officials
plan to identify 10,000 more troops soon to complete the replacement. About
6,000 National Guard and Reserve troops -- from more than a dozen states --
whose stays were extended also will be spelled in the next deployment.
The Fallacies of Fallujah
By Richard Cohen
Washington Post, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: The plain fact is that Bush cannot explain why we are in Iraq in
the first place. To do that he would have to concede that the original
reason was really a cover for something else and that, anyway, weapons of
mass destruction no more existed than did Saddam Hussein's ties to Osama bin
Laden. The rule from time immemorial -- and including, of course, Vietnam --
is that a mistake must be compounded before it is acknowledged, and that is
about to happen. We will stay in Iraq for the same reason we stayed so long
in Vietnam: We cannot figure out how to leave.
French TV News Screens Images 'of US
Helicopter Crew Killing Iraqis'
Agence-France Press, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: The French cable television station Canal Plus on Tuesday will
broadcast images, stolen in Iraq, of a US army helicopter killing three
Iraqis, one of them wounded, who do not appear to be posing any threat. The
show "Merci pour l'Info" (Thanks for the News) obtained the footage, seen by
an AFP correspondent, from what the network described as a "European working
as a subcontractor for the US army" who left Iraq two weeks ago. US
television network ABC aired the same images on January 9, and the footage
has been available on the Internet for several weeks. The European claims to
have hidden the tape - dated December 1, 2003, and filmed at an unidentified
location in Iraq - at the US base where he lived and worked. A French lawyer
and member of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH),
Patrick Baudouin, told AFP that knowingly killing an enemy who is wounded
constitutes a war crime under international law. The three-and-a-half
minutes of footage, to be broadcast at 6:40 pm (1640 GMT), was taken from
the helicopter firing at the three individuals, who were considered by the
US military to be suspicious. Conversations between the helicopter pilot,
the sharpshooter and their commanding officer - who had a video link and was
giving orders in real time - can be heard on the tape. The footage shows how
the three men are killed one after the other.
By Sharon's Standards
It was right to hold Israel to account
over Jenin. But why are the US and Britain not in the dock over Falluja?
By Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: It was two years ago that every news outlet in the world focused
its gaze on the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin where Israel sought to
root out what it called a "nest of terror". The press was kept away and
rumours spread of a terrible massacre; there were calls for an immediate UN
inquiry. In the end, it turned out that the Palestinians had engaged the
Israelis in battle; many were proud of their steadfastness and defiance. A
later UN report put the confirmed death toll at 52, suggesting that as many
as half that number had been fighters rather than civilians. During the
siege, Jenin stirred global outrage. MPs could not keep away from the
television cameras, so determined were they to condemn this heinous act. One
British newspaper said that of all the recent atrocities - Bosnia, Rwanda,
Chechnya, Kosovo - none was worse than Jenin. Yet now in Falluja, when the
death toll is in the hundreds rather than the dozens, these voices are
silent. The Sharon crowd would say that the explanation is simple - people
are unfair to Israel - and the solution equally straightforward: the world
should get off Israel's back. But I draw a different conclusion. It is right
to hold Israel to a high standard, right to expose the daily brutalities of
occupation. But that standard must be applied equally. If the battle of
Jenin merited a UN inquiry, then surely the shooting-gallery of Falluja
requires one too. If the more than 2,880 Palestinian deaths of the intifada
since September 2000 are to be properly mourned, then so, surely, are the
30,000-60,000 Iraqi casualties the US military reckons it inflicted in the
opening weeks of the war, according to Woodward. As George Bush tells the
author: "We had just been mowing them down." If we condemn Israel, then
let's also condemn America and Britain. For now we are occupiers, too.
The "Year Zero" Strategy: Bush's
Iraq Mission Remains Unaccomplished
By Dilip Hiro, introduction by Tom
Engelhardt
TomDispatch, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT FROM INTRODUCTION: It's just a year and a couple of days since
George Bush's aircraft-carrier landing and Iraq is unraveling big time. I've
quoted Vietnam War historian Marilyn Young before on this, but in the realm
of analogies, we now do seem to be experiencing Iraq as, in her phrase,
"Vietnam on crack cocaine." It's remarkable actually and, if human lives
weren't at stake and so much misery not being caused, it would certainly be
comic. There has been much discussion of prewar and postwar Bush
administration planning (or lack of it) for a future Iraq; but no one could
have hoped to plan an occupation so precisely targeted when it came to
alienating so many Iraqis, so fast, so deeply, and in so many ways --
especially given the "act" we were following. Whatever the dark-side
equivalent would be of having your ship come home, scoring a hole-in-one
more than once, or winning the lottery repeatedly, that's our occupation of
Iraq. Saddam Hussein, brute that he was, should certainly have lent us at
least a couple of years of imperial grace in our occupation; but no, not for
the men (and woman) of the Bush administration whose arrogance, as the sole
representatives of the Earth's last great Empire, was -- there's no other
word for it -- o'erweening, and so, utterly blinding.
In the last week one of our tanks managed to blow a minaret off a mosque in
Fallujah (snipers, it was claimed, were firing from it) and our Secretary of
State defended the act, while photos of the utter degradation of naked Iraqi
prisoners in the infamous jail of the former dictator were released to the
world by the CBS TV's 60 Minutes II. Only weeks ago, our Baghdad
"administrator" (though that seems an odd term for him these days), L. Paul
Bremer, compounded his many previous ill-timed acts by taking out after and
shutting down the small if inflammatory newspaper of the radical cleric
Mutaqa al Sadr and managed in the process to do the near impossible --
single-handedly start a Shiite uprising against the occupation, while our
airplanes (Vietnam anyone?) made "precision strikes" on the heavily
inhabited Sunni city of Fallujah with 500 pound, laser-guided bombs,
Hellfire missiles, and AC-130 gunships. In the meantime, our top military
brass and their civilian counterparts (up to the President) swore we would
never let the insurgents remain in Fallujah, that we would destroy them,
that we would "kill or capture" the Shiite rebel cleric who had hunkered
down in Najaf, and so on. Then, after hundreds and hundreds of Iraqi dead,
the destabilization of the country, and soaring American casualties, the
Marines withdrew from parts of Fallujah to allow a former Saddamist general
(from his Republican Guard no less) to take care of things, while the
various services and the Pentagon argued about what was happening -- and
then, while the insurgents were declaring victory, promptly threatened to
remove the generalŠ but need I go on?
Uh...safer
place...and all that
Bombs Rock Central Athens Police Station
REUTERS, 5 May 2004
EXCERPT: Three timebombs exploded outside a central Athens police station
early Wednesday, doing heavy damage to the building but causing no serious
casualties, a police official said. Authorities had cordoned off the area
around the station in Kalithea after an anonymous caller warned a newspaper
about them, the official said. ``The first two explosions went off in a span
of five minutes. The third exploded half an hour later as bomb experts were
still looking for it,'' the police official told Reuters. ``The caller had
given police only ten minutes to find the bombs.'' An ambulance was called
for one policeman slightly hurt by the third blast.
4 May 2004
Command Errors Aided Iraq Abuse, Army Has
Found
By JAMES RISEN
New York Times, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: An internal Army investigation has found a virtual collapse of the
command structure in a prison outside Baghdad where American enlisted
personnel are accused of committing acts of abuse and humiliation against
Iraqi detainees. A report on the investigation said midlevel military
intelligence officers were allowed to skirt the normal chain of command to
issue questionable orders to enlisted personnel from the reserve military
police unit handling guard duty there. The Army has already begun one
investigation into the abuse allegations. Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, the
incoming deputy commander of Army intelligence, is examining the
interrogation practices of military intelligence officers at all
American-run prisons in Iraq and not just the Abu Ghraib prison. A second
review was ordered Saturday by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, head of the Army
Reserve, to assess the training of all reservists, especially military
police and intelligence officers, the soldiers most likely to handle
prisoners. Six members of an Army Reserve military police unit assigned to
Abu Ghraib face charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment
of detainees. Gary Myers, a lawyer for Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, one
of the enlisted men charged in the case, requested over the weekend that the
Army open a court of inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, a move that would
expand the investigation beyond the six enlisted personnel to look at the
broader command failures.
SEE ALSO:
Don't Tell the Iraqis: Private
Military Contractors To Elude Punishment
Peter W. Singer
The Guardian via LA Times and Brookings Institution, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: Also playing a role in this deeply disturbing episode—in which
Iraqi prisoners were beaten, raped and forced to perform simulated sexual
acts—were private contractors, hired to serve as interrogators. That private
contractors are serving in US military prison camps should be surprising
enough. This takes our experiment with the boundaries of military
outsourcing to levels never anticipated. That a loophole in the law has
given a free pass to the contractors alleged to have been involved is
outrageous. In an attempt to fill the gap between the demand for
professional forces and the limited number deployed, an array of traditional
military and intelligence roles have been outsourced in Iraq, all without
public discussion or debate. There are up to 20,000 private contractors
operating in Iraq, carrying out military roles from logistics and local army
training to guarding installations and convoys.
SEE ALSO:
Army Punishes 7 With Reprimands for Prison
Abuse
By THOM SHANKER and DEXTER FILKINS
New York Times, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: The senior American commander in Iraq has ordered the first
punishments in the abuse of prisoners by American soldiers there, issuing
severe reprimands to six who served in supervisory positions at Abu Ghraib
prison and a milder "letter of admonishment" to a seventh. The officers and
noncommissioned officers received penalties that most likely will end their
military careers, although they were not demoted or discharged. They have
not been charged with any criminal activity; six subordinates accused of
carrying out the abuse already face criminal charges. "They did not know or
participate in any crimes," a senior American officer in Baghdad said of the
officers who received the reprimands, issued by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez,
the senior American commander in Iraq. "Their responsibility is to set the
standards in the organization. They should have known, but they did not."
Terminating Torture: Global War on
Terror Spawns Abuse
By Reed Brody of Human Right Watch
TomPaine.com, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: We must all -- like President George W. Bush -- share a "deep
disgust" at the pictures of U.S. military personnel subjecting Iraqi
detainees to humiliating treatment. The problem, however, is that this does
not appear to be an isolated incident. Across the world, the United States
is holding detainees in offshore and foreign prisons where allegations of
mistreatment cannot be monitored. It has also been accused of sending terror
suspects to countries where information has been beaten out of them. The
classic case, of course, has been Guantánamo, Cuba, which the Bush
administration deliberately chose as a detention facility for more than 700
detainees from 44 countries in an attempt to put them beyond the reach of
the U.S. courts--and of any courts, for that matter. The U.S. government has
argued that U.S. courts would not have jurisdiction over these detainees,
even if they were being tortured or summarily executed. But Guantánamo may
not be the worst problem; indeed, it may even be a diversion from more
extreme situations. Perhaps out of concern that Guantánamo will eventually
be monitored by the U.S. courts, the Bush administration does not hold its
most sensitive and high-profile detainees there. Terrorism suspects like
Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are detained instead in
undisclosed locations outside the United States, with no access to Red Cross
or other visits.
SEE ALSO:
Bush's Selective Disgust
(BushWhackedUSA)
SEE ALSO:
Former Prisoner Prefers Saddam Torture to US Abuse
(AP)
US to Keep Heightened Troop Levels
in Iraq Indefinitely
Agence-France Press, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: Faced with a mounting insurgency, the United States has decided to
keep force levels in Iraq at beefed up levels of about 135,000 for the
forseeable future, senior defense officials said Monday. The Pentagon moved
last month to build up the force to deal with uprisings in the south and in
Fallujah by extending the tours of 20,000 troops from the 1st Armored
Division and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment for at least three months.
Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP those troops will
be replaced with fresh units at the end of their extended tours, but the
overall force will be maintained at its current strength, which has hovered
around 135,000 troops.
Rummy's Silence
Slate, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: In many ways, Rumsfeld is a different man from the one he was in
1971. Most obviously, Rumsfeld has morphed from Vietnam dove to Cold War
hawk to Iraq hawk. But Rumsfeld's instinct for bureaucratic self-protection
is as finely honed as ever. The latest evidence of that is Rummy's eerie
silence about the devastating news, first broken April 29 by CBS's 60
Minutes II, that American troops have been systematically abusing and
humiliating—in some instances, actually torturing—Iraqi prisoners at
Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and also, apparently, elsewhere.
Has Islam Become the Issue?
By Spengler
Asia Times, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: Nothing shows up the shallowness of the American neo-conservatives
better than the choice of a French Catholic, Professor Alain Besancon, to
fire a first salvo against Islam in the May issue of their flagship journal,
Commentary. His essay, "What Kind of Religion is Islam", re-states the
millennium-old Christian case against Muslim theology, while barely hinting
at why theology has any bearing on the civilizational conflict now under
way. Nonetheless, a Rubicon has been crossed, for Islam itself has become
the issue, rather than terrorism, dictatorship, slavery in the Sudan or
mistreatment of women. Until now the conservative establishment carefully
toed the White House line, namely that "this is a war against terrorism, not
against Islam". As Washington's visions for Iraq's future vanish like a
desert mirage, the basic premises of its policy may be re-thought. In that
respect, the fact that Besancon has surfaced among the neo-conservatives is
news indeed, although both the regular media and the weblogs have failed to
take note of it. Something like this was inevitable after years in which
American conservatives sought to shoehorn the problems of the Islamic world
into the box of the Western enlightenment ("freedom" vs "tyranny").
Analysis: Withdrawal On the Cards?
By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: Events in Iraq have been spinning out of control - and out of
control of the spinners - so fast on so many fronts that the W word -
withdrawal - is now being mentioned. Charles Heyman, senior defence analyst
for Jane's Consultancy Group, wrote in the London Times on Monday: "It
begins to look as though there is going to be a rather messy political
solution to the whole affair, possibly brokered by the United Nations.
"Expect to see an agreement where both sides can claim some sort of a
victory, followed by a rather hasty withdrawal of coalition troops at some
stage in the next six months." It is certainly true that on three fronts
the coalition is not doing too well... [BWUSA emphasis]
Former Diplomats Attack Bush for
Supporting Israel's Sharon
White House accused of sacrificing
credibility with Arab world
By Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian, 4 May 2004
EXCERPT: Fifty-three former US diplomats today accuse the White House of
sacrificing America's credibility in the Arab world - and the safety of its
diplomats and soldiers - because of the Bush administration's support for
the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. The strongly worded rebuke, which
paid tribute to last week's broadside from more than 50 former British
diplomats against the government's policy in Iraq, marked a rare public
display of dissent for state department personnel. Its central charge that
the Bush administration is unfairly tilted towards Mr Sharon arrives at a
time when Washington's strategy in the Middle East is in tatters. George
Bush has invested heavily in Mr Sharon's proposal for an Israeli withdrawal
from the Gaza Strip, and gone a step further by endorsing a continued Jewish
settlement in the occupied West Bank.
How Ahmed Chalabi Conned the Neocons
Salon, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: The hawks who launched the Iraq war believed the deal-making exile
when he promised to build a secular democracy with close ties to Israel. Now
the Israel deal is dead, he's cozying up to Iran -- and his patrons look
like they're on the way out.
SEE ALSO:
BushWhackedUSA: The Blog
3 May 2004
Eleven U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq
Attacks
Scotsman.com News, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: Eleven US troops were killed in attacks across Iraq, including a
mortar barrage in which six soldiers died and 30 were wounded. Meanwhile,
kidnapped US truck driver Thomas Hamill escaped his Iraqi captors prying
open a door of the house where he was held when a army patrol passed by.
Foreign Fighters and Terrorists Are Not
Playing a Major Role
By Jim Krane
AP 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: U.S. officials have for months publicly promoted the notion that
foreign fighters and terrorists are playing a major role in the
anti-American insurgency in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq. By blaming
foreigners, U.S. authorities hope to quash the idea that Iraqis are rising
up against military occupation and frame the conflict as part of the wider
war on terror. However, foreigners play a tiny role in Iraq's insurgency,
many military experts say. In Fallujah, U.S. military leaders say around 90
percent of the 1,000 or more fighters battling the Marines are Iraqis. To
date, there have been no confirmed U.S. captures of foreign fighters in
Fallujah although a handful of suspects have been arrested. Those who have
spent time inside Fallujah have described a city consumed with the fight
fathers and sons fighting for the local mujahedeen and wives and daughters
cooking and caring for the wounded. ''The whole city supports this jihad,''
said Houssam Ali Ahmed, 53, a Fallujah resident who fled to Baghdad when his
neighborhood was caught in the fighting. ''The people of Fallujah are
fighting to defend their homes. We are Muslim mujahedeen fighting a holy
war.'' Elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. military commanders say foreigners have an
even smaller role in the insurgency.
QUOTES:
"Whatever the truth, these revelations deal the US a staggering blow to
its credibility or, really, its authority. There are so many folks in the
region inclined to believe the worst about our actions and intentions. And
this challenges the assumptions of those inclined to believe the best."
--Josh Marshall of Talking Points
Memo, on the torture of Iraqi prisoners by US troops and contractors
BWUSA
COMMENTARY
George W. Bush's Selective Disgust
Hypocritical President claims to be troubled by
the abuse of Iraqi prisoners yet ignores, condones or perpetuates human
rights abuses in the United States and around the world
By Eric Bosse
BushWhackedUSA, 1 May 2004
EXCERPT: For a President whose National Guard records apparently went
AWOL, it's not surprising that portions of George W. Bush's ethical
conscience show up for slective service while others are given deferment
upon deferment. On Friday, Bush expressed 'deep disgust' over photos
that appeared on the CBS news magazine "60 Minutes II," depicting U.S.
troops gleefully abusing Iraqi prisoners by stripping them and stacking
them in human pyramids or forcing them to simulate sex acts with one
another. One photo shows a hooded Iraqi man standing on a box, with
wires attached to his outstretched hands--an image as degrading and
haunting as a crucifixion, only more so for the shadowy hood. "I shared
a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were
treated," Bush said in the White House's Rose Garden on Friday, a day
after the photos were broadcast. "I didn't like it one bit." Bush went
on to express a desire that the world should not get the wrong idea
about how Americans treat people--that these gruesome photos do not
accurately represent this country's respect for human rights and human
dignity. Those who have paid more than passing attention to the Bush
human rights record will regard his "deep disgust" as ironic, if not
entirely contrived.
Former US General Says US Troops
Should Get Out of Iraq
Kaleej Times, 29 April 2004
EXCERPT: A former US Army General [William E. Odom] has criticised
President George W. Bush’s Iraq policy and demanded that the country’s
forces return from Iraq as rapidly as possible for the sake of American
security and economic power alike. We have failed. The issue is how
high the price we are going to pay. Less, by getting out sooner, or
more, by getting out later, William E. Odom, who is also a former head
of the National Security Agency, told Wall Street Journal. The
longer US troops stay in Iraq, Odom reasoned, the more isolated America
will become. That in turn will place increasing strain on international
economic and security institutions, he said. I don’t know if the UN, the
IMF, the World Bank or NATO can survive this, he commented. Odom warned
that there was no reason to expect that Iraq could soon develop the
ingredients for constitutional democracy. The violence of recent months,
he said, had exposed Bush’s vision of doing it as a dream. The result of
Iraq’s elections, he predicted, will resemble theocracy more than
liberal democracy. Anyone who is pro-American cannot gain legitimacy, he
said. It will be a highly illiberal democracy, inspired by Islamic
culture, extremely hostile to the West and probably quite willing to
fund terrorist organisations. The ability of militants to use Iraq for
attacks elsewhere, he said, may also increase. [BWUSA emphasis]
Iraqi Water Torture?
Drip, Drip, Drip
Warnings of Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners Were Ignored for
Six Months
Photographs of American and British troops
humiliating prisoners could change the public mood across the world. But the
coalition has brushed aside similar complaints for six months
The Observer, 2 May 2004
EXCERPT: As early as last summer, researchers for Amnesty International had
began picking up worrying allegations of torture and killings within the
then still chaotic system for the detention of Iraqis. These claims, Amnesty
says, have persisted despite its own report warning the occupying powers of
their obligations under the Geneva Conventions. It was not only Amnesty that
was hearing reports of abuse. Over the past six months, as has now become
clear, a number of warnings were being sounded about abuse by allied
soldiers. And they were warnings the coalition forces appear to have ignored
until this year. By November last year dark rumours of violence and sexual
abuse were in circulation among Iraqis, human rights groups and the media -
many of them impossible to verify. But some should have been easy to check
out, not least those pointing to Abu Ghraib and the persistent claims of
abuses within its walls.
SEE ALSO:
SENIOR MILITARY STAFF HAS KNOWN ABOUT MISTREATMENT OF
IRAQI PRISONERS FOR MONTHS--
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?
Issue of 2004-05-10
Posted 2004-04-30
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was
one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions,
and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no
accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in
twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.
A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker,
written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release,
was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional
failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba
found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous
instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib.
This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was
perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by
members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to
the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade
headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric
liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating
detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with
rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who
was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a
detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military
working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack,
and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba
added—“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic
photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the
abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because
of their “extremely sensitive nature.”
...There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder report
[from an investigation by a Major General in months prior to Taguba's] said,
that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to “set favorable
conditions for subsequent interviews”—a euphemism for breaking the will of
prisoners. “Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a
detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and
docile state.” ...Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that
the situation had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures
were flawed, he said, he found “no military police units purposely applying
inappropriate confinement practices.” His investigation was at best a
failure and at worst a coverup.
Instructions to Torture Come From Higher Levels of
Authority as Bush and Military Try to Scapegoat a Few Reservists [BWUSA]
Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private
contractors “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental
conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.” Taguba backed up his
assertion by citing evidence from sworn statements to Army C.I.D.
investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one of the accused M.P.s,
testified that it was her job to keep detainees awake, including one hooded
prisoner who was placed on a box with wires attached to his fingers, toes,
and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to get them to talk. It is Graner and
Frederick’s job to do things for MI and OGA to get these people to talk.”
Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the accused, told
C.I.D. investigators, “I witnessed prisoners in the MI hold section . . .
being made to do various things that I would question morally. . . . We were
told that they had different rules.” Taguba wrote, “Davis also stated that
he had heard MI insinuate to the guards to abuse the inmates. When asked
what MI said he stated: ‘Loosen this guy up for us.’‘Make sure he has a bad
night.’‘Make sure he gets the treatment.’” Military intelligence made these
comments to Graner and Frederick, Davis said. “The MI staffs to my
understanding have been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like,
‘Good job, they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question.
They’re giving out good information.’” When asked why he did not inform his
chain of command about the abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, “Because I
assumed that if they were doing things out of the ordinary or outside the
guidelines, someone would have said something. Also the wing”—where the
abuse took place—“belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the
abuse.” Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of
wrongdoing, said, “I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their
mattresses, sheets, and clothes.” (It was his view, he added, that if M.I.
wanted him to do this “they needed to give me paperwork.”) Taguba also cited
an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a translator who was an employee of Titan,
a civilian contractor. He told of one night when a “bunch of people from MI”
watched as a group of handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to
abuse by Graner and Frederick. General Taguba saved his harshest words for
the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended
that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be
reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel
Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing
Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a
civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired
from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying
to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen “who
were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by
‘setting conditions’ which were neither authorized” nor in accordance with
Army regulations. “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical
abuse,” Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a
second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the
company had “received no formal communication” from the Army about the
matter.)
SEE ALSO:
Top U.S. General Exemplifies Root of the
Prisoner Abuse Problem
(International Herald Tribune)
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
appeared on three national TV news programs (including Face the Nation and
Fox News Sunday) and said that he had not yet read Major General Taguba's
report. This fact is incredibly symptomatic of the military's indifference
and neglect of human rights of the prisoners the US holds. {BWUSA]
EXCERPT: Echoing comments by President Bush, he said, "It's really a shame
that just a handful can besmirch maybe the reputations of hundreds of
thousands of our soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines." General Myers
gave slightly differing answers, however, on whether such mistreatment might
have been systemic, possibly encouraged by military or intelligence
officials demanding that prisoners be emotionally broken quickly to provide
needed information. In one television appearance, General Myers said that
"there is no evidence of systematic abuse" of prisoners being held by
coalition forces. But in another interview, when asked how he could be
certain that prisoner abuses were not more widespread, General Myers
replied: "I'm not sure of it." "If we find out it is, then we've got to take
action" to prevent any further abuses, he said on the CBS News program "Face
the Nation." The military, General Myers added, was investigating prisoner
treatment not just in Iraq but in Afghanistan.
SEE ALSO:
Shocking New Details of Torture by US Troops
Report tells how prisoners were threatened with
rape; six British soldiers may be arrested over abuse claims
The Observer, 2 May 2004
EXCERPT: Chilling new evidence of the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi
prisoners by American soldiers emerged last night in a secret report
accusing the US army leadership of failings at the highest levels. Detainees
were subjected to 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses', according
to a military investigation suggesting that last week's photographs of US
soldiers humiliating their naked captives may only have been the tip of the
iceberg. It comes amid reports that six British soldiers may shortly be
arrested over claims that they too mistreated detainees. Soldiers from the
Queen's Lancashire Regiment are understood to have been questioned in Cyprus
after the publication yesterday of shocking photographs purporting to show a
prisoner being beaten, kicked and urinated on while in the regiment's
custody.
SEE ALSO:
Commentary: Bush's Human Rights Record Should be
Scandalous
(BushWhackedUSA)
SEE ALSO:
Inquiry into 'Torture' Pictures
(Guardian)
SEE ALSO:
Torture Commonplace, Say Iraqi Inmates' Families
(Guardian)
SEE ALSO:
US Guards Tried to Cover Up Abuse
(Guardian)
Beyond the Law: Torture Incidents
Show Privatization Has Gone Too Far
By Peter Singer
The Guardian, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: The reports of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners during
interrogations are horrifying. Fortunately, there is a clear and proper
legal response. Those accused will be court-martialled and, if found guilty,
they will be punished. But the story, sadly, does not end there. Also
playing a role in this deeply disturbing episode - in which Iraqi prisoners
were beaten, raped and forced to perform simulated sexual acts - were
private contractors, hired to serve as interrogators. That private
contractors are serving in US military prison camps should be surprising
enough. This takes our experiment with the boundaries of military
outsourcing to levels never anticipated. That a loophole in the law has
given a free pass to the contractors alleged to have been involved is
outrageous. In an attempt to fill the gap between the demand for
professional forces and the limited number deployed, an array of traditional
military and intelligence roles have been outsourced in Iraq, all without
public discussion or debate. There are up to 20,000 private contractors
operating in Iraq, carrying out military roles from logistics and local army
training to guarding installations and convoys.
Report on Abuse Faults 2 Officers in
Intelligence
By JAMES RISEN
New York Times, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: An internal Army investigation has found a virtual collapse of the
command structure in a prison outside Baghdad where American enlisted
personnel are accused of committing acts of abuse and humiliation against
Iraqi detainees. A report on the investigation said midlevel military
intelligence officers were allowed to skirt the normal chain of command to
issue questionable orders to enlisted personnel from the reserve military
police unit handling guard duty there. The Army has already begun one
investigation into the abuse allegations. Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, the
incoming deputy commander of Army intelligence, is examining the
interrogation practices of military intelligence officers at all
American-run prisons in Iraq and not just the Abu Ghraib prison. A second
review was ordered Saturday by Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, head of the Army
Reserve, to assess the training of all reservists, especially military
police and intelligence officers, the soldiers most likely to handle
prisoners. Six members of an Army Reserve military police unit assigned to
Abu Ghraib face charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment
of detainees. Gary Myers, a lawyer for Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, one
of the enlisted men charged in the case, requested over the weekend that the
Army open a court of inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, a move that would
expand the investigation beyond the six enlisted personnel to look at the
broader command failures. The widening prison-abuse scandal in Iraq, which
has stirred anger in the Arab world just as the Marines have tried to defuse
a bloody confrontation in Falluja, holds the potential to damage efforts by
American officials to meet a June 30 deadline to transfer limited self-rule
to the Iraqi people. It appeared to have caught senior Pentagon officials
and some top officers off guard on Sunday, despite President Bush's
condemnation of the abuses on Friday. Appearing on three Sunday talk shows,
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave
conflicting answers when asked if the problems at Abu Ghraib were systemic
throughout detention centers in Iraq.
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Ahmad Chalabi: A Double Game
Has Chalabi given 'sensitive' information on U.S. interests to Iran? He
denies it, but the White House is wary
By Mark Hosenball
Newsweek, May 10 issue -
EXCERPT: Ahmad Chalabi, the longtime Pentagon favorite to become leader of a
free Iraq, has never made a secret of his close ties to Iran. Before the
U.S. invasion of Baghdad, Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress maintained a
$36,000-a-month branch office in Tehran—funded by U.S. taxpayers. INC
representatives, including Chalabi himself, paid regular visits to the
Iranian capital. Since the war, Chalabi's contacts with Iran may have
intensified: a Chalabi aide says that since December, he has met with most
of Iran's top leaders, including supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and his top national-security aide, Hassan Rowhani. "Iran is Iraq's
neighbor, and it is in Iraq's interest to have a good relationship with
Iran," Chalabi's aide says.
The Price for Peace that Israel is
Unwilling to Pay
Sharon offered the Palestinians little,
but it was too much for the fanatics
By Max Hastings
The Guardian, 3 May 2004
EXCERPT: God has been misappropriated for many purposes in many lands over
the centuries, but seldom in such a bad cause as that of the Jewish settlers
of occupied Gaza and the West Bank. They have lobbied ferociously for weeks
to persuade the ruling Israeli Likud party, in its referendum yesterday, to
reject Ariel Sharon's proposal to "disengage" from Gaza, because they value
what they consider to be the biblical land of the Jews more than any chance
of peace. Sharon intends to take his plan to the Knesset whatever the
outcome of yesterday's vote. But the Israeli right remains opposed to any
significant retreat from Israel's empire on Palestinian lands. They will
continue to oppose disengagement, even though the Sharon plan is itself a
rightwing prescription for the castration of the Palestinians. Sharon, the
arch-hawk, intends to withdraw from Gaza because he and most of his
colleagues recognise the demographic problem their country faces. In a few
years, Jews in Israel and the occupied lands will be outnumbered by Arabs.
The response of many Likud members to this problem is to create an apartheid
state, in which Palestinians have no political rights.
1-2 May 2004
Recent Developments In Iraq
AP, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: Major developments Friday in Iraq:
-Iraqi troops began replacing U.S. Marines in Fallujah and raised the
Iraqi flag at the entrance to the besieged city under a plan to end the
monthlong siege of the city.
-A suicide car bomb on the outskirts of Fallujah killed two Americans
and wounded six.
-U.S. troops and radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to a
three-day truce in negotiations to end the standoff at this holy Shiite
city.
-Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. military operations in the Middle
East, said he does not need more American troops in Iraq, but he
pointedly urged Muslim nations to send forces. He said about a dozen
Iraqi security battalions that failed to perform in central and
south-central Iraq are being retrained and thus unavailable for "any
major challenges" until at least November.
Images of U.S. Troops Humiliating Iraqi Prisoners
Cause Outrage in Arab World
By Nadia Abou El-Magd
Associated Press, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: Arab outrage flashed across the Middle East on Friday as TV
stations showed graphic images of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated
by smiling U.S. military police. President Bush condemned the
mistreatment, saying he shared "a deep disgust that those prisoners were
treated the way they were treated." The photographs, shown on the
Dubai-based Al-Arabiya and the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, included pictures
of prisoners naked except for the hoods that covered their heads. They
were first broadcast Wednesday on CBS' "60 Minutes II" and have led to
charges against six U.S. soldiers. The Arab TV stations led news
bulletins with the photos of hooded prisoners piled on top of each other
in a human pyramid and simulating sex acts, with their genitals blurred.
Two U.S. soldiers standing near the prisoners hammed it up for the
camera. At the White House, Bush said the mistreatment of prisoners
"does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way
we do things in America. I didn't like it one bit." The photos, taken
last year, were inflammatory in an Arab world already angry at the U.S.
occupation of Iraq. Arabs consider public nudity dishonorable. "I was
disgusted and angered by those humiliating pictures," Egyptian insurance
agent Omar Boghdady said. "The scenes were really ugly." One of
the photos showed a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires
attached to his hands. CBS reported the prisoner was told that if he
fell off the box, he would be electrocuted, although the wires were not
really connected to a power supply. Bathsheba Crocker, an expert on
Iraqi reconstruction at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, said the images are likely to "fuel the feeling
of anti-American, anti-occupation sentiment among Iraqis." "It doesn't
help a situation in which the United States is already viewed very
badly. From a public relations perspective, it is yet another image for
Arabs to add to pictures of civilians being killed in Fallujah," she
said. Abu Ghraib was the most notorious of former Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's detention centers. Its jailers are alleged to have tortured
and killed thousands of Iraqis; a cemetery outside has dozens of
unmarked graves.
SEE ALSO:
Photographs of Abused Iraqi Prisoners
(Jaun Cole)
EXCERPT: Screen captures from the CBS 60 Minutes broadcast of
photographs of abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghuraib prison are
available at memory hole. Others are floating around the internet that
are even more explicit, and appear to involve forcing female prisoners
to perform sex acts on male ones. There was also apparently coerced male
on male sexual activity. The genteel mainstream news reports of this
scandal (which have given it less attention than it deserves or than it
will get in the Arab press) have not commented on the explicitly sexual
message sent by the abusers, which is that Iraq is f**ked.
Macedonia, Pandering to Bush's War On
Terrorism, Accused of Killing 7 Pakistanis
By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES
Associated Press, 30 April 2004
EXCERPT: Macedonian police gunned down seven innocent immigrants, then
claimed they were terrorists, in a killing staged to show they were
participating in the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, authorities
said Friday. Police spokeswoman Mirjana Konteska told reporters that six
people, including three former police commanders, two special police
officers and a businessman, have been charged by police with murder. If
convicted, they could be sentenced from 10 years to life in prison.
"That was an act of a sick mind," Konteska said after a two-year
investigation. "They ... ordered the brutal murder of the seven
Pakistani men." She described a meticulous plan to promote Macedonia as
a player in the fight against global terrorism that involved smuggling
the Pakistanis into Macedonia from Bulgaria, housing them, and then
coldly gunning them down. The killings, she added, were part of an
attempt to "present themselves as participants in the war against
terrorism and demonstrate Macedonia's commitment to the war on terror."
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