SICKOFITRADLZ

Who's hurting our LGBT rights?

2009-12-09T20:00:00.000-08:00

The same-sex marriage movement appears likely to end a banner year with a string of stinging defeats that opponents say have undermined a core proposition of the movement - that the acceptance of gay marriage is, sooner or later, inevitable.
After a year that saw laws allowing same-sex marriage expand from a lonely toehold in Massachusetts to five other states and, likely, the District of Columbia, the defeats have served at the least as a reality check to proponents of gay marriage.

That's from Ben Smith's "Is gay marriage 'inevitable'?" (Politico). Yesterday, I wrote: "In Sunday's "Roundtable" at Third, I talk about a topic a number of you have e-mailed asking me to blog about. I'm not in the mood to. So refer to the roundtable. I'm just not in the mood and foul language would be every other word." I'm going to note the section from "Roundtable" and in the excerpt below the people talking are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty and Jim, Ruth of Ruth's Report and me:

Jim: Okay. Dona's saying we're running out of time. Marriage equality. Last week, the state of New York said no to marriage equality. Ruth, you blogged about this in "Another blow to equality" so why don't you kick it off by explaining what happened?

Ruth: Alright. New York's state senate took a vote on whether to support marriage-for-all or not? They decided not to. The final vote was 24 state senators in favor of marriage equality and 38 against it. Following the vote, Governor David Paterson stated he understood the anger and outrage over the vote and that it was not over. For a number of people, it felt over.

Marcia: For me it does. I mean how many defeats is the LGBT community going to have to suffer? It's been one right after the other including all of Barry's homophobe supporters in California and homophobic Barry himself refusing to call out Proposition Nine. But it's been nothing but defeat, defeat ever since, or that's how it feels. And it feels like we're going backwards and backwards and we have no leadership on the issue and the White House is screwing us over on everything from Don't Ask Don't Tell to DOMA -- neither of which have been repealed. So I'm honestly really angry and that may just be me.

Ty: No, it's not just you. That's how my boyfriend feels as well and, to be honest, things are rough right now between us. We toyed with the idea of getting married before the Prop 8 vote, we live out here in California, at C.I.'s. We didn't think Prop 8 would pass and we weren't ready to get married. But Prop 8 did pass and if we had gotten married our marriage would still be valid. But because Prop 8 passed, we now can't get married. And the fact that we didn't then is becoming a sore spot with my boyfriend. It's becoming a sore spot, it's becoming a real problem. Our relationship has lasted how many years now? And we lasted his staying in New York when I moved out here to C.I.'s. And it's deepened and all of that. And we can't get married. Any man and woman can get married even if they just met hours before. But we can't? The anger Marcia's feeling, the anger's she talking about, that's how my boyfriend feels and that's how a lot of gay people are feeling right now. It's becoming very obvious that there's a strong movement to make sure we are not included in the country we live in. And like Marcia, I blame Barack Obama and his damn cult because they've done nothing to help us and everything to hurt us. And a lot of gay people around the country are under a lot of stress because of this crap.

Marcia: I have a couple I'm friends with who live in New York, upstate, and they were really happy about the vote because they're a lesbian couple and they've been together about five or six years and they were so excited. They just knew it would pass. And they could get married. And that meant so much to them. Then it didn't pass. And when it doesn't pass, which straight people may not be grasping, when it doesn't pass, you can't just say, "Well, these things take time." Gay people know that, thank you very much. But more importantly, this is such a huge rejection of our lives. This reject us on every level and rejects our relationships. And the problem's Ty's having, I know couples breaking up in part over the stress that's going on as we have one defeat after another. Because you have one person who's trying to be upbeat and maybe is upbeat and the other doesn't want to hear it because these votes are so insulting and hurt so to the core of who we are.

Ruth: I am really glad that Ty and Marcia are speaking about this. I knew some of it from Marcia and I was glad she felt comfortable talking to me about it because she is my very good friend. I was also glad because if she is feeling that way, others are as well and I am a glass is half-full type person. Once I knew how much it really shook someone's faith and belief system, these votes against equality, I stopped trying to be the cheerleader on "It will come, just wait, it will come." And no one needs this old grandma playing cheerleader anyway. My grandson Jayson is not going through this but he is young and new to the dating scene and all of that. People like Ty, and Marcia especially, have been waiting, have seen changes, were told change was coming and just got a homophobic president who will rub up against homophobes but does nothing for gay Americans. So it is very distressing.

I don't disagree with Ben at all. That's why I've been unable to write about the issue here for two or three weeks. It's disgusting.

My rights aren't important.

And that's where I fault him.

"My rights aren't important." He doesn't deal with that aspect in his article. I deal with it because I'm pissed about the whole damn thing.

"My rights aren't important." Ben might argue, "I did talk about the opposition to marriage equality."

And he did. Ben covered the conservatives.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about my supposed supporters. I expect conservatives to be against strides towards equality. In some cases it's bigotry, in some cases it's the conservative impulse to resist change regardless of what the change is.

But I'm not really concerned about them.

I'm concerned about my supposed supporters.

For example, Barack has said he is a "fierce advocate" for gay rights and Michelle has said that of him as well. So name one time when the "fierce advocate" has expressed any support for us in any of these election battles?

Not one damn time. Now we all know he's done nothing as president.

But he's refused to advocate for us.

You may say: Tough.

And maybe you're right. And I think the man's a liar.

But he said he was a "fierce advocate." He said that on the campaign trail and he said it during the summer when he feared he was losing money from the LGBT community (donating to Democrats). He's the one saying it.

But he hasn't done a damn thing.

He's endorsed candidates since becoming president. He moved heaven and earth to try to impact the New Jersey governor's race, for example. But he can't even issue a statement of support on any ballot measure involving our rights. So I'm sick of him.

I'm sick of all the so-called supporters who don't do a damn thing.

And I think I managed to write that without using the f-word repeatedly.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, December 9, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, despite his so-called money woes Nouri is notching up another big buy, Tony Blair's right hand test public waters about revising the public record, the Rolling Stones are mentioned in the Iraq Inquiry, Iraqis want answers to yesterday's bombings, and more.

National elections in Iraq were once supposed to take place this month. They hit the snooze button but swore it would happen by January 2010. The Constitution mandated that the elections take place in January because the terms of the current members of Parliament (that includes Nouri al-Maliki) expire at the end of January. December was pushed by the Bush administration because Iraq does not vote and have the results that night or the next day. Futhermore, after the votes are counted, there are many deals and alliances to make. It was months after the last national elections before the Parliament came up with Nouri as prime minister -- however, their first choice was shot down by the US government. So December was thought to be ideal since it would allow weeks after the election to sort out various things.

Despite the promise of January, despite the Constitutional mandate of January, no elections will take place in January. Anne Tang (Xinhua) reports elections are now supposed to take place March 7th. Al Jazeera explains, "The election, which will now fall on a Sunday, the first day of the working week in Iraq, is seen as a crucial step towards consolidating Iraq's democracy and securing a complete US military exit by the end of 2011, as planned." Prashant Rao (AFP) reminds that the new date is "almost six weeks later than the originally planned date of mid-January". An overview of the changes resulting from Sunday's measure Parliament passed shortly before midnight can be found here. These are still 'intended' elections. After what's taken place in the lats months, nothing should be accepted as a done deal until the elections are actually held. (For example, Nouri might postpone the elections citing 'rising violence'. That's the fear of one European diplomat.) CNN reports that today a presidential decree is supposed to be issued making March 7th the election date.

Yesterday, Baghdad was rocked by bombings. Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) counts four bombs which "exploded near education facilities, judicial complexes and other targets" leading to the deaths of "at least 127 people" and approximately five-hundred injured. Warren P. Strobel and Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) quote Mohamed Hussein who was in the court house during one of the bombings, "My colleagues and I were fine, but as I ran out of the room and outside the building I saw the female employees and other men injured and running, not knowing where to run. We carried our general director and other employees to the hospital." The Daily Mirror offers a photo of two injured little girls, sisters, who were wounded in yesterday's bombings. Nouri immediately began proclaiming the 'evil doers' were al Qaeda in Iraq. And Ba'athists outside the country. And people in Syria. And possibly little green men from Mars will be next in the Nouri blame game. Ned Parker, Raheem Salman and Usama Redha (Los Angeles Times) report, "It was not known who was responsible for the bombings. Some believe political blocs in teh centeral government could be sponsoring attacks in an attempt to bring down Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. Others believe that dissidents, including some army and police officers resentful of the political order installed by the United States, are intent on overthrowing the system." Today the Independent of London editorializes (and hypothesizes), "The aim of the bombers is none other than to sow public panic and expose the government as too weak to safeguard people's security. In the fearful atmosphere that would result, many people would be deterred from voting, so discrediting the whole process -- and tipping Iraq back to the brink of civil war, where it was as recently as two years ago. For the many Iraqis for whom life has started to improve after the ravages of a war they did not seek, this would be nothing short of another tragedy." The NewsHour (PBS) reported on the bombings yesterday (link has text, video and audio options) with Washington Week's Gwen Ifill speaking with the Christian Science Monitor and GlobalPost's Jane Arraf who didn't buy into the absolute 'knowledge' the Independent does.JANE ARRAF: And this was kind of more of the same. The attacks were government institutions. And, in fact, two of them, connected to the finance ministry and the justice ministry, were based in buildings that were actually moved after their major ministries were bombed earlier in the year. So, this really is connected, a lot of people think, to undermining the government, undermining faith in the security forces, and, a lot of people believe, geared at influencing the elections.GWEN IFILL: Well, that's what I was going to ask next, whether it's a coincidence that these attacks should occur just as people were -- as they were announcing this March 7 date for these elections.JANE ARRAF: Probably not a coincidence, but, certainly, the feeling is that it takes more time than a couple of days to plan these kind of attacks. And the cycle of what we have seen is actually that they have been about two months at a time. Now, these have probably been in the works and probably have been sitting in some car bomb factory somewhere waiting to be detonated and waiting to set out into the city. But that is one of the issues that Iraqi security forces are grappling with.

And the Iraqi people grapple with the bombings as well. CBS News' Charlie D'Agata reported on the bombings (link is video) and survivor Ahmed Jabbar wondered how the Iraqi forces allowed the car with bombs to pass through their checkpoint? Yesterday, Glenn Reeder (The Pacifica Evening News -- heard on KPFA, KPFK and other California outlets and streamed online) observed that "authorities also faced angry questions about how bombers found holes in Iraqi security again." This is echoed by Michael Jansen (Irish Times) who observes, "However, many Iraqis ask why, after more than five years of US training, the country's post-war police and security forces are unable to halt the bombings, particularly at high profile government institutions." (Mike noted that last night and passed it on to me, thank you Mike.) Meanwhile, Alsumaria reports that the Minister of the Interiror, Jawad al-Boulani, is saying he will appear before Parliament "to clarify security conjunctures around Iraq." Oliver August (Times of London) added that Nouri "and several senior ministers are expected to appear in Parliament today to justify the current safety precaustions and give details of the attacks". Michael Gisick (Stars and Stripes) reports that the appearances before Parliament have been postponed until Thursday according to Speaker of Parliament Ayad al-Samarraie. While testimony was postponed, Warren P. Strobel and Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspaper) report Baghdad's "chief military official" has been relieved of his duties by Nouri. Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) adds that Lt Gen Abboud Qanbar (the one relieved) will be replaced with Lt Gen Ahmed Hashim Ouda.

US officials also had reactions to the violence in the country they continue to occupy. Yesterday, Robert Knight ( KPFA's Flashpoints Radio) noted that "Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs insisted that today's bombings mean the country is 'going in the right directions' and asserted that it was the attackers who he believed were threatened, rather than the Iraqi public." Also Tuesday evening,the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, found anchor Katie Couric addressing the bombings with the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno:

Katie Couric: Does it make you rethink the strategy of withdrawing US forces from major cities? Gen Ray Odierno: Uh, no, it doesn't. That's what they'd like us to do, frankly. I-I think it's important for Iraqi security forces to secure their own people. Combating suicide bombs is a very difficult business. But they are doing very well at it and we'll continue to support them in all their endeavors. Katie Couric: Having said that, why weren't the Iraqi security forces better able to protect these innocent people? Gen Ray Odierno: Yeah. Well, in two cases today -- in two of the bombs, actually, they were stopped at police checkpoints. Unfortunately one of the bombs went off near a school, a college, which killed many young people and children as well. And frankly, what it's doing is turning the Iraqi people more and more against their movement. So I think it's a strategy for them that's not going to work. And it just is so painful for me and for everybody to see these innocent people killed.

Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which claimed 2 lives and left seven people injured, a Baghdad bus bombing which claimed 2 lives and left eleven people injured and a Baghdad mini-bus bombing which claimed 3 lives and left eight people wounded.

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Mosul shooting at a police checkpoint in which one police officer was injured.

Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Mosul. Reuters identifies the corpses as "Christian men".

Turning to the Ukraine. From Kiev, Simon Shuster (AP) reports Ukranian MP Anatoly Grytsenko is trumpeting the new $2.5 billion sale of "weapons and military equipment" deal that has just been made for the "Ukraine to produce and deliver 420 BTR-4 armored personnel carriers, six AN-32B military transport planes and other military hardware to Iraq." There's no money to fix the services -- the basic services (potable water, electricity, etc.) -- but yet again Nouri's making a big money buy of weapons?

Excuse me, but setting aside the fact that these weapons aren't needed and overlooking the fact that turning all of these weapons over to a Failed State which can still not protect its own government building's might strike many as dangerous, wasn't concern over Iraq and weapons the heart of selling the illegal war. England could be attacked in 45 minutes! (It couldn't.) Chemical and biological weapons were amassed! (They weren't.) We don't want the next warning sign to be a mushroom cloud! (Iraq had no nuclear weapons.)

Not only were weapons what the Iraq war was sold on, but weapons were what the conservatives attempted to sell debt relief on. Don't believe me. Click here for the Heritage organization -- right-wing as they come -- advocating for debt relief for Iraq in 2003 and let's zoom in on one key section:

The case of Iraq also raises an important moral dilemma: Should the citizens of a liberated country be burdened with the debts of a brutal dictatorship? As U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz observed in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, much of the money borrowed by the Iraqi regime had been used "to buy weapons and to build palaces and to build instruments of oppression."

So in 2003, not only did alleged possession of weapons sell the war on Iraq but the fact that Saddam Hussein spent money on weapons was reason enough, according to Paul Wolfowitz, for Iraq's debt to be forgiven. But all Nouri does is buy weapons. Does no one get that. He stockpiles a ton of money and spends a bit -- but spends it on weapons. For those who have forgotten, let's drop back to March of this year. Aseel Kami (Reuters) reported, "Iraq's falling oil income will force it to cut spending on basic services that its war-weary citizens crave, such as sewage treatment and power supply, officials say." Grasp that Nouri's deal today is only one of many weapons deal. And yet Kami was reporting that the electricity contracts with GE -- for $600 million -- were canceled because Iraq just didn't have the money. For things that really matter. But for weapons? Nouri's always got the money for the weapons. Something is very wrong with this picture. Nouri, the new Saddam, is allowed to stockpile weapons and no one's supposed to ask: "Weren't weapon allegations how the illegal war was sold?" Nor are they allowed to point out that while Nouri spends everything on weapons, the Iraqi people continue to do without. And how did Basra's deal with the lack of potable water this summer? Saleem al-Wazzan (Nisqash) reported in July, "Recently, Shiltagh Abboud Sharad, the province's governor, resorted to religious pleas to encourage the frustrated population. On a tour of teaching hospitals the governor told doctors complaining about the lack of drinking water to be 'patient' and to remember the fortitude of the revered Iman Hussein."

NPR's Corey Flintoff (Morning Edition) filed a report earlier today where the problem for Iraq's economy was that the private sector is forced to face too many rules and regulations. Of course Flintoff also used Leigh University's Frank Gunter as an expert for the same story which made it only more questionable. Gunter insists, "If they don't find jobs, then these young Iraqis, mostly men, mostly young, mostly uneducated, become a recruiting pool for the criminal gangs, for the insurgency, the militias that work for the religious and political groups." Really? That's the problem? That's the problem if you're both a pig and and idiot. In the real world, Iraq has two growth 'areas': Orphans and widows and shame on any 'expert' who dismisses women's need to work. Of course, Nouri does have that new plan for women. They can whore themselves out and get a few bucks tossed at them for marrying a Sunni (if they're Shia) or a Shia (if they're Sunni). That's Nouri's 'answer' to the widow issue. And shame on Gunter for refusing to acknowledge the serious problem women face and let's note that Sahar Issa remains the only one at a major US outlet who has reported on women's economic plight this year from Iraq.

Sahar Issa is an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. It's not easy to be a US reporter stationed in Iraq but it's not easy to be an Iraqi reporter in Iraq and, in fact, most evidence would suggest being an Iraqi makes it even harder -- as evidence by the death toll of journalists in Iraq (most are Iraqis). McClatchy's Warren P. Strobel reported at the end of November on Iraqi journalists being brave and taking a public stand in Baghdad's Firdos Square: "There was nothing stage-managed about today's gathering--a demonstration in response to the near-fatal shooting five days ago of Imad Abadi, a well-known television anchor known for his criticisms of politicians and parties of every stripe, his crusades against corruption, and his aggressive defense of press freedom. Abadi, 36, was wounded in the head and neck, in what the nonprofit group Reporters Without Borders said was clearly a target shooting. He remains in intensive care at a Baghdad hospital." In October, Joel Brinkley (News Observer) noted another demonstration by journalists and explained, "Today many of the surviving reporters are scared. The government is censoring, suing and harassing reporters. In July, The Economist reported, police arrested a journalist for taking pictures of a typical, massive Baghdad traffic jam, saying the photos reflected badly on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's campaign to demonstrate that the quality of life was improving." Noting that the satellite channel Al-Alarn was taken off the air, the Layalina Review points out:

Other media outlets are also feeling the wrath of censorship in Iraq, reports Asharq-Alawsat, raising fears of a crackdown on Iraq's often partisan media ahead of national elections early next year. Lawsuits have been filed or threatened against both foreign and local media outlets critical of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's government.
Asharq-Alawsat points to a recent incident where the British newspaper The Guardian was ordered by an Iraqi court to pay 100 million Iraqi dinars (USD 86,000) in compensation for an article "in which unnamed Iraqi intelligence officials accused Maliki of being increasingly authoritarian."
At the same time, the Iraqi Department for Communications and Media has issued rules allowing it to shut down any media company that encourages "terrorism, violence and tensions," and requiring individual broadcasters to obtain licenses. The Iraqi government is also moving to censor some books, and is seeking powers to block websites deemed to be pornographic or inciting violence.

As November grew to a close the Guardian newspaper and the press found a hitherto unknown defender: former UK prime minister and forever Poodle Tony Blair. Julian Borger (Guardian) quoted Tony Blair writing and e-mailing the following statement, "I have been following the Ghaith Abdul-Ahad court case against the Guardian in Iraq. We fought for freedom in Iraq including freedom of the press. Often what the press says is harsh or unfair. But that freedom is essential and must be upheld. So while I may not always agree with what the Guardian write I do hope that when the case goes to appeal the courts will follow due process in accordance with the Iraqi constitution." But it was Tony Blair's decision to force the scientist David Kelly to testify in public (Blair already knew who Andrew Gilligan's source was) that added to Kelly's stress. If indeed Kelly killed himself (there's a call for an inquiry into that) then Blair's actions clearly influenced Kelly's actions. Blair was offended that Kelly had told the BBC about the way intell was fixed and "sexed up." It's a strange kind of support for a free press Tony Brown thinks he has.

In London, the Iraq Inquiry continues. Brian Jones worked for the UK Ministry of Defence from 1973 to 2003. In the Guardian, he argues the Iraq Inquiry needs to show more openess:

I have published all my witness submissions to the Hutton inquiry and Butler review on the Iraq Inquiry Digest website to add to public understanding of the two issues on which I feel best qualified to comment: weapons of mass destruction and intelligence analysis. These are complicated matters, and there is a risk that the Chilcot inquiry will miss significant facts.
So far the inquiry has provided precious little documentary evidence as background to its hearings. It is not clear whether this is the inquiry's decision or a consequence of the protocols imposed by the government. However, the result is that there is uncertainty about the sources the inquiry is using and the assumptions it may be making about their evidence.
Such uncertainty is likely to inhibit those who might be inclined to offer additional insights to the inquiry, because potential witnesses are unsure whether the inquiry is already aware of the information they know about. There may also be some reluctance to submit complicated information through a secretariat whose loyalties are unclear and that may decide to prevent public release under one or other of the exclusions offered by the protocols. I hope that others who provided written evidence to previous inquiries might be encouraged to disclose them for public scrutiny.

In the opening to the [PDF format warning] statement he's released, he argues for various reforms regarding intelligence analysis and the communication of it. Reports going up the chain are not, he argues, always properly appraised due to a lack of knowledge in the higher pools reviewing the reports. This makes it easier to misunderstand and also easier to distort what the data actually states. We'll note this re: Iraq from his statement:

At the time of the production and issue of the Prime Minister's dossier on Iraq's WMD in September 2002 and up to my retirement in January 2003 there was no convincing evidence that Iraq had nuclear weapons or even significantly progressed its programme following its dismantlement in the 1990s.
The evidence supporting the existence of an offensive CW [Conventional Weapons] and BW [Biological Weapons] capability was of a much lower order than in 1990. [. . .] there was no solid evidence of the continued existence of either capability or continuing programmes.

Jones then republish's his previous statements to both inquiries.

Today's witnesses were Lt Gen Frederick Viggers, Lt Gen Andrew Figgures, Hilary Synnott, Lt Gen Lamb and Maj Gen Andrew Stewart (link hs videos and transcript). John Chilcot is the chair of the Inquiry which started with Viggers and Figgures whom Chilcot identifed as "the Senior British Military Representatives in Iraq based in Baghdad". The two testified together and had no disagreements, even when asked such as by Committee Member Lawrence Freedman ("Can I just check with General Viggers, did you have that role in terms of liaison with the CPA as well?" "Absolutely."). The following section sums up their joint-testimony:

Commitee Member Lawrence Freedman: When you arrived, did you have any sense that -- had you been warned this is what you were going to face or did it become glaringly obvious on arrival?

Lt Gen Frederick Viggers: Yes, and I think before we came it was rather like going to the theatre to see one sort of play and realising you were watching a tragedy as the curtains come back. We suffered from the lack of any real understanding of the state of that country post-invasion. We had not done enough research, planning, into how the country post-santcions -- the country coming out of 30 years of the Ba'athist regime, the dynamics of the country, the cultures, the friction points between Sunni, Shia, Kurd, the malevolent influence of people from the region, none of that had really been thought through. So as this curtain came back, what we thought we were going to be dealing with, which was essentially a humanitarian crisis and a population willing to support us, was a long way from that.

The next grouping of witnesses did not offer a more organized picture of preparations or support. Maj Gen Andrew Stewart testified with Lt Gen Graeme Lamb and the former Coalition Provisional Authority South head Hilary Synnott. We'll note this section of Synott's testimony where he's speaking of having heard from Basara that things were "bleak" before he arrived.

Hilary Synnott: Once I got out there, this was very much confirmed: A pretty dysfunctional team of eight to ten different nationalities, very, very few British, three Foreign Office officials, one permanent DFID official and a lack of focus and a lack of capability. In a way, to me on the first night the taste of it was confirmed to me when I said, well, I have been asked by the Foreign Office to send at least a report a day. So I said, well, how do I report back? And there was nothing available. The phones didn't work, there were no mobile phones at that time and nobody had thought to provide me with any form of computer. So the Americans very kindly provided one and linked me through their computer network through Washington and the only way I was able to communicate with the Foreign Office was by setting up my own free computer link on Yahoo. And that became the main, and, indeed, only form of communication to London for some time. Fortunately -- I mean, what we agreed was that those reports should be taken off Yahoo and then circulated as Foreign Office telegrams, as coming from me. So that to me was a sort of indication of the sort of problems we had to face.

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: Not exactly a secure line?

Hilary Synnott: No. Actually, funnily enough when I called on the Prime Minister the day I left, at the Prime Minister's request, I had already heard there was no secure communication and I pointed this out, and the head of the JIC was present at that meeting and was not aware, he said, that there was no secure communications. But then, you know, up to that point it hadn't been a British-run arrangement.

Another key moment for that group of witnesses was the following.

Maj Gen Andrew Stewart: I think the biggest concern I had was the one that Graeme had had, which was the inability to meet the expectations of the Iraqi people, because retaining the consent of the Iraqi people there, we saw as my centre of gravity. I had to work within their country, they had to accept us and we just were never going to meet expectations. If I can give you a very quick example, walking through the souk, went to a white goods seller, "How many washing machines do you sell a week," I asked, because washing machines use electricity, they use water and they produce sewage. Three areas -- three of the four things we could not provide. He was selling 20 a day. So our ability to help the Iraqis by producing white goods for them at a cheap price was destroying our ability to help, and we were never going to meet that expectation. And I think it is -- that's something that we never really came to terms with. And if you think again about the Basrawi, he used to have under Saddam 18 to 20 hours' electricity a day; under us, because Baghdad was the centre of gravity and CPA saw that and it was, "We must sort Baghdad," they reduced from 18 to 20 hours a day to about 12 hours a day because electricity was being moved up to Baghdad. So life was getting worse for the Shia under us than it was getting better, and that was a real issue with how we, therefore -- all the commanders -- were focused on trying to talk to the major dealers, whether it was the clerics, whether it be the local heads of the SCIRI or Badr, to try to keep them on side, to say, "Look, this is how we are trying to help" because actually each day it was getting worse for them and actually we started to see that build up as time went by.

Lt Gen Graeme Lamb felt that CPA was not at all helpful and declared that ". . . Hilary's arrival was most welcome. I think we got on pretty well actually, but it is all in the delivery and I think in one of my reports I likened the CPA to dancing with a broken doll. It was a lot of effort, and in fact the department wasn't giving much in return. In fact they were making you look rather stupid." Lamb also found a way to compare Moqtada al-Sadr to the Stones, s "Those that followed Moqtadar himself, rock star status -- he could call out a large crowd a bit like the Rolling Stones".

The Iraq Inquiry is on MP John Prescott's mind. He's served in Parliament for nearly forty years now and was Tony Blair's Deptuy Prime Minister. He spoke with James Macintyre and Sophie Elmhirst (New Statesman):

Prescott makes his most outspoken comments yet about Iraq: "Listen, Bush is crap; you know it, I know it, the party knows it." He also recalls the conversations he observed between the then US president and Blair: "I did listen to some of the video links between Tony and Bush . . . and I mean, they can be hair-raising, because Bush has got his own kind of approach . . . It did make you think."
He went to see the then US vice-president, Dick Cheney, with Christopher Meyer, who at that time was Britain's ambassador to Washington ("bloody red socks, that idiot"), and was alarmed at the US administration's approach. He has since imagined how Blair might have stood up to Bush, musing: "I've often thought, 'Well, you could have just said: Sod you . . . we're not doing it.'"
He acknowledges that the Chilcot inquiry is essential, but suspects it still will not be enough for those who want to see Blair punished. Even though Prescott will not be called to give evidence, the inquiry is forcing him to reflect on his and his colleagues' roles in the run-up to the war. He is clear about the suggestion that the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, was bullied by Blair into giving his approval of the war: "If you say, 'Was Goldsmith a happy man about this?' - no, he wasn't." He clarifies his position, arguing: "That's quite different from saying, 'No, I'm sorry, my view is that it's illegal, I'm not supporting it.'"

Forcing him to reflect or to rewrite?

TV notes. Friday on most PBS stations (check local listings), NOW on PBS asks: "Why are we sending thousands of military personnel to Guam?"Over the next five years, as many as 30,000 servicemembers and their families will descend on the small island of Guam, nearly tripling its presence there. It's part of a larger agreement that the U.S. signed with Japan to realign American forces in the Pacific, but how will this multi-billion dollar move impact the lives and lifestyle of Guam's nearly 180,000 residents? On Friday, December 11 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW on PBS travels to the U.S. territory of Guam to find out whether their environment and infrastructure can support such a largeand quick infusion of people, and why the buildup is vital to our national security.This Sunday the History Channel airs The People Speak, Anthony Arnove notes it's "the long awaited documentary film inspired by Howard Zinn's books A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States." It airs Sunday, December 13th at 8:00pm EST and 7:00 Central (8:00pm Pacific as well):

Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, the documentary feature film THE PEOPLE SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history, forging a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice.Narrated by acclaimed historian Howard Zinn and based on his best-selling books, A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History, THE PEOPLE SPEAK illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our society today and reminds us never to take liberty for granted.THE PEOPLE SPEAK is produced by Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Anthony Arnove, and Howard Zinn, co-directed by Moore, Arnove and Zinn, and features dramatic and musical performances by Allison Moorer, Benjamin Bratt, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Robinson, Christina Kirk, Danny Glover, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, David Strathairn, Don Cheadle, Eddie Vedder, Harris Yulin, Jasmine Guy, John Legend, Josh Brolin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Lupe Fiasco, Marisa Tomei, Martín Espada, Matt Damon, Michael Ealy, Mike O'Malley, Morgan Freeman, Q'orianka Kilcher, Reg E. Cathey, Rich Robinson, Rosario Dawson, Sandra Oh, Staceyann Chin, and Viggo Mortensen.

iraq
xinhua anne tang afp prashant rao
the washington post ernesto londono
the times of london
oliver august
the christian science monitor jane arraf
the los angeles times ned parker raheem salman usama redha the daily mirror kpfa robert knight flashpoints radio the pacifica evening news glenn reeder kpfk cbs news charlie d'agata michael jansen the irish times alsumaria the cbs evening news with katie couric katie couric pbs the newshour gwyn ifill
mu xuequan
npr
morning edition corey flintoff
mcclatchy newspapers sahar issa
warren p. strobel
the guardian julian borger
now on pbs anthony arnove howard zinn

The underserving

2009-12-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

In Sunday's "Roundtable" at Third, I talk about a topic a number of you have e-mailed asking me to blog about. I'm not in the mood to. So refer to the roundtable. I'm just not in the mood and foul language would be every other word. In other news, Glenn Thrush (Politico) reports that only 26% of Americans believe Barack deserves the Nobel Peace Prize according to the latest Quinnipiac poll.

I can't believe that.

I can't believe that 26% are so uninformed.

Barack's done nothing to win a peace prize. A War Hawk prize? Absolutely.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is a joke and now they're going to look like a joke. If they had any sense, they'd withdraw the award. It's an embarrassment for them as well.

My goodness, do you realize how cult-like the US had become? It still is but not as bad as it was a few months ago. Do you remember the hurt, tearful call ins against US House Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting "You lie!" during Barry's big speech?

I think "You lie!" should be shouted when any president speaks.

Barack's cratering. Maybe we've grown up some as a country. Or maybe the zombie juice just wore off.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, December 8, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Baghdad adds "Bloody Tuesday" to its "Bloody Sunday" and "Bloody Wednesday" as multiple bombings rock the city and lead to over 120 dead, the Iraq Inquiry continues with some contradicatory testimonies, Tony Blair loves HBO's Taxi Cab Confessions, Iraq's got an election date and the butterscotch floats from the sun on gentle rays of . . . oh, they've changed the date already -- again! -- and more.

Last night Betty was confronting the latest wave of Operation Happy Talk the press has been pimping, noting how little attention Monday's school bombing in Baghdad was receiving, "But if you've followed the waves of it, you know that the children (dead and wounded) won't get much attention at all due to the fact that this is what happens in the aftermath of a wave. The reporters look the other way. Over and over. Until forced to admit reality. And they're always loathe to admit reality." Until they're forced to. Which would be today. Martin Chulov (Guardian) reports multiple bombings in Baghdad today which "have again exposed how vulnerable Iraqi institutions re to targeted bombings". Based on police sources, Al Jazeera put the death toll at 112 with 200 more people left injured. Their correspondent Zeina Khodr states:We just spoke to a high raking official who said he was worried that the security forces were infiltrated. This is a blow to the security forces and prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is running for re-election on a platform that he has improved security across the country. Attacks have become part of daily life, not only in Baghdad, but across the country. Security is not only fragile, it is deteriorating.The Telegraph of London (link has text and video) offers, "Some police sources said there had been five explosions, two near judicial buildings, one near a university, another near in a central Baghdad commercial district and the earlier one in the south. Smoke billowed from at least two sites." Steven Lee Myers and Marc Santora (New York Times) count 121 dead and also go with five explosions, three of which they state were suicide bombings. Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) states the targets included the Ministry of the Interior, "a court building and the temporary home of the finance ministry". The Washington Post offers a photo essay here. Jamal Hashim and Ghassan Awad (Xinhua) reconstruct the bombings stating the first one was aimed at the Finance Ministry and was a car bombing, followed by a car bombing targeting the Interior Ministry, then another car bombing targeting the court house, a mini-bus bombing then exploded "near the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs" (the fifth bombing, according to the reporters, took place at a police checkpoint and was a suicide bomber). Chip Cummins (Wall St. Journal) observes, "The intensity of the blasts and their quick succession -- some spaced just minutes apart -- suggested a coordinated bombing campaign." Oliver August (Times of London) explains the cars didn't all just show and wait to explode: "A blue van charged through a checkpoint in western Baghdad just after 10am, ran over a security guard while his colleague fired at the windscreen, and raced through an alley of concrete blast walls. It then ploughed through a second barrier, crashing into the parking lot of the al-Karkh courthouse and exploding on impact." Natalia Antelava (BBC News -- link has text and video) emphasizes, "All five explosions targeted symbols of this state. Not only ministries but also a university and Baghdad's Institute of Fine Arts."

Ammar Karim and Prashant Rao (AFP) describe the scene, "Mangled wrecks of cars, some of which had been flipped over, lined the street opposite the courthouse, and several vehicles in the parking lot were crushed by collpased blast walls." Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) captures the trauma and quotes a Ministry of Defense employee begging for help, "My son is at school. I don't know if he's dead or alive." At Global Post, Arraf explains, "Iraqi civil defense workers loaded body bags of at least 10 people killed in the blast into ambulances while rescue workers frantically turned over piles of bricks, flinging them aside with their bare hands looking for survivors. [. . .] A judge with building dust on his suit wandered through the rubble. On a nearby street, children evacuated from a school with its windows blown out waited in a minibus for someone in charge to take them home." Ned Parker and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) quote shopkeeper Abu Haidar stating, "I never felt so scared in my life. I lived through wars and served in the military, but today was so terrifying. Many people were killed and wounded. Men, women, police and children who sell things, all were killed and injured." Oliver August quotes worker Ahmed Jowad stating, "The glass and windows were blown in as we ducked under the tables because of the shooting but then were thrown across the room. We couldn't get out because there was a fire. Smoke and dust everywhere. Later I saw all the dead bodies in the yard, the young lawyers. I heard screaming and helped people crawl out of the building." Also commenting, Jane Arraf notes, is Paliament which "demanded that the prime minister and senior security officials come in to explain why security forces were unable to prevent the bombings." Marc Santora and Steven Lee Myers quote the spokesperson for Ayad Allawi stating, "The government always forms investigation committees after each explosion, but it comes up with nothing later." Nizar Latif (The National Newspaper) quotes the Parliament's head of the security commission, Hadi al Amri, stating, "We have already sent a formal message to Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki saying that the current security plan has failed. It is clear that we need a new security plan. There have been consistent warnings that government and civilian targets will be increasingly attacked in the run-up to the national elections, but insufficient action has been taken to stop those attacks." At the United Nations today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon was asked his reaction to the bombings and he replied, "I am very shocked, and I condemn in the strongest terms possible, this just unnaceptable, horrendous terrorist bombings against civilians. This must be stopped, and my spokesperson will issue a formal statement on this." As was to be expected, Nouri's spokesperson addressed the press and blamed al Qaeda in Iraq and Ba'athists. The Daily Mirror notes, "Iraqi officials blamed the August and October attacks on al Qaida in Iraq and loyalists of the Baath Party -- even bringing out three suspects on national television who gave what officials termed confessions." Ron Jacobs (CounterPunch) observes:

Like most of the rest of the bombings in Iraq in 2009, the bombers remain a mystery, although the government has blamed Baathists for the October attacks and some US officials speculate whether or not some of the others should be attributed to their favorite bogeyman -- Al Qaida in Iraq. Unlike many of the attacks during the heat of the conflict in Iraq, many of these recent attacks are targeting heavily defended government agencies. If these attacks are the work of the Iraqi insurgency and one places these bombings in the frameowrk of the rest of the conflict in Iraq, they seem to symbolize a resurgence of the insurgency. If one further considers the nature of guerrilla war, these spectacular attacks represent a new phase in the insurgents war against the government.

Various reports note Bloody Wednesday (August) and Bloody Sunday (October) -- two Baghdad attacks resulting in huge deaths earlier this year. Chris Floyd (Empire Burlesque) notes, "After you have taken a moment to mull this unspeakable rending of human lives -- not just the individuals who were killed but also the lifelong, lacerting grief of their survivors -- a rending which is a direct result of an American invasion and occupation that not only loosed a sevage sectarian war in the shattered conquered land but also actively abetted it at every turn, go back and read the last paragraph of that excerpt again. The worst attack in -- not years, not decades -- but mere weeks. In other wrods, it's hardly been a month since the last time, of many times, over and over, like clockwork, that dozens of people were ripped to shreds in the American-caused, American-abetted, American-supported civil wars in Iraq."

Meanwhile CNN quotes Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission's Faraj al-Haidari stating, "After intensive discussion with the presidential council we've all agreed on March 6, 2010 to be the new date for parliamentary elections." Marc Santora and Steven Lee Myers also report March 6th and credit it to the Presidency Council. So there you have it, parliamentary elections March 6th, Iraq's installed government has finally reached a conclusion and the matter is . . . What's that. Oh. Never mind. Not only does the date still have to be approved by the Presidency Council but it's already been changed. Suadad al-Salhy, Mohammed Abbas, Ayla Jean Yackley, Aseel Kami, Waleed Ibrahim, Ahmed Rasheed, Michael Christie and Noah Barkin (Reuters) report it is not supposedly and/or allegedly set to take place March 7th after Kurds pointed out that March 6, 1975 was when Saddam Hussein signed a treaty with the Iranian government that "marginalised" the Kurds. So for now, let's just keep calling them 'intended' elections.

Turning to some of today's other reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Jenan Hussein (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which left four people injured, an Anbar Province roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 police officer and left the man's mother wounded and wounded two children and, dropping back to Monday, a Falluja sticky bombing which claimed the life of 1 Ministry of Interior employee and left a second man wounded.

Shootings?

Jenan Hussein (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 police officer shot dead in Mosul.

Meanwhile in England, the Iraq Inquiry continues hearing public testimony. The Scottish National Party released the following:

As the Chilcot Inquiry entered its third week, more figures involved in the run up to the invasion discredit the Labour Government's case for invasion.
On Monday, the Inquiry heard first from Sir Suma Chakrabarti, then permanent secretary at the epartment for International Development, who said concerns about both the legality and the wider political legitimacy of the conflict were "inhibiting factors". He said that Ministerial secrecy had inhibited the UK's ability to plan for post-war reconstruction.
He was followed by Sir John Scarlett who was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the invasion and went on to become chief of MI6 --despite controversy over his role in drawing up the notorious dossier on Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.
Sir John has acknowledged Tony Blair's spin doctor Alastair Campbell gave advice on the document's presentation. He confirmed to the Inquiry that Ministers had been alerted to the doubt over the functionality of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction days before the invasion.
His appearance before the Inquiry came as a Conservative MP alleged that the 45-minute claim came from "a cab driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border".
Commenting, Mr [Angus] Robertson said:
"The contents and construction of Tony Blair's dodgy dossier are well known, and now Sir John Scarlett's evidence to the Chilcot inquiry adds to the damning dossier building up against those who took us to war.
"With each evidence session, the men who took us into the worst foreign policy disaster in modern times -- Tony Blair and Gordon Brown -- are implicated more and more.
"Instead of hearing from aides and advisors, it's time we heard from the men who sexed up the evidence and took us to war on a lie.
"This inquiry will be judged on the answers that it provides and the public deserve to hear the real story about a war fought in their name from the men who took us there."

Before we get to the Iraq Inquiry, they're referring to the charges that a senational claim (used to lie England into war) came from a cab driver. The BBC reports that British MP Adam Holloway is stating that the false claim that Saddam Hussein had the capability to launch a chemical attack on England "within 45 minutes came from a taxi driver in Iraq". Michael Evans (Times of London) explains: "Adam Holloway, a former army officer and Conservative MP for Gravesham, told The Times last night that he had been given information that the taxi driver's recollections of the conversation in the back of his taxi had helped to form part of the dossier. The controversial dossier was published in September 2002 and supported the Government's case for invading Iraq the following March." Matthew Moore (Telegraph of London) also stresses the dismissals, "Intelligence officers who looked into the missile claims decided the taxi driver's information was 'demonstrably untrue', as they made clear in the footnote of a report presented to Downing Street. However it appears that their scepticism was ignored, as the claim was included in the notorious briefing document on Iraq's weapons programmes released by Alistair Campbell, the press secretary of then Prime Minister Tony Blair, in an attempt to build support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003."

Today the Iraq Inquiry heard from five witnesses Suma Chakrabarti, Dominick Chilcott, John Scarlet, Brian Burridge and Robin Brims (link has video and transcript). Last Thursday, the Inquiry heard from Michael Boyce whose testimony included that he was prevented from buying needed equipment, that he stressed to the Blair government the importance of a strong legal foundation for the war and that the US did not appear to take qualifiers from the British seriously. John Chilcot is the chair of the inquiry. From today's hearing.

Chair John Chilcot: So here we are on the ground in Iraq. It is late May onwards. We have had heard from Lord Boyce sort of two rather almost contrary messages. One is that he told us the other day that he found DFID particularly uncooperative. On the other hand, he said that DFID had excellent operators on the ground, but they were told to sit in a tent and not do anything. It would be useful to have a perspective from yourself and DFID about those relationships and, indeed, does that engage the personalities involved between, for example, Clare Short and Lord Boyce?

Suma Chakrabarti: I am afraid I think it does go to the heart of some personality tensions. But let's address his two points first. I think there was absolutely no instruction -- to categorrically state -- from either Secretary of State Short or Secretary of State Amos, who overlapped with the CDS very briefly, or from me or from any senior official in DFID for anyone to sit in their tents and do nothing. I have also taken the liberty of actually checking with those people who were in those tents from DFID, they actually can't remember meeting Lord Boyce. But more importantly, perhaps, they didn't say anything of that of sort to anybody. What they would say -- I think this is an important lesson learned -- is that some of the deployments into the UK military should have happened earlier, linked to an early opening of the operational planning side of the military, and there probably should have been more of them, military advisers into the UK military at the time. That I would agree with. But those two points he made, from my perspective are incorrect. But I think -- the point I think is there is a personality issue here. I don't know Lord Boyce well but he had a navy background, so he hadn't had experience of working with DFID, unlike people in the army like Tim Cross. The relationship didn't get off to a great start in December when Clare Short rang him up to ask for the opening-up of the operational security barrier and planning. It didn't get improved when they were in War Cabinet together and she would give the ICRC view on what was happening particularly in Baghdad -- actually not in the UK sector, in the US sector -- about humanitarian access to hospitals and so on. The ICRC was finding it very difficult and Lord Boyce didn't agree with that take given the information he was receiving from the UK military. Then she actually wrote to him on 9 April making the same points and asking him to take up those points with [US] General [Tommy] Franks. On the DFID files there is no reply, but maybe there was. So I don't think the relationship was great.
That was the key point of Suma Chakrabarti's testimony, refuting Boyce's. Also testifying in the morning was Dominick Chilcott (no relation to Chair John Chilcot, as Chilcot pointed out) and he testified that the US and UK both failed to plan for southern Iraq (which the UK would end up with in the early years of the war).

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: So there was never really a clear decision on this. It kind of happened organically --

Dominick Chilcott: That's my reading of the papers, and there may be things that I haven't seen that are more definitie, but I haven't seen anything --

Commitee Member Roderic Lyne: But it was clearly agreed between our military commanders and the American commanders in charge of the whole operation that the British will go in and they will do the south, the Al Faw peninsula, Basra and so on, what you are really saying was it was an unintended, unplanned consequence of that that bit by by we found ourselves taking more and more control of the civil administration in the south. And by definition, therefore, we couldn't really have been properly geared up to do that because ministers had not take a clear decision that that's what we are going to do?

Dominick Chilcott: Correct. That's absolutely correct.

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: You have said that more clearly than I think anybody else has said to us up to this point.

John Scarlett chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee from 2001 through 2004 and he testified in the afternoon. Boyce had noted last Thursday that US officials seemed unable to hear the warnings that there would be problems on the ground. Scarlett's testimony today was similar but with regards to the British. Commitee Member Lawrence Freedman questioned him on the dossier making the case that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons he could launch on England within 45 minutes. Freedman asked whether qualifiers should have been used more since the foreword contained a [weak] qualifier and that was it for the lengthy dossier which was then interpreted by others who may or may not have been qualified to interpret it. (Certainly Tony Blair benefitted from that and lied and misled.) Scarlett stated that he made "blunt assessments" to Blair back in February 2003. He stated his "assessment about the south did make clear the risk of serious disorder, serious -- revenge attacks against the regime, serious humanitarian issues potentially and made the point that it could not be taken for granted that the post-Saddam administration would automatically have this sort of popular support." He stated he couldn't quote back Tony Blair's reaction, he didn't recall it. But if he was warning Blair of these issues, it would not appear Blair listened by Blair's later actions.

Air Chief Marshall Brian Burridge and Lt Gen Robin Brims finished out today's testimony.

Comittee Member Martin Gilbert: Sir Brian, I wonder if you would tell us about your relationship with General Franks, when it began and when you first began to discuss Iraq planning with him?

Air Chief Marshall Brian Burridge: Okay. I first met General Franks in this guise on 17 April 2002. [C.I. note: Discusses Afghanistan and other issues at length.] . . . We moved on to Iraq only briefly. We were discussing in particular the No Fly Zones. You may recall that at that stage the Iraqis were being quite robust in seeking to entice coalition aircraft into what we regarded as SAM traps, surface-to-air missile traps, and we discussed that at some length. And then I said what are your thoughts about intervention in Iraq, and he said there is always an if, but it is true to say that the US armed forces, particularly the US air force, need about 18 months to reconstitute, rebuild weapons stocks, retrain, et cetera.

[. . .]

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: Going back to the summer of 2002, when you began to talk about Iraq in some detail, what in particular did you feel the Americans wanted from us? Were these specific commitments that they would like us to make? What level of commitment?

Air Chief Marshal Brian Burridge: General Franks came through London, as I recall, in mid May and he had an informal meeting with the Chiefs of Staff, at which I was present. And at that point he said something along the lines of in terms of Iraq, it is not if but when, and that was really the first time I had heard him say anything with that degree of certainty. In terms -- and he added that, in very non-specific terms, we very much hope the UK will be alongside us. We then -- it was probably late June when we started at the operational headquarters of the single services, Land Command, Strike Command and Fleet. We created comparments of a very few people, ten people in the case of Strike Command, to begin options planning for Iraq.

Burridge stated there was not enough civilian support. Asked about that, he referred the issue over to Robin Brims.

Lt Gen Robin Brims: I don't think -- and I could be wrong, but I don't think during my time in Basra I received any UK finance to help the reconstruction at that stage. I think that the initial finance to help the reconstruction all came from Baghdad, ie it was American or it was Iraqi money from Baghdad coming down, for example to pay policeman.

TV notes. This Sunday the History Channel airs The People Speak, Anthony Arnove notes it's "the long awaited documentary film inspired by Howard Zinn's books A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States." It airs Sunday, December 13th at 8:00pm EST and 7:00 Central (8:00pm Pacific as well):

Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, the documentary feature film THE PEOPLE SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history, forging a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice.Narrated by acclaimed historian Howard Zinn and based on his best-selling books, A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History, THE PEOPLE SPEAK illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our society today and reminds us never to take liberty for granted.THE PEOPLE SPEAK is produced by Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Anthony Arnove, and Howard Zinn, co-directed by Moore, Arnove and Zinn, and features dramatic and musical performances by Allison Moorer, Benjamin Bratt, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Robinson, Christina Kirk, Danny Glover, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, David Strathairn, Don Cheadle, Eddie Vedder, Harris Yulin, Jasmine Guy, John Legend, Josh Brolin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Lupe Fiasco, Marisa Tomei, Martín Espada, Matt Damon, Michael Ealy, Mike O'Malley, Morgan Freeman, Q'orianka Kilcher, Reg E. Cathey, Rich Robinson, Rosario Dawson, Sandra Oh, Staceyann Chin, and Viggo Mortensen.

Lastly, independent journalist David Bacon probes the effects of the state's budget cuts in "THE HUMAN FACE OF BUDGET CUTS" (ZNet): Cesar Cota was the first in his family to attend college. "Now it's hard to achieve my dream," he says, "because the state put higher fees on us, and cut services and classes." Cota, a student at LA City College, was encouraged by the internship program of the LA College Faculty Guild to describe the human cost of budget cuts in he community college system. David Robinson, who's worked since he was 14, hoped he'd get automotive mechanic training, and a good job at the end of it. "But by cutting these programs and raising fees," he says, "you're cutting opportunity for a lot of people who need it." Another endangered student is Tina Vinaja, a mother of three teenagers whose husband took a weekend job to help pay her tuition hikes. Monica Mejia, a single mom, wants to get out of the low-wage trap. "Without community college," she says, "I'll end up getting paid minimum wage. I can't afford the fee hikes. I can barely make ends meet now." LA City College even suspended its sports programs for a year. The school had a legendary basketball program that gave low-income students a pathway out of poverty. JaQay Carlyle says city college basketball sent him to UC Davis and on to law school. These students make up a small part of the picture of suffering engendered by the economic crisis in California's community college system. David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which just won the CLR James Award. Bacon can be heard on KPFA's The Morning Show (over the airwaves in the Bay Area, streaming online) each Wednesday morning (begins airing at 7:00 am PST).

iraq
the guardian
martin chulov
al jazeera zeina khodr
the new york times marc santora
steven lee myers xinhua ghassan awad
jamal hashim
richard spencer the telegraph of london
the times of london
oliver august
the christian science monitor jane arraf
the wall street journal chip cummins
bbc news natalia antelava
the los angeles times ned parker raheem salman
ron jacobs
chris floyd
the times of london michael evans
matthew moore
anthony arnove howard zinn
david bacon kpfa the morning show

Harry Reid and NPR -- two go nutty

2009-12-07T20:00:00.000-08:00

That's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "It Takes A Starlet." Today Harry Reid tried to use slavery to sell his bad non-health care, non-plan. This is from Glen Thursh (Politico):

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) upped the rhetorical ante this morning by comparing opponents of health care reform to conservatives who tried to block emancipation and equal rights -- prompting the Republican national chairman to question his sanity.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Reid blasted GOP leaders who have urged Democrats opt for a slower, incremental approach to reform instead of the mega-bill the majority hopes to push through the Senate by Christmas

Harry, I haven't seen you do a damn thing for any African-American. I've seen you try to humiliate Roland Burris. So don't use me or my family to sell your bad, bad non-health care, non-plan. We clear?

Meanwhile remember when the White House was attcking Fox News non-stop? Well new details emerge. Josh Gerstein (Politico) reports that while the White House was attacking Fox News, Anita Dunn was trashing Fox News to NPR at that time. The result?

Mara Liasson was taken to the woodshed for her work on Fox News. But she has a contract with them so it's too little, too late.

And that's how I feel about the whole thing. If NPR wanted to change things, they should have done something long ago. And though they deny that the White House was putting pressure on them, NPR clearly responded to the trash talk.

I'm not a fan of Mara's. But she's been on Fox for over 10 years now. It's too little too late. Leave the woman alone already.

And NPR needs to stop doing the White House's bidding. If you do not get how bad it is, Rahm Emanuel is referred to how on NPR?

Do you know?

"Rahm Emanuel." The second time? "Rahm Emanuel." The third and fourth time? "Rahm Emanuel." Every time. Why?

They'd been calling him, on air, in news reports: Rahm.

Get the feeling that NPR is overly friendly with the White House.

So a ruling came down and it was decided he would always be called "Rahm Emanuel."

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Monday, December 7, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, an election measure may lead to Iraq elections (not this month or next), the Iraq Inquiry continues in England, calls for an investigation into an Iraq-related death to be reopened are made in England, and more.

Asked in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire what she most dislikes, singer-songwriter Carly Simon responds, "War or anything to do with instruments of war, or war-like tendencies." Carly's latest album is Never Been Gone in which she revisist many of her best known songs (including "You're So Vain," "Anticipation," "Coming Around Again" and "Let The River Run") to find new nuances and shadings. (Kat praised the new album here.) We've got a 'heavy' snapshot so we'll open with Carly for that reason and also because friends at Van Fair have repeatedly asked for links in the past weeks and I haven't had time (for their pain). Staying with Carly for a minute more, as Kat noted Friday, Mike Ragogan (Huffington Post) interviewed her last week and here she's explaining the making of Never Been Gone:

It started in the summer of 2008, when I had been promoting This Kind Of Love which was the Starbucks album, and they had withdrawn Hear Music five days before my record was released. So I didn't have the marketing, I was riding on a horse and there was no horse under me. I was so unhappy, and it was embarrassing, and it was like, "Oh my god, what have I been doing for the last two years but writing this record, making this record, and being so proud of this record." But I was the horseless rider. So I was quite self-involved and indulgently so, and really depressed. It was the summertime and there were lots of people around my house -- Ben and his friends and a lot of musicians were up there working on a project with him. I couldn't be consoled I was so upset. Ben said to me, "Come on, let's turn this into productivity. We have all these musicians here, just sit down in the living room and play the songs the way you wrote them. Let's do an unplugged version," which you picked-up on in your review. There are no drums except for "You Belong To Me" and "No Freedom," we just didn't allow drums on the record, even on "You're So Vain" which was daunting to redo after it was my most popular song. But we did it and I really love the energy that was put into the song, and that really carries all the way through. It's got new vocal ideas, and I just think it's an inventive version.

Inventive was Barack's speech last week where he took Bully Boy's 'lyrics' and made them his own. Al Jazeera's latest Inside Iraq began airing Friday and the topic was Afghanistan and Jasim al-Azawi was joined by retired US General Richard Myers (former commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and current War pushed from the boards of Aon Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation and United Technologies Corporation) and Professor As'ad Abu Khalil of the University of California at Berkeley.

Jasim al-Azzawi: General Myers, let's call a spade a spade. In Iraq, pretty much the US army bought off those fighters from the Awakening Councils, you know, paid them salaries and said "Stop shooting at us." And overnight the fighting stopped. Are they going to do the same? Are they going to pour money at the Pashtuns?

General Richard Myers: You know, it's a good question. I don't -- I don't know what incentives will be used and how they'll be used. In that part of the world, money is often used as an incentive. But I mean, Iraq is far from being stable and far from being a sure bet that it's going to be successful. On the other hand, it's been relatively stable and we'll see if they can get through elections here -- coming in January, there's some question about that. But if they do, then I think whatever methods were used, you'll have to say, "Well those were successful."

Jasim al-Azzawi: As'ad Abu Khalil

As'ad Abu Khalil: Let me say the following. I notice that General Myers uses the word "stable" government in Iraq and this is the new lingo because of American officials. It was used by the Bush administration, it's being used by the Obama administration. Remember that we were promised an exemplary democracy in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Instead, we have created some of the most corrupt governments on the face of the earth. Don't take my word for it, look at the recent rank by Transparency International in London and you will find these two governments are literally among the most corrupt in the world. Plus, I want to take issue with the model of success by the revival council in Iraq. These are some of the most repressive, sexist and thuggish tribal councils that oppress women and want to impose traditional views on society. That is not the kind of alternative we need against the sexism and misogyny of the Taliban. Plus, he said that we are moving away from [US-installed Afghanistan 'president'] Hamid Karzai. I'm not sure that's the case. We are, in fact, using two tract policy. On the one hand, we are throwing more additional money -- taxpayers money -- to be embezzled and misused by the Hamid Karzai government and we're also, on the second tract, relying on new council like the so-called Kandahar Strike Council. That council is related to none other than the brother of Hamid Karzai. The notorious, corrupt person known as Ahmad Karzai. So it seems to me with that strategy, we are creating more corruption and we are giving more time for America's enemy to wait it out until the date of withdrawal. Obama is clearly emulating not only the policies and war actions of the Bush administration, he's even copying the rhetoric, the empty rhetoric, that is out there --

Jasim al-Azzawi: As'ad Abu Khalil, let's give the general a chance to answer this.

General Richard Myers: I -- I think that's -- I think those comments are probably -- uh, uhm -- there's a lot of hyperbole in those comments, in my view. If you look at Iraq and Afghanistan, they both adopted -- their citizens both adopted what most people consider liberal constitutions and yet -- it's not playing out, they've elected these governments. Certainly there is corruption but that's not new to that particular region and that's something that has to be worked on daily and I think the president [Barack Obama] said they were going to work on corruption. I know in my conversation with Adm [Mike] Mullens --

Jasim al-Azzawi: That being the case, General Myers, corruption is still rampant in Iraq. How you're going to prevent in Afghanistan? As'ad Abu Khalil just alluded to the president's brother who is somehow in bed with all the corrupt people not to mention trafficking in narcotics.

General Richard Meyer: Well I think, Jasim, I think that's going to be one of the focuses of the strategy in Afghanistan -- is to hold people accountable and, if there's corruption, to hold them accountable for that-that corruption. Now that's easily said, hard to do, but I think you're going to see that in the way both our military and-and the civilians. By the way, it's been little noticed but the embassy in Kabul is going to be increased from 320 staff earlier this year, in January of this year, to about 1,000 by the end of this month and a lot of those people will be deployed to the provinces and a lot of them, I think, will be trying to mentor --

Jasim al-Azzawi: Then again, General, you know the number of US officials in Baghdad was increased, I don't know how many folds. Maybe twenty, thirty. It's the biggest embassy in the world and yet corruption is rampant in Iraq.

As'ad Abu Khalil: 700 additional diplomats are not going to do the job just as 30,000 additional troops are not going to do the job. And just let me say for the record to the audience I would never refer to the government set up in Iraq as a liberal democracy. A constitution that was devised by a Grand Ayatollah who is inspired by Iran and who has not left his house except once in seven years is not a liberal democrat. And I think people in the region are clearly not impressed with whatever set-up -- sectarian, religious, traditional, and sexist government set up in both places. Again, go back to Transparency International. I take my clues from there.

The broadcast offers a look at and fact check on Barack's speech and Myers objects to the terms "colonize" and "occupation." He foolishly rejects both. For the record, it is an occupation and there was no reason for Myers to make an idiot out of himself on international television. The UN approved (after the war started) the occupation (they never approved the war), the UN mandate that was repeatedly renewed until the end of 2008.

He also expressed foolishness when he spoke of January elections when those have been off for some time. Saturday AFP reported that the Iraqi Parliament adjourned today because they did not have a quorum despite the session being called by President Jalal Talabani. Then Sunday night, ten minutes before midnight, the Parliament passed (another) election measure which still has to go before the presidency council (like the last one) and will become law only if it is not vetoed. Warren P. Strobel and Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) did the best job reporting on the developments. They not only provided the details of what happened just before midnight, they provide the details of what happened before and they explain, "While agreements have been reached in the past only to fall apart, there were high hopes that this one would stick. Hashimi withdrew his veto threat early Monday morning." Ned Parker and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) quote Tariq al-Hashimi (Iraq's Sunni vice president) stating on satellite TV, "All of our demands have been achieved. The displaced people have been treated fairly, the value of people inside and outside Iraq are the same. I am happy because of this accomplishment and I consider it a historic day in building the modern Iraq." Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) quotes a statement issued by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today, "The secretary-general congratulates the Iraqi Council of Representativeson finalizing amendments to the Election Law and commends Iraqi leaders and parliamentarians for overcoming their differences and reaching a compromise. The way is now paved to hold national elections in Iraq on a date to be determined by the Iraqi Presidency Council. The secretary-general firmly believes that these elections will be an important step forward for Iraq's political and democratic process." In a sign of just how incompetent the US 'diplomatic' mission is in Iraq, Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) reports today that "uncertainty over" the vote had "US Ambassador Christopher Hill rushing back from Washington" -- along with not grasping that he goes by Chris -- officially, he is Chris Hill -- Arraf doesn't grasp that this is a huge detail and instead buries it in a puff piece. (It is puff -- Barack has no pull with the KRG. It was their 45 minute phone call with Joe Biden that sealed the Kurdish agreement to the deal. And it's nice that she's been led off the trail -- nice for the White House and other interests. The following paragraph is word for word from last night.

Parker and Salman note that the Kurdish Regional Government extracted a promise from the US that a census would take place in the coming year. Presumably, the promise had some form of 'teeth' to it since the US has long promised that the Constitutionally mandated census would take place and yet, year after year, it has not. The KRG is aware of that and presumably would not fall for yet another round of pretty words. If that is indeed the case, one wonders how the press will report on this issue since Barack and Bully Boy Boy Bush both asserted Iraq was a sovereign nation -- that was the whole point of ending the UN mandate (it truly was -- as a sovereign nation, Iraq could start the tag sales on their assets that they couldn't while under UN supervision). If Iraq's a sovereign nation and since Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, has been the road block to a census since 2006, what did the US government promise the KRG this time that convinced them? The tensions between Baghdad and the KRG aren't exactly secret nor is the tremendous ill will towards Nouri from the KRG a secret. So if he's the roadblock and he's hoping to be the prime minister (elected by Parliament) again after the elections, what did the US promise the KRG, how did they convince the KRG that it would be different in 2010 then it has been in the last three years?

Dorothy Parker once said you can lead a horticultural but you cannot make her think -- true as well of the press which has a huge story staring it in the face but either can't see it or is on orders to refuse to see it. I have no idea which. People often ask, in DC when the gossip is flying, "Why don't reporters report on ____?" Because they're not able to either because they're so easily distracted or because their superiors won't let them. The big story is what the US government promised the KRG. I said it last night and said it for a reason. I can lead you to the water but I'm not putting in your mouth, kids. Let's note something.

The United States welcomes the resolution adopted December 6 by Iraq's Council of Representatives regarding the election law. This legislative action will allow Iraq to hold national elections within Iraq's constitutional framework. It is a decisive moment for Iraq's democracy and we congratulate the Iraqi people and their elected representatives. As part of the ongoing U.S. dialogue with the Iraqi leadership, the President and Vice President spoke on the morning of December 6 with Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani. The President and the Vice President confirmed the U.S. commitment to a long-term relationship with Iraq, including the KRG.

You say, "Uh, it's the White House's official statement. And?" Click here and you go the KRG's website where that statement is posted in full. No, that is not common for the KRG's website. In fact, it's highly uncommon. You need to start using your brain because obviously you can't count on the press.

Though the press in the US has never been perfect, even as late as the 1980s, you could still count on the press to ask: What deals were made and how?

Apparently we need a sports star with a scandal or a woman willing to pose topless to get some attention to the deal that was struck. A deal was struck. Leaving aside what was all the talk in DC, we all know Barack has no pull with the KRG. We all know Joe was put in charge of Iraq -- after Barry's handpicked two-some failed (that's not a reference to Hillary, Iraq was never assigned to her) -- because the KRG trusted him and he had a solid relationship with them. Anyone who paid attention to pre-war and early war issues knows that the US used the KRG for the Iraq War and knows that the KRG agreed with the understanding that not only would Saddam Hussein be removed from office but also the KRG would stand to benefit. The Bush administration repeatedly broke key promises -- the PKK issue is what forever broke the trust the KRG had in the Bush administration. Barack, as senator or as president, has never had anything to do with the Kurdish issue and spent the bulk of his time -- on his for show trips to Iraq in 2008 and 2009 -- attempting to woo Nouri. Barack has no pull with the KRG. Joe Biden they trust. Barack spoke to them, but Barack offered pretty words and promises. It took Joe to sell them on the promises. The issue for the press should be what was promised?

"A census!" shout some. Uh, a census has been promised forever. In fact, the 2005 Iraq Constitution requires one. How did the US government convince the KRG that a census would take place in 2010? The press needs to be asking that question. Again, when sides in any conflict suddenly agree, the immediate question for a working press is always: What deals were made? That's the question that's not being asked and it's the most important question -- far more important than the elections. Iraq didn't fix its Constitutional crisis (or stop being a Failed State) by possibly passing a measure that will allow elections to take place AFTER the Constitutionally mandated deadline for them to be held. The elections had to take place at some point. And they will. Maybe with this measure, maybe with another. But to get this measure signed off on, deals were made.

The KRG feels (rightly or wrongly) that they have given and given and no one has lived up to the bargain on the other side. That is their attitude. They feel the previous administration made a ton of promises and it is the PKK issue that (still) most enrages them because it was supposed to be dealt with (by the US) in 2003. That didn't happen. They have a relationship of trust with Joe Biden but that relationship can go down the toilet if promises aren't kept. So the US public has a right to know what was promised? We have a right to know because if the promises aren't delivered what keeps being pimped by the press as "stability" in Iraq is going to get even worse.

Nouri has been the thing preventing the census. How can the US government promise the KRG that a census will take place? It hasn't thus far and it's in Iraq's Constitution. The census would especially effect Kirkuk -- a disputed territory sought by the central government in Baghdad (who asserts that it is not a predominately Kurdish population in the area) and by the KRG (who asserts that it is historically Kurdish and point out the Kurds were forced out by Saddam Hussein). Liz Sly (Los Angeles Times) reports new construction is ongoing in oil-rich Kirkuk with Kurds constructing new homes. The Kurds want Kirkuk. They may or may not deserve it and they may or not end up getting it. But when the US government discussed "census" with the KRG, you better believe the KRG representatives and president brought up Kirkuk. What was promised? More importantly, what was the KRG led to believe?

If these promises aren't backed up, if these become failed promises, Iraq's going to see a lot more trouble and, despite press claims otherwise, Iraq hasn't been stable. You take the region that's been the most stable -- by comparison -- and you anger its government? It's government that already distrusts the current Iraqi Prime Minister (Nouri) and has nothing but ill will towards most of the Baghdad ministries? It's not going to be pretty.

Did someone say violence?Bombings?Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which wounded four people, a Baghdad sticky bombing which claimed 1 life and wounded five people and a bombing in Ali Yassir middle school which claimed the lives of 7 children and left "41 others" wounded. Reuters says the school death toll was 4 and 25 were wounded. Marc Santora and Duraid Adnan (New York Times) aren't specific on the death toll but explain, "Government officials gave contradictory school casualty figures, with the death toll varying from 1 to 15 children and the number of wounded from 41 to 56.

Shootings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 Sawha were shot dead at a Baghdad checkpoint.

Corpses?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the corpses of 2 Sahwa were discovered in Kirkuk. Marc Santora and Duraid Adnan (New York Times) state the two Sahwa were poisoned to death by unknown persons who offered them free food which the guards ended up sharing with their dogs. Both dogs died..

In England, the Iraq Inquiry continues hearing public testimony today. PA reports Edward Chaplin has testified this morning that the US refused to fund reconstruction in Basra adequately. Chaplin was the British Ambassador to Iraq in 2004 and it's interesting how his finger pointing at the US (I'm not denying the US has done appalling on reconstruction -- even worse, what they've overfunded has been waste; however, I believe we learned some of British's lack of funding for Basra last week). Chaplin's testimony can be seen as a diversion -- it is also far, far from the reasons the Inquiry was supposed to have been created -- why did England take part in the Iraq War? Along with Chaplin, the hearing heard from Maj Gen Tim Cross and Desmond Bowen today. Click here for video and transcript options for today's witnesses. And let's stick to Nothing-Was-Our-Fault Eddie Chaplin for a moment and with some of the most offensive remarks that the commitee has thus far heard.

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: Part of this, perhaps particularly relevant for British opinion was the start of hostage taking. So we had in this period the Kenneth Bigley and Margaret Hassan cases. How aware were you of the danger to British nationals in Baghdad?

Edward Chaplin: Very aware. And, indeed, I think if you looked at the travel advice at the time, it would be "don't come anywhere near this place". They were terrible incidents. I mean, terrible obviously for the families, but terrible for the embassy in the sense that we were very helpless. Kidnapping was widespread at the time. This was often criminals rather than political. Of course, as we have seen elsewhere, often criminal gangs will carry out kidnappings of what they think are valuable people, valuable in the sense that they can be sold on to some political group. And I don't think we know even now exactly who was behind either kidnapping. I would have to refresh my memory. I mean, they were different in the sense that Ken Bigley, we didn't even now. He hadn't even registered with the embassy, we didn't know he was there. He was working with these two Americans for a Gulf company. The first thing we knew of his existence was when the news of the kidnap came through. Margaret Hassan was different. In fact, I had met her before when I was Ambassador in Jordan because she worked for CARE Australia, a very effective NGO, one of the few working inside Iraq before and after the invasion. So I admired the work that she was doing and the embassy kept in touch. So that was, if you like, an even greater blow. But just to explain -- I don't know if you want to go into detail about this, but I probably cannot because what happens when a kidnapping of a British citizen takes place is you have set up a really discrete team because this needs 24-hours-a-day attention. So that team was led my deputy and we had a lot of support particularly coming out from London, experience negotiators and so on. So after the initial phase, my job was really to keep it in the minds of Iraqi ministers who we thought would could help, the army and the police and so on, and do whatever else I could do to help.

Commitee Member Lawrence Freedman: What sort of response did you get from --

Edward Chaplin: Very positive and, of course, this was raised all the way to Allawi himself and it was raised by ministers, but they didn't have the capacity to help very much, I don't think. And, of course, they were dealing at any one time with lots of other kidnappings.

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: We had no evidence oursevles of who was holding her?

Edward Chaplin: I think the assumption early on was it was a criminal gang of some sort, but we never got very far in pinning down exactly who was behind it and -- let alone having contacts that might lead to some progress.

Commitee Member Lawrence Freedman: And in the aftermath of her murder, we still seemed to have been in the dark as to what had happened and, indeed, where her body was.

Edward Chaplin: Some time later some of her clothes and possessions were found. We knew her husband as well, who stayed on in Baghdad. So we would see him from time to time. I don't know what the investigation -- continued investigation showed.

It takes a lot of nerve to speak of kidnapping victims and claim that you suffered from it -- you suffered as the family did. It takes even more nerve to do that when the kidnapped victims both ended up dead. That Edward Chaplin was ever put in charge of diplomacy anywhere is a puzzler. That he's so inept goes a long way towards explaining why Italy was able to rescue kidnapping victims, the US was able to and, thus far, the UK really doesn't have a record to point to with any pride in Iraq. Long before Chaplin got to Iraq, Margaret Hassan was already there so his it's-not-my-fault-we-warned-people-not-to-come-to-Iraq excuse is b.s. For him to claim to have known her and admired her work and yet to tell the committee today that he has no idea what was or wasn't found out about her death? That makes no sense. He's lying. Margaret Hassan was the most prominent kidnapping victim the UK had. To this day. As for his attempt to farm off any responsibility to his deputy -- Chaplin was still in charge. His deputy was his responsibility. Edward Chaplin is now an international embarrassment for the UK.

David Brown (Times of London) reports that both of Margaret Hassan's sisters were present at the inquiry and hoped to hear some details about their sister. He quotes Deidre Fitzsimons explaining, "We have been waiting years for the chance to hear what happened to my sister but she was worth so little that she received just three minutes. We came to find out the truth even though we were skeptical, because we were told this would not be a cover-up. We have been betrayed. The authorities did not do one thing to help her when she was kidnapped and they are now doing nothing to find out why. As for Ken Bigley, it was almost as if he didn't matter at all [by Chaplin's testimony]. He was an innocent man who was murdered for no reason."

Moving to another witness, Cross was in Iraq up until June 2003 and held the position of joint force logistic component commander before the war started. He also worked in DC with post-war planning. Committee Member Usha Prashar asked him about his visits to CentCom [US Central Command].

Maj Gen Tim Cross: My sense was this was a very joined-up headquarters, very well commanded and led with some very capable staff. They had been in place together as a team since 11th September, just before 11th September, they had planned and executed the initial operations in Afghanistan, they were now planning for possible operations in Iraq and, I think understandably, General [Tommy] Franks and his team, recognising that they would break as a team the following summer -- because inevitably normal postings and so forth would begin to kick in -- that they were pretty keen to get on with this. They had done a lot of hard work, they had been working 18 hours a day for months on these operations. So they were very --

Commitee Member Usha Prashar: You said "these operations", they were Afghanistan or are we looking towards Iraq?

Maj Gen Tim Cross: Both. They had been working long hours for Afghanistan and then in the post -- initial operations in Afghanistan and at the same time planning for operations in Iraq. They were, I think, tired, if I'm honest, but I'm not surprised. And I sense that there was a strong desire to move quickly in terms of Iraq, and I sense too in a broader sense -- and I got more of this in Washington -- that following military operations, there would be other things linked to what was then called the Global War on Terror.

Commitee Member Usha Prashar: But at that stage CentCom, was there any concentration on post-invasion planning or not?

Maj Gen Tim Cross: I wouldn't say there was concentration on it. The major force was making sure that should be operations in Iraq, the military campaign would win, would succeed, and from a personal point of view I had no problem with that. That's the prime purpose of this headquarters: it is to fight and to make sure they win. There are no prizes for coming second on the battlefield. So that was undoubtedly their prime concern. So far as Phase 4, post-war -- whatever words we want to use -- operations were concerned, there were some discussions. They had appointed a one-star brigade general to head up a task force, looking at aspects of this, an engineer, an American engineer. But if I'm honest -- and I remember one specific occasion when there was an attempt to introduce him to the assembled large number of very senior military officers. He really was -- he was not really welcomed into the team. This was a war fighting team and as far as they were concerned, this was not their major business.

Cross also testified that he and Jay Garner went to the United Nations together before the start of the Iraq War and "eventually we did go to New York for a day. We flew up very early in the morning, we spent a day with the UN and we saw both Lousie Frechette, who was then the deputy, and I would say 20 UN officials who sat in serried ranks opposite. There were only about five of us. And they were very, very strong on saying to Garner -- the main message was, 'You need to understand the legality of what you are into here. And if you end up as the occupying power, be quite clear what that means'." Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) reports of Cross:

In a written statement, he said he had briefed Tony Blair at No 10 on 18 March 2003, two days before the invasion.
"We talked for about 30 minutes or so. I was as honest about the positions as I could be, essentially briefing that I did not believe postwar planning was anywhere near ready," said Cross. "I told him that there was no clarity on what was going to be needed after the military phase of the operation, nor who would provide it.
"Although I was confident that we would secure a military victory, I offered my view that we should not begin that campaign until we had a much more coherent postwar plan."
Describing his meeting with Blair in oral evidence, Cross said: "He was engaged. I gave him the background of what we had been doing. We had a very sensible conversation. At the end of it I remember saying, in so many words, I had no doubt we will win in the military. I do not believe we are ready for postwar Iraq.
"He nodded and didn't say anything particular. I didn't expect him to look me in the eye and say, 'This is terrible, we are going to pull the whole thing off.' I was just one of a number of people briefing him."

More pressing news out of England involves two Iraqi males arrested in Iraq by the British military and handed over to the US "who then took them to Afghanistan in 2004," the BBC reports. The British actively took part in partnering with the US for rendition (kidnapping). Robert Verhaik (Independent of London) reports, "In February this year the former Defence Secretary, John Hutton, admitted that UK forces had captured two men in Iraq in February 2004, and handed them to US forces. In subsequent statements to parliament, the government revealed that in March 2004, British officials had become aware of the US intention to transfer the men from Iraq to Afghanistan." Reprieve is a United Kingdom human rights group and we'll note this from their press release:Reprieve's investigation reveals the identity of one man, Amanatullah Ali, together with damning evidence that the British government misled parliament and the public on the case.In February 2008, after years of government denials that the UK had been involved in any rendition operations, then-Secretary of State for Defence John Hutton announced to parliament that UK forces had captured two men in Iraq in February 2004, and handed them to US forces. In subsequent statements to parliament, the government revealed that in March 2004, British officials had become aware of the US intention to transfer the men from Iraq to Afghanistan.The British government admitted its complicity in a crime (kidnapping, otherwise called rendition), admitted it was wrong, and appeared to apologize. Yet the government will not identify the men, which would be most basic act that the government could do in order to reunite the men with their legal rights.Indeed, the British government has apparently taken no step over the past five years to ensure that they receive legal assistance.The day after Mr Hutton's statement to the House, Reprieve wrote to the Defence Secretary, asking him to identify the two men so that Reprieve lawyers – acting pro bono as always – could help make up for the regrettable involvement by the British government in this crime by acting for the men and their families and seek to secure their release.Despite the clear urgency of the situation, it took the UK government three months to reply. The Ministry of Defence wrote that they would not reveal the prisoners' names, taking the position that doing so would violate the prisoners's rights under the Data Protection Act. It is deeply disturbing that the MoD could apologize for our country's involvement in this wrongdoing, and yet refuse to assist to put matters right. Reprieve therefore embarked on an investigation.1) Britain's Iraq renditions and the legal consequences2) How Defence Secretary Hutton misled Parliament3) How the UK violated the MoU governing transfer of prisoners4) Why Mr Amanatullah urgently needs a lawyer5) Why Bagram Internment Facility makes us all less safe6) Further questions and timeline of events1) Britain's Iraq renditions and the legal consequencesOur complicated and expensive search for the identity of the men has covered three continents over six months. It now appears that the MoD statement to the House was factually incorrect on key points.Reprieve has now identified one of the men as Amanatullah Ali, and interviewed his family in a small village in the Pakistani Punjab. In his limited, and censored communications with his family he has told them that he was detained by the British, rather than the Americans; he has asked them to pray for his safe return, and to get him help. Amanatullah Ali is a fluent Arabic speaker. We have not been able to positively identify the second man, although our interviews with other released Bagram prisoners have gleaned some facts about him. He is apparently known as "Salahuddin". Significantly, he was brought up in the Gulf states (where the primary language is Arabic). "Salahuddin" has not been able to contact his family or even reassure them that he is alive. Reprieve has been told by multiple sources that as a result of his abuse in UK and US custody, "Salahuddin" is in catastrophic mental and physical shape, and now spends most of his time in the mental health cells at Bagram.Our claim is that the men must be formally identified, along with any information that could help us find their family members, so that we can seek a next friend authorization. This issue is now moot with respect to one of the men, but not the other.Furthermore, because the UK has been mixed up in the wrong-doing, our claim is that the UK is legally obliged to help us fight their case. This issue is very much alive for both men.Because we can already prove that one man (Amanatullah) is a Shia, the notion that he was a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) becomes effectively impossible – as LeT is a Sunni extremist group that would view a Shia as an apostate. In other news out of England, Simon Walters (Daily Mail) reports, "Shocking new evidence reveals how the Labour Government bullied the Cabinet Minister who told Tony Blair that the Iraq War was illegal. Former Defence Secretary John Reid banned the head of the Army, General Sir Mike Jackson, from taking Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to Baghdad to investigate alleged mistreatment of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers."

And, stil in England, there's a call to reopen an inquiry into an infamous death. Brendon Abbott (Daily Star) reports, "SIX doctors are taking legal action to demand the inquest into the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly be re-opened." David Kelly was the source for many press reports including Andrew Gilligan's for the BBC that the Iraq intel had been "sexed up." David Kelly died July 17, 2003. Simon Alford (Times of London) identifies the six doctors: "Trauma surgeon David Halpin, epidemiologist Andrew Rouse, surgeon Martin Birnstingl, radiologist Stephen Frost, Chris Burns-Cox, who specialises in internal general medicine, and Michael Powers QC, a former assistant coroner, have instructed solicitors and aim to approach the Attorney General Baroness Scotland to get the case before the High Court. " Alex Watts (Sky News -- link has text and video) explains, "Lord Hutton concluded he bled to death as a result of a cut to his wrist and an overdose of painkillers. But Michael Powers QC, an expert in coroners' law, said the cut would not have caused him to bleed to death, and there was only a normal dose of co-proxamol in his body. He said that for a coroner to reach a verdict of suicide there must be evidence 'beyond reasonable doubt' that they intended to kill themselves. Dr Powers added: 'Suicide cannot be presumed, it has to be proven'." Andrew Alderson (Telegraph of London) adds: "The revelation of the move for a new inquest is embarrassing for the Government, particularly as it comes just two weeks into the inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot which is examining Britain's role in the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. The doctors are applying to the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland for permission to go to the High Court for a new inquest, or the resumption of the previous inquest."

iraq
carly simon
al jazeera
inside iraq
jasim al-azzawi
mcclatchy newspapers warren p. strobel mohammed al dulaimy the los angeles times ned parker raheem salman
xinhua mu xuequan
brendon abbott sky news alex watts the times of london simon alford andrew alderson the telegraph of london
liz sly
the independent of london robert verkaik reprieve the daily mail simon walters

Desiree Needs To Go Rogers

2009-12-04T23:19:00.000-08:00

Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, vice char of the Homeland Security Committee ands the senior Republican on the panel, Rep. Peter King of New York, both told Matt Lauer that they would like to hear from White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers on this matter.

“It just makes sense when you come to one of the most important places on earth that there be somebody to greet you,’’ Sanchez said of the failure of the White House to have someone besides Secret Service agents at the entrances the night of the dinner. “Even Wal-Mart has a greeter.”

That's Dena Buris (OC Register) reporting on Loretta Sanchez' thoughts on the matter. Patricia Murphy (Politics Daily) adds:

But members of the committee wanted more than one person to blame and specifically wanted to know what role the White House Social Secretary, Desiree Rogers, had played in the process of admitting guests to the dinner. Rogers was asked to testify at the hearing, as were the Salahis, but all three declined to appear.
"For Desiree Rogers not to be here . . . is wrong, stonewalling, an affront to our committee," said Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the panel. "This is half a hearing; we're only getting half the picture," King said.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, defended the White House staff as "party planners, not security personnel," but Democrat Loretta Sanchez agreed with King.
"I have never seen just a Secret Service agent at the gate," Sanchez said, describing her own experiences visiting the White House. She said that a member of the White House staff had always greeted her at a checkpoint, in addition to Secret Service agent, at every visit she has ever made to the executive mansion.
"I thank you for taking responsibility," she said to Sullivan, "But there is a lot of responsibility that should be spread around on this."

Doug Heve (US News & World Report) offers:

Despite Obama's repeated claims of transparency, the White House is not allowing their own personnel to testify at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee (Tiger Woods has been more forthcoming than the Obama White House), instead throwing Mark Sullivan, head of the Secret Service, to the wolves of Congress—not to mention the cameras.

Following the hearing, on the same day Obama held a "jobs summit," three employees of the Secret Service's uniformed officer division have been put on administrative leave. It is widely expected that the public servants will be fired.

The Secret Service did their job. They ensured they everyone was safe to enter and that the President and Vice President were not put at risk. The Secret Service is not there to be glorified bouncers, making a list of attendees and checking it twice. That's the job of the host organization—in this case, the White House.

Perhaps no one explained the issue better than Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez (she of awesome Christmas cards): "It's always been my experience that the White House—either social or legislative division, in the case of when Congress people are coming—are always at the front gate. I mean, come on, even Wal-Mart has a greeter."

And this is Margo Howard (wowOwow):

Having just returned from a funeral in Chicago, Obama country, I have Obama on my mind. First, the flap I have written about previously wound up taking over the talk shows, television and the blogosphere. Some information about Gate-Crashergate has been printed … some only whispered about. The thing that le tout Chicago knows (well, heavy-hitter, political Chicago) is that Desiree Rogers, herself a "socialite," viewed her appointment as social secretary not as a job where she would be there to serve the Obamas, but as a step up the social ladder for herself. With no particular qualifications for this job, she was simply an event planner with money. Period. And of course a friend of the larger Obama circle. I can’t say "everybody," but many of the people of my acquaintance who know her do not care for her. In a previous job she was said to have made young employees miserable … which fits in with hearing from a man who took a flight with her that she is pretty grand and unpleasant "with the help."

The politically savvy say no previous social secretary has ever wound up on the cover of a magazine during the early years of an administration, if ever, and not one of them has ever anchored her own table at a State dinner. Somehow, Desiree imagined it was all about her. She is tight with Valerie Jarrett and the initial thinking was that Jarrett could protect her; now it may be impossible. The Secret Service took the fall, but the major fault was that of the White House social office. Desiree (ill equipped for the job in the first place) fired what were called "the clipboard girls." ("We don’t need them," she is reported to have said.) The "clipboard girls" knew everything and everybody and they had the lists, and once you got by them you went to the first layer of Secret Service.

To my way of thinking, the limelight-loving Ms. Rogers is just the visible part of another problem insiders are talking about. And that is that Obama is surrounded by "too much Chicago." There is a schedule for which Chicago friends will go to Washington on the weekends to help Obama relax. Well, if they want to make him feel like he never left home, what’s the point? The inside White House management, of course, is basically all Chicago … with all that that implies. Lotta talk in political circles these days that too much Chicago is not such a good thing.

Desiree Rogers needs to testifiy to Congress. She's being paid by the US tax payers and her job involves nothing classified. The refusal to allow her to appear before Congress is a slap in the face to the American tax payer and goes to just how secretive the Obama administration is.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, November 4, 2009. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the Iraq Inquiry continues in London and we learn that the US rules England -- long live Queen Barack apparently, NPR finds time to advance war with Judith Miller like claims while refusing to cover Iraq, and more.

Starting with NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, the second hour where the panelists are Abderrahim Foukara (Al Jazeera), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Barbara Slavin (Washington Times) which was a wealth of stupidity and lies. So many lies, so little time. Let's start with Barbara.

Barbara, grab your passport and, yes, Annie Grab Your Gun, and get your ass over there. Over where? Where ever it is from one moment to another that Barbra 'knows' Osama bin Laden is. Take your ass, take your gun and get the hell over there, Big Girl. Reality, Barbara Slavin doesn't know where Osama bin Laden is -- a point Diane Rehm should have made -- but it isn't it interesting that Barbara's claims support further war? And isn't that really the point of your claims, Barbara? You really want to be the next Judy Miller? Really? And what about you, Diane? You going to keep letting guests claim to know where Osama is and use that 'knowledge' to launch a verbal attack on a country? You going to do that? And delude yourself that you've informed the public? How very, very sad.

James Kitfield, I have heard repeatedly how I hurt your feelings when I pointed out that you needed to learn speak. Well boo-hoo cry baby. This time you actually finished a few sentences. But maybe you should return to your stammering half-sentences? You don't know what the hell you're talking about as usual. There's reality and then there's James Kitfield's reality. The paying off Sunnis (Sahwa, the "Awakenings," the "Sons Of Iraq") was not about getting people "off the fence." That's a bold face and ignorant lie. Then-US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and then-top US Commander in Iraq General David Petreaus testified publicly to Congress in April 2008. Where the hell were you, Kitty? What did they say? They said the US paid the Sahwa so that they would stop attacking American military equipment and US service members (they put the emphasis on military equipment in their testimony to the House and Senate). People who are attacking the US military equipment and US service member are not "on the fence." They have made a choice. You can agree with the choice or disagree with it but they are not "on the fence." Try knowing something before you open your mouth.

It was the third Friday show where Iraq was not addressed (in fairness, last Friday was a canned special and not the roundtable). Diane will claim otherwise. No, Iraq popped up as a 'historical' to compare Afghanistan to. Iraq itself was never discussed. Except for the last thirty seconds when Abderrahim Foukara was supposed to provide an 'update' -- in 30 seconds. As he spoke vaguely of whether "elections are going to happen or not" the audience was likely confused if Diane Rehm's show is their primary news source.

Diane Rehm listeners who hear only her show have no idea what's happened for two weeks now in Iraq. And when James Kitty Litter and others are lying about 'success' in Iraq, it damn well matters.

Diane and her guests need to grasp FAILED STATE is the only term for Iraq. FAILED STATE. Now Diane's listeners would know that if they knew there were not going to be January elections. But that topic has NEVER been addressed and the final 30 seconds Diane tossed to Abderrahim Foukara were confusing at best as he attempted to sum up the problems and, honestly, didn't do a very good job. But, in fairness to him, you can't in thirty seconds. You can't update her audience in thirty seconds. The last time The Diane Rehm Show discussed Iraq (a discussion is more than 30 seconds) -- FOUR FRIDAYS AGO -- the listeners were told that elections were a go. What were they told. Let's drop back to the November 13th snapshot for a reminder of what listeners of Diane's show were told:

Susan Page: Roy Gutman, I know that you were reporting from Iraq last month. This week we hear that Iraq's Parliament finally has approved a law for its election in January. There had been a kind of stalemate before that.

Roy Gutman: Well there had been and it was a very damaging stalemate. If they hadn't approved the law by this point then you begin to have to predict the country going downhill rather quickly. Uhm, had they approved it a month ago, you could have said Iraq is almost heading towards a normalcy despite all of the violence. This kind of muddled middle that took a long time to decide actually is nevertheless huge progress. This election, uh, is in a way is going to create a new Parliament. There will be what they call open lists -- every parliamentarian or every person running for a seat uh will be named before the elections so it's possible for people to find out who they are and rather they have dual citizenship. You know I heard while I was there that as many as 70% of the Iraqi -- of the current Iraqi Parliament has dual citizenship. Many of them Iranian-Iraqi dual citizenship. So that-that part will end and it looks like -- they have an independent election commission, they run elections that I think, in comparison with Afghanistan, certainly in comparison with Iran, are going to look good, very clean. It's possible that this election could make a real big difference.

Is that possible? Not currently. There will be NO January elections. Diane's audience still doesn't know that, even after the 30 second update today. But there will be NO January elections. None. That's all fallen apart. Iraq is a FAILED STATE. It may hold elections at the end of Februrary, it may do it in March. It may do it later. But the reality is these elections were supposed to be held in December, mid-year Nouri kicked them back to January and the US wasn't alarmed by that. The Parliament and Nouri are legally no longer in office February 1st. By the Constitution, their terms are over. But they will remain in office, in violation of the Constitution, because they couldn't get it together to meet their Constitutionally mandated deadline. That's reality. It makes Iraq -- forget being ranked the second most corrupt state currently -- a FAILED STATE. When you can't follow your own Constitution for elections, when you can't meet a simple election deadline, you are a FAILED STATE.

And when your show tells listeners that Iraq elections are a go four Fridays ago and then they aren't a go, you do a damn update. In four weeks, you've got more than enough time to do an update. If you don't make the time for it, that's telling something about you and what passes for journalistic standards on your program.

FAILED STATE. The only term for it and though Diane Rehm avoids it, the US State Dept is in the midst of a major spin operation. Tariq al-Hashemi vetoed the law that Roy Gutman was discussing above. As one of the three members of the presidency council (he's one of the country's two vice presidents), he has that right (not explained in the 30 seconds on Diane's show today). The response to the veto from Parliament (not touched on at all) was to offer a counter-proposal which stripped seats from Sunnis and gave them to Kurds and a few of Iraq's minority population (ethnic and relegious). al-Hashemi is not pleased, nor are Sunnis. At present, the UN and Iraq's independent election commission (also not discussed on Diane's show today) say elections might be able to happen at the end of February or the start of March if Iraq can get a law in place.

Yesterday, the US State Dept's Rachel Schneller contributed "Avoiding Elections At Any Cost" at the Council of/on/for Foreign Relations. In this piece of spin, Schneller tries to stamp Happy Faces all over the disarray:

But the derailing of the election law may not be as bad as it sounds. The version approved by the governing council actually could have triggered greater instability in Iraq. Not only could corruption and fraud call the results and a new Iraqi government into question--even if Iraqi elections are free, fair, and uncontested--the new election law could lead to troubling divisions over oil revenues. The law has created conditions for even greater Kurdish control over Kirkuk and oil resources in northern Iraq. Other oil-rich regions of Iraq, such as the largely Shia south, will also have a basis to agitate for oil revenues to flow to regional governments. With the Iraqi central government still relying on oil for more than 90 percent of its national budget, the long-term viability of the country is called into question even if elections signal short-term success. The Sunni minority in Iraq, facing ever more desperate political and economic conditions in Iraq, is likely to resort to increasingly desperate measures to ensure survival as they face another round of elections where they could lose further seats in parliament.

Schneller calls for the US to stop pressing Iraq to put through an Iraq law. Schneller calls for? A US State Dept employee calls for the US to stop doing something?

Are you laughing? How stupid do they think everyone is? The State Dept knows they have no power on this issue (Iraqi MPs tried to block US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill from the Parliament in November) but they need to spin it and along comes Rachel Schneller to 'advocate' for the US not to 'pressure' when, in fact, the US has no power to pressure on this issue as has been repeatedly demonstrated in the last weeks.

Is it a good thing, as Schneller argues in her spin, that the election law has not yet gone through? If this were October, it might be. But this is December. And Iraqi elections are Constitutionally mandated to take place in January. That's not blaming al-Hashemi for any of this. He has the right to veto and he used that right and did so, according to his public stated remarks, for valid reasons: Concerns that Iraq's refugee community was being under-represented. He did what he did and he's stated why he did it. But to spin this, as the State Dept is attempting, as a good thing is a HUGE STRETCH to the point that the truth just broke apart.

FAILED STATE. Iraq's installed government always knew that elections had to take place no later than January. That's why they were supposed to take place in December. After the elections take place, it will take weeks for the ballots to be counted and weeks for process to go through -- as has happened with every election held in Iraq since the start of the 2003 war. This is known. It is known that the Parliament and the Prime Minister's term expires at the end of January 2010. Is known and was known. And yet the Constitution is going to be 'bent' (thwarted) and al-Maliki will get to serve additional days. How many? Who knows. But everytime you treat your highest law of the land as something you can ignore, you set a dangerous precedent.

It is a FAILED STATE and the State Dept needs to stop embarrasing itself by sending Rachel Schneller out to spin it. There is no way to spin the Constitutional crisis -- that's what it is -- that Iraq's currently going through. That's true if Iraq's passes a law tomorrow. They are in a Constitutional crisis. They have disregarded their Constitution. That's the reality.

Reality is also that an Iraq Inquiry continues in London and reality is that Diane Rehm listeners don't know that because the show never tells them. Despite all the revelations, Diane's show has ignored the inquiry. From today's Free Speech Radio News:

Dorian Merina: The British government continues its inquiry into its role in the Iraq War. The inquiry, which began last week, showed that senior diplomats had doubts about the legality of the war. This week, Tony Blair's former foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning testified. Panel members asked about the controversial Crawford Ranch meeting, during which some speculate former US President George W. Bush convinced Blair to support an invasion of Iraq regardless of whether weapons of mass destruction were discovered. FSRN'S George Lavender reports.

George Lavender: The five person commitee of inquiry, selected by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is chaired by Sir John Chilcot, a career civil servant.

John Chilcot: My colleagues and I come to this task with open minds. We are apolitical. We are independent of any political party. And we ought to examine and rely on the evidence.

George Lavender: Despite assurances that the inquiry is impartial, the committee includes prominent supporters of the war. Among them Sir Lawrence Friedman, a former foreign policy advisor to Tony Blair. Nadji Mahmoud is an Iraqi political activists in the south of the country.

Nadja Mahmoud: I watched the news on Iraqi TV channel sattelite it's an inquiry that comes from the establishment, it's not outsiders that want to do this inquiry. Iraqi people don't put a lot of of hope on the results.

[. . .]

George Lavender: In a small room near the Houses of Parliament the panel heard evidence last week from senrior government officials and diplomats that regime change in Iraq was supported by many in Washington even before 2001.

Christopher Meyer: There is a more of a continuum here with previous administrations before George W. then maybe the Democratic and Republican party would be willing to admit.

George Lavender: Former Ambassador to the United States, Christopher Meyer, testified on the third day of the hearings.

Christopher Meyer: So sometimes people say to me, well, it was the nutiers, the right-wingers, the neocons who invented regime change. Absolutely wrong.

George Lavender: The panel asked Meyer when the British governement became committeed to the policy of regime change? He speculated that Tony Blair and George W. Bush reached an agreement on taking that action almost a year before the war started.

Christopher Meyer: To this day, I'm not exactly clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood at-at the Crawford Ranch.

George Lavender: For many antiwar activists the inquiry lacks credibility. Witnesses may be offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony and are not under oath. In setting up the inquiry, Gordon Brown also made it clear it would not apportion blame. For many Iraqis, the inquiry is inconsequential. Again, Nadja Mahmoud.

Nadja Mahmoud: I think what the Iraqi people are really concerned about is not what the Iraq Inquiry is going to find out. They are really concerned about their daily life, about security, about jobs. It is chaos here, it is a mess here and people really care about these things.

George Lavender: Violence has increased in the country in advance of government elections last month [October] more than 155 people were killed in two car bombings in Baghdad in the deadliest attack since 2007. The panel will also hear from both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. It's expected to publish a final report at the end of 2010. George Lavender, FSRN, London.

Staying with the inquiry, which heard from British Maj Gen David Wilson, from Dominic Asquith and from Lt Gen Anthony Pigott today. Click here for video and transcript options.

Maj Gen David Wilson testified today about being at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood at the start of the Afghanistan War and serving "as a conduit for communication between the operational level heaquarters, Central Command, commanded by General Tommy fRanks, and the permanent headquarters at Northwood, a conduit for information" on Afghanistan. He stated he was kept in the dark and "not made aware" of any plans on Iraq.

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: When did this change? When did Iraq come within the argument?

Maj Gen David Wilson: It did change. It changed in the latter part of June of 2002 and it changed very suddenly from where I sat in Tampa. The change was signalled by what was then the draft planning order for Iraq, early stage work, being authorised to be sent to the Permanet Joint Headquarters and that is what happened. Soon thereafter, there was a high level team visit led by General Sir Anthony Pigott, which I was invited to join and he spoke to that this morning, when they closed in Washington and then came down to Tampa. So the first -- it is almost a defining moment this, in a way. This is when, not just we, the British, but also, I understand, the Australians, were made privy to the planning that had gone to that point by the US.

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: In addition to being made privy to the planning, at what point were you asked by the United States, what questions of the possibility of integrating British forces into the overall American plan, when did this become, if it did become, a question of discussion?

Maj Gen David Wilson: That comes later, and we can -- I will certainly speak to that, of course, and that takes us into the beginning of August, when we had -- when the United Kingdom had received an invitation from Central Command to attend the whole, as opposed to half, which is what we had done previously, of the two-day programme. This -- I can't remember exactly when the invitation went out, some time in July, and the -- after debate -- whatever discussion in London, I was instructed that -- I pulled a long straw, or the short straw, depending on your perspective, and I was going to step up as the representative and I was going to say words that were produced for me, helpfully, which I received the day before I was due to get on my feet.

Wilson went on to testify of things he learned later such as that US Gen Tommy Franks came up with "a commader's concept for military action in Iraq" at "the end of November 2001" and had done that at the request of the then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. There was a 1998 plan that Rumsfeld was not happy with because it called for a large number of US forces.

Maj Gen David Wilson: What General Franks determined very early, as I understand it, was that whatever he and the team at CentCom came up with, it needed to have three dimensions to it. It needed, if you like, a robust option; in other words, all the enablers fell into place within the AOR. The countries that were required provided the staging, the basing, the overflight, the three critical enablers that he needed to project force. So a robust option. Reduction option, as it would sound: they didn't all sign up; and then his worst case option was the unilateral 'go it alone'. He did see that was the worst case option.

Half-way into the testimony, an important question was raised.

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: What I'm interested in is, as you are having these discussions, if I was an American planner, it could get a bit irritating after a while to say, "Well, hypothetically, this is the sort of thing the Brits might do." At some sense you would want to firm this up. How was that happening? Were we able to go a little bit beyond a hypothesis or was it, "This may well happen, although we can't actually confirm it at the moments"?

Maj Gen David Wilson: I understand your question. I said, in answer to an earlier question, that the Americans were pragmatic, accomodating and very flexible. I was never put on the spot, if I can put it as crudely as that. I was never brought in at any level and they said, "Look, what's going on?" They know what's going on, they knew what was going at that level because it was my job to make sure they did, that we were in a process, we were in permissions and authorities, and they knew very well indeed that no commitment could be made until the process moved forward.

That was a less than complete answer as anyone paying attention grasped. Minutes afterwards, he would explain, regarding the US hopes that the British might be able to provide support in northern Iraq, "As I mentioned to you, on 2 August I spoke to the northern option and I, under direction, floated the notion that if everything was to fall into place, there might be a tract or we might be . . ." He wasn't put on the spot because he was always providing that reassuring float. Matthew Taylor (Guardian) covers Lt Gen Anthony Pigott's testimony noting that he stated that "Britian committed a large land force to the invasion of Iraq in an attempt to buy influence with the United States."

Lt Gen Anthony Pigott: Well, you know the US/UK, Mil/Mil relationship, you would enhance that no end by offering this sort of option that eventually was selected. You would enahnce it no end, and that's a pretty important relationship politically -- I'm talkin gon the Mil side -- where we have enormous access and enormous say in a whole range of things, not just to do with Iraq, but with other things, because they know you are a serious player and they know you have got . . . I put that right up at the front of -- at the heart of the UK/US Mil/Mil relationship, required from a military perspective a -- hence it coming through from the military perspective, something meaty to do, and if there wasn't anything meaty, then we weren't really -- it was a long way to go to do nothing -- you know, meaty.

Commitee Member Roderic Lyne: So it was good for our standing, it was good for our relationship, but they didn't actually --

Lt Gen Anthony Pigott: Good for future links on future operations, it's good for sharing intelligence --

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: So it has some broader benefits --

Lt Gen Anthony Pigott: -- it helps with logistics --

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: -- but they didn't actually pay attention to our advice on how these big issues should be handled in the campaign? They didn't put in enough boots on the ground, they didn't plan properly for the aftermath, as Lord Boyce told us yesterday, despite our advice to the contrary.

Back to Taylor who quotes the coldest comment by Pigott, "You buy that on your contribution and your willingness to put ‑ not just boots on the ground ‑ [but] people in danger." Lives were traded for influence, to be 'let in the game.' It's cold blooded and you got your tip off on that yesterday. We noted this exchange in yesterday's snapshot:

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: Can you say something a bit more about this question of influence as a factor in British military planning? Because it is assumed that if we had just gone for the package 2, which would not have been a trivial thing, which would have been quite a substantial commitment by the UK, that that would not have brought influence? After all, the Australians didn't provide that much, but they seem to have got a certain amount of influence and kudos with the Americans from what they did. We're a different sort of power to the Australians, but is there a direct relationship between the size of force and the amount of influence?

Michael Boyce: I am not sure the Australians did have any influence. They certainly got a lot of kudos from the Americans and we were very grateful for their contribution. I don't think they were as heavily involved in the planning process as we were. Also -- although you might say the final outcome didn't indicate it -- we had quite a lot of influence with regards to what was called Phase 4, all the aftermath planning as well, as a result of the size of our contribution.

Freedman whines, "We did! We did! We did this! But the Australians didn't do anything! Why didn't we have more influence!!!!" That exchange was telling yesterday and it only became more so today. As Tony Blair's foreign advisor, Freedman's singing his own blues. He apparently isn't pleased with the arrangement he advised on -- the one that sent British soldiers into an illegal war so that the UK could get a closer to the US.

Mark Stone (Sky News) reports:

The third witness to appear revealed perhaps the most interesting lines today. Dominic Asquith was the director for Iraq at the Foreign Office from 2004 to 2006 before becoming ambassador to Baghdad during 2006 to 2007.

He said that inter-departmental co-ordination within the UK was good but that the funding given to the post-invasion effort in Iraq was not.

"The direction was that this was a high priority but we weren't being given the extra resources to deliver..... It was left to Whitehall departments to put the case to the Treasury for resources to cover this to which the answer was 'There are no resources'."

Michael Savage (Independent of London) adds to that, "Political tensions were so great in the years following the invasion that Iraqi politicians told him that only the heavy presence of international troops stopped the newly formed government in Baghdad from being toppled." Opinions on the inquiry vary. We'll note two, one pro and one con. Richard Ingram (Indpendent of London) observes:

It's supposed to be an inquiry but there's not much sign of any inquiring going on. I have been studiously following reports of the current investigation into the Iraq war and have even seen bits of it on television and I have yet to read or see a single case of any of the five-strong panel asking a question of those giving evidence. One by one the civil servants and the army generals queue up to say their piece and that's about all there is to it.

The lack of probing questions ought not to surprise us given the composition of the panel, all of them with close links to the political establishment. One of them, our old friend Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, pictured, of King's College London, provided further evidence of this when during Tuesday's session he volunteered the information that he had "instigated" a pre-war seminar for Blair to discuss Iraq because, he said, "I was aware of misgivings among some specialists in Iraq about the direction of policy". He added that this was "my only direct engagement in Iraq policy making". We were not told how a professor of history came to be in a position to organise such a seminar for the Prime Minister, nor, for that matter, whether there might have been some indirect engagements subsequently on the part of Freedman.

This hitherto unreported seminar is further proof of Sir Lawrence's close links to Blair. We already know that he provided the bones of a speech Blair made in Chicago in 1999 justifying the military intervention in rogue states. Later, in a TV interview, Freedman spoke of the "rather noble criteria" which lay behind the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

In a more scrupulous society than that in which we nowadays live there would be calls for Professor Freedman to resign from the inquiry.

While Peter Biles (BBC News) argues, "The Iraq inquiry has produced another week of compelling evidence. We are beginning to understand how and why Iraq ended up in such a parlous state after the 2003 invasion. A number of witnesses have pointed a finger of blame at the United States for the chaos that ensued." Biles go on to insist upon a coherent war plan being needed before the war started. A few snapshots back, I noted how a number of British government witnesses were hiding behind Condi Rice's skirt and, in some cases, distorting her. This week, they've moved on to Donald Rumsfeld. Now Conid and Rumsfeld need to be answerable for their actions, no question. But, help me out here, because I guess my history is rather loose.

As I understood it, the American Revolution was fought with the British so that what is now the United States would not be under British rule. As I understood it, that meant that Americans were free from British rule but I did not understand the American Revolution to mean that British was under American rule.

Did I miss that? Did I fail to grasp reality?

Point: This is embarrassing. British government officials and now military persons are testifying over and over about how they wish Donald had done this or Condi wanted that and blah, blah, blah. The US does not rule Great Britian. Tony Blair's government made its own decision to get into the Iraq War. There's no point in blaming the US for that and it is past time that the inquiry got serious and started correcting witnesses who want to push blame for decisions made by the British government off on the US government. Bush's administration was nothing but War Criminals. I don't deny it. But Tony Blair's a War Criminal as well and it's really interesting to watch all these War Criminals in England insist that the Holy Doofus Bush managed to outwit and enslave them. They have yet to take accountability for their own actions which led England into an illegal war.

In related news, Tim Shipman and David Jones (Daily Mirror) report, "Tony Blair and George Bush were orchestrating a witch-hunt against Saddam Hussein that ended with the Iraq War, according to a former UN weapons inspector. Hans Blix said the two leaders behaved like 17th century witchfinders in their willingness to oust the dictator." The Daily Mail notes the Iraq Inquiry has not called Blix to testify which is rather strange and adds, "Most alarmingly, Dr Blix reveals that, after he made a speech to the UN asking for more time to complete his work, he received a phone call from Mr Blair. The Americans had been deeply disappointed by Dr Blix's contribution, the Prime Minister said, in a clear attempt to bounce him into backing the war."

Staying in London a bit more, Amnesty International (UK) issued the following earlier this morning:

17 women among those set to die with fears government is 'playing politics'

Iraq is preparing to execute hundreds of prisoners, including 17 women, warned Amnesty International today, as it issued an 'urgent action' appeal to try to prevent the deaths.

The 900-plus prisoners have exhausted all their appeals and their death sentences are said to have been ratified by the Presidential Council, meaning that they could be executed at any time. Amnesty supporters are contacting Iraqi embassies around the world, including that in London, in a bid to stop the executions.

The condemned prisoners have been convicted of offences such as murder and kidnapping, but many are likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials. The 17 women are thought to include a group known to have been held on death row at the 5th section (al-Shu'ba al-Khamissa) of Baghdad's al-Kadhimiya Prison.

Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock said:

'This is a staggering number of people facing execution and the fact that the government may be playing politics over these cases is truly frightening.

'Wholesale use of the death penalty was one of the worst aspects of Saddam Hussein's regime and the present government should stop aping his behaviour.

'Instead of sending nearly a thousand people to a grisly death by hanging, the Iraqi authorities should halt all executions and impose an immediate death penalty moratorium.'

Iraqi media reports suggest that the Iraqi government is currently trying to present itself as 'tough' on crime ahead of national elections scheduled for January. Iraqi opposition politicians have expressed concern that executions may be carried out to give the ruling party a political advantage ahead of the elections, and there have been calls for the government to temporarily suspend all executions.

Amnesty is warning that Iraq's use of capital punishment is already spiralling. At least 120 people are known to have been executed in Iraq this year, greatly up on the 34 executions recorded during 2008.

Iraq is now one of the world's heaviest users of the death penalty. After the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority suspended the death penalty following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, Iraq's subsequent reintroduction of capital punishment led to a rapid acceleration in death sentences and executions. Despite this, and contrary to some claims made by the Iraqi authorities, use of the death penalty has not seen a drop in crime levels in the country, with rises and falls in insurgency violence having no discernible relation to execution rates.

Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing which left five people wounded and a Mosul bombing in which 1 person was killed and a second was wounded.

Shootings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Turkman Hazim Akbar was shot dead by unknown assailants in his Salahuddin Province home. Reuters notes 1 person shot dead in Kirkuk.

Corpses?

Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered in Kirkuk.

Turning to TV, NOW on PBS debuts its latest episode tonight on most PBS stations and this one examines:

As Congress hammers out legislation that will determine the future of health care in this country, NOW travels to the nation's heartland to see what reform could mean for the middle class. On Friday, December 4 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa meets two tight-knit Oklahoma families whose problems with private health insurance left them unable to get proper medical care -- and on the brink of financial ruin. One of those families - the O'Reillys -- grapples with the issue of how to cover needed respiratory therapy treatment for their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who was denied coverage for what the insurance company labeled a "pre-existing condition.""People pretty frequently say, 'Oh, you know, my plan works great for me'," says Sophie's mother Natalie O'Reilly." And my answer to that is -- insurance works really well until you need it. Until you really, truly need it."

Washington Week also begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (and throughout the weekend, check local listings) and joining Gwen around the roundtable are Michael Duffy (Time), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Martha Raddatz (ABC News). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Irene Natividad, Tara Setmayer and Wendy Wright to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:

The Zone Geoffrey Canada's remarkable experiment in inner-city education, the Harlem Children's Zone, has helped put historically low-achieving students in New York City on academic par with their grammar-school peers. CNN's Anderson Cooper reports. Watch Video [here]
Personal Foul Disgraced ex-NBA referee Tim Donaghy speaks for the first time about betting on pro basketball games, his Mafia involvement and subsequent prison term. Bob Simon reports. (This is a double-length segment.) Watch Video
60 Minutes, Sunday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

That's it. We'll try to grab Iraqi press issues next week along with other issues. Thank you to the Iraq Study Group at Trina's (put together sometime ago by Mike and his friends) who gave an hour tonight for me to go over the Iraq Inquiry and then thirty more minutes stating what they felt should be emphasized from that. There was a great deal to cover and without their help, I wouldn't have been able to narrow it down. Thank you.

iraq
sky news
free speech radio news
susan page
npr
the diane rehm show
roy gutman
bbc news
the guardian

mcclatchy newspapers
sahar issa

Desiree Rogers, get your fanny to Congress

2009-12-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

Three Secret Service officers who let a gate-crashing couple through a checkpoint at last week’s White House state dinner have been placed on administrative leave — and could face unspecified disciplinary actions, the agency’s director said.
The House Homeland Security Committee is also preparing to issue a subpoena to Tareq and Michaele Salahi, though the panel shot down a Republican attempt to subpoena White House social secretary Desiree Rogers. The committee has never issued a subpoena in its short history but the chairman — addressing the Salahis’ empty chairs after they refused to testify before his committee Thursday — set in motion a process that could result in a committee vote as early as next week.

The above is from Glenn Thursh and Jake Sherman (Politico) and this is nonsense. First, Desieree needs to take her ass over to the Congress or she needs to get the hell out of the people's White House. We were outraged when Harriet Miers refused to testify and she was White House counsel -- she was an attorney and could have claimed some sort of exception. She should have showed up, she should have testified and if she felt it was in lawyer-client territory that would violate ethics (I know, Harri's got no ethics) she could say no. But she should have taken her ass to the Congress. And you damn well better believe Valerie Jarrett's gal-pal Desiree should take her ass to the Congress. Who the hell does she think she is?

That's (A).

(B) F**k the Congress. How dare the Democrats block the Republicans on calling a witness. How dare they. That's the sort of crap I had to see Republicans do for how many years this decade!!! And now the Dems want to pull this s**t as well? I don't think so. Not without me calling them out.

They are disgusting.

Three Secret Service members are on leave. Desiree needs to get her ass to Congress. She's a little piece of trash and I know all about her from Ava and C.I. who warned us about her when no one on the national scene knew who the harlet was. This is not minor to me.

We pay Desiree's salary. Us, the tax payers. Congress wants her to testify, she needs to haul her ass over to Congress or she needs to find another damn job.

Who the hell does she think she is?

And what's her excuse? "As a party planner for the White House, I handle national security matters." What a crock.

I continue to read Danny Schechter's Congo reporting with great interest:

I am as pissed and upset about the escalation of the wars we are fighting but our national myopia has always troubled me, that is, our unwillingness collectively to oppose other wars—in Burma, The Balkans, Chechnya and Congo, to cite a few.
Why is our outrage about war rarely driven by solidarity with people’s in other parts of the world? Remember that the conquest of the Congo by Belgium’s mad King Leopold was recognized by the US, which sent the CIA to kill Lumumba and later install Mobutu.

And I planned to write about it tonight. I'll do that tomorrow. (I hope.) The Desiree issue?

Dems in Congress won't force her to testify. She's African-American. If I don't cover it, I can't ask other bloggers of color, "Why aren't you covering this outrage?" So I had to cover it (and did). I really was hoping to avoid the administration for the entire week.

Please read Ruth's "Another blow to equality" -- I'm still not in a place where I can talk about it. At work, I was asked about it and seven or eight "f**king"s later, I said, "Can you tell I'm mad? I should stop now."

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, December 3, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the inhumane and criminal counter-insurgency suffers a highly public rebuke, the election stalemate continues in Iraq, the Iraq Inquiry in London brings lots of chatter about Donald Rumsfeld but very little about John Howard, All Things Media Big and Small gets spanked by the Secret Service but watch everyone pretend that didn't happen, and more.

Starting with the topic of counter-insurgency, war on a native people, Monday, David Price explained in "Human Terrain Systems, Anthropologists and the War in Afghanistan" (CounterPunch):

Today, in Iraq and Afghanistan, anthropologists are being told that they're needed to make bad situations better. But no matter how anthropological contributions ease and make gentle this conquest and occupation, it will not change the larger neocolonial nature of the larger mission; and most anthropologists are troubled to see their discipline embrace such a politically corrupt cause.Human Terrain Systems is not some neutral humanitarian project, it is an arm of the U.S. military and is part of the military's mission to occupy and destroy opposition to U.S. goals and objectives. HTS cannot claim the sort of neutrality claimed by groups like Doctors Without Borders, or the International Committee of the Red Cross. HTS's goal is a gentler form of domination. Pretending that the military is a humanitarian organization does not make it so, and pretending that HTS is anything other than an arm of the military engaging in a specific form of conquest is sheer dishonesty.

The American Anthropological Association's annual meeting started yesterday in Philadelphia and continues through Sunday. Today the association's Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities issued their [PDF format] "Final Report on The Army's Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program." The 74-page report is a blow to War Criminals and their cheerleaders who have long thought that the social science could be abused or that the social sciences were psuedo sciences. It was in December 2006 when Dumb Ass George Packer raved over Dumb Ass Montgomery McFate and her highly imaginative and fictional retelling of both her childhood and her current work which Packer identified as "Pentagon consultant" working on Cultural Operations Research Human Terrain. Packer was jizzing in his shorts and not even warnings from other anthropologists ("I do not want to get anybody killed") could sway him.

By the time she showed on up the October 10, 2007 broadcast (link goes to October 11, 2007 snapshot) of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Monty was being billed as "senior advisor to the US Army." Monty lied throughout the broadcast and most infamously when she insisted that Afghans or Iraqis can tell the difference between "a lethal unit of the US military and a non-leathal unit of the US military". David Price of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists offered reality during the broadcast by raising the issue of David Rohde's "Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones" (New York Times) and explaining it "talks about an anthropologist I think named Tracy and that's the only name that's given. So anthropologists need to be transparent about who they are and who they're working for. . . . But I worry how transparent the program is if the people who are doing it aren't being self-identified? Now the story says it's being done for security reasons and so on. But if you go to the New York Times story and look at the nifty, little video they have -- you know backing the story, it's very strange because they don't show the anthropologist -- they intentionally withhold the person's identity. Yet they show all these people who are talking to the anthropologist which of course they're doing so at some personal risk, one would assume, in Afghanistan. And I worry about any sort of program where there's a one-way mirror that's going on."

Susan Page: . . . there was a New York Times article last week which actually prompted us to do this show today. And it did talk about this anthropologist named Tracy, but it wasn't clear to me, Montgomery McFate maybe you know, whether her [full] name was just not disclosed to the New York Times article, or if her full name is not being disclosed to the people she's interatcing with in Afghanistan. Do you know -- do you know the answer to that.

Monty [quick intake and slow first word -- always a clue Monty's inventing -- seriously, that was evident when she was a child]: Her name was held from the New York Times story and in other media that's come out of Afghanistan at her own request.

Susan Page: But does she give her [full] name to the Afghanis that she's talking with.

Monty: Yes, she does.

Remember that moment in Annie Hall when Annie (Diane Keaton) and Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) are in line for movie tickets and the man behind them can't shut up about Marshall McLuhan and Alvy confronts him? And pulls McLuhan over? And McLuhan declares, "I heard what you were saying. You know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you got to teach a course in anything it totally amazing."? Well a moment like that happened to Monty with her being the blowhard who got corrected. Monty was swearing that the woman identified herself and gave her full name and did this and did that and blah blah blah. And then David Rohde, who wrote the New York Times article, joined the conversation.

David Rohde: Um, she was transparent with them. I don't think she gave her full name, I think she does identify herself as an anthropologist. I saw her briefly, but I don't know what she does at all times. She personally, um, actually chose to carry a weapon for security that's not a requirement for members of the team, I've been told. And she wore a military uniform which would make her appear to be a soldier, um, to Afghans that she wasn't actually speaking with.

Susan Price: And so you think Aghans knew that she wasn't a soldier even though she was wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon? Or do you think that they just assumed that she probably was?

David Rohde: I would think that they assumed that she was.

Poor stupid Monty. Counter-insurgency is war on a people. It has been used in many wars and it is not a tactic of peace nor is it anything an ethical person should take part in. That is not a controversial statement to anyone old enough to remember Vietnam or any war further back. But, in the US, whether you want to cite Spengler or make comparisons to Sisyphus, we are a culture put together each dawn with very little historical recall. Which is how Monty McFate and others have been able to market their inhumane acts as a 'science.' Others include A Problem From Hell: Samantha Power. And, of course, Sarah Sewall who played Peppermint Patty to Monty's Marci on Charlie Rose in 2007. For the record, those three and many other counter-insurgency gurus advised Barack Obama during his presidential campaign and/or advise him today. (Yes, despite the fact that Monty's sister was a government spy who spied on peace groups. Or maybe because of.) These War Criminals use their training and the science but do not adhere to any of the ethics of their profession which does include, but it not limited to, full disclosure.

The report released today notes, "Responding to concerns raised about this program, in the fall of 2007 the AAA's Executive Board released a statement on HTS [Human Terrain Systems], in which it expressed its disapproval and concluded the program to be 'an unacceptable application of anthropological expertise'." The report states that by April of this year there were 417 HTS employees. (There have been some reductions since then.) Of that group, only six had PhD in anthropology and only 47 others had masters in the field. The report notes, "It is important to indicate, based on this, that despite the attention given to the central role of anthropology in the program, the great majority of present HTS employees have been trained and hold degrees in other fields of the social sciences and elsewhere." The report notes:

Training in "research methods" for HTTs is notable insofar as it combines what appears to be field-based social scientific data collection (e.g. use of ethnography of the anthropological sort) with instrumental or soft power goals of "shaping the environment." This raises a number of concerns regarding the separability, and so ethics, of the research component from the strategic, tactical, and operational goals of military decision-makers, and the role of HTT activities with respect to the goals of these decision-makers. Such an emphasis upon "rapid ethnographic research," too, suggest an apt comparison of HTTs with other anthropological modes of data collection of the rapid appraisal and assessment sort, which are typically carried out over weeks or months, and which are commonplace in the world of international development, among other applications.

The report explains that the social science methods to increase knowledge of people and cultures are used instead to push military objectives and that is not independent research nor is it what the social sciences exist for. Nor do the social sciences exist to provide targets for the military but some speaking to HTTs may be targeted by the military. This is especially a concern when HTTs turn over raw data to the military but it is a concern regardless especially due to the devices the military issues them.

Some anthropologists voiced criticisms that assert the inherently political nature of HTS as a facilitator of counterinsurgency. These critiques connect HTS to historical instances in which anthropological field techniques and theories were used to subjugate native peoples in colonial and neocolonial campaigns. Identifying participants in HTS with such terms as "technicians of power," these critics pointedly situate the activities of HTS in the context of U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, often described as neo-colonial wars of occupation "in the service of empire." Ethical and political critiques are sometimes kept distinct and sometimes made together. If CEAUSSIC's 2007 Report distinguished ethics from politics, and focused on the former, the political character of many critical reactions to HTS has to be acknowledged. If HTS advocates stress the "reduction of harm" by the use of embedded HTS social scientists, anthropological critics reject such arguments, instead focusing on the political context of what can become of anthropology as a discipline, if used as a tool for problematic military occupations, even if designed to reduce violence.

As Patricia Cohen (New York Times) explains, "The panel concluded that the Pentagon program, called the Human Terrain System, has two conflicting goals: counterinsurgency and research. Collecting data in the context of war, where coercion and offensive tactics are always potentially present, 'can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology' the report says." Trina was weighing in on counter-insurgency Monday: "Counter-insurgency is a War Crime. It is an abuse of the social science. It breaks all the ethics. And Tom Ricks doesn't know that because he's not a social scientist. He's nothing but a keyboard jockey who sniffed the skivies of a few grunts and generals and decided he was an expert on war. He's not an expert on anything. He's not even an expert on how to be a successful reporter because those days ended some time ago for Ricks. He is an ass and he is a War Criminal." Well said.

Turning to England where the Iraq Inquiry heard public testimony. And it was not a good day for John Howard, former prime minister of Australia. Like the mistress showing up at the funeral, Howard's been repeatedly ignored as the special relationship between George W. Bush and Tony Blair has been touched on non-stop. Today, John Howard got a brief mention . . . or at least was alluded to.

Committee Member Lawrence Freeman: Can you say something a bit more about this question of influence as a factor in British military planning? Because it is assumed that if we had just gone for the package 2, which would not have been a trivial thing, which would have been quite a substantial commitment by the UK, that that would not have brought influence? After all, the Australians didn't provide that much, but they seem to have got a certain amount of influence and kudos with the Americans from what they did. We're a different sort of power to the Australians, but is there a direct relationship between the size of force and the amount of influence?

Michael Boyce: I am not sure the Australians did have any influence. They certainly got a lot of kudos from the Americans and we were very grateful for their contribution. I don't think they were as heavily involved in the planning process as we were. Also -- although you might say the final outcome didn't indicate it -- we had quite a lot of influence with regards to what was called Phase 4, all the aftermath planning as well, as a result of the size of our contribution.

For video or transcripts for witnesses, click here. The Inquiry, chaired by John Chilcot, heard from Boyce and Kevin Tebbit (Permanent Under Secretary at the Ministry of Defence) today. Of Boyce, Andrew Gilligan (Telegraph of London) observes, "It's been the turn of Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, former chief of the defence staff, at the Iraq Inquiry today -- and it's striking how closely what he told Sir John Chilcot mirrors what we reported in the Telegraph, using leaked papers, before the inquiry even started. Notice any similarities between this story -- 'Hoon stopped me buying essential kit for troops, says Forces chief' -- and this one -- 'Troops rushed into battle without armour or training'? You read it here first." Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) reports, "Boyce said the defence chiefs 'ramped up' planning for possible war after a key meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush at the US president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, 11 months before the invasion." Which appears to be the point all witness who've given public testimony in the nine days the panel has heard testimony can agree on. Mark Stone (Sky News) feels that today was "a drip-drip of evidence" with former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's name repeatedly coming in and him being seen "as the architect of the war" and quotes Boyce stating, "I could not get across to them [US] that the coalition would not be seen as a liberating force and that flowers would be stuck on the end of the rifles and we would be welcomed and it would all be lovely." Reflecting on all the testimony given since last week, Stone offers, "Perhaps all the witness are playing a fine game of passing the buck onto the Americans or perhaps the UK never really had any leverage over the Americans at all." David Brown (Times of London -- link has text and video) reports, "Lord Boyce said he had warned Tony Blair and the Cabinet that there must be a proper legal basis for military action before he could send British forces into Iraq. He said that he was given a certificate by Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, although he indicated that he would have preferred a second Security Council resolution, which would have 'really nailed it'."

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: Within these frank conversations, were there times when you had to express serious reservations or warnings to the Prime Minister about the course we were heading down?

Michael Boyce: I would certainly, on a number of occasions, have expressed views about, for example, the holding up decisions to get reserves mobilised, the decision to go overt or to start allowing the preparations to be made, and whatever other problems as I saw them, as they came up, you know, which we would then go about solving. I certainly never had any hesitation in making those known, and, indeed, was taken aside from time to time to say, "Can't we make it more of a half-full rather than a half-empty assessment?", but my view was what I had to do was provide as realistic an appraisal as possible, which was what I was being asked to do and I never felt I was being shut out from doing that.

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: Lord Butler's report --

Michael Bryce: Not by the Ministry anyway.

Who had the power? Who had the power to stop the Iraq War? Ruth Barnett (Sky News) notes Boyce stated the Parliament could have stepped in at any time to prevent the war and Tebbit agreed but added that stopping late in teh game could have done "serious damage to the bilateral relationship" between England and the US. Peter Walker and Andrew Sparrow (Guardian) report that Boyce stated, "No matter how many times you said to senior American officers, and indeed Mr Rumsfeld, that we were not committing our forces until we had been through the proper UN process, and had been through parliament as well, there was a complete reluctance to believe that." BBC News' Peter Biles offers this analysis: "The inquiry's committee missed an opportunity to pursue this in greater detail. As earlier witnesses have pointed out, the situation was further complicated by the different groups, and divergent views, within the US administration."

On yesterday's NewsHour (PBS -- link has text, audio and video options), Judy Woodruff observed, "In other news today: A top U.N. official in Iraq said elections will have to be delayed by more than a month. The voting had been set for January, but Iraqi lawmakers have not agreed on reforming the election process." Alsumaria reports that Jalal Talabani, President of Iraq, and Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister and thug of the occupation, met late last night to address the issue of elections: "After the meeting Talabani stresses that it is necessary to pass the law fast adding that delaying elections is unacceptable since it is necessary to hold the same according to Iraq constitution. The President, Prime Minister and Speaker have the right to extend the parliament's term for one month only, Talabani added." January 31st, Parliament's term expires (as does Nouri's -- Nouri was elected by Parliament). If Tariq al-Hashimi wants to veto the latest election law alterations, he allegedly has until the end of today to do so. Al Jazeera (link has text and video) reports: "The High Judicial Council ruled that the deadline would be extended to Sunday, because the 10-day period would legally end on Friday, and a decision could await the subsequent working day, Abdul-Sattar Birqdar, a court spokesman said. In Iraq, the weekend is Friday and Saturday." Jamal Hashim (Xinhua) reports that Ayad Allawi (the prime minister immediately before Nouri) was also visited last night by various "leaders of several political factions" to explore the elections issues and quotes an unnamed "parliamentary source" stating, "The meeting discussed how to reach a consensus over the election law, and some proposals were made during the meeting." Hadi al-Ameri is one of the leaders identified in the article and is quoted stating, "There was an agreement among the politicians in the meeting that seats for the provinces would remain as it is before the veto to the election law by Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, but the Kurds would be granted two more seats and then number of parliament seats will increase to 325 instead of 323."

Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad bombing which claimed 1 life and left six people injured, a Baghdad sticky bombing which claimed 1 life and left two people injured, a Mosul bombing which left a child injured and 1 Tirkrit suicide bomber who took his own life and claimed the lives of 1 "commander of the anti-riot force in Tikrit" and 3 of his bodyguards with fifteen other people injured. Sabah al-Bzee, Michael Christie and Angus MacSwan (Reuters) report that the commander in Tikrit was Lt Col Ahmed Subhi al-Fahal who had been shopping when he was attacked. Ernesto Londono and Muhanad Saif (Washington Post) explain, "The bomber ran toward Lt. Col. Ahmed al-Fahal, who heads the city's anti-terrorism and anti-riot force, as he was walking in a crowded market, according to Lt. Ibrahim al-Duir, a police spokesman in Tikrit."

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 police officer wounded in a Mosul drive by and 2 Iraqi soldiers killed in Mosul clashes. Reuters notes 1 Iraqi soldier shot dead in Baghdad yesterday and an attack on a Baghdad cafe in which 1 man was shot dead.

Today at World Can't Wait, Mathis Chiroux shares his thoughts on Barack Obama's Afghanistan War speech:

So it's come to this. Obama's gotta wage his war, and I gotta sit in the street.
It's not that I like blocking traffic or getting arrested or dealing with the fall-out when I could be reading a book. It's that I can't live with endless war and I must end it or surely die.
I'm not leaving this country. This is my mess, so help me, and I'll scrub it till my fingers bleed. I will not compromise with genocide. I will not run from those behind it.
Endless war is the promise of our time, signed in blood and sealed with death's own kiss. Its stench hangs around us heavy smog. While I dare not breathe for fear of intoxication, I cannot hold much longer.
This is the American nightmare, and it's shattering my heart like glass.

Yesterday on KPFA's Flashpoints, Dennis Bernstein, Robert Knight and Nora Barrows-Friedman tackled the realities so much of the media ignores regarding the speech and its meanings. (Barrows-Friedman gets Palestinian reaction to the speech). Guests included A.N.S.W.E.R.'s Richard Becker, Iraq Veterans Against the War's Michael Kern (who speaks of being unable to sit passively through the speech and also speaks of resistance), Military Families Speak Out's Lisa Lietz who discusses what it means in terms of her husband and others in the service, Georgia Stillwell Bissomette who offers both the perspective of a mother and of a Native American (don't miss her comments regarding colonization), Rami al-Meghari and Dahr Jamail (who speaks of military suicides, in addition to other topics, and we'll hopefully have time to highlight that tomorrow). At Amped Status, they explore "Af-Pak War Racket: The Obama Illusion Comes Crashing Down." Noted professor and attorney (international law is his specialization) Francis A. Boyle, at ZNet, provides a walk through on the issues of legality re: the Afghanistan War:

War of Aggression Against Afghanistan

Bush, Jr. instead went to the United National Security Council to get a resolution authorizing the use of military force against Afghanistan and Al Qaeda. He failed. You have to remember that. This war has never been authorized by the United Nations Security Council. If you read the two resolutions that he got, it is very clear that what Bush, Jr. tried to do was to get the exact same type of language that Bush, Sr. got from the U.N. Security Council in the late fall of 1990 to authorize a war against Iraq to produce its expulsion from Kuwait. It is very clear if you read these resolutions, Bush, Jr. tried to get the exact same language twice and they failed. Indeed the first Security (OOTC:FRCT) Council resolution refused to call what happened on September 11 an "armed attack" - that is by one state against another state. Rather they called it "terrorist attacks." But the critical point here is that this war has never been approved by the U.N. Security Council so technically it is illegal under international law. It constitutes an act and a war of aggression by the United States against Afghanistan.

No Declaration of War

Now in addition Bush, Jr. then went to Congress to get authorization to go to war. It appears that Bush, Jr. tried to get a formal declaration of war along the lines of December 8, 1941 after the Day of Infamy like FDR got on Pearl Harbor. Bush then began to use the rhetoric of Pearl Harbor. If he had gotten this declaration of war Bush and his lawyers knew full well he would have been a Constitutional Dictator. And I refer you here to the book by my late friend Professor Miller of George Washington University Law School, Presidential Power that with a formal declaration of war the president becomes a Constitutional Dictator. He failed to get a declaration of war. Despite all the rhetoric we have heard by the Bush, Jr. administration Congress never declared war against Afghanistan or against anyone. There is technically no state of war today against anyone as a matter of constitutional law as formally declared.

On the subject of Iraq, there is a National Geographic special set to air December 13th (9:00 pm EST) entitled Inside the Iraq War:

A controversial war that has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of civilians. A war with countless stories of bravery, triumph, sacrifice and tragedy. Even as six years of news coverage and policy debate have framed our understanding of the war in Iraq, what have our service members really experienced? And what can their up-close insight teach us about this war?Transporting viewers to war-torn Iraq, National Geographic Channel (NGC) provides an unflinching, personal and in-depth look at the last six years in Inside the Iraq War, premiering Sunday, December 13, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. From the producers of Inside 9/11, Inside the Iraq War opens a window into the first-person experiences of the men and women who live this war on a daily basis the dangerous missions, the interrogations, the life-or-death situations and the ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. The film avoids the policy debate that raged in the United States and around the world and opens a window into the soldier's battlefield perspective through a complex tapestry of video shot by the troops themselves, news footage from embedded journalists, rare photos and compelling personal accounts from those on the front lines.

Staying with TV, NOW on PBS debuts its latest episode Friday on most PBS stations and this one examines:

As Congress hammers out legislation that will determine the future of health care in this country, NOW travels to the nation's heartland to see what reform could mean for the middle class. On Friday, December 4 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa meets two tight-knit Oklahoma families whose problems with private health insurance left them unable to get proper medical care -- and on the brink of financial ruin. One of those families - the O'Reillys -- grapples with the issue of how to cover needed respiratory therapy treatment for their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who was denied coverage for what the insurance company labeled a "pre-existing condition.""People pretty frequently say, 'Oh, you know, my plan works great for me'," says Sophie's mother Natalie O'Reilly." And my answer to that is -- insurance works really well until you need it. Until you really, truly need it."

Turning to something non-Iraq related. Today in the Committee on Homeland Security hearing, US House Rep Eleanor Holmes Norton got a refresher in how blind trust in the media can leave you with egg on your face. Sounding very sure of herself, she repeated the claim that always sounded false but was so pleasing to so many: Barack Obama is receiving more death threats than anyone ever has!!!! Eleanor's not the first person to repeat that nor did she originate the false assertion. She just had the misfortune of repeating it to the Director of the Secret Service Mark J. Sullivan who quickly corrected her and explained that Barack had not received more threat at this point in his presidency than had Bill Clinton or George W. Bush at the same time in Clinton's presidency or Bush's whatever you want to call it. (I have never used the "p" word to refer to Bush and never will.)

Eleanor's a smart woman (except when it comes to films) and she's not a liar. She didn't create the claim. She read it, she heard it. It was all over the media. By October, Bryan Bender was asserting in the Boston Globe -- though careful readers may have noted that he had no source for it in his article. The false claims -- it felt so good to so many! -- first surfaced in an article by Toby Harnden (Telegraph of London) where he clearly identified it as appearing in a book by Ronald Kessler. That's August 3, 2009. It just felt so good and so righteous! to so many freak shows. By August 12, Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) was repeating it. The same Rothschild, it should be noted, who spent the bulk of this decade explaining how one 'threat' against Bush after another was in fact not a threat but an overreaction which led to an innocent person being targeted. But that's when a Republican's in the White House. When it's a Democrat, Matty's no longer concerned about examining alleged threats, he's too busy rushing forward with bad columns. Why? Because he feels so good thinking everyone wants to get Barack. He feels so wonderful. It makes him feel special and, yes, superior. And if you've ever seen Matthew Rothschild then you know feel superior to anyone isn't something he's often been able to pull off. But there was Matty in August insisting that Barack was getting 30 death threats a day! A 400% from Bush! And who was the source? Toby's source. Ronald Kessler. It's curious that Matty, writing for The 'Progressive,' didn't feel the need to identify Kessler who allegedly did interviews with unnamed Secret Service agents to get his 'facts'. Kessler publishes with what outlet? Oh, yes, Newsmax. Newsmax. Not an unbiased publication. Matty knew his readers -- all three -- would laugh like crazy if he explained who Kessler was or his Newsmax ties. So he just left that out. Conservatives, Matty will invite you into his bed but, remember, in the morning you'll need tip-toe down the hall. So that's the source and has always been the source -- a single source -- Ronald Kessler. Kessler's always played loose with the facts and it's often bitten him in the butt. For anyone other than right-wing partisans to take him or his sensationalistic and gossipy books seriously is rather surprising. But Matty did. Because it said what he wanted to hear. It said what he needed to hear in order to feel special about himself and to feel like he was so much better than the country he lived in. In fact, I think I hear the first sentence of The Matthew Rothschild Story: "From an early age, he was driven by a need to feel better than the country he lived in and better than its people. He was of them, yet he was never for them."

Testifying to Congress today, the head of the Secret Service corrected the falsehood. Wait and see which of the many (Amy Goodman also repeated the nonsense claims) freaks will come forward and say, "OOPS!" It was a pleasing tale to tell for many, it just wasn't true. By the way, Kat attended the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Afghanistan and the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the same topic Wednesday and wrote about it last night in "Depressing time in the House and Senate." And, again, we didn't open with Iraq. But this lie about the threats has been repeated over and over and we'll open with the facts. Unless Sullivan retracts or 'clarifies' his statement, that is now the public record and liars are on notice. The hearing was this morning. For those who'd like to see it, click here to stream and it may not be posted until Friday morning.

Lastly Danny Schechter been reporting on the Congo this week -- here, here and here [I join Marcia in recommending those reports -- see Marcia's "Recommended reading" and "Not one word from me on the War Hawk (promise)"].

iraq
the diane rehm show
david h. price
george packer
the telegraph of london andrew gilligan
sky news ruth barnett
the guardian
richard norton-taylor
andrew sparrow
the times of london david brown bbc news peter biles
mcclatchy newspapers laith hammoudi
the newshour judy woodruff alsumaria peter walker jamal hashim xinhua
kpfa flashpoints dahr jamail
francis a. boyle
danny schechter
now on pbs

Not one word from me on the War Hawk (promise)

2009-12-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

Didn't Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "I Am The War Hawk You Have Been Waiting For" capture it perfectly?

I'm not a big Jane Hamsher fan or even one. There's an article in Politico about her that I'll recommend. I was glad to discover she'd broken with Howie because she's irritated the s**t ouf of me many times and often I've complained to C.I. (who knows her distantly and needs nothing closer) and the response would be, "That sounds more Howie Klein than Jane." Howie's a poser (that's not from C.I. but from two of C.I.'s friends -- I'm referring to ___ and ___ from ___ who did the interview with Krista for the gina & krista round-robin about what it's like to be in a superband) and maybe Jane's not as useless as I so often thought. I'm sorry to be so down on her but she's one of the ones who refused to call out the sexism aimed at Hillary. I'm also tired of the little straight-woman-and-gay-man fan club she and Glenn-Glenn have going.

If you read Glenn-Glenn's remarks in Politico, you will often think, I did, 'Oh, he's describing C.I.' But then C.I. is rich. Not wealthy, rich. And she doesn't have to disdain the power circles in DC because she's of them. But if Jane's broken from Howie, I'll even forgive her the whole Madonna & Rupert Everett thing she has going with Glenn-Glenn.

(I will not forgive her silence on the sexism aimed at Hillary or the repeated lies told about Hillary. And that silence is why Jane's not as strong as Glenn-Glenn claims. You have to really be able to risk it all and Jane's not been willing to do that. That's true power, if you ask me, the willingness to risk it all, the willingness to not back down.)

98% of the people here in Kinshasa seem to be out of work. Poverty is pervasive and yet the Congolese capital has a reputation as the world’s third most expensive cities to live in. The hotel I am in charges over $300 a night. A salad and coffee tonight cost $20 at a fast food joint. It is estimated that tons of gold are stolen every year by parties unknown supported by shadowy forces, so called “rebel groups, “ and foreign proxies.

What's that?

It's day two of Danny Schechter reporting on the Congo. I don't wish Danny death but I do wish he could just buy a home in the Congo and stay there. And that's not out of malice, hate or anger. That's because his Congo work today and yesterday reminds me why his was one of the three sites I counted on in 2005 and started my morning's with. (The other two? The Common Ills, of course, and one that I won't mention because it went completely nuts.) (I'm not forgetting Rebecca. But she posted in the evening. I would read her at night. In the mornings, my first stop was The Common Ills, News Dissector and the third site. I would open both up, grab my coffee, rush back to the computer and the pages would finally be all done loading. I had the slowest connection in 2005.)

If you've missed any of Schecter's reporting on this, you are missing something.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, December 2, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military is mistaken for 'insurgents' in Iraq, Barack Obama wants more war all the time on all the channels to make up for his own miserable life, Congress examines VA care, those intended January elections may take place in February . . . or March, and more.

Last night Barack Obama gave a speech at West Point in which he flashed every last one of his War Hawk feathers. It was so outrageous that Democratic Party boot licker and professional party girl Tom Hayden insists he's taking the Obama bumper sticker off his car. (Or at least off his wife's car.) It's outrageous, fumes Pock Marks On His Soul, but not that outrageous apparently since he goes on to insist: "I'll support Obama down the road against Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs or any of the pitchfork carriers for the pre-Obama era." The pre-Obama era. One year is now an era? Well, Tom was never smart or informed. Tom's on the prowl (women, watch out) and ready to 'organize' and 'fight' as he insists on "no bumper sticker until the withdrawal strategy is fully carried out." Then he boasts, "the fight is on." Yes, he truly is a limp dick and that's been a fortunate thing for many a woman. Kisses, Tom-Tom, kisses. Remember back in April 2008 when Doug Henwood (at ZNet) rightly pointed out of Barry O, "And despite the grand claims of enthusiasts, he doesn't really have a movmeent behind him -- he's got a fan club. How does a fan club hold a candidate accountable?" As Tom-Tom always demonstrates, they don't.

Unlike the eternal bobby-soxer Hayden, Justin Raimondo (Antiwar) doesn't feel the need to stroke Barack to climax:

Those who were hoping for some real change in our rhetoric, if not our foreign policy, with Obama in the White House are no doubt sorely disappointed right now, because George W. Bush could just as easily have spoken these very same words – and, indeed, he did utter endless variations on this identical theme when justifying our actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the truth of the matter is that there are barely one-hundred al-Qaeda fighters in the whole of Afghanistan – so what are we doing there?

Rebecca never drank the Kool-Aid and she weighed in last night noting, "there is no difference between bush and barack. none. and that realization is making my stomach feel awful. ulcers, i'm sure." Cindy Sheehan (Cindy's Soapbox) explains, "Obama is just another coward that has risen to the highest office in the world and I am tired of having to be shoved by crazy people, chased and shot at by police, tear-gassed, arrested, called names that make even me blush, scrimping for every penny to stay afloat in this peace business, traveling and protesting to the point of exhaustion, etc. Not only did Obama condemn 30,000 troops to horror, with just one speech, he also condemned the real anti-war movement that was opposed to his policies from the beginning, to many more years of our sacrifices." Betty's very young and very pretty daughter got it, "Mommy, I'm sorry. I know it's wrong to hate but he's sending more people to die." Mike shared, "I had to get up every few minutes during the speech. He's such a damn liar. I couldn't take him for too many minutes straight. He such a liar and he revealed that tonight. Let's see who has the guts to stand up and call him out? I bet it'll be the same group of us who always have. And the usual Kool Aid drinkers will find a way to suddenly be in love with war." Chris Floyd (Empire Burlesque) would fall into "the same group" category since he's long exposed Barack's War Hawk nature -- on last night's speech he notes, "Barck Obama's speech, and the policies embraced in it, and the sinister implications underlying it, are all abysmally awful. They are a death warrant not only for the thousands of Afghan and Pakistani civilians who will be killed in the intensified conflict, but also for the countless thousands of innocents yet to die in the coming gnerations of a world roiled and destabilized by an out-of-control empire." Floyd references Arthur Silber's take which opens with:

To all those who repeatedly claimed that, no matter what "mistakes" he might make and regardless of the scope of the devastating effects of those errors, Obama had to represent a markedly better choice than McCain, take note: in certain respects, Obama is far more dangerous than McCain could have been. For the same reasons, Obama is also more dangerous than Bush was. I remind you that I have written numerous essays damning Bush for almost every single one of his policies. It is hardly the case that I viewed Bush in anything approaching a positive light, however remotely. In large part, the danger represented by Obama arises from the fact that Obama's election gutted whatever effective opposition might have existed. To their eternal shame, the Democrats never opposed Bush in any way that mattered -- but at least the possibility of opposition had not been obliterated entirely. In the near term and probably for longer, that possibility now appears to have been extinguished.

Cedric's "Barry's boo-boos" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! BARRY BOMBS!" had the herculian task of attempting to fact check the wily Barack who insisted April 9, 2009 that he was asking Congress for the last war supplemental but last night acknowledged he'd be asking them for another one (for at least $30 billion) and who self-stroked last night by declaring he "will close Guantanamo" -- uh, after being sworn in, he said Guantanamo would be closed by the end of this year. As of today, he has 29 days before 2009 is over. He might want to forgo yet another trip out of the country this month and instead sit his ass down and get to work. Back to Justin Rainmondo who especially found interesting Barry O's fact-free comments on the Iraq War:

"Then, in early 2003, the decision was made to wage a second war in Iraq. The wrenching debate over the Iraq war is well-known and need not be repeated here. It is enough to say that for the next six years, the Iraq war drew the dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy, and our national attention -- and that the decision to go into Iraq caused substantial rifts between America and much of the world."
Yes, the bad thing about the Iraq war wasn't that it needlessly killed thousands -- many thousands of Iraqis, and a far lesser number of Americans. Oh no: the really really bad thing about it was that it diverted attention and resources away from the battle Obama wanted to fight, the one in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That all happened in the bad old days of Republican rule, however, before the invention of "hope":"Today, after extraordinary costs, we are bringing the Iraq war to a responsible end. We will remove our combat brigades from Iraq by the end of next summer, and all of our troops by the end of 2011 ... We have given Iraqis a chance to shape their future, and we are successfully leaving Iraq to its people."
What a crock: we have given Iraqis eight years of utter horror, including hundreds of thousands of dead, countless wounded, a sectarian civil war that still rages, and a government just as tyrannical and unaccountable as the one we overthrew, if not more so. If that's "success," then I'd hate to see what failure looks like.

Iraq? As we noted Sunday at Third in "Editorial: Barack The Never Ending Liar," Barry O promised to pull a brigade out of Iraq each month after being sworn in. But never lived up to that promise, now did he? Trivia question: Who said this in response to Barack's promise to end the Iraq War in 2009: "But these were words worth holding the candidate to. The astonishing thing is that antiwar sentiment among Obama's base is running strongly enough to push the candidate forward to a stronger commitment."??????????? Why it's Tom-Tom Hayden. And just as soon as he gets done peeling his bumper sticker off his latest wife's car, maybe he can explain how he thinks he ever held Barack to those words? World Socialist Web Site's editorial board weighs in today on the speech:

The most glaring contradiction in a speech shot through with contradictions was Obama's attempt to disentangle the war in Afghanistan from the war in Iraq. "I opposed the war in Iraq," he said, "precisely because I believe that we must exercise restraint in the use of military force ..." But he was unable to establish any essential difference between that criminal enterprise and his war in Afghanistan.
Obama's escalation is yet another flagrant violation of the will of the American people. In one election after another, they have gone to the polls to express their hostility to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In every case, their will has been ignored and the wars have been expanded.
Obama won the presidency by running as an opponent of the Iraq war and appealing to popular opposition to militarism. Once in office, he quickly increased the US deployment in Afghanistan by 21,000, while reneging on his promise to carry out a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. Now he is increasing the total US troop level in Afghanistan to 100,000, more than double the level under Bush.

Staying in the US, we'll move over to Congress. "I think all of us over our time of service on the committee," US House Rep Bob Filner declared today, "hear about issues that suggest that sometimes federal funds may not be flowing to the local VA facilities in the way that we had envisioned -- either efficiently or effectively -- to best serve our veterans." Filner was chairing the House Veterans Affairs Committee's hearing on VA Health Care Funding: Appropriations to Programs. Chair Filner noted that there is currently a hiring freeze at the VA medical centers in his district "which my be linked to the growing queues that our veterans face for medical health care appointments." Chair Filner represents the 51st House District in California which can be summarized as southern half of the county of San Diego and Imperial County.

US House Rep Steve Buyer is the Ranking Member. In his opening remarks he addressed the allocation process. Following the hearing, his office released the following statement which covers that topic as well as what's been done since the hearing:

Today, Ranking Member Steve Buyer said he will request an independent review of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) allocation process to help ensure that each VA medical center is able to provide timely treatment for veterans.
Buyer pointed to the need for the study during a full House Committee on Veterans' Affairs hearing on the resource distribution process that occurs between VA's Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) and its 153 medical centers.
Chairman Bob Filner and members on both sides of the aisle, including Subcommittee Chairs Mike Michaud and Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, and Subcommittee Ranking Members Dr. Phil Roe and Henry Brown, agreed to join Buyer in a joint letter requesting a Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of the process.
Members on both sides of the aisle also expressed special concern about how the allocation process affects veterans in highly rural areas. Michaud, Herseth-Sandlin, and Roe all inquired how VISN directors ensure that facilities affiliated with medical centers, such as outpatient clinics, are afforded proper consideration in funding requests.
"Over the past twelve years, VA has relied on a decentralized funding model for the VISNs to fund their respective medical centers," Buyer said. "VA provides general guidance but permits a substantial amount of flexibility to allow for a more patient-centric process at the local level."
"I believe this requires clear delineation of responsibility, careful planning, and performance measures to gauge coordination and accountability. Therefore, it is prudent for us to ask the key questions such as whether the allocations should be formula-driven or standards based with real-time analysis."
"It has been five years since GAO has placed its eyes on VA funding allocation issues, so I will request that it perform a review of the criteria and process VA has established for VISNs, how VA ensures that VISNs comply with those criteria, and how VA centrally tracks and assesses the distribution and use of the funds at the medical center level."
"Accurate assessment of these measures is critical to VA's ability to provide timely access to quality veterans' care, and prevent delays that could be detrimental to veterans with critical conditions and those with special health care needs."

The hearing was composed of two panels. The panel was Clyde Parkis who has many credits including being a Vietnam veteran, many years with the Department of Veterans Affairs as well as the former director of Veterans Integrated Service Network. The second panel was composed of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Rita Reed and Michael S. Finegan (Finegan was accompanied by William Schoenhard and W. Paul Kearns III).

Parkis's prepared statement is posted here (if that doesn't work go to the Committee's hearings page and select it -- but I'm told the bugs have been worked out and that link will work). Chair Filner said the statement would be entered in full into the record and encourage Parkis to utilize his opening five minutes hitting additional topics. We'll note this from his opening remarks where he's speaking of his time working for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Clyde Parkis: As a Vietnam veteran, I sometimes have trust issues and it took me a long time to figure out who to -- who to trust in the process as we move through the budget cycles. I was aware that OMB liked to screen VA testimony before it came to the committees and I thought sometimes that prevented us from asking for what we thought we really needed. I was told to say, 'We don't have our budget official yet so I can't speculate on the impact of that.' That made it difficult to answer my local Congressman in terms of what was going on with the VA. And I thought some of that was actually coming from this Committee but maybe that was not the case. As I gained some trust over time, there are some things I wished I had spoken up about a little -- a little earlier.

OMB is the Office of Management and Budget and falls under the executive branch of the federal government. That statement, an important one, wasn't an issue in the questioning. Despite the fact that this committee and every other one has heard that answer repeatedly "no final budget, can't speculate." Instead, there were questions regarding the counting of veterans, US House Rep David Roe praised the VA outpatient clinics (CBOCs) and wondered how they were determined? Parkis explained, "It was a combination of where the veterans are -- you look at your demographics spread out by zip code or by county -- and in addition to that where are you experiencing the demand?"

US House Rep Harry Teague noted how, in New Mexico (his state), "the number of people who have to travel five, six hours" to a VA "is pretty large." And he also wanted to drop back to Roe's questions and know about the outpatient and how New Mexico might qualify so that "people don't have to drive five, six hours" to get care? Parkis began stressing tele-care (health care over the phone). Since many of the veterans Teague is speaking of (we speak to veterans groups in New Mexico quite often) are complaining about the lengthy drives to Alberquerque for check ups or to diagnose new issues, it's not really clear how tele-care would assist them in that.

US House Rep Ann Kirkpatrick worried that "demand" qualification might hurt rural areas where many factors effected how many veterans in an area utilized a VA facility. This includes some veterans, including Native American veterans, who do not access care because they aren't aware of the care that is available. Parkis identified Prescott, Arizona as one such area and Kirkpatrick agreed it was. He suggested outreach, "talking to the tribal leaders" and insisted that "most health care these days is actually chronic not acute." Kirkpatrick's concerns really weren't addressed by Parkis who admitted rural areas really weren't his expertise; however, Chair Filner said that in "January we're going to be concentrating on rural -- access for rural veterans because everything you say is right."

Moving to Iraq, Saturday barriers around the US base in Basra collapsed. Steven Edwards (CANWEST News Service) reports that the US military is insisting the collapse was not a result of mortar attacks or any other attack but a result of "rainfall". Because Iraq is infamous for rainfall. In fact, dust storms are a thing of the long ago past. Right? Right? (No.) In other news, Li Xianzhi (Xinhua) reports armed clashes between US forces and Iraqis "guarding their own homes" in Baquba today which resulted in the death of 1 Iraqi and three more injured. Xianzhi quotes a police source who states, "The gunmen thought the [US] soldiers approaching their homes were insurgents." Xianzhi quotes the source explaining a US helicopter was called and it "bombed a house and totally destroyed it".

Turning to some of today's other reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Jenan Hussein (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Monday grenade attack in Kirkuk which left twenty-six people wounded.

Shootings?

Jenan Hussein (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 civilian shot dead in Baghdad and, an hour later, 1 soldier shot dead in Baghad.

In other news, Khalid al-Ansary, Michael Christie and Matthew Jones (Reuters) report, "Iraqi politicians have 24 hours to resolve an impasse over a law needed for next year's election to take place, otherwise the country's Sunni Arab vice president will veto the legislation again, a spokesman said on Wednesday." If Tariq al-Hashemi chooses to veto the legislation, he must do so tomorrow according to Reuters. Meanwhile the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq released a statement on the elections: "UNAMI strongly supports the efforts undertaken to clarify voting for Iraqis abroad, as well as the inclusion in the law of the distribution of seats among the governorates, and the announcement of a final election date, with 27 February 2010 as a feasible option for practical and constitutional reasons." BBC News notes that the United Nations is saying February 27th is doable as an election date for the former January elections but that "Iraq's Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani told the BBC that the election could be pushed back to the end of March." Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports Ayad Allawi (prime minister immediately prior to Nouri al-Maliki) says there's a call for February 27th or March 1st.

The latest Inside Iraq began airing Friday on Al Jazeera and joining Jasim al-Azzawi were Saad al-Mattalibi of Iraq's Ministry of National Dialogue and Abdelbarri Atwan, editor-in-chief of al-Quds al-Arabi. The issue was the continued conflict between the US-installed exile government and Ba'athists in Iraq. Saddam Hussein headed the Ba'ath Party. It's a political party. It had many, many members (the majority of Iraqis participating in politics). Since the exiles were installed, and with the help of Paul Bremer, Iraq has been 'de-Ba'athified'.

Jasim al-Azzawi: Saad al-Mattalibi, excluding the Ba'ahtist from running for power, to some people smacks nothing more than vengance, to others, it's a fear of a well organized party [which] given the chance, it might come back for political as well as social influence.

Saad al-Mattalibi: Many people see differ -- have a different view to that, to that introduction because the Ba'ath Party -- without talking about persons, personalities or individuals -- as a thought, as a school of thought, believes in attaining power through coups and through conspiracies. Once they're in power, they believe in excluding everybody and dictating their way or their vision upon society. This, in itself, cannot be accepted in New Iraq, where we have a multiple political ideologies and multiple political views and they can compete in a peaceful manner and allowing the voters to be the decider on who is elected and who is not.

Jasim al-Azzawi: Abdelbarri, the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has warned of upcoming Ba'athist Parliament. He said, "And I'm going to use all my constituional powers to stop them." Are these scare tactics or he is generally scared that they might come back?

Abdelbarri Atwan: You know Dr. Saad talked about exclusion and he accused the Ba'athists of excluding other ideology or other thoughts in Iraq during their rule. And al-Maliki and Dr. Saad are applying the same in democratic Iraq. So what's the difference here? I believe if you're looking for initial reconciliation, if you're looking at rebuilding the country again, I think you need everybody, you need all the color of the shade. We know some Ba'athist were dangerous -- they are locked, or executed or tried. But the rest of the Ba'athist people are Iraqis and they have the right to be part of the New Iraq like everybody else. It is true there are some side of the Ba'ath or Ba'athist ideology which is bad. For example, the dictatorship. But there are other sides which I believe are very bright. For example, secularism, the equality between men and women, the actually -- education, the scientific achievement, universities, good health service --

Jasim al-Azzawi: Let me run this by Saad, Abdelbarri

Abdelbarri Atwan: We cannot exclude all of this.

Jasim al-Azzawi: Saad, you're a practicing what Saddam Hussein practiced against other political parties. You're excluding just as much he did.

Saad al-Mattalibi: I don't think that really applies here, looking at the history of the 35 years the Ba'ath Party ruled in Iraq. We are not excluding individuals. We are trying to prevent a particular school of thought from entering and wrecking the political process. If you look at today's Iraqi Parliament, there are many Ba'athists who are actually serving today as members of Parliament. The difference is that those people believed in the national -- in the new national principles of Iraq. They believe in democracy. They believe in peaceful transition of power. They believe in elections and so on. They believe in the institutions. They believe in the freedom of the press. All these ideas that the Ba'ath Party refused generally. Now the other thing I would like to say to my, uh, good colleague, uh, Mr. Abdelbarri is that the achievement -- the scientific achievement or medical achievement in Iraq was not done by the Ba'ath Party. It was done by the individual Iraqi -- men and women and scientist. And by the way we uphold the same, aaah, values --

Jasim al-Azzawi: That particular point, Saad, let me just remind you that hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi scientists, as well as professors and even university presidents, they have fled the country. Some of them simply because they were targeted because they were Ba'athists. So there is a measure here that a brush --

Saad al-Mattalibi: That's not true

Jasim al-Azzawi: -- which has touched --

Saad al-Mattalibi: That's not true.

Jasim al-Azzawi: -- everybody.

Saad al-Mattalibi: No, no, no. That is not entirely true. What has happened is there was a vicious attack against scientific development and all walks of life really in Iraq. Many people fled the country. I mean, mechanics and simple carpenters fled the country. I mean, were they Ba'athists? No. There was a huge attack on all development in Iraq. This led a vast sector in Iraq to leave Iraq.

Abdelbarri Atwan: I'm surprised. Dr. Saad is a highly educated person and I believe he is not actually reflecting what's happening on the ground in Iraq. There are at least -- at least -- 500 scholars assassinated in the New Iraq. That middle class which is supposed to rebuild Iraq? Actually non-existent. Most of them left the country. They are working now in the Gulf or taking refuge in Europe. And you know secteraianism splitting in Iraq now. You know 4 million displaced, a million widows, about four million orphans. I think this is -- Is this the achievement of the New Iraq which the New Iraqi rulers are proud of? When we talk about accountability, who shall we actually judge here? Who shall we charge here? When the whole country dismembered under the pretext of de-Ba'athification which is a very ugly word. So I think we should -- we should admit, you know, the Ba'athists will be seen as angels in comparison what's happening in Iraq now. I've never been a Ba'athist, I will never be a Ba'athist but actually, the whole of a country dismembered, destroyed, sectarianism, women actually in a very bad situation and democracy. What kind of democracy if people cannot have water or electricity? Or education? Or they are not safe in their houses?

Saad al-Mattalibi: Well they didn't have electricity, they didn't have education. They had only war and mass graves in Saddam's time, in the Ba'athist time. What we are trying to say is that what started 35 years ago, we today pay the price for it. Democracy is not about only getting clean water and getting good health to people. Democracy, of course, include this, but also include the freedom of speech, including the right to choose our leaders. We -- I can today criticize my own government and not be punished or executed for it. And I refuse to accept everybody left Iraq is a Ba'athist. This is a very dangerous accusation. Many people, one of them is my uncle, left the country because the environment in Iraq was very dangerous. Gangs were roaming the streets in 2006, 2007, killing people. And those scientists you're talking about, many of my very, very good friends who are professors Baghdad University, they were killed and they were not Ba'athists and they were not even from that sect, they were from this sect.

Abdelbarri Atwan: Dr. Saad, you know, democracy is good governance.

Saad al-Mattalibi: Of course.

Abdelbarri Atwan: If we see the situation in Iraq, there is no good governance.

Saad al-Mattalibi: Correct.
Abdelbarri Atwan: When Iraq is the second most corrupt country on the -- on earth according to the International Transpancy Organization, it means there is no good governance. And democracy did not produce what the Iraqi were waiting for: to have a good government, to have accountability, to have actually transparancy, to have good services, to have the middle class there. Yes, when you say not everybody who left Iraq is a Ba'athist, this is affront to the new regime in Iraq because it means neither the Ba'athists or the non-Ba'athists are accepting the situation and they are deserting the country -- four million actually displaced in Iraq and it is a fact so there is nothing to be proud of to be honest. You know, I believe the new regime should admit they did not produce the good example for the Iraqi people.

In the US, Colleen Murphy searches for answers to her daughter's death. Staff Sgt Amy Tirador was serving in Iraq when she was killed at the start of last month, shot in the back of her head. Russell Goldman (ABC News) reports Murphy has many questions including, "How could this have happened on a secure American base? I don't know why they can't rule some things out. This can't be a suicide. But there are so many probabilities and prospects and guessing games. They've given me no hints, and I can't stop thinking about all the different scenarios. Am I aggravated? Absolutely. Thursday will be a month. I want the truth. I will be patient and I will wait. But I want the truth." Meanwhile Iraq War veteran Lt Col Jim Gentry was buried yesterday after dying of cancer which was most likely the result of his exposure to toxins in Iraq. Melissa Swan (WHAS11 -- link has text and video) reports on the funeral and notes, "Veterans from several wars held the stars and stripes as members of Jim Gentry's family, both by blood and by military arrived for a final, formal goodbye." Eric Bradner (Evansivlle Courier & Press) reports: "Gentry, a nonsmoker, was diagnosed in 2006 with a rare form of lung cancer. Military doctors say it most likely was caused by exposure to sodium dichromate, which contains hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen. The dustlike toxin littered the desert facility. It was yellow in some places, orange in others. It stuck to soldiers' boots and blew into their faces during Iraq's many windstorms. For months, no one wore protective gear. They were told they didn't need it." In yesterday's snapshot, we noted Senator Evan Bayh's bill to create a federal registry for US service members exposed to toxins. Brander quotes Bayh stating, "The circumstances of his death are tragic, but the quiet courage with which he lived his life, served his country and advocated for justice for those exposed at Qarmat Ali inspired everyone who knew him. I will continue to do everything in my power in the United States Senate to honor his life and improve the medical care of those who served at his side." As noted in yesterday's snapshot, that bill is currently buried in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee which has no hearings (not even mark-ups) scheduled for this month. January starts a new year meaning the bill would have to be reintroduced then. None of that is meant as a criticisim of Bayh (who introduced the bill in October) but it is a criticism of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee which desperately needs a new and healthy chair -- something it does not have at present.

Well close with this is from Tom Eley's "US Supreme Court suppresses torture photos" (WSWS):The US Supreme Court on Monday nullified an appeals court order that would have obligated the Obama administration to release photographs depicting US soldiers subjecting prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq to horrific acts of torture.In an unsigned three-sentence decision in the case, Department of Defense v. ACLU, 09-160, the Supreme Court granted an Obama administration petition vacating the order and sent the case back to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, telling the lower court it must review the case in light of a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in October.The law in question was written as a specific response to the circuit court's ruling in October 2008 requiring that the photos be released. Attached to an appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and signed into law by Obama, it gave Secretary of Defense Robert Gates the power to suppress the torture photos if he determines they may threaten US military operations. Gates invoked the measure on November 13. It is now anticipated that the circuit court will side with the Obama administration and rule against the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU.)

iraq cindy sheehan
chris floyd
doug henwood
xinhua
jenan hussein mcclatchy newspapers
al jazeera
inside iraq
jasim al-azzawi
eric brander evansville courier and press meliss swan
tom eley wsws

The always laughable ACORN

2009-11-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

Kat's "Kat's Korner: Joni Mitchell's unearthed treasure" is incredible and a must-read. And, as you can see above, Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Rolling In It" is pretty amazing too. Michelle Obama, the She-Hulk. Poor, sad Michelle Obama, a fashion disaster and a joke.

Joke describes ACORN and before we get to the latest news there, an e-mail comes in saying that I don't highlight ACORN out of racism. I'm African-American, child. Know your facts before you try to operate a computer. ACORN is a joke in the African-American community. The White Mommas and Poppies build up ACORN but in the community, it's a joke. It always has been. They're seen like Al Sharpton: S**t stirrers showing up for attention. ACORN has been a joke for years. It's just in 2008 that the White community learned of some of the problems -- White community at large. Okay, Jake Sherman (Politico -- has audio option) reports:

ACORN has been tripped up by voter registration fraud allegations and an undercover investigation which had its employees offering advice on how to set up a brothel and evade taxes. Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed, a law that cut off much of the organization’s federal funding.

As a result, Sherman reports, they considered changing their name but decided not to. Why? In part because, according to an ACORN memo, "right-wing attackers will say we are ACORN in disguise – so do we really gain much by going with a new name?"

See, right there, you have why ACORN is such a fraud. They consider changing their name because they're having trouble with donors but then decide not to because "attackers" will just say "we are ACORN in disguise." That's an attack?

These people are idiots. They consider changing their name to take the heat off and then refer to people who would point that truth out as "attackers." They suffer from a real persecution complex and need to grow the hell up.

Sherman reports that Republicans in the House are holding some sort of inquiry tomorrow. If they do, I don't expect it to have much worth noting. If I see reports that demonstrate something worth noting took place, I'll blog about it tomorrow night.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Monday, November 30, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, over the weekend a 2002 memo to Tony Blair is leaked -- a memo explaining that the Iraq War would be illegal,a War Criminal (Steven D. Green) plots another way to escape punishment for his War Crimes, November's US military death toll in Iraq is a five month high, and more.

Starting with employment opportunities: "Desperately seeking dirty whores willing to lie and look the other way while Iraqis are slaughtered. If you have no ethics and no real training, we'll send you to Iraq where you can be a reporter! Call 1-800-Reuters." The news agency continues to falter in Iraq without Tim Cocks to lead their coverage. Which is how you get them reporting no deaths -- NONE -- since Thursday. Today Michael Christie and Mark Trevelyan fetch coffee and take stenography for the Iraqi government as they announce the Interior Ministry's official death toll numbers of 88 dead in Iraq. They try to dress up with civilians, but what's a civilian? If a police officer and his or her family is slaughtered at their homes -- which did happen this month -- are they civilians? It's not even an issue of killed in the line of fire and it's such a stupid division to begin with. Are resistance fighters civilians? Again, it's a stupid division but then it's stupid for anyone to run with a count from the Interior Ministry which can't even release a total of the number of Iraqis imprisoned (including imprisioned in the Interior Ministry's secret prisons).

Excluding foreign forces and foreign contractors, how many people died in Iraq during the month of November thus far? November 1st through 7th saw at least 51 reported dead and 97 reported injured ("Sunday saw 25 Iraqis reported deaths and 97 injured. Monday saw 4 reported dead and 3 reported wounded. Tuesday saw 3 reported dead and 10 reported injured. Wednesday saw 7 reported dead and 25 reported wounded. Thursday saw 5 person reported dead and 15 reported injured. Friday saw 4 people reported dead and six people reported injured. Saturday saw 3 reported dead and 3 reported injured."). November 8th through 14th saw at least 29 reported dead and at least 44 reported wounded ("Sunday were reported 8 dead and 6 were reported wounded, Monday it was 2 dead and 15 wounded, Tuesday it was 4 dead and 2 wounded, Wednesday found 3 dead and 5 wounded, Thursday it was 6 dead and 10 wounded, Friday there were reported 3 dead and on Saturday the number killed was 3 and the number injured was 6. [Saturday's number may be 4 -- we are going with 3, use links and you'll see why.]"). November 15th through 22nd saw at least 44 reported dead and at least 93 reported injured ("Last Sunday 1 person was reported dead in Iraq and 8 were reported injured, Monday's numbers were 28 dead and 36 wounded, Tuesday's were 4 dead and 14 wounded, Wednesday's numbers were 2 dead and 5 wounded, Thursday's numbers were 4 dead and 6 wounded, Friday's numbers were 2 dead and 10 wounded and Saturday's numbers were 3 dead and 14 wounded."). November 23 through November 28th saw 34 reported dead and 120 reported wounded ("Sunday 11 Iraqis were reported dead and 22 wounded, Monday the numbers were 2 dead and 18 wounded, Tuesday the death total was 3 and the number wounded was 16, Wednesday the death toll was 13 and the injured numbered 38, Thursday were 5 dead and 43 wounded"). Yesterday the press reported 3 dead and 5 injured. That's a total of at least 161 reported dead and at least 359 reported injured. There's very little follow up reporting out of Iraq so those in the injured column who didn't recover, who died? There's no way of knowing.

The laughable ICCC count is 105 (civilians and non-civilians) killed in Iraq in November (thus far). Is it a count or is it a dabble? According to their 'count,' no one died in Iraq on November 19th, n one died in Iraq November 9th, 10th or 11th. So if you want to be crazy, idiotic or just a liar, feel free to cite the laughable count of ICCC. We don't cite Iraqi Body Count because it is an undercount and it has always given an undercount. Undercounts help sell the illegal war. We note ICCC's death toll for US service members since the start of the Iraq War -- the only thing they do worth citing. That number is 4367. Sunday the US military announced: "BASRA -- A Multi-National Division -- South Soldier died Nov. 29 of non-combat related injuries. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under investigation." The month is not yet over and the military often announces monthly deaths a few days into the next month but currently the monthly death toll is 11 making the month of November the deadliest month for US service members in Iraq since June.

Warren P. Strobel (McClatchy Newspapers) offers a lenthy state-of-Iraq piece today which includes this:

After Iraqi army troops and [Kurdish] peshmerga forces nearly came to blows last spring, Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, the commander of American forces in Iraq, proposed joint patrols by the two armies, under U.S. supervision. The patrols have yet to begin.

Sheikh Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa, the minister of the peshmerga, told McClatchy that the Kurdish regional government has accepted Odierno's plan, but with reservations. However, he ruled out pulling back from the tense front-line region around Mosul.

"We will not withdraw one step, under any pressure, or any threat, or any request," Sheikh Jaafar said in an interview in Irbil, the Kurdish regional government's capital. "Solve the problems, we will withdraw the troops."

There are many sections from Strobel's report worthy of noting; however, we're noting that section because some outlets have falsely reported that those joint-patrols have already started.

Staying in the real world, if you were a kiddie rapist and the murderer of four people and were damn lucky enough to have been sentenced only to life in prison, you might want to consider that a 'win.' But Steven D. Green was never known for smarts and his cheap lawyers were never known for their ethics. Steven D. Green was convicted last May 7th of the gang-rape of 14-year-old Iraqi Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her murder, the murder of her five-year-old sister and the murders of both of her parents. The War Crimes took place in Iraq where Green was serving with the US military. Green was the ringleader and part of the plan was to blame the War Crimes on 'insurgents.' By the time the War Crimes were discovered, Green had already been discharged. The War Criminal was sentenced to life in prison only after the civilian jury appeared split on whether or not to sentence him to the death penalty. No reporter has covered this story as much as AP's Brett Barrouquere. Today Barrouquere reports that Green's attorneys filed an appeal today claiming that the 2000 Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act was not appropriate or legal and should be overturned (a claim the defense made in federal court already and a claim that was rejected). His attorneys are claiming that Green would have received more leniancy in military courts and want the conviction tossed out and for Green to be re-tried before a military court -- in other words, his attorneys are attempting to garner the death penalty for Green.

Green and his attorneys seem unaware of the reasons why some of the others involved received lighter sentences than Green did (Green is sentenced to life without parole). The reasons include that all four family members killed were shot dead by Steven D. Green. The reasons include that Green was the ringleader who plotted the entire attack. The reasons include that Green showed no remorse while others begged for the mercy of the court, going so far as to cry in court. Green showed no remorse. It should also be noted that Green and his two-bit attorneys did a lousy job in court. After Green was found guilty, the attorneys attempted to spin it and say that was their strategy. Hey, put that on a business card: "Defense attorneys who will work overtime so that you're found guilty." They claimed that they intended that and were saving their fight for the sentencing. That's an outright lie. They tried many tactics before the first day of the trial and the judge repeatedly shot them down. Pouting and not all that smart to begin with, they went through the motions in court and never regained their balance. So when you put your client in the courtroom and you never challenge the accusastions against him, when you never dispute them, when you never argue he's not guilty, don't be surprised when he gets convicted. Don't be surprised at all.

Green showed no remorse and that's public information now. It's unlikely that a judge will toss out the civilian court's conviction but it could happen. If it does, Green's not likely to face a jury nervous about sentencing him to death. Green is a War Criminal. A military jury (or just a judge if he skips a military jury) will see him as a disgrace to the uniform and someone who brought shame to the US military. They will know that he offered no remorse. Oops.

Let's stop a moment. In May, after being convicted and with the sentence hearing concluding and Abeer's family in the courtroom, Green read a statement (this is the prepared statement e-mailed to the public account of TCI, it varied a bit as Green stumbled through his public reading):

What I am about to say is completely my own. No one told me what to say. No one wrote this for me. Not my lawyers, not the government, not anybody.
My feelings of remorse are directed solely towards the victims, and towards the family of the victims, who I do not deny are victims themselves.
I am truly sorry for what I did in Iraq and I am sorry for the pain my actions, and the actions of my co-defendants, have caused you and your family. I imagine it is a pain that I cannot fully comprehend or appreciate. I helped to destroy a family and end the lives of four of my fellow human beings, and I wish that I could take it back, but I cannot. And, as inadequate as this apology is, it is all I can give you.
I know you wish I was dead, and I do not hold that against you. If I was in your place, I am convinced beyond any doubt that I would feel the same way. And, if I thought it would change anything, or if it would bring these people back to life, I would do everything I could to make them execute me. I also know that you think I am evil, and I understand that as well, and even though I do not think that you want to hear this, I have to tell you that despite the evil that I have done, I am not an evil person.
Before I was in the Army, I never thought I would kill anyone, and even after I was in the Army, but before I went to Iraq, I never thought I would intentionally kill a civilian. When I was in Iraq, something happened to me that I can only explain by saying that I lost my mind. At some point while I was in Iraq, I stopped seeing Iraqis as good and bad, as men, women, and children. I started seeing them all as one, and evil, and less than human. When that happened, any natural, learned, or religious morality, that normally would have stopped this, was gone.
But I see now that I was wrong, and that Iraqis are human beings, and that despite differences of race, religion, culture, and language, they are still human. And that at their core, they have the same feelings, emotions, and needs as Americans. It was wrong to kill Iraqis, just like it was wrong to kill Americans, just like it is wrong to kill anyone, and I am very sorry.
Most of all I am sorry for the deceased, but aside from them, I am the most sorry for the boys whose family are gone. I know what we did left a hole in their lives, and scars on their minds, and that there is no making up for that. I only hope for them that they can somehow, and I don't know how, move forward, and have a good future despite the nightmare in their past that I helped create. They have my apologies and my prayers, as meaningless as they must seem.
The Government is not going to execute me, as I am sure you wish they would, but there is really no chance that I will step foot outside of prison for as long as I live. I know that if I live one more year or fifty more years that they will be years that Fahkriya, Kassem, Abeer, and Hadeel won't have not matter where I am. And even though I did not learn their names until long after their deaths, they are never far from my mind. But in the end, whether in one year or fifty, I will die, and when I die I will be in God's hands. In the Kingdom of God where there will be justice, and whatever I deserve, I will get. On the day of judgment, God will repay everyone according to his works, and affliction and distress will come upon every human being who does evil. I know that I have done evil, and I fear that the wrath of the Lord will come upon me on that day. But, I hope that you and your family at least can find some comfort in God's justice.
I see now that war is intrinsically evil, because killing is intrinsically evil. And, I am sorry I ever had anything to do with either.
And, I cannot say this enough times, whether or not you can ever forgive me, and I don't see how you could, I am and will always be sorry for what I did.

Oh, what a sweet little War Criminal. Abeer's family didn't buy his little act. Renee Murphy reported on the events in the court room for WHAS11:

Renee Murphy: I mean, they came face to face with the killer. Once again, the only thing different about this time was that they were able to speak with him and they had an exchange of dialogue and the family is here from Iraq and they got to ask Steven Green all the questions they wanted answered. They looked each other in the eye. Green appeared calm and casual in court. The victims' family, though, outraged, emotional and distraught. Now cameras were not allowed in the courtroom so we can't show video of today's hearing but here's an account of what happened. [Video begins] This is a cousin of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl raped and killed by Steven Green. He and other family members in this SUV were able to confront Green in federal court this morning. Their words were stinging and came from sheer grief. Former Fort Campbell soldier Steven Green was convicted of killing an Iraqi mother, father and their young daughter. He then raped their 14-year-old daughter, shot her in the head and set her body on fire. Today the victim's family was able to give an impact statement at the federal court house the young sons of the victims asked Green why he killed their father. an aunt told the court that "wounds are still eating at our heart" and probably the most compelling statements were from the girls' grandmother who sobbed from the stand and demanded an explanation from Green. Green apologized to the family saying that he did evil things but he is not an evil person. He says that he was drunk the night of the crimes in 2006 and he was following the orders of his commanding officers. In his statement, Green said if it would bring these people back to life I would do everything I could to make them execute me. His statement goes on to say, "Before I went to Iraq, I never thought I would intentionally kill a civilian. When I was in Iraq, something happened to me that I can only explain by saying I lost my mind. I stopped seeing Iraqis as good and bad, as men, women and children. I started seeing them all as one, and evil, and less than human." Green didn't act alone. His codefendants were court-martialed and received lesser sentences. Green will be formally sentenced to life in prison in September. [End of videotape.] The answers that Green gave were not good enough for some of the family members. at one point today, the grandmother of the young girls who were killed left the podium and started walking towards Green as he sat at the defendant's table shouting "Why!" She was forcibly then escorted to the back of the court room by US Marshalls. She then fell to the ground and buried her face in her hands and began to cry again. The family pleaded with the court for the death sentence for Green. but you can see Green's entire statement to the court on our website whas11.com and coming up tonight at six o'clock, we're going to hear from Green's attorneys.

His performance wasn't at all convincing and he dropped it when he popped back into court in September. From the September 4th snapshot:

May 7th Steven D. Green (pictured above) was convicted for his crimes in March 12, 2006 gang-rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, the murder of her parents and the murder of her five-year-old sister while Green was serving in Iraq. Green was found to have killed all four, to have participated in the gang-rape of Abeer and to have been the ringleader of the conspiracy to commit the crimes and the conspiracy to cover them up. May 21st, the federal jury deadlocked on the death penalty and instead kicking in sentence to life in prison. Today, Green stood before US District Judge Thomas B. Russell for sentencing. Kim Landers (Australia's ABC) quotes Judge Russell telling Green his actions were "horrifying and inexcusable." Not noted in any of the links in this snapshot (it comes from a friend present in the court), Steven Dale Green has dropped his efforts to appear waif-ish in a coltish Julia Roberts circa the 1990s manner. Green showed up a good twenty pounds heavier than he appeared when on trial, back when the defense emphasized his 'lanky' image by dressing him in oversized clothes. Having been found guilty last spring, there was apparently no concern that he appear frail anymore.

Italy's AGI reports, "Green was recognised as the leader of a group of five soldiers who committed the massacre on September 12 2006 at the Mahmudiyah check point in the south of Baghdad. The story inspired the 2007 masterpiece by Brian De Palma 'Redacted'." BBC adds, "Judge Thomas Russell confirmed Green would serve five consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole." Deborah Yetter (Courier-Journal) explains, "Friday's federal court hearing was devoted mostly to discussion of technical issues related to Green's sentencing report, although it did not change Green's sentence. He was convicted in May of raping and murdering Abeer al-Janabi, 14, and murdering her parents, Kassem and Fakhriya, and her sister, Hadeel, 6, at their home outside Baghdad."

Green was tried in civilian court because he had already been discharged before the War Crimes were discovered. Following the gang-rape and murders, US soldiers attempted to set fire to Abeer's body to destroy the evidence and attempted to blame the crimes on "insurgents." In real time, when the bodies were discovered, the New York Times was among the outlets that ran with "insurgents." Green didn't decide he wanted to be in the military on his own. It was only after his most recent arrest -- after a long string of juvenile arrests -- while sitting in jail and fearing what sentence he would face, that Green decided the US Army was just the place he wanted to be. Had he been imprisoned instead or had the US military followed rules and guidelines, Green wouldn't have gotten in on a waiver. Somehow his history was supposed to translate into "He's the victim!!!!" As if he (and the others) didn't know rape was a crime, as if he (and the others) didn't know that murder was considered wrong. Green attempted to climb up on the cross again today. AP's Brett Barrouguere quotes the 'victim' Green insisting at today's hearing, "You can act like I'm a sociopath. You can act like I'm a sex offender or whatever. If I had not joined the Army, if I had not gone to Iraq, I would not have got caught up in anything." Climb down the cross, drama queen. Your entire life was about leading up to a moment like that. You are a sociopath. You stalked a 14-year-old Iraqi girl while you were stationed at a checkpoint in her neighborhood. You made her uncomfortable and nervous, you stroked her face. She ran to her parents who made arrangements for her to go live with others just to get her away from you, the man the army put there to protect her and the rest of the neighborhood. You are one sick f**k and you deserve what you got. Green play drama queen and insist "you can act like I'm a sex offender" -- he took part in and organized a gang-rape of a 14-year-old girl. That's a sex offender. In fact, "sex offender" is a mild term for what Green is.

His September statements, where he pushed off guilt, rendered his carefully worded May statement a lie. That's public record. Even if the verdict is overturned and he's taken to military court, all that happened is public record and out there. And Green better understand that sympathy for those who cried, showed remorse and established that they were led around by a ringleader (Green) will not be there for him. He got very lucky that a civilian court didn't sentence him to death. A military court will not give him as much benefit of the doubt. They will not buy into his the cheap theatrics of his cheap attorneys. They will not fret that Green was 'forced' into these War Crimes by the military because they will grasp that Green's War Crimes are not common, are not universal and they will most likely decide that a strong, strong example needs to be made of Green. He seems to think that after he's murdered four people and raped a young girl that he deserves to roam the streets in two to five years. He's never accepted the horrifica nature of his crimes, he's never accepted the lives he destroyed and he's never taken accountability for the shame he brought to the US military. Most kiddie rapists who murdered their victim and her family would see life in prison as getting off easy but Green's never taken accountability for his crimes. Now Abeer's family may have to face yet another trial. But that doesn't concern Steve-o, he just knows he's itching to get out of prison. After all, there are lots of young girls in the United States. Who knows who he might be able to rape next? Repeating: No remorse, no guilt. He's never shown either.

Turning to London where the Iraq Inquiry chaired by John Chilcot continued today hearing evidence from David Manning. Over the weekend, Chris Ames (Guardian) demolished the claims by Jeremy Greenstock to the comittee on Friday that the Iraq was legal. Ames explained Greenstock had submitted a written statement to the committee which explained that if England stated that a resoultion for the Iraq War from the United Nations was necessary, that "would have been to reject the basis under which military action was taken in December 1998." As Ames pointed out, "It was a very careful, self-justifying performance from a former ambassador with an admitted propensity to cover his and his country's diplomatic tracks."

By Sunday, the big news was a 2002 memo leaked to the press over the weekend informing Tony Blair that the Iraq War, as Blair planned to carry it out, would be illegal. Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) explains, "Invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein would be a serious breach of international law and the UN charter.
Lord Goldsmith, then attorney general, issued the warning in an uncompromising letter in July 2002, eight months before the invasion. It was becoming clear in government circles that Blair had had secret meetings with George Bush at which the US president was pressing Britain hard to join him in a war to change the regime in Baghdad." John Bingham and Jon Swaine (Telegraph of London) add, "The existence of the letter, disclosed in a Sunday newspaper, emerged after a week in which the inquiry heard that Tony Blair and George Bush, the former US President, 'signed in blood' a deal to invade Iraq as early as April 2002. [. . .] Tony Blair is due to appear before the inquiry next year when the Goldsmith letter is expected to form a centrepiece of the questioning." Jim Pickard (Financial Times of London) recaps on the July 2002 memo: "Lord Goldsmith, former attorney-general, wrote to the then prime minister on July 29, six days after Mr Blair first told his cabinet about plans for regime change in Iraq." As Bob Roberts (Daily Mirror) notes, "Lord Goldsmith's letter contradicts Mr Blair's repeated statements before, during and after the war on its legality." George Pitcher (Telegraph of London) offers his take on the developments and the impact they may have on the Inquiry: "Lord Goldsmith's letter doesn't just expose the invalidity of the endorsement of the war that Number 10 practically beat out of him. It makes a mockery of the Blairs' long and consistent claims to righteousness. There was Cherie, in her role as Lady Macbeth, oh-so-tastefully exploiting the suicide of weapons inspector Dr David Kelly to promote her sickly book, when she revealed that she whispered in her man's ear at a photo opportunity in Beijing just after he had heard the news of Dr Kelly: 'You're a good man. And God knows your motives were pure.' Then there was Blair himself at his 2007 resignation, just before he went commercial: 'Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right'."

Channel 4 News' Iraq Inquiry Blogger continues to live blog the hearings and noted of today's witness, David Manning, "The secret memo he wrote up after it -- and later revealed by Channel 4 News -- showed the US was already preparing for an invasion despite the ongoing diplomatic wranglings at the UN. It also showed George Bush was even considering painting an American reconnaisance plane in UN colours, flying it over Iraq and goading Saddam Hussain to fire." Andrew Sparrow (Guardian) also continued live blogging and he explains Mannin's memos:

The first was written in March 2002 and the full text is available on the Downing Street memo website. Manning wrote it after a dinner with Condoleezza Rice, George Bush's national security adviser at the time, and it shows that Blair was declaring his support for regime even before he met Bush at Crawford in April. This is the key quote:

I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result.

Manning also wrote a memo, described as the "Manning memo" on Wikipedia, describing the outcome of a meeting that took place between Blair and Bush in the White House on 31 January 2003. The memo shows that Bush was, by then, determined to invade regardless of what happened at the UN and that the two leaders discussed the idea of getting Iraq to shoot down an American spy plane painted in UN colours to create a pretext for war. Philippe Sands, the British law professor who revealed the existence of the memo, said it raised "some fundamental questions of legality, both in terms of domestic law and international law".

Of today's hearing, Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) notes, "Tony Blair made it clear to George Bush at a meeting in Texas 11 months before the Iraq invasion that he would be prepared to join the US in toppling Saddam Hussein, the inquiry into the war was told today." That's the April 2002, Crawford Ranch meet up between Bully Boy Bush and Tony Blair. From Manning's testimony (PDF format warning, click here) today:

The first evening, the President and the Prime Minister dined on their own, and when we had a more formal meeting on Saturday morning, which I think was the 6th, it was in the President's study at the ranch. There were, as I recall -- and I may be wrong about this -- three a side. I think it was the President, his Chief of Staff, Andy Card, and Dr [Condi] Rice and on our side, as I recall, it was the Prime Minister, his Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, and myself. We convened about half past nine, after breakfast, and began with the President giving a brief account of the discussion that he and the Prime Minister had had on their own the previous evening over dinner. He said that they had discussed Iraq over dinner. He told us that there was no war plan for Iraq, but he had set up a small cell in Central Command in Florida and he had asked Central Command to do some planning and to think through the various options. When they had done that, he would examine these options. The Prime Minister added that he had been saying to the President it was important to go back to the United Nations and to present going back to the United Nations as an opportunity for Saddam to cooperate.

Committee member Usha Prashar asked, "Against that background, when did you conclude that there was a significant likelihood of large-scale military action by the USA?"

Manning replied, "Not until much later." As David Brown (Times of London) explains, Manning said there were two "packages" the UK was offering. The first would use UK forces "already in the region" and the second would require deploying additional British troops. Apparently, there were no takers or possibly the packages were a limited time offer because in September Blair proposed a third "package" wherein an entire military division would be sent in. Gordon Rayner (Telegraph of London) provides this context, "Last week Sir Christopher Meyer, former ambassador to Washington, suggested Mr Blair and Mr Bush might have 'signed in blood' an agreement to topple Saddam during that meeting at the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas but Sir David insisted there was 'no war plan' at that stage." Today Manning told the inquiry:

If I go back to what I reported to you as the outcome, as we learned about it on Saturday morning, of his discussions, it seemed to me quite clear that, on the one hand, the Prime Minister was very clearly urging the President to go back to the -- to adopt the UN route and a coalition strategy, but was absolutely prepared to say that, at the same time, he was willing to contemplate regime change if this didn't work. In a way, I look back at Crawford -- and I think this may have come up in an earlier question -- as a moment when he was saying, 'Yes, there is a route through this that is a peaceful and international one, and it is through the UN, but, if it doesn't work, we will be ready to undertake regime change'. This, I think, is the balance he wanted to strike between warning Saddam Hussein that he could disarm peacefully, but, if he didn't, he would be disarmed. I do think that came out of Crawford, yes.

. . . I said to him that I didn't know where American thinking had reached at this point, but if there was going to be some kind of choice for regime

Jonathan Steele (Guardian) observes of today's hearing:

It is easy to second-guess the Iraq inquiry and, as one watches it unfold live on the internet, to think of all the questions its distinguished members fail to ask. It is also easy to be upset by their manifest unwillingness to use a more forensic style. But today's session of the Chilcot inquiry with Sir David Manning, Tony Blair's foreign policy adviser in the run-up to the war, was truly disappointing.

Manning was more involved than any other British participant, apart from the prime minister. Not only did he spend time with George Bush. He was also at Blair's side at almost every key meeting in the US and London, while also being in charge of the Cabinet Office's overseas and defence secretariat, which was supposed to commission any prewar analysis British officials did.

Yet he was given the safest and most deferential of rides. Two issues cried out for deeper scrutiny. One was the so-called UN route to tightening the pressure on Saddam Hussein and the consequences of the UN route's failure. Manning laid out the case -- which Blair will no doubt repeat when he faces the inquiry next year -- that throughout 2002 and early 2003, the PM pressed hard for Bush to take the international coalition approach through the United Nations, while also emphasising that if it failed, the UK would be at Bush's side in going for war.

Blair and his policies were the topic of today's hearings. These are the same policies Gordon Brown supported in real time and has continued as Prime Minister. Toby Helm and Rajeev Syal (Guardian) report, "Gordon Brown is facing demands to change the rules of the Iraq inquiry this weekend amid fears that the most explosive documents explaining why Britain went to war will not be made public." James Denselow (Guardian) puts the whole wars of this decade into perspective, "Both the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts highlighted how our foreign policy is driven by decision makers who hide their real intentions behind a bulletproof cloak of ethics and values. The reality was that both wars were interest-driven and largely about maintaining relations with the Americans in a post-9/11 world. The chimera of weapons of mass destruction was designed to 'play the UN system' to secure legitimacy. When this failed, the back-up plan was always the 'Saddam is evil' argument that justified our presence as designed to help the Iraqi people."

iraq
mcclatchy newspapers
warren p. strobel

steven d. green

brett barrouquere

the guardian
chris ames

channel four
the financial times of london
jim pickard
the daily mirror
bob roberts

andrew sparrow

the times of london
david brown

the telegraph of london
john bingham
jon swaine
james denselow

richard norton-taylor
toby helm
rajeev syal

With Six You Get Egg Roll

2009-11-27T21:40:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned earlier in the week, my grandparents are staying with me for the holiday and I also have my great aunt. So they love movies and have finally moved from VCR to DVD. I do not mean they finally got a DVD player. They've had those for years now (maybe as many as ten years); however, they preferred their videotapes.

And videotapes were great for them because it allowed them to see the films they loved and not just wait around for them to be shown on TV.

And now they're into DVDs. Most likely because their VCRs are getting old and hard to keep up so a number of tapes are getting eaten. It's the tapes getting eaten which finally flipped my grandparents to DVD.

So they love all movies and all formats. And they've generally seen the new releases that I still haven't had time for.

But what they love best is the old movies.

Doris Day stars in With Six You Get Egg Roll and it's a lot like Yours, Mine & Ours except Doris is an equal (Lucille Ball -- I love her, but come on -- was completely unconvincing in that helpless little ol' me role). This film doesn't work overtime to make the woman look like an idiot.

Doris has three boys, the oldest is a teenager, and the man she's with has one daughter, also a teenager and played by Barbara Hershey. The Barbara Hershey. One of our finest actresses and it's so weird to watch her and think, "This is the woman who went on to do Tin Men." Or The Natural. Or Shy People. Or A Dangerous Woman. Or Beaches. Or Hannah & Her Sisters. Or . . . get the idea?

This is a nice movie that will make you laugh and make you feel good.

And along with Barbara Hershey, there's also George Carlin in the film. And Jamie Farr as a peacenick. I kid you not.

It's a blended family movie. And it's a family movie. There's a lot of physical comedy including the dog grabbing Doris' wig before the big date and her having to reset it and, to dry it, put it in the oven.

I like Doris Day and I plan to bring her up at Third in a roundtable this weekend so I'll just hold off for now. But I will point out that Doris Day played capable women and did so at a time when others played dishrags and worse.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, November 27, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces a death, the Iraq inquiry continues in England and covers many topics including Bush's teleprompter mishap, no solution yet for the Iraq's national elections (but possibilities), and more.

Today the US military announced: "BAGHDAD -- A Multi-National Division–Baghdad Soldier died, Nov. 27, of non-combat related injuries. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under investigation." The announcement brings the total number of US service members killed in the Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4366.

Meanwhile, I wasn't aware Thanksgiving was an Iraqi holiday but apparently it is. That would explain all the outlets off today and unable to report especially on any violence. The US military hypes, "Two cultures come together at a table. The hosts, strangers in an exotic land, welcome native guests with a rich history stretching back thousands of years.
This scene, reminiscent of the historic celebration at Plymouth, took place here on Forward Operating Base Falcon, Nov. 26, as dozens of Iraqi tribal, civil and military leaders and their families were guests of the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team for Thanksgiving dinner." Reminscent of the historic celebration at Plymouth? Did they really just say that? And then they want to act shocked when accused of attempting to colonize Iraq. Also suprisingly unhelpful is US Maj Marty Reigher who declares, "Iraqi culture is built on trust and a man's word." It's disgusting how the US military continues to do their part and then some to make life more difficult for Iraqi women. Not only was an American officer stupid enough to say it, someone was stupid enough to include it in a write up.

But at least the one writing up the hype worked today. More than you can say for those who should be reporting on violence. (No, there's no chance in hell that there was no violence in Iraq today.) Yesterday AFP reported that a Mosul "church and a convent were struck by bombings" -- the Church of St. Ephrem and St. Theresa Convent of Dominican Nuns -- and quoted Father Yousif Thomas Mirkis stating, "These attacks are aimed at forcing Christians to leave the contry."

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing claimed 1 life and left ten people injured, a Baghdad sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left another person injured, a second Baghdad sticky bombing left one person injured, a third Baghdad sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left three people injured, 2 Babil market bombings which claimed 2 lives and left twenty-eight people injured.
Turning to the issue of Iraq's 'intended' January elections and Iraq as Groundhog Day. It's apparently November 8th or a few days prior all over again. Anthony Shadid and Nada Bakri (Washington Post) reported Thursday that a proposal has emerged which may or may not have backing in the Parliament and which may or may not pit Sunni against Kurd and, "Even with the agreement, which must now be approved by the Iraqi electoral commission, election officials said it would be almost impossible to hold the election in January as originally planned. Mid- to late February was more likely, since a major Shiite Muslim holiday will not end until Feb. 10." Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) explains, "A compromise, however, did not appear likely to be reached before next week, as Iraqis began to celebrate the Islamic holiday Id al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, which lasts until Tuesday. One of Iraq's two vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, released several statements suggesting that he was open to a compromise. At the same time, he threatened to veto a new election law, as he did last week, raising the specter of a political and constitutional crisis." Shadid and Barki reported this afternoon that while Tariq al-Hashimi has called the proposal "good news" he has also stated, "It's still early to talk about ratifying the law, because we are awaiting the electoral commission's interpretation of the agreement." In addition, the reporters explain the Kurds have yet to indicate where they stand on the proposal. Liz Sly and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) report that even though the country's "constitution stipulates that the poll must be held by January," it does not appear to be likely that January elections will be held "so a delay will require some constitutional tinkering, which could set a dangerous precedent." AFP quotes Speaker Iyad al-Samarrai stating, "The (election) commission announced it would be held on January 16th, this is not possible anymore because there is no law. I believe that the election will be held in March."

In England, the Iraq Inquiry continues. Those needing audio can't turn to Pacifica Radio because, despite all those "Thanksgiving is abomination!" 'reports' they inflict on listeners, the holiday rolls around and everyone needs off for Thursday and Friday so programs such as Free Speech Radio News and Democracy Now! offer canned 'news' programming. Not unlike KPFA's infamous New Year's Eve Special on December 31, 2006 that was, in fact, not live despite being presented on air as live. For audio on the hearing, the Guardian's podcast this week features Anne Perkins and Polly Toynbee discussing the inquiry. Thursday the inquiry heard from Christopher Meyer on the topic of Transatlantic Relationship and Jeremy Greenstock offered testimony today on the topic of Developments in the United Nations [links go to video and transcript options for the testimony of each witness]. Chris Ames (Guardian) observes of Meyer's testimony:

At the Iraq inquiry this morning, Sir Christopher Meyer has let so many cats out of the bag that it is hard to keep up with them all. He has confirmed that by the time Tony Blair met George Bush at Crawford, Texas in April 2002, Blair had already agreed to regime change. Meyer and others had told the US administration about this change of heart in March 2002. The "UN route" was a way to justify the war but the inspectors were never given the chance to do their job. Or did we know all that already? Ever since the war, there has been a massive gulf between what various leaked documents have shown and the official version. Previous inquiries have failed to close that gap. Now Meyer, who was the UK ambassador to Washington at the time, has done exactly that. The government's version of events was always that it was taking action to deal with the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Leaked documents, most notably the Downing Street documents, show that the policy was to go along with the US desire for regime change and use weapons of mass destruction as a pretext. This version of events was confirmed by what Meyer said this morning. I don't think it could be more explosive.

We'll pick up where Meyer is discussing the 2002 meet-up between Bush and Blair.

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: That brings me to my last question before I hand over to Sir Roderic Lyne, and it brings me to Crawford in April 2002. What I would like to ask you is this: to what extent did American and British policy towards Iraq merge in April 2002 along the lines that you suggested during that weekend at the Crawford ranch, in particular Bush's commitment at that time, as he put it, to put Saddam on the spot by following the UN inspectors' route and also by constructing and international coalition, which was the Prime Minister's strong input? How do you feel about the convergance of policy at that time?

Christopher Meyer: It took a while for policy to converge -- sorry, if we are talking about Americans, the President accepting, for realpolitik reasons, it would be better to go through the United Nations than not, which was a repudiation of where his Vice-President stood. It took a while to get there, probably until August of that year. I said in my briefing telegram to Tony Blair, before Crawford, a copy of which, again, I couldn't get hold of in the archive -- and by that time there had been a couple of months, maybe more, maybe three months, in which contingency discussion of, "If it came to war in Iraq, how would you do it?" It was all very -- it was all vey embryonic. Of course, while regime change was the formal policy of the United States of America, it didn't necessarily mean an armed invasion, at that time, of Iraq and it may sound like a difference without a distinction or a distinction without a difference, but it wasn't, not at that time, and so I said -- I think as I remember I said to Tony Blair, "There are three things you really need to focus on when you get to Crawford. One is how to garner international support for a policy of regime change, if that is what it turns out to be. If it involves removing Saddam Hussein, how do you do it and when do you do it?" And the last thing I said, which became a kind of theme of virtually all the reporting I sent back to London in that year was, "Above all" -- I think I used the phrase "above all" -- "get them to focus on the aftermath, because, if it comes to war and Saddam Hussein is removed, and then . . .?" The other thing at that time, Sir Martin, which people tend to forget is actually what was blazing hot at the time and a far more immediate problem -- and it wasn't Iraq, it was the Middle East, because the Intifada had blown up, hideous things were going on in the West Bank, the Israeli army were in the West Bank and we had prevailed on the Americans, as one example of British influence working that year, to put out a really tough statement before Tony Blair arrived in Crawford telling the Israelis in summary that they needed to withdraw from the West Bank towns and withdraw soon. Now, let me be quite frank about this. Crawford was a meeting at the President's ranch. I took no part in any of the discussions, and there was a large chunk of that time when no adviser was there, I think -- I don't know whether David Manning has been before you yet, but when he coomes before you, he will tell you, I think, that he went there with Jonathan Powell for a discussion of Arab/Israel and the Intifada. I think it was at that meeting that there was a kind of joint decision between Bush and Blair that Colin Powell should go to the region and get it sorted. I believe that, after that, the two men were alone in the ranch until dinner on Saturday night were all the advisers, including myself, turned up. So I'm not entirely clear to this day -- I know what the Cabinet Office says were the results of the meeting, but, to this day, I'm not entirely clear what degree of convergence was, if you like, signed in blood, at the Crawford ranch. There are clues in the speech which Tony Blair gave the next day at College Station, which is one of his best foreign policy speeches, a very fine piece of work.

Committee Member Martin Gilbert: How do you assess the balance in that speech between, as it were, potential pre-emption and the UN rule in Iraq?

Christopher Meyer: There were lots of interesting things in those speeches. It sort of repays a kind of criminological analysis. To the best of my knowledge, but I may be wrong, this was the first time that Tony Blair has said in public "regime change". I mean, he didn't only deal with Iraq, he mentioned other issues as well. But he -- I think what he was trying to do was draw the lessons of 9/11 and apply them to the situation in Iraq, which led, I think, not inadvertently, but deliberately, to a conflation of the threat by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It also drew in spirit on the 1999 Chicago speech on humanitarian intervention.

In one of the more interesting bits of the testimony, he recounted when the Bully of England met the Bully of the US with George W. Bush saying, "Hello, Tony. May I cally ou Tony? Welcome to Camp David," and Tony Blair responding, "Hello, George. May I call you George? Great to be here. What are we going to talk about?" Oh, there's nothing more heart warming than two dithering idiots bonding. He went on to declare that "I remember Condoleeza Rice saying to me, 'The President has just got back and he said the only human being he felt he could talk to was Tony, the rest of them were like creatures from outer space'. or some such phrase."

Moving on to today, John Chilcot is the Chair of the inquiry and he explained this morning, "The objective of this session is to help us build a picture of developments at the United Natins on policy towards Iraq in 2001 to the beginning of the military action in March 2003." Gordon Rayner (Telegraph of London) reports of Greenstock's testimony:
Sir Jeremy told the inquiry panel: "I regarded our invasion of Iraq as legal but of questionable legitimacy, in that it didn't have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states or even, perhaps, of a majority of people inside the UK."So there was a failure to establish legitimacy, although I think we successfully established legality in the Security Council for our actions in March 2003 in that we were never challenged in the Secuity Council or in the International Court of Justice for these actions."Sir Jeremy regarded it as essential for the UN to pass a resolution in 2002 establishing the case for war, and threatened to resign if no resolution was passed.Alex Barker (Financial Times of London) adds, "Addressing the issue of whether weapons inspectors should have been given more time, Sir Jeremy told the inquiry: 'It seemed to me that the option of invading Iraq in, say, October 2003 deserved much greater consideration. But the momentum for earlier action in the United States was much too strong for us to counter'." Though some may cheer that statement, they shouldn't. In the construct of the response, he argues for war, just wanting it to wait until "say, October 2003." No where does he allow that the inspectors being allowed to complete their jobs could argue that there was no case for war. James Meikle (Guardian) reports, "Earlier, Greenstock told the inquiry that he had threatened to resign if the UN security council failed to pass a resolution on Iraq in the lead-up to the invasion." In other words, empty threats are part of the weakingly's make up. And to be clear, Greenstock claims that he was satisfied by the November 2002 resolution (1441) which really just allowed the weapons inspectors back into Iraq. It did not authorize a war. Greenstock failed to make clear why something as serious as starting a war didn't require a resolution or why he himself didn't feel that was grounds for resigning -- and, no, he can't (as he tries to do) push that off on Bush. Bully Boy Bush is a War Criminal, no question. He had no authority over Greenstock and none over Tony Blair. Greenstock needs to take some accountability for his own actions and stop trying to hide behind Bush.
We'll drop in on the issue of 1441 for an interesting factoid.

Committee Member Usha Prashar: But was it your view throughout the negotiations of 1441 on whether or not a second resolution would be needed?

Jeremy Greenstock: There are two different sorts of second resolution and this my explain why President Bush used the plural when he was ad libbing, when his teleprompter gave him the penultimate American text and not the text he had agreed to, by a mistake of his staff. He ad libbed the words, "And we shall come to the UN for the necessary resolutions" from his memory. It wasn't that the telepromprter broke down, he saw that it was the wrong text on the teleprompter, as I understood the story. There was, as part of the lead-up to the negotiation of 1441, the idea that there should be a pair of resolutions, not a single one in 1441 that should have the inspectors' conditions in one part and in the second resolution the consequences for Iraq on what would happen if they didn't comply with the the first one. There was the possibility of passing those resolutions either together and simultaneously or sequentially in time. As it happened, in 1441 we built those two elements into a single text and it was successfully negotiated and passed unanimously on 8 November as a single text.

Andrew Grice (Independent of London) adds, "He said the 'whole saga', in terms of UK policy, was driven by the belief that Iraq had WMD and any talk from the United States of other motivations for war, such as regime change, were 'unhelpful'. UK policy was solely focused on disarming Iraq, he insisted. The failure to secure another UN resolution had been damaging in terms of public perceptions of the reasons for going to war." Really? That's what Greenstock's going to go with? That England "was driven by the belief that Iraq had WMD"? In the US, Bush used many lies to push for war on Iraq and the most infamous one might be that 'Saddam Hussein attempted to aquire yellow cake uranium from Africa'. In England, Blair was fond of the fanciful boast that Iraq had the capability to attack England with WMD within 45 minutes. David Brown and Francis Elliott (Times of London) highlighted this important aspect of Wednesday's testimony, "Intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have access to weapons of mass destruction was received by the Government ten days before Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, the inquiry into the war was told yesterday." Meanwhile Channel 4 continues to offer their live blog by Iraq Inquiry Blogger whose observations today included:A final thought: while Meyer's book (you just may have picked up yesterday that he'd written a book) became a best-seller, Greenstock's The Costs of War never even made it to the bookshops. It was blocked by the FCO and Number 10, apparently because he'd quoted confidential diplomatic exchanges.

Thursday the Liberal Democrat Party issued a press release noting their leaders questioning of the current prime minister of England, Gordon Brown, on the issue of the Iraq Inquiry:

Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats yesterday challenged the Prime Minister on the government's ' culture of secrecy' with regards to the Iraq Inquiry.
The full text of nick's questions:Mr. Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD): I would obviously like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of Sergeant Robert Loughran-Dickson of the Royal Military Police, who tragically died serving in Afghanistan last week. I also add my tribute to PC Bill Barker, who lost his life in the line of duty dealing with the terrible floods in Cumbria. Our hearts go out to his wife and four children. At such times we all remember that it is the brave men and women of our emergency services who keep us safe when it really counts. We thank them for it.It is vital that the Iraq inquiry, which started its work this week, is able to reveal the full truth about the decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Will the Prime Minister therefore confirm that when Sir John Chilcot and his colleagues come to publish their final report, they will able to publish all information available to them, with the sole exception of information essential to national security?The Prime Minister: I have set out a remit and brought it to the House of Commons. Sir John Chilcot has been given the freedom to conduct his inquiry as he wants. He has chosen to invite people to give evidence, and he will choose how to bring his final report to the public. That is a matter for the inquiry.Mr. Clegg: As I think the Prime Minister must know, the matter is not just for the inquiry, because his Government have just issued a protocol-I have it here-to members of the inquiry, governing the publication of material in the final report. If he reads it, he will see that it includes nine separate reasons why information can be suppressed, most of which have nothing to do with national security. Outrageously, it gives Whitehall Departments individual rights of veto over the information in the final report. Why did the Prime Minister not tell us about that before? How on earth will we, and the whole country, hear the full truth of the decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq if the inquiry is suffocated on day one by his Government's shameful culture of secrecy?The Prime Minister: That is not what Sir John Chilcot has said. The issues affecting the inquiry that would cause people to be careful are national security and international relations. As I understand it, those are the issues referred to in the protocol. I believe that Sir John Chilcot and his team are happy with how they are being asked to conduct the inquiry. Wednesday Cedric's "Little girls love to play dress-up" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HE REALLY IS BUSH'S TWIN!" emphasized that Barack plans to use West Point as a studio set to show boat on with his Afghanistan War announcement while other community sites explored the topic of Black Friday: Betty's "Yes," Mike's "To shop or not and the Iraq Inquiry," Rebecca's "the sport of the shop," Stan's "No to Black Friday," Elaine's "Comfort zone," Ruth's "Pre-shopping questions," Marcia's "To shop or not?," Trina's "Shopping kit and more ," Ann's "No to shopping (except for kids)" and Kat's "No on the shopping proposition." And yesterday Mike offered "Thanksgiving."

iraq
anthony shadid the washington post nada bakri
the new york times steven lee myers
the los angeles times liz sly
raheem salman
anne perkins polly toynbee the guardian the times of london david brown

To shop or not?

2009-11-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

Black Friday.

Why do they call it that?

I have no idea. But at least, for a change, some event labeled "Black" isn't thought to be a bad thing.

Black Friday is the mass shopping at the mass shopping sales that take place this Friday. Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Best Buy, Rooms To Go and I don't know who else are having sales. (I've seen non-stop commercials for the ones I've listed.)

I say skip it.

I say there's no point in making like a bountiful Santa this year. A) Most people don't have the money to and B) do you really want to pretend like the economy isn't what it is?

Seriously, you want to be living large in this economy?

I don't think so.

For me, the answer is not to shop. I'll do flowers and things like that this year. I really don't see the point in putting on the dog and pretending like the economy isn't what it is. I also feel like doing so puts more pressure on other people to do the same. And there's enough pressure already.

This is a theme post so everyone posting tonight will be tackling the issue. I've offered my opinion and some will agree and some won't so check the other sites.

We did a theme post last night and I'm swiping this from C.I.'s snapshot:

Cedric's "Princess Di died for his sins" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HE'S A MORON!" covered that last night. In addition, other community sites did theme posts on TV shows you can't stand last night, Betty's "Somerby and the awful 7th Heaven," Mike's "Mammograms, V," Rebecca's "hawaii oh-no," Stan's "The awful Democracy Now!," "TV show you loathe" (Law & Order franchise), Ruth's "Perfect Strangers," Marcia's "The Office," Trina's "Worst TV show" (Andy Griffith Show), Ann's "Download Carly's new album for just $5.00" (The Jamie Foxx Show) and Kat's "24 -- ugh."

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snaphsot:"

Wednesday, November 25, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the Iraq Inquiry continues in England, the Liberal Democrats call out Gordon Brown's attempts to short-circuit the inquiry, another inquiry waits in the wings -- one into British forces possible abuse and murder of Iraqis, and more.

Today in London, the Iraq Inquiry continued its public hearings. Janet Stobart (Los Angeles Times) explains, "The six-member panel is looking into the decision of former Prime Minister Tony Blair's government to join the U.S.-led war that brought down the Iraqi dictator in 2003. It will interview policymakers, secret service chiefs, military commanders and relatives of soldiers who died in the war. Blair is scheduled to appear in January. " The day's focus was WMDs. John Chilcot heads the Inquiry.

Chair John Chilcot: Good morning. Our objective today is to look at the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This will take us from the time of the first Gulf War and the inspections that followed it right up to the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, the organisation with responsibility for providing an account of Saddam's weapons' programmes after the Iraq conflict. Several reports have already been published on issues relating to weapons of mass destruction. We do not propose in this session to go in detail into areas which have already been examined closely before by other investigations, but what we do hope to do is to elict communities' concern about Saddam's weapons, the development of the government's policy on this issue, the threat that the government believed that Iraq's weapons posed, and what was found after the conflict. I would like to recall that the Inquiry has access to literally thousands of government papers, including the most highly classified for the period we are considering and we are developing a picture of the policy debates and the decision-making process.

Unless attributed to a news outlet, all quotes from today's hearings are from the [PDF format warning] rush transcript provided by the Inquiry (which they note may change) or from the videos of the hearing provided by the Inquiry. Emma Alberici (Australia's ABC and link has text and audio) summarizes, "The Chilcot inquiry has now heard two days of evidence from the most senior Foreign Office officials who received and analysed intelligence on Iraq for two years before the war and in the year after the invasion. It has emerged that Britain's Foreign Office also told former prime minister Tony Blair that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction had been dismantled, 10 days before Britain invaded Iraq." Tim Dowse and William Ehrman were today's witnesses. Channel 4's Iraqi Inquiry Blogger observes, "One thing I'll remember about today's hearing was watching two career diplomats relive the moments that must surely be the absolute nadir of their professional lives. I'm talking about the weeks and months following the Iraq War when the weapons their department had so confidently assessed would be found failed to turn up." And it is apparently difficult for some liars to ever get honest. From today's hearing:

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: So in terms of your concerns over this period, you mentioned Iran, you mentioned North Korea, you mentioned Libya, you mentioned Pakistan, at least through AQ Khan, and you mentioned Iraq, but in terms of rank ordering again, where would Iraq come on that list, in terms of the most threatening in proliferation terms?

Tim Dowse: It wasn't top of the list. I think in terms of -- my concerns on coming into the job in 2001, I would say, we would have put Libya and Iran ahead of Iraq.

William Ehrman: I would like to add to that. In terms of nuclear and missiles, I think Iran, North Korea and Libya were probably of greater concern than Iraq. In terms of chemical and biological, particularly through the spring and summer of 2002, we were getting intelligence, much of which was subsequently withdrawan as invalid, but at the time it was seen as valid, that gave us cause for concern, but I think there is one other thing that you need to recall about Iraq, which was different in a sense from some of the other countries. First of all, they were in breach of a great many Security Council Resolutions. Secondly, as Tim Dowse has mentioned, Iraq had used chemical weapons bother internally against its own people and externally against Iran. Thirdly, it had started a war against Iran and it had invaded Kuwait and it had also fired missiles to Iran, Kuwait, Israel and Saudi Arabia. So in that sense in terms of use and in terms of -- ignoring a great many Security Council Resolutions, Iraq was unique.

Was Iraq the big threat in 2001 or 2002? No. Dowse says other countries ranked ahead of it. Ehrman can't have that and it's time for him to lie and confuse the issue. He does that by bringing a number of areas which, pay attention, were offered as reasons . . . for . . . the . . . FIRST GULF WAR. It is equivalent to the US and England declaring World War II based on the 1914 assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

Ehrman also appears to have been snoozing (or hoping everyone else was) only minutes prior when Dowse had addressed the issue of missiles and noted that they "are not weapons of mass destruction in themselves". Now let's go to do Dowse addressing what they saw as real concerns prior to the start of the Iraq War (March, 2003).

Tim Dowse: Could I maybe illustrate that with regard to some of the countries concerned? Take Libya as one example. Between 1998 and 2003, the assessments that were being carried out painted a picture of steady progress on Libya's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. It had been identified by 2003 as a prime customer of AQ Khan network. We were also concerned about activity in the chemical weapons field and about work at research sites on dual-use potential to support biological weapons-related work. With Iran, Iran had used ballistic missiles in the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s. It had aquired Scud B missiles from Syira and from North Korea and after -- it also produced Scud C sllightly longer-range missiles. After the war, North Korea sold to Iran production technology for Scud B and Scud C and in the mid-1990s, it brought a few examples of North Korean No-Dong 1 missiles. These were long-range and, from that, it devloped its own missile, the Shahab 3, of 1300 kilometres. Iran's nuclear fuel activities had developed steadily over more than two decades by 2001 to 2003. It had announced, or the IAEA had reported, a large Iranian conversion facility at Isfahan; a large facility for gas centrifuge fuel enrichment; it had indigenous facilities to manufacture centrifuge components; it had obtained P2 centrifuges; it had got technical drawings, whose origin the IAEA had concluded was AQ Khan. So we were considerably worried about the development in Iran. As for North Korea --

Committee Member Lawrence Freedman: I think you have made your point that there are a vareity of different stages and the example you have given us from Iran is quite interesting perhaps as a comparative with what was thought to be the case with Iraq. Can we move on to Iraq itself? You have mentioned all the things before that Iraq was known to have done, but these were all prior to 1991 in terms of attacking its neighbours and actually using these weapons. So, since 1991, do you believe that it had been effectively contained?

Tim Dowse: I would say we regarded the effect of the -- certainly with WMD, the weapons inspectors, UNSCOM's activities, the IAEA's activities through the 1990s, until 1998, as effectively disarming Iraq. There were quite a large number of unaswered questions, things that we were unsure about.

While Dowse appeared to be making some effort towards answering questions, William Ehrman could not stop spinning. There was no evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda but Ehrman could not let go of that lie and repeated it throughout his testimony. One example, "But there was also the fact that he was supporting terrorist groups, Palestinian terrorist groups, and although we never found any evidence linking him closely to AQ Khan and we did not -- sorry, to Al-Qaeda, and we did not belive that he was behing, in any way, the 9/11 bombings, he had given support to Palestinian terrorist groups and also to a group called the MEK, which was a terrorist group directed against Iran." There is no linke, NON, to al Qaeda but Ehrman repeatedly worked it in and then would walk it back as though it was an accident. He seemed to feel he was Mr. Subliminal and the Inquiry should have told him to stop making the linkage. As for the MEK, the Inquiry should have asked Ehrman which country he thought he was working for in the lead up to the Iraq War? Did England classify the MEK as a terrorist organization in 2002? Then why is Ehrman blathering on about them?

While Ehrman repeatedly (and falsely) attempted to link Iraq to al Qaeda (and then rush back a qualifier), there was no link. CBC's report makes that clear and notes that Dowse testified there was no link and that, "After 9/11 we concluded that Iraq actually stepped further back. They did not want to be associated with al-Qaeda. They weren't natural allies."

For perspective, in the US, George W. Bush started the illegal war and he's a Republican (Democratic Barack Obama continues it). In Australia, then-Prime Minister John Howard started the Iraq War and he is a member of his country's Liberal Party. He was replaced by Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party who has ended Australia's miltiary presence in Iraq with "the last 12 Australian soldiers" still in Iraq departing at the end of July. Of the three major countries pushing for the illegal war, only England has seen the original pimp replaced with a member of the same party. Tony Blair was replaced as prime minister by Gordon Brown and both men are members of the Labour Party. Not only are Blair and Brown members of the same party and also of the New Labour segment of the party, they have a relationship which goes back decades and Blair's ascendancy to the top of his party took place with the promise that Brown would be his successor. Brown supported Blair on every major policy decision including the Iraq War. Bully Boy Bush lied about 'programs' and 'yellow cake' and pretty much everything including, most likely, his own choking (allegedly on a pretzel). In England, the lie was that Iraq had the capabilities to launch a WMD attack on England in less than one hour. Rob Welham (Xinhua) observes, "The intelligence about Iraq's military capability, set out in the so-called "dodgy dossier", proved to be wrong, and the decision to go to war became one of the most controversial foreign policy decisions in living memory." Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian) addresses that false claim in his report:

Asked about suggestions that the Blair government's 45-minute deployment claim had referred to weapons of mass destruction usable by Iraq to strike another nation, Dowse said: "I don't think we ever said that it was for use in a ballistic missile in that way." The inquiry panel member Sir Lawrence Freedman pointed out: "But you didn't say it wasn't."

Liberal Democrat Party MP and chief of staff Edward Davey issued the following statement today: "It is becoming ever more clear that the case for war was nothing more than sophistry and deception. The threat that Saddam could deploy WMD within 45 minutes was fundamental to the Government's arugment that Iraq presented an imminent danger. Yet this new evidence shows that the intelligence was, if anything, pointing towards Iraq becoming less of a threat. A leader of courage and conviction would have used such evidence to halt the drumbeat for war, but Blair just turned a blind eye to intelligence that contradicted his case. This evidence proves what has long been suspected, that intelligence was cherry-picked or dismissed to support the case the Government wanted to make. It is becoming ever more clear that the case for war was nothing more than sophistry and deception flying in the face of the latest and best intelligence." David Brown (Times of London) emphasizes, "Intelligence information that Saddam Hussein had dismantled his weapons of mass destruction programme was received by the Foreign Office days before Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, an inquiry into the war heard today." Ben Macintyre (Times of London) revisits MP Robin Cook's decision to leave Blair's cabinet in 2003 and his calling out the rush to illegal war:

With delicate ferocity, he presented the case against war: "Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction ... Neither the international community nor the British people is persuaded there is an urgent and compelling reason for this action in Iraq."

He warned that a dangerous sense of Muslim injustice was building, that Britain was being dragged into conflict by a far more powerful ally, and that the deep misgivings of voters were being ignored: "The prevailing mood of the British people is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain."

Above all, Cook insisted that Britain must not be taken to war without a vote in Parliament. "From the start of this present crisis, I have insisted on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain should go to war," he said in his resignation statement. Two days later, the government motion supporting the use of British forces in Iraq passed by 412 to 149.

To listen to politicians speak today, one might imagine that the consensus in 2003 was opposed to war, and Blair and his inner circle the sole drum-beaters. Parliament backed the war. The majority of MPs voted for it. The Cabinet supported it and remained in their jobs with the exception of Cook and, eventually, Clare Short. The media were broadly supportive of military action.

Tony Blair continued to make the claim that Iraq could launch an attack on England in less than an hour. A false claim. Gordon Rayner (Telegraph of London) reports on that aspect and notes Ehrman testifying, ""On March 10 we got a report saying that the chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and that Saddam hadn't yet ordered their re-assembly and he might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents." Mark Stone (Sky News) offers this observation of today's hearing:

One thing bugged me though. The Inquiry committee appeared not to follow up some points with obvious questions. An example. One of the panel, Sir Roderic Lyle, referring to a statement Blair made in 2003, asked the following pertinent question:

"Would you regard the Prime Minister's statement in December 2003 that 'the Iraq Study Group [tasked with finding WMD after the invasion] has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories' as corresponding to advice you were giving to ministers?"

The response from Tim Dowse was, somewhat sheepishly: "I did not advise him to use those words."

But then... nothing from the panel! They did not ask whether the advisors told the PM to back off from words which appeared clearly to be out of kilter with the advice they were giving him.

None of what was said today will make Mr Blair feel very comfortable as he prepares for his appearance. We have to wait until January for that though.

Channel 4's Iraqi Inquiry Blogger notes these reactions:

Simon Carr in the Independent wasted no time; "The Chilcot Inquiry looks set to be boring, miasmic and faintly dishonest.

"This is a panel that the toadiest of Blair toadies would have chosen. Why Brown agreed to it is a mystery."

The Daily Mail was scarcely more optimistic for the Inquiry's prospects, John Kampfner writing that as the Inquiry began "one conclusion could be drawn before a single person had said a single word: Tony Blair will get away with it. Again."

On only the second day of the public hearing, Nico Hines and David Brown (Times of London) reported the accusations that England's current prime minister, Gordon Brown, was attempting to derail the inquiry, "When the Prime Minister announced the inquiry, he claimed that national security would be the only legitimate barrier to full disclosure in Sir John Chilcot's report into the Iraq war. A set of protocols published on the Cabinet Office website, however, indicates that a tranche of additional restrictions have been imposed. The guidelines issued to Sir John and his team set out nine extra restrictions, including commercial and economic interests, that would allow a government agency or department to remove a section from the report." BBC News (link has text and video) reports the Liberal Democrat Party leader Nick Clegg has stated, "This protocol includes nine seperate reasons why information can be suppressed" and acts as "rights of veto" to keep, at best, embarrassing moments from the public: "How on earth are we, and is the whole country, going to hear about the full truth of the decisions leading up to the invasion of Iraq if the inquiry is being suffocated on day one by his government's shameful culture of secrecy?" Sian Ruddick (Great Britian's Socialist Worker) declares, "Only by declaring Tony Blair guilty of war crimes will it help to bring justice for those millions of Iraqis who have paid with their lives for a bloody, pointless war."

In other Iraq news out of England, BBC reports that former-Justice Thayne Forbes has been appointed to head the investigation into the inquiry into whether British forces killed 20 Iraqis and abused nine others in 2004 and the BBC's Caroline Hawley explains, "

An internal army document says a Red Cross doctor believed that facial injuries to the Iraqis suggested 'that when the injuries were received the person had either been held down or defenceless.' It is because the MoD failed to produce these documents when required by the High Court that the government has had to agree to this inquiry." CNN adds, "The release of a photo published in British media and obtained by CNN about the incident shows an armed soldier standing near four people face down on the ground with their hands bound behind their backs and their faces covered. Attorneys for the men say they were beaten and evidence shows a breach of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting humiliating and degrading treatment of prisoners. But, the defence ministry disputes that." Simon Basketter (Great Britian's Socialist Worker) reports, "Evidence of torture includes close-range bullet wounds, the removal of eyes and stab wounds. The death certificates described how the Iraqis died: 'Several gunshot wounds to body -- severance of sexual organs.' 'Gunshot to head.' 'Gunshot in face, pulling out of the eye, breaking the jaw, gunshot to the chest'."

Today in Iraq, Michael Christie and Mark Trevelyan (Reuters) report an assault in Tarmiya in which 6 family members were murdered by males "wearing [Iraqi] army uniforms . . . The women had their throats cut while the men were shot in the head". Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) adds that three females had thie throats slit -- two adults and one "13-year-old girl" and that "It is not known in either case whether the attackers were soldiers or were masquerading as Iraqi service members." Lin Zhi (Xinhua) adds, "The attacker left alive a woman and her child, who were relatives of the victims visiting the family when the attack occurred, the source said." Marc Santora (New York Times) observes this is the second such attack in recent days and notes, "One theory about the motivation for the attacks is that militants are posing as members of the Army in order to foment distrust among Sunnis, turning them against government troops and thereby making it easier to establish safe havens. However, the government has provided no evidence to this effect and the theory is based on little more than speculation voiced by local security officials, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity."

In other reported violence . . .

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad sticky bombing which wounded one person, a Baghdad roadside bombing which injured four people, a Nineveh Province roadside bombing which injured two Iraqi soldiers and one person, a Baquba roadside bombing which left three police officers injured, a Kirkuk sticky bombing which injured one police officer and a Karbala roadsdie bombing and motorcylce bombing -- one after the other -- which claimed the lives of 13 people and left twenty-six more injured.

Turning to the US, like Bush, Barack loves land mines. Cedric's "Princess Di died for his sins" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HE'S A MORON!" covered that last night. In addition, other community sites did theme posts on TV shows you can't stand last night, Betty's "Somerby and the awful 7th Heaven," Mike's "Mammograms, V," Rebecca's "hawaii oh-no," Stan's "The awful Democracy Now!," "TV show you loathe" (Law & Order franchise), Ruth's "Perfect Strangers," Marcia's "The Office," Trina's "Worst TV show" (Andy Griffith Show), Ann's "Download Carly's new album for just $5.00" (The Jamie Foxx Show) and Kat's "24 -- ugh."

iraq
sky news
channel four
the telegraph of london
gordon rayner
ruth barnett
the times of london
david brown
nico hines
bbc news
the guardian
richard norton-taylor

mcclatchy newspapers
sahar issa

the los angeles times

cnn

jomana karadsheh

the new york times
marc santora

the socialist worker