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!
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.”
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:
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”
—–
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.”
