May 2004

CNN is reporting:

About 100 Iraqi police who arrived in Najaf over the past week to begin joint patrols with U.S.-led coalition forces on Sunday apparently deserted their posts, U.S. military officials said.

In the past few days, U.S. forces coordinated and trained with the Iraqi police to begin the patrols in the Shiite holy city that has been besieged by fighting between U.S. forces and the militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

It is not clear why the police left the city, but their disappearance added to the skepticism at the U.S. military base in Najaf that a unilateral peace agreement announced three days ago by Shiite representatives would quell the ongoing violence.

100 “police” disappeared? And in Baghdad, not to be outdone by the Saudi hostage takers, a convoy of “westerners” was shot up and the “survivors” dragged away:

Gunmen attacked three civilian vehicles carrying foreigners in northwest Baghdad Sunday, killing two Westerners and seizing three others, witnesses and police at the scene said.

Two of the four-wheel-drive vehicles, of the type used by foreign contractors, employees of the U.S.-led administration and some media in Iraq, appeared to have collided after coming under fire on a main highway, and two bodies could be seen.

Locals and police said the attackers had dragged away three survivors of the attack. Their fate was unknown.

In one of the cars, a dark-colored sports utility vehicle, both front airbags had inflated and were stained red with blood. Bloodstains were also soaked into the back seat.

Nearby, a white four-wheel-drive vehicle had its front staved in by the force of the collision.

After the attack, locals set the two vehicles ablaze, and later shooting erupted between gunmen and police at the scene.

Meanwhile, Duhbya is playing with Saddam’s pistol:

A handgun that Saddam Hussein was clutching when U.S. forces captured him in a hole in Iraq last December is now kept by President Bush at the White House, Time magazine reported Sunday.
[...]
Bush shows Saddam’s gun to select visitors, telling them it is unloaded, both now and when Saddam was captured, Time reported.

“He really liked showing it off,” Time quoted a visitor who had seen the gun as saying. “He was really proud of it.”

Well, as long as Duhbya gets to show off his war trophies to his buddies in Washington, I guess all the death, violence and chaos is worth it.

Reading A1 critiqes NY Times omsbudsman Okrent’s comment on the notorious “Editor’s Note” non-apology for hyping disinformation about Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent WMD. An excerpt:

The word from Pastor Dan. Daniel Okrent’s rhetorical stance is always, “We journalists.” His job, as he seems to take it, is to offer the (perversely uncomprehending) masses a glimpse into the mysteries of the trade. Okrent writes as if the “public” part of public editor were a suggestion of taint: as if his chief concern was to make sure that nobody in the fraternity could mistake him for one of those hairy, gap-toothed outsiders.

Read the rest…..

Billmon has an interesting insight on the Okrent piece, which makes the “Editors Note” seem even more craven and self-serving than it did when I first read it. Check out his timeline.

Oh, and don’t miss this little nugget from Okrent: “While I’m on the subject: Readers were never told that Chalabi’s niece was hired in January 2003 to work in The Times’s Kuwait bureau. She remained there until May of that year.“

There’s been a lot of commentary on the Elisabeth Bumiller piece in the NYT yesterday, Conservative Allies Take Chalabi Case to the White House. Bumiller characterizes the neocon visit - “a small delegation of them marched into the West Wing office of Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to complain about the administration’s abrupt change of heart about Mr. Chalabi and to register their concerns about the course of the war in Iraq.” Pretty much everyone took off on the amusing image of a herd of incensed neocons descending on Condi Rice’s office, but Laura Rozen posts that this may not be accurate.

Secondly, about Condoleezza Rice’s meeting with the pro-Chalabi crowd last week. I am told Rice requested the meeting with Perle, Woolsey, Gingrich, Pletka, Rubin et al, to ask them not to go off the reservation, in reaction to the White House cut off of Chalabi. And if you have noticed, they have refrained for the most part from directing their public criticism directly at the White House, attacking the CIA, DIA and State instead for a policy decision that came from the very top.

Interesting possibility. Does this have anything to do with the Allawi/IGC coup of the past couple of days? Chalabi reportedly voted for Allawi. Whatever happened to “severing his connection” with the CPA and his suspension from the IGC? Juan Cole notes that calling what Chalabi had in mind a “coup” is exaggerated, but what happened with Allawi could fairly be called a coup, from the information available. Is there some connection between the White House ousting of Chalabi and the subsequent Allawi ascension? Is Chalabi even really ousted? If he is, why is he still participating in the IGC votes instead of twiddling his chubby thumbs in a cell in Abu Ghraib?

Arthur Silber paraphrases notable warbots Bill O’Reilly, John Derbyshire, and VD Hanson. Sample: O’Reilly, “If the United States is going to defeat the terrorists, we need to have a total commitment to crushing the bastards. My study of history indicates that the role model we ought to adopt is that provided by one of the most noted liberators of the oppressed and a noble exemplar of freedom and individual rights. I speak, of course, of Genghis Khan.”

Tim Swanson on Minnesota’s crackdown on low gas prices, “Whew, I’m so glad cheapskates like Murphy Oil are being fined and punished, after all, if other companies use this evil business strategy, prices of goods and services would decline en masse, saving individuals and families so much money that they would probably start funding terrorism just so they wouldn’t feel guilty about having so much more wealth laying around.”

Laura Rozen is doing a good job keeping up with the Washington neocons and the unfolding Chalabi mess.

Steve Gilliard says Allawi is a Dead Man Walking. Josh Marshall and Spencer Ackerman also have good info up on, as Ackerman calls it, The Zipless Coup.

Bush Announces Twelve Step Plan For Iraq

The Libertarian Jackass outs himself in The American Conservative, and Stephen Carson at LRC blog helpfully links him up for all of us who don’t get TAC on dead tree. You’d think an article about blogs would be webbed.

Reggie Rivers writes an article in the Denver Post equating military service with slavery, pointing out that you aren’t a volunteer anymore if you can’t quit. Jonah Goldberg can’t figure out why he disagrees with this argument (”Unless I’m in the dark about why this isn’t moronic, I’ll just let it speak for itself.” Then he doesn’t.) but he’s so on Jingo Autopilot that he can’t let anyone advance even this argument without breaking out his little plastic patriot flag and he condescendingly accuses Reggie of implying all soldiers are “buffoons.” “Shame on you, Reggie,” says Jonah in his kindergarten teacher voice. Goldberg, ” But if for some reason people think this guy’s onto something we can have a nice long conversation in here about why joining the army of your own free will in order to serve your country in exchange for A) money B) education C) experience D) training E) a lifetime of benefits and the respect of your country is ever-so-slightly different than slavery.” You’d almost think Jonah is saying that slavery would be OK if you could get a good education, money and benefits as a slave. He makes it sound so good that it’s even more of a mystery than ever why Jonah isn’t wearing his master’s uniform.

WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL READING US? DOES JUDITH MILLER HAVE TO KILL YOU HERSELF? Thanks to michael at Reading A1 for the toon.

5 expat housing compounds have been attacked in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. At least 6 people are known to have been killed, among them one Brit and one American. An unknown number of hostages are being held. At least one body has been dragged through the streets. Situation developing. From Dow Jones Newswire:

The attackers also shot dead U.K. national Michael Hamilton, the company’s senior manager for trade and project finance, as he arrived at the office, said western officials and a company executive. British diplomats are en route to Al- Khobar.

The gunmen, dressed in security forces’ uniforms, had also opened fire on a school bus, killing the young son of an Egyptian Apicorp employee, said the company executive.

The western official and other sources said the gunmen - in two vehicles - fled the office and residential complex of Apicorp, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries’ investment arm.

South Rub al-Khali Gas Co., a natural gas exploration joint venture between Royal Dutch/Shell (RD,SC), state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co (SOI.YY) and Total SA (TOT), also has its offices in the Apicorp building. None of the company’s staff were harmed, said Shell spokesman Simon Buerk.

At around 0730hrs, gunmen attacked the nearby Petroleum Center offices, killing three people, sources said. Two Filipinos and a westerner, either a South African or U.S. national, died at the Petroleum Center, said the sources.

It’s unclear whether this attack was carried out by the same assailants who carried out the strike on Apicorp. Shots were also heard outside the Panda Mall, near the Petroleum Center.

Gunmen then holed themselves up in the nearby Oasis residential compound, where they have taken hostages and are surrounded by security forces, said one western official. Another source said the attackers had taken hostage a woman with joint U.S.-Lebanese nationality and her child in the compound’s Sohar high- rise apartment block. The Lebanese ambassador to Saudi Arabia later confirmed that five Lebanese nationals had been released, though an unspecified number of hostages are believed to still be held.

“The incident is still happening, and they’ve taken hostages in the Oasis compound,” said the western official.

Another source said a second group of gunmen had managed to escape using a police car and were now surrounded in Home Store, a household furnishings store in the city.

Some reporting is indicating that the “militants” are checking State IDs for religion.: An employee at the Oasis compound said the militants, wearing military uniforms, had asked residents to show their identity cards to find out their religions.

Jim Henley defends Michael Ledeen

According to this article in Salon, here’s what the “peace deal” in Najaf looks like:

On Friday morning, the number of armed men on the streets of Najaf did not seem to have diminished, and in places it seemed to have increased. And as of late Friday afternoon, Mahdi army volunteers were still streaming into Najaf, responding to Muqtada’s call for assistance, some coming from other countries. The numbers of militiamen were growing significantly. Pickup trucks full of men with heavy weapons were parked on the street leading to the medina, or old town. Many of the fighters were from out of town. The trucks had been quickly painted over, and the faint image of the blue Iraqi police lettering was still visible.

With the pressure from the United States abated, the Mahdi fighters spent Friday acting as if they had just won a great victory.

Sounds like Fallujah déjà vu.

What’s this game the UN’s Brahimi is playing with the Iraqi Puppet Council? Apparently the Council has “nominated” one of their own, Iyad Allawi, for PM and now reports are coming out that Brahimi “respects” their choice. Reuters has gone out and interviewed some random Iraqis who scoff at the Puppet Council and Allawi.

“What is his political experience? I know nothing about him. He lived abroad as an exile. We need someone who lived here who can pull Iraq out of a crisis,” said a hotel manager who declined to give his name.

“Iraq is the same as it was in the time of Saddam Hussein except now I am afraid of militiamen so I can’t say my name.”
[..]
“I heard he used to play sports. I think he should really go back to playing sports,” said Seif Gharib, a 20-year-old security guard at Iraq’s Ministry of Defense. “Who is Iyad Allawi?

Hassan Ali, a policeman, was also dismissive.

“I reject him,” he said. “Where was he when we suffered under Saddam? Besides I do not recognize the Governing Council.”

Isn’t this exactly what they were supposed to avoid by not involving the Puppets? What happened to Brahimi’s idea of selecting “technocrats?”

Another Reuters story is even more bizarre:

It was unclear how far U.S. officials or Brahimi influenced the choice of a long-time exile known to few Iraqis and whom people in Baghdad said was an outsider they could not trust.

Brahimi and Iraq’s U.S. governor Paul Bremer endorsed the nomination, Governing Council member Mahmoud Othman said: “We had a meeting with Bremer and Brahimi and they both agreed and congratulated him and were happy about it,” Othman told Reuters.

WTF? I thought this was supposed to be Brahimi’s choice. Was Brahimi unable to find anyone but Puppets who would take the job, especially after yesterday’s Hussain Shahristani debacle?

This is a weird story. First, in an article by the Canadian Press mostly about the IGC Puppets “nominating” Iyad Allawi for Prime Minister of Iraq (who asked them what they thought, anyway?) we have a couple of grafs thrown in, separated by other reports on various events in Iraq:

Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers escorting a convoy of buses filled with Abu Ghraib prison inmates on their way to be released came under attack Friday, but there were no reports of casualties. In Kufa, explosions were heard one day after an agreement to end fighting between U.S. forces and Shiite insurgents.

The prisoners had just left the Abu Ghraib facility - the centre of a scandal involving abuse of detainees by American soldiers - when shots were fired from buildings near the freeway. The soldiers hunkered down and the convoy of at least 13 buses stopped. The shooting ended quickly.
[...]
In the attack on the prisoner buses, hundreds of relatives who had been following the convoy also stopped and then swarmed around the vehicles after the shots were fired. Prisoners then got off the buses and went home with their families.

The Guardian just came out with the same story with a bit more detail:

US soldiers escorting a convoy of prisoners released from the Abu Ghraib prison exchanged fire with unknown assailants today after they stopped on a highway outside Baghdad.

More than a dozen buses had just left Abu Ghraib - the prison at the centre of a scandal involving abuse of detainees by American soldiers - when shots were fired from buildings near the freeway, apparently at the convoy.

The US soldiers assumed defensive positions and returned fired. Several tanks arrived after the shooting and monitored the area for an hour, but there was no more fighting. A reporter at the scene did not see casualties.

Before the exchange, US forces in Bradley fighting vehicles had halted the convoy of buses for an unknown reason. Hundreds of relatives parked their cars, blocking traffic in both directions, and rushed to the buses in search of family members.

Many relatives ignored warnings from the US troops, who pointed their rifles and yelled at them to stay back. In previous releases, detainees were escorted all the way to their home towns.

Today, those detainees headed for Baghdad got out of the bus and transferred to the hundreds of cars that had raced after the buses when they left the prison gates.

OK, so a bunch of busses full of people being released from Abu Ghraib got stopped (mysteriously? Right…), came under fire and then “hundreds” of cars that had been following the busses parked willy-nilly all over the highway in both directions, while prisoners swarmed off the busses and into the waiting cars and took off. Both of these articles make a nod to what I think is American BS about how they were taking people to their “hometowns.” If you believe that, consider this other report on how the Americans release people from Abu Ghraib: Iraqis released from Abu Ghraib taken on a bizarre journey and dumped. That convoy of busses took these people to an old quarry 70 miles north of Baghdad and dumped them out.

Why are “hundreds” of cars following these bus convoys? Because they know the US is likely to just dump them out somewhere in the middle of nowhere, that’s why. Take the story of Tu’amaa Mola Hassan Sabeeh, a 67 year-old man with Alzheimer’s reported by Dahr Jamail:

Yet another horrible story is that of Tu’amaa Mola Hassan Sabeeh, a 67 year-old man with Alzheimer’s, who had wandered from his home in Baghdad on June 29, 2003, and has been missing ever since.

His son, Rassem, standing in front of the checkpoint of Abu Ghraib, said, “We searched all of Iraq for him and couldn’t find him. Then three weeks ago someone who was released told us he was here.”

Now the family members take turns coming out and waiting for his release. “We have not been allowed to see him, and if he is released, he can’t remember where to go, so we need to come here everyday to wait for him in case he is released.”

He said the entire family is affected, as the time away from their jobs is draining them financially. He added, “We’re all crying now. All our time is spent waiting. We don’t know his number, since they use numbers instead of names in there. So we know he’s there, but we cannot contact him. Where is the justice?”

How would this man find his way home after the US dumped him in a quarry, far from home? How would they even know where to take him if he can’t tell them where he lives?

I would like somebody in charge of these convoys to explain why the families can’t just pick their loved ones up at the gates of Abu Ghraib. Why can’t the US do one decent thing and just let these people go with dignity?

Oh, so this is why the US has been stuffing everyone they can lay hands on in Iraq into prison. They really do want to teach the Iraqis how to be free, just like in America.

Link swiped from Libertarian Jackass.

zeyad at Healing Iraq has a bitter comment about the American version of justice in Iraq.

If you’ve never heard zeyad’s story about the death of his cousin at the hands of American soldiers, it is here.

Instamonger calls this “misconduct,” but because zeyad is generally pro-invasion he generously allows that perhaps a reprimand is not sufficient for murdering an Iraqi by making him jump off Tharthar dam into the Tigris in January.

The only new idea in Duhbya’s latest speech is being rejected by the Iraqi Puppet Council as a “waste of resources.”

“We must not be sentimental,” Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer told reporters. “As the Governing Council, we do not agree with demolishing it and the matter will be left for the transitional government,” which is scheduled to take office June 30.

He called the idea of destroying the prison “a waste of resources.”

Really, the best idea for what to do with the tainted Abu Ghraib torture facility I’ve seen is William Lind’s:

Colonel John Boyd said that the greatest weakness a person or a nation can have at the highest level of war, the moral level, is a contradiction between what they say and what they do. From that I think follows the basic definition of psyops in Fourth Generation war: psyops are not what you say, but what you do.

If we look at the war in Iraq through that lens, we quickly see a number of psyops we could have undertaken, but did not. For example, what if instead locating the CPA in Saddam’s old palace in Baghdad and putting Iraqi prisoners in his notorious Abu Ghraib prison, we had located the CPA in Abu Ghraib and put the prisoners in Saddam’s palace? That would have sent a powerful message.

How about Abu Ghraib as the new American Embassy? That new castle they’re building in downtown Baghdad (Lounsbury describes it in the linked post) could be the new torture detention facility.

Check out Sydney Blumenthal’s new article in Salon. Blumenthal writes, “FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the U.S. government and military?”

Ok, I wouldn’t wish a government thug investigation on anyone, even a neocon. Really. But, as Kos puts it, “So will the neocons get their comeuppance? Probably not. But there is a sort of delicious irony in seeing these assholes, who for so long screamed “treason!” at anyone who opposed their foolish plans, suddenly become the subject of an espionage investigation.

So next time any Bush apologist questions your patriotism, ask right back — ‘Who sold out our nation to an ‘Axis of Evil’ spy? Heck, who invited this spy to the State of the Union Addresss?‘ It wasn’t the anti-war crowd.”

Hesiod on an odd omission from the US “Most Wanted Terrorists” list.

See if you can tell who’s missing before you click here.

From Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches.

“When the Americans take over our police station, they bring us all together and tell us we are no longer in charge of anything,” he says, holding up his arms in exasperation.

The policeman says that all of them were made to stay inside the station while U.S. soldiers occupied the roof. “This is why I can say definitely yes, it was the Americans who shot Mr. Abrahim, and not Iraqi Police, because none of us were even allowed on the roof,” he says firmly.

He adds that he personally has on his desk between 150-200 files of incidents where U.S. occupation forces have killed innocent Iraqis, and that several other Iraqi Policemen at his station have a similar number. He lets out a deep breath and says, “There are so many people the Americans have shot.”…. read more

The US is apparently going to choose Iraq’s interim government rather than the UN.

Let’s play their game. Asked whether the US would have veto power over the candidates it didn’t like who were presented by Brahimi for the new Iraqi interim govt, a State Department spokesman said that Bremer and Blackwill would make sure those candidates don’t get on the list to begin with!

…Read more

Following orders?

If Graner, England and other MPs accused in the Abu Ghraib toture scandal intend to invoke the Nazi Defense, that they were “just following orders,” they’re going to have to explain why they were selective about which orders they decided to obey.

In the six months leading up to the investigation of the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, three of the seven soldiers now charged with abuse repeatedly committed infractions and disobeyed orders but received only the mildest of punishments.

Their violations of military rules included entering buildings they had been ordered to avoid, continuing improper sexual relations with one another and being aggressive with detainees, according to records obtained by The New York Times.

The unruly behavior and weak rebukes reinforce a picture of a dysfunctional unit as described in the report by Major General Antonio Taguba, who noted a lack of respect for authority.

Among his concerns were flippant comments in logbooks, lack of standards for uniforms and soldiers who wrote poems and other sayings on their headgear. Taguba also raised concerns about officers and senior noncommissioned officers who had been disciplined for drinking, taking nude pictures of soldiers without their knowledge and fraternizing with junior soldiers.

In all, he noted “a lack of clear standards, proficiency, and leadership.”

Specialist Charles Graner, whom investigators call a ringleader in the abuse by members of the 372nd Military Police company, was disciplined at least twice, in November 2003 and in early January, two weeks before the investigation of detainee abuse began.

In the second incident, he refused at least seven times to follow a platoon sergeant’s order to leave a building, then told the officer as he finally left, “You can kiss my [behind].” He was told to take responsibility for his actions and was advised, but not ordered, to seek anger management counseling.

Private First Class Lynndie England was reprimanded three times, twice in July and then in November, for disobeying direct orders not to sleep with Graner.

The first time, she told an officer that she was “too busy” to report to the platoon sergeant about the violation. She received corrective training but was not seriously disciplined until January, when she was docked $357 in pay and demoted from specialist to private first class.

Sergeant Javal Davis, who is accused of jumping into a pile of detainees and stomping on their feet, was known to be “a little too aggressive with the detainees,” according to the sworn statement given to investigators by the warden of the site where the worst abuses had occurred.

Davis was pulled out of the facility in late November but was not disciplined.

Reese also told investigators that Graner “constantly challenges orders and requests from the leadership.”

The concerns about a lack of discipline in the 800th Military Police Brigade extended to the highest levels. An officer who traveled with Major General Geoffrey Miller, who headed detention operations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and was touring prisons in Iraq, said their team had found a wanton lack of discipline among soldiers and noncommissioned officers.

Walking through Camp Cropper, a detention center, with Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the brigade’s commander, Miller encountered two military police soldiers sitting at their desks with their feet up, not so much as budging as the two-star general walked by. “It was shocking,” said the officer.
[...]
On July 23, England - who became the face of the abuse scandal when she was shown in photographs grinning next to naked detainees and holding one by a leash - was caught sleeping with Graner, a violation of army rules, after having been ordered to stop.

Disciplinary records note that she was given that order on July 13 but was caught violating it twice in the following weeks.

In November she was reported missing for two days. She was found in Graner’s cot. Again she was counseled for refusing direct orders and was told to sleep in her own bed. Reese then ordered her, on Jan. 1, to forfeit $357 of her pay.

The next morning, Graner was seen leaving her room in Building 100. Sergeant First Class Larry Bennett told him to leave the area. Graner, he said, refused several times.

Contrast this chaotic free-for-all with the swift and severe retribution meted out to Tami Silicio and her husband who were both fired immediately for “breaking a rule” when Silicio photographed American caskets departing Kuwait. Or Camilo Mejia, an exemplary soldier by all accounts, who was court martialed and jailed for refusing to return to Iraq and participate in the types of activities England and Graner did with pleasure. As Irene Khan, the secretary-general of Amnesty International said, ” “It seems that accountability in Washington DC is better generated by Kodak.”

UPI reports:

The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing.
[...]
An artillery shell bearing traces of mustard gas was discovered in Baghdad, Knight-Ridder reported May 7.

Neither find is being offered as evidence of Saddam Hussein’s alleged illegal weapons programs, one of the prime reasons offered by the Bush administration for the March 2003 invasion and war.

It took them long enough to figure this out. Scott Ritter probably could’ve told them this after a two-minute inspection. But then, if Scott or any other expert had been allowed to inspect the shell right away, the warbots would’ve missed all the entertaining WMD victory dances they’ve been doing over a 1980’s dud artillery shell.

If you ever doubted that the neocon/Republican/Bushies’ claim to “support the troops” is anything but a phony pose, here’s rock solid proof that it is.

UPDATE: As long as we’re on the Support the Troops subject, here’s another excellent post….

The Brooding Persian has some reflections on Simone Ledeen and other junior Messiahs currently interning in Iraq:

Don’t get me wrong now. I am all for on the job trainings. I don’t believe in the cult of expertise. But seriously, shouldn’t the family team so intent on saving all of us be able to at least speak some Arabic or Persian? Especially when formulating or promoting tendentious policies affecting millions? Aren’t they in the least bit curious? For goodness sake, even Jane Goodall managed to communicate with the creatures she intended to save in a language other than English.

Yeah, but Jane Goodall cared about her patients’ wishes.

“Occupation made world less safe, pro-war institute says.”

The US and British occupation of Iraq has accelerated recruitment to the ranks of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network and made the world a less safe place, according to a leading London-based think-tank.

The assessment, by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), states that the occupation has become “a potent global recruitment pretext” for al-Qa’ida, which now has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike Western targets.

“More Treasury agents track Castro than Bin Laden”

April 30, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden’s and Saddam Hussein’s money, documents show. … Since 1994 it has collected just $9,425 in fines for terrorism financing violations.

“INTERVIEW: Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate”

The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations.

You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one. In certain points - and they [the intelligence community] are separating those portions from just the terrorist activities. And, as I said, they are citing “foreign relations” which is not the case, because we are not talking about only governmental levels. And I keep underlining semi-legit organizations and following the money. When you do that the picture gets grim. It gets really ugly.

…if, and when this issue gets to be, under real terms, investigated, you will be seeing certain people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally.

…I have seen several, several top targets for these investigations of these terrorist activities that were allowed to leave the country–I’m not talking about weeks, I’m talking about months after 9/11.

… When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization. You are looking at this massive movement that stretches to tens and tens of countries. And it involves a lot of sub-organizations and sub-sub-organizations and branches and it’s extremely complicated. So to just narrow it down and say al-Qaeda and the Saudis, or to say it’s what they had at the camp in Afghanistan, is extremely misleading. And we don’t hear the extent of the penetration that this organization and the sub-organizations have throughout the world, throughout their networks and throughout their various activities. It’s extremely sophisticated. And then you involve a significant amount of money into this equation. Then things start getting a lot of overlap — money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That’s what I’m trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it’s getting into somebody’s political campaign, and somebody’s lobbying. And people don’t want to be traced back to this money.

…I’m very disappointed with Senator Grassley’s office and his staff members. They initially were very supportive. But what I am getting from their office every time I call is, “Well this issue is under the Inspector General,” and that their hands are tied. And then I press further and ask, “Well, what do you mean, ‘our hands are tied’? Who’s tying your hands? Untie it. Let’s get it untied.” They don’t have any response. They say, “Well, this issue is very complex, and as you know, it is being investigated.” And I’m not seeing any issue being investigated. What I’m seeing is that this issue is being covered up, and relentlessly being covered up, in consideration of “state privilege,” which people are calling “the neutron bomb of all privilege.”

“Bank fined $25 million over Saudi accounts”

Federal regulators fined Riggs Bank a record $25 million on Thursday for allegedly violating anti-money laundering laws in its handling of tens of millions in cash transactions in Saudi-controlled accounts under investigation for possible links to terrorism financing.

The civil fine against the midsize Washington bank with a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital’s diplomatic community is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said. …

The FBI and regulators have investigated, for possible connections to terrorism financing, large cash transactions in Riggs accounts controlled by Saudi diplomats.

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, recently asked the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to examine Saudi transactions totaling tens of millions at Riggs and FleetBoston Financial Corp.

“Riggs Bank deserves every penny of this huge fine,” Grassley said in a statement Thursday. “Banks have a patriotic duty, not to mention legal requirement, to report suspicious activity. When banks look the other way, they put our national security at risk. Whether it’s through incompetence, negligence or greed, they are allowing terrorists to funnel their blood money through the system.”

Grassley said members of the bank’s board of directors should be held to account for failing to exercise their watchdog role over Riggs’s operations.

Riggs previously was accused by Treasury regulators of failing to comply with a law requiring banks to notify the government of suspicious transactions.

“Web Site Cites Bush-Riggs Link”

A political Web site written by a Democratic operative drew attention yesterday to the fact that President Bush’s uncle, Jonathan J. Bush, is a top executive at Riggs Bank, which this week agreed to pay a record $25 million in civil fines for violations of law intended to thwart money laundering. Jonathan Bush, who is a major fundraiser for his nephew, was appointed in 2000 to run Riggs Investment Management Co.

“Report assails U.S. nuclear security effort — Sense of urgency missing, study sponsor says”

Less fissile material was secured in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001, than in the two years just before, according to the Harvard report. Half the equipment dispatched to Russia nearly four years ago as a fast, interim solution remains in warehouses, uninstalled because of bureaucratic disputes. …

Basic security improvements have not been made at dozens of facilities in Russia, where more than 60 percent of the country’s plutonium and weapons- grade uranium is kept, the General Accounting Office has warned. In a more recent report, the GAO said U.S. government facilities are also vulnerable to an increased risk of terrorism.

“Al-Qaeda almost ready to attack United States, Ashcroft says”

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A San Francisco composer, Bryant Kong, has put the found poetry of Donald Rumsfeld to music.

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.

– Donald Rumsfeld from a Dept. of Defense briefing in Feb. 2002

Kong explains: “A lot of the poems have to do with information and control of information. They’re running the war like a public relations campaign, and then they run into trouble when the facts don’t match the story that they’re trying to sell.”

———-

Crown Prince Alexander II is trying to drum up US investment for Serbia. He visited San Francisco a few days ago and was interviewed by Mark Simon of the Chronicle (Warning: contains inaccuracies and propaganda):

“Prince sees double standard in foreign policy — He says U.S. left Serbia for lack of oil”

… [Serbia is] unable to shake itself free from a succession of international demands that the current democratic government turn over war criminals to a tribunal, demands largely backed by the United States, Crown Prince Alexander II said in an interview at The Chronicle.

Similar requirements were not made of the fledgling democracies in Afghanistan or Iraq, he said, and now Serbia is struggling to gain international attention and support for an economy ravaged by 40 percent unemployment and a depleted infrastructure that cannot rebuild the nation.

“There is more money for war than peace. We don’t have oil. Oil is becoming more important than people,” said Alexander….

Serbia was burdened with “bad management, poor leadership, sanctions, isolation and bombings. You put all that together and on the fifth of October, the bank was broke,” Prince Alexander said.

“Then Sept. 11 happens, just as we’re trying to put our ship in order, and everybody rushes off to Afghanistan and, then, eventually, Iraq, and we’re sort of left to fend on our own.”

There are “dual standards” being applied, he said. When Serbian leadership tried to hold an international conference to seek help for its problems, they were told they first had to turn over Milosevic to an international court.

“Why wasn’t this standard applied to Afghanistan in handing over Taliban and al Qaeda leaders? Why did aid go to Iraq when Saddam Hussein hadn’t been caught yet?

“These are dual standards, and this is flawed foreign policy,” he said.

Alexander, 60, was born in London, where his family had taken refuge during World War II. He wants to revive his title as king in a constitutional monarchy, like England or Spain, where the king serves as a nonpolitical, unifying symbol.

The crown prince, educated in American and English schools and fluent in five languages, served as a captain in an English military unit, seeing duty in the Middle East, Italy and Germany.

With his military background, he said he understood the United States would need only three weeks to complete its invasion of Iraq, “and then the problems would start.” Previous U.S. sanctions against Iraq helped unify the nation behind the Hussein regime. The post-invasion presence of U.S. military “the people of Iraq feel is an occupation. …

Across the page was the hilariously titled article, “Pentagon to flood Iraq with vast supply of guns” — no chance that will go wrong. Unfortunately, the only online version of this article I can find has is boringly titled, “U.S. arms bound for Iraq — Shipments will include tens of thousands of guns.”

I’ve been scanning the blogs for the best post on the NYT’s lukewarm mea culpa article because I didn’t want to write yet another scathing Judith Miller post.

So, here it is - Swopa at needlenose,who actually clicked through all the links the Times provided in their Botched Article list and checked the bylines. Best on the warbot reaction, Jesse Taylor at Pandagon. Most outraged, Tom Tomorrow. Jim Henley is exasperatedly cynical. He checked for Miller’s byline, too. Digby is outraged plus he gets bonus points for adding the Mylroie connection into his Miller indictment.

Eli at Left I has some devastating info on Shahristani, the name apparently being hyped by Washington for new Iraqi PM, much to Brahimi’s irritation. First, the hype:

When Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy in Iraq, appeared on Iraqia, the US-run local television station on Monday night, he sought to reassure viewers that the caretaker government he was selecting would be truly sovereign, even if its powers were limited.

It was part of a series of interviews with the local media aimed at highlighting the leading role played by the UN and lending legitimacy to the transition process. In the interviews, Mr Brahimi has been stressing that he is trying to find a consensus among Iraqis but that he had not yet reached a decision.

Within hours of his appearance on Iraqia, however, Mr Brahimi’s central message was undercut by US officials’ suggestion that Hussein Shahristani, a well-respected nuclear scientist who had been jailed at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison under Saddam Hussein, was the leading candidate for prime minister. For the past year, Mr Shahristani has been living in Karbala, the Shia holy city.

UN officials and the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad on Wednesday rushed to deny the reports, insisting that the decision was in the hands of the UN, not the US State Department in Washington.

From Eli’s post he sounds like another Curveball. Here’s a bit:

“I have information from inside Iraq that Saddam plans to distribute his chemical weapons in particular in major Shiite towns in southern Iraq. He plans to remotely detonate them and expose the population to nerve agents and cause very large scale civilian deaths.”

And a couple days ago he said they were being moved around:

“I believe these are still in Iraq and being moved around to avoid detection by the UN inspection team,” Hussein Shahristani said in Manilla.

Read the rest.

No wonder the White House likes him.

Surely there can’t be anything more idiotic out there:
“…today, in Iraq as in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, we’ve tied ourselves to Muslim people. We’re helping them. In the long run, they’ll understand that and appreciate that.”
- Rich Tucker, The Heritage Foundation, writing on Townhall.com

Col. Thomas Pappas, in sworn testimony, said the idea of using dogs came from the Commandant of American Gulag Guantanamo, and approved by Commandant “I See Nothing” Sanchez, confirming the testimony from the number one Rumsfeld henchman Cambone at the Taguba hearing. As Mark Rothschild writes on AntiWar.com:

The seventy year-old Democrat pressed Cambone further, reading verbatim from a still-secret “annex” of the Taguba report, which presumably is an extract from an order by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the commanding general in Iraq.

Senator Levin read aloud from the secret annex:

“The interrogation officer in charge will submit memoranda for the record requesting harsh approaches for the commanding general’s approval prior to employment: sleep management, sensory deprivation, isolation longer than 30 days and dogs.”

He then turned to Cambone, demanding to know:

“Secretary Cambone, were you personally aware of that permissible interrogation techniques in the Iraqi theater included sleep management, sensory deprivation, isolation longer than 30 days and dogs?”

Cambone answered calmly, relating that ultimate control over the list of “approved techniques” had been in the hands of Lieutenant General Sanchez , “No, sir. That list, both in terms of its detail and its exceptions, were approved at the command level in the theater.”

The gun-toting Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, a native of the rough and tumble US/Mexico border region known to locals as “the valley,” is the Commanding General in Iraq. Sanchez’ order approving the use of dogs and the other methods was dated, October 19, 2003. But Sanchez, whose career must surely now be on the brink, was not the only official to be scathed by the revelation that specific written lists of “approved techniques” exist.

Under questioning by Senator Ted Kennedy, of Massachusetts, Undersecretary Cambone admitted that his boss, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also has his own list of “approved techniques,” saying that when interrogators at Guantanamo Bay want to surpass the severity of the techniques on Rumsfeld’s list, the permission of the Secretary of Defense himself is required.

But remember, Sanchez’s departure from Iraq has nuuuuthing to do with any of this. Miller’s departure will undoubtedly be unrelated also.

According to Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti (Evening News), the most influential Albanian drganizer of the event was Richard Holbrooke, while many of his former cohorts from the Clinton days took part: Madeleine Albright, Wesley Clark and James Rubin, as well as local Congressman Eliott Engel, known supporter of Albanian causes.
“The purpose of the meeting was to raise funds and secure Albanian-American votes for Democratic presidential candidate [John] Kerry,” says the Novosti report, adding that in return, the Democrats promised Albanians the independence of Kosovo.
The unnamed Novosti source in New York also claims that Kosovo Albanians sent a low-level delegation to the meeting, trying to stay below radar. Among the conclusions of the gathering, the report alleges, was that the process of Kosovo’s separation was proceeding according to plan; that the March attacks on Serbs did some short-term damage to the cause, but that in the big picture, the ethnic cleansing that occurred actually served the Albanians’ purpose.
Kosovo and American Albanians were supposedly also told that if Kerry were elected, he would most likely appoint Holbrooke the new Secretary of State, and he would continue Albright’s policies, namely support the independence of Kosovo.
General Wesley Clark, reportedly admonished the Kosovo Albanians for the March events, tlling them to “influence their local commanders so as to improve relations with KFOR,” say Novosti.
According to the paper, the participants agreed to organize the All-Albanian Congress, which would formulate the new strategy of Albanian national policy in the Balkans; the Congress would take place mid-summer, in Macedonia… Read the rest of this entry »

James Taranto of the War Street Journal puts a little wiggle in his EEG!

UPDATE: I do take issue, by the way, with Taranto’s assertion that suicide bombing is a “particularly horrific” kind of murder–it may be particularly terrifying, since you never know when or where it might happen, but it’s no more horrific than, say, firing a missile into an apartment complex. (Unless, as Taranto suggests, you get all choked up about the self-inflicted death of the poor bomber.)

Arthur Silber reveals the five-step plan that preceded the 12-step plan that preceded the five-step plan.

I find it interesting that the “newspaper of record,” the New York Times has the story of the “likely” new Iraqi Prime Minister in the Washington section of the paper rather than in the International section.

Please take a moment to check out our outstanding new blogrollees: Lew Rockwell, Kevin Michael Grace, Skippy, and Blog Left. Now that’s what I call “fair & balanced”!

Aron Trauring on “Israbluf” and why a two state solution for Israel and Palestine is likely impossible:

In an earlier post I talked about how Sharon’s unilateral withdrawel plan is an example of “Israbluf” - viz. the extraordinary capacity for Israeli governments to say one thing and do the opposite. Meron Benvinisti points out that while Bush and Sharon talk about “two states,” eveything they are doing guarantees that there will be one binational state in Israel/Palestine.

Of course, the demographic dilemma of the one-state solution means that Israel will no longer be a Jewish state.

Jack Shafer says the New York Times is planning to “reassess its pre-Iraq War coverage, particularly its coverage of weapons of mass destruction.” The Times might actually apologize for printing the drool Judith “Kneepads” Miller swilled from the likes of Mylroie and Chalabi. Unfortunately, that won’t bring back the 10,000+ dead Iraqis or 800-odd dead Americans whose blood, at least in part, is on the hands of the war cheerleaders and useful idiots like the NY Times’ Miller.

According to this new poll, the Bush Administration has managed to piss off just about everyone.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds the sharpest change is in anger. As the war began, 30 percent of Americans were angry about it; today, asked about the situation in Iraq, 57 percent are angry — almost twice as many. Anger is highest — 70 percent — among the roughly half of Americans who think that, given its costs versus its benefits, the war was not worth fighting.
[...]
Some of the changes from March 2003 have occurred across groups. Men are 24 points more likely to be angry now; the change among women is about the same — up 29 points. Anger is up by 26 points among Democrats, and also by 21 points among Republicans (and by 29 points among independents). And it’s up by 20 points among war supporters, as well as by 21 points among war opponents.

Other changes do show more differences among groups. Hopefulness has dropped by 22 points among women, compared with 14 points among men; and by 24 points among Democrats, compared with 11 points among Republicans. Pride has fallen farther among men than among women, and farther among Democrats than among Republicans.

WTF is the U.S. Dept. of the Interior doing supervising Iraqi prisons? Who says we never learn from the Europeans?

Interesting idea posted by Libertarian Jackass:

HERE IS THE MOMENT Just as Nader calls for the impeachment of President George W. Bush for sending thousands to their deaths based on “false pretenses,” here’s one idea for stirring up trouble in the 2004 Presidential election:

Why the Time is Ripe for an LP/Nader Anti-War Fusion Candidacy

From Fox News:

Iraq Homicide Rate 10 Times New York City’s

BAGHDAD, Iraq — More than 5,500 Iraqis died violently in just Baghdad and three provinces in the first 12 months of the occupation, an Associated Press survey found. The toll from both criminal and political violence ran dramatically higher than violent deaths before the war, according to statistics from morgues.

There are no reliable figures for places like Fallujah and Najaf that have seen surges in fighting since early April.

Indeed, there is no precise count for Iraq as a whole on how many people have been killed, nor is there a breakdown of deaths caused by the different sorts of attacks. The U.S. military, the occupation authority and Iraqi government agencies say they don’t have the ability to track civilian deaths.

But the AP survey of morgues in Baghdad and the provinces of Karbala, Kirkuk and Tikrit found 5,558 violent deaths recorded from May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations, to April 30. Officials at morgues for three more of Iraq’s 18 provinces either didn’t have numbers or declined to release them.

The AP’s survey was not a comprehensive compilation of the nationwide death toll, but was a sampling intended to assess the levels of violence. Figures for violent deaths in the months before the war showed a far lower rate.

It goes on to recite the requisite blather about how things are still better than they were–y’know, getting blown up by an American or insurgent bomb is much better than getting shot by the Mukhabarat–but interesting nonetheless.

South Knox Bubba translates Bush-speak into English.

Shades of Nick Berg:

A New Zealander whom authorities here feared had gone missing in Iraq was held incommunicado in United States Army custody for three months of interrogations, the New Zealand Herald says.

Software developer Andreas Schafer, 26, vanished in March, sparking high-level inquiries by New Zealand with US authorities that repeatedly denied knowledge of him.

The Herald says it has contacted Mr Schafer in Amman, Jordan, where he said Iraqi police in Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, had initially detained him in early March and they handed him to the United States.

“I was then held for nearly three months and interrogated by the US Army on several occasions,” he told the Herald in an email.

“Each time they questioned me they said it was the first they had heard I was being detained and that the investigation was starting from the beginning.”

The report added that Mr Schafer was released a week after the British Consul got involved.

Mr Schafer had been working on software in Afghanistan for non-government organisations and had decided to go to Iraq early this year to continue the same work.

The US embassy in New Zealand, which had denied knowledge of Mr Schafer, has not commented on the latest report.

Every time you think the US has plumbed the depths of stupidity and arrogant incompetence in Iraq, you find you’ve misunderestimated them.