THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

Written and Compiled by Black Max

December 2003, Week Two

Page Two

 

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• December 11: A CIA assessment warns that the al-Qaeda terrorist network is intensifying its efforts to foment instability in Saudi Arabia, with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the royal family.

  Islamist terrorism

  Serious instability in Saudi Arabia could disrupt the kingdom's petroleum exports, drive up world oil prices, and hurt the US economy, as well as the economies of other countries. Saudi officials insist that a May crackdown in their country has "taken out" most of the terror network's senior leaders in that country and has left the network "badly damaged," according to a senior CIA official. But he warns that followers of Osama bin Laden are still capable of staging attacks against Saudi and foreign targets. "There are a lot of indicators that the remnants of al-Qaeda are trying real hard, real soon, to do something," he says. As many as 10,000 Saudis, many of them disgruntled by corruption and a lack of employment opportunities, could support al-Qaeda, although only a fraction of that number is believed to be ready to take up arms against the ruling family, the report says. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• December 11: In an interview with Bush by reporter Bob Woodward,

  Iraq war and occupation

  Bush continues to insist that, though no WMDs had been found in Iraq, the rationale of the possibility of WMDs was enough to justify the Iraq invasion. He denies that anyone he knows has raised the possibility of his insistence that the WMDs were a threat is destroying his credibility, saying, "And so, frankly, I haven't heard one person say that to me, but you run in different circles than I do. Much more elite." The idea that Bush, the ultimate elitist, runs in a "common man" crowd and Bush, the reporter, is the real elitist, is laughable in its irony. Woodward points out that he has been talking to business people, likely some of the same CEOs and corporate leaders that comprise much of Bush's own circle of colleagues and associates. Woodward notes that it took him over five minutes of pressing to get Bush to even acknowledge the fact that WMDs have yet to be found. In 2006, Woodward concludes his book State of Denial with the words, "With all Bush's upbeat talk and optimism, he had not told the American public the truth about what Iraq had become." (Bob Woodward)

US bars countries who failed to support the invasion from landing contracts for reconstruction in Iraq, then asks the same countries to forgive debts owed by Iraq

• December 11: While restricting France, Germany, Russia, Canada, and China, among other countries, from receiving lucrative rebuilding contracts in Iraq, Bush also calls on these same countries to forgive massive debts owed them by Iraq.

  Iraq war and occupation

  "It is in every nation's interest that Iraq be free and peaceful, and we welcome contributions," Bush says. He has asked the leaders of France, Russia, and Germany to meet with special envoy James Baker to discuss forgiving the debt. White House officials are reportedly "fuming" about the timing of the Pentagon's directive to ban those countries from receiving contracts. "I can't imagine that if you are asking to do stuff for Iraq that this is going to help," a senior State Department official says. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan questions whether the exclusions are legal under international law. Russia's government has flatly refused to forgive any Iraqi debt it is owed. Incoming Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin he is mystified by the decision because his country already spent $300 million to support Iraq and also has troops in Afghanistan. "I find it really very difficult to fathom," he says. "There's a huge amount of suffering going on there, and I think it is the responsibility of every country to participate in developing [Iraq]." Annan and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are both critical of the US move. (CNN, New York Times/Independent Media TV)
• December 11: Outrage from Europe, Russian, and China over the US's decision to shut out countries from becoming involved in Iraq's reconstruction has led the US to consider softening its hardline position against these countries' involvement.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Bush discussed the restrictions, which bars any country who did not actively support the US in Iraq from receiving part of an $18.6 billion package of contracts, with the leaders of France, Germany, and Russia, and promised to "keep lines of communication open" to discuss which countries would be allowed to bid. Bush also asked the three countries for help in restructuring Iraq's massive debt, a request that was unlikely to be honored given the anger over the restrictions. White House officials said they would be flexible in deciding which countries had done enough to qualify for the contracts. One senior defense official said the roster of 63 eligible countries "is not a fixed, closed list... This is an open list. We're always going to reevaluate." The official suggested that a country might qualify for the list simply by declaring itself a member of the Iraq coalition, a step that such war opponents as France and Germany might find politically unacceptable. In further attempts at damage control, White House officials noted that the restrictions apply only to the $18.6 billion in US reconstruction aid and not to an additional $13 billion pledged by countries in Madrid, or to any other funds that might come through international organizations or to subcontractors.
• Nevertheless, antiwar countries complained that the Bush administration, despite its recent appeals for international help in rebuilding Iraq, had punished them by denying access to lucrative projects. Russia warns that the US could endanger any chance that Moscow might comply with Washington's requests to restructure the $8 billion that Iraq owes Russia. France says it would investigate the legality of the US move. Germany calls the Pentagon directive "unacceptable" and an example of "extremely selfish economic lobbying." An editorial in the German Maerkische Oderzeitung newspaper says in part, "Nothing is left of the promises in recent weeks to concentrate on the future rather than looking into the past. ...The recent call by top US politicians for NATO commitment in Iraq appears to be insolence in light of the Pentagon order on contract bids. Washington cannot really believe that Berlin and Paris will first be punished and then go into battle with all flags flying." Canada, which opposes the war but has given about $230 million to Iraq, says it would cut off aid if Canadian firms were barred from bidding for reconstruction contracts. Canada's incoming prime minister Paul Martin says the decision is difficult to understand, given that Canada has supplied the largest number of non-US troops to Afghanistan, thusly freeing up American forces for Iraq. "I understand the importance of these kinds of contracts, but this shouldn't just be about who gets contracts, who gets business," he says. "It ought to be: What is the best thing for the people of Iraq." US firms operating abroad should expect a backlash, warns Clyde Prestowitz of the Economic Strategy Institute. Those most likely to get caught in the fallout are large US contractors, aerospace firms, consulting companies or others that compete for government contracts. "I think you have to expect some retaliation," says Prestowitz. "What's going to happen is, it's not going to be visible, it's going to be invisible. US companies are going to find out they're not getting certain contracts, and they're going to wonder why." (Los Angeles Times)

Massive overcharging of US government by KBR

• December 11: The Pentagon has discovered evidence of massive overcharging by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root.

  Halliburton

  In a Pentagon audit, KBR has been shown to have fraudulently charged "tens of millions of dollars" for fuel brought into Iraq. Additionally, a second set of violations involve unacceptable delays by KBR in providing cost estimates to the government for dozens of separate projects already under way in Iraq. These violations, for work that includes the construction of food, housing and other facilities for the military, could also involve overcharging. Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall insists that KBR hasn't overcharged anyone for anything. So far, the KBR contracts are worth over $16 billion to the company. (New York Times)
• December 11: The Bush administration authorizes the creation of an Iraqi intelligence agency to assist in battling terrorists and insurgents.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Many former members of the Hussein regime's intelligence agencies are being recruited. The new service will be trained, financed and equipped largely by the CIA with help from Jordan. The agency will be headed by Iraqi Interior Minister Nouri Badran, a secular Shiite and activist in the Jordan-based Iraqi National Accord, a former exile group that includes former Baath Party military and intelligence officials. Some Pentagon officials and Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, vehemently oppose allowing former intelligence and military officials into the new organization for fear they cannot be trusted. Intelligence experts said Chalabi and his sponsors also fear some former government officials would use the new apparatus to undermine the influence of Chalabi, who intends on being a permanent member of Iraq's leadership. The new service, scheduled to begin operations in February, is funded by classified CIA funds. "The intelligence community doesn't understand what's going on in Iraq and has decided to put a whole bunch of analytical manpower on it," says one intelligence official. "They definitely didn't think this would happen as it has," the official says, referring to the resilience of the insurgency. (Washington Post)
• December 11: Rivalries between two factions within Iraqi security forces are threatening the effectiveness of those forces.

  Iraq war and occupation

  The growing number of Iraqi-financed private military companies has already created concern that secular leaders may be developing militias to match the paramilitary forces under the command of religious and Kurdish political groups. Now Ayad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord has accused the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi, of undermining central authority by backing the creation of a private military company to secure the oil sector. Allawi is head of the security committee on the interim Governing Council and his deputy, Nouri Badran, runs the interior ministry which controls more than 50,000 police. Allawi and Chalabi have been rivals for years, since both led separate efforts to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Chalabi is backed by the US Defense Department, and supports US neoconservatives' wish to redraw the map of the Middle East, while Allawi is regarded as closer to the CIA and fears further upsetting the status quo would inflame the region. The latest dispute arises from the hiring of a South African-based private security firm, Erinys Internation, to train and deploy 6,500 Iraqis to protect oil installations on a two-year contract. The joint venture, Erinys Iraq, was begun by associates of Chalabi.
• Allawi warns, "If such security companies are not under central government control there will be anarchy," and insists that the interior ministry should regulate the oil security force. Erinys Iraq says its security responsibilities will revert to state control at the end of its two-year contract. "The INC played no part in securing the contract," says Faisal Daghistani, a founding partner and director of the company. He says the contract was won fairly in an open tender. Coalition officials, too, deny the INC influenced the decision. "It's simply not true. Erinys' was the best bid," says one. However, Daghistani, son of the INC's humanitarian coordinator, acknowledges Erinys is recruiting US-trained Iraqi Free Forces, who entered Iraq with Chalabi. Chalabi accuses Allawi of encouraging foreign interference in Iraqi security matters; Allawi had a hand in the awarding of a contract with Jordan for that country to train 32,000 Iraqi police. While the contract was awarded by the ministry, on advice from the CPA, the interior ministry -- under INA leadership -- is seen as the beneficiary. "The Governing Council did not to agree to spend $1.2 billion on eight-week long courses for Iraqi police in Jordan. It would be far more efficient to train them in Iraq," says Chalabi. Ibrahim al-Jannabi, Mr Allawi's deputy on the security committee, counters that the deal is worth $180 million and is financed by the US, not Iraq. Meanwhile, general orders to disband Iraqi militias have been only loosely enforced. (Financial Times)
• December 11: The Bush administration announces its intention to start up its own Iraqi television station,

  Iraq war and occupation

  C-SPAN Baghdad, with all content carefully screened by the US Department of Defense. The fact that the television station is run by the Defense Department and not the State Department allows the administration to get around US law forbidding domestic propaganda efforts, specifically the Ban on Domestic Activities by the United States Information Agency. (Utne Reader)
• December 11: Democratic congressman Sherrod Brown writes in his hometown newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, of his shock over the GOP's methodology in passing legislation through Congress.

  Congressional Republicans

  "Never before has the House of Representatives operated in such secrecy: At 2:54 AM on a Friday in March, the House cut veterans benefits by three votes. At 2:39 AM on a Friday in April, the House slashed education and health care by five votes. At 1:56 AM on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No Millionaire Behind tax-cut bill by a handful of votes. At 2:33 AM on a Friday in June, the House passed the Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 AM on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote. And then, after returning from summer recess, at 12:12 AM on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq. Always in the middle of the night. Always after the press had passed their deadlines. Always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed.
• "What did the public see? At best, Americans read a small story with a brief explanation of the bill and the vote count in Saturday's papers. But what did the public miss? They didn't see the House votes, which normally take no more than 20 minutes, dragging on for as long as an hour as members of the Republican leadership trolled for enough votes to cobble together a majority. They didn't see GOP leaders stalking the floor for whoever was not in line. They didn't see Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay coerce enough Republican members into switching their votes to produce the desired result. In other words, they didn't see the subversion of democracy.
• "And late last month, they did it again. The most sweeping changes to Medicare in its 38-year history were forced through the House at 5:55 on a Saturday morning. The debate started at midnight. The roll call began at 3:00 AM Most of us voted within the typical 20 minutes. Normally, the speaker would have gaveled the vote closed. But not this time; the Republican-driven bill was losing. By 4 AM, the bill had been defeated 216-218, with only one member, Democrat David Wu, not voting. Still, the speaker refused to gavel the vote closed. Then the assault began. Hastert, DeLay, Republican Whip Roy Blount, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, Energy and Commerce Chairman Billy Tauzin -- all searched the floor for stray Republicans to bully. I watched them surround Cincinnati's Steve Chabot, trying first a carrot, then a stick; but he remained defiant. Next, they aimed at retiring Michigan congressman Nick Smith, whose son is running to succeed him. They promised support if he changed his vote to yes and threatened his son's future if he refused. He stood his ground. Many of the two dozen Republicans who voted against the bill had fled the floor. One Republican hid in the Democratic cloakroom. By 4:30, the browbeating had moved into the Republican cloakroom, out of sight of C-SPAN cameras and the insomniac public. Republican leaders woke President George W. Bush, and a White House aide passed a cell phone from one recalcitrant member to another in the cloakroom. At 5:55, two hours and 55 minutes after the roll call had begun -- twice as long as any previous vote in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives -- two obscure western Republicans emerged from the cloakroom. They walked, ashen and cowed, down the aisle to the front of the chamber, scrawled their names and district numbers on green cards to change their votes and surrendered the cards to the clerk. The speaker gaveled the vote closed; Medicare privatization had passed. You can do a lot in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• December 11: GOP Representative Robert Simmons tells of his own strongarming by his fellow Republicans over an appropriations bill.

  Congressional Republicans

  Simmons' request for $225,000 for a Family Resource Center in his district was part of a larger Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, which at one point also cut $2 billion from veterans' health care services. Because of the cut, Smith, chairman of the Veterans Health subcommittee and a Vietnam veteran, voted against the bill, much to the displeasure of the Republican leadership in Congress. "Normally what that means is that everything else I had in that bill disappears." The House approved the bill over Smith's objections, with Smith's request intact. When he tried to speak against the bill from the floor of the house, he was again refused -- so he spoke from the Democratic side. "It's a little unusual," he says. "In fact, it's very unusual." In the end, 59 Republicans voted against the bill. Simmons, along with five other Republicans who spoke against the bill, faced "punishment" for doing so: funding for projects like the Family Resource Center was threatened, and appropriations committee members threatened to use that money for Democratic projects instead in order to garner bipartisan support for the bill. Later, during conference with the Senate, the $2 billion for health care was reinstated. The bill is expected to pass Congress with little difficulty. "I felt vindicated," Simmons says. "I was taken to the woodshed several times during that budget battle, but I think they respected my position." (Journal Inquirer)
• December 11: With the sweeping success of Vladimir Putin and his party in the recent Russian elections,

  Fall of Soviet Union

  conservative columnist William Safire warns that Russia's experiment with democracy is all but dead. Instead, Putin is leading a return to one-party government. Putin, now poised to be named "president for life," led his party's takeover of the Russian parliament, the Duma.
• "What was left of the liberal opposition was creamed," writes Safire. "...[N]o party espousing democratic ideals could get the 5 percent of the vote needed to stay in the Duma. A [Putin] commissar bid a sardonic farewell to the liberal reformists: 'Their historical mission has been completed.' The reasons for the triumph of Putin's Kremlin powerhouse over the opposition that builds genuine democracy are two: money and media. The money needed to organize parties and put up a campaign against an entrenched government came from an admittedly unsavory source: the rich oligarchs out to protect their ill-gotten fortunes from confiscation by the state. Putin drove many of them out of the country and a month before the election jailed the biggest. This not only pleased most of the populace but starved the political opposition. More important to the one-party takeover was iron control of major media. Once again we see that there can be no democracy without a rambunctious and unfettered press. Putin has made certain that media freedom no longer exists in his Russia. As a result, all that Russians see on television and read in major newspapers is cheering for the regime. Dissidence is more subtly squelched than in the Communist era. Candidates for office who dare to speak out against Putin's rule are not exiled to the frozen wastes of Siberia -- merely frozen out of coverage in major markets. Opponents of the KGB crowd are not given the martyrdom of the gulag -- their voices are drowned out by the mass media, which have reverted to being vehicles for government propaganda. When hundreds of outside observers reported abuses of power by Putin's men in controlling the election, and when the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe condemned 'a regression in the democratization process,' Putin claimed 'free, honest, open and democratic' elections had been held."
• Safire recommends that the Group of Eight industrial democracies shun Putin's increasingly authoritarian regime: "France and Germany are now misled by elected leaders who are anti-American and hypocritical in trying to take over Europe, but they are democracies whose people are capable of changing administrations. Russia is demonstrating it is not. So forget about turning to repressive Russia as a 'bridge' to European votes in the United Nations. And forget about enlisting Russian aid in bringing order to Iraq without crushing the hope of political freedom. As Putinism is developing -- repressive rule through money and media control -- it will be the last example Iraqis need. ...As Americans seek to export democracy, we should draw a clear lesson about power and freedom from the troubling success of the cult of Putin: concentration of power in media, as well as control of money in politics by a government in office, enables a political clique to concentrate its power. We have to resist that everywhere. Freedom finds safety in numbers; democracy does best by protecting diversity." It is interesting to draw parallels between Putin's media-controlled takeover of Russia's government and similar efforts being mounted in the US by the GOP and the Bush administration. (New York Times/International Herald Tribune)
• December 11: Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, writes about his horrific ordeal with US and Syrian authorities when he was groundlessly accused of complicity in Islamic terrorism.

  Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"

  Arar is preparing a lawsuit against the US government. "I recently spent 10½ months in a grave-sized cell in Syria, unsure why I was there, unsure how to get out. ...I was beaten and I was tortured and I was constantly scared. Every day I worried that I would never be released, that I would disappear into that concrete grave forever. Why was I being held? I still don't really know. I am not a terrorist. I am not a member of al-Qaeda. I am a Syrian-born Canadian. A father and a husband. A telecommunications engineer. I have never been in trouble with the police and have always been a good citizen. My ordeal began on the afternoon of Sept. 26, 2002, when my flight back from a family vacation in Tunisia stopped over in New York and American immigration officials pulled me aside to answer a few questions. At first it was only an inconvenience -— thorough airport security, post 9/11-style. But my questioners persisted. And when someone waved a copy of the 1997 lease for my Ottawa apartment, I was shocked and confused. What was going on here? Who gave them the lease and what was its significance to them? For the first time, I began to realize that the questioning was not simply routine. My interrogation in the United States took days. Shuttling in shackles among immigration officials, FBI agents and police officers, I asked repeatedly for a lawyer but was told that I didn't have the right to one because I was not an American citizen. There were no phone calls home either.
• "Only after days of often abusive, insulting, degrading questioning about whom I knew and what I was up to (besides computer work for my Boston-based employer) was I finally permitted to use a telephone. But still I couldn't see the full picture. In the early hours of Oct. 8, 2002, I was formally notified that the U.S. government had classified information about me that it would not reveal -— and it would be deporting me that very day, without a word to my family, to the long-forgotten place of my birth, Syria. To this day, unnamed American officials continue to allege that I have ties to al-Qaeda, although I have not seen the details and I have not been charged with a crime. I hadn't been to Syria since moving to Canada with my family when I was 17. For half my life I have had no connection at all to that country. Yet I would surely be tortured, I told my New York captors, because I'm a Sunni Muslim; because my mother's cousin had been accused of being in the Muslim Brotherhood and imprisoned for nine years; because I had left the country before undertaking my military service. My arguments were useless. Soon I was in a small private jet, chained and panic-stricken; then in a succession of cars in Jordan and Syria, blindfolded and beaten repeatedly; and finally placed in that shallow grave. ...While I was there I sometimes felt on the verge of death after beatings with a black electrical cable about two inches thick. They mostly aimed for my palms but sometimes missed and hit my wrists. Other times, I was left alone in a special 'waiting room' within earshot of others' screams. At the end of the day, they would tell me that tomorrow would be worse. In those 10 1/2 months I lost about 40 pounds. I never saw, but only heard, the agony of my fellow prisoners.
• "...I agreed to sign any document they put before me, even those I wasn't allowed to read. And eventually I would say anything at all to avoid more torture. ...I told them I had been to Afghanistan. It wasn't true, but it seemed important enough to my jailers. After a month, broken physically and mentally, I was also instructed to write these things down on a piece of paper next to other answers to other questions that they had gone ahead and penned on my behalf. After almost a year in hell, I was taken out of my cell, brought before a prosecutor and forced to sign a confession and stamp my fingerprint on it. After that, I was released and flown home. Today, the questions remain too numerous for me to list them all here. For starters, I want to know why the United States sent me to one of the seven countries that the Bush administration has designated a sponsor of state terrorism -— and that President Bush singled out just last month as a country that tortures its own people. And I want to know why the Canadian government sent information on me to the United States and what the nature of that information was. I need to know why this happened to me. My priority is to clear my name, get to the bottom of the case and make sure this does not happen to anyone else again." (Los Angeles Times)
• December 11: The conservative journal Insight asks if Senator Hillary Clinton's visit to Iraq constitutes treason against the United States.

  Conservative smear campaigns

  The article repeats former Clinton advisor Dick Morris's characterization of the visit as a "badwill tour," and calls her remarks to US troops "grousing." The article also passes along some wildly inaccurate observations of her trip, including a story that the Pentagon had to assign troops to greet her and her companion, Senator Harry Reid, during her visit, and stating without substantiation, "[T]he troops hated [her speech]." The article also implies collusion between Clinton and radical Arab elements by saying that the Arab television al-Jazeera couldn't wait to broadcast an Arabic translation of her comments to US troops: "To our enemies, the propaganda value of having a member of the US Senate, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, come to a war zone to criticize her president and express doubts about the leadership of the US military was crystal clear."
• The article goes on to claim that Clinton's remarks will cost American lives by giving aid and comfort to the insurgents, and compares her visit to the Vietnam visit of "Hanoi Jane" Fonda. Henry Mark Holzer, author of a book about Fonda's Vietnam visit, says that Clinton's trip to Baghdad "was a bit like a US senator going to Omaha Beach just after D-Day and attacking President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt and the war effort. ...It was typically Clintonesque. It was overtly political, it was disloyal and it was pathetic. But it was not treason. ...It's the price we pay for the First Amendment." The article fails to note that the vast majority of Clinton's remarks to the troops was highly supportive of the troops themselves and of the need for their presence in Iraq, and the strong positive reaction she received from the troops who flocked to hear her. Naturally, no evidence of Clinton's "treason" is presented in the Insight article.
• Much of the article is based on statements made by Morris to Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, where he flatly lies about what Clinton said while overseas. On December 2, Morris said, "she told the American soldiers...that most Americans don't agree with what they're doing; that there's strong debate over the Bush Administration; that success is not assured; that there aren't enough troops to do the job. And you don't say this to the men and women that the next day are going to have to go out and risk their lives." Unfortunately for Morris's tirade (which was picked up and repeated by, among others, Sean Hannity), Clinton never said to anyone that "most Americans don't agree with what [the troops are] doing." She did say, to reporters, not troops, that the outcome in Iraq is not assured, which most rational observers would have to admit was true. Conservative commentators have used even this most obvious of observations to call Clinton "un-American." (Insight/WorldNetDaily, ConWebWatch, Daily Howler)

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• December 12: Over 1,000 Iraqi civilians were killed or wounded by US and British cluster bombs during the invasion of Iraq; the same cluster bombs are still killing and maiming civilians now.

  Iraq war and occupation

  A report issued today says that in March and April, cluster bombs used in populated areas were responsible for more civilian casualties than any other weapon. The report, by Human Rights Watch (HRW), says American and British forces used nearly 13,000 cluster bombs, often in populated areas. The weapons are packed with small bomblets, some with time delays, can lie in the ground for months until set off by a passer-by or a vehicle. Experience from other conflicts, including the US-led war in Afghanistan, has shown the unexploded, yellow bombs attract curious children. Kenneth Roth, HRW's executive director, says: "Coalition forces tried to avoid killing Iraqis who weren't in combat. But the deaths of hundreds of civilians could have been prevented. Every death of a civilian in wartime is a terrible tragedy but focusing on the exact number of deaths misses the point. The point is that the US military should not have been using these methods of warfare. The way cluster bombs were used in Iraq represents a big step backwards for the US military. US ground forces need to learn the lesson the air force seems to have adopted: cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life." Britain's Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defense, had defended their use, saying they were "perfectly legal" and "entirely legitimate."
• Critics say the weapons were routinely used during the invasion in populated areas, rather than in any defensive capacity or against enemy soldiers. The HRW report says its researchers visited 10 Iraqi cities between 29 April and 1 June, and found neighbourhoods littered with unexploded bomblets. It estimates that the 13,000 cluster bombs dropped contained two million bomblets. In a hospital in Hillah, a doctor told the HRW researchers that 90 per cent of the casualties he had treated during the war were injured by cluster munitions. Bonnie Docherty, a HRW spokeswoman in Washington, says that civilians were still being killed by unexploded or "dud" cluster munitions dropped during the war. "The dud problem is big, particularly given that the munitions were used in populated areas," she says. There have been various moves to regulate the use of cluster munitions. Glenda Jackson MP, a former Labour minister, says she has sought information from the MoD on whether it knew where unexploded cluster munitions were, and what was being done to prevent them injuring civilians. "The response was very general," she says. A meeting of UN bodies and NGOs in November issued a statement that read: "Routinely, an estimated 5 per cent to 30 per cent of cluster munitions fail to explode...either penetrating the ground or remaining on the surface. Those under ground can impede the safe cultivation of land. ...This is the case in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam where they still pose a terrible threat, 30 years after the end of conflicts." During the war in Afghanistan in 2001, US forces had to broadcast messages to Afghan civilians who were mistaking the bright yellow munitions for humanitarian aid packages, which were the same size and color. (Independent)
• December 12: The Pentagon-authorized military newspaper Stars and Stripes reveals that the cheering soldiers who met Bush for Thanksgiving dinner in the Baghdad airport were pre-screened and others showing up for a turkey dinner were turned away.

  Iraq war and occupation

  The newspaper, quoting two officials with the Army's 1st Armored Division, reported that "for security reasons, only those preselected got into the facility during Bush's visit. ...The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit." The paper also published a letter to the editor from Sergeant Loren Russell, who wrote of the heroism of his soldiers and then added: "[I]magine their dismay when they walked 15 minutes to the Bob Hope Dining Facility, only to find that they were turned away from their evening meal because they were in the wrong unit. ...They understand that President Bush ate there and that upgraded security was required. But why were only certain units turned away?" Russell added that his soldiers "chose to complain amongst themselves and eat MREs, even after the chow hall was reopened for 'usual business' at 9 PM. As a leader myself, I'd guess that other measures could have been taken to allow for proper security and still let the soldiers have their meal." (Washington Post)
• December 12: Protesters in Hilla, Iraq, force the ouster of the provincial governor, Iskander Jawad Witwit.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Witwit, who was installed by the US, was immediately replaced by a former Iraqi air force colonel by the US occupation forces. The protestors, who demonstrated for three days to force Witwit's resignation, continue their protest, demanding that free elections be held instead of having the US select its governor. Over a thousand protesters, mostly students, clerics and middle-aged professionals, chanted "Yes, yes for elections! No, no to appointment!" Local leaders describe the passionate but peaceful demonstration in this predominantly Shiite Muslim city as a preview of what US occupiers will face if they follow through with a plan to select a provisional Iraqi government through regional caucuses instead of general elections. Although elections have become an increasingly popular rallying cry in Shiite-dominated central and southern Iraq, the protest here is the first indication that mainstream Shiites are willing to take to the streets to press the issue, adding a volatile new element to the country's impending political transition. "It's been peaceful in Hilla until now, but if the coalition forces keep refusing what the people want, it will become a big problem that they will not be able to control," says Mohammed Kiflawi Abboud, chairman of the council that governs Hilla province. "Everyone will oppose the Americans." "President George Bush promised us democracy," says factory owner Kadhim Abbas. "How can you have democracy without elections?" Witwit's replacement, Emad Lefteh, insisted there could be no elections right away. He says the US "should not bend to a few people protesting outside. ...If we have elections now, our enemies, the terrorists and the extremists, will take advantage of the situation." An interpreter spoke directly to the CPA, in English, during the protests: "Coalition forces, don't be worried. We are here in peace. All we want is democracy." "That's what they promised us," a student said after the interpreter finished. "All we want is what they promised." (Washington Post)
• December 12: Former Iraqi POW Shoshona Johnson is discharged from the Army.

  Iraq war and occupation

  "Although I am now leaving the Army, I in no way regret my time in the military," Johnson says in a statement. Johnson was a cook for the 507th Maintenance Company when it was ambushed in March. She was shot in both ankles and captured with five other soldiers, including Jessica Lynch. Nine soldiers died in the ambush. "To my fallen comrades and their families, my utmost respect, and gratitude for their sacrifices," Johnson says. "Their memory has made me a better person and they will not be forgotten." Johnson had planned on making a career out of Army service. (CNN)

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FBI granted sweeping new powers

• December 13: While the media is focusing on the imminent capture of Saddam Hussein,

  Attack on civil liberties

  Bush signs into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers; the bill is a serious expansion of the USA Patriot Act, incorporating large chunks of the anti-democratic, unconstitutional "Patriot II" legislation. A White House spokesperson dismissed the curious timing of the signing -- on a Saturday -- by saying, "the President signs bills seven days a week." But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago, on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shutting down the federal government the following Monday. The move was successful; the media, and as a result the American citizenry, barely noticed that Bush had just given the FBI the power to probe their financial records, even without any suspicion of involvement in crime or terrorism. The administration and its Congressional allies hid these new executive powers in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, an enormous bill that funds all the intelligence activities of the federal government. The Act included a simple, yet insidious, redefinition of "financial institution," which previously referred to banks, but now includes stockbrokers, car dealerships, casinos, credit card companies, insurance agencies, jewelers, airlines, the US Post Office, and any other business "whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters." The Senate passed it with a voice vote to avoid individual accountability.
• While broadening the definition of "financial institution," the Bush administration is also ramping up provisions within the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which granted the FBI the authority to obtain client records from banks by merely requesting the records in a "National Security Letter." To get the records, the FBI doesn't have to appear before a judge, nor demonstrate "probable cause." Moreover, the National Security Letters are attached with a gag order, preventing any financial institution from informing its clients that their records have been surrendered to the FBI. If a financial institution breaches the gag order, it faces criminal penalties. And finally, the FBI will no longer be required to report to Congress how often they have used the National Security Letters. Supporters of expanding the Patriot Act claim that the new law is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks on the US.
• Opponents claim that safeguards such as judicial oversight and the Fourth Amendment are necessary to prevent the government from abusing its power. "There's a reason these protections were put into place," says Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates, and a historian of US political repression. "It has been shown that if you give [these agencies] this power they will abuse it. For any investigative agency, once you tell them that they must make sure that they protect the country from subversives, it inevitably gets translated into a program to silence dissent." An ACLU spokesman says, "The only thing the act accomplishes is the removal of judicial oversight and the transfer of more power to law enforcements agents."
• This broadening of the Patriot Act represents a political victory for the Bush administration's stealthy legislative strategy to increase executive power. Last February, shortly before Bush launched the war on Iraq, the Center for Public Integrity obtained a draft of a comprehensive expansion of the Patriot Act, nicknamed Patriot Act II, written by Attorney General John Ashcroft's staff. Again, the timing was suspicious; it appeared that the Bush Administration was waiting for the start of the Iraq war to introduce Patriot Act II, and then exploit the crisis to ram it through Congress with little public debate. The leak and ensuing public backlash frustrated the Bush administration's strategy, so the Justice Department disassembled Patriot Act II, then reassembled its parts into other legislation. By attaching the redefinition of "financial institution" to an Intelligence Authorization Act, the Bush administration and its Congressional allies avoided public hearings and floor debates for the expansion of the Patriot Act. As the San Antonio Current observes, "The Bush Administration has yet to answer pivotal questions about its latest constitutional coup: If these new executive powers are necessary to protect United States citizens, then why would the legislation not withstand the test of public debate? If the new act's provisions are in the public interest, why use stealth in ramming them through the legislative process?" Republican congressman Ron Paul says, "It appears we are witnessing a stealth enactment of the enormously unpopular 'Patriot II' legislation that was first leaked several months ago. Perhaps the national outcry when a draft of the Patriot II act was leaked has led its supporters to enact it one piece at a time in secret. Whatever the case, this is outrageous and unacceptable. I urge each of my colleagues to join me in rejecting this bill and its incredibly dangerous expansion of Federal police powers." (San Antonio Current, InfoWars [various sources], Mark Crispin Miller)

Afghanistan's loya jirga adopts US-friendly constitution

• December 13 - January 4: After three weeks of intense debate, wrangling, arm-twisting, and infighting, Afghanistan's contentious loya jirga, a huge conclave of tribal elders and community leaders brought together to write and adopt a new constitution for the country, adopt a draft constitution without taking an actual vote.

  War in Afghanistan

  Following intense arm-twisting of faction leaders by Bush envoy and ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the assembly. described by WSWS as "a huge tent full of representatives of warlords, mullahs and outright US stooges," adopted a constitution on January 4. Most observers believe that the constitution gives US-appointed president Hamid Karzai wide-ranging powers, as desired by the US, at the cost of a real Afghan democracy. The president will rule without a prime minister. He will have the power to appoint and dismiss ministers, key officials, judges and military, police and intelligence chiefs, as well as one-third of the upper house of the national assembly. He will be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and can declare states of emergency for the whole or parts of the country.
• The issue of presidential power has been the most contentious of the current loya jirga. On the one hand, Karzai repeatedly has said he will only stand in presidential elections scheduled for June if the loya jirga approves the presidential system envisaged in the draft, a step unacceptable to US officials who rely on Karzai to represent US interests in his country. On the other hand, powerful warlords and former mujahedin commanders have insisted on a parliamentary system with a president and a prime minister who would share power. Karzai defends the powers he seeks by saying that anything less would lead to perpetual in-fighting. If the jirga refuses to approve them, Karzai says he will step down before elections next year. Afghan specialst Amin Tarzi says Karzai's supporters and the former mujahedin commanders appear to have reached a compromise. "Namely, what the president loses here is control over appointing cabinet ministers," Tarzi says. "And we don't know what his relationship with the Supreme Court will be. But some people have suggested that the compromise includes that the Supreme Court will have more independence than what has been described in the current draft."
• Tarzi says that, as a counterbalance to presidential powers, delegates have reached agreement on a high council that will oversee implementation of the country's laws and the constitution. "Another compromise which basically puts a balance check over the president's power is the creation of, basically, a kind of a higher council -- 'Diwane Ali' -- which will look at the laws that are passed, either from the president or the parliament, so it makes sure that everything is constitutionally sound," Tarzi says. Tarzi notes that if the new council comes under the control of conservatives, Afghanistan could face a situation similar to Iran, where the conservative Guardians Council has the power to reject laws that are not deemed compatible with Islam. "Then [the conservatives] can basically create a two-power structure where you have the president, who may be an open-minded person, but every law that he tries to push forward [is blocked]. We have that example in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we see that the laws can get curtailed in the system, that you have different forces, and if those forces are controlled by conservative powers, then they can hold it," Tarzi says. While some think the constitutional compromise is a victory for Karzai, Tarzi looks instead at the potential long-term influence of the conservatives on the new high council. "The fear is that the short-term compromise that supporters of the presidential system and mainly supporters of Chairman Karzai have won may actually lead to a long-term victory for the conservatives," Tarzi says.
• Reportedly, the Reconciliation Committee agreed with changes proposed to Article 3 of the constitution. The article currently says that "no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam and the values of the constitution." Tarzi says the proposed amendment leaves the article open to conservative interpretation of Islam and that human rights could be disregarded as a result: "Article 3 is the most open article as far as Islam is concerned to interpretation because anything that is against Islam could not go forward. That is a very open question, and if the conservative forces have power, they can come up and say virtually whatever they want is against Islam. It basically gives them at least legally a carte blanche to push their views, especially with the elimination of the values of this constitution which in a way eliminates all the references to human rights, equal rights, and all that." Agencies report that the rights of women are specifically included in the amended draft, bowing to demands by female delegates. (Radio Free Europe/Global Security, Guardian, World Socialist Web Site)
• December 13: President Bush signs a law, the "Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003," that aims to punish Syria for its alleged ties to terrorists and purported efforts to obtain nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

  Bush's foreign policies

  The legislation directs the president to prohibit US exports to Syria of weaponry and so-called "dual-use" technology with both civilian and military applications, but also gives him authority to waive the sanctions. It gives the US government a range of options for punishing Syria, from restricting US exports and business investment to downgrading Washington's diplomatic representation and imposing travel restrictions on Syrian diplomats in the United States. The law also allows the government to freeze Syria's assets in the United States and restrict over-flight rights for Syrian aircraft inside US airspace. It calls upon Syria to end its occupation of Lebanon. (Agence France-Presse/Al-Jazeera)
• December 13: The FBI is implementing new ground rules that "fundamentally alter the way investigators handle counterterrorism cases, allowing criminal and intelligence agents to work side by side and giving both broad access to the tools of intelligence gathering for the first time in decades."

  Attack on civil liberties

  The result is that the FBI, unhindered by the restrictions of the past, "will conduct many more searches and wiretaps that are subject to oversight by a secret intelligence court rather than regular criminal courts." Civil liberties groups and defense lawyers predictthat more innocent people will be the targets of clandestine surveillance. The new strategy, launched in early summer and finalized in a classified directive issued to FBI field offices in October, "goes further than has been publicly discussed by FBI officials in the past and marks the final step in tearing down the legal wall that had separated criminal and intelligence investigations since the spying scandals of the 1970s," say authorities. "With 9/11 as the catalyst for this, what we've done is fundamentally change the approach we take to every counterterrorism case," FBI terrorism chief John Pistole says. "This is a sea change for the FBI."
• To civil libertarians and many defense lawyers, the changes "pose a threat to the privacy and due-process rights of civilians because they essentially eliminate, rather than merely blur, the traditional boundaries separating criminal and intelligence investigations. ...As a result, these critics say, FBI agents and federal prosecutors will conduct many more searches and seizures in secret, as allowed under intelligence laws, rather than being constrained by the rules of traditional criminal warrants." "By eliminating any distinction between criminal and intelligence classifications, it reduces the respect for the ordinary constitutional protections that people have," says Joshua Dratel, a New York lawyer who has filed legal briefs opposing government anti-terrorism policies. "It will result in a funneling of all cases into an intelligence mode. It's an end run around the Fourth Amendment," which protects citizens from unreasonable searches. Ann Beeson of the ACLU says the system will encourage prosecutors to rely too heavily on evidence gathered by secret intelligence methods. "They're going to use all their foreign intelligence tools, and then they're going to prosecute people using those tools," Beeson says. "They're putting this whole class of criminal cases outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment." (CBS News/Washington Post)
• December 13: A federal judge slams government lawyers for failing to turn over evidence to the defense, and is considering throwing out the convictions in a high-profile terrorism case.

  Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"

  The case of two Arab immigrants, Karim Koubriti and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, who were convicted in June of conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism and a document fraud-related charge, was hailed as an early success in the Bush administration's war on terror. A third defendant was convicted of document fraud; a fourth was acquitted. The defendants have asked the judge to overturn their convictions because a letter from an imprisoned drug gang leader, who claimed the government's key witness lied to federal agents, was not turned over until several weeks ago. The evidence "should have been turned over," US District Judge Gerald Rosen said at the end of the emergency hearing. But "that does not get the defendants all the way to a new trial." (Guardian)
• December 13: Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez says he will review the pay structures for Iraqi soldiers

  Iraq war and occupation

  after a wave of recruits quit the new force over low salaries. He acknowledges that soldiers who quit over salaries of $150 monthly for senior officers may have a legitimate grievance. "We're in the process of reviewing the pay scales to determine what needs to be done there to ensure that they have a decent standard of living," he says. (Reuters)
• December 13: American Lieutenant Colonel Allen West pleads guilty to beating an Iraqi detainee and threatening to kill him during an interrogation,

  US torture allegations

  but will be fined and allowed to retire rather than face a court-martial, according to military spokesmen. West has been found guilty of three counts of aggravated assault and one count of communicating a threat. West pleaded guilty to punching and firing a pistol near the prisoner, Yahya Jhodri Hamoodi, on Aug. 20 while interrogating him in al-Taji, just north of Baghdad. West also threatened to kill the detainee if he did not talk, according to the statement. The division said West "disobeyed laws, ignored orders...and mortgaged future discipline in his unit by compromising his credibility. ...While his crimes merit a court martial, mitigating factors...were considered including the stressful environment...and Lt. Col. West's record as an officer and commander," the military said. (AP/San Jose Mercury News)
• December 13: Foreign journalists are complaining that they are being treated like terrorism suspects when they enter the US.

  Media manipulation and marketing by GOP

  Without notification to foreign media outlets, immigration and customs officials are arresting, detaining, and deporting journalists arriving in the US without special visas. This happens even when they come from nations whose citizens can stay for up to 90 days without a visa if they are arriving as tourists or on business. Worse, members of the press arriving without the visas are being treated like criminals, handcuffed as they're marched through airports, photographed, fingerprinted, and their DNA sampled. The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists is readying a global campaign against the harsh and repressive treatment of foreign journalists. (Toledo Blade)
• December 13: Former Vice President Walter Mondale accuses President Bush of forcing democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan "at bayonet point," an approach creating more enemies for the United States than friends and doing little to prevent terrorism.

  Bush's foreign policies

  The administration's policies are at odds with six decades of foreign policy through Democratic and Republican administrations aimed at forming international coalitions to address national security problems, Mondale says. "I cannot understand why the current administration believes that throwing all this out the window -— to be replaced by what I see to be their radical, unilateral, go-it-alone, in-your-face approach —- can strengthen America. I don't see how it can," Mondale said. "Their announced doctrine of pre-emption and their policy of dominance frightens our friends and fuels animosity and rage upon which our true enemies rely." Mondale is joined in his pointed criticism of Bush's foreign policy by two other officials from former Democratic administrations before an audience of 300 at Macalester College: Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, and William Perry, defense secretary in the Clinton administration. Brzezinski says the Bush administration's foreign policy can be summarized in a quote from Bush: "If you're not with us, you're against us." Brzezinski, a naturalized American born in Poland, said it's a stance "straight from [Soviet leader Vladimir] Lenin. ...There has never been a time before when the United States was as isolated in terms of its foreign policy." Perry says Bush's failure to work with a broad coalition of allies to halt the spread of nuclear weapons increases potential for them to fall into the hands of terrorists: "Unless stemmed, it is likely before this decade ends that nuclear bombs will be used in regional wars and terror attacks against American cities." Brzezinski also warns US citizens about how their response to terrorism is being viewed around the world, especially in Europe, where terrorism has been relatively constant through the 20th century and beyond. "We're allowing ourselves into a state of mind that maximizes the effect of terrorism," he said. American fears, Brzezinski said, have led to reactions out of sync with American values. In particular, he cited the Patriot Act, which he called "not a proud moment in our national history" and likened to the Alien and Sedition Acts and the internment of the Japanese during World War II: "These are things subsequent generations are ashamed of." (Pioneer Press)
• December 13: Democrats have become tired of the endless attacks on their patriotism for opposing Bush administration policies, and have asked Bush to cease the attacks.

  Conservative smear campaigns

  Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid lists several cases where Congressional Democrats had resisted Bush's proposals this year -- including an energy bill, Iraq reconstruction money and administration efforts to change overtime pay rules -- and have been attacked as "unpatriotic" or "anti-American" in return. Reid says it was never wrong to stand up for what one believes, even when in the minority, as Democrats are in both houses of Congress. "I believe the voice of dissent is often the true voice of democracy," Reid says. "I have to say, I'm troubled by the way this administration brands Americans who disagree with its policies as 'unpatriotic.' There are many areas where we do not agree with members of this administration, but we would never question their patriotism. They owe us the same in return." (Reuters)

---

Capture of Saddam Hussein

• December 14: Overthrown Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is found by US troops in a pit, described by US officials as a "spider hole," on a sheep farm near his hometown of Tikrit.

  Iraq war and occupation

  The 66-year old former strongman is, according to American sources, alone, obviously exhausted, and puts up no resistance; he is described as "very disoriented." "He was just caught like a rat," says Major General Raymond Odierno, whose 4th Infantry Division troops staged the raid. "When you're in the bottom of a hole you can't fight back." 600 US soldiers moved in on the farm, located near the village of Al-Dawr, less than 24 hours after receiving a tip from Hussein clan members as to his whereabouts: "Over the last 10 days we brought in about five to 10 members of these families, and finally got the ultimate information from one of these individuals," says Odierno. The operation is melodramatically named "Operation Red Dawn." After 14 hours of media silence, US administrator Paul Bremer finally announces the capture to a group of journalists with the words, "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him." Bush orders Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to have the announcement of the capture from Baghdad; administration officials explain that they wanted the news to appear to be a victory for the Iraqi people rather than a personal triumph for Bush, who six months before the invasion called Hussein "a guy that tried to kill my dad." Hussein will now "face the justice he denied to millions," says Bush. "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over." Two other Iraqis considered to be possible colleagues to Hussein are captured, as are two Kalashnikov rifles, a cache of documents, and $750,000 in cash. Iraqi Governing Council head Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim says that a DNA test had proved the man in custody was Saddam Hussein.
• The US quickly moves Hussein to an undisclosed location; Al-Arabiya television claims Hussein is being held in Qatar, but that cannot be verified. During initial interviews, Hussein denies that his regime possessed any weapons of mass destruction; when asked, he replies, "No, of course not. The US dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us." Hussein is described as polite but uncooperative to interviewers. Former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, in US custody for seven months, helped to confirm Hussein's identity after his capture, according to US officials. Discussions are underway as to what kind of interrogations and criminal trials Hussein will face. Bush, Vice President Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other senior administration officials immediately work the capture into the speeches they give at a variety of fundraising appearances. At a holiday party at Rumsfeld's residence, attended by Cheney and a host of other administration officials, NBC's Tim Russert of NBC News tells CIA Director George Tenet he had had a dream the night before that the United States had captured Hussein. Tenet replies, "Happy holidays, Tim." Tenet was aware of the capture, but the news had not yet been released. The status of the $25 million bounty offered for information leading to Hussein's capture has not been determined; US officials say that no one has yet stepped up to claim the money. (BBC, Reuters, Reuters, DEBKAfile, AP/Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• December 14: Reportedly Osama bin Laden is "thrilled" at the capture of Saddam Hussein.

  Osama bin Laden

  The same reports indicate that al-Qaeda is planning to unleash "a wave of violence" upon US targets in Iraq. William Rivers Pitt writes, "The Bush administration spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this Iraq invasion, not one dime of which went towards the capture or death of the fellow who brought down the Towers a couple of years ago. For bin Laden and his devotees, Iraq is better than Disneyland." (Truthout)

Exposure of Hussein capture as an orchestrated PR stunt

• December 14: Almost immediately after the announcement of Hussein's capture, the right-wing Israeli news site DEBKAfile posts a prescient column suggesting that Hussein was already a captive and not just "found," as asserted by the US.

  Iraq war and occupation

  The column gives seven rationales: "The length and state of his hair indicated he had not seen a barber or even had a shampoo for several weeks. The wild state of his beard indicated he had not shaved for the same period. The hole dug in the floor of a cellar in a farm compound near Tikrit was primitive indeed –- 6ft across and 8ft across with minimal sanitary arrangements -- a far cry from his opulent palaces. Saddam looked beaten and hungry. Detained trying to escape were two unidentified men. Left with him were two AK-47 assault guns and a pistol, none of which were used. The hole had only one opening. It was not only camouflaged with mud and bricks –- it was blocked. He could not have climbed out without someone on the outside removing the covering. And most important, $750,000 in 100-dollar notes were found with him (a pittance for his captors who expected a $25m reward) -– but no communications equipment of any kind, whether cell phone or even a carrier pigeon for contacting the outside world. According to DEBKAfile analysts, these seven anomalies point to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein was not in hiding; he was a prisoner."
• As it turns out, the column is correct. DEBKA speculates that "[a]fter his last audiotaped message was delivered and aired over al-Arabiya TV on Sunday November 16, on the occasion of Ramadan, Saddam was seized, possibly with the connivance of his own men, and held in that hole in Adwar for three weeks or more, which would have accounted for his appearance and condition. Meanwhile, his captors bargained for the $25 million prize the Americans promised for information leading to his capture alive or dead. The negotiations were mediated by Jalal Talabani's Kurdish PUK militia. These circumstances would explain the ex-ruler's docility –- described by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez as 'resignation' -– in the face of his capture by US forces. He must have regarded them as his rescuers and would have greeted them with relief. From Sanchez's evasive answers to questions on the $25 million bounty, it may be inferred that the Americans and Kurds took advantage of the negotiations with Saddam's abductors to move in close and capture him on their own account, for three reasons: A. His capture had become a matter of national pride for the Americans. No kudos would have been attached to his handover by a local gang of bounty-seekers or criminals. The country would have been swept anew with rumors that the big hero Saddam was again betrayed by the people he trusted, just as in the war. B. It was vital to catch his kidnappers unawares so as to make sure Saddam was taken alive. They might well have killed him and demanded the prize for his body. But they made sure he had no means of taking his own life and may have kept him sedated. C. During the weeks he is presumed to have been in captivity, guerrilla activity declined markedly –- especially in the Sunni Triangle towns of Falluja, Ramadi and Balad -- while surging outside this flashpoint region –- in Mosul in the north and Najef, Nasseriya and Hilla in the south. It was important for the coalition to lay hands on him before the epicenter of the violence turned back towards Baghdad and the center of the Sunni Triangle." While it is as yet impossible to verify DEBKA's speculations, which it claims are from high-level counter-terror sources, it is hard to argue with them. (DEBKAfile)
• December 14: Lebanese sources say that Saddam Hussein's second wife supplied the US with "some information" about where her husband was hiding in Iraq.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Samira Shahbandar, who lives with the ousted Iraqi leader's only surviving son Ali, "is believed to have given the Americans and their allies some information about the area where Saddam was hiding in," the sources say. Samira, who is reportedly living in Beirut with their son, was apparently in regular contact with Hussein, who gave her $5 million dollars in cash plus gold and jewelery before sending her with his son Ali to the Syrian border after the US-led invasion of Iraq in March. (South Africa Mail and Guardian)
• December 14: The capture of Saddam Hussein was unlikely to destroy the anti-US guerrilla insurgency, US and Iraqi officials note.

  Iraq war and occupation

  "We do not expect at this point in time that we will have a complete elimination of those attacks," says Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the coalition forces in Iraq. "I believe that those will continue for some time. But with the cooperation of all of the Iraqi people and our coalition I believe that we are now much closer to a safe and secure environment." Major General Raymond Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division troops that captured Saddam, says his forces found no telephones, radios or other communications devices in Saddam's hideout, suggesting he had not been directing the insurgency as some had speculated. "I believe he was there more for moral support," says Odierno. "I don't believe he was coordinating the effort because I don't believe there's any national coordination." Captain Joe Munger, an officer in the 4th Infantry Division that captured Saddam, agrees: "I think they'll lose some of their legitimacy, but I don't think it'll stop altogether. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari tells CNN that guerrilla attacks were likely to continue, but that Hussein's capture would have a "demoralizing effect" on loyalists. Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi Governing Council says, "I think things will be better now. I am not saying that attacks will stop immediately, but they will decrease with the passage of time." He continues, "The dream of some people that the Ba'ath Party will rule again is over now." (Guardian)
• December 14: Shortly after Hussein's capture, CNN's Judy Woodruff asks presidential candidate General Wesley Clark,

  Iraq war and occupation

  "Does this [the capture] take Iraq off the table as an issue in the presidential campaign?" She follows up with, "Last Tuesday in New Hampshire, you called President Bush a reckless, radical and heartless leader and you said the war in Iraq cast doubts on his competence to be commander in chief. Do you stand by those statements?" Clark replies that he does indeed stand by his statements, and notes that the capture by no means justifies the war or its consequences. Conservative Democratic candidate Joseph Lieberman uses the news to attack frontrunner Howard Dean: "If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison." (Buzzflash)
• December 14: Wesley Clark calls for an open and transparent trial for Saddam Hussein.

  Iraq war and occupation

  He did not say who should try Saddam, but said the trial should be conducted with "the highest legal standards. There can be absolutely no doubt about the rights of the accused." The case "needs to be as public as possible and the evidence needs to be aired and charges brought," he adds. (AP/Free Republic)

Faked evidence of ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda

• December 14: Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta,

  Prewar intelligence on Iraq

  the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist. The evidence is later shown to be faked. Details of Atta's visit to the Iraqi capital in the summer of 2001 are contained in a top secret memo written to Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The handwritten memo is dated July 1, 2001 and provides a short resume of a three-day "work program" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad. In the memo, Habbush reports that Atta "displayed extraordinary effort" and demonstrated his ability to lead the team that would be "responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy." The second part of the memo, which is headed "Niger Shipment," contains a report about an unspecified shipment -- believed to be uranium -- that it says has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria. Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine. "We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," he says. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks." Although Atta is believed to have lived in Florida in the summer of 2001, he is known to have used more than a dozen aliases, and intelligence experts believe he could easily have slipped out of the US to visit Iraq. Abu Nidal, who was responsible for the failed assassination of the Israeli ambassador to London in 1982, was based in Baghdad for more than two decades. Days later, the document is exposed as a fake (see below.) (Daily Telegraph)
• December 14: Governments around the world are not enforcing global sanctions designed to stem the flow of money to al-Qaeda and impede the business activity of the organization's financiers,

  Islamist terrorism

  allowing the terrorist network to retain formidable financial resources, say US, European and UN investigators. Several businessmen designated by the UN as terrorist financiers, whose assets were supposed to have been frozen more than two years ago, continue to run vast business empires and to travel freely because most nations are unaware of the sanctions and others do not enforce them, the investigators said. Several charities based in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that were reportedly shut down by the governments there because of the groups' alleged financial ties to Osama bin Laden also continue to operate freely. As a result, al-Qaeda continues to receive ample funding not only to carry out its own plots but also to finance affiliated terrorist groups and to seek new weapons. "We desperately need to revitalize our effort to choke off terrorist financing, because until we cut that off, we have not crippled al Qaeda's ability to attack us," says one senior U.S. official who monitors terrorist finances. "We started out well, picked all the low-hanging fruit, and then, as we have squeezed, they have simply moved on to different methods." (Washington Post)
• December 14: "Shocking" details about the travails of 14 British terror detainees while in prison are revealed to Britain's Guardian news daily.

  British torture allegations

  The detainees are being held in Belmarsh prison in southeast London, which has been described as "Britain's Guantanamo Bay" or "Camp Delta UK," and Woodhill prison near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. At least half of them are showing signs of serious mental illness. Their lawyers say they have been pushed "beyond the limits of human endurance." One detainee is a polio victim, another has lost two limbs and a third has attempted suicide. The men and their families fear some may not survive their indefinite imprisonment. The Blair administration has said none will be freed unless they are suffering from a terminal illness. The detainees have been described as a serious threat to national security. But two are seriously disabled and most have been on anti-depressant drugs for more than a year. One detainee, a North African with severe polio, has deteriorated so badly that he no longer can recognize or communicate with others. His condition worsened after he was confined to his cell by his illness. The prison authorities refused him a wheelchair, and inmates' offers to carry him to classes and prayers were rejected. A second North African has no arms and has to be helped by fellow prisoners to carry out everyday tasks. A Palestinian detainee was transferred to Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital after trying to kill himself over a year ago and has been there ever since. Their morale is suicidally low, especially after the failure of ten separate appeals against the internments. The detainees have been charged with no crime,; are unable to see the intelligence evidence against them, and are confined to their cells for up to 22 hours a day. The government used emergency legislation against them because it had insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution.
• Gareth Peirce, whose law firm represents most of the men, said: "They have now been pushed beyond the limits of human endurance. All these men are refugees and a number are torture victims. It is well-established that victims of torture should not be confined, because this can trigger former trauma." Natalia Garcia, a lawyer for two of the detainees, says of her clients, "They have a feeling of total despair. One has told me that he feels he has been buried alive. It is as if the whole weight of the state is against you and there is nothing you can do." Amnesty International has condemned the emergency legislation saying it created a "shadow criminal justice system" for foreign nationals which permitted indefinite detention using evidence from foreign intelligence services extracted under torture. Matthias Kelly QC, chairman of the Bar Council, says, "I am completely opposed to the use of internment. If the Government has the evidence, why does it not have the confidence to put it up in court?" A Home Office spokesman claims the detainees have regular access to mental health services and any special needs of disabled prisoners were taken into account. (Guardian)
• December 14: The radiation released by British depleted-uranium shells used around Basra is "alarmingly high," analysis of biological and soil samples from battle zones shows.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Experts are calling for water and milk samples to be analyzed after "the highest number, highest levels and highest concentrations of radioactive source points" were found in the Basra suburb of Abu Khasib, the center of the fiercest battles between UK and Iraqi forces. Readings taken from destroyed Iraqi tanks in Basra reveal radiation levels 2,500 times higher than normal. In the surrounding area researchers recorded radioactivity levels 20 times higher than normal. Experts believe inhaling the radioactive dust left by the highly combustible weapon causes cancer and birth defects. It has long been alleged that depleted uranium used in the first Gulf conflict was responsible for abnormally high levels of childhood leukaemia and birth defects in Iraq. Depleted uranium is also believed by some to be a contributing factor in Gulf War syndrome. Tedd Weymann, deputy director of Canada's Uranium Medical Research Center, said: "At one point the readings were so high that an alarm on one of my instruments went off telling me to get back. Yet despite these alarmingly high levels of radiation children play on the tanks or close by." It is likely that over a thousand tons of depleted-uranium munitions, primarily used to pierce tank armor, were used in the invasion. The Ministry of Defense is challenging the UMRC findings. (Guardian)

Halliburton saving money by serving US troops "filthy" food

• December 14: Halliburton is profiteering in Iraq in part by serving US troops "dirty food in dirty kitchens," reports the Pentagon.

  Halliburton

  Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root's promises to improve "have not been followed through," according to a Pentagon report that warned "serious repercussions may result" if the contractor did not clean up. The Pentagon reports finding "blood all over the floor," "dirty pans," "dirty grills," "dirty salad bars" and "rotting meats ... and vegetables" in four of the military messes the company operates in Iraq. The report comes as President Bush fends off Pentagon reports that Halliburton-KBR overcharged $61 million for gasoline it sold the military in Iraq. Dick Cheney ran Halliburton for five years until becoming vice president. The company feeds 110,000 US and coalition troops daily at a cost of $28 per troop per day. Even the mess hall where Bush served troops their Thanksgiving dinner was dirty in August, September and October. This adds up to "a company that arrogantly is overcharging when they can get away with it and not providing the quality of service that they agreed to do," says Democratic representative Henry Waxman. Halliburton spokespersons blame "hostile conditions" in Iraq for the unsanitary conditions. (Agence France-Press/Taipei Times)
• December 14: Ohio minister Tandy Sloan, who lost his son Brandon in Iraq, says that the capture of Saddam Hussein means little.

  Iraq war and occupation

  Sloan says if our nation's objective was to capture Saddam Hussein, then the mission was accomplished; "[b]ut we we're over there under the pretense of stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The purpose and the reason why so many lives have been lost and why others are still in jeopardy was to secure the weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein of himself is not a weapon of mass destruction. ...It sounds more like a personal vendetta on part of this administration against Saddam Hussein and lives were lost as a result of that vendetta." (NewsNet 5)

 

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