Gates Warns Of Dire Consequences In Iraq

SecDef Gates has stated that there will be dramatic consequences if the Iraqi government fails to sign on to the security agreement (status of forces agreement) which allows the U.S. military to remain in Iraq for another three years.

The U.N. Mandate expires this December.

Gates did not elaborate on what he means by "dramatic consequences."

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7012748415

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

From BuCheney's Amurka to McCrazyville

I hate to constantly be the bearer of bad news, but it should not come as a surprise to I.U.ers.

The fact is, the worst is yet to come in just about every way imaginable.

Economically, morally, respect and standing in the global community and the trust of a large % of the people of the world......

In just over 7 years we have lost just about everything that's worth having, as citizens of a nation that bills itself as a Democratic Republic; a people under the law; not under the rule of any man/woman or group of men/women.

If for some reason, McCain/Palin win in November, I would strongly suggest that, those who can, seriously consider leaving. This election is our last chance to pull back from the abyss, to be able to say, with all honesty, that we did all in our power under the law.

To stay in this country if McCain is elected (given his record on the war in Iraq and extremely cozy relationships with top lobbyists ) leaving Sarah Palin dangerously close to becoming the American Taliban president, is tantamount to complicity in the heinous crimes that have been committed by the Bush/Cheney gangsters.

A wise man once said, that if you are being persecuted and/or oppressed, it is best to leave. If one cannot leave, one must be prepared to fight.

Bob Woodward's Not-so-Secret Weapon in Iraq

Tuesday 16 September 2008

by: Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Predator drone aircraft. (Photo: Chad Slattery / Check6.com)

In November 2001, during the Bush administration's foreshortened war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, a US missile slammed into the broadcasting headquarters of Al Jazeera in Kabul. In March 2004, Israeli helicopters flew over a mosque in northern Gaza shortly after morning prayers and fired three missiles to kill Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. And just last week in Pakistan's unruly frontier area, a US drone fired into a guest-house, reportedly killing 12 people, while a helicopter gunship flew several miles into the area on a "snatch and grab" operation against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists.

Hold these diverse military operations in mind as you listen to journalist Bob Woodward's revelation that the American military has developed "secret operational capabilities ... to locate, target and kill leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq, insurgent leaders, renegade militia leaders."

Also see:
Steve Weissman | But What About Al Jazeera? •
Steve Weissman | The Killing of Sheik Yassin •

"This is very sensitive and very top secret," Woodward declared on CBS's "60 Minutes" in an interview promoting his new book, "The War Within: Secret White House History 2006-2008." He said, "This is one of the true breakthroughs."

On CNN's "Larry King Live," he enthused, "It is a wonderful example of American ingenuity solving a problem in war, as we often have."

Woodward compared the development of these new capabilities to the multibillion-dollar Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort to create the first atomic bomb during World War II. He also gave the secret killings major credit for reducing the violence in Iraq, seeing them as more of a game-changer than the surge of 30,000 US troops, on which Senator John McCain has built so much of his campaign for president.

Refusing to reveal details, Woodward insisted that too much talk could compromise the program and "get people killed," a bizarre turn of phrase about a program whose purpose was to get people killed. In any case, Woodward would tell only enough to hype his book, and not a single word more. Such is the discretion required of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author permanently embedded in the Washington power structure.

Were he less enthralled, Woodward might have admitted that at least some of his sources wanted to publicize their project. As evidence, take National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's response to the revelations. Even as he rushed to insist on the primary importance of the surge, he took pains to acknowledge the existence of the "newly developed techniques and operations."

Even more to the point, the Pentagon has for years talked openly about the black arts that Woodward would describe only in a stage whisper. As early as the summer of 2004, the Defense Science Board called for a "Manhattan Project" to give the military 21st century technologies for identifying, locating, and tracking terrorists - both abroad and at home. More recently, the Pentagon's Special Operations Command posted online a September 2007 slide show on "Continuous Clandestine Tagging, Tracking, and Locating (CTTL)."

Earlier targeted operations, such as the attack on Al Jazeera in Kabul, depended on electronic monitoring of cell phones and satellite up-links, while the Israelis have found their targets with the help of both electronic intercepts and spies on the ground. The Pentagon's latest plans for CTTL go far beyond, and include everything from covertly tagging suspects with microscopic radio chips to tracking them by the way they walk and even they way they smell.

The whole business has all the whiz-bang of science fiction, and even a hint of its possibilities could be expected to terrorize the terrorists, which might be the reason that someone in high places wanted Woodward to spread the word. But beyond CTTL's wizardry, both real and imagined, Woodward's gung-ho enthusiasm blinded him to the obvious question. No matter how brilliantly done, does targeted killing work in the long run against a popularly supported resistance to colonial rule?

The Israelis have spent years developing many of the same technologies as the Pentagon, but so far the dramatic killings of Sheik Yassin and others have only built Palestinian support for Hamas.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! This is typical human behavior, under the circumstances.

The United States tried targeted killing in Vietnam with the decidedly low-tech Phoenix Program: identifying, torturing and killing thousands of the National Liberation Front's political cadre. For all the electric shocks and bullets to the brain, the program failed, as the world saw in April 1975 when American helicopters beat a hasty retreat from the rooftop of the embassy in Saigon.

And, now on the Pakistani frontier, the White House wants Osama's head before the end of George W. Bush's presidency. So, American drones and commandos are waging an undeclared war that could well topple the country's democratically elected government.

These are the horrors that happen when journalists give up their role as watchdogs and become running dogs for Shock and Awe, surgical strikes, enhanced interrogation techniques, the latest counter-insurgency tactics, or whatever else the National Security State wants to sell. But the horror will be far worse if we forget that the Pentagon has explicitly committed itself to make its new tagging, targeting and locating technology available for use within the United States.

»

---

A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Leaked Draft Agreement Calls for Indefinite Iraq Occupation

By Amy Goodman

11/09/08 "Democracy Now!" --

Amy Goodman: President Bush announced Tuesday he would withdraw 8,000 troops from Iraq by February. He also called for a, quote, "quiet surge" in the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The President outlined his plan in a speech at the Naval War College.

President George W. Bush: [General Petraeus has] just completed a review of the situation in Iraq, and he and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended that we move forward with additional force reductions. And I agree. Over the next several months, we will bring home about 3,400 combat support forces, including aviation personnel, explosive ordinance teams, combat and construction engineers, military police and logistical support forces. By November, we'll bring home a Marine battalion that is now serving in Anbar province. And in February of 2009, another Army combat brigade will come home. This amounts to about 8,000 additional American troops returning home without replacement.

AG: Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, criticized President Bush for keeping troop levels in Iraq largely unchanged. Speaking in Ohio on Tuesday, Obama said, "In the absence of the timetable to remove our combat brigades we will continue to give Iraq's leaders a blank check instead of pressing them to reconcile their differences."

But neither Senator Obama nor President Bush made reference to a recently leaked draft of an Iraqi-U.S. agreement that outlines the long-term status of U.S. forces in Iraq. Iraqi blogger and political analyst Raed Jarrar has read and translated the leaked document. He says the agreement doesn't set a deadline for the withdrawal of non-combat U.S. troops in Iraq. He joins us also from Washington, D.C.

Welcome, Raed. Talk about what you have found, what this leaked document says that you've translated.

Raed Jarrar: Well, it's a long document. It has twenty-seven articles. And most of them are outrageous. They give the U.S. unprecedented authorities and rights and immunities. Maybe a major point that is related to this discussion is the fact that the agreement legitimizes or legalizes these long-term bases, that indefinite number of U.S. troops will stay there.

Now, this is a huge issue that is not being discussed in the U.S. enough. We usually get stuck in discussing troops level, how many troops are the U.S. going to keep in Iraq, or what's the mission of these troops. But from an Iraqi point of view, the majority of Iraqis and the majority of Iraqi parliamentarians and other representatives of the Iraqi community are demanding a complete withdrawal that leaves no permanent bases, no troops and no private contractors. And unfortunately, from this side, from the U.S. side, both of the ruling parties and both of the mainstream candidates are planning to leave permanent bases with troops indefinitely.

AG: And what about the Iraqi leadership right now? What are they saying?

RJ: Now, the Iraqi leadership in the executive branch, which is a non-elected branch of the Iraqi government, are allied with the Bush administration. They are using the same terminology of the Bush administration. They're asking for a withdrawal, a partial withdrawal or withdrawal of what they call "combat troops," without really defining that. And they are OK with leaving permanent bases and U.S. troops in the long run that have immunity inside and outside the bases.

Now, the Iraqi leadership in the other branch of the government, the only elected branch, the parliament, actually is asking for a complete withdrawal. And these calls do reflect -- the calls for a complete withdrawal do reflect what the majority of Iraqis want. More than three-fourths of the Iraqi population are asking the U.S. to leave completely, not leave, you know, half and keep some tens of thousands of troops behind to do some extra missions.

AG: And Barack Obama, does he represent something different, Raed?

RJ: Maybe from a U.S. point of view, there is a difference in rhetoric. But from an Iraqi point of view, I think both the candidates, Obama and McCain, are planning to leave troops in the long run. So from an Iraqi point of view, I don't think there is a major difference in the U.S. foreign policy in Iraq between the two candidates, because both of them are not for ending the intervention in Iraq. Both of them are for keeping troops in Iraq. They call it residual force; they call it whatever they want to call it. But they want to continue interfering in Iraq militarily and politically in the long run.

And this is something that is completely rejected by Iraqis. Iraqis see the complete U.S. withdrawal as the first step towards their national reconciliation and reconstruction, not the same way that some of the candidates now are trying to use withdrawal as a tool to punish Iraqis or, you know, make sure that Iraqis are not being lazy or sleeping. I mean, it's not that way. Iraqis are fighting politically and in other ways to end this illegal occupation of their country. And it's not a gift that -- or not something that we should be bargaining with them. It's their right to ask to get their country back. And unless they get their country back completely, I don't think Iraq will become a stable place.

AG: Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has said all U.S. troops should be out by the end of 2011. How does that fit into this picture? And what about the latest deal that has been made between, I think the report was, Shell, the oil company, and the Iraqi government?

RJ: Again, what Nouri al-Maliki is saying is that all U.S. combat troops will leave, but there will be exceptions that will stay in Iraq indefinitely. Now, this view that Mr. al-Maliki is representing in Iraq is completely rejected. Iraqis do not support the idea of half-withdrawal and leaving U.S. troops on the long run. In fact, the full agreement, that can be viewed on my organization's website now, on afsc.org, can show you in details how the U.S. will stay on the long run and who gets to decide the troops level and the troop tasks. It's neither the Iraqi nor the U.S. elected officials.

Now, a good thing that you bring up the issue of the oil deals, because we went through a very similar discussion to what we're discussing now last year about the oil law. The Bush administration and al-Maliki's administration tried to pass an oil law, and then the Iraqi legislative branch blocked it, the same way that now they are trying to pass this long-term agreement and the Iraqi parliament is blocking it. And they ended up losing that battle, because the majority of Iraqis and the majority of Iraqi parliamentarians rejected the law … Many people are expecting that the Iraqi parliament will reject this U.S. long-term agreement, and maybe they will end up finding other loopholes to pass it.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bushites Re-institute slavery!

In Iraq.

KBR Suit Alleges 'Forced Labor' and 'Slavery'

By Zachary Roth - August 28, 2008, 11:59AM

We've now looked through the lawsuit against KBR that we told you about this morning. The complaint (pdf) alleges that the company -- the biggest U.S. contractor in Iraq during the period at issue -- engaged in a human trafficking scheme whereby 12 Nepali men were brought to Iraq to work and were prevented from leaving. The men were then kidnapped by insurgents, and all but one were executed.

In sum: "Defendants' actions as set forth above constitute the torts of trafficking in persons, involuntary servitude, forced labor, and slavery."

What jumps out is that, though KBR's Jordanian sub-contractor, Daoud and Partners (which is named as a co-defendant) was more directly involved in the details of the alleged trafficking, this doesn't appear to be a case of KBR being held liable for acts committed by a sub-contractor that it may or may not have known about.

For instance, the suit alleges that after the kidnapping, the one survivor "was very scared for his safety and wanted to leave to return to Nepal. His employers (both Defendants Daoud and the KBR Defendants) told him that he could not leave until his work in Iraq was complete."

And:

Employees and managers of the KBR Defendants in Iraq were told by the laborers there that they had been taken to Iraq against their will. For example, another Nepali laborer, Sarad Sapkota, was recruited to work outside of Nepal as a cook in Oman in 2003, but was instead taken to Iraq against his will and forced to work for KBR on a military base. He and the other TCNs [Third Country Nationals] working with him repeatedly told their KBR managers that they did not want to come to Iraq and were not informed that they would be sent to Iraq, but were repeatedly told by KBR that they had no choice and would be forced to work in Iraq until their contract was completed.

This is hardly the first time that KBR has been in hot water, of course. As we noted back in June, the company "was criticized in March for making troops sick by failing to provide clean water. And top military officials have given false statements to Congress to quell controversy over the company." In addition, at least two female former KBR employees in Iraq have alleged that they were raped or sexually assaulted by co-workers, and that KBR was less than aggressive in investigating their claims.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

McCain Is Either Senile or a Complete Idiot!

You Decide!

Either way, he doesn't need to take over from the psychotics we have now.

One Month After 9/11, McCain Said Anthrax ‘May Have Come From Iraq,’ Warned Iraq Is ‘The Second Phase’»

Today, the LA Times reports that the individual who may have been responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 others apparently committed suicide. As Atrios recalls, shortly after 9/11, conservatives were pinning the blame for the anthrax attacks on Iraq, laying the groundwork for a subsequent invasion. John McCain was part of this fearmongering effort.

On October 18, 2001, McCain appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. When asked how the war in Afghanistan was progressing, McCain volunteered that the invasion of Iraq would be the “second phase” of the War on Terror. He preyed on the public’s fear at the time by claiming that the anthrax “may have come from Iraq”:

LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?

MCCAIN: I think we’re doing fine …. I think we’ll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.

LETTERMAN: Oh is that right?

MCCAIN: If that should be the case, that’s when some tough decisions are gonna have to be made.

In the interview McCain tastelessly joked, in reference to the House adjourning until the Capitol could be cleared of the anthrax threat, that Congress members should “bring out their dead!” Less than a week later, two US Postal Service employees working in a facility that sorted mail destined for the Capitol would be dead.

McCain opened the interview by asking Letterman, “What is Osama bin Laden going to be for Halloween?” “Dead!” McCain said, delivering the punchline to his joke. Nearly seven Halloweens later, Osama bin Laden remains alive and free.

Later in the interview, McCain explained his counterterrorism approach: “The more serious these people [terrorists] think we are and believe we are – and we are serious – then I think they might, you know, go back to selling camels or whatever enterprise that they might want to engage in.”

Concluding the interview, McCain warned once again that Iraq was next. “The crunch time will be if – and emphasize if – we have to go after Iraq, and then that coalition could be strained,” he said. “But nothing succeeds like success. … World power politics is very interesting. People are very friendly when they know you’re the most powerful kid on the block.”

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Military Admits That A U.S. Platoon Opened Fire On Innocent Civilians

Is there any wonder that Malaki wants our troops out of there?


How many of these "tragic incidents" have there been now? I've lost count!


Did this happen when we occupied Germany?


Greeted as liberators? That's what John McCain is saying these days. Has he been possessed by the spirit of Dick Cheney? An army of liberation doesn't act like this?


Maybe this is a problem with an all volunteer army. When the army is all volunteer, it is going to get more than its fair share of natural born killers; psychopaths.


Perhaps, this instinct to kill comes from having been subjected to a hostile people who were the victims of such lovely things as "shock and awe," Abu Ghraib and other "liberating tactics"; basically a poorly managed war that never should have happened in the first place."


If this is liberation, I would hate to see a war on these people, whose only crime was being born on top of huge oil fields.

July 28, 2008

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

BAGHDAD — The American military admitted Sunday night that a platoon of soldiers raked a car of innocent Iraqi civilians with hundreds of rounds of gunfire and that the military then issued a news release larded with misstatements, asserting that the victims were criminals who had fired on the troops.

The attack on June 25 killed three people, a man and two women, as they drove to work at a bank at Baghdad’s airport. The attack infuriated Iraqi officials and even prompted the Iraqi armed forces general command to call the shooting cold-blooded murder.

It also bolstered calls from Iraqi politicians to pressure the American military to leave Iraq after this year, when a United Nations mandate expires, unless the United States agrees to permit its soldiers to be subject to criminal prosecution under Iraqi law for attacks on civilians.

In a statement issued late Sunday, the American military said that “a thorough investigation determined that the driver and passengers were law-abiding citizens of Iraq.” It added that the soldiers were not at fault for the killings because they had fired warning shots and exercised proper “escalation of force” measures before they opened fire on the people in the car.

But the findings called into question the way the military handled the aftermath of the shootings.

For example, a key assertion of the news release issued by the military on the day of the killings was that “a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.” But the military said Sunday that no one claimed to have found a weapon in the car or had seen a weapon taken from it.

Instead, one of the soldiers at the scene reported seeing an Iraqi police officer pull something from the burned car and then place it in the front seat of an ambulance, according to Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for the Fourth Infantry Division, which patrols Baghdad.

The soldier never said the item pulled from the car was a weapon, he said. But the soldier’s account nevertheless formed the basis for a statement in an initial internal military assessment of the attack, which said that a weapon had been pulled from the car.

“We don’t believe there was any cover-up,” Colonel Stover said.

The investigation also revealed that the car had already passed through a major checkpoint leading into the airport, which required the occupants to submit to a thorough search for weapons and other dangerous objects. As they had many times before, the bank employees then drove down the main civilian road to the airport.

But this time they encountered a four-vehicle military convoy that was not supposed to be there. The convoy had taken the wrong road and failed to turn into a military checkpoint. Instead, the military vehicles had traveled down a road that serves as the main entry for thousands of Iraqis who drive to the Baghdad airport.

The convoy had stopped on the side of the road to try to fix a problem with a vehicle when the car with the bank employees approached. A soldier guarding the rear of the convoy fired several warning shots, according to Colonel Stover. When the car did not stop, 9 of the 18 soldiers in the platoon opened fire.

In its initial news release about the killings, the military said that the car then crashed and “exploded.” But that, too, was false, Colonel Stover said. After the shootings, the car’s engine compartment ignited, he said, and the fire then “spread throughout the car.”

Soldiers also fired warning shots near at least two other vehicles, causing them to stop and turn around. Some of the soldiers involved in the shooting had previously been involved in what the military calls “escalation of force” episodes involving civilians, he added.

In addition, the military had stated last month that two vehicles in the convoy had sustained “bullet hole damage” from the supposed attack. But on Sunday the military changed its story about that, saying that while there was a fresh bullet mark on one vehicle, it had nothing to do with the June 25 attack.

The soldiers “thought they were in danger, they really did,” Colonel Stover said, adding that the soldiers said they had thought they saw gunfire. “We now know there were no weapons in the car, and there were not any shell casings.” The military’s investigating officer filed his report on the attack on July 7, and the soldiers involved returned to duty on July 15.

“This was an extremely unfortunate and tragic incident,” Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for the Fourth Infantry Division, said in the statement issued Sunday night. He said the military would take “several corrective measures to amend and eliminate the possibility of such situations happening in the future.”

According to Colonel Stover, those measures include ensuring that troops do not accidentally travel down the civilian road to the airport as well as reviewing escalation of force procedures “to see if they are meeting needs of the current environment.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bush Ties To Corrupt Hunt Oil Contract in Iraq

Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal

By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.

The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday.

United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq’s central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.

The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed.

In an e-mail message released by the Congressional committee, a State Department official in Washington, briefed by a colleague about the impending deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, wrote: “Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted.”

The release of the documents comes as the administration is defending help that United States officials provided in drawing up a separate set of no-bid contracts, still pending, between Iraq’s Oil Ministry in Baghdad and five major Western oil companies to provide services at other Iraqi oil fields.

In the no-bid contracts, the administration said it had provided what it called purely technical help writing the contracts. The United States played no role in choosing the companies, the administration has said.

Disclosure of those contracts has provided substantial fuel to critics of the Iraq war, both in the United States and abroad, who contend that the enormous Iraqi oil reserves were a motivation for the American-led invasion — an assertion the administration has repeatedly denied.

Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has condemned the Kurdistan deal as illegal because it was not approved by Iraq’s central government and was struck without an oil law, which has still not been passed.

After the deal was signed last year, a senior State Department official in Baghdad criticized it, saying, “We believe these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the K.R.G. and the national government of Iraq.”

The State Department said Wednesday that it had discouraged the deal. Hunt officials declined to comment, and Kurdish government officials said there was no impropriety.

In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose chairman is Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, a State Department official wrote that the department had strongly discouraged Hunt from signing the deal until an oil law had been passed.

The State Department told Hunt that “we continue to advise all companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing contracts” before then, wrote Jeffrey T. Bergner, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the department, in one of the documents made public on Wednesday.

But in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Waxman wrote that the documents his committee had collected “tell a different story about the role of administration officials.” In letters obtained by the committee, Mr. Hunt informed the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, of which he was a member, last July and August that he was pursuing serious business interests in Kurdistan.

“We were approached a month ago by representatives of a private group in Kurdistan as to the possibility of our becoming interested in that region,” Mr. Hunt wrote to the board last July 12.:

“We had one team of geoscientists travel to Kurdistan several weeks ago and we were encouraged by what we saw.”

In August 2007, Mr. Hunt informed State Department officials directly of his intentions in Kurdistan, and on Sept. 5, three days before the deal was signed, a flurry of e-mail messages among Hunt and State Department officials make clear that the department was aware of what was in the works.

In a message to a colleague with the subject line “Hunt Oil to Sign Contract With K.R.G.,” one State Department official gives a highly detailed summary of the agreement. Mr. Hunt, the official wrote, “is expecting to sign an exploration contract with the K.R.G. for a field located in the Shakkan district, an area under K.R.G. control (inside the Green Line) but technically in Nineveh Governorate.”

“Hunt would be the first U.S. company to sign such a deal,” the official wrote, suggesting that the news should be rushed onto the State Department’s internal distribution network as quickly as possible.

Despite those exchanges, a State Department official said Wednesday that the company had in fact been discouraged from completing its deal.

“All companies, including Hunt Oil, which have spoken with the United States government about investing in Iraq’s oil sector, have and will continue to be given the same advice,” John Fleming, an Iraq press officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, wrote Wednesday in an e-mailed response to questions. “We advise companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing any contracts with any party before a national law is passed by the Iraqi Parliament.”

Another State Department official, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed frustration, saying that a local State Department official in Erbil, the Kurdish provincial capital, who was the head of a so-called Regional Reconstruction Team, tried to dissuade Hunt officials from making the deal.

But no notes were taken at that meeting, the official said, and Hunt representatives later gave a conflicting account of what had been said.

“I have talked to the R.R.T. team leader personally, and he sticks by his story and they stick by theirs,” the State Department official said.

Jeanne L. Phillips, a senior vice president for corporate affairs and international relations at Hunt Oil whose correspondence appears at certain points in the documents released Wednesday, said that because Mr. Waxman’s letter was not addressed directly to the company, she could not comment on it.

“As a matter of company policy, Hunt Oil Company does not comment on correspondence between third parties,” Ms. Phillips wrote in an e-mail message.

An official in the Kurdistan Regional Government reached late Wednesday who asked not to be named said that the government had written some 22 contracts to date.

“Anyone can have a contract with the K.R.G., but it must be accepted and suitable according to assessment by our experts,” the official said. “Hunt is a good company and never had its contracts with us illegally or improperly.”

The documents released by Mr. Waxman also lay bare what has become a serious dispute between the company and the State Department over what was said between them before the deal last year.

For example, a senior Hunt official said he was told by State Department officials during a meeting on June 15, 2007, that the United States government did not object to deals with the Kurdish regional government.

“I specifically asked if the U.S.G. had a policy toward companies entering contracts with the K.R.G.,” the Hunt official, David McDonald, wrote in an e-mail message to a colleague last Sept. 28. The State Department officials, Mr. McDonald wrote, replied that there was no policy, neither for nor against.

His message concluded: “There was no communication to me or in my presence made by the nine State Department officials with whom I met prior to 8 September that Hunt should not pursue our course of action leading to a contract. In fact, there was ample opportunity to do so, but it did not happen.”

The encouragement by State Department officials did not end with the signing of the contract on Sept. 8, the documents suggest. Five days later, a State Department official in the southern city of Basra wrote to Ms. Phillips, “I read and heard about with interest your deal with the regional Kurdish government.”

“I don’t know if you are aware of another opportunity,” the official wrote, mentioning an enormous port project and a natural gas project in the south. After a few more lines, the official concluded, “This seems like it would be a good opportunity for Hunt.”

James Glanz reported from New York, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Baghdad. Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow, Mudhafer al-Husaini from Baghdad and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Kurdistan.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

P.M. Carpenter: Bush's Dangerous Game

I believe it is almost a certainty that someone will, eventually, take advantage of the mess this administration has made of our military and our nation and our standard of living is about to change dramatically. It has already begun. What we face is going to make the Great Depression look like an afternoon in the sunshine.

Americans must simply face that fact. A large majority of us have sat mute while our constitution was shredded and our nation turned into an economically broke, indebted pariah by the effing crazies in this appalling administration, while congress after cowardly congress has failed the people; failed to do anything except to hold a few hearings which seem meaningless, unless congress is just putting information on the record for future historians. That's all well in good, but that is really not what we need right now.

There must be accountability for the crimes of this administration and their supporters in congress and elsewhere, both domestic and international. That is our only first step back from the yawning abyss. It will be the first step in a very long journey.

One thing is certain, the United States of America will never be the same. We will never have the influence in the world we have had since WWII and, perhaps, we shouldn't, given what we have done with it. Oh yes, we still have our nuclear arsenal, like a gun that fires forward and backward; a murderous suicide weapon.

We are finished as a world power. If that means that our corporate empire is finished, I say Hallelujah. That empire is cruel and oppressive to others and it is breaking the backs of Americans. Who needs it?

President Bush is playing a very dangerous game.

In Iraq? You bet. Against Iran? Certainly. But it's even more dangerous -- potentially much more dangerous -- than that, and I can guarantee you that if it were a Democratic president doing what George W. Bush has been doing, the game would be a front-page story nearly every day. Republicans would make sure of that.

Their hair, and soon that of the electorate's, would be on fire. Because Mr. Bush has left the United States essentially defenseless.

One reads in the major press of an increasingly dire situation, but mostly as background. Yesterday, for instance, the lede was that Bush "will cut Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months, returning rotations to where they were before last year's troop buildup...." That was the big story -- the one revolving around the troops themselves and the physical and emotional price they're paying for these unconscionably long tours.

As proper as that journalistic focus may be, it was nevertheless the underplayed remainder of the above sentence that, in the long run -- and for future historians -- could prove to be the ultimate undoing of America: " ... in an effort to alleviate the tremendous stress on the military."

The red lights are flashing, the Joint Chiefs are frantic (which, admittedly, they always are) and national security experts -- both inside and out of the administration -- are on the edge of a tormented breakdown because "more broadly," as the press coverage continued, "the U.S. military's ability to confront unanticipated threats" is pretty much, in a word, kaput.

This week -- once again -- a top Pentagon official (on his way out of office, of course) has told Congress "that the Army is 'out of balance' and that the current demand for forces in Iraq and Afghanistan 'exceeds the sustainable supply.' He added that 'soldiers, families, support systems and equipment are stretched and stressed."

In short, Bush has dumped all our might into one geopolitical basket, leaving the United States wholly exposed and virtually defenseless everywhere else.

Again, if a Democratic president had done what Bush has done, Republicans would dare call it treason. In fact, they once did.

In 1950, not long after Harry Truman's secretary of state -- in a "colossal gaffe" -- oddly omitted South Korea from the U.S.'s protective umbrella in a major foreign policy speech, all hell broke lose. Americans have now forgotten, but as the late David Halberstam, author of The Best and the Brightest, reminds us in his absolutely magnificent The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, this was the American military's state of readiness when one of those "unanticipated threats" materialized:

The United States would go to war totally unprepared.... The mighty army that had stood victorious in two great theatres of war, Europe and Asia, just five years earlier was a mere shell of itself. Militarily, America was a country trying to get by on the cheap, and in Korea it showed immediately.

The Army of this immensely prosperous country ... was threadbare. It had been on such short rations ... that artillery units had not been able to practice adequately because there was no ammo; armored groups had done a kind of faux training because they lacked gas for real maneuvers; and troops at famed bases like Fort Lewis were being told to use only two sheets of toilet paper each time they visited the latrine. There were so few spare parts for vehicles that some enlisted men [with their own money] went out and bought war surplus equipment. If there was any upgrade in weaponry, it was almost exclusively in the planes and weapons being designed for the Air Force, not in the weapons employed by infantrymen.

Remind you of anything?

The Korean War came about as one of those Rumsfeldian known unknowns; an unanticipated threat that perhaps we should have anticipated but had little choice in engaging when it came about. And when it did we were caught with our pants down -- "totally unprepared," the Army "a mere shell of itself." And its sadsack condition -- combined with almost unbelievably incompetent military leadership in the beginning -- converted what could have been a swift police action into a bloody, multiyear international conflict.

For tens of thousands of Americans killed and wounded in the Korean War, it was, of course, the worst thing that could have happened. For Republicans, politically speaking, it was the best. They had a field day denouncing the unpreparedness of the Truman administration and soon tied that into Harry's responsibility for "losing China."

The Korean War era was the beginning of Republican domination on national security issues, which eventually would drive two consequently skittish Democratic administrations into the needless tragedy of Vietnam.

Now, somewhere another Korea -- or perhaps Korea itself -- could be in the making. We do, after all, have vital security interests that lie outside of Baghdad and apart from the Iraqi-Iranian border. But to watch the Bush administration recklessly bankrupt our military resources in one region alone, and to listen only to Democratic reaction in its strangely muted way, one would hardly know it.

For an administration that now fashions itself as a hardass convert to Realpolitick, it is playing a very risky and dangerous game. It is betting that a historically hostile world will somehow remain civil and thereby let the U.S. off its self-inflicted unprepared hook -- at least until January, 2009. This is one bet I hope it wins, but history does tend to corrupt the odds.

Please respond to the commentary by leaving comments below and sharing them with the BuzzFlash community. For personal questions or comments you can contact P.M. at fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Dan Froomkin: It's Official, No Exit

Sweet Geebus, Dan. Did we listen to the same testimony, you and I, and didn't you already know that and who cares what is or is not official?

Didn't Junior tell us that we would be in Iraq as long as he was president? Why would anyone doubt it?

Petraeus, up on the Hill flapping his gums, very carefully as most people with political aspirations do, doesn't make anything official. George W. Bush is the commander-in-chief and Dick Cheney and his corporate pals are the policy makers. Let us never forget that. Did any of us even know the name, Petraeus, when Junior and Dick were lying their asses off and us into a giant pit of murderous, costly quicksand?

What I keep hearing is that Iraq will be the least of our worries by election time, because by that time, Junior will have made it a moot point by attacking Iran in some fashion and for some reason. He told visiting friends from Texas that he was busy tying the next president's hands and us into Mesopotamia for as long as "it" takes, whatever the hell "it" is. Meanwhile, Iran is being blamed for everything that has or ever will go wrong in Iraq.

If you listen to Obama, carefully, you will hear what his concern is and it's the same as mine. Junior and Dick are going to make damned sure that there is no diplomatic surge, as Obama is calling for, along with Joe Biden and most of the members of the Iraq study group, both Republican and Democratic. McCain wants us to believe that Obama is naive. Hillary Clinton has said as much herself. Do they want us to believe that all the others who are calling for diplomacy are naive as well?

According to Bush and McCain, there is no way we can get out of Iraq without the possibility of civil war, sectarian war, Osama bin Laden becoming the president of Iraq, genocide or some combination of the above and it will be all be our fault. None of us can say for sure that we won't leave a hideous mess if we pull out, even in a safe and orderly fashion. Of course we can't because we made that mess and we cannot clean it up. We are not going to be allowed to clean it up. As the old saying goes, you can either be part of the problem or part of the solution, but not some combination thereof. We are the problem, as far as the people of Iraq and the region are concerned.

Never mind that Bush and Cheney pulled some people into Iraq who claim to be Al Qaeda, or whom they claim is Al Qaeda, simply by invading Iraq.

Never mind that from shock and awe until today millions of Iraqis have been killed maimed and/or exposed to depleted uranium. If that isn't genocide, I don't know what is? Can anyone imagine the Iraqis actually coming up with anything worse to do to themselves?

Never mind that the simple arithmetic of the current situation is unsustainable. Our country, as well as our individual citizens, are in debt to eyeball level and many either are or will soon be in the streets...whole families. The military is past the breaking point. Pat Buchanan is always so concerned about the Mexican invasion he believes is happening. If the nation of Mexico did decide to invade, could our military handle it? Everyone I have listened to says that we cannot deal with one more stressor in the world militarily...no, not one. That is what is of such great concern to most military brass, past and present, so it should be our concern as well, especially now that we are considered a pariah nation.

The simple fact is that nothing good is going to happen in Iraq until we have a new administration. No one trusts this one. Americans, overwhelmingly want change. So does the rest of the world. Old John McCrackers is even scarier than Junior and Dick. He is a nightmare waiting to happen...for us and for the world. Hillary is Republican lite just like her husband and this country has had about all it can take of the neo-republican party. (O.K., she isn't exactly like him, but she can't be in the W.H. without him, and can anyone imagine him not trying to influence all kinds of policy?) The other last thing we need is another president who cannot admit a mistake.

If Americans have a shred of self-preservation instinct left, not to mention any sense of real morality, they will vote for Obama and a congress that will not be a total hindrance to him.


Dan Froomkin: No Exit 'Well, it's official. Getting out of Iraq is now exclusively the next president's problem.



The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Jim Webb: Legal Action Against Bush

Sen. Jim Webb thinks legal action against the Bush administration may be needed if the president pursues a long-term military presence in Iraq without Congress' approval.

"I'm not convinced we don't need to have a lawsuit ready," Webb told the Huffington Post. "This is a classic separation of powers issue. I started to talk to people about this today."

In recent days the administration has seemingly backed away from attempting to secure extended military-to-military relationship with the Iraqi government to replace a current U.N. Mandate. Webb and others -- most notably Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Hillary Clinton -- have pushed legislation that would restrict federal money for any such agreement unless it came in the form of a congressional treaty. And while a victory on that front seems within grasp, the possibility still exists, Webb warned, for the administration to ultimately circumvent congressional input.

"They are characterizing this as within the authority of the Executive Branch. They will wait to August when everyone is at the conventions, and leave it on our doorstep," said the Virginia Democrat. "If the Senate hasn't acted by then, they are going to announce an agreement between the Executive Branch and Iraq."

The issue of a long-term military presence in Iraq reemerged on the political landscape today after Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he may suspend the reduction of U.S. troops from the country depending on security considerations.

"A brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense," Gates told reporters during a short stop at this U.S. base in southern Baghdad.

Earlier proclamations from Gates suggested that the U.S. would not pursue a policy of extended military presence and that conditions in Iraq would improve enough during the second half of 2008 to permit troop withdrawals.

Asked to respond to Gates' remarks, Webb cautioned that, before working off of one person's assessment, the Senate would best be served to get the input of generals on the ground. He also agreed that the statement fit into the greater context of the Bush administration and its congressional allies pushing to make America's presence in the region permanent.

"I think they are doing everything they can," said Webb. "And I don't think there is any secret to the fact that Sen. Mitch McConnell and John McCain and most of the people in the Republic Party are comfortable with the fact that we will be in Iraq for the next 50 years."

The issue of permanency has been a focal point of the Democratic presidential campaign. On the campaign trail, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, asked her challenger, Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, to co-sponsor her bill that would prevent the president from entering into such a pact without approval from Congress. On Monday, the two candidates weighed in on the topic with each offering critical statements of Gates' proclamation.

"I strongly disagree with the Administration's plans to 'pause' the long overdue removal of our combat brigades from Iraq," said Obama. "We cannot wage war without end in Iraq while ignoring mounting costs to our troops and their families, our security and our economy... Instead of false promises and a faulty strategy, the American people need a rapid and responsible removal of our combat brigades that relieves the burden on our military."

Added Clinton: "This means that we will have as many troops in Iraq in the summer of 2008 as we had at the beginning of 2007. I continue to call on the President to end the war he started, to take responsibly for bringing our young men and women home... The whole idea behind this so-called surge was to give the Iraqi government the space and time to make the tough decisions that only they can make for themselves and the future of their country."

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Iraqi MPs Offered $5 Mill For Selling Our Their Country's Reseources

By Guess Who?

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Shortcuts

by digby

Small investment, big reward:

Reported today on Akhbar Alkhaleej newspaper [link updated]

An Iraqi MP preferred to remain anonymous told the newspaper that highly confidential negotiations took place by representatives from American oil companies, offering $5 million to each MP who votes in favor of the Oil and Gas law.

The amount that could be paid to pass the votes do not exceed $150 million dollars in the case of $5 million to each MP, pointing out that the Oil law requires 138 votes to pass, which the Americans want to guarantee in many ways, including vote-buying, intimidation and threats!
Focusing on the heads of parliamentary blocs and influential figures in the parliament to ensure the votes, the Americans guaranteed the Kurdish votes in advance but they are seeking enough votes to pass and approve the law as soon as possible.

Don't you love how we're spreadin' democracy 'n freedom? It's inspiring.

I wonder if they handed out hats that said "Corrupt Bastards Club" on them, just like they do in America's oil state.

Actually, this sum of money is quite substantial compared to the chump change they spend here to arrange for the United States to invade Iraq, but it still isn't much. This is a very cheap investment.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Cognitive Dissonance ALERT At The WaPo

Slightly OT, but it seems obvious to me that not only is there no military solution in Iraq, but there is, and never as been, a Bush solution in Iraq.

What the American masses don't seem to get is that even as despised as Saddam was by many Iraqis, those very same Iraqis felt betrayed by Bush I and the Sunni Iraqis who supported Saddam felt that Bush I betrayed and suckered punched him at the beginning of Gulf War I.

The facts are that all of that is true, but Americans' seeming failure to see beyond waving flags and Bush self-righteousness and propaganda to understand the big picture prevents us from understanding the basics of one of the major issues preventing any real success (however that is being defined today).

No one named Bush could have ever succeeded in accomplishing the goals as they were told to the American people, once it became obvious to anyone with more than three neurons firing that "mushroom clouds and small pox sprayed all over the eastern seaboard" were nothing but terrorist tactics used by our own government in order to gain our support for an illegal and unjust war. (Who needs Osama when we have Dick Cheney?)

No government approved of by Bush will ever be accepted by the Iraqis and, possibly, approved by any American administration after the nightmare this administration has created in Iraq.

Why doesn't someone, in Washington, have the guts to just simply say it: Far more than America or Americans, in general, the very name "Bush" is despised by the Arab/Muslim masses and they have their reasons.

November 18, 2007

The Post's editorial dysfunction

The editorialists at the Washington Post should try reading the Washington Post. I know this is asking a lot -- such a concession would risk tailspinning their merely disturbed cognitive dissonance into a wildly despondent mental unblockage -- but some radical measure of intervention is worth the gamble. They simply cannot go on like this, lest they soon find themselves writing for Fox News, a fate worse than journalistic obscurity.

This morning the WP's plucky opinion crew has written yet another logic-defying, reportage-denying editorial on Iraq. It opens orgiastically, and only the full measure of their come-hither ecstasy will do as a quote:

THE EVIDENCE is now overwhelming that the "surge" of U.S. military forces in Iraq this year has been, in purely military terms, a remarkable success. By every metric used to measure the war -- total attacks, U.S. casualties, Iraqi casualties, suicide bombings, roadside bombs -- there has been an enormous improvement since January. U.S. commanders report that al-Qaeda has been cleared from large areas it once controlled and that its remaining forces in Iraq are reeling. Markets in Baghdad are reopening, and the curfew is being eased; the huge refugee flow out of the country has begun to reverse itself. Credit for these achievements belongs in large part to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, who took on a tremendously challenging new counterterrorism strategy and made it work; to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of that strategy; and to President Bush, for making the decision to launch the surge against the advice of most of Congress and the country's foreign policy elite.

PRETTY THRILLING, huh? One can almost see the rockets' red glare, and the visage of George the Lionhearted is decidedly ineradicable.

But wait. A bummer is coming; their editorial erection is heading south. They're unable to cleanly wipe the day's problems from their minds and just lie back and enjoy the moment. It's frustrating, I know, but they smell trouble brewing in George and David's Middle East paradise -- dang it.

Or, as the editorial board put it with more than a trifle understatement: "It is, however, too early to celebrate," since, after all, "the principal objective of the surge was not military, but political." And, alas, that objective has met with unqualified failure.

Oh, shoot. And here we thought we were onto something -- a thought suggested by the very folks who then promptly suggested we forget all that. All their wooing and cooing meant nothing, since the cause of the troubles has been wholly unaltered by the surge's effect.

So what was their opening point? Just foreplay, I guess, which, of course, all real men -- even manly editorialists -- should properly disdain.

And their recommendation for recovery was just as disdainful, since it showed an utter lack of understanding of, say, Thomas Ricks' reporting in their own paper, which they acknowledge with only fleeting cognition.

"The White House and State Department seem to be turning their attention from Iraq at the very moment when they should be mounting a diplomatic offensive to secure concrete steps toward a political settlement," such as holding local elections, say the vastly worried editorialist. . "Such negligence would be another fateful mistake in the conduct of this war."

If they had read above, below and between Ricks' lines -- or perhaps even the lines themselves -- they would have realized his reporting allowed for only the bleakest of prognoses.

Quoting Ricks: "The best promise for breaking the deadlock would be holding provincial elections, [U.S. military] officers said -- though they recognize that elections could turn bloody and turbulent, undercutting the fragile stability they now see developing in Iraq....

"So, how to force political change ... without destabilizing the country further? 'I pity the guy who has to reconcile that tension,' said Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, the chief of planning for U.S. military operations in Baghdad."

Hopeless is hopeless, especially when the only possible cure exacerbates the disease.

As for the WP's editorial board's sorrowful dysfunction? They should consult a professional. Like Ricks.

****

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Blood Spilt...Media As Guilty As Bush

From the White House to CBS

A Trail of American Blood

By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

A classic denial of reality is seen in the defensive reactions of CBS "60 Minutes" reporter Scott Pelley in his September 23, 2007 interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Pelley's defensiveness is an attempt to deny the reality of an American foreign policy soaked in blood: "The American people believe . . . your country is a terrorist nation," and that "you have American blood on your hands," because "it is an established fact now that Iranian bombs and know-how are killing Americans in Iraq." Ahmadinejad responded that "American officials" were making that charge to divert attention from their failed policy in Iraq, a policy opposed by many Americans, and that he was "amazed" that Pelley, "representing a media and . . . a reporter" would "speak for . . . 300 million" Americans. Pelley repeated, "Many Americans believe that you have American blood on your hands." Scott Pelley and CBS do not want the American people to know who really has "American blood" on their hands.

CBS itself has "American blood" on its hands. On February 5, 2003, CBS's "60 Minutes II" presented a program designed to build public support for pre-emptive war against Iraq called, "The Case Against Saddam" [italics added]. "The Case" began with Secretary of State Colin Powell, fresh from his blatantly false, dishonorable UN presentation on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction that morning, telling host Dan Rather, "I spent most of the last four days going over every sentence in my statement. . . . What you see is the truth . . . I think I put forward a case today that said . . . there are many smoking guns."

CBS's "The Case Against Saddam" followed Secretary of State Powell with a clip of Saddam Hussein in a recent rare interview saying, "I tell you, as I have said on many occasions before, that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq whatsoever. And we challenge those who say the opposite to give the simplist proof. These weapons are not aspirin pills that one can have in his pockets."

"60 Minutes II" commentator Bob Simon then introduced CBS News consultant and Johns Hopkins University professor of Middle Eastern Studies Fouad Ajami "to help us make sense of Saddam's answers" [italics added]. Ajami responded, "The charm of Saddam Hussein. If you will, in a very perverse way, is this attempt to seem like a reasonable man." But he is not: as Ajami then explained, "Saddam . . . gets this softball question: 'Do you have weapons of mass destruction?' He says, 'you can't hide them.' Well, in fact we know you can hide them."

CBS News Consultant Fouad Ajami's "own judgment is that the people of Iraq will not fight for Saddam Hussein." His "own guess [is] that were we to enter Baghdad when the time comes to do so [italics added], it will be exactly a repeat of what happened in Kabal when the Americans came into Afghanistan and were greeted by kites and music and boom boxes, and people were glad to be rid of the Taliban."(Feb. 5, 2003)

Tragically for the lifeblood of Iraqi and US citizens alike, Fouad Ajami obviously was saying what he thought CBS and the Bush administration wanted to hear. There is no "music to anyone's ears in Afghanistan or Iraq today. In fact, a recent United Nation's report states that "violence in Afghanistan has surged nearly 30% this year and suicide bombings are inflicting a high toll on civilians." ("Afghan violence up 30 percent, UN says," by Jason Straziuso and Rahim Faiez, Associated Press, The Boston Globe, Oct. 3, 2007)

Nor were weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, nor ties to the horrible attack against America on 9/11/01, as the Bush administration repeatedly charged to justify its fear-and-war-mongering invasion and occupation of Iraq. There is only ground soaked with much Iraqi and American blood.

Bob Simon ended "The Case Against Saddam" by saying "The interview is vintage Saddam." It was actually "vintage" CBS news that's fit to cover up the Bush administration's blood-soaked foreign policy for oil and empire. Blood for oil.

Who has "American blood" on their hands? Secretary of State Colin Powell's dramatic falsely-based indictment of a weapons of mass destruction "armed" Iraq before the UN was not only reported but affirmed by many in mainstream media. "Powell's briefing was not only breathtaking in scope but utterly convincing," Boston Globe colunist H.D.S. Greenway wrote in a piece called "A compelling case is made for action." (Feb. 7, 2003) "Powell has convinced me," was the title of syndicated columnist Mary McGrory's piece, "and I was as tough as France to convince," she wrote. (The Boston Globe, Feb. 8, 2003) New York Times writer William Safire's column hailed Powell's "proof of Saddam's cover-up" as "irrefutable and undeniable." (Feb. 6, 2003) A New York Times editorial said that "Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the United Nations and a global television audience yesterday with the most powerful case to date that Saddam Hussein stands in defiance of Security Council resolutions and has no intention of revealing or surrendering whatever unconventional weapons he may have." (Feb. 6, 2003). And there was New York Times writer Judith Miller taking falsehoods of US administration and military officials and Iraqi exiles and spinning terrifying front-page stories of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. (See "The New York Times' role in promoting war in Iraq," by Antony Loewenstein, Fairfax Digital, Mar. 23, 2004.)

Boston Globe media writer Mark Jurkowitz's piece entitled "Powell's UN speech proves persuasive for commentators" began, "Secretary of State Colin Powell's dramatic Feb. 5 presentation at the UN may not have convinced the French, German or Russians of the need to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. But is seemed to work wonders on opinion makers and editorial shakers in the media universe." Jurkowitz's conclusion was based on two studies of the editorials in many of the nation's largest newspapers before and after Powell's speech: one survey found "those considered 'war skeptics' plummeted from 29 to 11." (Feb. 13, 2003)

Who has "American blood" on their hands? Many mainstream media played a largely advocacy rather than an investigative role in the run-up to the Bush administration's criminal war of choice against Iraq. The following Boston Globe editorials, most written long before Secretary of State Powell's UN presentation, are believed to be typical of widespread uncritical dominant media acceptance and promotion of the Bush administration's "Case Against Saddam." "Bush was fittingly candid in saying that 'though all options are on the table,' the 'one thing I will not allow is a nation such as Iraq to threaten our very future by developing weapons of mass destruction.' In reality," the editorial continued, "Saddam already has large quantities of chemical and biological weapons [italics added]. (Mar. 15, 2002) "[Britian Prime Minister Tony] Blair's lucid truth [italics added] is that . . . the world cannot allow such a mass murderer to threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction." (Sept. 29, 2002) "The surest way to unveil his weapons of mass destruction[italics added] is to make certain [Hans] Blix [chief UN weapons inspector] brings knowledgeable Iraqi scientists and officials out of Iraq with their families so that they can tell the truth without fear. The international community can then free Iraqis from Saddam's tyranny." (Dec. 6, 2002) "The particular means for liberating Iraqis [from "Saddam's police state"] will be less important in the long run [italics added] than the character of the government that comes after Saddam's fall." (June 19, 2002) "If U.S. action in coming months leads to Saddam Hussein's overthrow, there will be jubilation in Iraq [italics added] that the monster who murdered and tortured so many people and ruined the life of entire generations is finally gone." (Oct. 21, 2002) "Nothing could mean more to the reputation of America in the world [italics added] than for Bush to keep his promise to support a democratic future for Iraqis after the long nightmare of Saddam's regime." (Mar. 18, 2003)

Who has "American blood" on their hands? The dominant uncritical daily widespread advance billing of many mainstream media was "Showdown with Iraq." A media image was presented of Saddam Hussein waiting in the desert at high noon with weapons of mass destruction hidden in the sand, ready to take on the deadliest "dead-or-alive" gun-fighting superpower in the West-and that superpower's British sidekick to boot. Coming soon to your living room television screen: the Mother of all reality shows. A predominantly pro-Bush administration American media then presented a "sanitized" war for our patriotic viewing, reading and listening pleasure. Nightly "shock and awe" bombs bursting in air, as entertaining "fireworks over Baghdad," on our television screens. With the blood-spattered lives of dead Iraqi men, women and children hidden under media-glamorized "precision" and "smart" bombs. The war-marketing slogan: "We aim to please!"

Who has "American blood" on their hands? In a pre-war Action Alert called "Do Media Know That War Kills?," Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) reveals the culpability of mainstream media: "Despite daily reports about the 'showdown' with Iraq, Americans heard very little from mainstream media about the most basic fact of war: People will be killed and civilian infrastructure will be destroyed, with devastating consequences for public health long after the fighting stops." FAIR found, "Since the beginning of the year, according to a search of the Nexis database (1/1/03 ­ 3/12/03), none of the three major television networks' nightly national newscasts ­ ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, or NBC Nightly News ­ have examined in detail what long-term impact war will have on humanitarian conditions in Iraq. They've also downplayed the immediate civilian deaths that will be caused by a U.S. attack." (Mar. 14, 2003)

The reality of "Showdown with Iraq": "people [continue being] killed and civilian infrastructure . . . destroyed, with devastating consequences for public health long after the fighting stops." Over a million Iraqi civilians dead, the country's life-sustaining infrastructure decimated; some four million citizens forced to flee as refugees inside and outside their country; a deadly massive civil war raging, triggered by the US-led invasion and occupation; over 3800 U.S. deaths confirmed and tens of thousands wounded in body, mind and spirit; ("Casualties in Iraq-2007, antiwar.com); the terrible waste of our nation's resources; and a Bush-administration-bred mercenary "Blackwater" mentality's indiscriminate killing of Iraqi people, further inflaming Iraqi and world opinion against America. A horrible, blood-soaked international American-made criminal war and occupation, seeking to be denied and hidden by a defensive foreign reporter of a bloodstained news outlet telling Iraq's neighboring president, "Many American believe that you have American blood on your hands."

"The Case Against Saddam." "Showdown with Iraq." "The Battle for Iraq." "The Struggle for Iraq" "America in Iraq" These and other mainstream media's palatable-for-public-consumption captions change. But they cannot make culpability for the criminal sacrifice of "American [and Iraqi] blood" disappear. Smoke and mirror captions of advocacy rather than investigative American mainstream press.

Who has "American blood" on their hands? As recently as a news conference in Chicago on July 7, 2006, President Bush repeated an outright lie in front of uncritical national and local reporters: "I have always said that it's important for an American president to exhaust all diplomatic avenues before the use of force. . . . All diplomatic avenues were exhausted, as far as I was concerned, with Saddam Hussein [italics added]. (Transcript, 'President Bush Holds a News Conference in Chicago," CQ Transcripts Wire washingtonpost.com, July 7, 2006)

Reporters could have had a field day with President Bush's falsehoods. He repeatedly justified his administration's pre-emptive war against Iraq by saying, "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof-and the smoking gun-that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." ("President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat," Cincinnati, Ohio, The White House, Oct. 7, 2002). And three days before invading Iraq, he warned, "The danger is clear. Using chemical, biological or one day nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambition to kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other." ("President Bush Presents 48 Hour Ultimatum," Address to the Nation, The White House, Mar. 17, 2003)

"All diplomatic options were exhausted," President Bush could even get away with repeating to reporters over three years later. Over two months before Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, an Associated Press story quoted chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as saying, 'We have now been there [in Iraq] for some two months and been covering the country in ever widening sweeps and we haven't found any smoking guns. ("Blix Says No Smoking Guns Found in Iraq," by Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, Jan. 9, 2003). Later Blix was reported to have "lamented" the aborting of the UN inspections by Bush's invasion of Iraq. A Boston Globe story quoted Blix as saying, "I don't think it is reasonable to close the door to inspections after three-and-a-half months." He "would have welcomed some months more. . . . While inspectors followed up leads from US intelligence," the story continued, "Blix said, 'I must regret we have not found the results in so many cases.' We certainly have not found any smoking guns." (Mar. 19, 2003)

"We cannot wait for the final proof-and the smoking gun." President Bush repeatedly charged to a receptive mainstream media that Saddam Hussein was playing "a game of deception" with the UN inspectors. Bush was playing a game of deception and not Hussein. The only weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq are America's.

Who has "American blood" on their hands? A glaring example of "news" that's "print to fit" was President Bush's orchestrated March 6, 2003 news conference shortly before his administration launched its war of choice. Typical of the controlled "give-and-take" was a question from a black woman reporter: "As the nation is at odds over war, with many organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus pushing for continued diplomacy through the UN, how is your faith guiding you?" Bush replied, "I appreciate that question a lot." He then said, "My faith sustains me. Because I pray daily. I pray for guidance and wisdom and strength . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace." (The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2003) Two weeks later the Bush administration unleashed its long-planned pre-emptive war against Iraq-with few in mainstream media asking to whom does President Bush pray. Bush then repeatedly used his god to justify and hide his administration's blood-drenched aggression against the Iraqi people: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." ("Acceptance speech to Republican Convention Delegates," The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004) Tell that to the millions of Iraqi mothers and fathers and children being ground under by such "freedom." The idolatry of ideology and theology used to justify high crimes. It should be painfully obvious by now: President Bush's god has "American blood" on his hands-and so much Iraqi and other Muslim blood as well.

Reporters like Scott Pelley would find instructive certain comments of Iranian President Ahmadinejad. When Pelley asked Ahmadinejad, "What do you admire in President Bush?," the Iranian president hesitated, which led Pelley to say, "Well, Mr. Bush is, without question, a very religious man [italics added] for example, as you are. I wonder if there's anything that you've seen in President Bush that you admire." A disingenuous question by a reporter who knows Bush has condemned Ahmadinejad as a tyrant, called Iran part of an "axis of evil," and has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear power facilities-which he sees as hiding a nuclear weapon-"mushroom cloud" like he did Iraq. Ahmadinejad replied, "Well, is Mr. Bush a religious man?" "Very much so. As you are," Pelley responded. Ahmadinejad then asked the question American reporters should have been asking from the moment Bush said, "I pray daily . . . for peace," and two weeks later launched his administration's criminal war. Ahmadinejad responded:

What religion, please tell me, tells you as a follower of that religion to occupy another country and kill its people? Please tell me. Does Christianity tell its followers to do that? Judaism, for that matter? Islam, for that matter? What prophet tells you to send 160,000 troops to another country, kill men, women and children? You just can't wear your religion on your sleeve or just go to church. You should be truthfully religious. Religion tells us all that you should respect the property, the life of different people. Respect human rights. Love your fellow man.

Pelley avoided Ahmadinejad's response to his assertion that "Mr. Bush is without question, a very religious man," by saying "I take it you can't think of anything you like about President Bush."

Scott Pelley's assertion that "Mr. Bush is without question, a very religious man," reveals an incredible lack of investigative skepticism and inquisitiveness.

In the face of the falsehoods underlying "The Case Against Saddam," and the bloodbath of "Showdown with Iraq," a needfully defensive Scott Pelley says to President Ahmadinejad, "But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world . . . You have American blood on your hands." And "want[ing] to be very direct and very clear," Pelley repeated, "Many Americans believe that you have American blood on your hands . . . Sir, forgive me, you're smiling," Pelley observed, "but this is a very serious matter to America." Ahmadinejad's reponse clearly indicates which one is in touch with reality and which is defending against it. "Well, it's serious for us as well. I daresay it's serious to everyone."

Ahmadinejad then said, I'm just amazed as the representative of the media, why do you insist on the untrue accusation leveled by your government? This doesn't solve anything. It seems to me it's laughable for someone to turn a blind eye to the truth and accuse others. It doesn't help. And the reason that I'm smiling again, it's because the picture's so clear. But American officials refuse to see it. And I think that as a member of the media, your responsibility here is to talk about the truth and back home to force your officials to appreciate the truth and to take the correct decision. . . . Many thousands of American soldiers have been killed. They need to answer for their action. Instead of answering those questions, they are accusing others."

Scott Pelley accused Ahmadinejad of "dodging the questions" and repeated, "Will you pledge tonight to do everything in your power to prevent Iranian arms from entering Iraq?," The Iranian President replied, "Well, I think you have been charged with a mission to repeat a sentence over and over again. My comments are very clear. I think you should go back and take American officials to task. Use the same force you are using right now so that they take the troops out."

The New York Times reports that "the Bush administration has been considering whether to classify the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group." (Oct. 8, 2007) The Bush administration is a terrorist group.

The "American officials" who need to hear the truth include the leading Democratic presidential candidates. In a September 26 debate in Hanover, New Hampshire, they refused to pledge to end the occupation of Iraq and bring the US forces home by 2013, the end of their presidential term, if elected. When asked if they could make such a commitment, Illinois Senator Barack Obama replied, "I think it is hard to project four years from now, and I think it would be irresponsible. We don't know what contingency will be out there." Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards responded. "I cannot make that commitment." And Senator Hillary Clinton of New York answered, " . . . I agree with Barack. It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting." ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC," Transcript, The New York Times, Sept. 26, 2007) Obama, Edwards and Clinton are willing to have "American blood" on their hands through their presidency.

Senator Clinton also appears to be willing to have "American blood" on her hands in Iran. She voted for the recent Senate resolution calling on the Bush administration to classify Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. ("Obama launches attack on Clinton over Iran," By Marcella Bombardieri, The Boston Globe, Oct. 12, 2007) And in a policy statement on "Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century," appearing in the Nov./Dec. 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, she wrote, "Iran . . . must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table" (italics added). In the face of her support for the Bush administration's falsely-based, criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq, she also wrote, "Iran . . . is the country that most practices state-sponsored terrorism." She even stated, "Our quarrel is not with {the Iranian people} but with their government." Echoes of President Bush's words before US state-sponsored terrorism was unleashed on Iraq.

The commitment of the leading presidential candidates is about dodging reality. Whoever is elected president in 2008 will have "inherited" a blatant, globally condemned, international war crime against humanity that needs to be ended now. Accompanied by American-led reparations and works of restitution beginning immediately. And the glaring perpetrators of this horrific crime brought to justice before they trigger a war against Iran to further cover up their imperialistic blood for oil policies against the people of Iraq and America. Instead of a planned presidential library for George W. Bush at accommodating Southern Methodist University, there should be a jail cell in his future-and that of his vice president and other war-mongering imperialistic advisors.

Everyone bleeds human. And the lifeblood of every human being is sacred.

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain, and a diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.


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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.