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19 May 2004
G.O.P. Extremists Shamelessly Soft on
Military Crime
By CARL HULSE and CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
New York Times, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: With top Iraq battlefield commanders scheduled to testify about the
prison abuse scandal before the Senate Armed Services Committee on
Wednesday, a major rift has developed among Republicans as to whether
Congress is taking the inquiry into the issue too far. A number of prominent
Republicans, including the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
accused the Senate committee on Tuesday of devoting too much attention to a
matter already under Pentagon investigation and distracting the military
leadership from the Iraq conflict itself. "It is time to refocus on winning
the war and not pull our battlefield leadership out of the theater," said
the House committee's chairman, Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of
California. The unusual public fight among Republicans reflected mounting
political anxiety over the course of the war... In expressing misgivings
about the Senate inquiry, Congressman Hunter was backed by the House
majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas. "We should not allow it
to distract us from the war at hand," Mr. DeLay said. Then unrest was
signaled in the Senate as well, by a junior Republican member of the
committee, John Cornyn of Texas, among others. Mr. Cornyn echoed Mr.
Hunter's complaint. "It begins to look like we are engaged in some
collective hand-wringing," the senator said, "which can be a distraction
from fighting and winning the war."
SEE ALSO:
Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross
Visits to Prison in Iraq
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: Army officials in Iraq responded late last year to a Red Cross
report of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison by trying to curtail the international
agency's spot inspections of the prison, a senior Army officer who served in
Iraq said Tuesday. After the International Committee of the Red Cross
observed abuses in one cellblock on two unannounced inspections in October
and complained in writing on Nov. 6, the military responded that inspectors
should make appointments before visiting the cellblock. That area was the
site of the worst abuses. The Red Cross report in November was the earliest
formal evidence known to have been presented to the military's headquarters
in Baghdad before January, when photographs of the abuses came to the
attention of criminal investigators and prompted a broad investigation. But
the senior Army officer said the military did not start any criminal
investigation before it replied to the Red Cross on Dec. 24. The Red Cross
report was made after its inspectors witnessed or heard about such practices
as holding Iraqi prisoners naked in dark concrete cells for several days at
a time and forcing them to wear women's underwear on their heads while being
paraded and photographed. Until now, the Army had described its response on
Dec. 24 as evidence that the military was prompt in addressing Red Cross
complaints, but it has declined to release the contents of the Army
document, citing the tradition of confidentiality in dealing with the
international agency.
SEE ALSO:
Pain passed down to prisoners
Officers Say U.S. Colonel at Abu Ghraib Prison Felt
Intense Pressure to Get Inmates to Talk
By DOUGLAS JEHL
New York Times, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: As he took charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison last
September, Col. Thomas M. Pappas was under enormous pressure from his
superiors to extract more information from prisoners there, according to
senior Army officers. "He likened it to a root canal without novocaine," a
senior officer who knows Colonel Pappas said of his meetings with his
superiors in Baghdad. Often, the officer said, Colonel Pappas would emerge
from discussions with two of them, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast and Lt. Gen.
Ricardo S. Sanchez, without a word, but "clutching his face as if in pain."
Colonel Pappas, commander of the 205th Intelligence Brigade, relocated his
headquarters from Camp Victory, near the Baghdad airport, to Abu Ghraib just
days after a visit to Iraq last fall by another high-ranking Army officer,
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller. General Miller encouraged the Army colonel to
have his unit work more closely with military police to set the conditions
for interrogations. By the end of September, Colonel Pappas had asserted
control of Tier 1 of the prison's "hard site," used for interrogation of
Iraqi prisoners, which he maintained until February, when he and his brigade
were transferred to Germany at the end of their yearlong tour. After Nov.
19, by order of General Sanchez, Colonel Pappas and his brigade took command
of all of Abu Ghraib prison, taking over authority from the 800th Military
Police Brigade. Now Colonel Pappas, who in sworn testimony to a senior Army
investigator acknowledged that his subordinates directed military police
officers to strip Iraqi prisoners naked and to shackle them, is the
highest-ranking officer on active duty known to be under investigation for
the abuses committed at Abu Ghraib prison.
The Jesus Landing Pad
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel
move
By Rick Perlstein
The Village Voice, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our yes were the
notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with
Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay
marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the
Presidents [sic] administration and current Government is engaged in
cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level" this to a group
whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by
witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all,
apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top
Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure
American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.
But now we know. "Everything that you're discussing is information you're
not supposed to have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when
asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25.
Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and
obtained by the Voice.
More Than 100 Percent Turnout?
That's E-Voting
By Jo Best
Silicon.com, 10 May 2004
EXCERPT: Getting voters to the polls on a normal day isn't easy. But with
the advent of e-voting in Orange County, California in elections last week,
it looks like that's all changed. With the new electronic terminals, turnout
was far higher than expected - more than 100 per cent in some districts.
Compared to the local average of about 37 per cent, it's an impressive
figure - but it won't be bringing a smile to the faces of the Orange County
officials. According to the LA Times, it's human error, not technology,
that's responsible. The e-voting system uses codes to assign a voter to a
particular precinct. Some election workers had been mistakenly assigning
voters to the wrong precinct - resulting in the higher than expected number
of ballots in 21 voting precincts.
Probe Targets Government Scientists'
Consulting
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: Top legal and ethics officials in the Department of Health and
Human Services have repeatedly allowed government scientists to engage in
lucrative consulting deals with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies
while ignoring the concerns of lower-level ethics officers, according to
evidence presented at a House subcommittee hearing yesterday.
Under Pressure
Hot-button issues spur lobby spending as some states weaken disclosure
By Robert Morlino
Center for Public Integrity, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: Lobbyists in 41 states reported spending more than $889
million wining, dining and influencing state lawmakers in 2003, according to
a new study by the Center for Public Integrity. That figure is up from the
$720 million of lobbyist spending reported in 40 states in 2002. A
year-to-year comparison of the nationwide total for spending on state
lobbying was not possible because of variations among state disclosure
requirements. Some states do not require lobbyists to disclose their
spending each year. Among those 37 states that do have reporting mechanisms
roughly comparable to 2002, 29 reported some increase in spending. Twenty
states saw increases in spending of at least 10 percent, and eight of
them—Delaware, Florida, Maine, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Wyoming—saw
increases of 30 percent or more.
Cold Turkey
By Kurt Vonnegut
In These Times, 10 May 2004
EXCERPT: Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible
that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my
generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great
Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for
that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace. But I know
now that there is not a chance in hell of America's becoming humane and
reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By
saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of
wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East?
Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being
treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
18 May 2004
USA Today Founder Calls For Quick
Withdrawal From Iraq and For Bush Not to Run Again
Editor and Publisher, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: ...the founder of USA Today not only calling for a quick
withdrawal, but for President Bush to announce he will not run for
re-election. One might ask what the American adventure in Iraq is coming to
when Republican booster Tucker Carlson says he was "foolish" to support the
war (claiming he was led astray by friends), and George Will and David
Brooks offer profound misgivings, while the New York Times advocates
"sending more troops, or delaying scheduled rotations out of Iraq." But it
was a column by politically moderate Allen H. Neuharth in USA Today that
proved most startling. After calling the Iraq war "the biggest military mess
miscreated in the Oval Office and miscarried by the Pentagon in my 80-year
lifetime," Neuharth on Friday declared: "Reluctantly, I now believe the best
way to support troops in Iraq is to bring them home, starting with the
'hand-over' on June 30." Neuharth criticized Bush's "cowboy culture" of
shooting first and asking questions later, adding that "his total lack of
postwar planning helped prompt the ongoing prison-abuse embarrassments and
brutal retaliations." He concluded: "Maybe Bush should take a cue from a
fellow Texan, former president Lyndon Baines Johnson, who also had some
cowboy characteristics. "LBJ, after mismanaging the Vietnam War that so
bitterly divided the nation and the world, decided he owed it to his
political party and to his country not to run for re-election. So, he turned
tail and rode off into the sunset of his Texas ranch. "How do you say 'deja
vu' in Cowboyese?"
The Wastrel Son
Paul Krugman
New York Times, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: One by one, our erstwhile allies are disowning us; they don't want
an unstable, anti-Western Iraq any more than we do, but they have concluded
that President Bush is incorrigible. Spain has washed its hands of our
problems, Italy is edging toward the door, and Britain will join the rush
for the exit soon enough, with or without Tony Blair. At home, however, Mr.
Bush's protectors are not yet ready to make the break. Last week Mr. Bush
asked Congress for yet more money for the "Iraq Freedom Fund" — $25 billion
for starters, although Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, says
that the bill for the full fiscal year will probably exceed $50 billion, and
independent experts think even that is an underestimate. And you know what?
He'll get it. ...the tone of the cover letter Mr. Bush sent with last week's
budget request can best be described as contemptuous: it's up to Congress to
"ensure that our men and women in uniform continue to have the resources
they need when they need them." This from an administration that, by
rejecting warnings from military professionals, ensured that our men and
women in uniform didn't have remotely enough resources to do the job. The
budget request itself was almost a caricature of the administration's "just
trust us" approach to governing. It ran to less than a page, with no
supporting information. Of the $25 billion, $5 billion is purely a slush
fund, to be used at the secretary of defense's discretion. The rest is
allocated to specific branches of the military, but with the proviso that
the administration can reallocate the money at will as long as it notifies
the appropriate committees. Senators are balking for the moment, but
everyone knows that they'll give in, after demanding, at most, cosmetic
changes. Once again, Mr. Bush has put Congress in a bind: it was his
decision to put American forces in harm's way, but if members of Congress
fail to give him the money he demands, he'll blame them for letting down the
troops.
AUDIO LINK
A Real Conservative Speaks Out:
Democracy Comes to Iraq
NPR's Morning Edition, 18 May 2004
In the first in a series of commentaries on the Iraqi prison scandals,
Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,
says the abuses are not an indictment against the American system.
AUDIO LINK
Michael Moore Unleashes A Devastating Attack On Bush
NPR's Morning Edition, 18 May 2004
Review of Cannes Offerings
NPR's Renee Montagne talks with Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan
about the Cannes Film Festival. They discuss highlights from this year's
films, including Fahrenheit 911, the new Michael Moore film that examines
President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and the war on terror.
So much for conservative opposition to government
meddling...
Bush Renews Call to Ban Gay Marriage
Associated Press, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush on Monday renewed his call for Congress to pass a
constitutional amendment banning gay marriages. On the same day that
Massachusetts began issuing licenses to gay couples, Bush said in a
statement, "The sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a
few activist judges." In the statement, read aboard Air Force One by White
House press secretary Scott McClellan while traveling to Topeka, Kan., Bush
said that "all Americans have a right to be heard in this debate."
SEE ALSO:
One Marriage, For All (TomPaine.com)
Powell Admits False WMD Claim
By David Corn
The Nation, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: It would be a foolish endeavor to call for this Republican Congress
to mount a thorough investigation of this Republican administration. But
what else is there to do in response to the comments made by Secretary of
State Colin Powell this past weekend? Appearing on Meet the Press, Powell
acknowledged--finally!--that he and the Bush administration misled the
nation about the WMD threat posed by Iraq before the war. Specifically, he
said that he was wrong when he appeared before the UN Security Council on
February 5, 2003, and alleged that Iraq had developed mobile laboratories to
produce biological weapons. That was one of the more dramatic claims he and
the administration used to justify the invasion of Iraq. (Remember the
drawings he displayed.) Yet Powell said on MTP, "it turned our that the
sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately
misleading." Powell did not spell it out, but the main source for this claim
was an engineer linked to the Iraqi National Congress, the exile group led
by Ahmed Chalabi, who is now part of the Iraqi Governing Council. Powell
noted that he was "comfortable at the time that I made the presentation it
reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of the intelligence
community." In other words, the CIA was scammed by Chalabi's outfit, and it
never caught on. So who's been fired over this? After all, the nation
supposedly went to war partly due to this intelligence. And partly because
of this bad information over 700 Americans and countless Iraqis have lost
their lives. Shouldn't someone be held accountable? Maybe CIA chief George
Tenet, or his underlings who went for the bait? Or Chalabi's neocon friends
and champions at the Pentagon: Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle?
How do they feel about their pal, the great Iraqi leader, now? For months
after the invasion, George W. Bush told the public that he had based his
decision to invade Iraq on "good, solid intelligence." Does he still believe
that? Has anyone told him that his government was hornswoggled by Chalabi,
who was once convicted of massive bank fraud in Jordan. (Since Bush has said
he does not read the newspapers or pay much attention to conventional media,
he may not have heard about Powell's remarks unless an aide bothered to
brief him on them.) And in January, Dick Cheney said that there was
"conclusive evidence" that Saddam Hussein had manufactured bioweapons labs
on wheels. Is he willing to say he was wrong?
SEE ALSO:
Powell Says C.I.A. Was Misled About Weapons
(NYT)
Pentagon to Keep Cash from Halliburton
By Matt Kelley
Associated Press, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: Pentagon auditors have recommended withholding nearly $160 million
in payments to Halliburton Corp., saying the company charged the military
for meals in and around Iraq that were never served. Vice President Dick
Cheney's former company released a statement Monday night saying it hoped to
persuade Army officials to reject the auditors' recommendation. The alleged
overcharging for meals last year is one of several suspected improprieties
with the contract work in Iraq of Halliburton subsidiary KBR, formerly known
as Kellogg, Brown & Root. Authorities are investigating allegations of
overcharging for fuel delivered to Iraq, kickbacks involving two former KBR
workers and other management problems. Investigators for the Defense
Contract Audit Agency, or DCAA, concluded last week that KBR charged the
military for thousands of meals it never provided to troops under its
contract to provide logistical services to forces in the region.
Abandoning Workers Suffering from Lingering
9/11 Respiratory Damage
By Ralph Nader
Common Dreams, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: In the midst of devastation, debris and danger, 40,000 workers
plunged into the suffocating tasks of rescuing, salvaging and clearing the
twisted wreckage of the World Trade Center towers on and after September 11,
2001. They could have called in sick; instead they valiantly went to work
and got sick. Some very sick. To television viewers, the pictures of George
W. Bush and the fire fighters and police around him may remain as the most
remembered scenes in the immediate aftermath. To the workers personally, the
scenes were coughing, short breathing, spitting dust and blood from what a
hospital report called "the largest acute environmental disaster that has
ever befallen New York City." The media understandably focused on the
heroics but, not as understandably, never really got around to tracking the
occupational sicknesses. Or what the workers are still going through to
recover, retire or simply plead for workers' compensation.
Tainted by Torture
How evidence obtained through coercion is undermining the legal war on
terrorism.
By Phillip Carter
Slate, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: There are plenty of good reasons to avoid using torture in
interrogations. It's an immoral and barbaric practice condemned by most
Western nations and theological traditions, for starters. International
human rights
law
and U.S. criminal law both
outlaw it. And as if that's not enough, there is serious doubt as to whether
torture even produces reliable intelligence, as Mark Bowden
explains in the October 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.
Add this additional reason to the list: Any information gained through
torture will almost certainly be excluded from court in any criminal
prosecution of the tortured defendant. And, to make matters worse for
federal prosecutors, the use of torture to obtain statements may make those
statements (and any evidence gathered as a result of those statements)
inadmissible in the trials of other defendants as well. Thus, the net effect
of torture is to undermine the entire federal law enforcement effort to put
terrorists behind bars. With each alleged terrorist we torture, we most
likely preclude the possibility of a criminal trial for him, and for any of
the confederates he may incriminate.
Thanks to a
report in Wednesday's New York Times, we now know that the
United States has intentionally used (with the sanction of the highest
levels of government) torture tactics to pry open the mind of Khalid Sheik
Mohammed, alleged to be one of al-Qaida's top masterminds. According to the
Times, "C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force,
including a technique known as 'water boarding,' in which a prisoner is
strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might
drown." Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
described such tactics as a violation of the Geneva Conventions. And the
FBI has instructed its agents to steer clear of such coercive interrogation
methods, for fear that their involvement might compromise testimony in
future criminal cases.
SEE ALSO: Is Torture Against the Law?
(Slate)
The Buck Stops …
Where?
Stop blaming your henchmen, Mr. President.
By Fred Kaplan
Slate, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: And so it seems I, too, have
misunderestimated the
president. This past Wednesday, I wrote a
column holding George W. Bush
responsible for our recent disasters—the torture at Abu Ghraib and the whole
plethora of strategic errors in Iraq. My main argument was that Bush has
placed too much trust, for far too long, in the judgment of Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, despite his ceaseless string of bad judgments.
However, two news stories that have since come to my attention—one that
appeared on the same day, the other more than two months ago—suggest not
merely that Bush is guilty of "failing to recognize failure" (as my headline
put it) but that he is directly culpable for the sins in question, no less
so than his properly beleaguered defense chief.
17 May 2004
Chaos in Washington
By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch, 15 May 2004
EXCERPT: Nicholas Berg's murder, grisly beyond imagining, was literally
staged as the al-Qaeda equivalent of an MTV-style recruitment video or, as
Matthew B. Stannard of the San Francisco Chronicle put it recently, an
al-Qaeda "press release." It makes me sick. We are now in the pissing
contest from Hell. It's bad enough that there's one Osama bin Laden (and
burgeoning associates) out there, but it's starting to seem like al-Qaeda
runs the White House as well. Certainly, when it comes to the Bush
administration, the phrase "wish fulfillment" has gained new meaning.
Evidently, our President only has to repeat the formula, "Iraq is the
central battlefield in the war against terrorism," and by God, it's so. The
next thing you know, one of the nastiest videos in history, with "made in
Iraq" stamped on it, is passing around the Internet (though I couldn't bear
to look myself). In fact, we seem to be in a worst-videos-on-Earth contest
and here's the horrible thing -- if al-Qaeda's are meant as recruitment
videos (hard as that might be to imagine); ours, direct from Abu Ghraib
prison, are likely to prove far more effective. Our President might as well
get back on TV and insist that we're in a "crusade" a few hundred more
times. After all, what does it matter any more? Can Osama bin Laden's belief
that we are indeed in a war of religious civilizations be supported any more
effectively?
Blame the White Trash
The Abu Ghraib torturers are vile, but they are being scapegoated for crimes
that are the fruit of occupation
By Gary Younge
The Guardian, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Two young women have achieved iconic status in US President George
Bush's battle between good and evil currently touring Iraq. And if the
administration's propaganda machine is to be believed, one of them is good
and the other one is evil. One the side of good there is Jessica Lynch. When
we first met her, in April last year, she was the plucky soldier who had
been captured after a "valiant gunfight", slapped around and then rescued on
camera in a "midnight ballet" by a daring posse. Representing evil is
Lynndie England. When we first met her she was smoking a cigarette and
giving a thumbs up while pointing at the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi
prisoner. She appears to be laughing; he appears to be masturbating. Lynch
was lauded as a national hero; England has been lambasted as a national
disgrace. While no one has yet to describe England as the anti-Christ they
have come close. In the words of one of her neighbours, she is the
"anti-Jessica". Lynch and England are real people - both young working-class
women from West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the union. But in the
hands of the Pentagon spinmeisters they are also constructs, rooted in
gender and class. Lynch, we now know, never fired a shot and was well cared
for while held captive. Of the Pentagon's spin machine she complained: "They
used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff ... I'm not about to take
credit for something I didn't do." Precisely the same is happening of
England and, to a lesser extent, the other soldiers who have been court-martialled
as a result of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. They are being used to
symbolise not all that is wrong with the war but the only thing that is
wrong with it. While all the evidence, including new allegations that the
defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, authorised physical coercion and sexual
humiliation in Iraqi prisons, points to the American political
establishment's active encouragement of the abuse, the White House keeps
pointing at England and her six colleagues to bear the moral burden for
their immoral war.
Where Was Press When First Iraq Prison
Allegations Arose?
November 2003 AP report got little play or follow-up.
By Greg Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, 13 May 2004
EXCERPT: Is the press trying to make up for lost time once again? The media
is now bursting with accounts of prison abuse at Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi
prisons, but where were they last fall when evidence of wrongdoing started
to emerge -- when a public accounting might have halted what turned out to
be the worst of the incidents? "It was not an officially sanctioned
story that begins with a handout from an official source," Charles J.
Hanley, Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for The Associated Press, told
me this week. Hanley started looking into accusations of abuse when he
returned to Baghdad for his latest tour of press duty last September. It led
to a series of stories, culminating in a shocking report on Nov. 1, 2003,
based on interviews with six released detainees.
He is still amazed that apparently no one else was looking into the
allegations, and no major newspaper picked up on his reporting after it
appeared. Why? "That's something you'd have to ask editors at major
newspapers," he said. "But there does seem to be a very strong prejudice
toward investing U.S. official statements with credibility while
disregarding statements from almost any other source -- and in this current
situation, Iraqi sources." The Hanley stories last fall told of detainees
being attacked by dogs, humiliated by guards and spending days with hoods
over their heads, now familiar images in the American -- and Arab -- mind.
Even after the Pentagon promised an investigation in January, and announced
arrests in March, Hanley was "surprised there was not more interest and
investigative reporting done. It's hard to fault my colleagues in Baghdad
considering the pressure and danger they feel. Many stories are missed --
that's the way it is in war. But clearly there is a mindset in the U.S.
media that slows the aggressive pursuit of stories that make the U.S.
military look bad."
The Bush Doctrine: Thumbs Up
By Naomi Klein
ZNet, 15 May 2004
EXCERPT: In 1968, the legendary U.S. labour organizer Cesar Chavez went on a
25-day hunger strike. While depriving himself of food, he condemned abusive
conditions suffered by farm workers. The slogan of his historic union drive
was Si se puede! Yes, we can. Last week, George Bush went on a four-day bus
ride. While stopping for multiple pancake breakfasts, he praised tax cuts
and condemned everyone who says American workers need protection in the
global economy. His battle cry for laissez fair economics? Yes, America Can.
The echo was probably intentional. Bush is so desperate for the Hispanic
vote that he has taken to shouting, Vamos a ganar! We re going to win!
during stump speeches in Ohio. But the main purpose of the Yes, American Can
bus tour, of course, was to shift the attention of U.S. voters away from the
Iraq prison scandal toward safer ground: the recovering job market.
According to a U.S. Labor Department Report, 288,000 jobs were created in
April. Bush s campaign has seized on these numbers to further cast John
Kerry as the dour New England pessimist, always droning on with the bad
news. Bush, on the other hand, is the bouncy Texan optimist, always flashing
an easy smile and a thumbs-up. The president has to make sure that we re
optimistic and confident in order for jobs to be created, he told a
carefully screened crowd in Dubuque, Iowa. Some jobs, however, are more
responsive than others to the power of positive presidential thinking. More
than 82 per cent of the jobs created in April were in service industries,
including restaurants and retail, while the biggest new employers were temp
agencies. Over the past year, 272,00 manufacturing jobs have been lost. No
wonder the President s Economic Report in February floated the idea of
reclassifying fast-food restaurants as factories. When a fast-food
restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a service or is
it combining inputs to manufacture a product? the report asks.
SEE ALSO:
Spin Control = Thumbs Up at the Park Service
(BushGreenWatch)
America's Army Wants You AND Your
Joystick!
Army Gunning for Game Players
By David Becker CNet News, 12 May 2004
EXCERPT: The U.S. Army is looking for a few good gamers. Beginning the
second year of its experiment in using free, custom-built PC games to give
young people a taste of military life, the Army is finding the games to be
not only spectacularly popular but a uniquely powerful promotional tool.
Chris Chambers, deputy director of the "America's Army" project, said in an
interview at the E3 gaming trade show here that prospective soldiers who
contact Army recruiters after playing the game have a better follow-through
rate than any other form of advertising or promotion. "It's a much more
efficient and effective vehicle for the Army to provide information to young
people than the other media we use," Chambers said. And game players may
well turn out to be better soldiers, based on recent academic research that
shows regular game-playing boosts certain visual-spatial abilities. "There's
a very high level of visual acuity in game players that's different than
nonplayers," Chambers said. "They're good at focusing on specific things in
a chaotic environment, which is an important skill in a lot of Army
situations."
Brown v. Board of Education "The
Schedule for the Correction of Grievances"
By Paul Street ZNet, 15 May 2004
EXCERPT: Per-student spending disparities tell only one part of the story of
the "savage [school] inequalities" that persist under the post-Brown system
of "educational apartheid." Inner-city black and Latino students' senses of
beauty and dignity are still assaulted by rotting school structures, archaic
bathrooms, stinking corridors, and decrepit school materials. They still
suffer from chronic instability and under-qualification on the part of their
teachers. Their chances for learning are still challenged by overcrowded
classrooms with inordinately high student-teacher ratios. Their aspirations
to create successful and democratic lives are "amputated" by teachers and
school officials who see them as incapable of grasping higher thoughts,
attending college, finding useful work, and participating as full citizens.
Their natural love for learning is crushed on the wheels of a
neo-Dickensian, proto-militarized, and standardized-test-based "skill and
drill" curriculum that values rote memorization over critical and creative
thinking. And they know more about the names of their state's prisons than
they do about those of their state's universities, and for good reason. In
the spring of 2001, there were 20,000 more black males in Illinois state
prisons than in the bachelors' programs of the state's public universities.
In Chicago, the city schools chief continually reports a high-school drop
rate of 13 percent in spite of abundant, readily available research showing
that the rate is much higher and that less than half of the city's black 9th
graders make it to graduation. It seems worth noting that half of black male
high school dropouts serve time in prison during their adult lives. Even
some of the most dedicated and heroic public school teachers are driven out
of urban schools by the soulless, mind-numbing, test-targeted anti-pedagogy
that school systems and public authorities impose with special vengeance on
the urban poor. The centrally scripted lesson plans that urban school
directorates inflict on "neighborhood" schools are derided by the actual
classroom practitioners as "teacher-proof materials." They are designed to
inoculate young minds against democratic imagination and to encourage a
dangerously bored and authoritarian mindset. The corporate-Stalinist
curriculum is accompanied by stern lectures on "accountability" from
officials who typically know and care little about the art of teaching and
the challenges faced by staff and pupils in inner city schools. These
lectures are unaccompanied by the resources required to meet the un-funded
mandates set by such legislative atrocities as the perversely plagiarist "No
Child Left Behind Act."
Taxpayers Losing Millions as Bush OK's Logging in
Roadless Forests
BushGreenWatch, 12 May 2004
EXCERPT: The Tongass and Chugach National Forests contain some of the
largest remaining stands of roadless ancient temperate rainforest in the
U.S. They hug the coast of southeast Alaska, providing habitat for numerous
wildlife species river otters, grizzly bears, bald eagles, mountain goats,
wolves, salmon, and more. Vital local industries, including commercial
fishing and tourism, depend upon the health of the Tongass and Chugach. The
Roadless Area Conservation Rule, enacted in January 2001, protects areas
like these from commercial logging. It also protects against oil and gas
drilling, as well as extensive off-road vehicle use. In May 2001, Secretary
of Agriculture Ann Veneman expressed support for the Roadless Rule, calling
it "the right thing to do." But when the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit in
2001 the Bush administration chose not defend the rule. Instead, last June
it proposed exempting the Tongass from the Roadless Rule's protection.
SEE ALSO:
US to Use 1872 Law Against Greenpeace (AP)
Farenheit 9/11 Could Light Fire
Under Bush
By Charlotte Higgins
The Guardian, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is without doubt the most
flaming-hot ticket at the Cannes film festival. And with good reason: Moore
hopes that it will bring down the US government. The American film-maker has
hitherto kept a tight lid on the contents of the documentary, saying only
that it includes evidence of alleged links between the Bush and Bin Laden
families. However, in two appearances in Cannes at the weekend before its
premiere today, he revealed that the movie contains shocking footage from
Iraq. Yesterday he said: "When you see the movie you will see things you
have never seen before, you will learn things you have never known before.
Half the movie is about Iraq - we were able to get film crews embedded with
American troops without them knowing that it was Michael Moore. They are
totally fucked."
Question Too Sensitive for Powell's
Press Aide?
NBC's Meet the Press, 16 May 2004
EXCERPT:
Russert: Finally, Mr. Secretary, in February of 2003, you
placed your enormous personal credibility before the United Nations and laid
out a case against Saddam Hussein citing...
(momentary silence, camera pans over seascape to the right)
Powell: Not off.
Emily: No. They can't use it. They're editing
it. They (unintelligible).
Powell: He's still asking me questions. Tim.
Emily: He was not...
Powell: Tim, I'm sorry, I lost you.
Russert: I'm right here, Mr. Secretary. I would
hope they would put you back on camera. I don't know who did that.
Powell: We really...
Russert: I think that was one of your staff, Mr.
Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate.
Powell: Emily, get out of the way.
Emily: OK.
Powell: Bring the camera back, please. I think
we're back on, Tim. Go ahead with your last question.
Russert: Thank you very much, sir. In February of
2003, you put your enormous personal reputation on the line before the
United Nations and said that you had solid sources for the case against
Saddam Hussein. It now appears that an agent called Curveball had misled
the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that were delivering
biological and chemical weapons. How concerned are you that some of the
information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?
Powell: I'm very concerned. When I made that
presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the
Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully;
we looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains.
There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing
over time has turned out to be not accurate. And so I'm deeply
disappointed. But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the
presentation, it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of
the intelligence community. But it turned out that the sourcing was
inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for
that, I am disappointed and I regret it.
Russert: Mr. Secretary, we thank you very much for
joining us again and sharing your views with us today.
Powell: Thanks, Tim.
Russert: And that was an unedited interview with
the secretary of state taped earlier this morning from Jordan. We
appreciate Secretary Powell's willingness to overrule his press aide's
attempt to abruptly cut off our discussion as I began to ask my final
question
SEE ALSO:
Powell's Interview Is Cut Off
By COURTNEY C. RADSCH
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was abruptly cut off during an
interview on Sunday on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" when one of his
aides decided the interview had gone on long enough.
Down but Not Out, Kucinich Keeps On
Fighting
By RICK LYMAN
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Before Americans get too engrossed in a general election contest
between President Bush and Senator John Kerry, Dennis J. Kucinich would like
to remind them of something: He's still out here, working hard every day,
slogging from town to town, the second-to-last person still standing in the
fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. "Math is not my major, but
I can count," the Ohio congressman said as his car wound along the dripping,
piney woods of the central Oregon coast, a glowering sky flecking the
windshield with pin-sized raindrops. "I understand that Kerry has enough
delegates to be nominated. I can count, but I can also figure." ...And what
he wants Mr. Kerry, and the Democratic Party, to do is to take an
unambiguous stand not only against the war in Iraq but against "the very
idea that war is inevitable." The nation's whole political mindset must be
changed, Mr. Kucinich said. "We are at the unusual juncture where what is
morally right and politically efficacious are in confluence," he said. "My
presence in the race provides a persistent reminder of the necessity of
taking a new direction, the first step of which is to bring our troops home
now."
OPM Chief Faults Rumsfeld Plan
Defense Reconsiders Approach to Revamping Work Rules
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: One prominent critic says Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's
plan to revamp the department's personnel system tramples veterans' rights,
offers a bad model for changing federal pay and represents a strategic
blunder in the attempt to modernize the federal civil service
government-wide. The critic is not some union leader or razor-tongued
analyst. She is the Bush administration's own human resources guru: Kay
Coles James, director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Fundraiser Denies Link Between Money,
Access
Ohio Businessman, a Big GOP Donor, Benefited From EPA Rule Change He
Supported
By James V. Grimaldi and Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post, 17 May 2004
Second of two articles
EXCERPT: Richard T. Farmer is one of America's richest men and a Bush
Pioneer by virtue of having raised at least $100,000 for the 2000 campaign.
Over the past 15 years, he and his wife have given $3.1 million to Bush
campaigns, the Republican Party and Republican candidates.
Panel Urges New Protection on Federal
'Data Mining'
By ROBERT PEAR
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: A federal advisory committee says Congress should pass laws to
protect the civil liberties of Americans when the government sifts through
computer records and data files for information about terrorists. "The
Department of Defense should safeguard the privacy of U.S. persons when
using data mining to fight terrorism," the panel says in a report to Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The report, expected to be issued in about two
weeks, says privacy laws lag far behind advances in information and
communications technology.
15-16 May 2004
Rumsfeld Root of Prison Scandal
Gen. Meyers Complicit, Stephen Cambone Named as
Principal Operative
'Black Program' Used Against al Qaeda
Illegally Employed in Iraq
The Gray Zone
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
New Yorker, Issue of 2004-05-24
EXCERPT: The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal
inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year
by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret
operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the
interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the
American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat
units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.
According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence
officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community
by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion
and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more
intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official,
in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation
stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s
clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.
Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu
Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret
matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was
telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, “Any
suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened,
and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding.” The
senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen
Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you
can bullshit anyone.”
...“In an odd way,” Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights
Watch, said, “the sexual abuses at Abu Ghraib have become a diversion for
the prisoner abuse and the violation of the Geneva Conventions that is
authorized.” Since September 11th, Roth added, the military has
systematically used third-degree techniques around the world on detainees.
“Some jags hate this and are horrified that
the tolerance of mistreatment will come back and haunt us in the next war,”
Roth told me. “We’re giving the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the
Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld has lowered the bar.”
SEE ALSO:
AUDIO LINK
Pentagon Denies Iraq Abuse Photos Were for Blackmail
Weekend Edition - Sunday, 16 May 2004
The Pentagon issues a denial of charges that Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld began a secret program to collect intelligence from foreign
detainees independently of the CIA. The report, in a New Yorker article by
Seymour M. Hersh, describes Rumsfeld approving the use of Special Access
Programs personnel for interrogations in Iraq. Hear NPR's Liane Hansen and
Hersh.
SEE ALSO:
Department of Defense Carefully Worded (Non-denial)
Denial
SEE ALSO:
Report: Rumsfeld OK'd Prisoner Program
(LA Times)
SEE ALSO:
Abuse Brings Deaths of Captives Into Focus
(LA Times)
SEE ALSO:
Following Orders?
Accused Soldier Claims Intelligence Officers Gave Orders to Rough Up
Prisoners
(ABC News)
Iraq War Eclipses Domestic Agenda
By Janet Hook
LA Times, 16 May 2004
EXCERPT: ..."But stuff keeps happening." That is just one symptom of the
toll being taken by the war in Iraq, a festering crisis that has become the
political equivalent of a black hole, absorbing White House energy, public
attention and the media spotlight. Forced to pour its political capital into
maintaining support for U.S. policy in Iraq, the White House has had less
time, energy and money to spend on other controversial issues. That has
contributed to the fact that Bush's plans to expand free trade with
Australia and Central America have stalled, and his proposal to liberalize
immigration rules has gone nowhere. His program to promote economic and
political reform in the Third World is expected to be under-funded because
of soaring Iraq war costs. And on the campaign trail, the intense glare of
the prisoner abuse scandal is making it harder for Bush to highlight
positive news — such as the latest report on job creation. "Iraq is
displacing all other issues, coloring all other issues," said a Republican
lobbyist who is working with the Bush campaign. "They would prefer to run a
more balanced campaign. I'm not sure they can do it, because the battlefield
smoke will never clear long enough to sustain other issues." ...Iraq is also
draining human resources from the foreign policy establishment. Several
senior ambassadors, including U.S. envoys to Bahrain and Kuwait, have been
pulled from their posts and deployed to Iraq. "What is the signal that sends
to the world?" asked a senior State Department official. "America's got one
focus, and we can't chew gum and walk at the same time."
Wolfowitz Reluctantly Admits Some Authorized Interrogation Methods To Be
Inhumane
SENATOR JACK REED ( D-RI): Mr Secretary, do you think
crouching naked for 45 minutes is humane?
PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Not naked, absolutely not.
JACK REED: So if he's dressed up, that's fine?
Let me put it this way. 72 hours without regular sleep, sensory
deprivation which would be a bag over your head for 72 hours. Do you
think that's humane? And that's what this says, a bag over your head for
72 hours. Is that humane?
PAUL WOLFOWITZ: Let me come back to what you said the work…
JACK REED: No, no. Answer the question, Secretary. Is that humane?
PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I don't know whether it means a bag over your head for
72 hours Senator. I don't know.
JACK REED: Mr Secretary, you're dissembling, non-responsive. Anybody
would say putting a bag over someone's head for 72 hours, which is
sensory deprivation…
PAUL WOLFOWITZ: I believe it's not humane. It strikes me as not humane,
Senator.
JACK REED: Thank you very much.
--Before
the Senate Armed Forces Committee
AUDIO LINK
SEE ALSO:
NPR's All Things Considered, 13 May 2004
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz discusses the financial
underpinning of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with the
Senate Armed Services Committee. Lawmakers sought details of the
administration's request for $25 billion in additional funding and
grilled Wolfowitz on questions of responsibility regarding the Abu
Ghraib prison scandal. NPR's David Welna reports.
SEE ALSO:
Double Standards
Washington Post, 15 May 2004
EXCERPT: SEN. JACK REED (D-R.I.) asked two senior Pentagon officials
exactly the right question yesterday about the Bush administration's
interpretation of the Geneva Conventions. "If you were shown a video of
a United States Marine or an American citizen in control of a foreign
power, in a cell block, naked with a bag over their head, squatting with
their arms uplifted for 45 minutes, would you describe that as a good
interrogation technique or a violation of the Geneva Convention?" The
answer is obvious, and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of
defense, honestly provided it. "I would describe it as a violation," Mr.
Pace said. "What you've described to me sounds to me like a violation of
the Geneva Convention," Mr. Wolfowitz said.
Case closed -- except that the practices described by Mr. Reed have been
designated by the commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen.
Ricardo S. Sanchez, as available for use on Iraqi detainees, and
certified by the Pentagon as legal under the Geneva Conventions.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, they have
been systematically applied to prisoners across that country. And
earlier this week, the bosses of both Mr. Pace and Mr. Wolfowitz,
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, defended the techniques as
appropriate.
SEE ALSO:
U.S. Military Lawyers Felt 'Shut Out'
of Prison Policy
They said civilian political lawyers were deciding how prisoners
could be questioned. At issue is how to interpret the Geneva Convention.
By Ken Silverstein
LA Times, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: A group of senior military lawyers were so concerned
about changes in the rules designed to safeguard prisoners during
interrogation that they sought help outside the Defense Department,
according to a New York lawyer who headed a recent study of how
prisoners have been treated in the war on terrorism. The military
lawyers were part of the Army Judge Advocate General's office, which in
the past has played a role in ensuring that interrogators did not
violate prisoners' rights. "They were extremely upset. They said they
were being shut out of the process, and that the civilian political
lawyers, not the military lawyers, were writing these new rules of
engagement," said Scott Horton, who was chairman of the New York City
Bar Assn. committee that filed a report this month on the interrogation
of detainees by the U.S. The report was released just days before the
first photos were broadcast showing naked Iraqi detainees being abused
at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The Pentagon's
"interrogation rules of engagement" became a focus of controversy in the
Senate this week because they permitted the use of techniques such as
"stress positions" and "sensory deprivation" and the presence of
military dogs. Some international law experts, as well as some Senate
Democrats, said the loosened rules violated the Geneva Convention, which
forbids soldiers to use physical force to obtain information from
detainees. |
Bush Continues to Push His Credentials for
War on Terror
By MARIA NEWMAN
New York Times, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: Conceding that he is an a "tough race" to win re-election,
President Bush told a group of supporters in Missouri today that he deserves
to be given another term because "we have a war to win." At a time when
polls show that public support for the war in Iraq is waning, Mr. Bush said
he would not back down from his decision to send troops there in an attempt
to transform it into a democratic nation.
When the Call to Duty Comes a Second Time
In Washington State, extended tours are complicating the family life and
civilian jobs of part-time soldiers.
By Ann Scott Tyson
The Christian Science Monitor , 13 May 2004
EXCERPT: Already, 51 percent of the 350,000-strong Army National Guard has
been activated since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Pentagon projects
that over the next three to five years, it will require between 100,000 and
150,000 Guard and Reserve forces to support ongoing military operations,
according to a recent GAO report. More than 90 percent of the Guard's
military police and special forces have deployed, along with three-quarters
of its engineers, combat battalions, and transportation units. That stark
reality is making it harder to recruit. Pitches no longer center on
educational funds, but instead stress patriotism. "We have to look at kids
right in the face and say - 'You're signing up, and during your tour, you
will deploy,' " says Col. Mike Johnson, personnel director of the Washington
Army National Guard, which has 3,720 of its 6,200 personnel deployed.
Attracting soldiers from the active duty force is especially hard. That
pool, which has traditionally supplied 60 percent of the state's Guard
recruits, is providing 10 percent to 20 percent fewer in fiscal year 2004.
"We are getting a lot of reservations from guys who are just getting out [of
active duty]. They know if they join us they'll have to go right back in
there [to Iraq]," says Colonel Johnson, who keeps lists of deployed units on
his office walls. In the longer term, the Guard's shift from a "strategic
reserve" to an "operational force" will not be sustainable without greater
resources, says the National Guard Bureau chief, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum.
"Congress needs to reevaluate the benefits, the entitlements, the pay, the
resourcing, the equipping, and the full-time manning issues of the Army and
Air Guard or we can't be an operational force the way you would like it to
be," he told a House hearing April 29. Lacking such resources, the Guard has
drawn on units staying home - which now lack a third of their critical
equipment - to fill shortages in units called up for Iraq and Afghanistan,
stated the GAO report released late last month. For example, Army guard
units nationwide initiated the transfer of 71,000 people and 22,000 pieces
of equipment to three deploying combat brigades. Meanwhile, some state
officials worry that remaining Guard units lack the manpower and gear to
carry out homeland security missions and respond to natural disasters. For
their part, soldiers and their families measure the cost of a strained
system in personal terms: lost pay and lost time. Indeed, as of this
February, 57,000 Army Guardsmen (16 percent of the total) had been away from
home for more than 220 days of the past year.
A Bad Run for Elections Firm
Diebold was on track to capitalize on electronic balloting. But March
primary woes and civil, criminal probes have put its prospects at risk.
LA Times, 16 May 2004
EXCERPT: ...management missteps, technological glitches and simple bad luck
have made the company — whose voting machines are now banned in four
California counties — a symbol for all that could go wrong in the nation's
transition to electronic balloting. In 10 months, the company's voting
systems have been assailed as vulnerable to manipulation, its chief
executive has faced questions about his Republican Party activism, some of
its equipment malfunctioned in the March primary, and the California
secretary of state has called for criminal and civil investigations of the
company. ...The trouble started in July, when computer scientists at Johns
Hopkins University studied the software behind Diebold's voting system and
announced at a news conference that any savvy teenager could manipulate
Diebold's technology and sway an election. Three subsequent studies exposed
additional security concerns about electronic voting systems. The software,
though confidential, became public after it was mistakenly placed on an
Internet site and was downloaded by an activist concerned about flaws in
voting systems. As a result, Diebold's technology has undergone scrutiny
that competing systems have not.
Justice Dept. Must Clarify Role in Inquiry
By PHILIP SHENON
New york Times, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: A federal appeals court has demanded that Justice Department
prosecutors explain their "arguably inconsistent" statements about their
involvement in the interrogation of captured terrorists of Al Qaeda who
might provide valuable information to lawyers defending Zacarias Moussaoui,
according to a court order made public Friday. In the bluntly worded order,
the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va.,
said disclosures this week by the department suggested that it might now be
possible for Mr. Moussaoui's lawyers to submit written questions directly to
the Qaeda detainees. The issue is important in the prosecution of Mr.
Moussaoui, the only person charged in a United States court with conspiring
in the Sept. 11 attacks, because the Bush administration is refusing to make
the captured terrorists available to testify on Mr. Moussaoui's behalf.
Court records show that the prisoners have provided information in
interrogations that suggests that Mr. Moussaoui had nothing to do with the
Sept. 11 attacks.
Undeterred by McCain Denials, Some See Him
as Kerry's No. 2
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JODI WILGOREN
New York Times, 15 May 2004
EXCERPT: Despite weeks of steadfast rejections from Senator John McCain,
some prominent Democrats are angling for him to run for vice president
alongside Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, creating a bipartisan ticket
that they say would instantly transform the presidential race. The
enthusiasm of Democrats for Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, is so high
that even some who have been mentioned as possible Kerry running mates —
including Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska
senator — are spinning scenarios about a "unity government," effectively
giving Mr. Kerry a green light to reach across the political aisle and
extend an offer. "Senator McCain would not have to leave his party," Mr.
Kerrey said. "He could remain a Republican, would be given some authority
over selection of cabinet people. The only thing he would have to do is say,
`I'm not going to appoint any judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade,' " the
Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, which Mr. McCain has said he
opposes. Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who once worked for Mr.
Kerry, said such a ticket "would be the political equivalent of the Yankees
signing A-Rod," referring to Alex Rodriguez, the team's star third baseman.
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19 May 2004
Revisited
How Bush Policies Endanger the Future
Turning Points
Will the Modern Era Come Undone in Iraq?
By Robin Wright
Washington Post, 16 May 2004
EXCERPT: On a warm spring day in 1983, I stood across from what had been
the seven-story U.S. embassy in Beirut and watched as rescuers picked
through tons of mangled steel, torn concrete and glass shards -- the
rubble left by the first Muslim suicide bomber to strike an American
target. Tenderly, rescuers put bits of bodies -- more than 60 were
killed in the lunchtime bombing -- in small blue plastic bags.
Over the past quarter-century, I've covered the rage of the Islamic
world, witnessing much of it up close, losing friends who became victims
to its extremist wings and watching its furies swell. But I've never
been scared until now. The stakes in Iraq -- for which the Abu Ghraib
prison has tragically become the metaphor -- are not just the future of
a fragile oil-rich country or America's credibility in the world, even
among close allies. The issues are not simply whether the Pentagon has
systemic problems or whether Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the
Pentagon brass or even the Bush administration can survive The Pictures.
And the costs are not merely the billions from the U.S. Treasury to foot
the Iraq bills today or the danger that Mideast oil becomes a political
weapon during tumultuous days down the road. The stakes are instead how
the final phase of the Modern Era plays out.
SEE ALSO:
Outlook: Iraq and the Modern Age
(Washington Post)
SEE ALSO:
AUDIO LINK
U.S. Policy in Iraq
NPR's Diane Rehm Show, 18 May 2004
The president of the Iraqi Governing Council was assassinated in Baghdad
Monday, and there are new allegations regarding who authorized the abuse
of Iraqi prisoners. We'll hear different perspectives on U.S. policy in
Iraq.
Michael Hirsh, Senior editor at Newsweek, and author of
"At War With Ourselves" (Oxford)
Ruth Wedgwood, professor of international law at Johns
Hopkins University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
Robin Wright, "The Washington Post"
As Violence Deepens, So Does Pessimism
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: ..."We could not imagine the deterioration leading to such a
point. It's getting worse day after day, and no one has been able to put
an end to it. Who is going to protect the next government, no matter
what kind it is?" said Abdul Jalil Mohsen, a former Iraqi general and
member of the Iraqi National Accord, a prominent party represented on
the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, which Salim headed this month
under a rotating system. "There's no question: A small band of people
can paralyze the country," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish
member of the council. "They are armed and organized and this is the
difficulty. The people who did this have no respect for anything of
value. It's a real danger to Iraq, the Iraqis and to an agenda to
achieve any kind of democracy." Inside the Green Zone, the heavily
fortified U.S. administration compound that Salim was about to enter
when the suicide bomber struck, expectations are grim. "It will take a
lot of doing for this not to end in a debacle," a senior occupation
official said. "There is no confidence in the coalition. Why should
there be?" On Baghdad's hot and dusty streets, Iraqi working people also
expressed a deep sense of pessimism. "Our country is at a loss. I don't
think that even after the handover the government will control things,"
said Ali Fakhri, who owns a fabric store in the Kadhimiya district.
"Just look around," said Bakran Ohan, who sells baby clothes. "Do you
see any police? Any soldiers? There is a complete lack of security. It
won't change from day to night on June 30." Salim's death was a
high-profile reminder of the broader violence affecting Iraq. Central
Iraq, home to a long-running revolt by Sunni Muslims, is plagued by
daily roadside bombings, occasional car bombings and frequent
assassinations of Iraqis working with the U.S.-led administration. To
the south, frequent clashes over the past six weeks have pitted U.S. and
allied forces against a persistent insurgency led by Shiite Muslim
cleric Moqtada Sadr. Fighting has all but paralyzed several southern
cities. Hostile bands operate freely in cities that straddle the main
routes in and out of Baghdad. Foreigners who travel Iraqi roads run the
risk of being kidnapped, and reconstruction projects in many parts of
the country have come to a standstill.
'Definitely a Cover-Up'
Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says
Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal
By Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon
ABC News, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: Dozens of soldiers other than the seven military police
reservists who have been charged were involved in the abuse at Iraq's
Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide
it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS. "There's definitely
a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either
telling themselves or being told to be quiet." Provance, 30, was part of
the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last
September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his commanders not
to. "What I was surprised at was the silence," said Provance. "The
collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had
to have seen something or heard something." Provance, now stationed in
Germany, ran the top secret computer network used by military
intelligence at the prison. He said that while he did not see the actual
abuse take place, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted
they directed the MPs' rough treatment of prisoners. "Anything [the MPs]
were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take those commands from
the interrogators," he said. Top military officials have claimed the
abuse seen in the photos at Abu Ghraib was limited to a few MPs, but
Provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners began as a technique
ordered by the interrogators from military intelligence. -----
Former Guantanamo Chief Clashed with
Army Interrogators Over Abuse of Detainees
General's sacking cleared way for Pentagon to rewrite rules
By Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: The commander of Guantanamo Bay, sacked amid charges from the
Pentagon that he was too soft on detainees, said he faced constant
tension from military interrogators trying to extract information from
inmates. Brigadier General Rick Baccus was removed from his post in
October 2002, apparently after frustrating military intelligence
officers by granting detainees such privileges as distributing copies of
the Koran and adjusting meal times for Ramadan. He also disciplined
prison guards for screaming at inmates. In one of the general's first
interviews since his dismissal, he told the Guardian: "I was mislabelled
as someone who coddled detainees. In fact, what we were doing was our
mission professionally." Gen Baccus's unceremonious departure offers a
rare insight into how the Pentagon rewrote the rules of warfare to suit
the Bush administration's view of a radically changed world following
the terror attacks of September 11 2001. It also suggests what can
happen to military personnel slow to sign on to the Pentagon's changed
view of the world. Eighteen months after being removed from Guantanamo,
Gen Baccus, 51, and a commander of the Rhode Island National Guard, is
still waiting for a new military assignment. Meanwhile, the systems set
in place at Guantanamo following his departure have come to govern
detention facilities in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
Cleric Warns on Iraq Holy Cities
BBC News, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: Iraq's most senior Shia cleric says all armed forces must be
withdrawn from the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani made the request in his first statement
since radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr began an insurgency against
US-led forces. It follows pitched battles last week close to Shia
Islam's holiest sites.
The United States Has Become Yazid
50 Sadrists Killed by Americans in Karbala and Nasiriyah; Sistani's
House Sprayed by Machine Gun Fire
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: ...The Umayyad Caliph who sent military forces against Imam
Husain, the grandson of the Prophet, and had him and his family and his
party slaughtered,
was named Yazid. The story of Yazid
killing Husain is the
central theological and ritual basis of Shiite Islam.
It is like the passion of the Christ for devout Christians. And just as
you wouldn't want to be identified as Judas by believing Christians, so
the last thing you would want if you were among Shiites would be to be
seen as in some way like Yazid. For many Iraqi Shiites, the United
States has become Yazid. And that is not something a colonial power can
easily recover from. It will get worse. If the US is responsible or
perceived as responsible for Muqtada's death, Muqtada will achieve
iconic status as a martyr, as like Imam Husain, and his legend will
inspire some portion of Shiites to fight the US to the death. Nor are
Muqtada's partisans afraid of martyrdom. Achieving death at the hands of
the new Yazid brings them and their families honor. And, for these poor
slum boys, life anyway hasn't been that great. They know death; they are
not afraid of it. It was always my nightmare that the US Army would come
to fight Shiites in Karbala and Najaf near the shrines. They seemed
pretty canny about the dangers until about March of this year. And then
all of a sudden, they risked being Yazid. I conclude that this does not
come from the US officer corps. I conclude that it comes from the desk
of George W. Bush. We don't have any officers in Iraq stupid enough to
want to be Yazid. But we have civilian politicians who know nothing
about Iraq who gave them an order to get Muqtada at all costs. Why that
was so urgent is still not obvious, but, like everything in this war, it
will be revealed to be a plot.
Children Among 20 Dead as Israeli Army
Begins Huge Crackdown on Rafah
Palestinian fighters vow to defend camp house by house
By Chris McGreal
The Guardian, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: Israeli forces attacked Rafah refugee camp yesterday at the
start of an operation to crush Palestinian armed resistance, before a
planned fresh wave of house demolitions. The army killed at least 20
people, including children, one of the highest death tolls in a single
day of the present intifada, as it occupied the Tel al-Sultan district
on the margins of the camp in preparation for an expected assault on the
heart of Rafah. Early this morning, Israeli armour also began moving
into the west of the camp, near the al-Brazil area. Extended gunfire was
heard but there were no immediate reports of casualties. Palestinians
fear much greater bloodshed, however, once the Israelis attack areas of
Rafah where resistance is usually stronger.
SEE ALSO:
Bush Backs Israel's Defense
By Dana Milbank and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post, 19 May 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush told the nation's pro-Israel lobby yesterday
that the Jewish state "has every right to defend itself from terror," as
the administration softened its opposition to an Israeli incursion into
Gaza that has killed a score of Palestinians.
Israel and the Occupied Territories:
Evictions and Demolitions Must Stop
Amnesty International, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: Israel's unjustified destruction of thousands of Palestinian
and Arab Israeli homes as well as vast areas of agricultural land has
reached an unprecedented level and must stop immediately, Amnesty
International said today. Over the last three and a half years, Israeli
armed forces have demolished more than 3,000 homes, leaving tens of
thousands of men, women and children homeless or without a livelihood.
In a report released today -- Israel and the Occupied Territories. Under
the rubble: House demolition and destruction of land and property --
Amnesty International said:
"The grounds invoked by Israel to justify the destruction are overly
broad and based on discriminatory policies and practices." "The
authorities gave us different justifications for refusing us the
building permit...Each time we succeeded to challenge or disprove the
reason they had given us for the refusal, our application was rejected
on different grounds. We spent thousands of dollars on this process. In
the end we understood that it was hopeless and we built our home without
a permit." The home of Salim and 'Arabia Shawamreh in the village of 'Anata
has been demolished four times and is now again under threat. According
to the United Nations, more than 2,000 homes in Gaza have been destroyed
in the last three years and 10 percent of the agricultural land. In the
West Bank, almost 90% of Israel's fence/wall is being built on occupied
territory and at least 600 homes have been destroyed.
- In the Occupied Territories, demolitions are often carried out as
collective punishments for Palestinian attacks or to facilitate the
expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. Both practices contravene
international law and some of these acts are war crimes.
- Discriminatory planning and building policies make it practically
impossible for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians to obtain building
permits.
- In Israel, the demolition of homes for lack of building permits in
the Arab sector is a recurrent phenomenon, whereas demolition of homes
without building permission in the Jewish sector is almost unheard of.
- Forced evictions and house demolitions are usually carried out
without warning with families given little or no time to leave their
homes and salvage their possessions.
- Most cases of house demolition and destruction of land are not
subject to legal supervision or appeal.
Amnesty International is calling on Israel to halt all unlawful
destruction of homes and land, including for the expansion of Israeli
settlements and/or for the building of the fence/wall in the Occupied
Territories. The Palestinian Authority is called upon to take measures
to prevent attacks by Palestinian armed groups on Israeli civilians.
Amnesty International is also pressing for other States, particularly
the US, to stop the sale or transfer of weaponry and equipment that are
used to commit unlawful destruction of homes and other human rights
violations.
18 May 2004
Administration Lie About Prisoner Abuse Committed Only
By a Few Troops Is Refuted By Toguba Report
M.P.'s Received Orders From Military
Intelligence Officers
M.P.'s Received Orders to Strip Iraqi
Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT and DOUGLAS JEHL
New York Times, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: The American officer who was in charge of interrogations at the
Abu Ghraib prison has told a senior Army investigator that intelligence
officers sometimes instructed the military police to force Iraqi
detainees to strip naked and to shackle them before questioning them.
But he said those measures were not imposed "unless there is some good
reason." The officer, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th
Military Intelligence Brigade, also told the investigator, Maj. Gen.
Antonio M. Taguba, that his unit had "no formal system in place" to
monitor instructions they had given to military guards, who worked
closely with interrogators to prepare detainees for interviews. Colonel
Pappas said he "should have asked more questions, admittedly" about
abuses committed or encouraged by his subordinates. The statements by
Colonel Pappas, contained in the transcript of a Feb. 11 interview that
is part of General Taguba's 6,000-page classified report, offer the
highest-level confirmation so far that military intelligence soldiers
directed military guards in preparing for interrogations. They also
provide the first insights by the senior intelligence officer at the
prison into the relationship between his troops and the military police.
Portions of Colonel Pappas's sworn statements were read to The New York
Times by a government official who had read the transcript. ...A
major finding of General Miller's visit, Colonel Pappas said, was "to
provide dedicated M.P.'s in support of interrogations." Several military
police officers and their commanders at Abu Ghraib have said that
military intelligence officers directed them to "set the conditions" to
enhance the questioning. When General Taguba asked what safeguards
existed to ensure that guards "understand the instructions or limits of
instructions, or whether the instructions were legal," Colonel Pappas
acknowledged that there were no assurances. "There would be no way for
us to actually monitor whether that happened," Colonel Pappas told
General Taguba. "We had no formal system in place to do that." [BWUSA
emphasis]
SEE ALSO:
Locked in Abu Ghraib
The prison scandal keeps getting worse for the Bush administration.
By Fred Kaplan
Slate, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: The White House is about to get hit by the biggest tsunami
since the Iran-Contra affair, maybe since Watergate. President George W.
Bush is trapped inside the compound, immobilized by his own
stay-the-course campaign strategy. Can he escape the massive tidal
waves? Maybe. But at this point, it's not clear how. If today's
investigative shockers—Seymour Hersh's latest
article in The New Yorker and a three-part
piece
in Newsweek—are true, it's hard to avoid concluding that
responsibility for the Abu Ghraib atrocities goes straight to the top,
both in the Pentagon and the White House, and that varying degrees of
blame can be ascribed to officials up and down the chain of command.
Both stories are worth reading in full. The gist is that last year,
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put in place a secret operation
that, in Hersh's words, "encouraged physical coercion and sexual
humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more
intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq."
AUDIO LINK
Former Detainees Emerge with Stories
of Widespread Abuse by U.S. Troops
By Peter Kenyon
NPR's All Things Considered, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: An increasing number of Iraqis are coming forward with stories
of abuse suffered at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. The accounts suggest a
wider pattern of abuse than acknowledged by the Bush administration.
SEE ALSO:
Rumsfeld Knew: Iraq Prison Abuse Part of
Pentagon-Approved Black Ops Program
(Democracy Now!)
Some Iraqis Held Outside Control of
Top General
By DOUGLAS JEHL
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and chairman of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a commencement address on
Sunday that in light of the allegations, his committee would look "up
and down and sideways in the chain of command and get to the bottom of
this," said a spokesman for the senator. Senator Lindsey Graham,
Republican of South Carolina, appearing on the CBS News program "Face
the Nation," said, "The question is: do we have an out-of-control prison
or an out-of-control system?" In response to questions, Senator Graham,
Senator Warner and other lawmakers who spoke publicly on Sunday said
they had not yet been able to determine whether The New Yorker account
was accurate. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the
Armed Services Committee, said that if The New Yorker article was
accurate, "it raises this issue a whole new level." "The question," he
said, "is whether there was this kind of a secret program, which
authorized this additional level of abuse." A report in this week's
Newsweek quotes a memo written Jan. 25, 2002, by Alberto R. Gonzales,
the White House counsel, to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell saying
that "this new paradigm of terrorism renders obsolete" the "strict
limitation on questioning of enemy prisoners" spelled out in the Geneva
accords. Asked about it on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," Mr.
Powell said he could not recall the specific memo but said he had always
argued that the Bush administration should comply with the provisions of
the Geneva accords — "either by the letter, if it's appropriate to those
individuals in our custody that they are really directly under the
Geneva Convention, or if they're illegal noncombatants and not directly
under the convention, we should treat them nevertheless in a humane
manner in accordance with what is expected of by international law and
the Geneva Convention." To date, military and intelligence officials
have declined to describe the conditions under which the senior Iraqi
officials have been held in Iraq
Divided Mission in Iraq Tempers Views
of G.I.'s
By EDWARD WONG
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Six weeks ago, soldiers of the First Armored Division were
renovating schools. Now they are raiding them for hidden munitions.
Children wave to them along the roads, while insurgents with mortars and
rocket-propelled grenades make them targets. "Our mission is to rebuild
this country, but the thing is, the bad guys won't let us do it," said
Specialist Jennifer Marie Bencze, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif. "At the same
time we've got engineers rebuilding schools, fixing roads, doing all the
humanitarian projects, we've got infantry fighting the bad guys. So the
mission is really confused." Here in the Shiite heartland, the division
is caught up in the fiercest and deadliest fighting now under way in
Iraq. That is a far cry from May 2003, when it rolled into Iraq thinking
the war was all but over, ready to plant Western-style institutions in
this arid land. Interviews with dozens of soldiers over the last two
weeks suggest that their idealism has been tempered. All agree the war
is at a crucial juncture, but few soldiers can say with certainty how to
achieve victory — or even what might constitute victory. ...Sergeant
Rigole said he believed that outside Iraq, "nobody cares anymore,
because it's just becoming another part of life." "When it's somebody of
your own, that's somebody who was watching your back and you were
watching his back," he said. "It's part of your family, you know. Even
when it's someone who's part of another unit, you still care." Corporal
Torres observed: "It builds some type of anger. It makes you angry at
the enemy." A soldier close to an infantryman killed by a sniper stopped
by a reporter's room at the base and almost punched the wall. He was on
the verge of tears. "I want you to tell people that this is ridiculous,"
he said. "We know where the enemy is. We could take them out. But we're
holding back because of politics.
Pentagon Weighs Transferring 4,000
G.I.'s in Korea to Iraq
By THOM SHANKER
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: The Defense Department has drawn up plans to move a brigade of
troops from South Korea to Iraq, a senior Pentagon official said late
Sunday. If the plan goes forward, it would fulfill twin goals of
reshaping the American military's deployments on the Korean peninsula
and relieving pressure on an Army stretched thin by heavy commitments in
Iraq. The plan under discussion calls for moving about 4,000 troops from
the Army's Second Infantry Division from South Korea to Iraq, the senior
Pentagon official said. At present, about 37,000 American troops are
stationed in South Korea, under a 50-year-old security treaty. It would
be the first movement of American troops from South Korea to the front
lines of Iraq. The Pentagon announced this month that it had scrapped
plans to cut American forces in Iraq this year, and would maintain
135,000 to 138,000 troops at least into 2005. Before the most recent
spike in Iraq violence, the American troop commitment was to have
dropped to 115,000 by the end of this month.
Powell Says C.I.A. Was Misled About
Weapons
By DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said for the first time on
Sunday that he now believes that the Central Intelligence Agency was
deliberately misled about evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing
unconventional weapons. He also said, in his comments on the NBC News
program "Meet the Press," that he regrets citing evidence that Iraq had
mobile biological laboratories in his presentation to the United Nations
on Feb. 5, 2003. The assertion about the mobile labs was one of the most
dramatic pieces of the presentation, which was intended to make public
the Bush administration's best case for invading Iraq. For days before
his speech, Mr. Powell sat in a conference room at the C.I.A., examining
the sources for each charge he planned to make. But on Sunday, Mr.
Powell argued that the C.I.A. itself was misled, and that in turn he
was, too. "Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned
out not to be accurate," Mr. Powell said, going farther than he did on
April 2 when he conceded that the intelligence was not "that solid."
...Taken with past admissions of error by the administration or its
intelligence agencies, Mr. Powell's statement on Sunday leaves little
room for the administration to argue that Mr. Hussein's stockpiles of
unconventional weapons posed any real and imminent threat. "Basically,
Powell now believes that the Iraqis had chemical weapons, and that was
it," said an official close to him. "And he is out there publicly saying
this now because he doesn't want a legacy as the man who made up stories
to provide the president with cover to go to war."
SEE ALSO:
Powell Admits False WMD Claim
(The Nation)
Palestinians Flee Israel's
Onslaught
By Chris McGreal
The Guardian, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: Early this morning at least three Palestinian fighters were
killed and five wounded as Israeli helicopters fired two missiles into
the refugee camp in an attack feared by Mrs Qishta and other
Palestinians, believing it to be the start of a full-scale assault over
the following hours. Hours earlier, word that Israeli tanks had sealed
off Rafah was enough to stir those whose homes had survived the
demolition by the army's bulldozers on Friday, which crushed about 200
houses in the name of the war on terror. On Sunday Moshe Ya'alon,
Israel's chief of army staff, said there was more destruction to come.
SEE ALSO:
Israel and the Occupied Territories: Stop
Destruction of Homes and Land by Israeli Army
Amnesty International
Thousands of homes and
vast areas of agricultural land have been destroyed by the Israeli army
in recent years. Tens of thousands of men, women and children have been
made homeless or lost their source of livelihood. View a slide show of
photos not prominently shown in the U.S.
Take action! |
Slideshow |
Report
Bushes and Bin Ladens: A Tale of
Two Families
A review of Michael Moore's "Farenheit 9/11"
By Peter Bradshaw
The Guardian, 18 May 2004
EXCERPT: It was strident, passionate, sometimes outrageously
manipulative and often bafflingly selective in its material, but Michael
Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a barnstorming anti-war/anti-Bush polemic
tossed like an incendiary device into the crowded Cannes festival. It
included a full-scale denunciation of the links between the Bush and Bin
Laden families, the petro-commercial association which allowed dozens of
the Bin Laden family to leave the country for Saudi Arabia after 9/11
and which necessitated the Iraq war as a massive diversion. Moore also
has queasy new war zone footage of US soldiers humiliating their
prisoners while others snap away with their digital cameras, although he
is noticeably keen to demonise the politicians, not the military.
Was the Videotaped Beheading of
Nick Berg a Fake?
American Patriot Friends Network, May 2004
This one may well be a conspiracy theory, and we're posting this link so
you can go to the site and judge it for yourself. There's powerful
evidence, some fallacious arguments, and a lot of unanswered questions
here--not to mention GRAPHIC IMAGES. Take a look, then stop by our blog
and share your thoughts:
BushWhackedUSA: THE BLOG.
The Genocide Gambit
A Response to Samantah Power's book A Problem From Hell: America and
the Age of Genocide
By Edward S. Herman
ZNet, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: So it remains a power-out-of-the-gun truth that only a U.S.
target can commit 'genocide' or even engage in 'ethnic cleansing,' while
the United States can commit blatant aggression with only slightly
delayed UN accommodation, and it and its clients don't aggress,
ethnically cleanse, or commit genocide. (In ratifying the 'Genocide
Convention,' with a 40-year time lag, the U.S. Senate wrote in a U.S.
exemption to its application; the U.S. insistence on an above-the-law
status is long-standing.)... The killing of over a million Iraqis via
the 'sanctions of mass destruction,' more than were killed by all the
weapons of mass destruction in history, according to John and Karl
Mueller ('Sanctions of Mass Destruction,' Foreign Affairs, May/June
1999), was arguably the greatest genocide of the post-World War 2 era.
17 May 2004
Stabilization Efforts Dealt Blow by
Suicide Car Bomb Attack
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: The head of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed in a suicide
car bombing near a checkpoint outside the coalition headquarters in
central Baghdad on Monday, dealing a blow to U.S. efforts to stabilize
Iraq ahead of a handover of sovereignty on June 30. Abdel-Zahraa Othman,
also known as Izzadine Saleem, was the second and highest-ranking member
of the U.S.-appointed council to be assassinated. He was among nine
Iraqis, including the bomber, who were killed, Iraqi officials said.
``Days like today convince us even more so that the transfer must stay
on track,'' said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, speaking on CNN. Kimmitt said
that terrorist groups were trying to derail the democratization process
in Iraq and that a suicide bomber was responsible. As the current
council president, a rotating position, Saleem was the highest-ranking
Iraqi official killed during the occupation. His death occurred about
six weeks before the United States plans to transfer power to Iraqis and
underscores the risks facing those perceived as owing their positions to
the Americans.
Fallujah: In The Hands Of Insurgents
Newsweek, 24 May issue
EXCERPT: One of the gunmen wears a suicide belt. Over tea and kebabs,
they explain why they're waging their jihad.
The resistance fighters inside Fallujah, said to number about 2,000, are
divided into several factions. Four powerful Islamic leaders inside the
city exert a measure of authority over most of the mujahedin; Mohammed
and his group are loyal to a revered imam who preaches at one of the
city's bigger mosques. It was this imam, we learn, who gave orders that
any foreigner who enters Jolan without his permission should be
thoroughly questioned. But other mujahedin in the city aren't beholden
to any of the local clerics. These include foreign fighters and
hard-line local jihadis, men who share the same inflexible hatred of the
West as those who beheaded the American contractor Nick Berg last week.
Mohammed tells us we were "lucky" that his group, rather than the
hard-liners, had arrested us. "They are in the neighborhood," he warns
us.
Some Iraqis Held Outside Purview of
U.S. Command
By DOUGLAS JEHL
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: About 100 high-ranking Iraqi prisoners held for months at a
time in spartan conditions on the outskirts of Baghdad International
Airport are being detained under a special chain of command, under
conditions not subject to approval by the top American commander in
Iraq, according to military officials. The unusual lines of authority in
the detainees' handling are part of a tangled network of authority over
prisoners in Iraq, in which the military police, military intelligence,
the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency,
various military commanders and the Pentagon itself have all played a
role. Congressional investigators who are looking into the scandal over
the abuse of Iraqi prisoners say those arrangements have made it
difficult to determine where the final authority lies. At least as of
February, many of the 100 or so prisoners categorized by American
officials as "high value detainees" because of the special intelligence
they are believed to possess, had been held since June 2003 for nearly
23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells
without sunlight, according to a report by the International Committee
of the Red Cross. While not tantamount to the sexual humiliation and
other abuses inflicted on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the
conditions have been described by the Red Cross as a violation of the
Geneva Conventions, the international treaty that the Bush
administration has said it regards as "fully applicable" to all
prisoners held by the United States in Iraq. Under arrangements in
effect since October, military officials said at a Pentagon briefing on
Friday, explicit authorization from the American commander, Lt. Gen.
Ricardo S. Sanchez, has been required in each of about 25 cases in which
prisoners have been subjected to isolation for longer than 30 days. But
on Sunday, a senior military officer said that statement did not apply
to the prisoners being held at the airport, because "we were not the
authority" for the high-value detainees.
The Roots of Torture
By John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff
Newsweek, 24 May issue
EXCERPT: The Bush administration's emerging approach was that America's
enemies in this war were "unlawful" combatants without rights. One
Justice Department memo, written for the CIA late in the fall of 2001,
put an extremely narrow interpretation on the international anti-torture
convention, allowing the agency to use a whole range of
techniques—including sleep deprivation, the use of phobias and the
deployment of "stress factors"—in interrogating Qaeda suspects. The only
clear prohibition was "causing severe physical or mental pain"—a
subjective judgment that allowed for "a whole range of things in
between," said one former administration official familiar with the
opinion. On Dec. 28, 2001, the Justice Department Office of Legal
Counsel weighed in with another opinion, arguing that U.S. courts had no
jurisdiction to review the treatment of foreign prisoners at Guantanamo
Bay. The appeal of Gitmo from the start was that, in the view of
administration lawyers, the base existed in a legal twilight zone—or
"the legal equivalent of outer space," as one former administration
lawyer described it. And on Jan. 9, 2002, John Yoo of Justice's Office
of Legal Counsel coauthored a sweeping 42-page memo concluding that
neither the Geneva Conventions nor any of the laws of war applied to the
conflict in Afghanistan.
Cut out of the process, as usual, was Colin Powell's State Department.
So were military lawyers for the uniformed services. When State
Department lawyers first saw the Yoo memo, "we were horrified," said
one. As State saw it, the Justice position would place the United States
outside the orbit of international treaties it had championed for years.
Two days after the Yoo memo circulated, the State Department's chief
legal adviser, William Howard Taft IV, fired a memo to Yoo calling his
analysis "seriously flawed." State's most immediate concern was the
unilateral conclusion that all captured Taliban were not covered by the
Geneva Conventions. "In previous conflicts, the United States has dealt
with tens of thousands of detainees without repudiating its obligations
under the Conventions," Taft wrote. "I have no doubt we can do so here,
where a relative handful of persons is involved."
The White House was undeterred. By Jan. 25, 2002, according to a memo
obtained by NEWSWEEK, it was clear that Bush had already decided that
the Geneva Conventions did not apply at all, either to the Taliban or Al
Qaeda.
The Transfer Date, June 30, Is Crystal Clear, but
Hardly Anything Else Is
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
New York Times, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: For weeks, the American occupation authority in Iraq has been
updating the timetable leading to the day it is supposed to go out of
business, on June 30 — declaring on its Web site on Sunday that there
were "46 days until Iraqi sovereignty." Yet nowhere on the Web site, or
anyplace else in official American statements, can be found the identity
of the new Iraqi leadership or the precise powers of the new Iraqi
government over many important matters, including the full authority
over Iraqi armed forces. Those forces will continue to operate under
American command, but the Americans have said they will consult the new
government on deployment and other issues. Other subjects that remain
unclear include to what extent Iraq will have a say in the practices of
American-run prisons that hold Iraqi suspects, some of whom are not
charged with any crimes, and over the Iraqi criminal justice system that
might prosecute Americans for crimes against Iraqis.
Iran Denounces Offensive Against
Shiite Insurgents
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
weighed in on the side of anti-American Shiite Muslim insurgents in
Iraq, chastising U.S. actions across the southern part of the country as
"stupid" and "shameful." Khamenei's remarks, made in a speech to
theology students and broadcast on Iranian radio, were the first harsh
criticism issued by predominantly Shiite Iran about the ongoing U.S.
offensive against forces loyal to Moqtada Sadr, a young Shiite cleric
wanted by U.S. forces on murder charges.
US Guards 'Filmed Beatings' at
Guantanamo Terror Camp
By David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff
The Observer, 16 May 2004
EXCERPT: Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in
brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and
catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.
The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth
British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatised to speak
until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both
sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately. They say
that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul claims, they will
provide final proof that brutality against detainees has become an
institutionalised feature of America's war on terror. In the wake of the
furore over the abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, US
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has continued to insist they were the
work of a few rogue soldiers, and not a systemic problem.
SEE ALSO: 'They
Tied Me Up Like a Beast and Began Kicking Me'
(Observer)
SEE ALSO:
Actions of a Few, or Policy from the Top?
(Guardian)
Bush proves he's a uniter and not a divider...
More than Eighty Percent of Iraqis Oppose US
Occupation
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post via Oakland Tribune, 14 May 2004 EXCERPT:
Four out of five Iraqis report holding a negative view of the U.S.
occupation authority and of coalition forces, according to a new poll
conducted for the occupation authority. In the poll, 80 percent of the
Iraqis questioned reported a lack of confidence in the Coalition
Provisional Authority, and 82 percent said they disapprove of the U.S.
and allied military forces in Iraq. Although comparative numbers from
previous polls are not available, "generally speaking, the trend is
downward," said Donald Hamilton, a senior counselor to civilian
administrator L. Paul Bremer. The occupation authority has been
commissioning such surveys in Iraq since late last year, he said. This
one was taken in Baghdad and several other Iraqi cities in late March
and early April, shortly before the surge in anti-coalition violence and
a few weeks before the detainee-abuse scandal became a major issue for
the U.S. authorities in Iraq.
Bush Pushes World Court Immunity
Amid Iraq Scandal
By Carol Giacomo Reuters, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: The photos have fueled international outrage and severely
damaged U.S. credibility. U.S. officials promise the guilty will be
punished but rights experts worry prosecutions will focus on
lower-ranking soldiers, not their superiors. "The political reality is
that its going to be harder now to persuade democratically elected
leaders to immunize the U.S. military from war crimes prosecution," said
Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
While some states may be more reluctant to sign the bilateral immunity
agreements, it is unclear they can avoid it, said Anthony Dworkin,
London-based editor of the Crimes of War Project Web site.
Spain Hands Over Control to US
Troops at Iraqi Base Agence
France Press, 16 May 2004
EXCERPT: Spanish forces in Iraq, due to withdraw from the country before
the end of the month, on Sunday transferred operations at their base in
the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniyah to US forces, the Spanish defence
ministry said. The Spanish general Jose Manuel Munoz, who will continue
to manage the running of the base until the force's full departure, paid
homage during a ceremony to Spanish troops killed while serving in Iraq.
100,000 Israelis Demand that Sharon
Withdraw from Gaza
By Chris McGreal
The Guardian, 17 May 2004
EXCERPT: Israel said yesterday it would intensify its military assault
on the Gaza strip, hours after more than 100,000 people rallied in Tel
Aviv to demand that Ariel Sharon follow through on his pledge to
withdraw Jewish settlers from the territory. The defence minister, Shaul
Mofaz, told the weekly cabinet meeting that the army would work to
"create a new reality" along the border between Gaza and Egypt, where
the UN has said the army destroyed about 200 Palestinian homes in the
Rafah refugee camp after seven soldiers were killed in the area last
week. A total of 13 soldiers have died in the Gaza strip since Tuesday -
some of the worst casualty figures inflicted on the Israeli army during
the present intifada. More than 30 Palestinians have died. Three more
Palestinians were killed last night as they tried to plant a bomb on the
Israel-Gaza border.
SEE ALSO:
Israel Will Demolish Hundreds of Palestinian
Homes (NYT)
SEE ALSO:
Wiesenthal Makes Last Push to Catch Nazis
(Guardian)
Barren Justice: Banana Workers
Fight for Pesticide Settlement
Former banana workers in Nicaragua face many obstacles in getting
compensation from multinationals for pesticide exposure on the
plantations.
By Sasha Lilley
Corpwatch, 13 May 2004
EXCERPT: Francisco Gonzales believes he lost his chance to be a father
because of the pesticide DBCP. "I can't have children," says Gonzales,
who began working in the banana plantations of Chinandega, Nicaragua, in
1975, when he was 20 years old. "It's very painful, you know, each one
of us would like to have our own child, a child of our blood. But I was
poisoned." Gonzales said that he was exposed to DBCP, the key chemical
in the pesticides Nemagon and Fumazone, while he worked as a sprayer.
"We first sprayed water and, later at night, we sprayed the pesticide
over the entire plantation, spraying poison all night long. This poison
stayed on the leaves and the other people who worked during the day were
also affected by it." Gonzales is one of tens of thousands of plantation
workers in Central America, the Caribbean, Western Africa, and the
Philippines who have sued several U.S. corporations for exposure to DBCP
over the last two decades. In March, Nicaraguan banana workers brought a
lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Dole, Dow, Occidental, and
Shell, among other corporations, alleging that exposure to DBCP made
them sterile. DBCP, or dibromo-chloropropane, was banned in the United
States in 1979, but U.S. chemical companies continued to export it until
the mid-1980s.The results from these lawsuits, which add up to more than
$11 billion in claimed damages, have so far been disappointing for the
workers, and the legal process they have gone through demonstrates the
obstacles workers in developing countries face when they attempt to win
damages from transnational companies. While some DBCP cases were settled
out of court, the awards workers received were relatively small, and
many other lawsuits have been stymied by legal and political barriers
and may be impeded in the future by free trade agreements.
15-16 May 2004
Alienating the Masses
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: A reader drew my attention to a Washington Post article
reporting on a newly released poll about Muqtada:
"In the poll, which was taken just before the April uprising of the
militia led by radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, a large
proportion of Iraqis from the central and southern parts of the country
said they backed him, with 45 percent of those in Baghdad saying they
support him, and 67 percent in Basra. Those numbers are striking because
the U.S. military and the occupation authority have declared Sadr a
public enemy whom they want to kill or capture."
I am surprised by the high numbers in Basra, where I think the rival al-Fudala
branch of Sadrism is more important. The level of support for Muqtada
has almost certainly increased greatly since late March when the poll
was done. My own view is that Muqtada has now won politically and
morally. He keeps throwing Abu Ghuraib in the faces of the Americans. He
had his men take refuge in Najaf and Karbala because he knew only two
outcomes were possible. Either the Americans would back off and cease
trying to destroy him, out of fear of fighting in the holy cities and
alienating the Shiites. Or they would come in after Muqtada and his
militia, in which case the Americans would probably turn the Shiites in
general against themselves. The latter is now happening. The Americans
will be left with a handful of ambitious collaborators at the top, but
the masses won't be with them. And in Iraq, unlike the US, the masses
matter. The US political elite is used to being able to discount
American urban ghettos as politically a cipher. What they don't realize
is that in third world countries the urban poor are a key political
actor and resource, and wise rulers go out of their way not to anger
them.
SEE ALSO:
Al-Muhammadawi Slams Bremer
(Juan Cole)
EXCERPT: Abdul Karim Mahoud al-Muhammadawi, the leader of the Iraqi
Hizbullah (which organizes southern Marsh Arabs) blames Paul Bremer for
refusing to compromise with Muqtada al-Sadr, and has come to consider
Bremer an "extremist" and an obstacle to social peace in Iraq. Al-Muhammadawi
last summer expressed firm support for the US, and served on the Interim
Governing Council until early April, when he suspended his membership in
protest against heavy-handed US tactics. But al-Muhammadawi has
cultivated a lot of insider sources, and if he is fingering Bremer as
the problem, that is credible. Bremer in turn is now taking his orders
from Robert Blackwill and Condi Rice, which is to say, from George W.
Bush. So I think we know who the real extremist is. And, al-Muhammadawi
knows an extremist when he sees one. It deeply worries me that
Bremer/Bush is so deeply alienating even Shiite allies. It isn't as if
they had a lot of Sunni ones. And, the US cannot maintain a strong
position in Iraq merely on the basis of its relationship to the Kurds.
SEE ALSO:
Caught In the Crossfire
(The New Yorker)
SEE ALSO:
Hearts and Minds
(The New Yorker)
SEE ALSO:
Abuse Brings Deaths of Captives Into Focus
(LA Times)
Powell: U.S. Would Leave if Iraq
Requests
AP, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: U.S.-led coalition forces would leave Iraq if a new interim
government should ask them to, Secretary of State Colin Powell said
Friday, but such a request is unlikely. Powell said the United States
believes a holds that a U.N. resolution passed last year and Iraqi
administrative law provide necessary authority for coalition forces to
remain even beyond the scheduled June 30 handover of government to
Iraqis.
``We're there to support the Iraqi people and protect them and the new
government,'' Powell said at a news conference with other foreign
ministers from the Group of Eight nations. ``I have no doubt the new
government will welcome our presence and am losing no sleep over whether
they will ask us to stay.'' But were the new government to say it could
handle security, ``then we would leave,'' Powell said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters Friday that the
Iraqi people still want help from the United States and coalition forces
to provide security. ``Iraqi security forces are not fully equipped and
trained to provide for their own security and defend their country
against terrorists,'' McClellan said. ``And so, after the transfer of
sovereignty on June 30, we expect to continue to partner with the Iraqi
forces to improve the security situation.'' ...Powell said he expected
the commander of coalition forces in Iraq to remain an American and
report up his chain of command to maintain military effectiveness. He
said he expected that a consultative process can be established so the
U.S. commander and the American ambassador kept the Iraqi government
informed of their activities.
SEE ALSO:
Powell Says U.S. Would Withdraw Troops From
Iraq If New Government Requests It (NYT)
US May Pull Out of Iraq: Bremer
By Roy Eccleston in Washington and agencies
New.com.au, 15 May 15, 2004
EXCERPT: Washington's overseer for Iraq, Paul Bremer, last night aired
the possibility of an American pullout from the country, saying the US
did not stay where it was "not welcome". "If the provisional government
asks us to leave we will leave," he said, referring to a post-June 30
administration after the handover of sovereignty. "I don't think
that will happen but obviously we don't stay in countries where we're
not welcome," he said at a working lunch in Baghdad with Iraqi
officials. The comments came after US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
publicly admitted for the first time that the US mission in Iraq could
fail. Speaking ahead of his surprise visit to Iraq on Thursday, Mr
Rumsfeld said on the transfer of authority: "Will it happen right on
time? I think so. I hope so. Will it be perfect? No ... Is it possible
it won't work? Yes."
Top Commander in Iraq Bans Several
Interrogation Methods
By TERENCE NEILAN and MARK J. PRENDERGAST
New York Times, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: The American military's top commander in Iraq has banned
several methods of interrogating prisoners that are at the heart of the
scandal over the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad,
Pentagon officials said today. The officials, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told reporters in Washington that the commander, Lt. Gen.
Ricardo S. Sanchez, had issued orders that tactics like depriving
prisoners of sleep, hooding them for long periods of time or forcing
them into "stress positions" to weaken their resistance to interrogation
would no longer be allowed. ...At a Senate Armed Services Committee
hearing on Thursday, the military's interrogation techniques came under
fire from lawmakers, who said some of the methods used in Iraq violate
the Geneva Conventions. The deputy defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz,
and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace of
the Marines, acknowledged that taken individually some of the techniques
could be interpreted as violations of the Geneva Conventions. Mr.
Wolfowitz even allowed that a senator's hypothetical example of a
prisoner who was hooded, naked and forced to crouch for 45 minutes "goes
quite beyond what is permitted."
How American Moral Authority
Died, Who Killed It, and Why Nincompoops like James Inhofe Will Never
Learn.
By Jason Vest
The American Prospect, 13 May 2004
EXCERPT: Before we turn our attention to Tuesday’s reactionary and
indicative-of-utter-ignorance comments made on Capitol Hill by Senator
James Inhofe, let’s first revisit Sunday’s Washington Post. Under the
headline "Dissension Grows In Senior Ranks On War Strategy; U.S. May Be
Winning Battles in Iraq But Losing the War, Some Officers Say," a number
of career Army officers -- including the commander of the 82nd Airborne
Division and the Coalition Provisional Authority’s first director of
planning -- said that in strategic terms, the U.S. military has made a
mess of things in Iraq, and perhaps fatally so. The willingness of such
prominent military officials to go on record may be surprising, as was
the Post’s finally reporting that the officer corps thinks Donald
Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz are a couple of dafties who’ve been allowed
to flail about for far too long in the sandbox they call the Pentagon
and need a permanent time-out. But the reality of career military people
sounding the alarm on likely strategic disaster is not. In the days
before and after the United States charged into Iraq, there were no lack
of articles and studies produced by the military’s own war colleges and
scholarly journals that have highlighted the perils of poor strategic
planning -- and strategic wishful thinking -- in both Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Fantastical Occupation
Bush's feckless fantasy remains unfulfilled
By Harold Meyerson
The American Prospect, 14 May 2004
EXCERPT: Back when he was running for president, in 2000, Sen. John
McCain routinely referred to Bill Clinton's handling of world affairs as
a "feckless photo-op foreign policy." Four years later, Clinton's
foreign policy seems fairly filled with feck when contrasted with his
successor's. Has any official United States policy in recent memory been
as feckless as the Bush administration's for postwar Iraq? Can we, for a
moment, recall just some of the assumptions that the administration
announced or embraced? That Americans would be welcomed as liberators?
That we could secure the nation with a force of a little more than
100,000 troops? That Iraqi oil revenue would be such that the occupation
would pay for itself? That, in accord with our assumptions on troop
requirements and postwar financing, we didn't really need the kind of
international cooperation that the nation had historically sought for
this kind of venture? That, in accord with the same assumptions, there
was no reason not to enact more massive tax cuts for the rich? With the
revelations that have emerged of the degradation and torture of
prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, it's become particularly clear that the
administration gave no real thought to the challenges at the very heart
of occupying another country. Occupations can be relatively benign, but
only when the occupier is viewed by the occupied as a temporary,
legitimate expedient, concerned with and able to enhance the occupied
nation's reconstruction. If that perception begins to crumble, and if
resistance erupts, occupations turn brutal, no matter how noble their
goals may be.
Pressure to Go Along With Abuse Is
Strong, but Some Soldiers Find Strength to Refuse
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
New York Times, 14 may 2004
EXCERPT: The images of prisoner abuse still trickling out of Iraq show a
side of human behavior that psychologists have sought to understand for
decades. But the murky reports of a handful of soldiers who refused to
take part bring to light a behavior psychologists find even more
puzzling: disobedience. Buried in his report earlier this year on Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba praised the actions
of three men who tried to stop the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees. They
are nowhere to be seen in the portraits of brutality that have touched
off outrage around the world. Although details of their actions are
sketchy, it is known that one soldier, Lt. David O. Sutton, put an end
to one incident and alerted his commanders. William J. Kimbro, a Navy
dog handler, "refused to participate in improper interrogations despite
significant pressure" from military intelligence, according to the
report. And Specialist Joseph M. Darby gave military police the evidence
that sounded the alarm. In numerous studies over the past few decades,
psychologists have found that a certain percentage of people simply
refuse to give in to pressure — by authorities or by peers — if they
feel certain actions are wrong.
SEE ALSO:
Accused Soldier Paints Scene of Eager Mayhem at
Iraqi Prison
( NYT)
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