9 June 2004

Kurds Threaten to Walk Away From Iraqi State
By DEXTER FILKINS
New York Times, 8 June 2004
EXCERPT: A crisis for the new Iraqi government loomed Tuesday as Kurdish leaders threatened to withdraw from the Iraqi state unless they received guarantees against Shiite plans to limit Kurdish self-rule. In a letter to President Bush this week, the two main Kurdish leaders, Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, wrote that the Kurds would "refrain from participating in the central government" in Baghdad if any attempt was made by the new government to nullify the interim Iraqi constitution adopted in March. Shiite leaders have said repeatedly in recent weeks that they intend to remove parts of the interim constitution that essentially grant the Kurds veto power over the permanent constitution, which is scheduled to be drafted and ratified next year. The Shiite leaders consider the provisions undemocratic, while the Kurds contend they are their only guarantee of retaining the rights to self-rule they gained in the past 13 years, protected from Saddam Hussein by United States warplanes. In their letter, Mr. Talabani and Mr. Barzani wrote that the Kurdish leadership would refuse to take part in national elections, expected to be held in January, and bar representatives from going to "Kurdistan." That would amount to something like secession, which Kurdish officials have been hinting at privately for months but now appear to be actively considering. "The Kurdish people will no longer accept second-class citizenship in Iraq," the letter said. The two leaders also asked President Bush for a commitment to protect "Kurdistan" should an insurgency compel the United States to pull its forces out of the rest of Iraq. To assure that Kurdish rights are retained, Mr. Talabani and Mr. Barzani, whose parties together deploy about 75,000 fighters, asked President Bush to include the interim Iraqi constitution in the United Nations security resolution that governs the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. But American officials rejected the Kurdish request after appeals from Shiite leaders, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the nation's most powerful Shiite, who threatened "serious consequences" if any such move was undertaken. That seemed to set the stage for a showdown between Kurdish and Shiite leaders over the future of the Iraqi state.

American sponsored 'freedom fighter' accomplished daring attacks on theater and school bus
Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90's Attacks
By JOEL BRINKLEY
New York Times, 8 June 2004
EXCERPT: Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say. Dr. Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosive devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq, the officials said. Evaluations of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign varied, although the former officials interviewed agreed that it never threatened Saddam Hussein's rule. No public records of the bombing campaign exist, and the former officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. They could not even recall exactly when it occurred, though the interviews made it clear it was between 1992 and 1995. ...Mr. Khadami, it added, also said he worried that the C.I.A. might view him as "too much the terrorist."

Officer in Charge of Questioning Iraqi Inmates Had No Interrogation Training
By ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times, 8 June 2004
EXCERPT: The former head of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison told a senior Army investigator in February that before he took the job, he had no experience in interrogating prisoners, and that he had asked military intelligence soldiers to let him sit in on their questioning to understand what they did. The officer, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the former head of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, told the investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, that he was a civil affairs officer by training and that his assignment was to set up a database at the interrogation center for tracking information gleaned from the prisoners. "I've no training on the military side of what constitutes interrogation operations," Colonel Jordan, an Army reservist, told General Taguba. The statements by Colonel Jordan, contained in the transcript of a Feb. 21 interview that is part of General Taguba's 6,000-page classified report, offer the startling insight that the officer nominally in charge of the interrogation center where some of the worst prisoner abuses occurred last fall had no background in what he supposed to be supervising. Portions of Colonel Jordan's sworn statements were read to a reporter for The New York Times by two government officials who had read all or parts of the transcript. ...To date, seven enlisted personnel from a military police company have been charged with crimes in connection with the abuses at Abu Ghraib, all in a cellblock known as Tier 1. But most of those soldiers have said they were acting with the knowledge or encouragement of military intelligence officers, including Colonel Jordan and Colonel Pappas. General Taguba said in his classified report that he suspected that Colonel Jordan and Colonel Pappas were either "directly or indirectly responsible" for the misconduct.

Bush's election deal goes far beyond what the US wanted
Security Council, in a 15-0 Vote, Backs Measure on Iraq Turnover
By WARREN HOGE
New York Times, 8 June 2004
EXCERPT: In passages that were the most contested during the last two weeks in which there were four reworkings of the text, the resolution empowered an American-led multinational force to "take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq," but strictly in "security partnership" with the Iraqi interim government. The Iraqi military and police, the measure said, would be under Iraqi commanders, and American commanders would have to work in "full partnership" and "close coordination and consultation" with them. France and Germany had pressed for language giving the Iraqis a veto over participation in combat operations that they objected to, but in the end the two nations settled for an expanded paragraph that honored the Iraqis' right to take part in all security decisions "including policy on sensitive offensive operations." The reference was to military operations like those in Falluja and Najaf where Iraqis were unwilling to join allied troops in fighting. Those words emerged first in letters that were introduced in debate on Sunday and adopted Tuesday as amendments to the resolution. The letters, one from Iyad Allawi, the prime minister of the interim government, and the other from Mr. Powell, described the steps the two governments meant to take to solidify the partnership between Iraqi forces and the American command. Dr. Allawi said he would create and lead a new security ministerial committee to help coordinate decision-making at "sensitive" moments. The resolution says the American-led multinational force is in Iraq at the request and with the consent of the Iraqi interim government, and it gives the government the right to order the force's withdrawal. Both Dr. Allawi and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who addressed the Council last week, said they wanted the foreign troops to stay. The resolution calls for elections no later than Jan. 31, 2005, to choose a national assembly to draw up a permanent constitution that would mandate direct elections for a full-term government by Dec. 31, 2005. In another move intended to broaden Iraq's politics, the resolution calls for a national conference of political, religious and tribal representatives to select a consultative council to advise the interim government. This idea was suggested by the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, who said he imagined a gathering of as many as 1,000 people, to take place in mid-July. Kurdish leaders had asked the United States to include in the resolution a guarantee of Kurdish rights, but American officials rejected the request after it was strongly opposed by prominent Shiites. The absence of such a guarantee threatened to create a serious split between the Kurds and the new Iraqi government. In its security sections, the resolution said the mandate for the multinational force would be reviewed a year from now, or sooner if the government to be elected in January seeks a review. The resolution also puts the new Iraqi leaders in charge of the nation's oil and gas revenues.

Bush's condescending attitude not received well by Arab and Muslim states...
G-8 Poised to Back U.S. Plan for Mideast Democracy
But Some Skeptical Officials and Nations Say the Initiative Isn't Supported by Funding or Fresh Ideas
By Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright
Washington Post, 8 June 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush administration's plan to promote democracy in the Middle East -- the centerpiece of its agenda at this week's summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations -- has been accepted by Europeans and Arabs only reluctantly, and some administration officials fear that the program's goals have been undermined to ensure its acceptance at the summit. White House officials have said the plan, which is intended to unite all of the administration's Middle Eastern initiatives under a common theme, grew out of a speech by President Bush last year, saying the United States was wrong to support autocratic governments in a search for Middle East "stability." But others in the administration said the G-8 initiative was driven primarily by White House officials who are not experts on the Middle East. In their account, those officials focused on either trying to bridge gaps between the Europeans and the Americans on key issues or on trying to ensure a "deliverable" at the summit that would obscure the turmoil in Iraq and the failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The G-8 leaders will formally adopt the plan at the conclusion of the summit, which will be held in Sea Island, Ga., Tuesday through Thursday. A draft version circulating among summiteers said it would include creating a "forum for the future" to provide a "ministerial framework for our ongoing dialogue." It would also form a democracy assistance group that would coordinate efforts by individual nations from outside the region, begin an initiative to lend money to small businesses, and establish a task force on changing the investment climate. Bush administration officials said the embrace of Middle Eastern democracy by the world's most powerful economies is a signal achievement. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, briefing reporters here Monday, suggested that the plan, the "Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative," will help counter extremism in the region responsible for terrorist attacks. ...In an effort to demonstrate engagement with Arabs on the issues, Bush invited the leaders of a number of Islamic countries to attend a lunch Wednesday with G-8 leaders, at their own expense. But leaders of some key nations, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Morocco, turned down the invitation, and Qatar was purposely snubbed because of administration anger at al-Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war. Rice cited scheduling issues as the reason Morocco and Egypt -- one of the effort's harshest critics -- will not appear.

8 June 2004

Documents In Defense Dept., Justice Dept., and the White House Show
Bush Is Not "Bound by the Law"
He Just "Slimes" His Way Around It

We Need a Global Attack on Nuclear Proliferation
By Madeleine Albright and Robin Cook
LA Times, 7 June 2004
EXCERPT: The time has come to prevent the nightmare scenario of a nuclear attack. The rhetoric of international leaders about the spread of nuclear weapons and materials has not been matched by enough concrete action, even as Osama bin Laden declares that it is his "religious duty" to acquire and use a nuclear weapon against the West. When the G-8 leaders meet Tuesday in Sea Island, Ga., we urge them to put aside their differences over Iraq and unite to implement a comprehensive nonproliferation strategy that includes concrete steps and increased financial commitments to control the spread of bomb-making materials and thwart the ambitions of those who would acquire them.

Pentagon Lawyers Said Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush
By NEIL A. LEWIS and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times, 7 June 2004
EXCERPT: A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security. The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons. One reason, the lawyers said, would be if military personnel believed that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful." "In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign," the lawyers wrote in the 56-page confidential memorandum, the prohibition against torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogation undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority." ...The March memorandum, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, is the latest internal legal study to be disclosed that shows that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the administration's lawyers were set to work to find legal arguments to avoid restrictions imposed by international and American law. A Jan. 22, 2002, memorandum from the Justice Department that provided arguments to keep American officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated was used extensively as a basis for the March memorandum on avoiding proscriptions against torture. The previously disclosed Justice Department memorandum concluded that administration officials were justified in asserting that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees from the Afghanistan war. Another memorandum obtained by The Times indicates that most of the administration's top lawyers, with the exception of those at the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, approved of the Justice Department's position that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the war in Afghanistan. In addition, that memorandum, dated Feb. 2, 2002, noted that lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency had asked for an explicit understanding that the administration's public pledge to abide by the spirit of the conventions did not apply to its operatives. The March memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, was prepared as part of a review of interrogation techniques by a working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes. The group itself was led by the Air Force general counsel, Mary Walker, and included military and civilian lawyers from all branches of the armed services. ...The State Department lawyer, William H. Taft IV, dissented, warning that such a position would weaken the protections of the Geneva Conventions for American troops. ...Scott Horton, the former head of the human rights committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, said Monday that he believed that the March memorandum on avoiding responsibility for torture was what caused a delegation of military lawyers to visit him and complain privately about the administration's confidential legal arguments. That visit, he said, resulted in the association undertaking a study and issuing of a report criticizing the administration. He added that the lawyers who drafted the torture memo in March could face professional sanctions. Jamie Fellner, the director of United States programs for Human Rights Watch, said Monday, "We believe that this memo shows that at the highest levels of the Pentagon there was an interest in using torture as well as a desire to evade the criminal consequences of doing so."
SEE ALSO:
A "LESS CRAMPED" VIEW OF TORTURE
Political Animal Blog Entry
Washington Monthly, 7 June 2004
EXCERPT: From the Convention Against Torture, ratified in 1994 and currently the law of the land:
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
From an April 2003 report by the Department of Defense:
In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority.
In other words, as long as the president says it's necessary to help the war effort, torture is OK.
SEE ALSO: Lawyers Argued Bush Could Order Torture (AP)

Forced Nudity of Iraqi Prisoners Is Seen as a Pervasive Pattern, Not Isolated Incidents
By KATE ZERNIKE and DAVID ROHDE
New York Times, 7 June 2004
EXCERPT: In the weeks since photographs of naked detainees set off the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, military officials have portrayed the sexual humiliation captured in the images as the isolated acts of a rogue night shift. But forced nudity of prisoners was pervasive in the military intelligence unit of Abu Ghraib, so much so that soldiers later said they had not seen "the whole nudity thing," as one captain called it, as abusive or out of the ordinary. While there have been reports of forced nakedness at detention facilities in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the practice was apparently far more aggressive at Abu Ghraib, according to interviews, reports from human rights groups and sworn statements from detainees and soldiers. The detainees said leaving prisoners naked started as far back as last July, three months before the seven soldiers now charged and their military police company arrived at the prison. It bred a culture, some soldiers say, where the abuse captured on film could happen. Detainees were paraded naked past other prisoners and guards; some were ordered to do jumping jacks and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the nude, according to a several witnesses. Also, a father and his grown son were stripped, then forced to stand and stare at each other. The International Committee of the Red Cross, visiting in October, found prisoners left naked in their cells for days, modestly trying to shield themselves behind cardboard from meals-ready-to-eat boxes. It is not clear how the practice emerged and, if it was official policy, exactly who authorized it. Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the military intelligence officer in charge of interrogations at the prison, told Army investigators that detainees might be stripped and shackled for questioning, but not without "good reason." When Red Cross monitors expressed alarm about prisoners being left in their cells or forced to move about naked, they said military intelligence officials "confirmed that it was part of the military intelligence process."

U.S. May Cut Third of Troops In South Korea
By JAMES BROOKE and THOM SHANKER
New York Times, 7 June 2004
EXCER[T: The Bush administration has presented a detailed plan to South Korea for withdrawing one-third of its 37,000 troops on the divided peninsula by the end of next year as part of a wider effort to reposition American forces around the globe, officials in Seoul and Washington said Monday. A senior Pentagon official in Seoul described the plan, which would remove 12,500 American troops from South Korea, as a "concept proposal" that could still be revised, although South Korean officials indicated they had little doubt the withdrawal would move ahead.

7 June 2004

Wide Gaps Seen in U.S. Inquiries on Prison Abuse
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times, 6 June 2004
EXCERPT: Disparate inquiries into abuses of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan have so far left crucial questions of policy and operations unexamined, according to lawmakers from both parties and outside military experts, who say that the accountability of senior officers and Pentagon officials may remain unanswered as a result. No investigation completely independent of the Pentagon exists to determine what led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, and so far there has been no groundswell in Congress or elsewhere to create one. But on Capitol Hill, even some Republicans have begun to question whether the Pentagon's inquiries are too narrowly structured to establish the causes of the abuses, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have pledged to do, and then to determine if anyone in the chain of command was responsible for them. Some House Republicans, bucking their leaders who have said the focus on Abu Ghraib is distracting from the larger effort in Iraq, have joined Democrats in urging a more aggressive review of the investigations. In the Senate, members of both parties said there remained major aspects that fell outside the scope of any of the investigations that are under way — including the role of military lawyers in drafting policy on detainees and the involvement of civilian contractors in their interrogations.

Pattern Emerges of Sexual Assault Against Women Held by U.S. Forces
By Chris Shumway
New Standard, 6 June 2004
EXCERPT: Well publicized images of US soldiers torturing and humiliating male Iraqi prisoners may be overshadowing evidence gathered by several human rights groups and Pentagon investigators indicating US military personnel have raped and sexually abused Iraqi women held at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities. Amal Kadham Swadi, an Iraqi attorney representing women detainees, told The Guardian she believes that sexualized violence and abuse committed by US soldiers against female prisoners goes far beyond a few isolated cases. It¹s "happening all across Iraq," she said. Women make up a small minority of the total number of Iraqis held by Coalition forces. The US military says 78 women are currently detained by occupation militaries throughout Iraq.

World War II, George, and Me
By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch, 6 June 2004
EXCERPT: Last weekend, while dedicating the National World War II Memorial on the Washington Mall in front of thousands of veterans of that war, including his own father (who had bailed out of a torpedo bomber south of Japan in 1944), the President choked up while saying: "These were the modest sons of a peaceful country, and millions of us are very proud to call them Dad. They gave the best years of their lives to the greatest mission their country ever accepted." He then held center stage with his father, that ultimate baby-boomer Bill Clinton, and a war that has gained such a glow of nostalgia and good feeling in recent years that it now had its iconic book (The Greatest Generation), its iconic movie (Saving Private Ryan), its iconic TV mini-series, Band of Brothers and was now a launching platform for "a 100 day series of events, ŒAmerica Celebrates the Greatest Generation.'") Our President had to feel some relief, wrapping himself in his father's 48-star flag. Here, finally, was a glorious war experience that a bunch of ragtag insurgents, terrorists, Baathist dead-enders, and general riffraff couldn't take away from us. Here was a war that matched his rhetoric of recent years -- one where you could actually talk about the "march of freedom" and "ultimate victory." Here was a war that sidelined his opponent in November, who had actually gone to war and was now, as the Washington Post put it, "just a face in the crowd, off in the congressional section and invisible to those onstage." Our President was, you might say, in his element speaking of the war his father took part in as a "gallant time in the life of our country." More than that, he had -- like Star Trek's the USS Enterprise entering a worm hole or the time traveler in H. G. Wells' famous tale strapping himself into his machine -- started out in the mundane present where things seemed to be going from bad to worse and ended up (or so his advisors hoped) someplace far, far away where he hoped to remain through at least the rest of a month while visiting Rome, Paris, Normandy, and Sea Island, Georgia (for the G-8 summit) as well as his normal quota of military establishments.

Meanwhile, in Bush's other failed war...
Election Team Ambushed in Afghanistan
Associated Press, 7 June 2004
EXCERPT: A convoy of Afghan and foreign election workers in south-east Afghanistan came under rocket and rifle attack yesterday, a UN spokesman said. No one was hurt, but the attack cast further doubt on the country's readiness for elections in September. An Afghan official said US helicopters went to the aid of the 15 workers travelling in four vehicles, but it was not clear whether they took action. The convoy's police escort returned fire and the vehicles retreated unharmed. Taliban militants have been blamed for a series of assaults on election workers, hampering preparations for the national elections.

Meanwhile, in Bush's successful war on the environment...
UN: Climate-Change Gases Increasing 'Alarmingly'
OneWorld.net via Common Dreams, 5 June 2004
EXCERPT: The secretary of the UN's paramount environment accord warned that climate-altering pollution emitted by burning oil, gas and coal was now growing at "an alarmingly rapid" rate. "Recent news about a disintegrating Arctic ice cap and the increased frequency of extreme weather events and associated damage have added to the sense of urgency" about climate change, Joke Waller-Hunter, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said here. "Also worrying are the latest measures of the alarmingly rapid growth in atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide) concentrations," she said. ... CO2 is by far the most important of the six "greenhouse" gases blamed for driving changes to the world's delicate climate system. These gases hang like an invisible shroud in the atmosphere, trapping the Sun's heat and driving up the temperature of the Earth's land and sea, inflicting what scientists say are potentially catastrophic changes to icecaps, glaciers and rainfall patterns. The UNFCCC is the parent treaty of the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to trim output of fossil gases. Kyoto, signed in 1997, remains in limbo however. The United States, the biggest carbon polluter, has walked away from it and Russia is dragging its feet about ratifying the accord, a move that would push the deal over a legal threshold and make it an international treaty.
SEE ALSO: What Will it Take to Spur Environmentalism? (Common Dreams)
SEE ALSO: With Nature There are No Special Effects (TomDispatch)

5-6 June 2004

Bush Takes a Tongue-Lashing from the Pope over Iraq
The Guardian (UK), 5 June 2004
EXCERPT: The Pope yesterday subjected George Bush to a very public, relentlessly critical assessment of the US administration's performance in Iraq, attacking "deplorable" abuses of prisoners and calling for an international solution to the country's crisis. During the president's visit to the Vatican, which the administration had hoped would help him win Catholic votes in November's presidential election, the Pope warned Mr Bush he would never succeed in the war on terrorism if he failed to ensure respect for basic human rights. And he urged him to involve the United Nations in an oper ation for the swift return of sovereignty to Iraq. In a clear reference to the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, the pontiff said: "In the past few weeks _ deplorable events have come to light which have troubled the civic and religious conscience of all and made more difficult a serene and resolute commitment to shared human values. "In the absence of such a commitment, neither war nor terrorism will ever be overcome."

MEANWHILE IN AMERICA'S 'LIBERAL' MEDIA:
CNN Buries Bush's Scolding from the Pope Deep in Article
New York Times Puts a 'Fair and Balanced' Spin on the Scolding

Washington Will Prop Up the House of Saud, For Now
By Mai Yamani
The Guardian (UK), 5 June 2004
EXCERPT: Long before the latest violence erupted, Saudi Arabia's immaculately suited spokesmen were out on the stump, telling anyone who would listen that the situation in the country was completely under control. They're now doing it again - only this time nobody believes them. All the signs suggest that in the face of mounting violence and international pressure, the House of Saud has sunk into terminal denial and paralysis. Convinced that their enemies are all around them, they are nevertheless unable to locate them. Even when gunmen are totally surrounded in a building, three of them succeed in escaping. ... But it would be wrong to predict any immediate collapse of the state. Despite a marked cooling in relations, Saudi Arabia remains the key ally of the US in the region. With continuing violence in Iraq, Washington's priority is to prevent Saudi Arabia descending into similar anarchy, even if it means propping up a regime it no longer likes or trusts. American demands for reform have quietened in the past few months, which may explain their muted response to the clampdown on Saudi liberals last March. While oil prices remain exceptionally high and with a US presidential election in November, Saudi Arabia is the pump that cannot be allowed to run dry. Predictably, the kingdom is determined to remind the Bush administration of its central role in the world economy and politics, aware that if peace breaks out in neighbouring Iraq, it will lose some important leverage.
SEE ALSO: Attack on Saudi Oil Facility Could Destabilise West (Guardian)

Methods Used on 2 at Guantanamo
By Josh White
Washington Post, 4 June 2004
EXCERPT: Intensive interrogation techniques approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were used to elicit information from two prisoners at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a senior Army general said yesterday. Pentagon officials previously said Rumsfeld helped approve a list of intense interrogation techniques for Guantanamo, but Army Gen. James T. Hill said for the first time yesterday that Rumsfeld had granted permission to use those techniques in two cases. Hill, who is in charge of the U.S. Southern Command based in Miami, told reporters at the Pentagon that both prisoners were considered "high-value" detainees who have since provided important intelligence information about al Qaeda. Yesterday's briefing was one of a series of sessions designed to reconstruct the foundations of U.S. policy on the interrogation of detainees in the war on terrorism after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq. The documented abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred shortly after officials from Guantanamo Bay visited the prison outside of Baghdad, and several investigations are underway to determine the extent and origin of U.S. interrogation policies used there and their possible connection to abuses.

4 June 2004

UN's Brahimi: Bremer the 'Dictator of Iraq'
By Tom Lasseter
Knight-Ridder, 3 June 2004
EXCERPT: Lakhdar Brahimi, wrapping up his U.N. mission to bring an interim government to Iraq, looked a little tired and disheartened Wednesday as he said the compromise he negotiated was the best possible under American control. When the U.S.-appointed Governing Council announced this week that it had selected a new prime minister, Brahimi seemed to be caught flat-footed. The man tapped for the post, Iyad Allawi, has close ties to the CIA. Almost immediately after being named prime minister, he called for the United States to keep its troops in Iraq, a position unpopular with many Iraqis. Asked how big a role the American administration had in forming the government and selecting the prime minister and president, Brahimi reminded reporters that American Ambassador L. Paul Bremer runs things in Iraq. "Bremer is the dictator of Iraq," he said. "He has the money. He has the signature." He later added: "I will not say who was my first choice, and who was not my first choice ... I will remind you that the Americans are governing this country."

Shia Party Voices Dissent Over Iraqi Interim Government
By James Drummond
Financial Times, 3 June 2004
Courtesy of Juan Cole
EXCERPT: A key Iraqi Shia religious party complained yesterday of "marginalisation and exclusion" from the newly appointed interim government, as US forces continued their efforts to quash a rebellion by Shia fighters in Iraq's south.

Fund For Peace Study Concludes that Iraq Has Descended Into a Failed State Syndrome
U.S. Newswire, 3 June 2004
Courtesy of Juan Cole
EXCERPT: A report released today by The Fund for Peace (FfP) concludes that instead of addressing the fundamental requirements of rebuilding the state, post-war policies undertaken by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) focused primarily on completing the process of regime change. Consequently, Iraq has deteriorated further into a failed state syndrome. Dr. Pauline H. Baker, author of the report, describes a failed state syndrome as a condition in which a number of trends reinforce each other to produce spiraling conflict that the country has little or no independent capacity to stop. The report concludes that, a year after the invasion, Iraq is as shattered as it was the day that Saddam Hussein was overthrown, the main difference being that organized militias and terrorist groups have gained a foothold they did not have before.

Delusion on a Psychotic Scale: Still Searching for WMD
By David Leigh and David Pallister
The Guardian (UK), 4 June 2004
EXCERPT: The dustbin of history is crammed full these days. Head-first into the garbage has just gone Ahmed Chalabi, would-be leader of Iraq, now accused of treachery against the US and of peddling disinformation about non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Into the bin with him has gone, as we all know by now, a chimerical tangle of irrelevant pipework: so-called aluminium tubes for nuclear bombs; so-called mobile laboratories for spreading germs; alleged rockets to fire off poison gas within 45 minutes. All these have proved non-existent. George Tenet, director of the CIA, is the latest to take a dive into historical oblivion, announcing his resignation yesterday. His intelligence agency failed to prevent September 11; did not persuade the US president of the truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; and may yet prove to have murdered at least one Iraqi inmate at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Amid all this mass clear-out of failures and lies, however, there is one mysterious omission. A secretive CIA-led intelligence body set up to look for stockpiles of Saddam's secret weapons, the Iraq Survey Group, is still going strong. This is despite the resignation of its head, David Kay, last January, who said with admirable crispness: "We were all wrong."
SEE ALSO:
Worst is Yet to Come as US Pays the Price of Failure
By David Hirst
The Guardian (UK), 4 June 2004
EXCERPT: The neo-cons were right about one thing: the Arab world, however fractious otherwise, is bound by strong psychological and cultural ties, and whatever happened in Iraq would profoundly affect the whole. The trouble is that just as American success in Iraq would have made it likelier elsewhere, so the failure that now so ominously threatens will breed it elsewhere. Not merely does the situation in Palestine get worse because of Iraq, so it does via the rebound in Iraq too. An American disaster in Iraq always had the built-in propensity to become a regional one. For years it had been all but axiomatic that any western intervention to bring down Saddam needed to be matched by an essentially pro-Palestinian in the Arab-Israeli conflict too. The west had created Israel at the Palestinians' expense, and any realistic settlement had so far as possible to redress that historic injustice. Otherwise, all the war's official objectives would be dismissed out of court as just another blatant episode in the history of western conquest and exploitation. The neo-cons bought the axiom - but turned it on its head.

AUDIO LINK
Think Again: Thomas Friedman On Iraq
NPR's Terry Gross and Fresh Air, 3 June 2004
The case Thomas Friedman made in the New York Times in support of Bush and the Iraq War ignored the flawed character and methods use by the Bush administration. Friedman, time and again, justified and excused the means employed by citing the potentially positive outcome that he envisioned. For nearly two years Friedman has been indifferent to the debilitating nature of the Bush's unilateralism, arrogant attitude and deceitfulness. No matter how worthy Bush's goals may have been, the administration initially discredited themselves in the eyes of the those who were crucial to persuade...the world and the Iraqi people. Now that Friedman has rethought his position, he's written a couple of columns revising his perspective. He now says this...listen to this ten minute segment.

'They have no humanity. They didn't even give us two minutes to get out'
Last month, Israeli troops swept into the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, bulldozing hundreds of homes and leaving around 60 dead. Israel says it was looking for terrorists, but by the time the army withdrew, 1,600 people were homeless. What happens to the people whose houses are destroyed?
By Chris McGreal
The Guardian (UK), 4 June 2004
EXCERPT: There is nothing left of the Akhras' family's home. Even the cloths blowing in the breeze above their heads, providing a pathetic, makeshift tent to the once nomadic Bedouin family, are borrowed from luckier neighbours. A large round metal bowl is all that they recovered from the rubble of their house after it was bulldozed by the Israeli army. "There were 10 rooms here," says the 50-year-old patriarch, Ghazi. "Thirty-three people lived in the house. There was me, my wife, my seven brothers and their wives, and all our sons and daughters." It was 10pm when the bulldozers came. "All the people were fleeing their houses, but one of my brothers is handicapped and was trapped in the house. We had to carry him out as the bulldozer was hitting the building." All that remains of the house is a mound of concrete and dirt. The destruction by the bulldozer was so complete that some of the walls have been ground to a rubble reminiscent of the rocky desert beyond the fence.
SEE ALSO: Sharon to Sack Ministers over Gaza Pullout (Guardian)

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