November 2003: Week Two: This Far and No Further

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November 8: The Red Cross announces it is closing its Baghdad and Basra offices in Iraq due to the lack of security and the continuing threat from Iraqi guerrilla attacks. It will keep its office in Irbil, in northern Iraq, open for now. Northern Iraq, haven of the Kurdish Iraqi minority, is much more calm than the rest of the country. Other relief organizations are also considering reducing or removing their presence in Iraq. (ABC)
November 8: US embassies in Saudi Arabia have been temporarily closed due to fear of terrorist attack. "The embassy continues to receive credible information that terrorists in Saudi Arabia have moved from the planning to operational phase of planned attacks in the kingdom," says a so-called "warden message" delivered to the embassies in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dhahran. "The embassy strongly urges all American citizens in the kingdom to be especially vigilant when in any area that is perceived to be American or Western." Warnings have also been issued to Westerners in Malaysia, the Phillippines, and virtually the entire Middle East. (Fox News)
November 8: US journalists in Afghanistan have been warned to beware of Taliban efforts to kidnap them. "The United States Embassy in Kabul has received credible information that Taliban forces are actively searching for American journalists to take hostage for use as leverage for the release of Taliban currently under United States control," says an embassy statement. "American journalists in Afghanistan are urged to take immediate steps to increase their security posture in light of these threats." (Fox News)
November 8: Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the agency, says of the manipulation of prewar Iraqi intelligence by the Bush administration, "The intelligence process is a bit like virginity. Once you prostitute it, it's never the same. Your credibility never recovers. Watching what has happened with Iraq over the past several months has been like watching your daughter being raped." He says that what Bush and his colleagues have done is worse than the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was manipulated into creating public approval for the US military to enter Vietnam in force. "Many of us felt there had to be something there.... If this had been another country, one would have written a convincing analysis that this guy is lying through his teeth, that there are no weapons in Iraq. But people thought, the President can't say he knows something if he doesn't. That was persuasive, in a way. Now we know that no other President of the United States has ever lied so baldly and so often and so demonstrably.... The presumption now has to be that he's lying any time that he's saying anything." McGovern believes that the only way to begin repairing the damage done by this administration and its overt politicization of the intelligence agencies is at the top, with a change of president and a change in CIA directors. "Unless what has happened in the past year and a half is recognised as a scandal, in which the CIA has been badly abused, then there's no hope. I pin my hopes mostly on the press these days. Turns out, surprise surprise, that even the US press doesn't like to be lied to." (Independent/Vancouver Indymedia)
November 8: Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark steps up his criticism of Bush and his handling of the Iraq situation, calling the latter a "mess" and saying, "I think before you go to war, you've got to have exhausted all the diplomatic possibilities. He didn't. ... I think you have to have a realistic plan for what happens after you turn loose the bombers and send the armored columns in. He didn't." Clark promises that if elected, war will be his administration's last option, not his first: "As president of the United States, I will never commit our forces unless we've got a real plan and the forces to execute it, and I will never commit our forces unless there is absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no other way." Bush spokeswoman Lindsay Taylor misrepresents Clark's positions in her rebuttal, saying that Clark's criticism is "appalling because he has previously been out there praising the President with regard to the war on terror." But since launching his campaign, she says, Clark "has thrown all conviction out the window and he is all over the map with regard to the war." Those who bother to follow Clark's position on the war know that he supported the Afghanistan invasion, but has always had deep reservations about the Iraqi invasion, and has never supported the administration's plans for handling post-invasion Iraq. (ABC)
November 8: The Australian lawyer representing suspects detained at the Guantanamo Bay military prison claims that the US military has tortured terrorist suspects held without charge, using what he terms old-fashioned torture techniques to coerce confessions from prisoners. Richard Bourke says the methods clearly fall under the definition of torture under international conventions: "They are engaging in good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages." He says his information comes from leaks provided by soldiers stationed at the base as well as from prisoners being detained there. "One of the detainees had described being taken out and tied to a post and having rubber bullets fired at them. They were being made to kneel cruciform in the sun until they collapsed." Though stories of numerous suicide attempts and a rash of mental health problems tend to back up Bourke's statements, the US government denies the charges, saying that the prisoners are being treated humanely. It is hard to prove or disprove the charges, as the US is holding these prisoners, most accused of being associates of al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, incommunicado without contact from lawyers or representatives of their governments. Families are denied access and can only communicate with detainees through heavily censored mail. Human rights groups and the media have been given only limited and strictly controlled access. The US government says the prisoners do not have the rights afforded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention, and can be detained indefinitely without charges or representation of any kind. (ABC)

November 9: A suicide bombing on a residential compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 17, including many Arab expatriates, and wounds 120 others, including 36 children. Many feel that the bombing is the work of al-Qaeda. Saudis, Sudanese, and Egyptians died in the massive car bombing; among the wounded are Americans, Canadians, Africans, Indians, Bangladeshi, Indonesians, Romanians, and others. The bomb was planted in a stolen police car and driven into the residential compound; the day before, a Saudi Islamist group believed to be closely connected to al-Qaeda called for revenge attacks against Western targets and Arabs linked to Westerners. Three US embassies in Saudi Arabia were closed as a result of the threats. If indeed the bombing is the work of al-Qaeda, then it is a signal that Saudi Arabia is no longer immune to Islamist terrorism. After Saudi Arabia threw in its lot with the US in the invasion of Iraq, Muslim extremists said that Saudi Arabia must suffer alongside its American counterparts; apparently that threat is now beginning to be carried out. (Independent/CounterCurrents)
November 9: In the largest military engagement since the war was officially declared over, US aircraft drop bombs on Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, as a warning to residents not to support Iraqi insurgents. The air strike succeeds in terrifying residents, but in many cases solidifies residents' resentment and hostility towards the US. Local people call the Americans "terrorists," "mercenaries" or "Jews," a word used colloquially in Iraq and other Arab countries to refer to Israelis who, along with Iranians, were Saddam's worst enemies. The AP reports, "since the U.S. 4th Infantry Division moved in last April, it has become known for mounting some of the fiercest resistance to the American-led occupation. US officials say the 4th ID has suffered more attacks than any major command within the occupation force. Yet efforts to curb the resistance breed even more hatred for coalition forces. American soldiers raid homes in Tikrit and outlaying villages almost daily in search of insurgents and weapons. The raids stoke the increasing resentment among Tikritis, who view them as a breach of centuries-old customs about the sanctity of someone's home. Cultural offense and a sense of humiliation are often cited by Iraqis when asked why they despise the Americans. Like their fellow Sunni Arab Muslims in central and western Iraq, Tikritis have lost the elevated status they had enjoyed because Saddam, himself a Sunni, was one of them. As members of a minority, they now play second fiddle to Iraq's Shiite Muslims, the majority they had oppressed for centuries but which has now emerged as the single most dominant community. ...'We fight them not because we lost our prestige,' said Miqdad, a 2nd lieutenant in the city's police force and a former officer in Saddam's elite Republican Guard. 'We fight them as a matter of honor, dignity and in the name of Islam. ...I know that the lowliest of American soldiers can just handcuff me and make me lay face down on dirt. I feel like a piece of decor. But what can I do?'" (AP/St. Augustine Record)
November 9: Many administration officials privately acknowledge that the Bush administration has mishandled relations with Turkey for well over a year, making Turkey's recent decision to not send troops to Iraq in support of US forces less than surprising. Political miscalculations, false assumptions and what one official calls "an abundance of wishful thinking" led to a string of mistakes. American and Turkish officials both say that relations between the two nations can be repaired, but that it will take some time and high-level attention. "I don't think we're seeing a basic fracturing in the relationship between Turkey and the United States," one administration official says, "but I wouldn't say we are in a situation that we would have wanted to be in." The Pentagon was not surprised by Turkey's refusal, since the security situation in Iraq is so unstable that few, if any, nations wish to send any of their troops into such a dangerous region. Instead, the Pentagon has tried to make the best of a bad situation by speeding up its training of Iraqi security forces to take over the duties of some American troops, calling it "Iraqification," and pretending it is what the US wanted all along. Yet, one US official acknowledges, "from a military point of view, it would have been better to have the Turks there." The situation began to deteriorate nine months earlier, when last February, Turkey refused to allow US forces to go through Turkish territory to fight in northern Iraq. The blame for that "debacle" seems to have been passed between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, with supporters of each accusing the other of causing the rift between the US and the Turkish government. Richard Holbrooke, ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton, says, "This whole episode has angered and embarrassed Turkey. Three years ago, 60 percent of Turks said America was its best friend. Now that number is down to the teens. This is a fiasco." (New York Times)
November 9: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said repeatedly before and during the Iraqi invasion that the Hussein regime owned numerous weapons of mass destruction, and that once Hussein was overthrown, the Iraqi people would welcome the American "liberators" with open arms. Now, with both statements having long since been disproven, Rumsfeld decides to rewrite history and claim that he never said any such thing. On February 20, he told anchorman Jim Lehrer: "There is no question but that they [American forces] would be welcomed" by Iraqi citizens. On September 25, a journalist tried to ask Rumsfeld, "Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said...they would welcome us with open arms," but before the question itself could be asked, Rumsfeld cut him off: "Never said that," he said. "Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said." On September 18, 2002, in testimony before the House Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld accused Hussein of amassing "large clandestine stocks of biological weapons, including anthrax and botulism toxin and possibly smallpox. His regime has amassed large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX and sarin and mustard gas." Hussein "has at this moment stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons," he later added, repeating the charges the next day before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Rumsfeld repeated the charges time and again in the weeks preceding the war.
In October 2003, after repeated attempts to find WMDs of any kind in Iraq have come up empty, a reporter asked, "In retrospect, were you a little too far-leaning in your statement that Iraq categorically had caches of weapons, of chemical and biological weapons, given what's been found to date? You painted a picture of extensive stocks" of Iraqi WMDs. "Wait," Rumsfeld interjected. "You go back and give me something that talks about extensive stocks. The UN reported extensive stocks. That is where that came from. I said what I believed to be the case, and I don't -- I'd be surprised if you found the word 'extensive.'" And on March 30, 11 days into the war, Rumsfeld said when asked about WMDs: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." On September 10, Rumsfeld modified his earlier statement: "I said, 'We know they're in that area.' I should have said, 'I believe we're in that area. Our intelligence tells us they're in that area,' and that was our best judgment." (Hearst/Ocala Star-Banner)

Intelligence and Pentagon officials lambast Bush administration on distorting case for Iraq war

November 9: In a story largely shunned by the US media, "[a]n unprecedented array of US intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq. In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair." The group, which includes a former director of the CIA, two former assistant secretaries of defense, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Bush's former Secretary of the Army, reveals how the pre-war intelligence record on Iraq showed virtually the opposite of the picture the administration painted to Congress, to US voters and to the world. They also reconstruct the way senior White House officials, particularly Vice-President Dick Cheney, leaned on the CIA to find evidence that would fit a preordained set of conclusions. "There was never a clear and present danger," says veteran CIA analyst Mel Goodman, who now teaches at the National War College. "There was never an imminent threat. Iraq -- and we have very good intelligence on this -- was never part of the picture of terrorism."
Veteran CIA operative Robert Baer says the "case" against Iraq was largely achieved by what he terms "data mining" -- going back over old information and trying to twist it to suit your own agenda. The agenda, according to former president Bush's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, was both highly political and profoundly misguided. "The theory that you can bludgeon political grievances out of existence doesn't have much of a track record," he says, "so essentially we have been neo-conned into applying a school of thought about foreign affairs that has failed everywhere it has been tried." The group is interviewed as part of the recently released documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, by veteran TV producer Robert Greenwald. One powerful theme in the film is "a striking sense of professional betrayal in the intelligence community." Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern argues that the traditional role of the CIA has been to act as a scrupulously accurate source of information and analysis for presidents pondering grave international decisions. That role, he says, had now been "prostituted" and the CIA may never be the same. "Where is Bush going to turn to now? Where is his reliable source of information now Iraq is spinning out of control? He's frittered that away. And the profound indignity is that he probably doesn't even realize it."
The film asserts that the beginning of the problem between the CIA and the administration was after Cheney's speech of August 26, 2002, when he told a Nashville VFW audience that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program and was threatening to inflict "death on a massive scale - in his own region or beyond." Cheney then began visiting CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and browbeating analysts to find some backing of his "alarming -- but entirely bogus " assertions. Intelligence experts in Congress began calling for a National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's weapons programs. Usually NIEs take months to produce, but CIA director George Tenet produced one in three weeks. Tenet charged weapons expert Robert Walpole with writing the NIE; Walpole was well known for "going back over old intelligence assessments and reworking them in accordance with the wishes of a specific political interest group. In 1998, he had come up with an estimate of the missile capabilities of various rogue states that managed to sound considerably more alarming than a previous CIA estimate issued three years earlier. On that occasion, he was acting at the behest of a congressional commission anxious to make the case for a missile defence system; the commission chairman was none other than Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defence and a key architect of the Iraq war."
Walpole's NIE "threw together all the elements that have now been discredited -- Niger, the aluminium tubes, and so on. It also gave the misleading impression that intelligence analysts were in broad agreement about the Iraqi threat, relegating most of the doubts and misgivings to footnotes and appendices. By the time parts of the NIE were made public, even those few qualifications were excised. When President Bush's speechwriters got to work -- starting with the address to Congress on 7 October that led to a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq -- the language became even stronger. Mr Tenet fact-checked the 7 October speech, and seems to have played a major role in every subsequent policy address, including Colin Powell's powerful presentation to the United Nations Security Council on 5 February. Of that pivotal speech, Mr McGovern says in the film: 'It was a masterful performance, but none of it was true.'" (Independent/Global Policy Forum)
November 9: Private Jessica Lynch says that she deplores the manipulation of her story by the US military and the Bush administration, saying, "They used me to symbolize all this stuff. It's wrong. I don't know why they filmed it, or why they say these things." Media critic Michael Wolff observes, "Lynch is basically saying the whole thing was made up, a fraud. At the same time, the media is going on with this elaborate production effort to make her into a hero. It's as if the size of the attention itself makes her a hero. Everyone is committed to making her the face of the war whereas the other story that this [is] all a kind of scandal." Lynch continues to insist that her dead comrade, Lori Piestewa, is the real hero of the story, but media observers note that Piestewa is a Native American and was killed fighting the Iraqis, while Lynch, a pretty Caucasian blonde girl who looks younger than her 19 years, is alive, available for media attention, and quite photogenic. Lynch's biography debunks the stories told by military and Bush administration officials that she was mistreated by the Iraqi doctors who cared for her in an Iraqi hospital. Instead, she describes a team of Iraqi doctors as gentle caretakers who worked at their own risk to keep her alive. The book also maintains that no "daring rescue" was needed to take her from the hospital to rejoin her comrades; the rescue was staged for the cameras; she says that no Iraqi military were in the hospital, that no resistance was offered, and that the staff even offered the US troops a key to assist in their entrance. Lynch confirms that she was driven by an Iraqi doctor to an American checkpoint in an attempt to turn her back over to her colleagues, but US gunfire drove the doctor to return to the hospital.
"This White House believes they can spin their way out of anything and they assume reality will surrender to their spin," says media analyst Mark Crispin Miller. "In this case, they believed Jessica would play along. But she hasn't. She may not appear self-assertive, but she can clearly tell illusion from reality. Good for her." Miller is angry about the way the American media handled the story. The Toronto Star's Mitch Potter was one of the first to report the actual facts of the rescue on May 4, and the BBC followed up on May 15. However, the American media continued to report the lies propagated by the Defense Department. "The media here should have exposed the lie long before they did," says Miller. The Washington Post, which ran the first story, on April 3, of Lynch fighting until her last bullet, while 11 of her colleagues lay dead on the ground -— took until mid-June to print an accurate version, whereupon its ombudsman noted that the tale "didn't get knocked down until it didn't matter so much anymore." Former head of CBC Newsworld Vince Carlin says of the Bush administration, "They learned the wrong lessons from Vietnam and still think lying to the public is the best course." Seth Pollack, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, says, "Am I angry about the amount of coverage she's received rather than the soldiers who've come home and aren't getting proper medical support? Yes. ...We're focused on Iraq and how we get out of this mess. Nothing against Jessica. She's a victim of circumstance, used by the Pentagon and used by the media machine." (Guardian, New York Times, Toronto Star)
November 9: The made-for-TV film "Saving Private Lynch" airs on NBC; reviewers are less than kind. The film regurgitates the same lies that were originally promulgated about Lynch's capture and rescue -- her brave "fight to the death" that never happened, the "rescue" by Marines from an Iraqi hospital that was staged for the cameras -- and contrasts the story with "bucolic" flashbacks to Lynch's West Virginia childhood that were obviously spun from whole cloth by the film's writers, or possibly from New York Times journalist Jayson Blair's report on a visit to Lynch's home which he never made. The film never admits the intensive manipulation by the Pentagon and the Bush administration, and resorts to stereotypical, soap-operaish portrayals of Lynch, her "hard-body" rescuers, and the America-loving Iraqi doctor who aided in her rescue. One reviewer concludes that the film, like most TV today, is "fearful pap." (New York Metro, Christian Science Monitor)
November 9: Former Vice-President Al Gore delivers a fiery speech focusing on the Patriot Act and the administration's systematic attacks on American civil liberties and Constitutional rights. "[F]or the first time in our history," Gore says, "American citizens have been seized by the executive branch of government and put in prison without being charged with a crime, without having the right to a trial, without being able to see a lawyer, and without even being able to contact their families. President Bush is claiming the unilateral right to do that to any American citizen he believes is an 'enemy combatant.' Those are the magic words. If the President alone decides that those two words accurately describe someone, then that person can be immediately locked up and held incommunicado for as long as the President wants, with no court having the right to determine whether the facts actually justify his imprisonment. Now if the President makes a mistake, or is given faulty information by somebody working for him, and locks up the wrong person, then it's almost impossible for that person to prove his innocence -– because he can't talk to a lawyer or his family or anyone else and he doesn't even have the right to know what specific crime he is accused of committing. So a constitutional right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we used to think of in an old-fashioned way as 'inalienable' can now be instantly stripped from any American by the President with no meaningful review by any other branch of government. How do we feel about that? Is that OK?"
He continues, "Now, if it wants to, the federal government has the right to monitor every website you go to on the internet, keep a list of everyone you send email to or receive email from and everyone who you call on the telephone or who calls you –- and they don't even have to show probable cause that you've done anything wrong. Nor do they ever have to report to any court on what they're doing with the information. Moreover, there are precious few safeguards to keep them from reading the content of all your email. Everybody fine with that? If so, what about this next change? For America's first 212 years, it used to be that if the police wanted to search your house, they had to be able to convince an independent judge to give them a search warrant and then (with rare exceptions) they had to go bang on your door and yell, 'Open up!' Then, if you didn't quickly open up, they could knock the door down. Also, if they seized anything, they had to leave a list explaining what they had taken. That way, if it was all a terrible mistake (as it sometimes is) you could go and get your stuff back. But that's all changed now. Starting two years ago, federal agents were given broad new statutory authority by the Patriot Act to 'sneak and peak' in non-terrorism cases. They can secretly enter your home with no warning -– whether you are there or not –- and they can wait for months before telling you they were there. And it doesn't have to have any relationship to terrorism whatsoever. It applies to any garden-variety crime. And the new law makes it very easy to get around the need for a traditional warrant -- simply by saying that searching your house might have some connection (even a remote one) to the investigation of some agent of a foreign power. Then they can go to another court, a secret court, that more or less has to give them a warrant whenever they ask. Three weeks ago, in a speech at FBI Headquarters, President Bush went even further and formally proposed that the Attorney General be allowed to authorize subpoenas by administrative order, without the need for a warrant from any court. What about the right to consult a lawyer if you're arrested? Is that important?
"Attorney General Ashcroft has issued regulations authorizing the secret monitoring of attorney-client conversations on his say-so alone; bypassing procedures for obtaining prior judicial review for such monitoring in the rare instances when it was permitted in the past. Now, whoever is in custody has to assume that the government is always listening to consultations between them and their lawyers. Does it matter if the government listens in on everything you say to your lawyer? Is that OK? Or, to take another change -- and thanks to the librarians, more people know about this one -- the FBI now has the right to go into any library and ask for the records of everybody who has used the library and get a list of who is reading what. Similarly, the FBI can demand all the records of banks, colleges, hotels, hospitals, credit-card companies, and many more kinds of companies. And these changes are only the beginning. Just last week, Attorney General Ashcroft issued brand new guidelines permitting FBI agents to run credit checks and background checks and gather other information about anyone who is 'of investigatory interest,' - meaning anyone the agent thinks is suspicious - without any evidence of criminal behavior. So, is that fine with everyone?"
Gore continues, "I want to challenge the Bush Administration's implicit assumption that we have to give up many of our traditional freedoms in order to be safe from terrorists. Because it is simply not true. In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden. In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target. In both cases they have recklessly put our country in grave and unnecessary danger, while avoiding and neglecting obvious and much more important challenges that would actually help to protect the country. In both cases, the administration has fostered false impressions and misled the nation with superficial, emotional and manipulative presentations that are not worthy of American Democracy. In both cases they have exploited public fears for partisan political gain and postured themselves as bold defenders of our country while actually weakening not strengthening America. In both cases, they have used unprecedented secrecy and deception in order to avoid accountability to the Congress, the Courts, the press and the people. Indeed, this Administration has turned the fundamental presumption of our democracy on its head. A government of and for the people is supposed to be generally open to public scrutiny by the people -- while the private information of the people themselves should be routinely protected from government intrusion. But instead, this Administration is seeking to conduct its work in secret even as it demands broad unfettered access to personal information about American citizens. Under the rubric of protecting national security, they have obtained new powers to gather information from citizens and to keep it secret. Yet at the same time they themselves refuse to disclose information that is highly relevant to the war against terrorism. They are even arrogantly refusing to provide information about 9/11 that is in their possession to the 9/11 Commission –- the lawful investigative body charged with examining not only the performance of the Bush administration, but also the actions of the prior Administration in which I served. The whole point is to learn all we can about preventing future terrorist attacks.
"...And meanwhile, the real story is that while the administration manages to convey the impression that it is doing everything possible to protect America, in reality it has seriously neglected most of the measures that it could have taken to really make our country safer. For example, there is still no serious strategy for domestic security that protects critical infrastructure such as electric power lines, gas pipelines, nuclear facilities, ports, chemical plants and the like. They're still not checking incoming cargo carriers for radiation. They're still skimping on protection of certain nuclear weapons storage facilities. They're still not hardening critical facilities that must never be soft targets for terrorists. They're still not investing in the translators and analysts we need to counter the growing terror threat. The administration is still not investing in local government training and infrastructures where they could make the biggest difference. The first responder community is still being shortchanged. In many cases, fire and police still don't have the communications equipment to talk to each other. The CDC and local hospitals are still nowhere close to being ready for a biological weapons attack. The administration has still failed to address the fundamental disorganization and rivalries of our law enforcement, intelligence and investigative agencies. In particular, the critical FBI-CIA coordination, while finally improved at the top, still remains dysfunctional in the trenches. The constant violations of civil liberties promote the false impression that these violations are necessary in order to take every precaution against another terrorist attack. But the simple truth is that the vast majority of the violations have not benefited our security at all; to the contrary, they hurt our security. And the treatment of immigrants was probably the worst example. This mass mistreatment actually hurt our security in a number of important ways.
"But first, let's be clear about what happened: this was little more than a cheap and cruel political stunt by John Ashcroft. More than 99% of the mostly Arab-background men who were rounded up had merely overstayed their visas or committed some other minor offense as they tried to pursue the American dream just like most immigrants. But they were used as extras in the Administration's effort to give the impression that they had caught a large number of bad guys. And many of them were treated horribly and abusively. ...The faith tradition I share with Ashcroft includes this teaching from Jesus: 'whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.' And make no mistake: the disgraceful treatment suffered by many of these vulnerable immigrants at the hands of the administration has created deep resentments and hurt the cooperation desperately needed from immigrant communities in the U.S. and from the Security Services of other countries."
Gore continues, "Rather than defending our freedoms, this Administration has sought to abandon them. Rather than accepting our traditions of openness and accountability, this Administration has opted to rule by secrecy and unquestioned authority. Instead, its assaults on our core democratic principles have only left us less free and less secure. ...President Bush has stretched this new practical imperative [the threat of global terrorism] beyond what is healthy for our democracy. Indeed, one of the ways he has tried to maximize his power within the American system has been by constantly emphasizing his role as Commander-in-Chief, far more than any previous President -- assuming it as often and as visibly as he can, and bringing it into the domestic arena and conflating it with his other roles: as head of government and head of state -– and especially with his political role as head of the Republican Party. Indeed, the most worrisome new factor, in my view, is the aggressive ideological approach of the current administration, which seems determined to use fear as a political tool to consolidate its power and to escape any accountability for its use. Just as unilateralism and dominance are the guiding principles of their disastrous approach to international relations, they are also the guiding impulses of the administration's approach to domestic politics. They are impatient with any constraints on the exercise of power overseas -- whether from our allies, the UN, or international law. And in the same way, they are impatient with any obstacles to their use of power at home – whether from Congress, the Courts, the press, or the rule of law."
Gore concludes, "...[C]onsider the different approach that was taken by Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the terrible days of October 1943 when in the midst of World War II, he faced a controversy with the potential to divide his bipartisan coalition. He said, 'What holds us together is the prosecution of the war. No...man has been asked to give up his convictions. That would be indecent and improper. We are held together by something outside, which rivets our attention. The principle that we work on is, 'Everything for the war, whether controversial or not, and nothing controversial that is not bona fide for the war.' That is our position. We must also be careful that a pretext is not made of war needs to introduce far-reaching social or political changes by a side wind.' Yet that is exactly what the Bush Administration is attempting to do – to use the war against terrorism for partisan advantage and to introduce far reaching controversial changes in social policy by a 'side wind,' in an effort to consolidate its political power. It is an approach that is deeply antithetical to the American spirit. Respect for our President is important. But so is respect for our people. Our founders knew -– and our history has proven -– that freedom is best guaranteed by a separation of powers into co-equal branches of government within a system of checks and balances -- to prevent the unhealthy concentration of too much power in the hands of any one person or group. ...This Administration simply does not seem to agree that the challenge of preserving democratic freedom cannot be met by surrendering core American values. Incredibly, this Administration has attempted to compromise the most precious rights that America has stood for all over the world for more than 200 years: due process, equal treatment under the law, the dignity of the individual, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from promiscuous government surveillance. And in the name of security, this Administration has attempted to relegate the Congress and the Courts to the sidelines and replace our democratic system of checks and balances with an unaccountable Executive. And all the while, it has constantly angled for new ways to exploit the sense of crisis for partisan gain and political dominance. How dare they! ...The question before us could be of no greater moment: will we continue to live as a people under the rule of law as embodied in our Constitution? Or will we fail future generations, by leaving them a Constitution far diminished from the charter of liberty we have inherited from our forebears? Our choice is clear." (MoveOn)
November 9: The former head of Israeli intelligence, Major General Danny Yatom, warns that the failure to recreate a civic infrastructure in Iraq will lead to more violence in the region. Yatom says that the presence of Western forces in Iraq has created the opportunity for a holy war, or jihad, by Islamists in a country surrounded by Muslim neighbors. Yatom continues, "Colin Powell has always said that if the coalition went into Iraq, they had to get out. But it seems America did not have such a plan in place. They are lacking such a plan, and that is what is urgently needed now." The failure to restore water, power, and other basic amenities has been a tremendous obstacle to winning over the Iraqi people and showing them "show that the democratic system works. This must be a priority. It should not be too difficult; after all you don't have to go to the moon to get that kind of thing. Establishing these basic things must give the people the confidence to start on the political process." (Independent/Marcy Kaptur)

November 10: On August 20, 2001, Bush told a VFW chapter, "My administration understands America's obligations not only go to those who wear the uniform today, but to those who wore the uniform in the past: to our veterans." Yet his proposed changes to veterans' health care benefits would force the 200,000 veterans having to wait six months or more to be seen at a VA health clinic to give up all access to VA health care. Others would be forced to pay a $250 annual enrollment fee, an increased deductible, and increases in prescription prices. On January 17, 2003, Bush met with wounded soldiers and said that America "should and must provide the best care for anybody who is willing to put their life in harm's way." The same day, the Veterans' Administration explained that it could solve the backlog problem by limiting enrollment: "VA would avoid very significant additional medical benefits costs and begin to bring demand in line with capacity, which will reduce the number of veterans on wait lists." Veterans who make as little $21,050 annually could also be removed from the rolls and denied access in total. By fiscal year 2005, the number of veterans to be denied health care would possibly triple. The VA anticipates that 55% of veterans who already participate in the VA health care plan, numbering 1.25 million, may be unable to continue participation due to the enrollment fee. Meanwhile, Congress has attempted to include $1.3 billion for veterans' health care and extending reservists' benefits in the $87 billion Iraqi expenditure bill; the addition was "strongly opposed" by the Bush administration, according to a letter from White House Budget Director Joshua Bolton. The addition was later removed from the final version of the bill. (Daily Misleader)
November 10: A pro-US Iraqi local council member is killed under disputed circumstances by American troops. Muhammed Kaabi, the head of the municipal council of Sadr City, was driving to his council offices when he was stopped by US troops who wanted to search his car. He stepped out of the car, and, according to US spokespersons, went for the weapon of one of the troops and was shot by another. "The driver continued to fight and wrestled the soldier to the ground while still attempting to pull the weapon from the soldier," reads a military statement. "The other soldier shot the driver in the upper leg. The driver was evacuated to a nearby military hospital where he died of his wounds. The incident is under investigation." Local witnesses say that Kaabi never went for anyone's weapon. After Kaabi's death, hundreds of angry Iraqis march through the streets chanting anti-American slogans and vowing revenge for Kaabi's death. (Washington Post)
November 10: John Bolton, the Bush administration's expert on non-proliferation, is accused of exaggerating the threat posed by Syria, Libya, and Cuba in an effort to build the case that strong action is needed to prevent them from developing weapons of mass destruction. "Very often, the points he makes have some truth to them, but he simply goes beyond where the facts tell intelligent people they should go," says Carl Ford, who retired in October as head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Bolton denies the charges, saying, "I have always used intelligence properly. Of course, I sometimes go beyond previous statements, but in every case I do, it's been previously cleared. You bet I do -- we do it all the time." He then accuses some analysts of political bias. "Undersecretary Bolton repeatedly goes beyond the current public intelligence estimates in his description of the proliferation threats," retorts Joseph Cirincione, a nonproliferation specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "He offers definitive judgments where there is, at best, only informed speculation about capabilities. In some cases, notably his claim that Cuba has biological weapons, he goes way beyond known capabilities. In others, like the claim that Iran has bioweapons or that Syria is developing nuclear weapons, he 'connects the dots' to form a judgment that is not supported by solid evidence, but then presents it as established fact." The result, Cirincione says, is an undermining of US credibility and of the ability of policy makers to craft balanced approaches to serious threats. Bolton has in recent days been warning of Syria's imminent nuclear threat as well as its existing chemical weapons and its burgeoning biological weapons program.
"Syria must immediately change course and change its behavior on all of these fronts, or face the consequences," Bolton warns. Cirincione derides Bolton's claims: "That's complete nonsense. They don't have any significant capability for developing a nuclear weapon. Do they have chemical weapons? Sure, they've had them for years. So does Egypt, so does Israel. These are problems, but not a major national security threat." Bolton's previous attempts to paint Cuba as a threat to the US have caused many seasoned experts to dismiss him altogether: Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, says, "He is either deceiving the public or himself, or both, and should be fired." (Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times/Axis of Logic)
November 10: It is made public that the US military harshly criticized NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and his cameraman for filming the October 26 attack on the Al-Rashid hotel that nearly killed Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and his entourage instead of dropping the cameras and rendering assistance. "The NBC journalists conducted themselves in a wholly inappropriate, uncaring and insensitive manner," says Gary Thatcher, communications chief for the U.S. occupation authority. "Instead of rendering or summoning aid, they focused on gathering video footage of people in agonizingly painful situations...in order to boost the ratings." Miklaszewski responds, "I realized they were very emotional, very upset, that they had been attacked. But frankly, we had a job to do -- cover the attack on the al-Rashid Hotel as best we could. We were being as unobtrusive as we possibly could.... Our impression was that this was an attempt to censor the news. This event shot holes in the administration's insistence that everything was going well in Baghdad." Even White House spokesman Adam Levine and Pentagon advisor Kevin Kellems, who were at the hotel during the attack, defended the NBC crew. Kellems says: "The NBC guys were under attack as much as we were. It's difficult to expect them to not turn on the camera and record history, as long as their bosses do the appropriate editing. Observing them from the eye of the crisis, I did not witness unprofessional conduct." Thatcher insists that wounded soldiers should not have had to "shield themselves from the probing eye of a television camera;" CPA officials called NBC hours after the attack to demand that no identifiable footage be shown of the wounded, citing an injured lieutenant colonel who later died. After editing in New York, one NBC report did briefly show the face of an injured man on a stretcher. "If something flashed up on the screen inadvertently, we regret it," says NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust. "We believe, given the circumstances, we handled the whole thing very responsibly."
A British press officer with the CPA says she told the two men while they were filming in the lobby, "I swear to God, if you do not take that tape out of that camera, I am going to kill you." Miklaszewski remembers replying, "I'm sorry, we have a job to do." The press officer says she responded "angrily" by saying: "You are not sorry at all or you would not be filming these people." Miklaszewski became suspicious when the woman asked him to make the videotape available to the other networks, viewing it as a ploy to obtain the tape. One of the administration officials from Washington, who asked not to be identified, says he told her to stop harassing the NBC crew, cautioning that other journalists were around and would report it if the videotape were seized. "It sounded as if they just didn't want this on television," Miklaszewski says. "In any tragedy, you always encounter people who turn on the media when they arrive on the scene." (Washington Post)
November 10: Arrested Russian billionaires Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, both jailed for fraud and tax evasion, have deep, but formely well-concealed, connections to the infamous Carlyle Group. (Some observers feel that the charges may have a connectin to Khodorkovsky's political opposition to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.) Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man and former chief executive of Yukos Oil Co., serves as an adviser to Carlyle's Energy Group. With former US secretary of state James Baker, former British prime minister John Major, and Pulitzer-winning author Daniel Yergin, among others, he advises the firm in investment opportunities among energy industries. Lebedev, chairman of Group Menatep, a holding company that is a major shareholder in Yukos, formerly served as an adviser to Carlyle's European investment funds. Carlyle is making tentative overtures towards becoming involved in the Russian economy, and has held preliminary talks with Alfa Group, a Russian investment firm, on starting a buyout fund with that company. A Carlyle spokesperson says that neither Khodorkovsky nor Lebedev played a significant role in Carlyle's business dealings. (Washington Post)
November 10: Author William Rivers Pitt deplores the administration's decision to downplay and conceal the number of dead and wounded Americans returning home from Iraq. "American soldiers killed in Afghanistan were roundly filmed as they returned home, and the images of their flag-draped caskets were broadcast all across the country with broad and honored fanfare. President Clinton was present to welcome home the coffins of soldiers killed in Kosovo. Pictures of the coffins carrying sailors killed in the bombing of the USS Cole were also widely broadcast. President Bush Sr. was on hand to welcome the caskets of soldiers killed in Lebanon and Panama. The men and women killed in Iraq are afforded no such honor. They are a dirty little secret, hidden from view lest they cause political discomfort to the administration that got them killed." Pitt has an interesting idea of a just celebration of Veterans Day: "A just world would see a long parade of veterans wending its way past the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, past the Korean War Memorial, past every statue and plaque commemorating the service, and that full measure of devotion, given to this nation by men and women beyond number. In a just world, the parade would halt on the ground that, someday, will bear the names of the men and women who have died, and will die, in this Iraq war. In a just world, George W. Bush would be required to stand upon this ground and be spat upon by every person in that long, proud parade. In a just world, Bush would be made to visit the home of every American family who has had a beloved brother, sister, mother, father, husband or wife delivered to them in secret inside a 'transfer tube.' In a just world, he would be made to explain his lies, and further be made to apologize for using the wretched memory of September 11 against the American people in a process of criminal deception that got an incredible number of people killed. Then again, a just world would have left George W. Bush in the dustbin of history as a thrice-failed oilman who lacked even the courage to complete his stint in the National Guard while better men went off to war in Vietnam to die in his place." (Truthout)

Illegal fundraising tactics by GOP

November 10: Neoconservative congressman Tom DeLay comes under fire for fundraising tactics described as fraudulent, misleading, and possibly criminal. Targets of the fundraising effort receive phone calls informing them that they have received a national award from DeLay; when they return the calls, they hear a recorded message from DeLay that says, "This is Congressman Tom DeLay. I'm asking you to serve as an honorary chairman on our business advisory council, and you will be recognized with our national leadership award." After the tape, a telemarketer comes on the line and says, "You'd be invited to private dinners with congressmen and quarterly strategy sessions in Washington." Callers are also promised an exclusive black-tie president's dinner and his name in a newspaper ad. Then the pitch: "We're asking each chairman for a one-time gift of $300 or $500 for the ad. Can we count on your support?" Air Force chaplain James Helton, who alerted NBC to the calls, is "flabbergasted" by the tactics: "It was dishonest, it was sleazy, and it was certainly unbecoming a national party like this." Fred Werthheimer, a critic of fund-raising practices of both parties, observes, "I'll tell you what your qualification is for getting an award: that they have your telephone number and can reach you by phone." Past awardees include a convicted sex offender and a maker of drug paraphernalia —- both awards were later rescinded. The award also is proudly displayed in the office of an adult film promoter, Harry Weiss, who sent Republicans a check from his company, "Nefarious Films." Weiss says, "They cashed the check, so I guess they're happy to have me aboard." The National Republican Congressional Committee says these calls are entirely proper and that there are thousands of happy award recipients around the country; critics say the only thing recipients won was a chance to give money to Republicans. (MSNBC)

November 11: A new anti-terrorism operation in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan begins, with US and Afghan forces joining to battle insurgent forces. Called Operation Mountain Resolve, the objective is to ferret out anti-coalition forces in rugged Nuristan province, where the fighting is taking place around 13,000 feet above sea level. Colonel Rodney Davis says, "It is the most dangerous terrain we have operated in since we've been in Afghanistan." The operation targets elements of a network of insurgents, including al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and forces loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister who has called for a jihad, or holy war, against foreign troops in Afghanistan. (AP/Guardian)
November 11: The International Atomic Energy Agency confirms that Iran produced small amounts of plutonium as part of covert nuclear programs. The IAEA says that no evidence exists of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, but says such a program can't be ruled out. The IAEA criticized Iran for not reporting its processing activities, listing it among dozens of cases where Tehran had covert programs in place. "Neither the [processing] activities nor the separated plutonium had been previously reported to the agency," reads the IAEA report. Iran claims that the plutonium is for nuclear power plants. An Iranian spokesman says that Tehran has suspended its uranium enrichment program and is opening its nuclear program to UN inspections. The US wants the UN to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would allow economic sanctions to be imposed on Iran. "To date, there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities...were related to a nuclear weapons program," says the report, drawn up by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. "However, given Iran's previous pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes." (AP/Jerusalem Post)
November 11: CIA Near East Division chief Rob Richer tells Bush during an NSC meeting, "We are seeing the establishment of an insurgency in Iraq." Donald Rumsfeld demands clarification, and Richer says, "Sir, according to DOD's own publications there are three characteristics of an insurgency." Those three are popular support, sustained armed attacks or sabotage, and the ability to move at will and independently. Rumsfeld sits back, saying, "I might disagree with you." Richer knows why Rumsfeld resists the use of the term "insurgency," with its implications that the opposition is durable, organized, and capable of wreaking havoc. But the CIA views the situation in Iraq as a classic guerrilla warfare scenario, and the US military is having to not only protect its own troops but the Iraqi citizenry as well. Young Iraqi men were deciding whether to join the Iraqi police force or the insurgency. Iraq administrator Paul Bremer agrees with Richer. Richer makes the CIA's pitch for the establishment of a new Iraqi intelligence service to combat the insurgents. Bush hedges, saying, "I need more data. I don't want to read in the New York Times that we are facing an insurgency. I don't want anyone in the cabinet to say it is an insurgency. I don't think we are there yet." As is so often the case, the idea of how this will play in the press -- the public relations and marketing impact -- is discussed far more thoroughly than anything relating to actually dealing with an insurgency. As for Bush, thinks deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, he is in full denial about Iraq. (Bob Woodward)
November 11: The US's Coalitional Provisional Authority, the organization that rules Iraq for the Bush administration, refuses to conduct an investigation into companies awarded mobile network contracts. A number of allegations claim the bidding process was hijacked by associates of the new Iraqi governing council. A senior CPA official said the US occupying authorities have been struck by the resilience of corrupt business practices in Baghdad, where members of the new Iraqi regime have used power for personal gain. Amid increasing suggestions of cronyism in handing out contracts, the CPA is preparing to establish a new Iraq Infrastructure Reconstruction Office to oversee how contracts are awarded. (Financial Times)
November 11: Former CIA intelligence analyst Peter Moran speaks out against the lies and mistakes of the Bush administration that led the US to invade Iraq. Moran, who has 25 years of experience in analyzing Middle East affairs, says, "The justifications for that war were completely counter to everything that I had learned in that 20-odd years of government service working on the Middle East. I was simply outraged by the twisting and turning of intelligence information that I had helped develop to what was clearly, to my mind, a preordained policy decision that I felt to be profoundly wrong. Nothing about this suggests that Saddam Hussein was anything but a brutal dictator. He was. But that's not why we went to war." Moran says that he cannot reveal details of his knowledge about the Bush administration's decision-making process due to national security restraints and his own secrecy oaths. He does say, "This administration's goals and intentions and policies, which are quite clearly articulated in the Security Strategy Document and in the work of the Project for the New American Century, are completely at odds, radically at odds, with America's now more than a century-old tradition of trying to build international institutions." Moran is currently active with anti-war group Veterans for Peace. (Democracy Now)
November 11: Sean Lewis, a disabled American veteran who fought with his airborne unit during Desert Storm, notes these thoughts about the current Commander in Chief on Veterans Day:
- This President is the only President to have never attended the funeral of a fallen soldier, nor personally met with the family to provide comfort and encouragement.
- This President refuses to allow the press to cover the return of our honored dead from Iraq and Afghanistan, banning press coverage of the bodies being offloaded at Dover Air Force Base.
- This President is the first to present a budget to Congress that provides less money to the Veterans' Administration than the previous year.
- This President is the only President to have been Absent Without Leave (AWOL) from his own military service -- a deserter in a time of war.
- This President is the only American President to have appeared publicly -- in official capacity -- wearing a military uniform, mocking those who actually serve.
- This President is the first President to roll back benefits to active duty military personnel and veterans alike.
- This President is the only one to have sent American troops off to war, then cut their hazardous duty pay.
- This President has ordered that the Veterans' Administration is not to inform veterans of the benefits legally due them.
- This President has rescinded military medical benefits for all retired military personnel, breaking a promise made to people who have decided to spend their lives in service since before the Korean War.
- This President has pressed into active duty more National Guard troops than at any time since World War II, leaving states' militias ill-prepared to deal with normal duties, such as natural disaster response.
- This President has instituted "processing fees" of $250 for veterans trying to claim their legally-due benefits, and increased co-pay at VA Medical Centers.
- This President has sent our young loved ones off to war under false pretenses.
- This President is the first to our knowledge to knowingly house and protect a traitor within his own staff. For the first time in American history, an unknown person in the sitting administration has committed treason by publicly revealing the name of an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. Indirectly, this someone has killed dozens, if not scores, of American intelligence agents abroad. Yet this President does not seem concerned with finding the traitor. In fact, he doesn't even call him that. The official word calls this despicable act of treason "a leak." For the first time, we have a President who knowingly aids and abets treason. (Buzzflash)
November 11: 1,300 reservists have filed complaints with the Labor Department in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, claiming they suffered discrimination at work when they returned to their regular jobs after their tours of duty. It is uncertain how many of these reservists have seen duty in Iraq. The number of complaints is up from 900 complaints in 2001. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has released a televised public service announcement reminding employers that they must reinstate workers called to military duty: "They did their job -- now let's do ours," she says. (Washington Post)
November 11: In Baghdad, US soldiers arrest an Iraqi citizen for speaking out against the occupation. The man is handcuffed, has his mouth wrapped shut by masking tape, and driven away in the back of a Humvee while a schoolteacher and a group of Iraqi children watch. Asked why the man had been arrested, the commanding officer says, "This man has been detained for making anti-coalition statements." He refuses to say what the man said. No word as yet on the fate of the Iraqi, whose name is not released. (Reuters/Mirror/Rense)
November 11: Former US President Jimmy Carter, a longtime spokesman for global human rights, says that human rights violations by the US gives dictators in other countries the justification they seek to defend their own abuses. Carter speaks at the opening of an international conference of human rights workers in Atlanta, Georgia. He cites the illegal detention of hundreds of people at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba as a prime example. "I say this because this is a violation of the basic character of my country and it's very disturbing to me," he says. Saad Ibrahim, a professor at Cairo's American University in Cairo who was jailed for seven years after exposing fraud in the Egyptian election process, says the United States' actions have a tremendous effect on other nations. "Every dictator in the world is using what the United States has done under the Patriot Act...to justify their past violations of human rights and to declare a license to continue to violate human rights." Currently the US Supreme Court is deciding whether or not the Guantanamo detainees have the right to be tried in American courts; the Bush administration insists that, according to its interpretation of some WWII-era laws, the detainees have no rights whatsoever, either as accused criminals or as prisoners of war. (Sacramento Bee)
November 11: In a eulogy for fallen US soldiers, venerable columnist Jimmy Breslin writes, "There is no public display over the death and all these others on the list accompanying this column. Bush and his people sent them out to get killed and now you can't get one of them in Washington to mention these dead. Your government would prefer that night falls and the dead are buried in darkness. We must keep them remote, names on a list, and concentrate on things like patriotism, exporting democracy and shipping freedom." Of one soldier, who was killed while guarding a bank, Breslin writes, "[T]hey sent him to war, proud and strong, and put him in front of a bank like a retired broken-down cop. This is called nation building in Iraq. Repairing the infrastructure. Putting freedom into the country. Fighting terrorism. Stand in front of a bank and get shot like he's guarding an ATM in Brooklyn. ...He was guarding God. The money that is the true religion of Bush and Cheney and the others who hide in offices while young men in the Army die." (Newsday)
November 11: A National Guard mother who went AWOL from her post in Iraq to fight for the custody of her children will be allowed to remain in the US, but has been warned that she may face criminal charges. Spc. Simone Holcomb, a medic in the Colorado National Guard, has been reassigned Fort Carson, Colorado, to give her time to find care for her children or get out of the Army. Both Holcomb and her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Vaughn Holcomb, were assigned active duty in Iraq, forcing them to find alternate care for their children. After Vaughn Holcomb's ex-wife began proceedings to take custody of two of the children, Simone told a judge she would stay home with the children and refused an Army order to return to Iraq. She will not be charged with going AWOL, but has been read her rights in preparation for unspecified charges yet to be filed by the Army. She explains simply, "I let them know I couldn't come back. I do have this responsibility." (AP/CBS)
November 11: Operation PUSH chairman Jesse Jackson writes, "On Veterans Day, President Bush will celebrate those who have served their country. But on the day before, the president found time to go to two more fund-raisers, while he has been unable or unwilling to attend even one memorial service for the young men and women who have given their lives in Iraq. The reason is simple: The president wants to honor the veterans, but hide the war. The president will hail the veterans of Iraq for their courage in battle, but work to hide the risks they face and the price they pay. Truth is always the first casualty of war. But seldom has the selling of a war involved this level of casualties. ...Americans are to be kept as ignorant as possible about the human toll of this war -- casualties that now number in the thousands. The administration wants to advertise 'progress,' and the rising U.S. casualties are 'off message.' As Jessica Lynch discovered, the selling of this war recognizes no limits. ...Lynch's candor reflects the decency of America's soldiers and veterans. And that decency is a far remove from the cynicism of a White House willing to turn soldiers into props to be highlighted or discarded at will. But a focus on image rather than reality can cause real pain when it comes to war. And that is what America's young men and women at risk in Iraq are increasingly feeling. Contrary to Pentagon propaganda, morale on the ground is miserable. Soldiers are at risk in assignments for which they are not trained. With too few troops to deal with the growing resistance, those on the line are tired and overworked. The treatment of the National Guard and Reserves has been shameful. Many were called up for three months, and then told their tour would be extended. Their families are disrupted. Yet if they are wounded, many are stockpiled in crude barracks for weeks waiting simply to see a doctor to get their wounds assessed.
"For all its fine words, this CEO White House has little empathy for workers or soldiers, the 'grunts' who make this country go. Enlisted men and women in Iraq have been treated badly. Many go into occupation with useless flak jackets that date from the Vietnam era. The Pentagon, certain that our troops would be greeted as heroes, didn't bother to adjust the purchasing schedule to ensure that every soldier at risk would have the modern jackets that actually save lives. Troops have been charged a buck a minute to call home. Wounded veterans were billed for the food they ate at the military hospital. Military families were expected to pay to take their soldier home from central dropoff points on their 10-day leaves. ...Even veterans are getting the shaft. There are some 600,000 disabled veterans. Longstanding military regulations prohibit a retired soldier from receiving both disability and a pension from the Defense Department. Amazingly, retired disabled soldiers -- surely the most worthy -- are the only group of federal employees who are barred from drawing both disability payments and pensions. The Bush administration has simply spurned the veterans' campaign to get this regulation changed. And the administration continues to seek cuts in the medical and housing benefits available to veterans. On Veterans Day, we honor those who give the full measure of devotion to defend our freedoms. We grieve those who have sacrificed lives or limbs in that cause. Our leaders will offer expressions of our gratitude. But the soldiers on the ground in Iraq and the veterans at home would prefer that the respect be paid not in words but in deeds." (Chicago Sun-Times)
November 11: Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian pays $1 million to meet with Neil Bush, brother of the US President. Political opponent James Soong says, "A broker for the family member [Bush] told Lien he could meet with the US president's brother if he was willing to pay $1 million. I believe Chen was well received by the US because he paid the money." Half of Neil Bush's 2003 salary of $1.4 million was made for accomplishing the single task of introducing the executives of a Thailand-based conglomerate to the executives of a US company that makes computer components. Bush continues to deny that his family ties have anything to do with his monetary success: "I consider it a success that I made ... ends meet," he says. When pressed, he points to his bachelor's degree in business from Tulane University as a reason for his success. He currently earns $60,000 a year working for Crest Investment, where he describes himself as "co-chairman." When asked what his duties at Crest entail, he reveals that he spends about 3-4 hours a week at Crest answering phones. Steven Weiss, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a public watchdog group, says that making a connection with the president's brother was "an obvious way to develop a relationship that could lead to the president himself." (Talking Points Memo, Baltimore Sun/Independent Media TV)

November 12: The current president of the Iraqi Governing Council, Jalal Talabani, is calling for a provisional Iraqi government to be installed as soon as possible. "I think it is very reasonable and necessary to have a provisional government before having a constitution." The US insists that a constitution be drafted and ratified before any Iraqi-led government take power. Talabani wants a provisional government "tomorrow," but says he is willing to wait for the IGC to submit a timetable for political transition by December 15, as requested by the UN Security Council.
Privately, Bush agrees to back the idea of early sovereignity in Iraq, though more for political reasons and his own re-election chances than any actual benefit towards Iraq. Paul Bremer agrees, recalling that the pressure he was getting for a transfer of power was politically motivated. "[N]obody spelled it out for me, but I could figure it out," he recalls. Bremer and Bush agree that the idea of a transfer of power must be spun to appear to be driven by the Iraqis and not a command decision from the White House. The ruse works: stories in the American press portray the decision as "put forward by Iraqi leaders," couriered to Washington by Bremer, and "broadly accepted" by Bush. (Reuters, Bob Woodward)
November 12: Iraqi insurgent forces have demonstrated superiority over American forces in intelligence gathering and tactics, causing the US to steadily lose ground in Iraq. US military, intelligence, and law enforcement officials say that Iraqi guerrillas know far more about the US and allied forces, including their style of operations, convoy routes, and vulnerabilites, than coalition forces know about them; US intelligence continues to have trouble even identifying the enemy and figuring out how many are Iraqis and how many are foreign fighters. The guerrillas are using their advantage to overcome the coalition's overwhelming military advantage. Insurgents routinely use inexpensive explosives to destroy multimillion-dollar assets, including tanks and helicopters. Using surveillance and inside information, the guerrillas have assassinated many Iraqis helping the coalition, gunned down a member of the US-appointed Governing Council, killed the top United Nations official in Iraq, and blasted the heavily guarded hotel in Baghdad where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying. US intelligence tools such as spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping intercepts have proven of little use. USA Today reports, "The key problem is that Iraqi guerrillas simply have more and better sources than the coalition. US military officers worry that the Iraqis who work for them, such as translators, cooks and drivers, include moles who routinely pass inside information back to insurgents. In at least two cases, Iraqis have been fired on the suspicion that they were spies." A former senior director in the Iraqi intelligence service says the Americans are right to be anxious. "The intelligence on the Americans is comprehensive and detailed," says the Iraqi, who insists on remaining unidentified. He says guerrillas get detailed reports on what is going on inside the palace grounds occupied by Paul Bremer, the chief US civilian administrator, Bremer's staff and the Governing Council, enabling them to target areas deep inside the "Green Zone," a heavily secured area of central Baghdad that includes Bremer's headquarters. A DIA official says Iraqi guerrillas are sophisticated in covert tradecraft. They "compartmentalize" information, so no one operative knows enough to compromise an operation if caught. They use "cut-outs," intermediaries who protect the identity of operatives and pass messages. And they plant false information in coalition hands. Predictions are that the Iraqi guerrillas' advantages will continue to plague US forces, with little hope of the US reversing the process. (USA Today)
November 12: 18 Italian soldiers and 8 Iraqis are killed when a car bomb detonates inside an Italian military police base in Nasiriyah; over 100 are wounded. Until the attack, non-US forces have generally been spared from targeting by resistance strikes. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says Italy would not be intimidated by the bombing: "No intimidation will budge us from our willingness to help that country rise up again and rebuild itself with self-government, security and freedom." The impact on Italian politics and Italians themselves is staggering. For the first time, strong calls from Italian lawmakers from across the political spectrum are heard advocating the removal of Italian troops from Iraq. "Great is our rage, and even greater is our protest against this government which has sent our sons to die in a colonial and imperialist war," says Communist leader Admando Cossutta. "It is immoral to put the lives of thousands of young Italians at risk for Bush's pre-emptive wars," adds Green Party leader Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. "We need to pull out our troops immediately." Pietro Folena of the main opposition party, the Democrats of the Left, says, "The Italian servicemen must come home. It is the right thing to do now." Moderate lawmaker Francesco Rutelli says, "Today is not the time for critical reflection, which will come over the next few days about the Italian presence, on the aim of the mission, on the need for a U.N. force." Rutelli says the time for an international force to replace the US-led coalition is now. (Reuters/Macon Daily, UPI, Guardian, Michael Scheuer)
November 12: Two US soldiers are wounded when a roadside bomb detonates under their vehicle. Dozens of Iraqi teenagers and other onlookers run out to mock the Americans and celebrate the injuries. This unpleasant incident helps give the lie to the Bush administration's position that the vast majority of Iraqis support the American presence, and that the resistance in Iraq is made up completely of displaced Hussein Ba'athist and foreign terrorists. "This is good," says a local teenager of the bombing. "If they ask me, I will join the resistance. The Americans have to die. They are just here to steal our oil." Another teenager says, "They are watching us die and laughing. They humiliate us. They handcuffed me and arrested me in front of my parents late one night because I stood on my house porch after curfew." A ten-year old boy tells a reporter, "I want to join these Iraqi [resistance] fighters. I want to hit the Americans, the infidels." A new CIA report on Iraq warns of growing popular support for insurgents combating US occupation forces and says efforts to rebuild the country could collapse without immediate corrective action; the report is privately endorsed by Iraqi administrator Paul Bremer, though publicly Bremer continues to toe the party line. (Reuters/CommonDreams)
November 12: The US Senate approves a defense spending bill well in excess of $400 billion dollars for 2004. The bill also gives the Pentagon more control over its civilian work force, and eases environmental restrictions on the military and on large defense contractors. It raises salaries for soldiers by an average of 4.15% and extends increases in combat and family separation pay; also, it partially reverses an 1890s policy that reduces disabled veterans' retirement benefits by $1 for every dollar received in disability pay. The change would be phased in over 10 years and mainly help the more seriously disabled -- about a quarter-million veterans. It will cost $22 billion. The measure also authorizes some of the Pentagon's most costly programs, including $9.1 billion for ballistic missile defense, $6.6 billion for the construction of seven new ships, $4.4 billion for developing the Joint Strike Fighter and $3.5 billion for 22 F/A-22 Raptor jet fighters. Democrats argue that the bill goes too far in providing the military with exemptions to the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. (AP/USA Today)
November 12: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denies that Iraq has become a "quagmire" for the US. "I do not do quagmires," he tells reporters. He also denies the Bush administration's goal is an escape strategy. "Let me be clear," he says. "The goal is not to reduce the number of U.S. forces in Iraq. It is not to develop an exit strategy. Our exit strategy in Iraq is success. It is that simple. ...The objective is not to leave, the objective is to succeed in our mission. ...That is why we remain on the offense, doing -- going after the terrorists and regime remnants, rooting them out and capturing them. And we are doing so with the help of a growing number of Iraqis, who are participating in the defense of their country." Rumsfeld refuses to accept comparisons between the administration's strategy of "Iraqification" and the "Vietnamization" program of the Nixon administration, which, like Bush's program, relies increasingly on native personnel to provide security while allowing the US to gradually withdraw. (VOA News)
November 12: With an increasingly difficult re-election campaign facing the GOP, the party is opting to present George W. Bush as a "visionary" whose leadership has made America safer from terrorism than before, even if the country is currently mired in a seemingly never-ending occupation of Iraq. In a memo from Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, Democrats will be reviled as members of a part of "protests, pessimism, and political hate speech." They will be attacked as cowardly and unpatrotic, and the threat of terror currently facing the country will be blamed squarely on Bill Clinton's administration, who, according to the GOP, did nothing to prevent the rise of Islamic terrorism during his two terms in office. The strategy advocates the idea of pre-emptive strikes against countries perceived as a terrorist threat: "The president's critics are adopting a policy that will make us more vulnerable in a dangerous world," Gillespie writes. "specifically, they now reject the policy of pre-emptive self-defense and would return us to a policy of reacting to terrorism in its aftermath. ...The bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, Khobar Towers, our embassies in East Africa, and the USS Cole were treated as criminal matters instead of the terrorist acts they were. After Sept. 11, President Bush made clear that we will no longer simply respond to terrorist acts, but will confront gathering threats before they become certain tragedies." GOP operatives are quick to jump on the bandwagon. "Democrats have very little to talk about, so they're left carping about Iraq, and none of them have a better answer than George Bush," says former RNC chairman Rich Bond. "Their answers are propelled by the loony left at this point." Ron Kaufman, the Massachusetts committeeman at the RNC, echoes Bond: "They don't have a plan, they have no ideas. All they can say is, 'He did this wrong, he did that wrong, and I'd have an international coalition.' Americans are smarter than that." Former Clinton national security expert Daniel Benjamin doesn't think the strategy will work. "It seems to me they [Republicans] are benefiting from having the bully pulpit and just repeating their message all the time," he responds. "But at the end of the day, bad news on the ground trumps all that repetition in Washington. And they have a real problem on their hands squaring those two things." Democratic presidential contenders are quick to respond. "If the White House believes President Bush can run for reelection on Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney's right-wing think tank doctrines, then Karl Rove has lost a step or two," says Senator John Kerry. Front-runner Howard Dean, an opponent of military action in Iraq from the start, dismisses preemption altogether: "A preemptive strategy never fits into an American strategy," he said last week. "It is a policy that doesn't serve us well, and Iraq is a perfect example. The first time we used the preemption policy, it got us into an enormous amount of trouble." (Boston Globe)
November 12: While Bush was busy defending the lie that his administration had nothing to do with the "Mission Accomplished" banner stretched behind him during his infamous May 1 speech, he was just as busy tossing out other lies that the press ignored. He claimed to be the first US president to advocate a Palestinian state; instead, President Bill Clinton said on January 7, 2001: "There can be no genuine resolution to the [Middle East] conflict without a sovereign, viable Palestinian state that accommodates Israel's security requirements and demographic realities." When asked how his administration would make up the $23 billion shortfall between the $33 billion pledged for Iraqi reconstruction and the $56 billion pricetag for rebuilding, he said, "Iraqi oil revenues...coupled with private investments should make up the difference." Yet Paul Bremer, the head of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, has noted that in the near-term oil industry revenues will cover only the industry's costs -- no oil revenues will be available to pay for reconstruction. And when asked about the missing Iraqi WMDs -- "Can you explain...whether you were surprised those weapons haven't turned up, why they haven't turned up, and whether you feel that your administration's credibility has been affected in any way by that?" Bush dodged by saying, "We took action based upon good, solid intelligence." It's been proven time and again that the intelligence used by the Bush administration to make the claims for Iraqi WMDs was neither good nor solid. (The Nation)
November 12: While Prime Minister Tony Blair tries to underplay the upcoming state visit of George Bush and paint it as merely "routine," it turns out that Blair didn't particularly want the visit, but knuckled under to pressure from the White House, who "desperately" wants the visit to show that Bush is not nearly as isolated from the global community as he appears. The Bush re-election campaign wants PR shots of Bush during a royal visit, similar to those photos and videos from 1984 showing Reagan on horseback with the Queen. (Any photos from Bush's visit will not show him in a similar position, as Bush is afraid of horses.) Bush's staff particularly wants shots of him and the royals in an open carraige. One Republican staffer close to the White House says frankly, "Look, Americans don't know shit. They're not going to recognise the prime minister of the Philippines. The only foreign leaders they could pick out are the Queen of England and the Pope -- and we've already got those pictures. ...[Karl] Rove is driving the timing and image-making of all this." Guardian columnist Johnathan Freedland calls the entire visit a "glorified ad campaign." (Guardian)
November 12: Antiwar groups around the US are learning that their ranks have been infiltrated with government spies to an extent not seen since the days of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Justice Department spokespersons dismiss complaints about repression and intrusion, saying that their efforts are bent towards identifying terrorists. Under Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI and local police departments have been given unprecedented leeway to infiltrate and record the doings of an entire array of anti-establishment organizations. The American Civil Liberties Union says that the new rules are "apparently designed to allow detailed monitoring of both citizens and non-citizens without any indication of ongoing or intended espionage." (Sacramento Bee/Capital Hill Blue)
November 12: Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is highly critical of the US media's coverage of the Bush administration. He says of the media's reporting of the events following 9/11 and leading up to the Iraqi invasion: "If you say what is actually obvious: that these people took September 11 as a great political opportunity and used it to push both a domestic economic and social agenda and a foreign policy agenda that had nothing to do with September 11 -– that's an extraordinary charge. And the very fact that it's such a harsh thing to say makes people unwilling to see it. It was obvious in the fall of last year that they were hyping the case for a war with Iraq. But it just seemed too harsh, too extreme to say that the President of the United States would do that. So there was a tremendous soft pedaling in the reporting." He combines the Bush administration's handling of the war with its handling of the economy: "Whatever you think about the Iraq war, the way it was sold was exactly the template they use for selling the tax cuts. The hyped evidence, the misleading statements, the bait-and-switch, the constantly shifting rationale. And the same things can be seen in less politically hot issues...the 'Healthy Forests' plan, for instance. In terms of naming things, Orwell had nothing on these guys. So the 'Healthy Forest' plan turns out to be a plan to allow more logging of the forests. The 'Clear Skies Initiative' turns out to first, get rid of new source review, which is an integral part of the Clean Air Act, and so on down the line. So it's definitely a pattern. And if you step back a moment and look at it, you start to realize that, although looking at selling of the 2003 tax cut and what it does to our physical future is a bad thing, looking at the whole picture makes you feel a whole lot worse. ...Reagan, I think sincerely believed in trickle-down economics. Look, it's funny. Not only do I miss Reagan who I thought had bad policies but didn't approach the skullduggery of these people, I actually miss Nixon. Although God knows he did skullduggery, as John Dean says, even Nixon didn't go after the wives [referring to outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson]. ...These people now...they're ruthless, they're dishonest, and they haven't actually tried to deal with any of our real problems."
Focusing on the economy, Krugman says, "What we have is the prospect of deficits that are not temporary. The last estimate is, of the $500 billion-plus deficit, only about $60 or $70 billion would go away even if the economy does recover. And it's much worse once the baby boomers retire, which happens in about 10 years. We have the finances of a banana republic right now. If current tax rates and current programs continue, at some point the US government will simply be unable to pay its debts -– and long before that point happens, industries will pull the plug. And we have the same thing internationally as well. We have a huge trade deficit. It roughly matches the domestic deficit, and foreigners are lending the country money to cover that. At some point they will pull the plug. Some people say we now have a faith-based currency. I think we have a faith-based government. People believe that we're going to get our act together, but there's no sign that we will." (AlterNet)
November 12: 30 military veterans critical of the war in Iraq are yanked from a Veterans Day parade through Tallahassee, Florida. The veterans, members of the Veterans For Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War organizations, had legally registered to march in the parade, and were marching peacefully when the parade chairman ordered them to leave the parade. "They can have their free speech, just not in the parade," says parade chairman Kent Conroy. "They belong on the sidewalk." Conroy said the veterans were ejected because he found them offensive, and at the request of the Tallahassee police; a police spokesman denies asking that anyone be ejected from the parade: "We don't police the participants. We don't have an opinion on who's in it, as long as they're not walking around naked or drinking in public. It's just not a police decision." "There's a war going on that's based on lies, just like Vietnam," says marcher Tom Baxter, a Vietnam veteran. "They were lying then, and they're lying now." Parade observers were mixed in their reactions. "I don't think it's right," says a JROTC member from a local high school who marched in the parade. "They said they were supporting the troops, just not the war." A spectator says, "They were in Vietnam, which may or may not have been a just war. And quite a few people feel the way they do about the war in Iraq. They shouldn't have been kicked out of the parade. America is about free speech." Others disagreed, including an American Legion vice commander who also served in Vietnam: "We don't care where they are, as long as they're somewhere else. It's disrespectful, that's what it is, and I just can't stomach or tolerate or conceive of it." (Florida Times-Union)

Devastating CIA report on instability in Iraq

November 13: A "devastating" CIA report on the growing instability in Iraq, and the growing strength of the resistance, causes the Bush administration to begin drawing up emergency plans to accelerate the transfer of power to Iraqis by mid-2004. The report, an "appraisal of situation" commissioned by CIA director George Tenet and written by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, says that the insurgency was gaining ground among the population, and already numbers in the tens of thousands. One military intelligence assessment now estimates the insurgents' strength at 50,000. While the figure is speculative, it does indicate a deep-rooted revolt on a far greater scale than the Pentagon had led the administration to believe. One intelligence source in Washington describes the report as a "bleak assessment that the resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger. ...It says we are going to lose the situation unless there is a rapid and dramatic change of course. ...There are thousands in the resistance -- not just a core of Ba'athists. They are in the thousands, and growing every day. Not all those people are actually firing, but providing support, shelter and all that." The report has been widely circulated within the highest levels of the administration, and bears an endorsement by Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer -- "a possible sign that he was seeking to bypass his superiors in the Pentagon and send a message directly to President George Bush on how bad the situation has become." National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice says, "It is still important that the Iraqi people have a permanent constitution and elections for a permanent government. Nothing has changed. ...But what is also important is that we find ways to accelerate the transfer of power to the Iraqis -- they are clamoring for it, they are, we believe, ready for it. ...[I]t's the timeline on [completion of] the permanent constitution that's really extended." (Guardian, AP/Yahoo! News/Free Republic)
November 13: Days after Iraq administrator Paul Bremer warns the Bush administration that the current US plan to shift power in Iraq is unworkable, the White House announces plans to accelerate the transition in Iraq to greater independent Iraqi authority (see items above). After a series of emergency meetings, the plan is now to shift power to an interim Iraqi government as early as summer 2004, well before the November 2004 US presidential elections. Back in September, Secretary of State Colin Powell defends the administration's timetable and approach, saying, "To think that somehow you could tomorrow wake up and say, 'OK. Fine. Give sovereignty back to the Iraqi people,' before you have a constitution, before you've had elections, before you've had the institutions of democracy put in place is not a reasonable statement to make." However, Bush has apparently decided otherwise. A White House official says, "The president agreed that we couldn't wait for a constitution to be written. The system can't handle it." The meetings are influenced by a new CIA report that reveals a majority of Iraqis viewing the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. One official describes the report as saying, "this is an insurgency, and that it is gaining strength because Iraqis have no confidence that there is anyone on the horizon who is going to stick around in Iraq as a real alternative to the former regime." The report stands in stark contrast to the President's remarks during his press conference last month, during which he said, "I think the people of Iraq appreciate what is taking place inside the country." White House spokesman Scott McClellan refuses to acknowledge that the administration's strategy had shifted at all, saying simply, "We're staying the course to realize our same goal." (Daily Misleader)
November 13: A new US offensive against Iraqi insurgents, "Operation Iron Hammer," begins with the destruction of a warehouse in Baghdad and the pursuit of alleged bombing suspects. The attack begins hours after the car bombing attack on an Italian MP base in Nasiriyah. (Guardian)
November 13: According to General John Abizaid, head of US forces in Iraq, only 5,000 insurgent forces are present in Iraq. He says that though the numbers are relatively small, they have considerable training, funding, and supplies. Abizaid believes the largest and most dangerous portion of the opposition forces consists of loyalists of ousted president Saddam Hussein. Foreign fighters also pose a threat and are entering Iraq through porous borders. In a news briefing from US Central Command HQ in Florida, Abizaid says, "The goal of the enemy is not to defeat us militarily. The goal of the enemy is to break the will of the United States of America, to make us leave." He says that the insurgents have little popular support and are hiring young, unemployed criminals "to do their dirty work." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
November 13: British anti-war and environmental protesters are gearing up for a memorable welcome for President Bush's upcoming visit. 100,000 or more protesters are expected to flood Trafalgar Square, and to erect and then topple a huge effigy of Bush in memory of the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein during the invasion. Many Labour Party members are either encouraging the protests or planning to participate in them. Clare Short, the former international development secretary who resigned over the Iraq war, says the demonstrations would show Mr Bush that he had made "very serious mistakes." Labour MP Tony Benn has sent a letter to the US embassy asking the president to meet a small delegation of opponents, to possibly include himself, the Father of the House of Commons, Tam Dalyell, and backbenchers Alice Mahon, Jeremy Corbyn and Alan Simpson. (The Bush handlers will refuse the request.) "We read that you have made clear you welcome the fact there will be meetings held in London when you are here organised by those who opposed the war against Iraq and are critics of the present policy," Benn writes. Bush has said he welcomes the protests because they show Britain is a country that respects freedom of speech. Former foreign secretary Robin Cook accuses Prime Minister Blair of using "shallow and cheap" arguments to justify the president's visit. "It is entirely possible to want warm relations with the American people while keeping a prudent distance from the foreign adventures of President Bush," Cook writes. Bush intends on keeping a prudent distance from any protesters -- once he arrives, he will be whisked off to Buckingham Palace and largely kept in what he himself describes as a security-enclosed bubble -- cut off from activity in the rest of the city. (Independent/Truthout, Scotsman, New Zealand Herald)
November 13: US troops in Iraq are becoming more hostile towards reporters, with verbal and physical abuse being reported, media equipment being confiscated, and some media people being detained. The president of the Associated Press Managing Editors sent a protest letter to the Pentagon yesterday "immediately take the steps to end such confrontations." Stuart Wilk, managing editor of the Dallas Morning News, wrote in the letter, "The effect has been to deprive the American public of crucial images from Iraq in newspapers, broadcast stations and online news operations." Complaints from the International Federation of Journalists since October have included reports of increased harassment of reporters as well as beatings. Major William Thurmond of the Coalition Press and Information Center responds, "Guidance has been passed to units throughout the coalition explicitly stating that reporters are not to be interfered with or cameras and films seized. ...Does that take place all the time? No. ...We are aware that individual soldiers have not followed those instructions." A number of journalists, particularly Iraqis and other Arabs, say they are routinely threatened at gunpoint if they try to film the aftermath of guerrilla attacks. Some have been arrested and detained. One Lebanese freelance cameraman, Sami Awad, recalls that while he was filming for a German TV network, he and his colleagues were thrown to the ground and had weapons pointed at their heads. "They checked our identity badges and then let us go, saying they thought we were with Al-Jazeera," says Awad. "Each group of soldiers acts on its own, and most of them are very scared and inexperienced."
In August, Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana was killed while videotaping near a US-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad following a mortar attack. The military claimed that the soldiers mistook Dana's camera for a grenade launcher; an investigation later concluded the soldiers "acted within the rules of engagement," although the Army has never publicly announced those rules, citing security reasons. In September, US soldiers shot up the car of an AP photographer in Khaldiyah after an American convoy was hit with a roadside bomb. The photographer, Karim Kadim, and his Iraqi driver jumped from the car and ran for cover when they saw a tank aim at them. They were shot at with a machine gun as they ran and the car was badly damaged. Neither man was hurt. In the same incident, a US tank's machine gun fired at AP correspondent Tarek al-Issawi as he viewed the scene from a nearby rooftop. He also escaped injury. AP filed a protest and US commanders promised to investigate, but no information on the results of the probe has been received. (Guardian)
November 13: The US Navy confirms that it covered up for over a month the running aground of a US submarine on the Italian island of Sardinia. The Navy has yet to confirm that the submarine, the USS Hartford, was carrying nuclear missiles. There are no indications that the sub's nuclear reactor was damaged. Many Italians are outraged at the coverup of such a potential environmental calamity. "It's the umpteenth demonstration not only of the grave risks to which the civilian population is exposed...but also of the culture of silence that invariably covers military activities in Sardinia," says Italian Green Party MP Mauro Bulgarelli said in Parliament. "Our country was denuclearized nearly 20 years ago, due to the wish of the overwhelming majority of the Italian population. It is unacceptable that, thanks to American troops based in our territory, the nuclear risk should be reintroduced." Both the captain of the submarine and his squadron commander were immediately fired over the incident. (Bellona)
November 13: Secretary of State Colin Powell admits that he is a routine user of the prescription sleeping agent Ambien, and many others in the Bush administration also rely on the drug: "They're a wonderful medication -- not medication. How would you call it? They're called Ambien, which is very good. You don't use Ambien? Everybody here uses Ambien." While Ambien isn't considered a dangerous drug, it is quite habit-forming and has some alarming side effects if taken too frequently, including psychological and physical withdrawal symptoms. Rare but documented side effects include "...abnormal thinking, ...aggression, ...decreased sex drive, delusions, dementia, ...feeling of unreality, feeling strange, ...heart attack, ...illusions, ...intoxicated feelings, ...manic reactions, ...neurosis, ...panic attacks, ...personality disorder, ...[and] suicide attempt...." (Washington Post/TalkLeft, PsyWeb)

November 14: The US death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War; the official number of casualties, including dead, wounded, and evacuated due to illness or injury, tops 9,000. A Reuters analysis of Defense Department statistics shows that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on Dec. 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964, when American troop levels in Indochina stood at just over 17,000. By comparison, the current number of American dead in Iraq is 397. US forces currently number about 130,000 troops; it took almost four years for that same number to be deployed in Vietnam. The broader number of American dead in the "war against terrorism" numbers 488, and includes dead from Afghanistan, the Phillippines, Southwest Asia, and other areas. The Army Surgeon General says that in addition to the 397 service members who have died and the 1,967 wounded, 6,861 troops were medically evacuated for non-combat conditions between March 19 and Oct. 30. That brings total casualties among all services to more than 9,200, and represents an increase of nearly 3,000 non-combat medical evacuations reported since the first week of October. The Army offered no immediate explanation for the increase. The executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, Steve Robinson, says his group is "shocked at the dramatic increase in casualties." The numbers don't include service members treated in theater or those whose illnesses -- such as post-traumatic stress disorder -- were not apparent until after they returned to the United States. The number of American wounded is overloading Walter Reed Hospital: hospital director, Major-General Kevin Kiley, says, "Our people are pedaling as hard and fast as they can. We can do this for a long time but at some point - if there is no let-up - the casualty demand will have to start affecting what Walter Reed is. The whole hospital is on a war footing and emotionally involved. The broader challenge is how do you keep up the battle tempo for a long period of time?" (Reuters/Veterans for Peace, UPI, Independent/CCMEP)
November 14: The Weekly Standard writes a story based on a possibly deliberately misinterpreted memo documenting a long-standing connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The article, titled "Case Closed," purports to prove that "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al-Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda -- perhaps even for Mohamed Atta." The article is based on a top-secret memo leaked from the Defense Department, a memo sent by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith to the ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller on October 27, 2003, as a response to the committee's request for information about the administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq. "Much of the evidence is detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources," the article reads. "some of it is new information obtained in custodial interviews with high-level al Qaeda terrorists and Iraqi officials, and some of it is more than a decade old. The picture that emerges is one of a history of collaboration between two of America's most determined and dangerous enemies."
The article is quite detailed in its reporting of the memo's contents, which purport to detail specific contacts between Hussein and the terrorist organization spanning a period of 13 years and ending only days before the US invasion of Iraq. It concludes, "But there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to plot against Americans."
Unfortunately for the Standard, the memo is not what the Standard claims it to be. The next day, the Defense Department issues a statement saying that "[n]ews reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate." It points out that the material in the memo used by the Standard to base their article upon is material from a "classified annex" made up of raw, unverified reports, often from unreliable sources, sent to various intelligence agencies. The DoD writes, "The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions. Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal." The CIA concurs, saying that they possess no information that the Hussein regime tried to transfer any biological or chemical technology to al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. The day before, Feith told the Council on Foreign Relations, "The idea that we didn't have specific proof that he was planning to give a biological agent to a terrorist group doesn't really lead you to anything, because you wouldn't expect to have that information even if it were true. And our intelligence is just not at the point where if Saddam had that intention that we would necessarily know it." Feith's statement was taken as support for the Standard article; he failed to comment after the article was exposed as a fraud. No investigation will ever be mounted to discover who leaked the memo to the Standard, a well-known neoconservative journal with extensive ties to members of the Bush administration, Defense Department officials, and conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Project for a New American Century, although it is quite likely that the leaker is Feith. (Weekly Standard, Defense Link, Washington Post, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
November 14: Former CIA analyst Flynt Leverett reveals to journalist Sidney Blumenthal that the Middle East "roadmap to peace" proposed in early 2003 by the US and Britain was pushed on the Bush administration by British PM Tony Blair over the objections of Bush and his senior advisors. "We had made commitments to key European and Arab allies," says Leverett. "The White House lost its nerve. It took Blair to get Bush to put it out." Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the national security council, an author of the roadmap, and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, says that the US didn't want to push Israel's Ariel Sharon, and thusly undercut the effectiveness of the peace proposal. Leverett says that neoconservatives within the Bush administration, led by Elliot Abrams, were primarily responsible for gutting the administration's resolve to push the roadmap, though Abrams and his fellows were ultimately unable to stop Blair from wringing limited cooperation from the Bush administration. Former Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen sent a secret envoy, Khalil Shikaki, to the White House begging for the administration's cooperation; according to Shikaki, Abrams refused to help. When Mazen resigned on September 6, the entire process essentially collapsed. (Guardian)
November 14: The Army announces further restrictions of coverages of military funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, requiring reporters to stay so far away that it's unlikely they can hear the delivered eulogies, and more importantly, have trouble getting video footage. Reporters will be required to stay in a roped-in "bullpen." The cemetery's superintendent, Jack Metzler, says that the rules have been in place for years but never strictly enforced. The order to begin strictly enforcing the rules came after an unspecified complaint reached the Army brass at the Pentagon. Metzler says that families who request reporters' presence at graveside will be accomodated. Ann Baddick, mother of Army Sgt. Andrew Joseph Baddick, says her experience with media coverage of her son's funeral was very positive. "They were very respectful. They went out of their way to do a wonderful story on him." Baddick was buried on October 14 in Arlington. "The press and everyone has been so wonderful to honor him." (Washington Post)

Back to November 2003 | On to November 2003: Week Three

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

November 2003:

Week Two

Intelligence and Pentagon officials lambast Bush administration on distorting case for Iraq war

Illegal fundraising tactics by GOP

Devastating CIA report on instability in Iraq

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