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
March 2007:
Week One
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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- March 1: An authoritative report by the Center on Law and Security at the NYU Foundation finds that the "Iraq effect" is costing lives around the globe.
Islamist terrorism
The report finds that, despite the repeated denials from George W. Bush and Tony Blair, the Iraq occupation is directly to blame for an upsurge in fundamentalist violence worldwide. It finds that the number killed in jihadist attacks around the world has risen dramatically since the Iraq war began in March 2003. The study compares the period between September 11, 2001 and the invasion of Iraq with the period since the invasion. The count -- excluding the Arab-Israel conflict -- shows the number of deaths due to terrorism rose from 729 to 5,420. As well as strikes in Europe, attacks have also increased in Chechnya and Kashmir since the invasion. Iraq has served as the catalyst for a ferocious fundamentalist backlash, according to the study, which says that the number of those killed by Islamists within Iraq rose from 7 to 3,122. Afghanistan, invaded by US and British forces in direct response to the 9/11 attacks, saw a rise from very few before 2003 to 802 since then. In the Chechen conflict, the toll rose from 234 to 497. In the Kashmir region, as well as India and Pakistan, the total rose from 182 to 489, and in Europe from none to 297. - Bush and Blair have continued to insist that, in Bush's words, "If we were not fighting and destroying the enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and killing Americans across the world and within our borders. By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people." Blair insists that the Iraq war was not been responsible for Muslim fundamentalist attacks such as the 7/7 London bombings which killed 52 people. "Iraq, the region and the wider world is a safer place without Saddam," Blair said in July 2004. Announcing the deployment of 1,400 extra troops to Afghanistan earlier this week -- raising the British force level in the country above that in Iraq -- Blair denied accusations by MPs that there was any link between the Iraq war and unraveling of security elsewhere. Bush officials such as John Negroponte, the outgoing director of national intelligence, have added their voices to the chorus. Last month he said he was "not certain" that the Iraq war had been a recruiting factor for al-Qa'eda, and added, "I wouldn't say that there has been a widespread growth in Islamic extremism beyond Iraq, I really wouldn't."
- But the report points out that the US administration's own National Intelligence Estimate on "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States," released in part in October 2006, stated that "the Iraq war has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists...and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives." Instead, the report finds, "the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of al-Qa'eda ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea. Our study shows that the Iraq war has generated a stunning increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and civilian lives lost. Even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one third."
- British security personnel support the report's findings. According to senior anti-terrorist officials, the attack on Iraq, along with the now-discredited claims by the US and British governments about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, has led to far more young Muslims engaging in extremist activity than the invasion of Afghanistan two years previously. Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of the Secret Service (MI5), said recently: "In Iraq attacks are regularly videoed and the footage is downloaded into the internet. Chillingly, we see the results here. Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. The threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation."
- In Afghanistan, the most active of the Taliban commanders, Mullah Dadullah, acknowledges how the Iraq war has influenced the struggle in Afghanistan. "We give and take with the mujahedin in Afghanistan," he says. The most striking example of this has been the dramatic rise in suicide bombings in Afghanistan, a phenomenon not seen through the 10 years of war with the Russians in the 1980s. (Independent)
- March 1: The House Judiciary Committee issues the first in what is expected to be a blizzard of subpoenas to Bush administration officials.
Investigating the White House
These subpoenas concern the firing of seven US attorneys, some of whom were investigating public corruption cases against Republican members of Congress. But subsequent subpoenas will probe the corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence demonstrated from the prewar Iraq intelligence scandal to the callous and inept adminstration response to Hurricane Katrina. - The House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law, chaired by Democrat Linda Sanchez, has issued subpoenas requiring four former US attorneys to appear at a subcommittee hearing on March 5. The former US attorneys include Carol Lam of California, David Iglesias of New Mexico, H.E. Cummins of Arkansas, and John McKay of Washington state. The subcommittee approves the subpoenas by voice vote; the Republican committee members choose not to be present. (The Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Lamar Smith, later calls the session "political grandstanding.")
- Lam and Cummins are of particular concern. Lam was leading the probe into the network of corruption, fraud, and criminal activities surrounding former GOP representative Randy Cunningham before she was abruptly fired. As for Cummins, he was fired to make room for a political protege of Karl Rove, possibly in an attempt to emplace a Bush loyalist in Arkansas in order to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. At least four other US attorneys, including those in Nevada and Arizona, were acting on corruption charges against GOP lawmakers before they were fired. Cummins says he will not testify voluntarily, but will comply with a subpoena. "I wanted it clear that I wasn't volunteering to testify and I wasn't trying to affirmatively stir up trouble for everybody," he says. "If they would like to hear one of the few facts I have, I'm happy to tell them."
- As noted in the February 2007 page of this site, New Mexico's former US attorney, David Iglesias, has said that he was fired for purely political reasons, and that before the November 2006 election, he was pressured by two Republican members of Congress to speed up the investigations of local Democrats to get indictments on the books before Election Day. Sanchez says that any such contacts by a member of Congress would likely be in violation of House and Senate ethics rules that restrict such "ex parte communications" during ongoing criminal investigations. Iglesias's office was conducting a probe into allegations involving construction contracts and a prominent Democratic former state senator. At the time of the phone calls, Republican representative Heather Wilson, a close ally of Senator Pete Domenici's, was in a tight reelection battle with then-state Attorney General Patricia Madrid. Wilson won by fewer than 2,000 votes. Iglesias says he will only identify the two lawmakers -- widely believed to have been Wilson and Domenici -- if compelled by a subpoena. "I fear retaliation," says Iglesias, a Republican and former military defense lawyer who served as a model for a character in the movie A Few Good Men. "This is a small state and there are not too many employment opportunities, and I fear they will blacklist me."
- Meanwhile, White House officials are denying that the attorneys were fired for anything other than performance-related issues, even though all but one of the fired attorneys have stellar performance evaluations. And Republican senator Jon Kyl is leading the Republican counter, accusing Democrats of making up a controversy where none exists. But Sanchez, like her fellow Democrats, are having none of it. "Are these people being [fired] because they're doing their jobs and they're doing them too well?" she asks. "Is this an ideological purge?" She goes on to stress the importance of a judiciary branch that is separate and independent from the executive branch. "When the executive branch is interfering in the justice system -- in other countries we call that corruption," she says. "It's very troubling to me that there seems to be this undercurrent." On the floor of the House, Democrat Rahm Emanuel says, "So this administration either originally hired incompetent attorneys in the first place, or hired competent US attorneys, but incompetently fired them. Which is it? Many Americans believe these US attorneys are not being fired because they failed to go after public corruption, but because they did and were successful." (The Hill/Truthout, Washington Post/Truthout)
- March 1: Senior officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years, and have largely ignored them.
Walter Reed scandal
As early as 2003, Army Surgeon General Kevin Kiley was told by representatives of veterans organizations that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds. Steve Robinson of Veterans for America says he ran into Kiley in the foyer of the command headquarters at Walter Reed shortly after the Iraq war began, and told him that "there are people in the barracks who are drinking themselves to death and people who are sharing drugs and people not getting the care they need. ...I met guys who weren't going to appointments because the hospital didn't even know they were there." Kiley, the former commander at Reed, brushed Robinson off, telling him to make his complaints to a sergeant major instead. Since the Washington Post expose of horrific conditions at Walter Reed was published in February 2008 (see the February 2007 page), military and hospital officials have expressed their shock and regret at the revelations. But it is becoming clear that those expressions of sympathy and anger are, at least in some instances, mere playacting. - Kiley, who originally reacted to the Post articles by attempting to blame the outpatients themselves for the horrific conditions in which they were forced to live, himself lives across from Building 18, the dingy, vermin-infested barracks that was the centerpiece of the Post expose -- but even though he can see the building, and watch the injured outpatients as they battle through piles of debris and heavy traffic to get on and off the post itself, told reporters that the problems at Building 18 "weren't serious and there weren't a lot of them." He also said they were not "emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families."
- However, many sources have made it clear that Kiley, his successive commanders at Walter Reed, and various top noncommissioned officers in charge of soldiers' lives, have all heard and largely ignored a stream of complaints about outpatient treatment over the past several years. The complaints have surfaced at town hall meetings for staff and soldiers, at commanders' "sensing sessions" in which soldiers or officers are encouraged to speak freely, and in several inspector general's reports detailing building conditions, safety issues and other matters. Retired Major General Kenneth Farmer, who commanded Walter Reed for two years until August 2006, says that he was aware of outpatient problems and that there were "ongoing reviews and discussions" about how to fix them when he left. He says he shared many of those issues with Kiley, his immediate commander. Last summer when he turned over command to Major General George Weightman, Farmer says, "there were a variety of things we identified as opportunities for continued improvement." But little was done. In 2004, Republican representative C.W. "Bill" Young and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration. Young says he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed, but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable," says Young, who began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities. Beverly Young adds that she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young says, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else." She adds that even after Kiley left Walter Reed to become the Army's surgeon general, "if anything could have been done to correct problems, he could have done it."
- Soldiers and family members say their complaints have been ignored by commanders at many levels. In early 2006, Chief Warrant Officer Jayson Kendrick, an outpatient, attended a sensing session, the Army's version of a town hall meeting where concerns are raised in front of the chain of command. Kendrick spoke about the deterioration and crowded conditions of the outpatient administrative building, which had secondhand computers and office furniture shoved into cubicles, creating chaos for family members. An inspector general attending the meeting "chuckled and said, 'What do you want, pool tables and Ping-Pong tables in there?'" Kendrick recalls. On February 17, 2005, Kiley sat in a congressional hearing room as Sergeant First Class John Allen, injured in Afghanistan in 2002, described what he called a "dysfunctional system" at Walter Reed in which "soldiers go months without pay, nowhere to live, their medical appointments canceled." Allen added: "The result is a massive stress and mental pain causing further harm. It would be very easy to correct the situation if the command element climate supported it. The command staff at Walter Reed needs to show their care."
- In 2006, Joe Wilson, a clinical social worker in the department of psychiatry, briefed several colonels at Walter Reed about problems and steps that could be taken to improve living conditions at Building 18. In March 2006, he shared the findings of a survey his department had conducted. It found that 75% of outpatients said their experience at Walter Reed had been "stressful" and that there was a "significant population of unsatisfied, frustrated, disenfranchised patients." Instead of dealing with the concerns raised in the survey, military commanders played down the findings. "These people knew about it," Wilson says now. "The bottom line is, people knew about it but the culture of the Army didn't allow it to be addressed."
- The experience of Donald Rumsfeld's wife Joyce is illustrative of the efforts made to keep the problems of Walter Reed under wraps. Mrs. Rumsfeld was taken to Walter Reed by a friend concerned about outpatient treatment last October, while her husband was still Secretary of Defense. She attended a weekly meeting, called Girls Time Out, at which wives, girlfriends and mothers of soldiers exchange stories and offer support. According to three people who attended the gathering, Rumsfeld listened quietly. Some of the women did not know who she was. At the end of the meeting, Rumsfeld asked one of the staff members whether she thought that the soldiers her husband was meeting on his visits had been handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there. The answer was yes. When Walter Reed officials found out that Rumsfeld had visited, they told the friend who brought her -- a woman who had volunteered there many times -- that she was no longer welcome on the grounds.
- In an apparent attempt at damage control, last week the Army relieved of duty several low-ranking soldiers who managed outpatients. This week, in a move that many soldiers view as reprisal for speaking to the media, the wounded troops were told that early-morning room inspections would be held and that further contact with reporters is prohibited. Yesterday, Walter Reed received an unscheduled inspection by a hospital accreditation agency. Members of the Joint Commission, formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, began a two-day visit "for cause" to examine discharge practices that have allowed soldiers to go missing or unaccounted for after they are released from the hospital. (Washington Post)
- March 1: Fired US attorney David Iglesias gives more details about his apparent hounding from office by Republican lawmakers Heather Wilson and Pete Domenici to NPR.
US Attorney firings
Though he refuses to name either Wilson or Domenici, the two are confirmed as the members of Congress who pressured Iglesias to file premature indictments against New Mexico Democrats before the November 2006 elections, in an apparent attempt to influence the tight race between Wilson and her Democratic opponent, by two independent sources as reported by McClatchy News Service. Iglesias says, "The first call was in mid-October. The caller was asking -- this was not a staff member, an actual member of Congress -- the person was asking about 'I want to know if there are any sealed indictments.' And I said, 'Sealed indictments? We only do that for juvenile cases or national security cases. It's fairly unusual.' Instantly red flags went up. I didn't want to talk about it. Federal prosecutors can't talk about indictments in general until they're made public. So I was evasive, I shucked and jived like Walter Payton used to for the Chicago Bears, and the call was ended rather abruptly.... Approximately a week and a half later I got a second call from another member of Congress wanting to know about when the corruption matters were going to be filed. Again, red lights went on. It was a very unpleasant phone call, because I know that members of Congress should not be making phone calls about pending matters, pending investigations, indictment dates, things of that nature." - The two people with knowledge of the incident say Domenici and Wilson intervened in mid-October, when Wilson was in a competitive re-election campaign that she won by 875 votes out of nearly 211,000 cast. According to the two individuals, Domenici and Wilson called to press Iglesias for details of the case. Wilson was curt after Iglesias was "non-responsive" to her questions about whether an indictment would be unsealed, they say; the two refuse to be identified because they both fear possible political repercussions. Domenici, who wasn't up for re-election, called about a week and a half later and was more persistent than Wilson, the people say. When Iglesias said an indictment wouldn't be handed down until at least December, the line went dead.
- Iglesias repeats his reasoning for not naming Wilson and Domenici as the two lawmakers who called him (cited in a related item from March 1): "Because frankly, I'm afraid of retaliation. I live in a very small state with a very small legal community. And I'm frankly afraid if I go public right now, that there could be retaliation in terms of me being blacklisted, blackballed...you pick your adjective." NPR reporter Melissa Block notes that New Mexico doesn't have a very big delegation, and that every member of the delegation with the exception of Domenici and Wilson have denied making the calls, Iglesias responds, "Right." Iglesias says he will be more forthcoming in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. (NPR/TPM Muckraker [link to audio], McClatchy News/CommonDreams)
- March 1: Responding angrily to the Senate's recent decision not to debate the possible repeal of the 2002 Iraq war authorization for at least two weeks, Democratic senator Russ Feingold warns his fellow Democrats to "use the power of the purse" to end the war.
Iraq war and occupation
If they don't, he says, "If the Democrats don't use their power, when we're in the majority in both houses, we're going to start owning this war. It is George Bush's war, but if we don't get serious we're going to start owning this war." Feingold says, "I would prefer a clean effort to try to eliminate the funding for the war, to actually have a date like we did with Somalia, where the war will end. But the fact is that when I proposed a deadline a year and a half ago, people said well, there's no support for that, even the Democrats are against it. Well, now it's in all the drafts. So, the fact is that people come to the realization that if we're going to end this war, we're to have use our real power. The power of the purse. And I can tell from you private conversations, the realization is growing that the only way to stop this thing is to use our power. ...If the Democrats don't use their power, when we're in the majority in both houses, we're going to start owning this war. It is George Bush's war, but if we don't get serious we're going to start owning this war." (C-SPAN/ThinkProgress [link to video])
- March 2: The Energy Department is contracting to build a new hydrogen bomb, the US's first in over twenty years.
US nuclear program
Three different national weapons laboratories, led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will collaborate to build the nuclear weapon. The new nuke will replace aging warheads now deployed on missiles aboard Trident submarines. The contract decision was made by the Nuclear Weapons Council, which consists of officials from the Defense Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Energy Department. The nuclear administration will issue the contract and run the program. The cost of the development is secret, though outside experts say it will cost billions of dollars -- perhaps tens of billions -- to develop the bomb, build factories to restart high-volume weapons production and then assemble the weapons. - The program marks the first time the military has fielded a nuclear weapon design without an underground test. The last time scientists set off a hydrogen bomb was in 1991 under the Nevada desert. Early in his administration, Bill Clinton ordered a testing moratorium, and that has not been abrogated since.
- The design details are secret, but Livermore's version utilizes major components that had been tested, though not produced, for a Navy bomb about two decades ago. Proponents of the effort say that the nation's existing nuclear stockpile is getting old and that doubts will eventually grow about weapons reliability. They say the new bomb will not have a greater nuclear yield and could not perform any new military missions beyond those of existing weapons. Critics say the existing stockpile is perfectly reliable and can be maintained for decades. The new bomb will undermine US efforts to stop nuclear proliferation, they say. In addition, a recent study showed that plutonium components in existing weapons were aging much more slowly than expected. (Los Angeles Times/CommonDreams)
- March 2: Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey abruptly resigns in the wake of the Walter Reed hospital scandal.
Walter Reed scandal
The day before, Harvey fired the commander of Walter Reed, George Weightman, and temporarily replaced him with the Army's surgeon general, Kevin Kiley. While Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that Harvey voluntarily resigned, senior defense officials say that Gates asked Harvey to step down. Gates was reportedly angry that, after firing Weightman, Harvey replaced him with Kiley, whose own role in the Walter Reed debacle is perhaps even more questionable than Weightman's. "I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed," Gates says. "Some have shown too much defensiveness, and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems." The Army announces soon after that Major General Eric Schoomaker will take command of Walter Reed and the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command. The Army undersecretary, Pete Geren, will become acting secretary until Bush nominates a permanent replacement for Harvey. Harvey himself has only been in his post since November 2004; before that, he had worked for years with several defense contractors. - Weightman, the fired commander, claimed to have been unaware of the substandard conditions at Walter Reed. But in a memo signed by a deputy to Weightman in September 2006, five months before reports of the problems at Walter Reed came to light, concerns were raised about care at the facility after the Army's decision to privatize support services there. The memo, obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, says Walter Reed "operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure."
- Harvey admits that the conditions at Walter Reed are intolerable, saying, "It's unexcusable to have soldiers in that type of building." But he adds that the Post and other media reports are one-sided, and blames the media coverage for his and Weightman's firings. "Where's the other side of the story?" he petulantly demands of a Post reporter. "Two articles in your paper have ruined the career of General Weightman, who is a very decent man, and then a captain...and the secretary of the Army. If that satisfies the populace, maybe this will stop further dismissals."
- Bush says he will ask Congress for more than $86 billion for veterans' services for fiscal year 2008. If approved, he says, "we will have increased the VA's health-care budget by 83% over the past six years, from about $20 billion to more than $36 billion." Bush also says he will launch an investigation of the Walter Reed debacle, a move that at least one House Democrat says is far too little, far too late. "He's the executive," says James Moran, a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense and a close ally of leading war critic John Murtha. "This has been six years, and now six years later, after an awful lot of neglect, he's going to get around to putting a commission together, a study to tell him what to do.... I think he's feeling politically desperate." (AP/Breitbart, CNN, Washington Post)
- March 2: Democrat Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is challenging the Bush administration over forcing ousted Walter Reed Hospital commander George Weightman to testify before Congress.
Walter Reed scandal
The Pentagon is attempting to block Weightman's testimony. Waxman intends to ask Weightman, among other things surrounding the Walter Reed scandal, about a contract to manage the medical center awarded to a company that had documented troubles fulfilling a government contract to deliver ice to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Waxman says if the Pentagon refuses to let Weightman testify, he will subpoena Weightman. According to a letter from Waxman to Weightman, he believes the Walter Reed contract may have pushed dozens of health care workers to leave jobs at the troubled medical center, which he says in turn threatened the quality of care for hundreds of military personnel receiving treatment there. Weightman had been slated to testify before Congress on March 5. The Army has tried to withdraw him from the hearing. - Waxman says that the Army used an unusual process to award a five-year, $120 million contract to manage the center to a company owned by a former executive of Halliburton. In 2004, the Army determined that Walter Reed's federal employees could operate the medical center more efficiently than IAP Worldwide Services, which is operated by former Halliburton executive Al Neffgen. After IAP protested, the Army "unilaterally" increased the employees' estimated costs by $7 million, making IAP appear cheaper, Waxman writes. Rules barred Walter Reed employees from appealing the decision, and in January 2006 the Army gave the contract to IAP. According to an internal memo written by a senior Walter Reed administrator and obtained by Waxman, the decision to outsource to IAP led the center's skilled personnel to leave Walter Reed "in droves," fearing they would be laid off when the contractor took over. In the last year, Waxman found, over 250 of 300 government employees left the center. The lack of staffing put patient care "at risk of mission failure," warned an internal Army memo obtained by Waxman. Some of the problems recently revealed at Walter Reed "may be attributable to a lack of skilled government technicians on staff," Waxman writes. IAP denies any wrongdoing or that there are any severe personnel shortages at Walter Reed.
- The Pentagon will drop its resistance to Weightman's appearance before Waxman's committee, and will allow him to testify without a subpoena. (ABC News)
- March 2: The US Army attempted to block an investigation by the Los Angeles Times from conducting an independent investigation into allegations that members of a Special Forces detachment in Afghanistan murdered two detainees and then covered up the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
War in Afghanistan
The information comes from a lengthy article written by Times reporter Craig Pyes for the Nieman Watchdog Project. The Times launched an investigation of its own after the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) opened its own investigation into the deaths, but only after the Times and the nonprofit organization Crimes of War Project revealed that a young Afghan soldier had died in the custody of the Special Forces team after allegations that he had been tortured. The Pentagon said it had no record of the death. The Times's 2004 story was published just two months after the Army's inspector general had issued a detailed report on detainee abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its conclusion: that it had found "no incidents of abuse that had not been reported through command channels." At the same time the Times tried to investigate the deaths, human rights organizations were raising questions about the relatively low number of successful military prosecutions in criminal homicide and prisoner abuse cases and whether the military is capable of policing itself in times of war. - The CID spent over two years investigating the allegations, originally reported by Times reporters Pyes and Mark Mazzetti. The probe was concluded in January 2007, but found nothing had happened. According to Pyes, the Army investigation spent most of its time pulling apart the case it had initially built, and recommended nothing more than what one Special Forces officer called a "high-level slap on the wrist" against two soldiers on the Special Forces team. In previous investigations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, CID's investigations have been called into question and their findings revised. Pyes and Mazzetti also found that the military examiners had made some significant errors, including their initial failure to identify the victims. Pyes writes, "They also grossly misidentified dates of crucial events and persistently failed to interview key people and locate supporting documents. Public accountability was scarce."
- Pyes and Times reporter Kevin Sack were given the job of conducting the paper's own investigation. Pyes writes, "While the September 2004 article uncovered the death and torture allegations, we knew next to nothing about the American soldiers involved, other than they were stationed in Gardez, a provincial capital south of Kabul. At the time of the incident, the 20th Special Forces Group, a National Guard outfit based in Birmingham, Alabama, was in charge of the Special Forces mission throughout Afghanistan. Prior to CID getting involved, an agent remarked that Gardez had the reputation as 'the worst facility' in the country. 'The Special Forces guys there,' he added, 'were a bunch of f*cking cowboys.' He was uncertain about who was running the base because units are transferred in and out. 'There are no records,' this agent said. 'The reporting system is broke across the board.'"
- The military never makes it easy for reporters to investigate claims of detainee abuse, partially as a matter of policy and partially to cover its own inaction and, in some cases, collusion with the abuse allegations. The reporters had no access to military files, court papers, or much else from the CID's own investigations. And, the reporters found, the Afghanis who suffered abuse at the hands of the Special Forces detachment were unwilling to help. "They were mostly uncouth militiamen and thugs," Pyes writes. "One was holding a young boy as a sex slave when apprehended, according to US military reports." And the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), from which the initial information leaked about the case, was not helpful. "It turned out that UNAMA, too, had not reported the incident, even though the organization had been given overarching responsibilities under the December 2001 Bonn agreement for the protection of human rights in Afghanistan," Pyes writes. "But an even greater obstacle was how we would report on Special Forces activities at remote firebases, where most of the prisoners sent from Afghanistan to the prison facility at Guantanamo were first captured and held. The bases are highly classified and have not only avoided scrutiny from journalists and the public, but are opaque to congressional staffers with security clearances, to the military's own investigators and, sometimes, even to the Special Forces Command itself. The Red Cross does not have access to these outposts, and even the names of the soldiers are treated like state secrets. Several times, irate Green Berets responded to our inquiries with: 'How did you get my name? It's classified.'"
- The Army turned down all of the reporters' requests for information and comments. But the blocking went far beyond a lack of cooperation. The US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC), a part of the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), sent out hundreds of e-mails instructing its members to refer any inquiries that might come from us to their public affairs office and to alert their chain of command of the contacts. Pyes quotes one e-mail: "Situation: Reporters Kevin Sack and Craig Pyes, LA Times, have been gathering information from USACAPOC troops about missions undertaken by other SOF elements in Bamian and Gardez, Afghanistan.... Facts: Mr. Sack and Mr. Pyes have been asking questions along two lines: 1.) Detainees Abuses 2.) The 'alleged' misconduct of another Soldier at the above mentioned locations. Our Soldiers continue to engage regularly with these two reporters without approval from USACAPOC/USASOC Public Affairs channels." The USACAPOC public affairs official offered to schedule "media engagement training" for soldiers and "family readiness groups," as well as offering to give personal guidance to the reporters. She concluded her own memo, "I look forward to blazing this path with all of you together as our great men and women of USACAPOC support our nation at war." Well and good, but the Publlic Affairs Office (PAO) provided no information whatsoever of any use.
- However, through their own sources, Pyes and Sack were able to review thousands of confidential documents, including internal Special Forces correspondence, US military intelligence reports, previously undisclosed rules on interrogation techniques approved for Afghanistan, and highly sensitive internal reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross, UNAMA, and the prosecutor's office of the Afghan military. They also interviewed over 100 people in Afghanistan and the US, including members of the 20th Special Forces Group, members of USACAPOC, intelligence officers, and senior diplomats. "And while we never expected that this story into allegations of torture and criminal homicide by US soldiers would come packaged from the Army's public affairs channel," Pyes writes, "we were still surprised by the active resistance we encountered along the way."
- It was not news to Pyes and Sack that the Army's PAO was not an information-disseminating vehicle, especially for nosy reporters, but instead performing the task of "transmit[ting] the policy and message of the United States," as a sign in the Public Affairs Office at Camp Eggers, Kabul, reminds its staff. Journalists are not trusted. US forces in Afghanistan are told during their own "media engagement training" not to kill journalists "for the sole purpose of recovering film or videotape" unless it was in self-defense. Certainly they are not told how and when to cooperate with reporters. But the Pentagon was no more cooperative than the soldiers in the field. Pyes writes, "Near the tail end of our investigation, I contacted the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to ask about the procedures used by Special Forces to report a detainee death at one of their bases. My questions could have been cleared by Army brass within 24 to 48 hours and answered definitively in 20 minutes without violating Department of Defense guidelines or weakening our national defense. Instead it took more than two months of e-mails and telephone calls for the Army's medical branch to give us an incomplete reply. Some of the information they did dispense was inaccurate." Pyes and Sack were "trying to solve whether the commander of the Gardez Special Forces team, known as ODA 2021, had any justification for not reporting the death of an 18-year-old Afghan militiaman named Jamal Naseer, who died while being interrogated at his base in March 2003. The principal focus of our inquiry was to learn the general procedures that should be followed. We were not asking about the discreet facts in this particular case, other than whether the pathology institute had received a death certificate."
- Naseer was one of the nine Afghani soldiers arrested by US Special Forces soldiers. Seven of those nine later reported to UN and Afghan military investigators that they had been continuously beaten for more than a week by Americans using karate, cables and sticks, and that one member, the brother of the deceased, had a toenail torn off. They also claimed that during the interrogations, melted snow water was poured over them, and they were left outside in subfreezing weather and forced to assume stress positions. Many of the allegations were substantiated by notes and testimony from local doctors who treated them after they were released to the custody of local Afghan police. Those documents included a statement from the hospital employee who prepared Naseer's body for burial. His corpse was described as being black and green and swollen. His mother's words said "the entire body was full of injuries."
- Pyes says that they learned a second scenario of Naseer's death was given to investigators by at least one American official -- he claimed that Naseer died of a urinary tract infection. That official, who spoke to Pyes and Sack, wanted to ensure that, as Pye writes, "everyone was on the same page in case there was an investigation." Pyes continues, "Attributing Naseer's death solely to natural causes cut against everything we'd learned in our reporting thus far. A prominent forensic pathologist confirmed that the descriptions of the body obtained by the Times indicated the cause of death was blunt force trauma, not organ failure. Although there was a hospital 10 minutes away, the team apparently did not summon a doctor as Naseer's condition deteriorated. Most important, the team commander concealed Naseer's death from his chain of command, who said they did not learn of it until revealed by the Times 18 months later. None of the other team members or their associates broke their silence, either, not even to inform the Red Cross. Our reporting also had uncovered that within days of Naseer's death, an ODA 2021 team member had shot in the face and killed Wakil Mohammed, an unarmed woodcutter who had been rounded-up for questioning after a firefight in the nearby village of Wazi. The team commander concealed the circumstances of that death from his superiors, as well."
- In 2004, Pyes and Sack were told by officials at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which keeps track of detainee deaths, that they had no record of Jamal Naseer whatsoever. They subsequently learned that CID was considering using the urinary tract infection. They couldn't even find a copy of Naseer's death certificate. And because the family refused to allow an exhumation, forensic evidence was largely lacking.
- Pyes was unable to get any answers from the pathology institute. Nor was the Pentagon forthcoming with any information, even of the most general kind. Pyes writes, "When I complained to the pathology institute that it was practicing excessive secrecy, the public affairs officer denied it vigorously. When I kicked my questions up to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs and identified myself as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, the voice on the phone refused to reveal either the name or the telephone number of the person who handles media affairs. Someone would call me back. Indeed, I was called back promptly by a contractor, a former colonel, who responded to my questions about medical reporting procedures in Afghanistan in March 2003 by reading me Rumsfeld's guidance from 2005. He did not identify the document and said I couldn't quote him, which I found out later had to do with him being a contractor. He would not name the company he worked for, but insisted that his response was authoritative. In fact, it turned out to be wrong because procedures had changed. This happened several times as other public affairs personnel replied to my questions by citing a set of rules that was not in force during the period I was examining."
- Eventually Pyes was able to speak with the Army's Medical Examiner and received the correct operating procedures for reporting deaths. He was told that the pathology institute still had no record of Naseer's death, and, he writes, "was given officious and opaque responses to some of my questions. But to do so took two months. And it required me to leapfrog the public affairs channel and call medical branch people at their homes and to threaten, cajole and plead with them for information that should have been given out crisply and professionally."
- Pyes concludes, "In January [2007], CID closed its investigation into the two deaths and abuse allegations after more than two years of inquiry. They found insufficient probable cause to bring charges for either of the two deaths, even though a year earlier they had recommended murder charges against a Special Forces soldier in the killing at Wazi. Two soldiers were given noncriminal administrative letters of reprimand for 'slapping' prisoners at the Gardez facility and for failing to report the death of Jamal Naseer. During the entire course of the CID investigation, the commander of ODA 2021 at the time of both deaths continued to work full-time at the 20th Group headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama and redeployed last winter to East Africa. " (Nieman Watchdog)
- March 2: Bush nominates Michael Baroody, the executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, to chair the Consumer Safety Product Commission. Baroody's nomination is a direct nose-thumbing at consumers and consumer rights organizations.
Partisan Bush appointees
Senate Democrats are likely to oppose the nomination. Baroody's NAM has long worked to lift restrictions on corporations that protect consumers from shoddy and dangerous products; critics say Baroody's nomination is emblematic of Bush's efforts to restrict government regulations by executive order and action rather than by congressional approval. - "I think it's shocking," says Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader. "It's the fox in the chicken coop." Claybrook says of Baroody, "They wanted a hard-liner in the agency to push it into the deregulation mode."
- The Consumer Product Safety Commission, established in 1974, issues safety standards for a wide range of products, including lawn mowers, toasters, toys, clothing and furniture -- nearly all consumer products except motor vehicles and guns. It investigates reports of dangerous products, issues recalls and shapes regulations. It also has the option of taking no action on complaints or investigations. The panel has not had a chairman since July; only two of its five seats are filled. Under its regulations, the commission is unable to take formal action after more than six months without a quorum. It hit the mark in January.
- Baroody's credentials as a consumer advocate are nil, but he has a long resume as a proponent of corporate deregulation. He was an assistant Secretary of Labor and director of public affairs under Reagan, and was a speechwriter for former GOP senator Bob Dole when he was chairman of the Republican National Committee. Baroody also was president of the now-defunct National Policy Forum, a Republican-oriented policy research group. In 1988, as assistant Secretary of Labor, he defended the Reagan administration's record in protecting workers despite delays in issuing safety rules and efforts to weaken regulations. In 2000, he fought an ergonomics rule -- put into place by the Clinton administration -- that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said was intended to prevent 300,000 workplace accidents and injuries. In 2001, speaking for the NAM, he criticized a Supreme Court ruling rejecting arguments that the Environmental Protection Agency had acted unconstitutionally when it issued standards for limiting smog and soot.
- The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Democrat Barbara Boxer, says, "I intend to give his nomination thorough scrutiny. Here was a golden opportunity to put a true champion of consumers onto a very important commission, and instead President Bush selected someone who represents the special interests. This administration seems incapable of doing anything in the public interest." (Los Angeles Times)
- March 2: The jurors in the Lewis Libby perjury trial, completing their eighth day of deliberations, ask Judge Reggie Walton for a definition of the term "reasonable doubt." Walton will provide the jurors their answer on March 5, when the jurors return to their deliberations.
Lewis Libby perjury trial
Until now, little information about the status of the jurors' deliberations has been made public. Jurors write in their request, "We would like clarification of the term 'reasonable doubt.' Specifically, is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event in order to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Walton had instructed the jurors before they began deliberating that "the government is not required to prove guilt beyond all doubt, or to a mathematical or scientific certainty." - Two veteran trial lawyers say that it is difficult to draw inferences from the jurors' question. It cannot be told if some of the jurors have doubts about the burden of proof on the prosecution, or if the answer to the question might be a means to persuade a holdout juror to vote for conviction. "If a juror has absolutely no doubt the defendant is guilty, that's not the kind of question they ask," says Edward MacMahon, who defended Zacarias Moussaoui against charges related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "But that doesn't mean the jury will acquit him. It could be only one juror." He adds, "It's a fool's game to try to figure out what jury questions mean. There's too many leaves in the tea." Veteran defense attorney Lawrence Barcells agrees. "As a general rule, a prosecutor doesn't want to hear a jury asking about reasonable doubt after a week of deliberations," he says. "But you can never tell how it's playing out in the jury room, and it's key whether this is one juror's question or 11 jurors' question."
- The jurors also asked a question about the count of obstruction of justice. It was their second question about Libby's discussions regarding Plame with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper, but their earlier question concerned the count of making false statements to the FBI about that conversation. This time they ask a technical question: Did they need to look at all eight hours of Libby's grand jury testimony or could Walton point to specific statements in the transcript that they should look at? (AP/San Francisco Chronicle)
- March 2: In a career marked by increasingly hateful personal attacks on liberals and anyone else she doesn't like, conservative author and television pundit Ann Coulter may have reached a new low for even herself -- and, as has happened so many times before, the conservative audience she is addressing applauds her.
Conservative hate speech and intolerance
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Coulter says of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I -- so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards." The audience is at first startled, then breaks into applause. Earlier in the speech, she makes an equally ugly slur against former vice president Al Gore and liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, asking the audience, "Did Al Gore actually swallow Michael Moore?" During the question-and-answer period, when a questioner asks Coulter why she praises marriage but broke off so many engagements, she responds by calling the questioner ugly. - During Coulter's speech, she mocks Gore for gaining weight during his sabbatical from politics, and calls Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama "B. Hussein," yet another attack on Obama's middle name. "What's Al Gore up to these days?" she asks rhetorically, and answers herself: "Four hundred pounds." She then asks, "Did Al Gore actually swallow Michael Moore?" which, of course, is not only an attempt to belittle Gore's supposed weight problem, but a sideways implication that Gore and Moore have had homosexual relations. Of Obama, she tries for another twofer, this time with the former president: "Obama is half-white and half-black. Clinton was half-white, half-trash."
- Coulter's speech is broadcast on C-SPAN. Three Republican presidential candidates are present at the day's events, including former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who introduces Coulter with glowing praise: "I am happy to hear that after you hear from me, you will hear from Ann Coulter," he says. "That is a good thing. Oh yeah!" None immediately repudiate her remarks. Neither does Dick Cheney, who addressed the CPAC crowd on March 1.
- In the past, Coulter has accused Democrats Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore, among others, of having homosexual tendencies. She has also attacked Edwards over the death of his son, and accused Vietnam War veteran Max Cleland, who lost three limbs at Khe Sanh, of causing his own injuries. Other instances of Coulter's hate speech are salted throughout this site. Interestingly, she has a much different reaction to homosexuality and pedophilia among her own: her only reaction to the news of disgraced Republican congressman Mark Foley's stalking of underage male Congressional interns was to say, "[W]ho knew Congressman Foley was a closeted Democrat?" At last year's CPAC, Coulter drew fire by calling Arabs and Muslims "ragheads."
- The reaction is swift. Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean says, "There is no place in political discourse for this kind of hate-filled and bigoted comments. While Democrats and Republicans may disagree on the issues, we should all be able to agree that this kind of vile rhetoric is out of bounds. The American people want a serious, thoughtful debate of the issues. Republicans -- including the Republican presidential candidates who shared the podium with Ann Coulter today -- should denounce her hateful remarks." Even some conservative commentators try to distance themselves and the conservative movement from Coulter's remarks. Ed Morrissey, the owner of the popular Captain's Quarters blog, responds sardonically, "Yeah, that's just what CPAC needs -- an association with homophobia. Nice work, Ann." Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, no stranger herself to hate speech, expresses her measured disapproval of Coulter's statements, and one of her blog's regular contributors, "Bryan," writes, "I'm no fan of John Edwards, but that's just a stupid joke. It's over the line. The laughter it generated across the room was more than a little annoying. Last year it was 'raghead.' This year it's calling John Edwards a 'faggot.' Two years in a row, Coulter has finished up an otherwise sharp CPAC routine with an obnoxious slur that liberals will fling at conservatives for years to come. Thanks, Ann." (Editor's note: "an otherwise sharp CPAC routine"?) But, Malkin also tries to minimize the reaction of the audience by saying there was only "a smattering of applause;" other sources report wide applause and cheering from the crowd.
- Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese says, "To interject this word into American political discourse is a vile and disgusting way to sink the debate to a new, all-time low. Make no doubt about it, these remarks go directly against what our Founding Fathers intended and have no place on the schoolyard, much less our country's political arena. It is clear that some in the Republican Party plan to run in 2008 the same way they did in 2004, by using discrimination to divide the country and rally their base. But, 2008 is not 2004, and this time the politics of fear and smear will not work. The American people are tired of those who would rather divide than unite. ...We demand that every single presidential candidate in attendance at this conference, along with Vice President Cheney stand up and publicly condemn this type of gutter-style politics."
- Even a member of one of the conference's sponsors, Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research, is angered by Coulter's remarks. "It would be better, in my opinion, to not have a CPAC at all than to have one that presents conservatism as a hostile, people-hating ideology," Ridenour says. "We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot."
- Many media outlets decide to pretend Coulter said nothing of note. In his report on the CPAC conference, the New York Times's Adam Nagourney fails to mention the crack about Edwards, merely writing, "The conference drew thousands of attendees, many of whom waited in a long line out the door for a late-afternoon appearance by Ann Coulter, the conservative author and commentator." The Washington Post covers the conference but fails to mention Coulter at all in its news report. Neither does the Associated Press. Only UPI initially mentions the "faggot" quote in its report. The Post's Dana Milbank, in a column for the March 3 edition, does note that Coulter used an "anti-gay slur to describe John Edwards" and reports that "the line drew applause." He also notes Coulter's slur against Gore and Michael Moore. On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Times actually gives Coulter's slur front-page coverage, and notes that neither Romney's nor Giuliani's campaign would comment about Coulter.
- A day later, the Edwards campaign responds by repudiating Coulter's remarks and asking Democrats outraged by Coulter to strike back by donating money. David Bonior, the former congressman who now heads the Edwards campaign manager, writes in an e-mail to supporters, "This is just a taste of the filth that the right-wing machine is gearing up to throw at us. And now that it's begun, we have a choice: Do we sit back, or do we fight back? I say we fight. Help us raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week to show every would-be Republican mouthpiece that their bigoted attacks will not intimidate this campaign. I just threw in 100 bucks. Will you join me? ...Coulter's attack was no accident. It happened on national television at one of the year's biggest conservative conferences.... If we can raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week, we can show that bigotry will only backfire on those who use it."
- Both Romney and Nagourney respond -- days later -- to Coulter's remarks. On his Times blog, Nagourney writes, "Democrats were not the only denouncing Ms. Coulter." Nagourney also reports the tardy responses of two Republican presidential candidates. John McCain, who did not attend the conference, says through spokesman Brian Jones, "The comments were wildly inappropriate." And Romney spokesman Kevin Madden says tepidly, "It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect."
- Coulter's remarks can be viewed at Crooks and Liars (note: this is a direct link to the .mov file) And a disturbing seven-minute "documentary" of the CPAC conference can be accessed here. It features, among other things, a hysterical tirade from conservative blogger and pundit Michelle Malkin, a confrontation between Coulter and progressive columnist Max Blumenthal, racist diatribes from neo-Confederates supporting GOP presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, and more.
- As a side note, veteran progressive blogger Lydia Cornell tells of both herself and her conservative blogger colleague Dan Borchers being physically assaulted and thrown out, without apparent cause, from the CPAC conference by a number of "security officials" and bodyguards, including at least one of Coulter's personal bodyguards, Frank Resnick, who calls himself the head of CPAC security and boasts of being able to kill with his bare hands. One of the bodyguards injures Cornell's hand in ripping her name badge away from her. Another of Resnick's men follows Cornell into the train station after she leaves the building and threatens, "If you take out your camera, I'll smash it into a thousand pieces." The main organizer of CPAC, Lydia DePasquale, is also Coulter's publicist. Cornell and Borchers give a detailed account of the events, along with photographic evidence and information about the police reports they both filed, at her blog, linked below. (Editor and Publisher, Raw Story, Lydia Cornell, The Nation, Democratic Underground [multiple sources], Raw Story)
