January 2004: Week Two: This Far and No Further

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January 2004 Week Two, Page Two

Powell admits no proof of Iraq connection to al-Qaeda

January 8: Secretary of State Colin Powell admits that neither he nor the administration has any proof that Saddam Hussein, or his regime, had any connections to terror group al-Qaeda, reversing a year of insistent statements from the White House that Hussein was, indeed, connected to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group. "I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection," says Powell. "But I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did." Powell's statements are sharp contradictions to statements and assertions by almost every other administration official, from the president on down. Powell, speaking at a news conference at the State Department, stresses that he was still certain that Iraq had dangerous weapons and needed to be disarmed by force, and he disagrees with the Carnegie think tank report that maintains Iraq was not an imminent threat to the United States. Powell himself told a raft of lies to a global audience in his infamous February 2003 address to the United Nations; he turns and justifies the address while admitting that any evidence tying al-Qaeda to Hussein was questionable at best. (MSNBC, Sydney Morning Herald)

"To get its war, the [Bush] administration had to transform what it knew to be a minor, contained annoyance into a threat big enough to scare the American people. The solution it hit upon was ingenious: They fabricated a link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden." -- Jay Bookman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

January 8: Prime Minister Blair promises to resign if the Hutton report shows he lied to Parliament about naming Dr. David Kelly as a media leaker. Blair was not questioned about the naming of Kelly, which many believe led to the scientist's suicide. (Daily Telegraph)
January 8: The US insists that the governments of Cuba and Venezuela are trying to "destabilize" the Caribbean and Latin American regions, accusing the two of nurturing anti-American sentiment in Latin America with money, political indoctrination and training. US officials believe that the alliance combines Fidel Castro's political savvy with surplus cash that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez obtains from oil exports. Venezuelan resources may have been decisive in the ouster of Bolivia's elected, pro-American president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, says an anonymous official. Tarek William Saab, the head of Venezuela's congressional foreign relations commission, denies that Venezuela is supporting anti-American groups, and denies involvement in Bolivia's internal affairs. Saab accuses the US government of "using slander and defamation to weaken a constitutional government like ours. ...It's false and irresponsible and cowardly," Saab says. The US says that Castro has been providing training, advice and logistical support to leftist groups in the region, a sign of re-engagement after relative inactivity in the 1990s. Roger Noriega, Secretary of State Colin Powell's top aide for Latin America, says that Castro, in his "final days," appears to be "nostalgic for destabilizing elected governments. From the point of view of his democratic neighbors, Castro's actions are increasingly provocative." Cuba's government accuses the US of the same thing, with one government official warning Cubans to resist the "growing aggressiveness of the United States and its threats against Cuba." US officials say Castro has dispatched thousands of doctors, teachers and sports trainers to Venezuela who supplement their professional duties by carrying out political tasks. Cuban agents are said to be providing security for high-ranking Venezuelan officials. Cuban officials acknowledge that Cubans are active in Venezuela but insist their mission is strictly humanitarian. Chavez denies any involvement in such political activities, and recalls the Bush administration's attempt to overthrow his government in 2002. (AP/Newsmax)
January 8: Presidential candidate Wesley Clark is critical of the US Army's "stop-loss" policy that forces thousands of soldiers whose time is up to remain at their posts. Clark says it's another indication of how miserable a failure the Bush administration has made of the Iraqi occupation. The move was necessary because, says Clark, the administration failed to "use our armed forces only when it is absolutely essential, as a last resort. The Bush administration has failed to do that. Now it has to take measures like stop-loss to prevent people from leaving when they complete their term. The way to fix this is not to get rid of stop-loss, but to get rid of the foreign policy that got our men and women committed over there." (Christian Science Monitor/Primary Monitor)
January 8: The organization Disabled American Veterans have been severely restricted in their members' access to wounded soldiers being held in Walter Reed. DAV representatives want to assist wounded soldiers with their benefits claims; the US government apparently doesn't want the wounded to know what their benefits actually are and exactly what they can claim. The government's reasoning: The "security" and "privacy" of the wounded soldiers. DAV Washington Headquarters Executive Director David Gorman wrote to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and wrote in part: "At one facility in particular [Walter Reed Army Medical Center] our efforts to visit with wounded patients have been severely restricted. For example, all requests to visit patients must now be made through the WRAMC headquarters office, which then selects the patients we may visit and strictly limits information about the patients, even the patient's name and the nature of the injury is withheld without express permission. The DAV's representatives also are escorted at all times while in the facility, and all contact with patients is closely monitored by the escort. This is particularly unnerving and inappropriate as all conversations between a representative and client are confidential in nature. ...I believe these overly broad restrictions on patient access inhibit the ability of our professional accredited representatives to help ensure these wounded service members have the vital information they and their families need in order to obtain the medical care and benefits many of these veterans will depend on for decades to come. ...The American public would be outraged if these restrictions became public knowledge. ...The record of benefits awarded by the VA shows our honored wounded and injured are getting less than they are rightfully entitled. Those wounded and disabled in service to our nation should not be held captive and deprived of the knowledge that would allow them to receive all their rightful benefits, earned on a battlefield half a world away. It brings great dishonor to our nation to learn of disabled veterans suffering physical and economic hardships following their release from medical treatment solely because they are unaware and uninformed of their rightful benefits." As of yet, Rumsfeld has not seen fit to lift the restrictions on the DAV, or to make it easier for soldiers to apply for the benefits to which they are legally entitled. (Counterpunch)
January 8: A secret docketing system hiding some sensitive Miami federal court cases from public view has been exposed and is being challenged in two higher courts, including the US Supreme Court. "We don't have secret justice in this country," says Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The journalists watchdog group is asking the appellate courts to open up two Miami federal cases it says were litigated in secret. The group has filed briefs in the Supreme Court and in federal appeals court. It is mounting the stiffest challenge yet to a practice legal experts say violates free speech rights and ignores established court decisions favoring open records and courtrooms. The legal challenges are emerging as the higher courts are taking a long look at the government secrecy surrounding the detention of more than 1,000 Muslim and Middle Eastern men in the days after the 9/11 attacks. "In recent months, it has become evident that the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida maintains a dual, separate docket of public and non-public cases," Dalglish wrote in a brief filed late last month in the appeal of convicted Colombian drug lord Fabio Ochoa Vasquez. In its Supreme Court brief, the media group called the secret jailing of an Algerian-born waiter "perhaps the most egregious recent example of an alarming trend toward excessive secrecy in the federal courts, particularly in cases that bear even a tangential connection to the events of Sept. 11." Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel was arrested for violating his student visa a month after the terror attacks. Although he sought his release in the District Court and appealed to the 11th Circuit, no public record of his case existed until his appeal to the Supreme Court. Attorney Floyd Abrams, a nationally recognized expert on free press and court access issues, says sealed documents and closed courtrooms are nothing new and are sometimes necessary to protect national security or investigations. But, he says, he was "very surprised" to learn about cases that were fully litigated with no public record. "Without public docket sheets, there is no way for the public to even know that a case has been brought or resolved," Abrams says. "It's a significant infringement of the genuine public interest in knowing what is going on in its judicial system." (South Florida Sun-Sentinal/Independent Media)

January 9: National security director Condoleezza Rice says that there is absolutely no evidence that Iraqi WMDs were ever hidden in Syria. "Any indication that something like that happened would be a very serious matter," she says. "But I want to be very clear: we don't, at this point, have any indications that I would consider credible and firm that that has taken place, but we will tie down every lead." (AP?Vancouver IndyMedia)
January 9: With little fanfare, the Department of Homeland Security lowers the threat level from orange, or high, to yellow, or elevated. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies places the cost of the stepped-up security for the code orange alert at a billion dollars a week. DHS head Tom Ridge says he believes the final cost will end up being much lower than that, but he acknowledged that the potential toll on people day to day is a real concern. "We always want to put safety first, but we also want to minimize the inconvenience," he says. The ACLU's Timothy Edgar says, "The idea that we're facing very specific threats against the United States has gotten a lot of people upset. But the reality is that it's very hard for any of us to judge why we went to code orange in the first place." (New York Times/Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune)
January 9: More information comes out about the capture of Saddam Hussein, further contradicting the US version of events. The arrest was made possible by the July capture of a member of the al Muslit family, Adnan Abdullah Abid al Muslit. The al Muslit family makes up some of Hussein's closest relatives and lieutenants; the captured family member was widely known to be one of Hussein's bodyguards and closest confidants. A Jordanian newspaper, Al-Arab Al-Yawm, has written that another bodyguard, Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al Muslit, had drugged Hussein, as per a plan developed by the US, two or three weeks before his December capture, and given information to US forces leading to his capture. While most reports give the Kurds credit for catching Hussein, questions linger over just how they were able to capture him. A Kurdish group of about 50 fighters, led by the deputy of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Kosrat Rassul, appeared in the Tikrit area about the same time that al-Muslit captured and drugged Hussein; it appears that this group actually effected Hussein's capture. PUK leader Jalal Talabani announced the arrest, first reported by the Iranian News Agency (IRNA). And an Iraqi resistance leader, Jabbar al Kubaysi, told the Iranian press that Iranian intelligence also participated in the events leading to the capture; Iran's foreign ministry denies any involvement. What is known is that Rassul developed contacts with some of the key leaders in Tikrit, and began negotiating with them for Hussein. Rassul was responsible for arresting former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan; his PUK was also reported to have been instrumental in locating Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay. Apparently Rassul was successful in determining Hussein's location, and was able to successfully drug him and arrange for his capture by PUK forces. The PUK bargained with the United States before arranging to hand over the drugged dictator.
A group with ties to Israeli intelligence, DEBKAfile, reported immediately after the capture that Hussein had been held in captivity for up to two weeks before any reports were released. DEBKAfile is known to be quite accurate in its reporting, but is suspected of occasionally releasing misinformation on behalf of Israeli intelligence. According to DEBKA, Hussein's own people initiated action against him some time after mid-November. It said Kurds from the PUK were acting as negotiators with them on behalf of the United States, with the reward being an issue for Saddam's captors. Credit for the Kurds followed. At the same time another group, conceivably an Iranian affiliated group, could have sought intelligence on Saddam's location and provided support, according to diplomatic and intelligence sources. It is also believed that this option provided a way to "short-cut" the negotiating process, allowing Saddam to be taken directly. Iranian interest in bringing Saddam to justice is widely acknowledged, and Talabani's PUK was known to possess good links with Iran and its intelligence apparatus. But while Kurds from the Iraq-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were said to be acting as go-betweens with US authorities, they pursued a triumph of their own and essentially snatched control of Saddam from the hands of his captors in Tikrit. This they did with suspected Iranian related support. (Inter Press News Service)
January 9: In an interview for the Rocky Mountain News, Dick Cheney once again makes a blanket assertion that Iraq not only has chemical and biological weapons, it is within a year of having a nuclear weapon as well: "[T]he reporting that we had prior to the war this time around was all consistent with that -- basically said that he had a chemical, biological and nuclear program, and estimated that if he could acquire fissile material, he could have a nuclear weapon within a year or two." This claim has already been disproven by US inspectors time and time again.
Cheney also makes false assertions regarding the connections between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government: "The main perpetrator [of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing] was a man named Ramzi Yousef. He's now in prison in Colorado. His sidekick in the exercise was a man named Abdul Rahman Yasin...Ahman Rahman...Yasin is his last name anyway. I can't remember his earlier first names. He fled the United States after the attack, the 1993 attack, went to Iraq, and we know now based on documents that we've captured since we took Baghdad, that they put him on the payroll, gave him a monthly stipend and provided him with a house, sanctuary, in effect, in Iraq, in the aftermath of nine-ele...the '93 attack on the World Trade Center. ...And you can look at Zarqawi, [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi...who was an al-Qaeda associate, who was wounded in Afghanistan, took refuge in Baghdad, working out of Baghdad, worked with the Ansar al-Islam group up in northeastern Iraq, that produced a so-called poison factory, a group that we hit when we went into Iraq.... We'll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions." While Cheney's facts are essentially correct, his conclusions are absolutely specious. There is no evidence of any connection between Yousef, Yasin, and Saddam Hussein. As for Zarqawi, he indeed operated out of northern Iraq, with the Ansar al-Islam group, but that area was not under the control of the Hussein regime, but was instead ruled by Kurdish warlords whom the US considered as allies. While Zarqawi may well have been in Baghdad numerous times, he was never there at the behest of Hussein.
And Cheney also asserts, again, that there are clear and proven connections between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks: "We did have reporting that was public, that came out shortly after the 9/11 attack, provided by the Czech government, suggesting there had been a meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker, and a man named al-Ani [Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani], who was an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague, at the embassy there, in April of '01, prior to the 9/11 attacks. It has never been -- we've never been able to collect any more information on that. That was the one that possibly tied the two together to 9/11." Cheney continues to make the claim about the connection between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence that has long, long since been debunked.
As with so many of his other claims, Cheney will deny ever having said any of this when his assertions are later debunked. (Rocky Mountain News/Bush on Iraq, Frank Rich [PDF file])
January 9: The US Army is stretched thinner than ever before, according to David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. "We have stopped treating the reserves as a force in reserve. Our volunteer army is closer to being broken today than ever before in its 30-year history." Pentagon experts worry that some of the military's most experienced pilots might quit after prolonged deployments to dangerous hot spots like Afghanistan and Iraq. Retention of pilots is a major concern because of the time, and the cost, of training them. Analysts say the situation with pilots is just one more example that the US military is stretched too thin. And while sign-up and retention rates for active-duty branches remain strong, the recruiting of reservists has fallen off. Last year the Army fell 7 percent below its recruitment goal. And in some states, the retention rate has fallen far below the desired 85 percent; in Colorado, for example, it has fallen to 71 percent. As one result of this personnel problem, the Army has blocked the departure of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and Reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year. The Pentagon says that 187,746 National Guard and Reserve troops were mobilized as of Dec. 31, 2003. About 20 percent of the troops in Iraq are Reservists or Guard members but this proportion is expected to double next year. Worse, the Army is considering re-activating retired reservists. The number of military reservists called to active duty jumped by more than 10,000 in the past week, reflecting their new role in Iraq. Some defense analysts say stop-loss orders will discourage new recruits, bound to see many in uniform as no longer volunteers. "The reality is the stop-loss orders that are now in effect amount to a de facto draft," says Charles Pena, defense analyst with the Cato Institute. And many reservists currently serving intend to leave permanently once they are released. "A lot of them are telling me 'When I get back, I'm not staying in. I'm getting completely out,'" says Sergeant Phillip Thomas, who oversees about 300 reservists as recruitment and retention officer at Bradt US Army Reserve Center in Niskayuna. He says they don't mind active duty for six months, but any longer becomes a burden for those who have families and careers back home. Some worry their marriages won't survive repeated deployments. The real test, says Connecticut National Guard Adjutant General Walter Cugno, will come when troops from Afghanistan and Iraq arrive back in the US in February and March. "It will be a ballot or a vote with their feet," he says. "Those that stay vote for you. Those that choose to leave say, 'Thank you. I've served honorably. My family said I had enough.'" (Christian Science Monitor)
January 9: Take Back the Media's Don Waller discusses the well-known phenomenon that tells us, in his words, "[conservatives] can dish it out, but they cannot take it." He says that, "Over the past ten years, conservatives have defined the rules of the game as it is played today. Throughout 8 years of non-stop attacks on Bill Clinton...they nearly perfected the technique of sliming their political opponents. ...You couldn't swing a dead cat in Washington, DC without hitting some Republican who was pushing one outlandish allegation or another about Clinton. So effective was the rumor-mongering that many otherwise intelligent Americans still believe that Clinton either raped someone or killed someone or stole something. Key in the Republicans' tactic was the technique of 'manufactured outrage.' Remember the righteous anger of Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston and Newt Gingrich during the failed impeachment? Well, you can't possibly describe it as anything other than manufactured outrage -- because while they were railing about how Clinton's conduct was rending the very fabric of our society and threatening the existence of our nation, every one of them was practicing the exact same conduct. Newtie was, to put it coarsely, bending his secretary over the desk. Hyde had wrecked his share of marriages by that time (of course it was, in his description, a 'youthful indiscretion' -- if you can count age 40 as anything vaguely resembling 'youth'). And Livingston was engaging in conduct so potentially embarrassing and so deviant, that he resigned as Speaker of the House rather than have his personal sexual proclivities revealed. But that's all in the past. There's a whole new -- and even more bogus -- form of manufactured outrage being practiced by today's Republicans, and it's proof that they are beyond shame and more than willing to do anything to win. Case in point - MoveOn's 'Bush In 30 Seconds' ad competition, the Bush family's connection to and financial support of Nazi Germany, and Ed Gillespie's efforts to conflate the two."
Waller notes that the connections between the Nazis and the Bush family has been exhaustively documented through hundreds of documents in the National Archives, but GOP loyalists still insist that the entire idea is fantastic. But more pertinent is RNC chairman Ed Gillespie's reaction to the MoveOn ad competition, in which two entries (out of 1,500) compared Bush to Hitler. Neither entry made the initial cut. However, Gillespie located a copy of one of the ads and screamed to the press that Bush was being victimized by Democratic "hate speech." As Waller notes, "A mass email went out from RNC headquarters with a link to the offensive ad, so that the Republican faithful could see how the mean liberals were so full of hate that they put together an ad that no civilized person should have to see. An ad that was so hateful, it should never be out on the internet. But the link for the offensive ad led to the web servers of the Republican National Committee."
Waller continues, "so here we have Ed Gillespie practicing the worst sort of manufactured outrage. On one hand, he was on Crossfire and any other TV program who would have him, all over the news, crying like he was smacked in the head with a monkey wrench over the outrageous behavior of those nasty, hateful liberals -- while he was hosting that hateful ad on his own party's web servers. C'mon, Ed -- either the ad is beyond the pale and shouldn't be viewed by right-thinking people, or it isn't. You can't cry like a schoolgirl about the ad being out there if you're the one putting it out there. Of course, Gillespie got all of his pals like Matt Drudge and all the slime in the swamp of right-wing Hate Radio to play along. Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Boortz, Beck -- they were all just so appalled and outraged and shocked by the repulsive ad, which was being provided to the public by the Republican party. Drudge 'broke' a story about a second Bush-Nazi ad. The cable nets picked up the drum beat. Suddenly, it seemed as though the entire country was shocked and appalled and outraged. All this outrage, for an ad that was so hateful, Ed Gillespie couldn't wait to put it on his server and link to it. Waller's conclusion over what, after all, is a minor issue? ...[T]heir outrage, and the outrage of that big whining baby Ed Gillespie, tells me something. They are all afraid of liberals who stand up to them. Each and every one of them are scared to death of people like us. Gillespie has become accustomed to dealing with Beltway Democrats, who roll over and pee on themselves on his command to show how 'bi-partisan' they are. Gillespie is used to Democrats who go along to get along. And he, and Drudge and York and all the slime in the swamp of right-Wing Hate Radio are all coming to the same realization -- that people like us, and web sites like TBTM and MoveOn, are anything but pee-on-yourself Democrats. and it scares them like they've never been scared in their lives. I'm sure that Ed and Byron and Drudge, were they to read this, would cluck their tongues and shake their heads and make some remark about how uncivil and impolite and downright rude we are, and right on cue, they'd all be outraged and appalled and shocked. Like I said at the top of this article, they can dish it out, but they cannot take it. And where they have come to expect Democrats in the past to be remorseful and regretful and apologetic, [we] -- and thousands of other like-minded sites and blogs -- have a slightly different message instead. We're fighting back this year. You won't go unchallenged any longer. We don't care how outraged or shocked or appalled you are, not any more. To put it in terms you're more familiar with -- get over it." (Take Back the Media)

January 10: Saddam Hussein's newly granted POW status won't stop him from being tried in Iraq for his crimes, according to US spokespeople. Whether Hussein is a prisoner of war could be key to how he is treated in captivity and eventually put on trial. The Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war forbid any kind of coercion in POW interrogations, for example. The US says Hussein's government killed at least 300,000 Iraqis, including an estimated 5,000 members of the Kurdish minority in a poison gas attack in 1988; the US plans on turning him over to an Iraqi court for trial. But the Geneva agreements say POWs can be tried for crimes against humanity only by an international tribunal or the occupying power, which in Iraq is the United States. In Baghdad, some members of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council are dismayed at the POW decision by Pentagon lawyers. "I am surprised by this decision," says council member Dara Nor al-Din, a former appeals court judge. "We still consider Saddam a criminal, and he will be tried on this basis. This new move will be discussed thoroughly in the Governing Council." Another council member, Mahmoud Othman, says, "I think it is a bad decision, and the Americans have no right to make such decisions because it is the Iraqi people alone who can decide. The Iraqi people want Saddam to be tried for his crimes in accordance with the Iraqi law." A spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, Dan Senor, says that despite the Pentagon announcement, Hussein's "ultimate designation will be determined down the road. ...President Bush has said that the pursuit of justice regarding Saddam Hussein should have an Iraqi leadership role...a substantial leadership role by the Iraqi people itself." Ian Piper, a spokesman for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, says handing Hussein over to the Iraqis for trial wouldn't necessarily conflict with the 1949 Geneva Conventions, as long as he is granted due process. As Iraq's occupier, the United States has authority to determine how Saddam is to be tried, Piper says. Some Iraqis suspect collusion. "Saddam has special importance for the Americans as he gave them the master key of the Middle East," says a Baghdad citizen. He should be a war criminal rather than a prisoner of war." A Baghdad physician says he believes Hussein's POW status was part of "a bargain between Saddam and the United States." "He handed them Iraq," the doctor says. "If the Americans wanted to clone an agent to serve them, they wouldn't find a better one than Saddam." (AP/Raleigh News and Observer)
January 10: An investigation by the British newspaper Guardian reveals that over 15,000 people are being held in various US detention camps around the globe, most without being charged with any crime. Over 3,000 are being held in Abu Ghraib and other prisons or camps inside Iraq; up to 3,000 are being held at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan; and an unknown number are held on the British territory of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean. Bagram is the home of a CIA detention center, whose prisoners are routinely subjected to sensory deprivation, sleep starvation, beatings, and other torture techniques. (Guardian/Mark Crispin Miller)
January 10: US Army reservist deployed in Iraq routinely face combat with inadequate, Vietnam-era weapons, fewer bullet-proof vests, outdated radios and Humvees that lack armor plating. "You would expect the government to give you the best if you were going in harm's way, but the fact is the Guard is not getting the same equipment and training as the active-duty forces," says Mike Cline, executive director of the Enlisted Association of the National Guard. "The Guard and Reserve get what trickles down." Retired Marine General Richard Alexander, head of the National Guard Association of the United States, a fraternal organization for Guard officers, says substandard equipment ,"is the reality of the situation in many cases.," Asked how well the Pentagon had done in equipping the Guard, the retired general said, ,"On a scale of one to 10, maybe a five.," Guardsmen and reservists say they accept the hardships and dangers of recent call-ups, and were proud of their service, but they complain about some of the differences they perceived between treatment of their units and active-duty soldiers. One of the sorest points is the length of duty assignments. Guard and reserve soldiers on combat assignments are locked in for the length of their tours -- one year of boots on the ground -- while they see active-duty officers and soldiers rotating home for stateside assignments. "We were resigned to being there for the duration, but when we saw active-duty officers coming in for a month or two to get their combat patch, then leaving, we were upset," says a captain in the National Guard. "Put yourself in the position of a captain or major in the Guard who has left his family and a good job behind, and he sees active-duty officers rotating out. It is tough and frustrating. It is definitely something we've heard about," says John Goheen, spokesman for the National Guard Association of the United States. "The question we hear is, 'Are we just over here to facilitate (active-duty officers') career advancement?'" Goheen adds. "People ask why their tours are being extended while active-duty people are going home. It is difficult to justify." A Pentagon spokesman acknowledged the disparity has existed, but said it was being rectified with a new rule, issued this week, that no personnel can leave Iraq or Afghanistan until their one-year tours are completed. Goheen says the war on terrorism has placed almost crushing stress on many Guard units. "some units have already been on active duty since October. They are going to Iraq in March, and will be gone for a year. Then they will spend time on duty back in the states before being demobilized," Goheen says. "They will be away from their families until the late spring or early summer of 2005. Employers are losing people, officers and NCOs with fairly responsible positions for a good, long time." While the Guard is proud of the confidence placed in it by the Pentagon to trust large units with independent responsibilities, there are concerns. "Even though these are enhanced brigades, they are concerned that they are just now receiving some of the equipment that they will be using over there," Goheen continues. "We are just not resourced to respond quickly when it comes to weapons, radios, [armored] vests." (Houston Chronicle)
January 10: Humboldt State University student and former KBR employee Heather Yarbrough, 33, gives an interview to the North Coast Journal about her experiences with unsafe and unsanitary food preparation procedures in Iraq, and her firing for attempting to correct the problems. Yarbrough began working for KBR in Kuwait (and later in Tikrit) on June 17, 2003, as a supervisor whose main job was to monitor food safety and quality procedures. Yarbrough, a former Bush supporter, was fired a month later, and has testified before Congress about the problems she tried to correct. She testified about the potentially dangerous food being served to US soldiers by ESS Support Services, a food-service subcontractor to Halliburton, and about the labor system that feeds and supports US troops in Iraq and Kuwait. According to Yarbrough, it's a system in which highly paid Americans oversee a huge corps of Indians, Pakistanis and other so-called "third-country nationals" working in sweatshop conditions for as little as $3 a day. On August 6, she took part in a banquet to commemmorate the opening of Camp Iron Horse's dining facility. The next day, when she started her first 12-hour overnight shift, she was shocked at conditions in the kitchen. Freezers and refrigerators weren't working. Food was spoiling. The kitchen workers were exhausted, and some of them weren't following basic sanitation practices. "It became apparent to me that much of the food served at the banquet the night before was...possibly dangerous," she recalls. (Much of Yarbrough's experiences were recorded in her daily journals, reproduced on the Web at Yarbrough's HSU home page.)
By her second day on the job, she had overseen the discarding of hundreds of sandwiches made with spoiled mayonnaise, given a list of basic cleaning supplies to the staff for immediate use -- and been verbally attacked and intimidated by a KBR night manager. After conducting seminars on topics like basic sanitation and modes of contamination with the staff, and another confrontation with the night manager, on August 10 Yarbrough was suspended from her duties, ostensibly for wearing a dirty shirt and leaving work early. She knew the charges were bogus. The supervisor seemed "eaten up with guilt," she recalls. "He wouldn't look me in the eye." When she complained to higher-ups, she was warned that if she valued her life, she would leave her post without question. "He [a KBR district manager] told me that I was a danger to myself if I remained at Tikrit. He wouldn't tell me why, but I thought it was that somebody would have been sent to do me harm." She returned to the United States, still trying to get her job back. "I thought I'd be sent back to work in Iraq, if not Tikrit," she says. "I liked my job, and I wanted it back." After more than a month, she was informed that her termination was final. A Halliburton spokeswoman refused to discuss the firing, and wrote that the company was "not aware of reported cases of food poisoning" at Camp Iron Horse. A government official familiar with the dining facility at Camp Iron Horse confirmed that Yarbrough was the victim of cronyism between KBR employees and the Army. "The three people she's talking about had all worked together in the past," says the official. "Two [civilian contract employees] were former military, and one guy was still on active duty. I think it was someone in the Army who requested she be removed. That's not within their jurisdiction. We have no authority to tell a contractor to hire or fire somebody." He attributes Yarbrough's firing to a combination of "personality conflicts" and her own lack of experience. "she had high ideals and wanted to do things like we do them back home," he says. "In the field environment, you just can't. You have to do what you have to do to get the job done."
Yarbrough fears that what she saw at Camp Iron Horse is being repeated at other bases. "I am concerned that the quality of work under these contracts is compromised by the friendships between contractors and military personnel," she says. She also suspects that risks are being taken with food-safety and other issues so that Halliburton and ESS can meet deadlines and qualify for millions of dollars in performance bonuses. "I first thought that my situation was just an unfortunate set of relationships at one location," she recalls. But during her trip from Camp Iron Horse back to Kuwait, she met Halliburton staffers moving between bases, and they all seemed to know her night manager. "Every Halliburton employee I met in Iraq and Kuwait was ex-military,"she says, adding that she wonders how many of them had friends on active duty and were using their influence as she believes the night manager did. Yarbrough also has concerns about the working and living conditions of the third-country nationals who serve in dining facilities and other capacities at bases throughout Iraq and Kuwait. "Third-country nationals have no rights, no papers and no access to medical care," she says. "They are allowed no communication with their families and cannot leave the gravel surrounding the dining facilities where they work. I am amazed that Americans don't know anything about the TCNs [third-country nationals] doing all the work over there. CNN is in Tikrit right now, eating at that dining facility. Why haven't TCNs been interviewed? Indians speak English." Yarbrough has been interviewed by an aide for the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee, and a source with the committee's staff says that her information might figure in future investigations. (North Coast Journal)

January 11: Iraq's most senior Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, warns of increased political tensions and violence in Iraq if elections are not held within months. Sistani's remarks show his unwillingness to cooperate with US plans to hand over power to Iraqis in a less democratic manner, as violence continues to erupt in Shi'ite controlled cities previously considered calm. Sistani wants a transitional assembly due to come into being in mid-year to be directly elected, and refused to back down after meeting with Governing Council officials who pressed him to accept the US plan, which doesn't allow for elections until 2005 at the earliest. "New problems will arise as a result of this that will only worsen the tensions in the political and security situation," Sistani says. "The ideal mechanism...is elections which a number of experts confirm can be held within coming months with an acceptable degree of credibility and transparency," he continues. "If the transitional assembly is formed by a mechanism that doesn't have the necessary legitimacy, it wouldn't be possible for the government to perform a useful function." (Reuters)

Former Treasury secretary reveals deep problems and lies from Bush and administration officials; administration retaliates with an investigation

January 11: Former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill is featured in an upcoming book recounting his time as part of the Bush administration, and savages the administration and Bush in particular. At cabinet meetings, O'Neill says Bush is "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection," forcing top officials to act "on little more than hunches about what the president might think." He also makes the astonishing revelation that the Bush administration intended to go to war with Iraq almost from the moment Bush took office; the first National Security Council meeting, in January 2001, revolved around the ouster of Saddam Hussein. The book The Price of Loyalty, by journalist Ron Suskind, is based on interviews with O'Neill and others, as well as documents provided by O'Neill. O'Neill was forced to resign as Treasury secretary in December 2002 after he declined to fully support a new round of tax cuts, in a clear-out that also saw the dismissal of Larry Lindsey, the president's chief economic adviser. In the book, O'Neill says that talking to Bush about economic issues was less than rewarding: "I went in with a long list of things to talk about and, I thought, to engage [him] on. I was surprised it turned out me talking and the president just listening.... It was mostly a monologue." "The comments about the president's personal leadership involvement are really disconcerting," says senator and presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman. "And you know, Paul O'Neill has been a very tough critic of the Bush administration's economic policies from within the administration. It sure looks like that's why he was fired. And he's right. This administration has taken us into the largest fiscal deficit in our history." Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes, "The central question his book raises isn't really the loyalty a cabinet officer owes a president. It's the loyalty a president and his inner circle owe to the country and to its democracy. If O'Neill is telling the truth -- and we have no reason to doubt his veracity -- there's serious doubt about the loyalty of this administration to America." (Financial Times, BBC, Capital Hill Blue, CBS News, Newsday)
January 11: 3,000 newly trained Afghan soldiers have deserted the Afghan National Army in the last few days. The mass defections, which came immediately after the soldiers' training was completed, all but guts the newly formed ANA. It officially numbers about 10,000, but overestimates and the defections put the number closer to 4,000. Tough training, low wages and factional links to the private militias which still control wide swathes of the country outside Kabul are believed to be behind the mass defections. Private militias under the control of factional warlords still dominate the country. (Agence France-Press/SpaceWar)
January 11: George W. Bush makes the following stunning statement to New York Daily News reporter Ken Auletta: "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have." (New York Daily News)
January 11: While Bush officials tell the public that the president has no time for politics as yet, and is far too busy handling the affairs of the office to bother with campaigning, in private, top Bush aides say he is "absorbed" in the coming elections. Bush personally decided that the Republican National Convention should be held in New York City in September to cash in on the publicity of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He talks several times a day with chief political aide Karl Rove about his Democratic competitors. He keeps a close eye on his fund-raising totals, which currently totals more than $130 million. Other advisers say that Bush, who was deeply involved in his father's presidential campaigns, is far more immersed at this point than his re-election staff likes to admit, and often sets strategy hand in hand with Rove. "It's not a matter of turning everything over to Karl," says one top adviser. "Karl is brilliant, but in terms of political strategy, there's no question that the president is intimately engaged. When he comes into a state, he will know exactly what his numbers are, whether people think the country is moving in the right direction, what his approval rating is." Advisers were also struck by how many campaign-related people Bush knew among the 5,000 who were invited by his political operation to White House Christmas parties in December. "It was not just the state chairmen but the chairmen of counties," the top adviser says. (New York Times)
January 11: The US military is experiencing a critical problem with producing enough small arms ammunition to suit its needs in Iraq and Afghanistan. The single plant operated by the military is producing ammunition at capacity, and still not meeting the needs of the military. Two supplemental contracts, one with an American firm and one with an Israeli firm, have been signed by the Army to produce more ammo. American sportsmen and gun aficianados are finding it difficult to procure the ammo they desire. (Knight Ridder/Seattle Times)

Army War College report exposes administration's failures in Iraq

January 12: A report published by the Army War College slams the Bush administration's policy for war against Iraq, saying that the invasion was a "detour" in the war against terrorism. It criticizes the administration's handling of the war on terrorism itself, saying that Bush is pursuing an "unrealistic" quest against terrorism that may lead to American wars with states that pose no serious threat. The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point." It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the "global war on terrorism" and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al-Qaeda terrorist network. "[T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly...its parameters should be readjusted," Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign "is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security." Record is a veteran defense specialist and author of six books on military strategy and related issues. He served as an aide to then-Senator Sam Nunn when Nunn, a Democrat, was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In 1999 Record published a study critical of the Clinton administration's handling of its own war on terror. Retired Army Colonel Douglas Lovelace, director of the Strategic Studies Institute, endorses the report: "I think that the substance that Jeff brings out in the article really, really needs to be considered," he says. Publication of the essay was approved by the Army War College's commandant, Major General David Huntoon. Lovelace says that he and Huntoon expect the study to be controversial, and says, "[Huntoon] considers it to be under the umbrella of academic freedom." Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita dismisses the report even though he has not bothered to read it: "If the conclusion is that we need to be scaling back in the global war on terrorism, it's not likely to be on my reading list anytime soon." While many of Record's arguments, such as the contention that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was deterred and did not present a threat, have been made by critics of the administration, it is unusual to have such views published by the War College. Record concludes that Iraq "was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against al-Qaeda."
The essay goes further than many critics in examining the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism. Record's core criticism is that the administration is biting off more than it can chew. He likens the scale of US ambitions in the war on terrorism to Adolf Hitler's overreach in World War II: "A cardinal rule of strategy is to keep your enemies to a manageable number," he writes. "The Germans were defeated in two world wars...because their strategic ends outran their available means." He also scoffs at the administration's policy, laid out by Bush in a November speech, of seeking to transform and democratize the Middle East. "The potential policy payoff of a democratic and prosperous Middle East, if there is one, almost certainly lies in the very distant future," he writes. "The basis on which this democratic domino theory rests has never been explicated." He also casts doubt on whether the US government will maintain its commitment to the war. "The political, fiscal, and military sustainability of the GWOT [global war on terrorism] remains to be seen," he states. The essay concludes with several recommendations. Some are fairly noncontroversial, such as increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps, a position that appears to be gathering support in Congress. But he also says the United States should scale back its ambitions in Iraq, and be prepared to settle for a "friendly autocracy" there rather than a genuine democracy. (Washington Post)
January 12: Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says that from the very first National Security Council meeting of the new administration, the decision was made to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. "From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration -- eight months before the 9/11 attacks. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Ron Suskind, who interviewed O'Neill extensively for his book The Price of Loyalty. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed." As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap." And that came up at this first meeting, says O'Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later. "There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, 'Plan for post-Saddam Iraq," adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001. O'Neill confirms that he, and presumably no one else on the NSC, ever saw evidence proving that Hussein had WMDs. Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth. Suskind obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions," says Suskind. "On oil in Iraq." During the campaign, candidate Bush had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." Suskind says, "The thing that's most surprising, I think, is how emphatically, from the very first, the administration had said 'X' during the campaign, but from the first day was often doing 'Y,'" says Suskind. "Not just saying 'Y,' but actively moving toward the opposite of what they had said during the election." (CBS News, ABC News)
January 12: In Ron Suskind's new book The Price of Loyalty, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill discusses the resistance he mounted to the second round of the Bush administration's tax cuts, and the response he received. Within six months of taking office, the administration pushed a trillion dollars worth of tax cuts through Congress, and O'Neill thought that in light of the growing budget deficit and the tremendous spending for the war in Afghanistan (not to mention the upcoming war with Iraq), O'Neill argued with Vice President Dick Cheney about postponing or stopping the second round of tax cuts. "Cheney, at this moment, shows his hand," says Suskind. "He says, 'You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.' ...O'Neill is speechless." O'Neill adds, "It was not just about not wanting the tax cut. It was about how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society. And I thought the weight of working on Social Security and fundamental tax reform was a lot more important than a tax reduction." When asked if the second round of tax cuts were irresponsible, he replies, "Well, it's for sure not what I would have done." O'Neill accuses Cheney of not being an honest broker, but, with a handful of others, part of "a praetorian guard that encircled the president" to block out contrary views. "This is the way Dick likes it," says O'Neill. (CBS News)
January 12: A Buzzflash reader points out just how much the Bush administration's opinion of Paul O'Neill has changed now that O'Neill has publicly criticized the president and his coterie. In naming O'Neill his first Treasury secretary on January 30, 2001, Bush said of him, "In a distinguished career, Paul has earned a reputation as a straight shooter and an innovator. And I'm proud to welcome him as the Chief Financial Officer of this nation. I value Paul's vast experience in the world economy. I value his background in employing American workers. And I value his steadiness, his conviction and his authority." When O'Neill said he wasn't going to be as candid about the economy as he had been because other administration officials reacted badly to his comments, Bush spoke up for him: "Paul O'Neill is doing a fine job as Secretary of Treasury. ...I find him to be refreshingly candid. I appreciate his judgment. He's a man of great experience. He and I share an optimism about our country's future, and we do so based upon fact." And when Bush fired O'Neill and economic advisor Larry Lindsay, he said: "I'm deeply grateful to Secretary [O'Neill] and Dr. Larry Lindsey for their leadership, particularly in the aftermath of September the 11th, 2001. They share credit for an historic tax relief and other economic policies that moved our economy from recession to growth. Paul and Larry are two of the most fine, honorable, decent men I've ever served with. They can be proud for all they have done for their country...." (Buzzflash)
January 12: The Pentagon has classified captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as an "enemy prisoner of war," or an EPW, instead of a prisoner of war, or POW. This is probably to allow the US to sidestep Geneva Convention regulations regarding the treatment of POWs. "I've never heard the term EPW used," says Michael Noone, a retired Air Force JAG officer. "It's certainly not in the Geneva Conventions." He says the Defense Department "might be using the EPW designation to justify some sort of interrogation," which is being handled by the CIA. POW protections would also spare Saddam the death penalty, which the US has indicated it expects Hussein would get if he is tried by an as-yet nonexistent Iraqi court. POWs also get humanitarian visits by the International Red Cross, whose requests to see Saddam have so far been rebuffed. (New York Daily News)
January 12: Former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill continues to provide insider information on the Bush administration; today he says that when he voiced his objections to the deep tax cuts proposed by the administration because the cuts would trigger steep deficits, he was told by Vice President Cheney, "Deficits don't matter." O'Neill says that when he tried to warn Cheney that growing budget deficits posed a threat to the economy, Cheney cut him off, saying, "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter." ...We won the midterms [congressional elections]. This is our due." O'Neill also says that the administration refused to consider his plans for cracking down on corporate crime because of opposition from "the corporate crowd." O'Neill's replacement, John Snow, says he is committed to reducing deficits. (Chicago Tribune)
January 12: British Prime Minister Tony Blair admits that he can't be sure if weapons of mass destruction will ever be found in Iraq. Asked whether he thought they would be discovered, Blair replies: "I do not know is the answer." He says about the issue of WMDs: "You can't be definitive at the moment about what has happened." Blair thus gives the lie to the statements from his adminstration and the US government under George W. Bush for the last two years. Well before the invasion of Iraq, Blair asserted that Saddam Hussein was capable of launching a WMD attack within 45 minutes. He later said claims that Iraq had destroyed all its weapons were "palpably absurd." Blair is also accused of preparing to "run away" from the findings of the Hutton commission on the death of British weapons expert Dr. David Kelley. (Independent)
January 12: A new power struggle engulfs Iran's government, as a hard-line religious authority disqualifies half the 8,200 candidates in parliamentary elections next month. Reformers are outraged, accusing conservative rivals of trying to steal the vote. Rejected candidates included a brother of the reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami. More than 80 current members of the 290-seat Parliament were rejected, including two prominent feminists, two deputy speakers and six leaders of important parliamentary commissions. Many had been outspoken critics of Iran's strict Islamic religious political system and its treatment of dissenters and diverse views. The religious authority, the 12-member Guardian Council, had disqualified some candidates in previous elections and had blocked many reform bills passed by Parliament in recent years. But the number of disqualifications for the February 20 elections represents the most drastic action the council has taken against reformers in the country's parliamentary history. Citizens and lawmakers across the country are protesting the action; Khatami is urging supporters to react calmly, but is clearly angry about what outside political analysts called a brazen effort by religious conservatives to neutralize Iran's reform movement. "There are legal means to react to this problem, and I hope these legal means will solve the problem," he says. "We must not do anything to cause tension but we have the right to say what we have to say and to protest," he continues. "One political faction must not consider its right more than what it deserves, and it should not eliminate another faction in order to win in elections." Mohsen Mirdamadi, head of Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, who was among those disqualified, calls the Guardian Council's move a "bloodless coup." He says Khatami's younger brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami, and some others were disqualified because the council had concluded they did not support the rule of the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Other rejected candidates included six from the ethnic Kurdish region of Iranian Kurdistan. Jalal Jalali, a Kurdish parliamentarian, says that Kurds would boycott the elections if their candidates could not run. (New York Times)
January 12: Ukrainian troops fire on a group of about 400 Iraqis rioting for food in the southern Shi'ite city of Kut, another example of the rising tide of dissent and resistance in the formerly cooperative Shi'ite-controlled southern portion of Iraq. No Iraqis were reported injured. Days before, a similar protest for food in the British-controlled city of Amarah resulted in six Iraqis dead. (AP/Akron Beacon Journal)
January 12: Bush says while in Monterrey, Mexico, "One thing is for certain: There won't be any more mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms [in Iraq]." By this time, stories of atrocities committed by US soldiers in Iraqi prisons are circulating through the Bush administration. (White House/Slate)
January 12: A new proposal would give the White House Office of Management and Budget the final say about when, or even if, the American public would be informed about any emergency situation that may befall the country, ranging from mad cow disease outbreaks to anthrax releases to nuclear accidents to terror attacks similar to those of 9/11. The OMB also wants to manage scientific and technical evaluations, known as peer reviews, of all major government rules, plans, proposed regulations and pronouncements. Currently, each federal agency controls its emergency notifications and peer review of its projects. But the OMB says peer review policies in various agencies vary dramatically. A senior OMB official says his office has been ordered by Congress to take "a greater role in evaluating what the agencies do." A nonpartisan group of 20 former top agency officials send a letter to the OMB asking the White House watchdog agency to withdraw its proposal, saying it "could damage the federal system for protecting public health and the environment." One of the signers, David Michaels, a former assistant secretary for environment, safety and health at the Department of Energy, writes: "It goes beyond just having the White House involved in picking industry favorites to evaluate government science. Under this proposal, the carefully crafted process used by the government to notify the public of an imminent danger is going to first have to be signed off by someone weighing the political hazards." Michaels notes that the OMB is a political agency, "not a science agency. The ramifications of it attempting to insert itself into a time-proven system of having the most knowledgeable scientists available evaluate proposed policy or regulations is a disaster in the making."
In addition to Michaels, the letter is signed by two former Environmental Protection Agency administrators, a former secretary of labor, two former heads of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a former assistant labor secretary in charge of mine safety and health, and 13 other former senior officials of both political parties. "speaker after speaker warned that implementation of this proposal would lead to increased costs and delays in disseminating information to the public and in promulgating health, safety, environmental and other regulations, while potentially damaging the existing system of peer review," the letter reads. A firestorm of criticism erupted when the EPA's inspector general confirmed that the White House's Council on Environmental Quality had forced downplaying of actual hazards from the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. And the OMB was faulted in congressional hearings for preventing the EPA from declaring a public health emergency regarding asbestos contamination in Libby, Montana. "Incredibly, OMB's response to this widespread criticism about political interference in public health decisions is to come right out and explicitly propose to take authority over release of emergency information away from health, safety and environmental officials and transfer it into the hands" of OMB director John Graham, says Winifred De Palma, regulatory affairs counsel for the advocacy group Public Citizen. "OMB has no statutory or other express legal authority to impose this type of control on the agencies," De Palma says. "If the plan is implemented, it will mean that political considerations, and not public health, will be the administration's primary concern in the deciding whether to release health and safety information to the public in emergency situations." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch/CommonDreams)
January 12: A US firm, the Harris Corporation, is given an exclusive $96 million contract to run the Iraqi television and press firm, formerly called al-Iraqiya and now known as the Iraqi Media Network. Harris, a communications equipment maker based in Melbourne, Florida, will operate the national newspaper formerly run by Hussein's son Uday, in addition to running the broadcast network. After the fall of the Hussein government, the television stations and newspaper have been run by the US defense contractor SAIC. Under SAIC direction, the stations have not drawn viewers and listeners because their content was considered too pro-United States. In addition, there has been turnover in the non-Iraqi management and turmoil within the Iraqi staff, many of whom were holdovers from the previous dispensation. The day before Hussein was captured last month, 30 Iraqi reporters and producers were fired, and al-Iraqiya did not get the news of his arrest on the air for almost 24 hours. Harris will partner with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, which will manage the television station, and Kuwaiti newspaper company Al-Fawares, which publishes an Arabic version of Newsweek. It is unclear whether the network will remain under Pentagon control after the contract expires, or if it will revert to state control by the new Iraqi government. (Washington Post)
January 12: Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski gives a shocking interview to American Conservative magazine, where she details the evidence behind her belief that "My personal experience leaning precariously toward the neoconservative maw showed me that their philosophy remains remarkably untouched by respect for real liberty, justice, and American values." Kwiatkowski worked for 20 years in the Pentagon, and knows many of the high-ranking Pentagon and Bush administration officials personally. "I was present at a staff meeting when Deputy Undersecretary Bill Luti called General [Anthony] Zinni a traitor. At another time, I discussed with a political appointee the service being rendered by [Secretary of State] Colin Powell in the early winter and was told the best service he could offer would be to quit. I heard in another staff meeting a derogatory story about a little Tommy Fargo who was acting up. Little Tommy was, of course, Commander, Pacific Forces, Admiral Fargo." Kwiatkowski is particularly concerned with Donald Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans, the "alternative" intelligence agency set up and staffed by neo-conservatives with the express intent of providing, or creating, intelligence to serve their own ends. In August 2003, Kwiatkowski wrote, "What I saw [in the OSP] was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense." She described the work of the OSP in particular as, "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress." In short, she claims that a decision to go to war had been made long before, and that the hawks at the OSP were fashioning justifications for that decision on the fly, despite overwhelming evidence to suggest that war was not necessary. Revelations by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and former Director of State Department Policy Planning, Richard Haass confirm this. Kwiatkowski says, "War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons, but the reasons given to Congress and the American people for this one were so inaccurate and misleading as to be false. Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq -- more bases from which to flex US muscle with Syria and Iran, better positioning for the inevitable fall of the regional sheikdoms, maintaining OPEC on a dollar track, and fulfilling a half-baked imperial vision. These more accurate reasons could have been argued on their merits, and the American people might indeed have supported the war. But we never got a chance to debate it." (Truthout)
January 12: An angry Wesley Clark says that the the Bush administration is partly to blame for the 9/11 attacks. His rationale: the administration was distracted by plans to invade Iraq and thereby ignored intelligence on al-Qaeda handed over by outgoing Clinton administration officials in 2000, thus leaving security gaps that made it easier for Osama bin Laden's terrorist agents to strike on Sept. 11, 2001. Clark's accusation that Bush bears responsibility for the 9/11 attacks has increasingly become the national security centerpiece of Clark's campaign, with Clark going beyond standard Democratic critiques of the Iraq war to confront Bush on the event that has come to define his presidency. "They didn't do everything they could have before 9/11 to prevent the tragedy that was 9/11," Clark says. "This is a story that needs full investigation. ...[The Clinton administration] built a plan and turned it over to the Bush administration," says Clark, who says the plan was ignored. "This administration failed to do its duty to protect the United States of America before 9/11." Clark, who is accused by the Republican National Committee of spinning "wild accusations and conspiracy theories," does not draw a causal link between the attacks and Bush's alleged neglect, saying "You can never really know if the Sept. 11 attacks could have been prevented." (Boston Globe)
January 12: The Bush administration has countered the growing criticism of its policies in Iraq with a verbal "tirade" against France. Two of the administration's most important military advisors, Richard Perle and David Frum, claim that France's President Jacques Chirac "volunteered as Saddam Hussein's most important ally and protector." Perle and Frum make the allegation in their new book, An End to Evil. In their book, the two promote a so-called neo-conservative use of US military force to pacify the world. They take aim at countries they said stand in the way of Bush's "War on Terror," especially Saudi Arabia, Russia and France, saying that French diplomacy had been "hostile." They go on to say that most European countries probably disapprove of the French position, especially the former Soviet bloc states. Enlarging NATO would dilute France's influence: "The bigger the EU grows, the less amenable it will become to French aspirations to boss the other states," they wrote. "We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington. ...We should insist that all-important NATO business be conducted by NATO's military council, on which France does not sit. ...And we can visibly limit our cooperation with France's military and intelligence services to reflect the level of political cooperation." They say that the US "should start a debate within Europe over the French ambition to build the European Union into an anti-American counterweight. ...A more closely integrated Europe is no longer an unqualified American interest." Perle is a member of the Pentagon advisory board, who resigned his chairmanship over a conflict of interest. Frum is a former Bush speech writer said to have coined the "Axis of Evil" phrase. Both were hardline proponents of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. (EUBusiness)
January 12: The Bush administration is insisting that US airlines provide them with private and personal information about all passengers, foreign and domestic, who board their planes. The information will be used as part of the creation of a vast database of information about US citizens and foreign visitors. The government will compel airlines and airline reservations companies to hand over all passenger records for scrutiny by US officials, after failing to win cooperation in the program's testing phase. The order could be issued as soon as next month. Under the system, all travelers passing through a US airport are to be scored with a number and a color that ranks their perceived threat to the aircraft. Another program that is to be introduced this year that seeks to speed frequent fliers through security lines in exchange for volunteering personal information to the government. The two new initiatives will augment a system introduced last week to fingerprint and photograph millions of foreign visitors on arrival in the United States. Civil rights and privacy advocates oppose the information gathering, saying that the treatment is discriminatory because different passengers will be given different levels of scrutiny based on a secret judgment about their potential threat level. Certain travelers, such as non-US citizens, could face additional questioning under the program known as CAPPS 2, or the second version of the Computer Assisted Passenger PreScreening Program. Business travelers who typically pay high prices for their seats will likely get an easier pass through security in the "registered traveler" program.
Privacy advocates say they are most concerned about CAPPS 2, which would replace the airlines' existing computer screening system. The Transportation Safety Agency, or TSA, believes the current system is based on old assumptions about terrorists, flagging passengers, for instance, who paid with cash or bought one-way tickets. Passengers targeted for additional screening commonly find an "sSS" or "***" designation on their boarding pass. The TSA says that the new computerized system is to provide a more thorough approach to screening passengers. It will collect travelers' full name, home address and telephone number, date of birth and travel itinerary. The information will be fed into large databases, such as Lexis-Nexis and Acxiom, that tap public records and commercial computer banks, such as shopping mailing lists, to verify that passengers are who they say they are. Once a passenger is identified, the CAPPS 2 system will compare that traveler against wanted criminals and suspected terrorists contained in other databases. The two-step process will result in a numerical and color score for each passenger. A "red" rating means a passenger will be prohibited from boarding. "Yellow" indicates that a passenger will receive additional scrutiny at the checkpoint and a "green" rating paves the way for a standard trip through security. Also factored into one's score will be intelligence about certain routes and airports where there might be higher-rated risks to security.
As of now there is no word as to how passengers will be designated as "red," "yellow," or "green." The registered traveler program, also known as "trusted traveler," has been a favorite of the airline industry since the terrorist attacks in 2001. The first leader of the Transportation Security Administration declined to pursue the idea, saying he worried that terrorists in "sleeper cells" could establish themselves as trusted residents over a period of years and later exploit their status to hijack planes. Now under new leadership, the TSA is to begin testing the program at selected airports with $5 million in Congressional funding. Officials say the program could enhance security because the pool of those who need to be assessed would be reduced by the background checks each passenger would undergo. The agency declined to say how the program would work except that it would be voluntary and that registered passengers would not skip security screening altogether. However, privacy experts are skeptical. Registered traveler is "going to create two classes of airline travelers," says the ACLU's director of technology and liberty, Barry Steinhardt: "[The registered traveler program] has no security benefits." Terrorists will learn one way or another how to "game" the system, he says. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security started a visa-tracking program that the ACLU and other groups also deem discriminatory. International airports and ports began digitally fingerprinting and photographing foreign visitors from certain countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America when they enter the country on a visa, although most European countries are exempt from the program.
"These kinds of dragnet systems are feel-good but cost-inefficient," says Richard Sobel, a privacy policy researcher at Harvard Medical School. "The government would do much better using resources to better identify people and deter people who might cause some harm than to use resources devoted to the 99 percent of people who are innocent." The TSA's first airline partner to test CAPPS 2, Delta Air Lines, backed out of the agreement after privacy advocates put up a Web site encouraging passengers to boycott the airline. The European Union, whose passengers would also be rated and screened, have said the system would violate EU privacy laws, but it has allowed the TSA to use passenger data for testing purposes. The final blow came in September last year, when JetBlue Airways was sued in several states by passengers after the airline admitted it had turned over passenger data for a military project related to aviation security. The TSA has since been unable to find an airline to help the agency test CAPPS 2 and might now have to resort to coercion to get the reservation data. (Washington Post)
January 12: The US Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal by civil liberties groups seeking access to basic data about hundreds of individuals detained by the federal government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a decision that allows officials to continue withholding the names of most detainees, as well as other information related to their arrests, indefinitely. The Center for National Security Studies, the American Civil Liberties Union and many media organizations argued that the Bush administration's refusal to release information about the detainees violated the Freedom of Information Act and the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. The Bush administration countered that fighting an unconventional war against terrorists requires the executive branch to assert broad new authority to arrest and detain suspected terrorists, and to withhold much information about how it wields that authority so that terrorist organizations do not learn too much about the government's strategy and tactics. The decision let stand a 2 to 1 ruling last year by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which found "reasonable" the administration's claim that terrorist networks could reap advantage from any disclosure of information about the detainees, even their names. Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, says the ruling breaks with "200 years of tradition in which arrests have always been public. ...We have a situation where the government arrested more than a thousand people in secret, and the courts have let them get away with it."
Attorney General John Ashcroft says he is "pleased the court let stand a decision that clearly outlined the danger of giving terrorists a virtual road map to our investigation that could have allowed them to chart a potentially deadly detour around our efforts," a statement that echoes arguments made before the court by Solicitor General Theodore Olson. Olson argued that even though the government was not collecting and disclosing data about the detainees, the detainees or their attorneys were mostly free to disclose their cases: "Any secrecy surrounding the arrests is thus the product of private choice, not governmental dictate," he wrote. Martin says that was unrealistic, because many of the detainees were Arab or Muslim men who did not understand their rights and were often held incommunicado for extended periods or, in the case of material witnesses, subject to gag orders imposed by courts at the government's request. She notes that a Justice Department inspector general's report had documented cases of mistreatment of the detainees by federal officials and that without a full disclosure of the detainees' names, it will be impossible to hold the government accountable. "There is no accountability for the abuses, and secrecy allowed the abuses," Martin says. "That's always been the objection to secrecy." The Justice Department has acknowledged that it detained more than 1,200 people in connection with the investigation into the 2001 attacks, and claims, without verification, that most have been released without being charged. (Washington Post)
January 12: Sergeant Georg-Andreas Pogany has been branded a coward for suffering a panic attack after viewing a gruesome corpse during a battle. Pogany suffered the attack some hours after first viewing the corpse, probably a relatively typical case of combat-induced hysteria. However, his commanding officer has proven unsympathetic, first ordering Pogany to "get his head out of his a*s," and later filing charges of cowardice against Pogany which are leading to a court-martial and a possible death sentence. After his return to the US, he was cleared by a hospital psychiatrist as fit to return to duty; instead, his commander filed charges against him. Both an Army chaplain and an Army psychiatrist have said that Pogany's reaction was normal and understandable. Pogany, who has been vilified in the American media, is fighting the charges. (One television station put his picture beside Jessica Lynch's in a split-screen montage. Lynch's image was emblazoned with the word "hero," while his carried the tag "coward.") The cowardice charge was later dropped, but Pogany still faces a dereliction of duty charge, which could see him jailed and thrown out of the military. "some might say he has received national notoriety," his lawyer, Richard Travis, said recently. "How do you fix that? How do you reinstate your integrity?" At least one editorialist, Philip Rose, wrote in support of Pogany. Rose said in part, "The message is that under no circumstances should a man show any emotions, even in the face of the brutal events of war. Here we go again." (Independent)

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THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy

Written and Compiled by Black Max

January 2004

Week Two

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THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy

Written and Compiled by Black Max

January 2004

Week Two

Due to size considerations, this page has been divided into subpages.Use the menu below to navigate the week's contents.

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Powell admits no proof of Iraq connection to al-Qaeda

Former Treasury secretary reveals deep problems and lies from Bush and administration officials; administration retaliates with an investigation

Army War College report exposes administration's failures in Iraq

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