Abu Ghraib, Stonewalled
New York Times, 30 June 2004
EXCERPT: While piously declaring its determination to unearth the truth about Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration has spent nearly two months obstructing investigations by the Army and members of Congress. It has dragged out the Army's inquiry, withheld crucial government documents from a Senate committee and stonewalled senators over dozens of Red Cross reports that document the horrible mistreatment of Iraqis at American military prisons. Even last week's document dump from the White House, which included those cynical legal road maps around treaties and laws against torturing prisoners, seemed part of this stonewalling campaign. Nothing in those hundreds of pages explained what orders had been issued to the military and C.I.A. jailers in Iraq, and by whom. ...Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of another issue, the Red Cross reports on Iraq, is the most outrageous example of the administration's bad faith on the prison scandal. The Bush administration has cited Red Cross confidentiality policies to explain its failure to give up the reports. The trouble is, the Red Cross has repeatedly told the administration to go ahead and share the agency's findings with Congress, as long as steps are taken to prevent leaks.

Investigators Say Drug Makers Repeatedly Overcharged
By ROBERT PEAR
New York Times, 30 June 2004
EXCERPT: Federal investigators said Tuesday that drug companies had repeatedly overcharged public hospitals and clinics for low-income patients, making them pay more than the maximum prices allowed by federal law. Such taxpayer-supported hospitals, community health centers and clinics for people with AIDS are supposed to have access to the government's best prices for outpatient drugs. The investigators, at the inspector general's office in the Health and Human Services Department, found that prices charged to those agencies frequently exceeded the limits set by the Public Health Service Act. In one month, the investigators said, the overcharges totaled $41.1 million, raising the cost of prescription drugs to public hospitals and clinics 18 percent, to $269 million, from $227.9 million. In 31 percent of the transactions examined, the prices charged by drug manufacturers exceeded the legal maximums, the investigators said. Thirty-six of 37 health care providers had to pay more than the ceiling price defined by Congress. The size of the discount program and the overcharges are growing, in part because President Bush and Congress are engaged in a major bipartisan effort to increase community health centers for low-income patients. Those clinics are all entitled to the discounts. The inspector general said the Public Health Service should develop a legislative proposal to establish fines and civil penalties for manufacturers that overcharge.

Blind, Or A Coward?
TomPaine.com, 30 June 2004
EXCERPT: One of the first things I did when I got back from vacation was to go see Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. It's a brilliant piece of propaganda, entertaining and funny, and it skewers the president deliciously. But am I the only one to notice that in one critically important way, it entirely misses the boat and gets nearly everything wrong? Maybe this has been said before--I've hardly read all of the criticism of Moore--but if so, I haven't seen it. Moore totally avoids the question of Israel. ...I have to conclude the Michael Moore is either blind, or a coward. Blind, if he can't see Bush's craven ties to Israel, driven by the neocons and the Christian Zionists and Bible-thumping fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell, who consider Israel Jesus' next stop and see Saudi Arabia as Satanic. Or cowardly, because he knows it and decided not to mention it. Is that because attacking Israel is too hard? Moore's photo-montage of Saudi princes borders on the racist, showing Bush & Co. clinging to grinning, Semitic-looking Arabs in flowing white robes one after another. Would we stand for a similar, racist-leaning montage of Bush palling around with grinning, Semitic-looking Jews in skullcaps? 'Course not. More important, Moore completely misses the political boat. Perhaps that's because he relies so heavily on Craig Unger and his book, House of Bush, House of Saud , which makes the same "error."

A Second Opinion - About American Health Care and the Absence of Leadership
By BOB HERBERT
New York Times, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: n an article a few years ago in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine took a look at the overall health of the American people, and compared conditions here to those in other industrialized countries.
What she found was disturbing.
"The fact is that the U.S. population does not have anywhere near the best health in the world," she wrote. "Of 13 countries in a recent comparison, the United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health indicators." She said the U.S. came in 13th, dead last, in terms of low birth weight percentages; 13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality over all; 13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes); 11th for life expectancy at the age of 1 for females and 12th for males; and 10th for life expectancy at the age of 15 for females and 12th for males. She noted in the article that more than 40 million Americans lacked health insurance (the figure is about 43 million now) and she described the state of Americans' health as "relatively poor." "U.S. children are particularly disadvantaged," she said, adding, "But even the relatively advantaged position of elderly persons in the United States is slipping. The U.S. relative position for life expectancy in the oldest age group was better in the 1980's than in the 1990's." The article was published in the summer of 2000.
Last week I talked with Dr. Starfield, an internationally respected physician, professor and researcher, and asked whether the situation had improved over the last four years.
"It's getting worse," she said, noting, "We've done a lot more studies in terms of the international comparisons. We've done them a million different ways. The findings are so robust that I think they're probably incontrovertible." The U.S. has the most expensive health care system on the planet, but millions of Americans without access to care die from illnesses that could have been successfully treated if diagnosed in time. Poor people line up at emergency rooms for care that should be provided in a doctor's office or clinic. Each year tens of thousands of men, women and children die from medical errors and many more are maimed. But when you look for leadership on these issues, you find yourself staring into the void.

Bush interpretation of "free press"
Hear No Lichtblau, See No Lichtblau
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: When New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau wrote a story last fall that the FBI didn't like, the bureau responded by trying to freeze him out. FBI spokeswoman Cassandra Chandler sent top officials a memo disputing the story and assailing "the slanted and biased report[ing] style of Mr. Lichtblau. In the meantime, we encourage each of you to please avoid providing information to this reporter. He has consistently demonstrated that he lacks the ethics of a respected journalist." During the same period, the Justice Department revoked Lichtblau's credentials -- a move that a spokesman calls coincidental.

Aide Is Bush's Eyes and Ears on the Right
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
New York Times, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: ...conservatives outside the White House say they view Mr. Goeglein mainly as an extension of Mr. Rove. And stalwarts of the right say that, even as some conservatives have grown sharply critical of the administration's spending or of the war in Iraq, his function as a hot line to the White House helps keep the Bush administration more closely allied with their movement than any previous administration has been. "This Bush administration does better than Reagan and better than his father, it is very methodical about reaching out to people to try to meet their concerns," said Paul Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer. "Every time I have expressed something to Tim, when I later would talk to Rove, he would be absolutely right up on it and know precisely what my position was, so he can't do better than that," Mr. Weyrich said. The Bush White House has other liaisons - to big business, Jewish groups, high-tech companies - but Mr. Rove has made courting conservatives and Christians a top political priority, in part to help turn out voters. Mr. Rove has often said conservative Christians disappointed him by about four million votes in 2000, nearly costing Mr. Bush the election.

Former Terrorism Czar Calls Iraq Invasion 'Enormous Mistake'
By Mike Schneider, Associated Press, 6/26/2004 20:56
AP in the Boston Globe, 27 June 2004
EXCERPT: The invasion of Iraq was an ''enormous mistake'' that is costing untold lives, strengthening al-Qaida and breeding a new generation of terrorists, former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said Saturday. "'We did exactly what al-Qaida said we would do invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country that wasn't threatening us in any way,'' Clarke said before giving the keynote address at the American Library Association's annual convention in Orlando. ''The hatred that has been engendered by this invasion will last for generations.''

Rather than stopping mistreatment, Bush team provided a rationale
Aides Say Memo Backed Coercion for Qaeda Cases
By DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN
New York Times, 27 June 2004
EXCERPT: An August 2002 memo by the Justice Department that concluded interrogators could use extreme techniques on detainees in the war on terror helped provide an after-the-fact legal basis for harsh procedures used by the C.I.A. on high-level leaders of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials. The legal memo was prepared after an internal debate within the government about the methods used to extract information from Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden's top aides, after his capture in April 2002, the officials said. The memo provided a legal foundation for coercive techniques used later against other high-ranking detainees, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the chief architect of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, who was captured in early 2003. The full text of the memo was made public by the White House on Tuesday without explanation about why it was written or whether its standards were applied. Until now, it has not been clear that the memo was written in response to the C.I.A.'s efforts to extract information from high-ranking Qaeda suspects, and was unrelated to questions about handling detainees at Guantánamo Bay or in Iraq.

Thomas Friedman Takes a (Book Writing) Vacation
New York Times, 27 June 2004
EXCERPT: Here's a few of the headlines I'd like to read while I'm gone.
Iraq's New Government Quashes Rebellion in Sunni Areas -- Without the Help of U.S. Troops -- Thanks to Intelligence Provided by Iraqis Themselves...

President Bush Stuns Electorate -- Does His Own Version of Nixon to China and Announces Joint Chinese-American Crash Program for Developing Alternative Energies...

Bush Administration Calls an End to the "War on Terrorism."

Election Polling Analysis Shows Disadvantage to Bush
Ruy Teixeira
Talking Points Memo, 26 June 2004

Supreme Court Sides With H.M.O.'s on Patient Suits
By DAVID STOUT
New York Times, 21 June 2004
EXCERPT: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today, in a significant victory for the health-care industry, that health maintenance organizations enjoy broad protections from medical malpractice suits brought by patients. The justices held that patients cannot use state courts to sue H.M.O.'s for malpractice when treatment recommended by their doctors is withheld. Rather, the justices said, the 1974 federal law widely known as Erisa, which governs the health insurance that millions of Americans receive through their workplace, pre-empts the growing number of state laws that do authorize such suits. ...An exchange during the March 23 arguments touched on issues beyond whether federal or state laws should prevail. "To say that the plan condemned them to not using Vioxx is simply not true," Justice Antonin Scalia told George P. Young, a lawyer for the patients. "All you're talking about here is money." "Well," Mr. Young replied, "the truth is, your honor, that neither of these claimants would have needed health insurance if they had the independent means to just whip out a gold card and pay for the drug."

Malpractice Myths
By BOB HERBERT
New York Times, 21 June 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush has been complaining about "junk and frivolous" lawsuits for years. So it's interesting to hear the following from the Center for Justice and Democracy, a consumer advocacy group: "It may be hard to understand why `tort reform' is even on the national agenda at a time when insurance industry profits are booming, tort filings are declining, only 2 percent of injured people sue for compensation, punitive damages are rarely awarded, liability insurance costs for businesses are minuscule, medical malpractice insurance and claims are both less than 1 percent of all health care costs in America, and premium-gouging underwriting practices of the insurance industry have been widely exposed."

The New and Improved Iraq
By Juan Cole
In These Times, 30 June 2004
EXCERPT: Soldiers from the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps stand at attention during a June 1st transfer of authority ceremony. The so-called transition to sovereignty for Iraq set for June 30 has been trumpeted as a turning point by the Bush administration. It is hard to see, however, what exactly it changes. A symbolic act like a turnover of sovereignty cannot supply security, which is likely to deteriorate further as insurgents attempt to destabilize the new, weak government. The caretaker government, appointed by outsiders, does not represent the will of the Iraqi people. Some 138,000 U.S. troops remain in the country and the U.S. embassy in Baghdad will be the largest in the world, both of which bode ill for any exercise of genuine sovereignty by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The caretaker government faces five key issues, any one of which could be destabilizing. It must jumpstart the creation of an Iraqi army that could hope to restore security. It must find a way to hold free and fair elections by next January, a difficult trick to pull off given the daily toll of bombings and assassinations. It must get hospitals, water treatment plants and other essential services back to acceptable levels. It must keep the country's various factions from fighting one another or from pulling away in a separatist drive. And it must negotiate between religious and secularist political forces.

Government Attacks on Area Specialists Called Disservice to U.S. Middle East Policy
UCLA International Institute
EXCERPT: Rashid Khalidi sees perils for the U.S. in empire building while ignoring its own professional Middle East experts and the history of the region. ...Most Middle East specialists in the United States could have predicted -- and often did -- the high levels of prolonged resistance American forces have encountered in Iraq. The Bush administration not only didn't ask them, it has frequently sought to belittle the scholars who know the region best, or to impugn their patriotism. So said Columbia University historian Rashid Khalidi in a May 27 talk at UCLA for the Center for Near Eastern Studies. ...Certain key Bush administration policies simply do not meet the reality test and are harmful to the United States and the peoples of the region. We are seeing a fact-free, faith-based approach to Middle East policymaking.

Bushman in Iraq
New US envoy: Past and present
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 1 July 2004
EXCERPT: Negroponte was sent by the incoming administration of then president Ronald Reagan (1981-89) to Tegucigalpa in early 1981 to transform Honduras into a military and intelligence base directed against Nicaragua and the left-wing insurgents in neighboring El Salvador - a mission he largely accomplished in the four years he spent running what at that time was Washington's biggest embassy in the Americas. To do so, he and the station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Donald Winter, formed a close alliance with General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, the army's ambitious and murderous commander who admired - and implemented - the "dirty war" tactics that he had learned from the Argentine military in the late 1970s. The Argentine junta sent advisers to Honduras at Alvarez's request to begin building what would become a US-backed contra force against Nicaragua. Until Negroponte's arrival, Honduras was a sleepy, relatively untroubled backwater in the region whose military, unlike those of its neighbors, was seen as relatively progressive, if corrupt, and loathe to resort to actual violence against dissidents. But with the support of the CIA and the Argentines, Alvarez moved to change that radically, according to declassified documents as well as detailed and award-winning reporting by the Baltimore Sun in the mid-1990s. A special intelligence unit of the Honduran Armed Forces, called Battalion 316, was put together by Alvarez and supplied and trained by the CIA and the Argentines. It was a death squad that kidnapped and tortured hundreds of real or suspected "subversives", "disappeared" at least 180 of them - including US missionaries - during Negroponte's tenure. Such activities were previously unknown in Honduras. At the same time, Negroponte, who was often referred to as "proconsul" by the Honduran media, oversaw the expansion of two major military bases used by US forces and Nicaraguan contras, and, after the US Congress put strict limits on the training of Salvadorian soldiers in-country, he "persuaded" the government to build a Regional Military Training Center on Honduran territory, despite the fact that Honduras and El Salvador were traditional enemies who had fought a bloody war less than 15 years before.
Throughout this period, Negroponte steadfastly defended Alvarez, at one point calling him "a model professional", and repeatedly denied anything was amiss on the human rights front in Honduras despite rising concern in Congress about reports of disappearances and killings by death squads. In a 1982 letter to The Economist magazine, he asserted it was "simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras". He said much the same in testimony before Congress at the time. Embassy employees were told to cleanse their reports about rights abuses, even as the military's role in the killings and disappearances became widely known - and reported by Honduran newspapers - within the country. One exiled colonel living in Mexico denounced Alvarez for creating a death squad: Negroponte denied the charge.
Alvarez's excesses, the unprecedented human rights abuses and the country's total alignment with US plans eventually became too much for the Honduran military itself. In a move that caught Negroponte and Winter completely by surprise, his fellow officers deposed the armed forces chief in a barracks coup in 1984. Negroponte, whom the insurgents reportedly wanted to have declared persona non grata, was back in Washington within the year. As more details about Battalion 316 have come to light in the 20 years since, Negroponte has continued to deny any knowledge of its existence or activities. As late as 2001, when President George W Bush nominated him as UN ambassador, Negroponte insisted, "To this day, I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras." Negroponte's protests of innocence are simply not credible to many observers, including his predecessor in Tegucigalpa, who claims to have personally briefed him about Alvarez and his murderous plans. Rights groups have also pointed out he successfully intervened with the army to gain the release of at least two people who had been abducted, suggesting that he must have known who was responsible. Activists and some senators with whom he had tangled over Honduras in the past had hoped his record would have been closely scrutinized by the Senate when he was nominated to the UN ambassadorship, but his nomination was rushed to the floor for confirmation in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, when the administration argued there was no time for extended hearings given the urgency of directing the US response at the world body. Now he is in Iraq to oversee its democratization.
SEE ALSO: The Taming of the Rogue (Asia Times)

Who Lost Iraq?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: The formal occupation of Iraq came to an ignominious end yesterday with a furtive ceremony, held two days early to foil insurgent attacks, and a swift airborne exit for the chief administrator. In reality, the occupation will continue under another name, most likely until a hostile Iraqi populace demands that we leave. But it's already worth asking why things went so wrong. The Iraq venture may have been doomed from the start -- but we'll never know for sure because the Bush administration made such a mess of the occupation. Future historians will view it as a case study of how not to run a country. Up to a point, the numbers in the Brookings Institution's invaluable Iraq Index tell the tale. Figures on the electricity supply and oil production show a pattern of fitful recovery and frequent reversals; figures on insurgent attacks and civilian casualties show a security situation that got progressively worse, not better; public opinion polls show an occupation that squandered the initial good will. What the figures don't describe is the toxic mix of ideological obsession and cronyism that lie behind that dismal performance.

Bremer Flees Iraq Two Days Early
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: Paul Bremer suddenly left Iraq on Monday, having "transferred sovereignty" to the caretaker Iraqi government two days early. It is hard to interpret this move as anything but a precipitous flight. It is just speculation on my part, but I suspect that the Americans must have developed intelligence that there might be a major strike on the Coalition Provisional Headquarters on Wednesday if a formal ceremony were held to mark a transfer of sovereignty. Since the US military is so weak in Iraq and appears to have poor intelligence on the guerrilla insurgency, the Bush administration could not take the chance that a major bombing or other attack would mar the ceremony. The surprise move will throw off all the major news organizations, which were planning intensive coverage of the ceremonies originally planned for Wednesday. This entire exercise is a publicity stunt and has almost no substance to it. Gwen Ifill said on US television on Sunday that she had talked to Condaleeza Rice, and that her hope was that when something went wrong in Iraq, the journalists would now grill Allawi about it rather than the Bush administration. (Or words to that effect). Ifill seems to me to have given away the whole Bush show. That's what this whole thing is about. It is Public Relations and manipulation of journalists. Let's see if they fall for it.

'Failure to Account' for Iraq Cash
BBC News, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: Iraqi money cannot be accounted for by occupying forces responsible for the funds, according to two new reports.
Discrepancies are highlighted in the handling of $20bn (£11bn) generated from Iraq's oil and other sources since war ended last year. The Coalition Provisional Authority was given responsibility for the country's finances by the United Nations. The UN stressed that money in the Development Fund for Iraq must be shown to be used in Iraq's best interests. It was understood that all revenues would be paid into a central fund.

Iraq Occupation Erodes Bush Doctrine
By Robin Wright
Washington Post, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: The occupation of Iraq has increasingly undermined, and in some cases discredited, the core tenets of President Bush's foreign policy, according to a wide range of Republican and Democratic analysts and U.S. officials. When the war began 15 months ago, the president's Iraq policy rested on four broad principles: The United States should act preemptively to prevent strikes on U.S. targets. Washington should be willing to act unilaterally, alone or with a select coalition, when the United Nations or allies balk. Iraq was the next cornerstone in the global war on terrorism. And Baghdad's transformation into a new democracy would spark regionwide change. But these central planks of Bush doctrine have been tainted by spiraling violence, limited reconstruction, failure to find weapons of mass destruction or prove Iraq's ties to al Qaeda, and mounting Arab disillusionment with U.S. leadership. "Of the four principles, three have failed, and the fourth -- democracy promotion -- is hanging by a sliver," said Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council staff member in the Reagan administration and now director of regional strategic programs at the Nixon Center. The president has "walked away from unilateralism. We're not going to do another preemptive strike anytime soon, certainly not in Iran or North Korea. And it looks like terrorism is getting worse, not better, especially in critical countries like Saudi Arabia," Kemp said. As a result, Bush doctrine could become the biggest casualty of U.S. intervention in Iraq, which is entering a new phase this week as the United States prepares to hand over power to the new Iraqi government.
SEE ALSO:
As Bush Confers With NATO, U.S. Is Seen Losing Its Edge
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
New York Times, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush's trip to the NATO summit meeting in Turkey comes at a time of diminished diplomatic strength, in which international organizations and individual countries have forced his administration into some strategic compromises, foreign policy specialists and diplomats say. As Mr. Bush tries to press NATO allies to play a greater role in Iraq, he faces resistance from critics of the administration's previously unilateral stances who worry that the Iraq mission may be on the brink of failure, those analysts said.

U.S. Army Re-examines Deaths of Iraqi Prisoners: Some May Have Been Exposed to Heat, Cold
By Tom Squitieri and Dave Moniz
USA TODAY, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: The U.S. Army's inspector general and criminal division are investigating whether U.S. troops deliberately or negligently exposed Iraqi prisoners to extreme heat and cold in ways that contributed to deaths that have until now been attributed to natural or unknown causes. Depending on the findings, some of the deaths could be reclassified as homicides, and charges could be brought against U.S. personnel, military officials say. At least 11 of the 15 Iraqi prisoner deaths currently ruled as due to natural or undetermined causes came during periods of extreme heat or cold at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad or at other U.S.-run prison facilities in Iraq, according to death certificates released by the Pentagon. A 12th prisoner's death was attributed to heat. The re-examination of the deaths was triggered in part by a lawsuit that cites prisoners' complaints that they suffered severe heat distress and dehydration or were drenched with water and exposed to cold nighttime temperatures at prisons in Iraq. The lawsuit was filed June 9 by the Center for Constitutional Rights in U.S. District Court in San Diego against two private companies whose employees worked as interrogators and translators at the prisons. The New York City-based center was originally formed to represent civil rights workers in Mississippi, and now it initiates lawsuits for individuals with limited resources. The class-action suit charges that Titan Corp. and CACI International conspired with U.S. officials to humiliate, torture and abuse the prisoners.
SEE ALSO: Documents Give Different Explanation for Inmate's Death (USA Today)
SEE ALSO:
Memo Lists Acceptable 'Aggressive' Interrogation Methods
By Toni Locy and John Diamond
USA TODAY, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: The Justice Department spelled out specific interrogation methods that the CIA could use against top al-Qaeda members in a still-classified August 2002 legal memo, issued as the spy agency pressed terrorism suspects about possible strikes on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, current and former Justice officials said. CIA officials had demanded specific guidance for handling "high-value al-Qaeda captives," said a former Justice official who worked on the memo. The techniques discussed were "aggressive" but "lawful," the former official said. A current Justice official who knows the memo's contents said it specifically authorized the CIA to use "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he is suffocating.

Taliban "voter registration" campaign
14 Afghans Are Killed for Registering to Vote
By DAVID ROHDE
New York Times, 28 June 2004
EXCERPT: Suspected Taliban fighters have carried out their most lethal attack yet in a widening campaign to derail Afghan national elections, executing at least 14 unarmed men because they had registered to vote, government officials said. Jan Muhammad, the governor of the province of Uruzgan, said three survivors of the attack on Friday told officials that Taliban fighters had kidnapped and killed the men after discovering their voter registration cards.

Realism Takes Root in Washington
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 26 June 04
EXCERPT: Two weeks after compromising with its traditional allies on the wording of a key United Nations Security Council resolution on Iraq, US foreign policy under George W Bush appears to be moving further toward the more realist policies of his father in other areas as well. Few pretend to know whether the move is tactical for electoral reasons or strategic, in the sense that it would continue if Bush won re-election. But the notion that the president is indeed trying to soften the harder edges of his foreign policy agenda is now widely accepted.

We Fight, You Pay: Costs of the Iraq War
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 24 June 2004
EXCERPT: Unless you own a lot of stock in Halliburton or other big defense, security or construction companies, chances are the Iraq war has turned out to be a pretty bad investment, both in terms of human lives and taxpayer dollars, according to a new assessment by a Washington-based think-tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). In what it claims is the first comprehensive accounting of the costs of the war on the US, Iraq, and much of the rest of the world, IPS concludes that not only have US taxpayers paid a "very high price for the war", they have also become "less secure at home and in the world".
SEE ALSO: Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War (IPS-FPIF)

Judge in Abuse Case Will Allow Questioning of Top Officers
By EDWARD WONG
New York Times, 21 June 2004
EXCERPT: A military judge ruled today that the top American commanders involved in the Iraq war will have to submit to questioning by lawyers for two defendants in the Abu Ghraib prison case. The lawyers said they planned to show that the most senior military and civilian officials had approved interrogation methods that violated the Geneva Conventions.

Bush Team Tries to Brazen It Out
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 21 June 2004
EXCERPT: "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam [Hussein] and al-Qaeda," US President George W Bush told reporters last week, is "because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda". This is what logicians call a tautology - a "useless repetition" - but it is also an indication of how the Bush administration is defending itself against a growing number of scandals and deceptions in which it is enmeshed.

Iraq as the 51st State
Interview with Juan Cole
Asia Times, 18 June 2004
EXCERPT:
ATol: Let's start with the credibility of the Iraqi caretaker government vis-a-vis the Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds, more than vis-a-vis the US and the UN. Virtually everyone in the Sunni triangle and also in the Shi'ite south used to refer to the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) as "the imported government". Will the same happen again to this American face of an Iraqi government?
Juan Cole: Everybody knows it's an appointed government. It doesn't spring from the rule of the Iraqi people. Grand Ayatollah [Ali al-]Sistani has issued a fatwa recently in which he openly said that. His view in this matter will be widely shared. It's unfortunate that the Iraqi prime minister should have been a known CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] asset. I don't think that it changes anything. The IGC, as you said, was seen as a puppet council by many people. There's much more continuity between the IGC and this government than most people seem to realize. It's pretty much the same cast of characters - either with regard to people who actually sat at the council and persons who represent factions who had a seat in that council.

Bush Trying to Isolate U.N. Agency
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
New York Times, 21 June 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush administration, which cut off its share of financing two years ago to the United Nations agency handling population control, is seeking to isolate the agency from groups that work with it in China and elsewhere, United Nations officials and diplomats say. Pressed by opponents of abortion, the administration withdrew its support from a major international conference on health issues this month and has privately warned other groups, like Unicef, that address health issues that their financing could be jeopardized if they insist on working with the agency, the United Nations Population Fund. The administration also has indicated that it hopes to persuade the United Nations' Latin American caucus to back away from a common position on population and development that was adopted in Santiago, Chile, in March on the grounds that the document's discussion of reproductive rights could be interpreted as promoting abortion. The actions are part of an administration effort to ensure that international agencies and private groups do not promote abortions overseas. In its first days in office, the Bush administration reintroduced the Reagan-era that critics call the "global gag rule," which denies money to groups that even discuss abortion as an option, except in cases that threaten life or involve rape or incest.

11 June 2004

Bush Campaign State Department Erred in Bush's Favor
U.S. Wrongly Reported Drop in World Terrorism in 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11 June 2004
EXCERPT: The State Department acknowledged Thursday it was wrong in reporting terrorism declined worldwide last year, a finding used to boost one of President Bush's chief foreign policy claims -- success in countering terror. Instead, both the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department said. Statements by senior administration officials claiming success were based "on the facts as we had them at the time. The facts that we had were wrong," department spokesman Richard Boucher said. The April report said attacks had declined last year to 190, the lowest level in 34 years, and dropped 45 percent since 2001, Bush's first year as president. The department is now working to determine the correct figures. Rep. Henry A. Waxman, who had challenged the findings, said he was pleased that officials "have now recognized that they have a report that has been inaccurate, and based on the inaccurate information they tried to take self-serving political credit for the results that were wrong." Among the mistakes, Boucher said, was that only part of 2003 was taken into account. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday the errors were partly the result of new data collection procedures. "I can assure you it had nothing to do with putting out anything but the most honest, accurate information we can," he said. "Errors crept in that frankly we did not catch here," Powell said. The report showed both a drop in the number of attacks worldwide in 2003 and the virtual disappearance of attacks in which no one died.

Annan Urges Application of International Law to Iraq
By Theo Emery
Associated Press, 10 June 2004
EXCERPT: U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Thursday that the war in Iraq has sparked a global crisis that must be resolved through international cooperation. Speaking at Harvard University's commencement exercises Thursday afternoon, Annan also criticized the U.S. decision to attack Iraq without authorization from the U.N. Security Council "What kind of world would it be, and who would want to live in it, if every country was allowed to use force, without collective agreement, simply because it thought there might be a threat?'' he said.
AUDIO LINK
Annan Says World is in Worst Mess Ever (NPR)
SEE ALSO:
When a Picture Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
by Josh Marshall
The Hill, 10 June 2004
EXCERPT: Yet the debate over who is responsible for what we see in those pictures continues, even when we have plenty of evidence that the tactics they were using were either specifically authorized by policymakers at the Pentagon or widespread at U.S.-detention facilities commanded by the same folks now prosecuting those reservists in the photos. Isn’t it about time that we just come clean with ourselves and admit that those half-dozen reservists really probably were just following orders?

Bush Doesn't See NATO Sending In Troops for Iraq
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times, 10 June 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush said Thursday that after two days of consultations with the leaders of France and other nations, he did not expect NATO to provide troops to bolster or replace American forces in Iraq. ...President Jacques Chirac of France, speaking at his own news conference on Thursday, reiterated his opposition to any broad NATO intervention, and left uncertain whether he would support a NATO role in training Iraqi forces. Making clear that his split with Mr. Bush over Iraq is not completely in the past, he described the occupation of Iraq as "costly in every regard," and warned against the risks of NATO "meddling" there. ...When the subject turned to the treatment of prisoners, Mr. Bush said he could not remember whether he had seen secret Pentagon and Justice Department legal opinions that concluded he had broad authority to determine what techniques could be used to interrogate unlawful combatants seized in Afghanistan.

Controversial Commando Wins Iraq Contract
Pratap Chatterjee
CorpWatch, 9 June 2004
EXCERPT: Occupation authorities in Iraq have awarded a $293 million contract effectively creating the world's largest private army to a company headed by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former officer with the SAS, an elite regiment of British commandos, who has been investigated for illegally smuggling arms and planning military offensives to support mining, oil, and gas operations around the world.

Rock & Radiation, not Ronald Reagan, Brought Down the Soviet Union
By Harvey Wasserman
Free Press, 10 June 2004
EXCERPT: No greater nonsense will accompany Ronald Reagan to his grave than the idea that he brought down the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War. Among the many causes of Soviet collapse two words stand out, and they aren't Ronald Reagan. They are rock and radiation. The GOP military's 1980s attempt to "spend the Soviets into oblivion" certainly feathered the nests of the defense contractors who contributed to Reagan's campaigns here, and who still fatten George W. Bush. Lockheed-Martin, Halliburton and an unholy host of GOP insiders have scored billions in profits from Iran-Contra to Star Wars to Desert Storm to Iraq. But these were not the people who brought down the Kremlin. If anything, they prolonged Soviet rule with the unifying threat of apocalyptic attack. No, it was rock & roll that wrecked the USSR. From the late 1960s on, the steady beat of the Beatles and Motown, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, shattered Stalinism at its stodgy core. Precisely the things most hated by the Reagan's rightist culture warriors here eroded and helped dissolve the old-time Soviet culture there. Beamed in by radio, smuggled in on records and tapes, the "youth music" was unstoppable. When Mikhail Gorbachev announced Perestroika, it was at least in partial response to the irresistible subversion of the western counterculture. Rock and roll was doing to the remnants of Stalin's Russia what it had already done to Eisenhower's America. The final blow came not from Ronald Reagan's beloved nuclear weapons, but from the Soviets' own Three Mile Island.
SEE ALSO: Reagan's Bloody International Legacy (ZNet)

10 June 2004

US Official: Iraq Could Eventually Have Civilian Nuclear Power
AFP via SpaceWar.com, 9 June 2004
EXCERPT: The United States, which has said oil-rich Iran has no legitimate use for a civilian nuclear program, would not raise the same objections in a transformed Iraq, a senior US official said Tuesday. "That's a ways down the road," US Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton said in an interview with AFP on the sidelines of the annual summit of seven major industrialized nations plus Russia, the G8. But "when the day comes when there is a representative government, and the (UN) Security Council says that, in fact, Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction, a really transformed Iraq, there's no reason, it seems to me, unlike some other countries, there's no reason why you couldn't contemplate a civilian nuclear power program," he said. Bolton's comments came as he explained that the United States is in "a race against time" to find new jobs for some 400-500 weapons scientists left idle by Saddam Hussein's ouster in the US-led March 2003 invasion.

We Must Cut Our Nuclear Arsenals
By Madeleine Albright and Robin Cook
The Guardian (UK), 9 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. As the G8 leaders meet today in Sea Island, Georgia, we urge them to put aside their differences over Iraq and unite to implement a comprehensive non-proliferation 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. First, the G8 nations - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States - must fulfil their pledge to raise $20bn to fund the G8 global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction. Still $3bn short, this important effort helps Russia and other countries safely store and dispose of chemical and nuclear weapon materials. Even if the pledges were fulfilled, there still would not be enough money to get the job done. Securing the nuclear legacy of Russia alone will cost $30bn, and there are other stockpiles of inadequately secured highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium around the world. Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin have launched a programme designed to secure fissile materials across the globe. But their plan will take 10 years to complete, during which time terrorists will still be able to collect fissile materials for a bomb.

Let's Bury Reaganomics with Its Founder
By Tony Horwitz
Sydney Morning Herald via Common Dreams, 8 June 2004
EXCERPT: In this week of eulogies for Ronald Reagan, we often hear that he made America "feel good about itself". No one asks whether boosting the nation's self-esteem was a good thing. Reagan's unashamed wielding of US power and money may have hastened Soviet collapse. But at home, what he really made Americans feel good about was getting rich, no matter the social cost. This ethos still reigns in America. Increasingly, it seems to be Australia's creed as well.

Israel's Use of Torture
By Mustafa Barghouti
ZNet, 8 June 2004
EXCERPT: The pictures of American soldiers torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have shocked the world. To the Palestinian people however, these photographs of hooded or naked figures come as no surprise. For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have served time in Israeli prisons, the pictures only bring back memories of their own torture. In many cases, the treatment of the Iraqis in Abu Ghraib bear striking similarities to Israeli methods of torture. Accusations are now circling in the world's press that Israeli security officers have actually assisted in training private US security contractors being sent to Iraq. Regardless of whether there is any truth to these allegations, the world must recognize that torture is commonplace in Israel. It is not enough to condemn the actions of these American soldiers while ignoring the systematic human rights abuses imposed on the Palestinian people. Like the United States, Israel lays claim to the highest moral standards, yet it is apparent that there are elements within the Israeli armed forces and indeed government for whom torture is a necessary and acceptable weapon. The two nations' refusal to accept the terms of to the International Criminal Court can only enhance the worldwide suspicion that these two countries wish to legitimize the torture of prisoners without ever being held to account by those they abuse.

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