13 September 2004

Bush trying to avoid unfavorable news before election
Coalition Holds Off Efforts to Take Rebel-Run Cities -- U.S. Presidential Election Cited
By Howard LaFranchi
Christian science Monitor, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: At a recent dinner party in a Baghdad home, five tribal leaders from the central Iraqi city of Ramadi complained about their city "being held hostage" by Iraqi insurgents. "They spoke of a life of no law but that of the extremists - no police, no government presence, and kidnappings and killings of people accused of spying for the government," their Baghdad dinner host recalls. "But what they wanted to know is how long the [Iraqi] government and the Americans are going to leave Ramadi and other towns like it as places apart." It's a frequently asked question among Iraqis as the US military says the "anti-Iraq forces" are more sophisticated and control more territory than a year ago. But no major move is expected before November, say US and Iraqi officials - in part because Iraqi forces aren't ready. Iraqi officials say American presidential politics are also preventing a major offensive now. Iraqi forces and the American military are increasing their surgical, often retaliatory, strikes into towns like Ramadi, Fallujah, and Samarra, where forces of Islamic extremists and of the former regime hold varying degrees of power and sway. Some have become "no-go" zones. ...Yet while Iraqi officials agree that their forces are not yet up to the task, they also say the Americans are reluctant to undertake any offensive before the Nov. 2 presidential election - and especially any offensive that would almost certainly entail heavy civilian and US military losses. "We do have the problem of the American election, it complicates even more a very complex period over the next few months," says Sabah Kadhim, Interior Ministry spokesman. "I would prefer they deal with Fallujah first, but if it doesn't work or the consequences are high, it's a big political problem."

Violence Sweeps Iraq, U.S. Gunship Fires on Crowd
By Ibon Villelabeitia
Reuters, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: A U.S. helicopter gunship fired at Iraqis milling around a burning U.S. vehicle in a Baghdad street on Sunday, one of Iraq's bloodiest days for weeks in which at least 110 people died in clashes around the country. The Health Ministry said the worst casualties were in Baghdad, where 37 were killed, and in Tal Afar near the Syrian border where 51 people died. U.S. troops mounted a major offensive on Thursday in Tal Afar, a suspected haven for foreign fighters about 60 miles from Syria, but the military gave no immediate explanation for the steep rise in the death toll on Sunday. In Baghdad, witnesses and officials said 13 people died and 61 were wounded during fierce battles in the area where the gunship fired. The city also suffered at least seven car bombs and various outbreaks of violence, and insurgents fired a dozen mortar bombs or rockets around the U.S.-occupied Green Zone compound. It was one of the heaviest barrages in the capital in months. "We've seen a tremendous increase in the number of attacks," Brigadier General Erv Lessel, a U.S. military spokesman, told Reuters. South of Baghdad, three Polish soldiers were killed and three wounded when they were attacked near Hilla. In rebel-occupied Ramadi, west of Baghdad, U.S. tanks and helicopters fired on a residential district, killing 10 Iraqis, including women and children, a doctor said. The U.S. military had no immediate comment. The surge in violence coincided with new American offensives to retake insurgent-held areas before elections due in January.

September 33rd
By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch, 11 September 2004
EXCERPT: On that initial September 11th, thousands of people from many countries, all in three buildings, went to their deaths. By this September 33rd, three years later, in addition to those 1000-plus young Americans dead in Iraq; and another 132 in Afghanistan, and many thousands of Afghan civilians dead in our initial bombings and in the chaos as well as civil and guerrilla warfare that followed, the latest guesstimates on Iraqi civilian deaths go as high as 30,000 or more, not counting the thousands of Iraqi soldiers, often conscripts, who died in our several-week long invasion of the country. In the meantime, deaths worldwide from acts of terror, slaughters on trains in Spain, or in banks, hotels, and temples in Turkey, or in buses in Israel, or in the streets and clubs of Indonesia, or on the streets and in mosques in Pakistan, or in a classroom in Beslan -- often thanks to disparate movements, causes, reasons -- are significantly on the rise. And can there be any question that they feed upon one another, each new act of terror since September 11th, making others imaginable, possible, plausible. For all of the victims of these acts (and for the victims, whether in Chechnya, in the Palestinian occupied territories, or elsewhere of acts that made these acts conceivable), and especially for those who suffer directly because of the decisions of the Bush administration, we would have to commandeer many towers from which streams of horrified and often utterly innocent people, young and old, whose main attribute, it often seems, is simply that they are not Americans, would have to leap. And, if George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and others in this administration are right, we should be thinking of this as nothing but Death's hors d'oeuvres, with the main feast, a gorging guaranteed to last years and years, still to come. From the moment that whacked-out former CIA director and neocon James Woolsey publicly stated during the invasion of Iraq what the rest of the neocons of the Bush administration already wanted to believe -- that we were in World War IV -- the President and the Vice President have been plugging the theme of eternal war on a World War II template of "theaters" ("the Iraqi theater") and "fronts" ("Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism"). In this approach, they undoubtedly feel there is practical, short-term help for their reelection bid. After all, the President's father won his Gulf War but ended it too soon -- not only before Saddam fell but so many months before his reelection campaign that his wartime popularity ratings plunged. In the opposites game his son has long been playing, he and his advisors surely see a powerful advantage in eternal war against that vague boogeyman Terror, a "war" that should never leave an opening for the voting public to consider realities at home (as they did in the 1992 election). But, of course, there's far more to it than that. They have a deep desire to be in a new age of "world war." It suits their vision of power and dominance, and so they've done much to create a world at war; but they also want to be able to cycle endlessly back to their version of September 11th, 2001 as if time itself had stood still. It hasn't. We are no longer in the world that existed on that terrible day, a world from which there were undoubtedly a number of paths to take, a number of responses open to us all. They took one path. They willingly stepped through the door to carnage that Osama Bin Laden had so thoughtfully left open for them, and so stepped into the world as imagined by a minor Saudi figure, a wealthy young man seized by fundamentalist belief.

Preventive War: A Failed Doctrine
NYT editorial, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: If facts mattered in American politics, the Bush-Cheney ticket would not be basing its re-election campaign on the fear-mongering contention that the surest defense against future terrorist attacks lies in the badly discredited doctrine of preventive war. Vice President Dick Cheney took this argument to a disgraceful low last week when he implied that electing John Kerry and returning to traditional American foreign policy values would invite a devastating new strike.
So far, the preventive war doctrine has had one real test: the invasion of Iraq. Mr. Bush terrified millions of Americans into believing that forcibly changing the regime in Baghdad was the only way to keep Iraq's supposed stockpiles of unconventional weapons out of the hands of Al Qaeda. Then it turned out that there were no stockpiles and no operational links between Saddam Hussein's regime and Al Qaeda's anti-American terrorism. Meanwhile, America's longstanding defensive alliances were weakened and the bulk of America's ground combat troops tied down in Iraq for what now appears to be many years to come. If that is making this country safer, it is hard to see how. The real lesson is that America dangerously erodes its military and diplomatic defenses when it charges off unwisely after hypothetical enemies.

Rumsfeld: Rising Casualties Won't Drive US Out of Iraq
Nick Simeone
VOANews.com, 11 September 2004
EXCERPT: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has delivered a strong warning to insurgents in Iraq, putting them on notice that areas of the country under their control will be retaken by force if necessary. In a speech to coincide with the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks, he again voiced strong resolve to stay the course in Iraq, while acknowledging he has no idea how long American troops will have to remain there. This week has been a particularly deadly one for American forces in Iraq. "The truth is, is that war is ugly and it takes lives," he said. The normally conservative Financial Times newspaper Friday urged the United States to consider establishing a timetable for withdrawal. But speaking on the eve of the nine-eleven anniversary, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld denounced such suggestions as amounting to a retreat in the war on terrorism.

String of Blasts Leave 25 (35) Dead in Baghdad
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
NYT, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: In some of the most widespread and well-coordinated attacks by Iraqi insurgents here in months, a string of suicide bombings and a barrage of missile and mortar fire left 25 people dead in neighborhoods across Baghdad today. The violence began before dawn, when insurgents fired mortar after mortar at the International Zone, an area in central Baghdad where the Iraqi government and the American embassy are based. The area is often the target of mortar fire, but Sunday morning's attacks were unusual in their number, with as many as 10 rounds fired, witnesses said. Then, at 6:50 a.m., a suicide bomber ploughed into a Bradley tank on Haifa Street, a restive area in central Baghdad, near the International Zone. The tank was trying to assist in a fire fight between insurgents and American forces. Two crew members were injured, as were four more soldiers who were shot at by insurgents as they rescued the crew, American military officials said. Witnesses said that American helicopters fired down on Iraqis who had gathered in the area of the burning tank. Some climbed on the tank, said Hassan Lazim, assistant commander of security at nearby Karkh Hospital who said he had witnessed the scene.
American military officials said that helicopters fired when fired upon, but that when they made their final pass over the area, did not fire down onto the crowd because they could not distinguish between armed insurgents and civilians.

Rumsfeld Defends Treatment of 'Ghost Detainees'
Oliver Burkeman in Washington
The Guardian, 11 September 2004
EXCERPT: The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, hit back at growing criticism of the Pentagon's methods of detention and interrogation at Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq yesterday after it emerged that America had concealed from the Red Cross the existence of up to 100 "ghost detainees" Arguing that harsh interrogation methods should be contrasted with the actions of terrorists, Mr Rumsfeld asked a meeting of the National Press Club in Washington: "Does it rank up there with chopping someone's head off on television? It doesn't." He insisted he had approved the more severe techniques only for use on a small proportion of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo and that they had not been intended for prisoners in Iraq. The methods "were not torture", he said. There had already been 11 investigations into prison abuse, with 950 people interviewed and 45 awaiting or undergoing court martial. Mr Rumsfeld's remarks follow a congressional hearing on Thursday at which General Paul Kern, who led an internal investigation into US detention policy, said that "perhaps up to 100" detainees had been concealed. Prior to an army inquiry into "ghost detainees", completed last month, the Pentagon had acknowledged the existence of only eight. Another investigator put the figure at "maybe two dozen or so".  Under the Geneva Conventions, the Red Cross is entitled to access to prisoners of war and other detainees, except for "reasons of imperative military necessity" - and only then as "an exceptional and temporary measure". ...Reed Brody, of Human Rights Watch, said yesterday: "Secret detention is the gateway to torture. History shows that when people are taken off the books, they become vulnerable to mistreatment, torture and even disappearance." The revelations, he said, showed "that the policy of detainee abuse not only reaches the highest levels of the US government, but is spread across its different agencies. It is increasingly obvious that only an independent panel, along the lines of the September 11 commission, can begin to repair the damage done by Abu Ghraib."

Colin Powell in Four-Letter Neo-Con 'Crazies' Row
Martin Bright
The Observer, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq.
Powell's extraordinary outburst is alleged to have taken place during a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The two became close friends during the intense negotiations in the summer of 2002 to build an international coalition for intervention via the United Nations. The 'crazies' are said to be Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. Last week, the offices of Powell and Straw contacted Public Affairs, the US publishers of Naughtie's book, to say they would vigorously deny the claims if publication went ahead. But as no legal action was threatened, the US launch of the book, The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency, will proceed as planned this week. ...Cheney and his allies were preparing for a spring war and did not wish to be deflected by the UN inspection process. Powell is thought to have been terrified that the strategy of the 'crazies' would alienate the Blair government, which believed it needed UN backing to win over Parliament and the British public. John Kampfner, political editor of the New Statesman and author of Blair's Wars, said Naughtie's characterisation of the feverish political atmosphere of the summer of 2002 was entirely accurate. 'The British government saw Powell as the most significant voice of sanity in the US administration. At different times during this very difficult period, the Brits used Powell to get across their point of view to the White House. But, bizarrely, Powell sometimes also used Blair to pass messages to Bush.'

One Man's Resistance: 'Why I Turned Against America'
Jason Burke in Baghdad reports on the confused psychology of the Iraqi resistance and meets a Sunni guerrilla who welcomed the Americans at first but is now happy to have black GIs in his sights
Jason Burke in Baghdad
The Observer, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: 'There is no greater shame than to see your country occupied' Early one morning this week, when the police have yet to set up too many checkpoints, Abu Mujahed will strap a mortar underneath a car, drive to a friend's in central Baghdad and bury the weapon in his garden. In the evening he will return with the rest of his group, sleep for a few hours and then take the weapon from its hiding place. He will calculate the range using the American military's own maps and satellite pictures - bought in a bazaar - and fire a few rounds at a military base or the US Embassy or at the Iraqi Prime Minister's office. Then Abu Mujahed will shower, change and, by 10am, be at his desk in one of the major ministries.

Chechen Rebels Mainly Driven by Nationalism
By C. J. CHIVERS and STEVEN LEE MYERS
New York Times via The Ledger.com, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT:  Chechnya's separatists have received money, men, training and ideological inspiration from international Islamic organizations, but they remain an indigenous and largely self-sustaining force motivated by nationalist more than Islamic goals, Russian and international officials and experts say. ...Islamic ideology has also left its mark among the separatist fighters, who have adopted, at least outwardly, the dress, slogans and strictures of extremist fighters elsewhere, though it has not taken root in Chechnya's relatively secular society. Nevertheless, many officials and experts said that influence was limited and, to Russia's critics, overstated by the Kremlin in order to avoid addressing the roots of war in Chechnya. The number of foreign fighters is also thought to be very small - from a dozen to 200, though most estimates fall on the lower end. "There are people from foreign countries - perhaps 20," Ilyas Akhmadov, a Chechen leader living in the United States, acknowledged in a telephone interview. "Most of them are from the Middle East. Most are of Caucasian ethnicity, though some are Arabs. But it is not on the scale as described by the Kremlin and Interior Ministry in Russia." The officials and experts said the principal motivation for Chechnya's fighters remains independence, though a goal that after 10 years of war, has increasingly become entwined with Chechnya's traditional codes of revenge, known as adat. Mixed with them are smaller elements of Islamic extremism, including that of the Saudi branch called Wahhabism.

Neocons Claim Kremlin is 'Morally' to Blame for School Massacre
By Neil Mackay
Sunday Herald (UK), 11 September 2004
EXCERPT: Why would a group of leading American neo-conservatives, dedicated to fighting Islamic terror, have climbed into bed with Chechen rebels linked to al-Qaeda? The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC), which includes Pentagon supremo Richard Perle, says the conflict between Russia and Chechnya is about Chechen nationalism, not terrorism. The ACPC savaged Russia for the atrocities its forces have committed in the Caucuses, said President Vladimir Putin was "ridiculous", claimed Russia was more "morally" to blame for the bloodshed than Chechen separatists and played down links between al-Qaeda and the "Chechen resistance². The ACPC¹s support for the Chechen cause seems bizarre, as many of its members are among the most outspoken US policymakers who have made it clear that Islamist terror must be wiped out. But the organisation has tried to broker peace talks between Russia and Chechen separatists. The ACPC includes many leaders of the neo-conservative think-tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which advocates American domination of the world. ACPC members who are also in the pro-Israeli PNAC include Elliott Abrams, head of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council; Elliot Cohen of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board; Frank Gaffney, president of the conservative Centre for Security Policy; Robert Kagan and William Kristol of The Weekly Standard, the house journal of Washington neo-cons, and former CIA director James Woolsey. Former Reagan defence secretary Caspar Weinberger is also in the ACPC. ... "The al-Qaeda link [to the Chechen conflict] is overstated," said Howard. "Russia plays that up to show that it is part of the war on terror. There are some Arabs there but only a handful ­ this is a 400-year national struggle between the Russians and the Chechens." According to Howard, due to the vast energy resources in the Caucuses, the West, which is heavily dependent on foreign energy, has strategic interests in the area to which it cannot afford to turn a blind eye.

Women as a Weapon in Terrorism
Shift: In recent years, females have begun playing a much more prominent role in attacks and suicide bombings.
By Alexis B. Delaney and Peter R. Neumann
International Herald Tribune via Baltimore Sun, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: Why have Islamic extremists suddenly embraced the use of women as high-level operatives? Symbolically, their participation sends a powerful message, blurring the distinction between perpetrator and victim. Even among progressive Westerners, the notion that women are inclined to create and protect life rather than destroy it remains widespread. If women decide to violate all established norms about the sanctity of human life, they do so only as a last resort. The scholar Clara Beyler, who analyzed public reactions to suicide bombings, found that "female kamikazes" tended to be portrayed as "the symbols of utter despair rather than the cold-blooded murderers of civilians."

11-12 September 2004

Secret program to capture and interrogate terrorists led to the abuse of prisoners
New Book By Seymour Hersh Says Bush Officials Were Told of Detainee Abuse
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
NYT, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: Senior military and national security officials in the Bush administration were repeatedly warned by subordinates in 2002 and 2003 that prisoners in military custody were being abused, according to a new book by a prominent journalist. Seymour M. Hersh, a writer for The New Yorker who earlier this year was among the first to disclose details of the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, makes the charges in his book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" (HarperCollins), which is being released Monday. The book draws on the articles he wrote about the campaign against terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Hersh asserts that a Central Intelligence Agency analyst who visited the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the late summer of 2002 filed a report of abuses there that drew the attention of Gen. John A. Gordon, a deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser. But when General Gordon called the matter to her attention and she discussed it with other senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, no significant change resulted. Mr. Hersh's account is based on anonymous sources, some secondhand, and could not be independently verified. Although a number of senior officials were briefed on the analyst's findings of abuse, the high-level White House meeting did not "dwell on" that question, but rather focused on whether some of the prisoners should not have been held at all, the book says. A White House official said Saturday that the meeting was held, but said that it was solely focused on whether people at Guantánamo were being improperly held. The official also said the C.I.A. analyst who visited the Guantánamo detention center filed a report that concerned only the question of improper detention, not abuses. Mr. Hersh also says that a military officer involved in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq learned of the abuses at Abu Ghraib in November and reported it to two of his superiors, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the regional commander, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith. "I said there are systematic abuses going on in the prisons," the unidentified officer is quoted as telling Mr. Hersh. "Abizaid didn't say a thing. He looked at me - beyond me, as if to say, 'Move on. I don't want to touch this.' " ...Mr. Hersh also says that F.B.I. agents complained to their superiors about abuses at Guantánamo, as did a military lawyer, and that those complaints, too, were relayed to the Pentagon. Mr. Hersh's thesis is that "the roots of the Abu Ghraib scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists" who have been charged so far, "but in the reliance of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on secret operations and the use of coercion - and eye-for-eye retribution - in fighting terrorism." In particular, Mr. Hersh has reported that a secret program to capture and interrogate terrorists led to the abuse of prisoners. [BWUSA emphasis]
SEE ALSO:
Description of Chain of Command's Content at Amazon.com
EXCERPT: Book Description
Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from the clear morning when hijackers crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?
Hersh established himself at the forefront of investigative journalism thirty-five years ago when he broke the news of the massacre at My Lai, Vietnam, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Ever since, he's challenged America's power elite by publishing the stories that others can't, or won't, tell. In exposés on subjects ranging from Saudi corruption to nuclear black marketeers and -- months ahead of other journalists -- the White House's false claims about weapons of mass destruction, Hersh has cemented his reputation as the indispensable reporter of our time.
In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of President Bush's "war on terror" and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. He reveals the connections between early missteps in the hunt for Al Qaeda and disasters on the ground in Iraq. The book includes a new account of Hersh's pursuit of the Abu Ghraib story and of where, he believes, responsibility for the scandal ultimately lies. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a crucial chapter in America's recent history. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an Administration blinded by ideology and of a President whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America.

Atomic Activity in North Korea Raises Concerns
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
NYT, 12 September 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles. Some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about the Iraq findings have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test. A senior scientist who assesses nuclear intelligence says the new evidence "is not conclusive," but is potentially worrisome. ...If North Korea successfully tested a weapon, the reclusive country would become the eighth nation to have proven nuclear capability - Israel is also assumed to have working weapons - and it would represent the failure of 14 years of efforts to stop the North's nuclear program. Government officials throughout Asia and members of Mr. Bush's national security team have also feared it could change the nuclear politics of Asia, fueling political pressure in South Korea and Japan to develop a nuclear deterrent independent of the United States. Both countries have the technological skill and the raw material to produce a bomb, though both have insisted they would never do so. South Korea has admitted in the past few weeks that it conducted experiments that outside experts fear could produce bomb-grade fuel, first in the early 1980's and then in 2000. ...North Korea has declared several times in the past year that it might move to demonstrate its nuclear power. It is impossible to know how such a test might affect public perceptions of how Mr. Bush has handled potential threats to the United States. Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, has already accused President Bush of an "almost myopic" focus on Iraq that has distracted the United States while North Korea, by some intelligence estimates, has increased its arsenal from what the C.I.A. suspects was one or two weapons to six or eight now. Mr. Bush, while declaring he would not "tolerate" a nuclear North Korea, has insisted that his approach of involving China, Russia, Japan and South Korea in a new round of talks with the North is the only reasonable way to force the country to disarm. He has refused to set the kind of deadline for disarmament that he set for Saddam Hussein. When asked in an interview with The New York Times two weeks ago to define what he meant by "tolerate," he said: "I don't think you give timelines to dictators and tyrants. I think it's important for us to continue to lead coalitions that are firm and strong, in sending messages to both the North Koreans and the Iranians." [BWUSA emphasized curiosity]

US Operations Kill 57 at Tal Afar, Fallujah
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 10 September 2004
EXCERPT: The US military conducted major operations against Tal Afar and Fallujah on Thursday, in the course of which 57 persons were killed and dozens wounded. National Public Radio reports that fighters have infiltrated the largely Turkmen Shiite city of Tal Afar and chased hundreds of families from their homes. The US maintains that many of these are foreigners infiltrating from Syria. This narrative may or may not be true, but at least it makes some sense. More Turkmen are leaving the city because of the US bombing. In Tal Afar, 45 were killed and 80 wounded. In Fallujah, US warplanes hit what they believed was a safe house used by the al-Tawhid terrorism group. The Gulf Daily New writes:

' Twelve Iraqis, including five children and two women, were reported killed in the airstrike, a doctor said. Nine others were wounded.
Iraq's Health Ministry said at least 16 people had been killed in fighting in Fallujah in the past 24 hours.

AUDIO/VIDEO LINK
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire (A new documentary film.)
DemocracyNow!, 10 September 2004
AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting to talk to you, Sut, from Buffalo, a city that has suffered from the aftermath of 9/11, to talk you to, who have come to New York, and now are in our Firehouse Studios, just blocks from Ground Zero. Can you introduce Hijacking Catastrophe, why you made it?
SUT JHALLY: When we sat down to think about this film about a year ago, myself and the co-director and producer of this, Jeremy Earp, we wanted to do two things: We wanted to explain clearly what exactly the war in Iraq was about. Given that the lies of the Bush administration are totally unraveling, the lies about the weapons of mass destruction, the lies about Saddam Hussein being connected to Osama Bin Laden. We wanted to get at the real reasons for the war. To do that, we have to trace back the influence of a small right wing cabal within this Bush administration. And the plans that they had laid out for the invasion of Iraq actually ten years ago. On one hand, we wanted to give Americans a clear explanation of why exactly are we in this mess in Iraq and the incredible costs that are being paid in terms of dead and maimed American soldiers, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis and billions of dollars flowing out of this country. What are the reasons for that. That was one reason. The other thing we wanted to do, we tried to anticipate a year ago, what exactly the Republican strategy would be to try and sell this crazy war. And in fact, after looking at the convention last week, we actually hit it almost dead on. We knew that they would be evoking the memory of 9/11. We knew they would be trying to scare people so that they would not think clearly about what was going to be going on. And that they would be presenting themselves as strong leaders and also denigrating the Democrats as, as Arnold Schwarzenegger said, as “girlie men.” So we also wanted to look at the selling of this. The film does both. The film looks at why we're there and also how this crazy agenda has been sold to the American people. What's really interesting is when Paul Wolfowitz first came up with this in 1992, Paul Wolfowitz is now Deputy to Rumsfeld in the Department of Defense. When he first wrote, in 1992, the tail end of the first Bush administration, he wrote something called “The Defense Planning Guidance.” In this was the first laying out of a post-Cold War era strategy for America, in which they would become, in which America would become the sole superpower for essentially forever. When this was first announced in 1992, everyone thought was crazy. People within the administration thought he was crazy. Joseph Biden was the leading Democrat at that time. He could barely speak when he heard this. Our European allies were up in arms. Now what is really interesting is: What was crazy in 1992, by 2002 had become official government policy. And what we look at is how 9/11 was used to sell that, how the fear and anxiety engendered by 9/11 was used by this administration to push through this agenda that they could not have gotten any other way. (Film available on VHS or DVD here.)

10 September 2004

Despair in Iraq Over the Forgotten Victims of US Invasion
by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Independent (UK) via Common Dreams, 9 September 2004
Iraqi officials demanded to know yesterday why so little international attention was being given to their numerous dead as the US mourned the death of 1,000 soldiers since the invasion of Iraq. "When I heard on television that the Americans had lost 1,000 military killed in Iraq, I asked myself, what about our side? What is the number of Iraqis who have died?" said Dr Amer al-Khuzaie, an Iraqi deputy health minister. He admits it is impossible to know the true figure because many bodies are simply buried and the deaths never registered. "Sometimes there are as many as 200 Iraqis killed in a single day," sighed Dr Khuzaie, flicking through a file showing the casualty figures. "The Iraqi people are being eradicated. We must stop this haemorrhage, this bleeding." The US army does not count the number of Iraqis killed since the invasion in March 2003.

More Than 10,000 Iraqis Die Violently in Baghdad Region Alone
by Bassem Mroue
AP via Common Dreams, 9 September 2004
EXCERPT: While America mourns the deaths of more than 1,000 of its sons and daughters in the Iraq campaign, far more Iraqis have died since the United States invaded in March 2003. No official, reliable figures exist, but private estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 killed across the nation. At Sheik Omar Clinic, a big book records 10,363 violent deaths in Baghdad and nearby towns alone since the war began last year - deaths caused by car bombs, clashes between Iraqis and coalition forces, mortar attacks, revenge killings and robberies. The violent deaths recorded in the clinic's leather ledger come from only one of Iraq's 18 provinces and do not cover people who died in such flashpoint cities as Najaf, Karbala, Fallujah, Tikrit and Ramadi.

For 1,000 Troops, There Is No Going Home
By MONICA DAVEY
NYT, 9 September 2004
EXCERPT: Dixie Codner had a question for the marines who came down her gravel road, past the rows of corn and alfalfa, to tell her that her 19-year-old son, Kyle, had been killed in Iraq. Should she bring them the dress blues, still pressed and hanging neatly in his closet, for his funeral? No need, she recalled them answering. They had dress uniforms from all the services, all sizes, waiting back at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the bodies of American service members come home. "What does that say?" Ms. Codner asked, as she sat at her kitchen table in Shelton, Neb., on a recent morning, fingering a thick stack of photographs that her son had sent from the desert. "How many more are they expecting? All I know is that there are 1,000 families that feel just like we do. We go to bed at night, and we don't have our children." Like Lance Cpl. Kyle W. Codner, each of the more than 1,000 marines and soldiers, sailors and airmen killed since the United States sent troops to invade Iraq leaves behind a grieving family, a story, a unique memory of duty and sacrifice in what has become the deadliest war for Americans since Vietnam. But along with so much personal loss, the roster of the dead tells a larger story, a portrait of a society and a military in transition, with ever-widening roles and costs for the country's part-time soldiers, women and Hispanics. As has often been true in the United States' wars, small towns like Shelton and other rural areas suffered a disproportionate share of deaths compared with the nation's big cities. More than 100 service members who died were from California, the most for any state, but the smaller, less-populated states, many in the nation's middle - the Dakotas, Wyoming and Nebraska - recorded some of the biggest per capita losses.

Pentagon Says CIA Held More 'Ghost Detainees' in Iraq Than Once Thought
By John Hendren
LA Times, 10 September 2004
EXCERPT: Pentagon investigators believe the CIA has held as many as 100 "ghost detainees" in Iraq without disclosing their identities or locations, many times more than previously disclosed, a senior Defense Department official told Congress Thursday. However, the precise number of undisclosed prisoners and the conditions in which they have been held remains a mystery, said Gen. Paul Kern, because CIA officials have refused to cooperate with Pentagon investigators, denying repeated requests for documents and information on the detainees. The CIA apparently has held between a dozen and three dozen unregistered prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad since the war began in March 2003, and others elsewhere in Iraq, said Kern, who is overseeing the investigations of prisoner abuse. Pentagon officials had previously cited only eight cases of failure to account for prisoners, which is an apparent violation of international law under the Geneva Conventions. "If they fall under the category of ghost detainees, there are no records," Kern told reporters after addressing members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Members of the panel expressed surprise over the number of detainees and disbelief and outrage over the lack of CIA cooperation. "The situation with CIA and ghost (detainees) is beginning to look like a bad movie," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "This needs to be cleared up rather badly." Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's ranking Democrat, said the panel should take further action on the CIA's stance, a recommendation the committee's chairman, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said would be considered. "It's totally unacceptable that the documents that are requested from the CIA have not been forthcoming," Levin said. The revelations about the CIA's refusal to cooperate with Pentagon investigators came amid demands for a new inquiry into prison abuses by a panel patterned after the Sept. 11 commission. One member of the Senate panel, Sen. Jack Reed, R-R.I., supports such an inquiry. Both the Pentagon and the CIA's inspector general's office are independently investigating the practice, spokesmen for both agencies said, but Defense officials lamented what they described as an utter lack of cooperation from the CIA, which simply did not respond to a series of requests of for information.

'Callous Attack' Kills Nine in Jakarta
John Aglionby in Jakarta and David Fickling in Sydney
The Guardian, 10 September 2004
EXCERPT: Indonesian and Australian investigators will today continue sifting through the wreckage caused by a massive bomb which exploded outside the Australian embassy compound in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, yesterday morning, killing at least nine people and injuring 182. Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, flew to Jakarta last night, along with the federal police chief and head of the domestic intelligence agency. Mr Downer, who described the bombing as a "brutal, cruel and callous attack", said his government would provide "every support to the Indonesian government and officials to catch those responsible". With him were Australian forensic experts, who immediately went to help local police scour the scene. The blast devastated about 10 multistorey office buildings, destroyed a dozen passing cars and could be heard up to 10 miles away.

More 'history' for Condi
In Tape, Top Aide to bin Laden Vows New Strikes at U.S.
By JAMES RISEN
NYT, 10 September 2004
EXCERPT:  Osama bin Laden's top deputy appeared in a new videotape broadcast on an Arab television network on Thursday, taunting the United States for becoming mired in what he called unsuccessful campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan while vowing that Al Qaeda would attack the United States again. In the tape, excerpts of which were shown on Al Jazeera, the deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, said Al Qaeda was already planning for more suicide strikes. The timing of the tape seemed intentionally to come just two days before the third anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11. It is the latest in a long series of audio or videotapes issued by the Qaeda leadership, but unlike some others did not include an appearance by Mr. bin Laden.

Alfred McCoy on the CIA's Road to Abu Ghraib
TomDispatch, 9 September 2004
EXCERPT: Now, in these photographs from Abu Ghraib, ordinary Americans have seen the reality and the results of interrogation techniques the CIA has propagated and practiced for nearly half a century. The American public can join the international community in repudiating a practice that, more than any other, represents a denial of democracy; or in its desperate search for security, the United States can continue its clandestine torture of terror suspects in the hope of gaining good intelligence without negative publicity.
In the likely event that Washington adopts the latter strategy, it will be a decision posited on two false assumptions: that torturers can be controlled and that news of their work can be contained. Once torture begins, its use seems to spread uncontrollably in a downward spiral of fear and empowerment. With the proliferation of digital imaging we can anticipate, in five or ten years, yet more chilling images and devastating blows to America's international standing. Next time, however, the American public's moral concern and Washington's apologies will ring even more hollowly, producing even greater damage to U.S. prestige.

9 September 2004

The Numbers Game: Another Iraq Distraction
By Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9 September 2004
EXCERPT:  The war in Iraq, which the Bush administration believed would end more than a year ago, reached a somber and costly milestone this week when the number of Americans killed there passed the 1,000 mark and the number of wounded neared 7,000. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned that the level of violence is increasing, not decreasing. That the adventure in Iraq amounts to a blank check on the national treasury and an unending drain on the lives of our soldiers and Marines is no longer in question. A thousand of our nation's finest troops are dead. Seven thousand more are wounded, half of them seriously enough they were not returned to combat, and many of those with smashed or amputated limbs from the blasts of homemade bombs and mines. An operation that its advocates and planners predicted would be over in six months and paid for with Iraq's oil revenues drags on with no end in sight, costing the American taxpayer more than $100 billion a year. Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Richard Myers said the ``recent spike'' in American casualties reflects an enemy that's becoming much more sophisticated and adaptive in their attacks. ...Rumsfeld said the thousand American dead in Iraq are only part of a toll that numbers in the thousands, or tens of thousands, in two decades. The fight must go on despite the sacrifice of all those lives, he added. Then the defense secretary, perhaps hoping to soften the impact of all those dead Americans, gave a very rare body count estimate of between 1,500 and 2,500 enemy killed in Iraq last month. By offering a body count for August, Rumsfeld violated the unwritten rule of every administration and a generation of military leaders to avoid giving such counts. In Vietnam, the body count became notorious as the only way to measure and reward success in an unending guerrilla war. The pressure for ever-higher counts of enemy killed, in turn, corrupted junior commanders in the field who routinely inflated or simply made up body counts that would make their superiors happy. An earlier defense secretary, Robert S. McNamara, was a data addict. The chief numbers cruncher, who knew the cost of everything and the worth of nothing, was himself captured by the body counts. At last he had something quantifiable out of Vietnam. But McNamara forgot that old saw: Figures don't lie, but liars can figure. And a newer computer-era saw: GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. Take the new Iraq numbers. If, as Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, has said, the total insurgent strength in Iraq is now only 5,000, and if Rumsfeld's high-end number is correct and 2,500 of the enemy were killed in August, then just one more month and the enemy will all be dead and we can go home. Right? Would that it were so. When you fight in urban terrain, in the streets and alleyways of cities teeming with people, the killing you do today breeds new enemies tomorrow. Galloway's rule of thumb is that for every enemy you kill in a guerrilla war, you create two new ones. Worse, machine guns and tank guns and Bradley chain guns and Air Force and Marine bombs inevitably kill the innocent as well as the guilty.

U.S. Troops' Death Rate Rising In Iraq
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post, 9 September 2004
EXCERPT: With the latest spike in violence in Baghdad, more U.S. troops have died since the turnover of power to an interim Iraqi government at the end of June than were killed during the U.S.-led invasion of the country in the spring of 2003. A total of 148 U.S. military personnel have been killed since the partial transfer of sovereignty on June 28, compared with 138 who died in March and April of 2003, Pentagon figures show.

In Bush's America
Milestone 1000 U.S. Military Dead Overshadows 12,000 Iraqi Civilian Deaths
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 8 September 2004
EXCERPT: ...I would wager that very few American newspapers mention the estimate of 12,000 Iraqis dead in the war so far when they report the number of US military dead. (Note that the 12000 figure refers solely to civilian combat deaths and does not include Iraqi soldiers killed). American television news very seldom shows wounded Iraqis in the hospital after an American strike, something that is a staple of Arab satellite t.v. Indeed, the US public is not being given a full view of the fighting in Iraq. I just don't see that many mentions of the US bombing Iraqi cities, and don't remember seeing much footage of this bombing or its aftermath. For the US to bomb inhabited city quarters in a country that it occupies strikes me as problematic. For all the talk of precision hits, civilians are inevitably harmed.

Senator, 8 Retired Military Officers Seek Independent Probe of Prisoner Abuse in Iraq
By Elise Ackerman
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 9 September 2004
EXCERPT: Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a former Army Ranger and respected member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joined eight retired generals and admirals Wednesday to call for an independent investigation into the abuse of prisoners in Iraq. "We need to get an independent inquiry because we have not yet established, in a credible way, the complete picture and we have waited now for months," Reed said in a conference call with journalists. ...Knight Ridder has reported that the Army used unorthodox interrogation techniques in Afghanistan and Iraq and had a written policy for holding detainees in secret. A recent investigation by Army generals found that the interrogation practices of the CIA "led to a loss of accountability at Abu Ghraib." "The guidance became more confused and obscure," said retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. "You have to be very cautious at the senior levels what kind of message you send to the field." Other signatories to the letter to Bush included retired Adm. John Hutson, who was the Navy's judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000; retired Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Hoar, former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command; retired Brig. Gen. David Brahms, who served as the Marine Corps' senior legal adviser from 1983 to 1988; retired Maj. Gen. John L. Fugh, former judge advocate general of the U.S. Army; retired Adm. Lee F. Gunn, a former inspector general of the Department of the Navy; retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard; and retired Army Brig. Gen. Richard Omeara.

8 September 2004

Fierce Fighting in Baghdad Kills 19; Gunmen Abduct 4 in Raid
By Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 8 September 2004
EXCERPT: Fierce fighting raged Tuesday in a Baghdad slum loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, killing at least 19 people - including one American soldier - and injuring scores more, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. Across town, a group of heavily armed gunmen kidnapped two female Italian aid workers and two of their Iraqi colleagues from their office in a brash afternoon raid. The soldier died in a rocket-propelled grenade attack that injured two of his comrades, according to a U.S. military statement. Fighting in or near Baghdad since Monday afternoon has claimed the lives of six other American troops, bringing the two-day, U.S. death toll to 14.

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq Pass 1,000
By HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press Writer
AP via FindLaw.com, 7 September 2004
EXCERPT: U.S. military deaths in the Iraq campaign passed 1,000 Tuesday, an Associated Press tally showed, as a spike in fighting with Sunni and Shiite insurgents killed seven Americans in the Baghdad area. The count includes 998 U.S. troops and three civilian contractors killed while working for the Pentagon. The tally was compiled by the AP based on Pentagon records, AP reporting from Iraq, and reports from soldiers' families. It includes deaths from hostile and non-hostile causes since President Bush launched the Iraq campaign in March 2003 to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. The grim milestone was surpassed after a spike in fighting, which has killed 14 American service members in the past two days. Two soldiers died in clashes Tuesday with militiamen loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Five other Americans died Tuesday in separate attacks, mostly in the Baghdad area. West of the capital, U.S. warplanes swooped low over Fallujah Tuesday in airstrikes after seven Marines and three Iraqi soldiers were killed the day before in a car-bombing near the Sunni insurgent-controlled city. A group linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - Tawhid and Jihad - posted a statement on a militant Web site claiming responsibility for the attack, describing it as "a martyr operation ... that targeted American soldiers and their mercenary apostate collaborators from the Iraqi army." During a news conference at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld anticipated the tally would soon surpass 1,000 and sought to play down the milestone. "When combined with U.S. losses in other theaters in the global war on terror, we have lost well more than a thousand already," he said.

U.S. Conceding Rebels Control Regions of Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and STEVEN R. WEISMAN
NYT, 8 September 2004
EXCERPT: As American military deaths in Iraq operations surpassed the 1,000 mark, top Pentagon officials said Tuesday that insurgents controlled important parts of central Iraq and that it was unclear when American and Iraqi forces would be able to secure those areas. As of late Tuesday night, the Pentagon's accounting showed that 998 service members and three Defense Department civilians had been killed in Iraq operations. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference that the American strategy in retaking rebel-held strongholds hinged on training and equipping Iraqi forces to take the lead. Mr. Rumsfeld said Iraqi officials understood they must regain control of the insurgent safe havens. "They get it, and will find a way over time to deal with it,'' he said. But General Myers said the Iraqi forces would probably not be ready to confront insurgents in those areas until the end of this year.  Their comments, which came after a two-day spike in violence in Iraq led to a surge in American military deaths, represented an acknowledgment that the Americans had failed to end an increasingly sophisticated insurgency in important Sunni-dominated areas and in certain Shiite enclaves. Fighting raged on Tuesday in Sadr City, in Baghdad, as Shiite militiamen loyal to Moktada al-Sadr ended a self-declared cease-fire. [Page A14.]  The officials' assessment also underscored the difficulty of pacifying Iraq in time for elections scheduled for January. The cities of greatest rebel control are Ramadi, Falluja, Baquba and Samarra, in the so-called Sunni triangle, west and north of Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein remains popular and many forces loyal to him have gathered strength. There is increasing concern in the administration over plans for the election, with some officials saying that if significant parts of the Sunni areas cannot be secured by January, it may be impossible to hold a nationwide balloting that would be seen as legitimate. Putting off the elections, though, would infuriate Iraq's Shiite majority. The elections are for an assembly that is to write a new constitution next year. Mr. Rumsfeld warned that the violence would intensify as elections approached.

Saddam's Baath Party is Back in Business
By Hannah Allam
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 8 September 2004
EXCERPT: By day, Iraqis loyal to Saddam's Hussein's much-feared Baath Party recite their oath in clandestine meetings, solicit donations from former members and talk politics over sugary tea at a Baghdad cafe known as simply "The Party." By night, cells of these same men stage attacks on American and Iraqi forces, host soirees for Saddam's birthday and other former regime holidays, and debrief informants still dressed in suits and ties from their jobs in the new, U.S.-backed Iraqi government. Even with Saddam under lock and key, the Baath Party is back in business. The pan-Arab socialist movement is going strong with sophisticated computer technology, high-level infiltration of the new government and plenty of recruits in thousands of disenchanted, impoverished Sunni Muslim Iraqis, according to interviews with current and former members, Iraqi government officials and groups trying to root out former Baathists. The political party has morphed into a catchall resistance movement that poses a serious challenge to interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a Baathist-turned-opposition leader. Allawi has acknowledged he's holding talks with members of the former regime in hopes of gaining a handle on the violence and political disarray. But he's up against a force with deep pockets, allies in neighboring countries and an excuse to fight as long as 135,000 American troops remain on Iraqi soil. "There are two governments in Iraq," said Mithal al Alusi, director general of the Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification, a group overseen by Iraqi politician and former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi. "(The Baathists) are like thieves, stealing the power of the new government. Their work is organized and strong."

Iraqis Exported U.N.-Monitored Items Under U.S.
AP via LA Times, 8 September 2004
EXCERPT: Less than three months after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, American-appointed Iraqi authorities began shipping thousands of tons of scrap metal out of the country, including at least 42 engines from banned missiles, according to a new report by U.N. weapons inspectors circulated Tuesday. The scrap exports also included equipment that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, said the report, which was to be presented to the U.N. Security Council today. The report says export of the materials was handled by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, which was under the direct supervision of U.S. occupation authorities until June 28, when the Americans handed power to Iraq's interim government. The report criticized "the systematic removal" of items subject to U.N. monitoring from a number of sites. The United Nations inspectors, who are barred from Iraq, said commercial satellite photos showed that several important sites once used to manufacture missiles and precursors for chemical weapons had been destroyed or cleaned out. The report also said it was impossible to know what had happened to United Nations-monitored equipment with the potential for making banned weapons.

Policy Let U.S. Hold Detainees in Secret, Military Officers Say
By Elise Ackerman
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 8 September 2004
EXCERPT:  It was standard operating procedure for the Army to hold some detainees in secret in Afghanistan for up to several months without reporting them to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to military officers familiar with the policy. A similar practice was later used at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, where the physical and sexual abuse of detainees prompted the Department of Defense to launch several sweeping investigations of its detention policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, three recently completed Pentagon investigations didn't examine the Army's practice of holding secret detainees, now known as "ghost detainees," and whether it may have contributed to abuse. One of those reports was compiled by Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek, who's currently the inspector general of the Army. He commanded ground forces in Afghanistan at the time the policy was adopted, but didn't mention the policy when he told the Senate Armed Service Committee in July that his review had found no evidence of ghost detainees. Mikolashek declined through a spokesman to answer questions about the policy or his July testimony. Three other generals who served in Afghanistan and would've been responsible for approving the extended detention of unregistered detainees either declined to be interviewed or didn't respond to requests.

Graham Says White House Hid Sept. 11 Info
By KEN GUGGENHEIM Associated Press Writer
AP via FindLaw.com, 7 September 2004
EXCERPT: Former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence that might have linked Saudi Arabia to the Sept. 11 hijackers. Graham's charges, made in a new book and at a news conference arranged by the John Kerry campaign, were rejected by Republicans as "bizarre conspiracy theories." The Saudis said Graham's claims were unsubstantiated and reckless. Kerry has called for an independent investigation into the charges made by Graham, his former rival for the Democratic nomination. Graham's statements support Kerry's claims that Bush is too close to the Saudi royal family and unwilling to pressure it to crack down on the financing of terrorists. But they are at odds with the findings of the independent Sept. 11 commission that Kerry has strongly supported. The commission said it found no evidence that the Saudi government funded al-Qaida. Graham said the commission "has given us its conclusions without giving us the facts upon which those conclusions were established."

A Secure America in a Secure World
Foreign Policy In Focus, 1 September 2004
EXCERPT: Introduction--This new report from Foreign Policy In Focus argues that the open-ended global war on terror is counterproductive, making U.S. citizens more vulnerable to terrorist attacks at home and abroad. It offers an alternative approach that would focus on preventing successful terrorist attacks by improving homeland security, bring terrorists to justice and address terrorism's root causes.
PDF of Full Report (33 MB - for hi resolution printing)
PDF of Full Report (1.2 MB - for lo resolution printing)
PDF of Executive Summary
PDF of Talking Points
PDF of Press Release

7 September 2004

Making the U.S. a client state of Israel's Likud party
Spy Case Renews Debate Over Pro-Israel Lobby's Ties to Pentagon
By JAMES RISEN and DAVID JOHNSTON
NYT, 5 September 2004
EXCERPT:  It began like most national security investigations, with a squad of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents surreptitiously tailing two men, noting where they went and whom they met. What was different about this case was that the surveillance subjects were lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and one of their contacts turned out to be a policy analyst at the Pentagon. The ensuing criminal investigation into whether Aipac officials passed classified information from the Pentagon official to Israel has become one of the most byzantine counterintelligence stories in recent memory. So far, the Justice Department has not accused anyone of wrongdoing and no one has been arrested. Aipac has dismissed the accusations as baseless, and Israel has denied conducting espionage operations in the United States. Behind the scenes, however, the case has reignited a furious and long-running debate about the close relationship between Aipac, the pro-Israel lobbying organization, and a conservative group of Republican civilian officials at the defense department, who are in charge of the office that employs Lawrence A. Franklin, the Pentagon analyst. ...But leading critics of the Pentagon hard-liners have repeatedly argued that Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith and others have used the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to pursue issues that in some ways mirror the interests of Israel's conservative Likud government. One piece of evidence repeatedly cited by the critics is a 1996 paper issued by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, calling for the toppling of Saddam Hussein in order to enhance Israeli security. Entitled "A Clean Break," the 1996 paper was intended to offer a foreign policy agenda for the new Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The paper argued: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions." Among those who signed the paper were Mr. Feith; David Wurmser, who later worked for Mr. Feith at the Pentagon and now works for Vice President Dick Cheney; and Richard Perle, a leading conservative who previously served as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group of outside consultants to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. In the Reagan administration, Mr. Feith served as Mr. Perle's deputy at the Pentagon. [BWUSA emphasis]

Think about it...
Fighting in Baghdad Kills at Least 34 Iraqis and a U.S. Soldier
AP via NYT, 7 September 2004
EXCERPT: U.S. forces battled insurgents loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City on Tuesday, in clashes that killed 34 people, including one American soldier, and wounded 193, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said. U.S. tanks moved into the neighborhood and armored personnel carriers and Bradley fighting vehicles were deployed at key intersections. Ambulances with sirens wailing rushed the wounded to hospitals as plumes of black smoke rose into the sky. Several warplanes flew over the sprawling neighborhood of more than 2 million. In another part of the Iraqi capital, a roadside bomb targeted the Baghdad governor's convoy, killing two people but leaving him uninjured, the Interior Ministry said. Three of Gov. Ali al-Haidri's bodyguards were also hurt in the attack Tuesday in the western neighborhood of Hay al-Adel. The fighting in Sadr City erupted when militants attacked U.S. forces carrying out routine patrols, said U.S. Army Capt. Brian O'Malley.
``We just kept coming under fire,'' he said.
...In other violence:
--The son of the governor of the northern city of Mosul was killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday. Lieth Duried Kashmoula died of two shots to the chest, hospital officials said.
--Unknown gunmen killed the deputy director of Baghdad's al-Karama hospital, Abbas al-Husseini, the Health Ministry said. The motive for the attack was not known.
--Two Iraqi policemen were killed and two others injured in a drive-by-shooting in Latifiyah, 25 miles south of Baghdad late Monday, police said Tuesday.
SEE ALSO:
US Warplanes Pound Iraq's Holy City
News.com.au, 6 September 2004
EXCERPT: US warplanes spearheaded a massive two-pronged assault to crush a Shiite Muslim uprising in Iraq's city of Najaf. Jets screeched overhead as massive explosions and tank and machine-gun fire boomed through the city and smoke engulfed its historic centre, home to the Imam Ali shrine, revered by Shiites all over the world. Thousands of US forces, backed by Iraqi police and national guard, mounted a pincer movement to trap Moqtada Sadr's fighters in the heart of the city, before going on to raid the militia leader's empty home. Iraqi and US troops sealed approaches to the mausoleum, as hundreds of terrified residents, urged on by attacking forces and the city's mosques, fled through the dusty streets. "Leave the city. Help coalition forces and do not fire at them," one announcement instructed in Arabic. "We are here to liberate the city."

Silent Battalions of "Democracy"
By Herbert Docena
Middle East Report via ZNet, 3 September 2004
EXCERPT: While the likes of Halliburton and Bechtel get all the press, other US companies are hard at work trying to refashion Iraq's legal, economic, political and social institutions-and usher in a US-friendly democracy. Sheikh Majid al-Azzawi was one proud Iraqi. His office, surrounded by sandbags, barbed wire and tall concrete walls, looked more like a military base than an administrative building. But even the pitch-black darkness that swirled in the corridors most of the day did not dampen al-Azzawi's spirits. "We are very happy to be part of this council, even if we have simple equipment," said the member of the Rusafa district council in central Baghdad. "It is the first time for all the members of the government, because it was impossible before." The Rusafa council is one of hundreds of local proto-government entities set up all over Iraq by the US military and the US Agency for International Development-through the private Research Triangle Institute (RTI)-since the end of "major combat" in May 2003. The role of the North Carolina-based contractor came to light in November when Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer unveiled his original plan - later scrapped - for transferring "sovereignty" back to Iraqis: the interim government would be chosen through complex caucuses in local councils whose members had been vetted by RTI. RTI is one of a battalion of private contractors hired by the US government for Iraq's other "reconstruction."

Violence May Force Iraq to Bypass Hotspots in Election
Plan would allow voting to proceed in January but might undermine credibility of the results.
By Patrick J. McDonnell
LA Times, 6 September 2004
EXCERPT: Iraq remains on course to hold landmark elections in January, but violence could force authorities to exclude hotspots such as the western city of Fallouja from voting, a top U.S. general said here Sunday. Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, operations chief of more than 150,000 mostly U.S. troops, said in an interview that the "cancer" of anti-American militancy in places such as Fallouja would not derail national elections. A "contingency" plan, Metz said, is to bypass Fallouja — and perhaps other violent enclaves — and concentrate on ensuring electoral security in Baghdad and other population centers where hostility is lower. "We'd have elections before we let one place like Fallouja stop [national] elections," said Metz, the No. 2 U.S. military official in Iraq. "The rest of the country can go on about a process that heads right for an election." Still, Metz cautioned that the participation of Iraq's three largest cities — Baghdad, Mosul in the north and Basra in the south — was essential to any election. Metz's statements are among the strongest to date by U.S. or Iraqi officials, conceding that the security situation is so perilous that some areas may not be pacified in time for elections. Although bypassing some cities could allow officials to stick to their planned January timetable, doing so could detract from the election's credibility, foment discontent in Iraq and leave other countries reluctant to acknowledge any government chosen in the vote. Much of the heartland of central and western Iraq remains a hostile zone for U.S. and Iraqi forces because of a Sunni Muslim-led insurgency.

While Press Attention Drifts: A New Casualty Record in Iraq
By E & P Staff
Editor & Publisher, 5 September 2004
EXCERPT: While the press focused on the 2004 presidential campaign, Hurricane Charley and the Olympic Games in August, the number of U.S. casualties in Iraq quietly rose to a record high for any month since the March 2003 invasion, despite the turn over of power. This surprising fact was reported in Sunday's Washington Post by Karl Vick, a veteran of covering the conflict. Vick said the total of the wounded, about 1,100, was "by far" the highest injury toll "and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas." At the same time, fatalities for the month, 66, did not rise along with the injury rate, a first in Iraq. Commanders told Vick they had no explanation, but Col. Ryck Beitz at the 31st Combat Support hospital in Baghdad said, "All I know is, I've got more patients here." Hospital staffers also told Vick that troops "might have suffered more severe wounds in August than in previous months." Normally, about half of the wounded Americans who come to emergency rooms there have "acute" injuries. Last month this jumped to three in four. While battles in Najaf and the Sadr City slum have gotten most of the press attention, fighting continues west and north of Baghdad. Twenty-six Marines were killed during August in Anbar province.

General Says Less Coercion of Captives Yields Better Data
By DEXTER FILKINS
NYT, 7 September 2004
EXCERPT:  American interrogators working in Iraq have obtained as much as 50 percent more high-value intelligence since a series of coercive practices like hooding, stripping and sleep deprivation were banned, a senior American official said Monday. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the American commander in charge of detentions and interrogations, said that the number of "high-value" intelligence reports drawn from interrogations of Iraqi prisoners had increased by more than half on a monthly basis since January. That was when American officials first disclosed that they were investigating abuses of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American military police and intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib. Such intelligence is used to hunt down guerrillas, prevent attacks and break up insurgent networks. The military defines a "high value" intelligence report as one that describes what is regarded as a significant piece of information about the insurgency. But the successes listed by General Miller were tempered by the release this week of figures showing that the guerrilla insurgency in Iraq appears to be reaching a new level of intensity, raising questions about the value of the intelligence. An American military official said Monday that American soldiers and their allies were attacked an average of 87 times each day in August, the highest such figure since American and British forces deposed Saddam Hussein and his government 17 months ago. General Miller, the former commandant of the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, attributed the greater success at intelligence gathering to a system that encourages the establishment of a "rapport" between interrogator and detainee and bestows "respect and dignity" on the person being interrogated. In May, a number of physically and psychologically coercive practices used by interrogators to break down suspected Iraqi insurgents were prohibited, following reports of widespread abuse at Abu Ghraib. Among those techniques banned by American commanders were sleep deprivation, hooding, stripping and the use of dogs to frighten detainees. "In my opinion, a rapport-based interrogation that recognizes respect and dignity, and having very well-trained interrogators, is the basis by which you develop intelligence rapidly and increase the validity of that intelligence," General Miller said in a briefing for reporters. "It is very similar to what you would see civilian law enforcement authorities use." The system described by General Miller appears to mark a change in the chaotic and often coercive environment that prevailed at Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003 and early 2004, when a number of American soldiers assaulted and humiliated Iraqi prisoners. In testimony and photographs that have since been made public, Iraqis were shown to have been severely and regularly abused at the prison, often for the stated purpose of persuading them to provide more information on the insurgency.

Israeli Attack on Hamas Activists in Gaza kills 13 Hamas Supporters
By Chris McGreal
The Guardian (UK), 7 September 2004
EXCERPT: An Israeli attack on Hamas activists training near Gaza City killed at least 13 people early today. The raid came a week after Hamas murdered 16 Israelis in twin suicide bombings on buses in Be'er Sheva. Israel's leaders vowed bloody revenge on the Islamist group. The dead in yesterday's attack were all believed to be Hamas supporters. Witnesses described helicopters hovering overhead as about five powerful explosions were heard shortly after midnight when missiles or tank shells hit a football pitch and neighbouring building in Shajaiyeh, a Hamas stronghold on the eastern flank of Gaza City close to the fence with Israel. Palestinian sources said Hamas had been training fighters at the site under cover of darkness. Juma Shaka, a doctor at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said 13 bodies were brought to the morgue and 25 people treated for wounds. It was the bloodiest Israeli attack in the Gaza strip since the military's assault on Rafah refugee camp in May.
SEE ALSO: Peace Activist Held as 'Danger to Israel' (Guardian)

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