Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....

[Simply Joel]

kind of strange?

what, that vehicles are bought and sold out of Texas?

put the aluminum foil on your head, DVD... the signals are making you paranoid.

What are you dood? some kinda CIA dood or something. You always have to call someone crazy when they have ligitamate questions.

What is a fucking truck from Texas doing in fallujah. Sure you can have an Iraqi that came from the states with his car but that's kinda expensive and makes no sense.

Sorry, but I've got to go with Joel on this one (Jesus, twice in a month!)... but American vehicles in third world countries that have very sketchy governments are not all that suspicious. Some redneck couldn't bear to part with his baby when he came over to rape the country for Halliburton, and then some locals just hotwired it one night and drove it to Fallujah.... no biggie. It'll be shrapnel by next week...

or maybe it was actually bought with "Food for Oil" program monies...

there are no auto manufacturers in the middle east, of course the vehicles are imported... and usually imported as "used"

[DVD Burner]

Ok,

This same truck thing came up again on the Jim Lehrer report on pbs.

[DVD Burner]

or maybe it was actually bought with "Food for Oil" program monies...

there are no auto manufacturers in the middle east, of course the vehicles are imported... and usually imported as "used"

You know something....I hope they do a thourogh investigation so that we can shut Joel and his goon squad up so he can find out that the U.S. had the biggest hand in taking the most money.

They always do.

[Simply Joel]

or maybe it was actually bought with "Food for Oil" program monies...

there are no auto manufacturers in the middle east, of course the vehicles are imported... and usually imported as "used"

You know something....I hope they do a thourogh investigation so that we can shut Joel and his goon squad up so he can find out that the U.S. had the biggest hand in taking the most money.

They always do.

good squad?

and it is spelled "thorough"

do you have a cite to prove your assertion that the USA was involved in the fraud-laced UN "Food for Oil" ripoff/scandal?

or is this just more flatulence?

i think i already know the answer....

it's George's fault... the boogey man is coming.... run for your lives.

<sheesh>

[tisha2]

it's George's fault... the boogey man is coming.... run for your lives.

<sheesh>

noowww yer gettin' it Joel!! and they thought you wouldn't be converted....

[stuart]

do you have a cite to prove your assertion that the USA was involved in the fraud-laced UN "Food for Oil" ripoff/scandal?

actually, I do

and, the 'fraud laced' is a non-starter. Washington was very aware of every contract and kick-back. Much of which went to our pals Turkey and the U.S. corporation Chevron.

You can ask Dennis Halliday all about it.

[stuart]

"Oil for food" was designed to fail. It was designed to stop further deterioration in Iraq at a time when famine conditions prevailed. That's exactly what it has done. It has maintained quasi-famine conditions for many Iraqis now for over six years. So we've nothing to be proud of -- all we've done is stave off mass starvation.

Now the problem is the political game being played by Washington and London, in particular via the 661 Committee -- the sanctions committee. There's now over $5 billion worth of essential pharmaceutical and medical goods and equipment on hold. But the fact is that this program was never designed to resolve the crisis of Iraq; it was not designed to resolve the economic collapse -- in fact the money is not to be used, according to the Security Council, for investment or reconstruction of important infrastructure. And as we know, in the case of Iraq today, the majority of children die from water-borne disease, not from starvation per se. So this is a program which has modest value, although it's essential.

denis halliday on oil for food (I know, it does not address the specific issue at hand)

[stuart]

more halliday

Yes. Oil-for-Food was established in the mid-1990s, 1996-1997 in particular, to, under pressure from the world at large on the Security Council, particularly Washington and London, who drove the sanctions regime of the United Nations, to provide a means for the Iraqi people to have access to foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals and some basic equipment for education, the health care sector, agricultural sector. The government in Baghdad was allowed to sell a certain amount of oil, initially $4 billion gross per year. And that money was then used for sending out invitations, international bidding on foodstuffs, particularly pharmaceuticals. Those contracts were then approved or not approved by the Security Council in New York. The goods were delivered. The payments were made by the United Nations. No money went into the hands of the Iraqi people. The fact is, however, under sanctions -- sanctions is a form of warfare. Any opportunity the Iraqis had to find hard currency they naturally sought and obviously accomplished. Now, there was -- the scandal, quote, unquote, is in my view, nonsense. The United States was perfectly well aware of the trade between Turkey and Iraq under sanctions. They knew that Baghdad was exporting paraffin, gasoline and oil into Turkey. It was monitored by U.S. satellites. It was agreed upon with Turkey, because Turkey is an ally, a friendly NATO member and so on, and this was compensation to Turkey for the loss of revenue given the sanctions on Iraq, its close trading neighbor and partner. There is no scandal. Everything that has happened has been monitored by the United States and Britain. The contracts were approved by the United States and Britain. The kickbacks made by companies who provided supplies, in my view, were also known. And likewise, when it came to the sale of oil by Iraq, including some 40% going to American companies indirectly, including Chevron, of Miss Rice at one stage, they also paid those kickbacks indirectly and certainly in full knowledge of what they were doing. As you know during the sanctions period, some 9 or 10% of the oil coming into the United States was Iraqi oil. So there's no scandal. Washington has been fully informed. I think as Carl Levin has said, mentioned in The New York Times today or yesterday, we knew what was going on. I knew what was going on. We knew that there was smuggling and trade going on outside sanctions. We knew perfectly well that Washington had approved this trade.

[DVD Burner]

I wish they would call her Condie or Condoleeza instead of Miss Rice or Dr. Rice cause I she aint the good Dr. Rice.

anyhoo,

The contracts were approved by the United States and Britain. The kickbacks made by companies who provided supplies, in my view, were also known. And likewise, when it came to the sale of oil by Iraq, including some 40% going to American companies indirectly, including Chevron, of Miss Rice at one stage, they also paid those kickbacks indirectly and certainly in full knowledge of what they were doing.

this is one of the ways Condie got that oil tanker named after her.

[DVD Burner]

amazing how Joel has had nothing to say for awhile.

[Simply Joel]

amazing how Joel has had nothing to say for awhile.

well, when you have alife other than one on the internet, that happens.

"denis halliday on oil for food" is one man's opinion on the matter.

and i am not going to lower myself by calling him this or that name, or saying his opinion is crap, or misspelling his name in disrespect...

what i will do is look into the matter... but hey, didn't i bring up the whole "oil for food" fiasco oh so many posts ago.

so before the dear reader or anyone for that matter gets sanctimonious about "oil for food," please don't be a "johnny come lately" on the subject.

yeah, the "oil for food" program sucked from the beginning... but leaving saddam hussein in power after '91 was a lesser of all evils.. namely the power vaccum that is Iraq.

i spend a lot of time keeping up on the "why" this shit (the current world situation) happens... and what i can tell you most assuredly is.... there aren't too many innocent bystanders when it comes to neighborhood of nations.

sincerely,

joel

[DVD Burner]

what i will do is look into the matter... but hey, didn't i bring up the whole "oil for food" fiasco oh so many posts ago.

No.

Your leader FOX NEWS did after no one could find any WMD. All you did was repeat it here on eplaya. See the rest of us research first and/or come up with our own thoughts first then post.

Man some of you sheep will fall for anything.

[Simply Joel]

http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... &start=120

way back on page 9 of this thread....

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The New York Times


April 7, 2004
Iraq Needs a Credible U.N.

For the first time since last May, word came yesterday that American forces were engaged in serious combat in Iraq, this time against Iraqi insurgent forces who attacked American marines in a city southwest of Baghdad, and against an armed Sunni resistance in the town of Falluja. Reports of significant casualties on both sides in the pitched battle in the city of Ramadi were a grim and powerful reminder of how badly the United States needs a strong, credible and engaged United Nations.

Unfortunately, not only is the role of the U.N. still unsettled, the world organization is suffering from two self-inflicted wounds. One is a kickback scandal of multibillion-dollar proportions swirling around the U.N.-run oil-for-food program that kept ordinary Iraqis from starving during the long years of punishing economic sanctions. The other is the recent finding by an independent investigative panel that oversights in U.N. security management may have worsened the death toll in last August's terrorist bombing of the Baghdad headquarters.

Urgent steps, including high-level demotions and dismissals, are already under way to address the security failures. U.N. officials returning to Iraq face unavoidable risks, but everything that can be done to make them safer must be done. Ferreting out the murky details of the financial scandal, and meting out appropriate punishments, is no less urgent or important.

At the heart of the scandal are reports that Iraq collected billions of unmonitored dollars from oil surcharges and kickbacks for awarding consumer goods contracts under the oil-for-food program. U.N. officials clearly failed to supervise effectively the roughly $10 billion a year in transactions and may have been involved in illicit deals.

The oil-for-food program began in the mid-1990's, at Washington's behest, as a way to maintain political support for sanctions in the face of Iraqi civilian suffering. It seems to have fairly well served the limited goals of keeping sanctions intact enough to prevent Iraq from rebuilding unconventional weapons and of easing the burdens on ordinary Iraqis. But exporting the oil and buying the consumer goods required working with a corrupt Iraqi government, with Security Council members eager to maximize commercial gains and with some of Iraq's less than scrupulous neighbors.

U.N. officials have been reporting systematic corruption in the program for years, but the Security Council never insisted on a thorough cleanup. Washington acquiesced, since the faulty program was the only way to maintain support for the sanctions. Now there is finally some political will to investigate, and details of the corruption are emerging from documents seized by American occupation authorities in Iraq.

The U.N. investigation now under way can be credible only if it is independent of Security Council control. The investigators must put aside diplomatic niceties and concentrate on cleansing the U.N.'s reputation.

then again...
http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... &start=165

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the beat goes on.....

Scandal With No Friends
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON — How fares the multination cover-up of the richest rip-off in world history?

Obstruction of justice has never had it so good. Last month, after some badgering in this space and elsewhere, the House International Relations Committee announced it would look into the $5 billion kickback scandal in the United Nations' six-year Iraqi oil-for-food program, the largest humanitarian aid effort ever undertaken.

Our State Department, eager for U.N. help in Iraq, wants no revelations of U.N. ineptitude and corruption. It waltzed the committee staff around.

Senate Foreign Relations, however, not wanting to be upstaged by its House counterpart, called instant publicity hearings to blow off steam. Chairman Dick Lugar asked if some countries turned a blind eye to the rampant theft of aid that should have gone to hungry Iraqis because they "saw a money-making opportunity."

Senator Joe Biden chimed in, demanding that our ambassador to the U.N., John Negroponte, release the names of the U.S. companies that State has known for years have been part of the kickback scheme. Negroponte, soon to be our man in Baghdad working with the U.N., said that no such list had been compiled.

Meanwhile, because U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's son was on the payroll of the Swiss company hired to monitor the imports, and because Kofi's right-hand man had been in charge of the program rife with 10 percent kickbacks, the world's foremost diplomat announced he would appoint an independent panel to investigate.

He chose men of integrity: Paul Volcker, former U.S. Fed chairman; Judge Richard Goldstone, the first Balkans war crimes prosecutor; and Mark Pieth, a Swiss lawyer said to be an expert on money laundering.

End of cover-up, right? Wrong. Volcker properly required a Security Council resolution, which would presumably empower his panel to take sworn testimony and gain access to the U.N.'s corrupt contracts that enabled Saddam to build palaces instead of providing food to his people.

But such a U.N. resolution would reveal dealings with companies in Russia, France and China — all Security Council permanent members whose nationals had their hands in the till. As Senator Lugar suggested, some nations had secret profiteering reasons to keep Saddam in power.

To nobody's surprise, Vladimir Putin's government was the first to say nothing doing. Russia's U.N. spokesman said, "We understand the reputation of the secretariat is in question, but we do not think it is possible to adopt a resolution on the basis of mass media reports."

Of the 270 suspected kickbackers and recipients of illegal allocations of oil whose names were revealed by Al Mada, the Iraqi newspaper, one-fourth were Russian, including a member of the Russian Parliament and a former Russian ambassador to Baghdad. No wonder Putin wanted no "regime change," and now resists any serious investigation.

And what of those "mass media reports" about the scope of the corruption, which are backed by the initial findings of Congress's General Accounting Office? Editorialists have dutifully tut-tutted. Reporters have passed along some details of what the G.A.O. estimates is a $5 billion fraud (not counting $5 billion more in smuggled oil). The Financial Times, working with Italy's Sole, recently advanced the story, interviewing a middleman to show how an apologist for Saddam got $400,000 to finance a film.

But outrage that drives coverage is selective, and there is little establishment appetite to pursue this complex scandal. Speaking power to truth, Newsweek headlines "Anti-U.N. Campaign," and reports dark suspicions by U.N. bureaucrats that the scandal was "drummed up" by the doves' Iraqi villain, Ahmad Chalabi.

France's U.S. ambassador writes under "Oil-for-Food Lies" in The Los Angeles Times that "unfounded accusations . . . have been spread by a handful of influential, conservative TV and newspaper journalists in the U.S." He noted that all 15 members of the Security Council approved all the oil-for-food contracts, and "the complete contracts were only circulated to the U.S. and Britain, which had expressly asked to see them. . . ." (And State shut its eyes — and has no list?)

Lawyers and accountants hired by Iraq's Governing Council will appear before Chairman Christopher Shays' national security subcommittee on Wednesday. The Connecticut congressman offers journalists a useful briefing memo, but expect little coverage; this scandal has no friends.

so who is following who on this topic?

who has a post dated before mine on the "Food for Oil" scandal?

sheep, eh?

sharing my thoughts? i am... of which i have many people agreeing with me... yet, i am sure you, DVD, would not understand, i don't expect you to understand. you have already made up your mind, and no matter how many facts and arguments given, you won't agree. so what?

research? you call what you post research? ha ha ha

DVD. some of your protestations and comments would get you laughed out of any college (to include a junior college) lecture hall.

and for the record once again, i don't watch FOX network. I don't listen to Rush, Bill O'Rielly or even Imus in the morning, crusty old fart that he is.

i watch very little news any longer because there is too much to accomplish in one day. i do read the New York Times, AP, Rueters on the web. I don't frequent the agenda filled websites you (DVD) seem infatuated with.

[Simply Joel]

jump back jesus... how did this get in here?

June 23, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Great Cash Cow
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

This was the biggest cash cow in the history of the world," says one of the insiders familiar with the $10 billion U.N. oil-for-food scandal. "Everybody — traders, contractors, banks, inspectors — was milking it. It was supposed to buy food with the money from oil that the U.N. allowed Saddam to sell, but less than half went for that. Perfume, limos, a shipment of 1,500 Ping-Pong tables, for God's sake."

Another whistle-blower, often on the "graveyard shift" of round-the-clock operations at the U.N.'s New York Office of the Iraq Program, explains the workings of the historic rip-off:

Well-connected international traders — called "the usual suspects" by low-level U.N. staff, who knew they often fronted for sellers of luxury products — would make their deals, including kickbacks, in Baghdad. Letters of credit, as many as 150 a day, would be issued in New York by the U.N.'s favorite bank, BNP Paribas.

But before the sellers, called "beneficiaries," could be paid (at Saddam's request, in euros, harder to trace than dollars) the bank required a C.O.A., "Confirmation of Arrival," from the U.N.'s contracted inspector, Cotecna of Switzerland.

"The key was Cotecna," says my graveyard source. "Ships were lined up at the port of Umm Qasr, stacks of containers already onshore waiting for inspection. You won't believe the grease being paid. The usual suspects got preferential treatment when the U.N. bosses in New York called the BNP bank to get Cotecna to issue a C.O.A. to release the money."

Last week, Secretary General Kofi Annan claimed that my reporting of what he told me at a luncheon was "a private conversation" (no such ground rule was set) and that "some are jumping to conclusions without facts, without evidence. It is a bit like a lynching, actually."

However, my call for a Congressional subpoena to overcome his attempt to limit investigation to his internal Volcker committee has flushed out a fact not hitherto disclosed. Annan's press aide complained to The Times that a subpoena had already been served secretly on BNP Paribas (the initials once stood for Banque Nationale de Paris) by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Although the U.N. had warned its bank, as well as Cotecna, the oil monitor Saybolt and all its other oil-for-food contractors, not to cooperate with anybody but Paul Volcker — and had blown off the House International Relations Committee's requests — Annan's advisers knew it would be unseemly and foolhardy to insist that its bank fight the Senate in court.

With his subpoena and investigation thus publicly revealed by the U.N., Chairman Norm Coleman of Minnesota, a Brooklyn-born Republican, felt free to take my call. "This is a major priority for us," he says. "There's a lot of stuff to cover, a big universe of documents, and we're being aggressive about it. Yes, Cotecna, Saybolt, all of them."

He sent out four "chairman's letters," countersigned by the ranking Democrat, Carl Levin, in early June. One was to the U.S. State Department for the minutes of the "661 committee" meetings at the U.N., which reviewed oil-for-food contracts (though not yet for copies of the contracts themselves). Another to the Government Accounting Office, which had first estimated the skimming at $10 billion. Another to Paul Bremer in Baghdad for copies of documents being turned over to the interim government — and the Senate still awaits a response; apparently the White House doesn't want to offend the U.N. Finally, a friendly letter to Annan about the subpoena that would require his bank to open its letter-of-credit files.

Now let's review the investigative bidding. The Senate seems serious; though Coleman is a freshman, the subcommittee staff is experienced and nonpartisan. The House is doing what it can. The U.N. allocated $4 million to Volcker, but he hasn't yet submitted a budget or announced a staff. The New York Fed defers to its old boss, and the New York State Banking Department is overdrawn.

But since this involves possible fraud, bribery and larceny on a grand scale, where is law enforcement? Interesting: the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, David Kelley, served subpoenas last week on Exxon Mobil, ChevronTexaco and Valero about Iraqi oil purchases. That deals with the income side of the scandal, the money for Iraq (less kickbacks) supposedly to buy food.

I suspect Kelley was moved to empanel a grand jury by probable competition from the Manhattan district attorney, Robert Morganthau, on the scandal's payoff side. These two offices compete, and Morganthau's office has expertise on global banking.

Without imputing wrongdoing to any individual, I suggest investigators supplement their document search by talking to people who should be in the know. At the U.N., these include Benon Sevan's deputy, Teklay Afeworki, and at the bank, Pierre Veyres and Eva Millas-Russo.

But defenders of U.N. malfeasance can take heart. In a counterattack, our global servants hired an accountant to warn of "fraudulent acts" by the U.S. after it took over the U.N.'s mismanaged Iraqi oil account. Now, that will get media coverage.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |

[DVD Burner]

DVD. some of your protestations and comments would get you laughed out of any college (to include a junior college) lecture hall.

Most people out of college nowadays are the ones that are running this war that had no WMD's.


Ha ha ha ha.

Just because you come outta college dont make you smart. But you would'nt know that huh?




Sucker.

[Simply Joel]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 19, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Power of One
By DAVID GERGEN

Washington

Give the man his due: George W. Bush is emerging as one of the boldest, most audacious presidents in modern history.

Whether he is also wise is a question that will preoccupy us for another four years, but the reshuffling of his team in recent days makes clear that he intends to stretch the powers of his office to their limits. Woodrow Wilson once wrote that "the president is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.'' President Bush comes Texas-sized.

By sending members of his White House staff to run three of the most important departments in the government - with perhaps more such appointments in the offing - Mr. Bush is centralizing power in the White House in ways not seen since Richard Nixon. Nixon had his troika of Bob Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Henry Kissinger to run the government. Mr. Bush seems destined to run the government with his own troika: Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice.

Moreover, he believes he has a mandate for a revolutionary agenda. Conservative presidents, as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. has argued, tend to be consolidators - men like Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon and even Ronald Reagan, who largely accepted the expansions in government made by their liberal predecessors. Mr. Bush is the first conservative whose policies would gradually unwind major commitments like Social Security and progressive taxes. It is increasingly clear that Mr. Bush embraces the view of Winston Churchill: that great leaders should set great goals. The president apparently intends no less than to overhaul government, achieve long-term Republican hegemony over American politics and ensure long-term American hegemony over the world.

In restructuring his team for the second term, Mr. Bush is also acting well within his rights. As long as he doesn't name his horse as proconsul, a president is traditionally accorded the right to choose anybody he wants in his cabinet, including members of his White House staff. Heading into his second term, Nixon named one member of his staff, Mr. Kissinger, as secretary of state and appointed five members of his staff to sub-cabinet posts; Reagan nominated two members of his staff, James Baker and Edward Meese, to key cabinet spots; and Bill Clinton also promoted a member of his staff, Alexis Herman, to the cabinet. Former members of the White House staff who have been good administrators have generally served well in departments. The ability to speak with their leader's voice has always enhanced their authority.

Presidents of the past would also sympathize with Mr. Bush's desire to quell rebellious voices at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. For more than half a century, White Houses have resounded with complaints about the striped pants set at Foggy Bottom and renegades at Langley. Foreign service officers are especially out of step with the incumbent president: a rising star in foreign service confided a week ago that on a scale of 0-to-10, colleagues in the service would give a 9.5 grade to Colin Powell and a grade of 2 to the Bush administration. Bringing the foreign service on board will be one of the toughest challenges facing Secretary Rice.

The fact that Mr. Bush is acting within his rights does not mean, however, that he is also right. Critics mostly worry that the reshuffling of the national security team signals an even harder, more militaristic line toward the world. That is probably true, but one cannot discount noises from within that the president wants to turn more toward diplomacy. Every White House remembers, after all, how L.B.J. warned his staff after a landslide election in 1964 that they only had a year to get things done domestically. If you were Karl Rove working with the president, wouldn't you want a couple of years of relative peace on the foreign side so that you could concentrate on the domestic agenda now? (Yeah, let's fix Iraq, but for goodness sake, don't bomb Iran or North Korea ... at least not yet.) So, the jury is still out on where security policy is heading.

The more immediate danger is that Mr. Bush and his troika are falling into a trap facing other re-elected presidents: hubris. When presidents win their first elections, they and their teams think they are king of the hill; when they win re-election, they too often think they are masters of the universe. As Richard Neustadt pointed out, even the best of modern presidents, Franklin Roosevelt, fell into the trap when he was first re-elected in 1936. He immediately started overreaching, as he tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937 and tried to purge Southern Democrats in 1938. F.D.R. nearly did himself in during his second term.

In Mr. Bush's case, his administration has already shown ominous signs of "group-think'' in its handling of Iraq and the nation's finances. By closing down dissent and centralizing power in a few hands, he is acting as if he truly believes that he and his team have a perfect track record, that they know best, and that they don't need any infusion of new heavyweights. He has every right to take this course, but as he knows from his Bible, pride goeth before. ...


David Gergen is professor of public service at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and editor at large of U.S. News & World Report. He served as a White House adviser to four presidents.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[DVD Burner]

does anyone know the basic diffrence between the house and senate?

[Simply Joel]

does anyone know the basic diffrence between the house and senate?

on the hopeful assumption that you are actually asking a serious question....

here is a link.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/week ... senate.htm

[Simply Joel]

Ok,

This same truck thing came up again on the Jim Lehrer report on pbs.

In Fallujah, battles flared as troops hunted holdout insurgents, and one U.S. Marine and one Iraqi soldier were killed, U.S. officials said.

U.S. troops sweeping through the city west of Baghdad found what appeared to be a key command center of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with a separate workshop where an SUV registered in Texas was being converted into a car bomb and a classroom containing flight plans and instructions on shooting down planes.

The vehicle was surrounded by several bags of sodium nitrate, which can be used to make explosives. The vehicle had no license plate, but 15 plates were inside. Several bodies were found nearby.

if i were a terrorist, and i wanted to penetrate the Green Zone, i would get a vehicle with registration that would indicate the vehicle was "friendly" as in registered from the same state a major contractor, Halliburton/Brown & Root operating in the area to be blown to smithereens.

i am sure we will here more on this matter as details come available.

[samtzu]

What Joel said..... It's the smart move.

[cowboyangel]

U.S. Intelligence Issue Pessimistic Report on Fallujah Offensive
Agence France Press

Thursday 18 November 2004

Washington - Marine intelligence officials have issued a report warning that any significant withdrawal of troops from the Iraqi city of Fallujah would strengthen the insurgency.

The assessment, distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in Iraq, also said that despite the heavy fighting with coalition forces, the insurgents would continue to increase in number, carrying out attacks and fomenting unrest in the area.

One officer said the seven-page classified report - parts of which were provided to Thursday's edition of The New York Times - was "brutally honest" and appears to contradict the US government's victorious account of the US-led fight against insurgents in Fallujah and other parts of northern Iraq.

Although the resistance crumbled in the face of the offensive, the report warned, "the enemy will be able to effectively defeat I MEF's ability to accomplish its primary objectives of developing an effective Iraqi security force and setting the conditions for successful Iraqi elections."

The pessimistic analysis was prepared by intelligence officers in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the offensive in Falluja was winding down.

Senior military officials in Iraq and Washington disputed the findings of the report, describing it as a subjective judgment of some Marines that did not reflect the views of all intelligence officials and commanders in Iraq.

"The assessment of the enemy is a worst-case assessment," Brigadier General John DeFreitas, the senior military intelligence officer in Iraq, said of the Marine report in a telephone interview with The New York Times.

The general insisted that there were no plans to withdraw forces from Fallujah.

"We have no intention of creating a vacuum and walking away from Fallujah," he told the broadsheet.



Go to Original

Death, Destruction and Elections
By James O Goldsborough
The San Diego Union Tribune

Thursday 18 November 18, 2004

Take a good look at the photo accompanying this column. In it you see what America did to downtown Fallujah, an Iraqi city most Americans never had heard of a few months ago.

A fitting caption for the photo, with just a hint of irony, would have been "We Won," bringing to mind what Tacitus said of the Roman conquests:



U.S. Marines ride Humvees through a devastated downtown Fallujah. Thirty-eight U.S. troops and more than 1,100 Iraqis have died in the attack on the city.
(Photo: Patrick Baz / AFP - Getty Images)

"They create a desert and call it peace."

Instead, The New York Times headline, with its own irony, said: "Rebels Routed in Fallujah; Fighting Spreads Elsewhere."

While the headline in the Los Angeles Times added this bit of irony: "Iraqi City Lies in Ruins; The next step, reconstruction, could cost the U.S. tens of millions of dollars."

This is a foul war, guaranteed to get more foul. The Bush idea that destroying Iraqi cities somehow assures the success of Iraqi elections in January is delusional. Military operations such as Fallujah make a mockery of elections, assuring that whatever "government" is elected is illegitimate.

Thirty-eight U.S. troops died in the Fallujah attack, says the Pentagon, and some 1,200 Iraqis. At least one of those Iraqis was killed by a Marine as he lay wounded in a mosque, an incident captured on film. Why be surprised?

What did the destruction of Fallujah accomplish? Even as U.S. commanders were proclaiming victory, news stories spoke of a rebel counteroffensive sweeping through northern and central Iraq. Shia leaders are condemning the U.S. offensive against Sunnis, though U.S. policy is based on driving Sunnis and Shias apart.

U.S. elections have come and gone. Holding their noses over the war, Americans elected Bush in spite of it and had better be prepared for some tough sledding. This is not an issue of getting through a few rough spots until we see the light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel has caved in, and we are in the dark.

Americans need to understand what is happening in Iraq. The key assumption on which Bush's war was based ­ that we would be greeted as liberators, not occupiers ­ was a lie. Iraq is being laid waste because too many Iraqis hate the American presence. Nothing will change until Bush indicates he is ready to find a way out of this quagmire.

This kind of warfare can go on for years, with a hundred or so Americans and a thousand or so Iraqis dying each month. Those are low enough levels ­ in the absence of a draft ­ that Americans will stop paying attention before long, ignoring the consequences of war on America's influence, reputation and economy.

We must also consider the enabling force Bush's war has on terrorist movements. Too many impartial centers of analysis ­ such as the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv ­ have concluded that the Iraq war is feeding terrorism, not starving it.

What have we to show for Fallujah aside from more hatred of us? The Fallujah prize was to be rebel masterminds Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi, but, like Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, they were nowhere to be found. Sunni clerics had denied that either was in Fallujah, and now we know.

Re-electing Bush does not turn a bad war into a good one, nor does it change the reality of fighting this war almost alone. It has never been a conventional conflict, but over recent months, as the fighting has increased, it has taken on the characteristics both of guerrilla warfare and civil war.

If things had gone according to plan, by now the fighting would be long over, a U.N. and allied presence would be firmly established, and the Iraqi people would be preparing for peaceful elections.

Instead, we are guaranteed that whatever elections take place will be meaningless. Are the people of Fallujah, if they vote at all, going to vote for a government dependent on Americans who just destroyed their city?

Unnamed Bush spokesmen and their media mouthpieces have renewed their offensive on the United Nations, and against Secretary-General Kofi Annan in particular. "We won the election," a senior U.S. official at the United Nations, told The New York Times. "Kofi's term is up in '06 and though we have been asking him to define the U.N. role in Iraq, he is thumbing his nose at us."

But why would Annan, who has called this war "illegal," who criticized the Fallujah offensive and who answers to the whole Security Council, which overwhelmingly opposes the war, acquiesce in legitimizing it at this point, just as U.S. troops are launching urban warfare in Iraqi cities?

The problem, Annan says in his own defense, is that other countries are refusing to send troops to Iraq. "I think they are concerned about the security situation, and they probably have their own public opinions and parliaments to convince."

If you thought re-electing Bush would change the war dynamic in Iraq, you were wrong. The contradictions of Bush's war were perfectly captured in those two Times' headlines:

Fallujah lies in ruins; reconstruction will cost Americans tens of millions of dollars; meanwhile the fighting spreads elsewhere.

[cowboyangel]

Red Cross Estimates 800 Iraqi Civilians Killed in Fallujah
Democracy Now!

Wednesday 17 November 2004

Red Cross officials in Iraq are now estimating 800 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the siege on Fallujah. We go to Baghdad to speak with independent journalist Dahr Jamail who broke the story.

Independent journalist Dahr Jamail is reporting that Red Cross officials in Iraq are now estimating 800 Iraqi civilians have been killed during the siege on Fallujah. Jamail quotes an unnamed Red Cross official who insisted on remaining anonymous out of fear of US military reprisal. The US military has claimed that no civilians have been killed in the city even though the city of 300,000 has recently witnessed some of the most intense fighting of the Iraq war. The military has estimated 1200 fighters have been killed.

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist currently based in Baghdad. He is one of the only independent, unembedded journalists in Iraq right now. He publishes his reports on a blog called dahrjamailiraq.com.

Transcript

Amy Goodman: Dahr Jamail joins us now from Baghdad. Welcome to Democracy Now!

Dahr Jamail: Thanks again, Amy.

Amy Goodman: It's good to have you with us. Can you tell us what you have found out?

Dahr Jamail: Well, as the report states, the official with the Red Cross does claim that the 800 number is the most conservative estimate they would put out to the media at this time. However, he did go on to say in that interview that this is extremely conservative, that this doesn't take into account people buried under the rubble of homes, and other horrendous things that have happened there. This was a number taken solely from people coming out. This is just what they have tabulated so far from refugees coming and reporting to them, and keeping track of the names and tabulating it that way. So, of course, he expects that number to be far, far higher. This is continuing to be confirmed by accounts being told by refugees that I have been interviewing who continue to stream out of Fallujah or the camps set up in the desert around the city. One man in particular reported that there were so many dead bodies on the ground, no one could bury them and the stench was unbearable. He said - he claimed that U.S. soldiers were dropping some of the - excuse me - some of the bodies into the Euphrates River that runs right nearby Fallujah and that other bodies were being pulled by tanks to the soccer stadium and left there. So, as time drags on, as the siege drags on in Fallujah, we expect more of these type of stories to be coming out.

Amy Goodman: The official that you quote in your piece, the Red Cross, estimating 50,000 residents remain trapped in Fallujah, that is nothing like the reports that we get from the mainstream press that makes it sound like a ghost city with some insurgents left, that's basically been occupied by the U.S. military.

Dahr Jamail: Right, which is the exact report that the military is giving, which is exactly why the U.S. military is reporting - or I'm sorry, the U.S. media is reporting it, because most of these reporters are embedded with the military there, and even if they did attempt to send out a more accurate picture of what's going on there, of course, their reports are subject to military censorship.

Amy Goodman: Which brings up the issue of what kind of news is getting out of there. You have got embedded reporters with the U.S. military, and then the two major Arab satellite networks, Al Arabiya, the reporter detained by the U.S. military, and Al-Jazeera, forbidden to report from Fallujah. Could you explain what's happening and what you know of this Al Arabiya reporter, what has happened to him?

Dahr Jamail: Well, as you mentioned, he did go to Fallujah to try to get inside the city, to report on what was really happening, and he was promptly detained by the military, and he is still being held. That's all the news that we have. He's essentially disappeared at this point, which is the typical case when anyone is detained here. They vanish. There is no contact with them. And so he¹s had - no one has been able to contact him, nor him anyone else. I should add also that as of yesterday, U.S.-backed Prime Minister Allawi made a statement that any Al-Jazeera journalists caught trying to report in Iraq will be detained. So, they remain under the gun, and the media crackdown here has really been beyond belief. They have made announcements prompting media to report, quote-unquote, "accurately," meaning they only want the U.S. military side of the story. And this crackdown on the Arab media has been very pronounced because stations like Al-Jazeera have consistently done a very good job of reporting extremely accurately what is happening here on the ground in Iraq. They do very good war reporting. They do show the graphic images, as they should, because this is a war, and this is what's happening here. This is why they continue to catch so much flack from the United States, particularly Defense Minister Rumsfeld. This is why their office in Baghdad was bombed during the initial invasion of Iraq, even though they specifically gave their coordinates to the Pentagon to avoid that happening. So, it keeps continuing on into the occupation. Of course, when the fighting rages and reports come out that don't play in the best interests of the U.S. military here, or the U.S. government, of course, the hammer gets dropped once again on the media that's doing their job.

Amy Goodman: Last question about the U.S. forces, also arresting the deputy speaker of the interim Iraqi National Council, a move that is raising questions about the sovereignty of the Iraqi government, Naseer Ayaef, a leading Sunni politician, one of the highest ranking in the interim government, coming a week after the Iraqi Islamic party, his party, pulled out of the Iraqi government protesting the attack on Fallujah.

Dahr Jamail: Right. And this also followed the fact that one of another leader of the Islamic party, Ayed Arief was also detained. Also just the other day down in Karbala, a prominent Shiite Ayatollah there, Hasan al-Sarqi, also had his office raided because he had called to boycott the election, because he did not feel the interim government was going to hold them fairly. So the crackdown continues almost on a daily basis now. We have an official from some party or some religious sect that is being detained. People - when these offices are raided, in fact, the individual I just mentioned, Hasan al-Sarqi, when his office was raided, two of his followers were killed before he was actually detained himself. So, the crackdown on the media here as well as the so-called democracy, and having - being able to have some sort of elections with parties that people do want to represent them it's just not happening, and quite the contrary, this is looking more and more like the regime of Saddam Hussein by the day. It's really an astounding thing to watch.

Amy Goodman: Dahr Jamail, reporting to us from Iraq, unembedded, independent journalist. He publishes his reports in a blog called dahrjamailiraq.com.

[cowboyangel]

http://middle-east-online.com/english/?id=11875

[cowboyangel]

Prayers for Vengeance, More Death...
by Dahr Jamail, Electronic Iraq Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004 at 7:14 PM

Today Abu Talat meets me and he is in a somber mood. He's down because last night after the curfew began at 9:30pm, US military helicopters were circling his neighborhood until 3am.

"How can we live like this," he asks while holding up his hands, "We are trapped in our own country."

He tells me, "You know Dahr, everyone is praying for God to take revenge on the Americans. Everyone!" He went on to tell me that even while people are praying in their homes, they are praying for God to take vengeance on the Americans for what they are doing in Falluja.

"Everyone I've talked to the last couple of nights, 80 or 90 people, is telling me they are doing this," he says somberly.

Later that night Salam shows up with a wild look in his eyes, sweat beading on his forehead. "My friend has just been killed, and he was one of my best friends," he tells me, "I can't imagine that he is dead, really, but I guess it is ok."

He talks to me about his friends' family. "They are so poor, they live 21 people in a house with three bedrooms, and they are good people," he says, before going on to explain more about his dead friends' situation.

He was working as a translator for the military because he had to earn money for his family. Unfortunately, he was working with TITAN, a private security company. It was either starve to death, or work with the coalition.

He was on a military patrol in Baghdad when it came under attack near the Taji airbase and his friend was shot by the resistance.

This isn't all. A relative of Salam had been missing for six days. Today, his body was brought to his family by someone who found it on the road. The body, which had been shot twice in the chest and twice in the head, was dropped off to the family. There were visible signs of torture on the body, and the four bullet shells which were used to kill him had been placed in his pants pocket.

This is life in Baghdad today.

"I am crazy today with this news Dahr," exclaims Salam while holding his hands up in the air, "The number of people killed here is growing so fast everyday, it is shit." He hangs his head back and takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly.

He explains how it has been this way in Iraq his whole life, but not ever has it been like this. "When I was a child, it was common to have some family member who was killed in the war with Iran," he says, "But now, everyone is dying everyday."

I can feel the tenseness of being in Baghdad-the relentless threat of being kidnapped or car bombed, or simply robbed, grinding on me already...and I've been here less than a week. Sleep is oftentimes interrupted by mortars exploding in the "Green Zone," helicopters rumbling low overhead, fighter jets roaring towards Fallujah, or gunfire which is sporadic, yet persistent, in the streets of Baghdad.

Yet my friends, who are living here, how do they do it? It saddens me to see them so increasingly somber, withdrawn and angry than they were a year ago when we first met, as their hope for peace, resolution and true sovereignty in Iraq dims a little more with each passing day.

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1704.shtml

[Simply Joel]

and prior to the fall of Saddam Hussien's Baathist rule, there was no free press in Iraq... so we don't know all the personal stories of terror under his rule.

[Simply Joel]

a little conservative introspectiojn

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 20, 2004

A Scandal Waiting to Happen
By DAVID BROOKS

Tom DeLay is bleeding and he doesn't even know it.

This week, House Republicans bent their accountability rules to protect their majority leader from what they feel is a partisan Texas prosecutor. But they hated the whole exercise. They sat in a conference room hour after hour wringing their hands. Only a few members were brave enough to stand up and say they shouldn't bend the rule. But afterward, many House Republicans came up to those members and said that secretly they agreed with them.

Somewhere in the psychology of the caucus something shifted. That ineffable thing called political capital began seeping away from DeLay. Someday people will look back and say this could be the moment when his power begins to ebb.

It's shifted because many House Republicans know that DeLay has been playing close to the ethical edge for years. They've noticed the number of scandals - the latest involving lobbying fees for some Indian casinos - that trace back to DeLay cronies. They still remember that delicious feeling of possibility when they arrived in Washington and vowed they would not turn into the corrupt old majority they had come to replace. They know Delay symbolizes their descent from that reformist ideal.

Why didn't more members get up and say something against DeLay?

There are several reasons. The most obvious is self-interest. DeLay and the leadership can take away your hopes of getting a chairmanship or a vote on your bill.

But there's also the fact that most House Republicans like DeLay. It's always important to remember that most of the mythology that surrounds the Hammer is total nonsense. He is not the behind-the-scenes power who controls the House. Speaker Dennis Hastert controls the House and feels free to overrule DeLay.

He is not the vicious strongman who terrorizes members and reduces them to tears to get their vote. Roy Blunt and Eric Cantor are the whips, not DeLay, and they are anything but vicious.

He's not even a terror to his peers. He can be firm, but he and his staff are noted for their graciousness. Connecticut moderate Chris Shays, who has tangled with DeLay more than anyone else, believes that DeLay is actually uncomfortable with personal confrontations. He's much better at offering carrots than wielding sticks.

In fact, DeLay has been a thoughtful majority leader. He rarely keeps the House in session beyond its scheduled hours. That means members, especially those with young families or marginal seats, can spend more time in their districts. That is deeply appreciated.

Finally, House Republicans did not rise up to denounce DeLay because while they know he represents some of the political tendencies they came to Washington to reform, none of them is pure enough to cast the first stone. They've all voted for the big deficits they vowed to combat. They've all watched the walls between the public servants and the private lobbyists get washed away.

If Republicans are going to recover the reformist spirit, they're going to have to do more than lessen the influence of Tom DeLay.

But let's face it, the problem starts there. Tom DeLay is a scandal waiting to happen. He casts himself as the enemy of Washington, but he's really a conventional (if effective) pol who wants to use dollars to entrench power. He represents the greatest danger the Republicans face, bossism. He wants to be the G.O.P.'s Boss Tweed.

Deep in the recesses of their minds, many Republicans know that voters around the country may never hear of Tom DeLay, but if the Republicans become just another self-dealing power clique, there will be hell to pay.

You could begin to hear a slight shift in Republican voices yesterday. Several were looking around and noticing that they have a very good and effective leadership team even without DeLay. Hastert has gone from being obscure to being beloved. Roy Blunt is efficient and smooth. Eric Cantor of Virginia is a rising star.

When people start gossiping about what the world would be like if you were gone - as Republicans are now starting to do with DeLay - you are in the first stages of political decline. It means that members start regarding you with a little less awe, and they start regarding your potential successors with a little more.

He doesn't face an immediate threat. But the next time a scandal licks up against him, DeLay will find his support is not as strong as he thought it would be. He'll turn around and find that his caucus has remembered its core values.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[cowboyangel]

and prior to the fall of Saddam Hussien's Baathist rule, there was no free press in Iraq... so we don't know all the personal stories of terror under his rule.

Im sure we're catching up!


By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Baghdad exploded in violence Saturday, as insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol and a police station, assassinated four government employees and detonated several bombs. One American soldier was killed and nine were wounded during clashes that also left three Iraqi troops and a police officer dead.


AP Photo


Reuters
Slideshow: Iraq

U.S., Iraqi Troops Storm Baghdad Mosque
(AP Video)

Latest headlines:
· Iraq's Main Paris Club Creditors Agree Debt Waiver
Reuters - 12 minutes ago
· U.S. General Says Zarqawi Harder to Nab Than Saddam
Reuters - 1 hour, 2 minutes ago
· Polish woman hostage back home after being freed in Iraq
AFP - 1 hour, 7 minutes ago
Special Coverage



Some of the heaviest violence came in Azamiyah, a largely Sunni Arab district of Baghdad where a day earlier U.S. troops raided the capital's main Sunni mosque. Shops were in flames, and a U.S. Humvee burned, with the body of what appeared to be its driver inside.

U.S. forces and insurgents also battled in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, where clashes have been seen almost daily. Nine Iraqis were killed and five wounded in Saturday's fighting, hospital officials said.

In northern Iraq (news - web sites), U.S. and Iraqi forces uncovered four decapitated bodies as they continued a campaign to crush militants who rose up last week. American and Iraqi forces detained 30 suspected guerrillas overnight in Mosul, the U.S. military said Saturday.

Meanwhile, Germany and the United States reached a deal for forgiving 80 percent of Iraq's foreign debt, capping a months-long U.S. push to lift the country's debt burden as a boost to its economy as it seeks to rebuild and establish a democractic government.

The deal will be discussed by the Paris Club of creditor nations, which is owed about $42 billion by Iraq. "Our expectation is that it will be accepted," said Joerg Mueller, a spokesman for the German finance minister.

The United States has been pushing for a generous write-off, as much as 95 percent of Iraq's debt. However, other governments, including Germany, have questioned whether a country rich in oil should benefit from huge debt reduction.

The U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was ambushed in Baghdad early Saturday, coming under a barrage of small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the military said. The statement did not say where the attack occurred, but it came amid clashes in a string of Baghdad neighborhoods.

Insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms attacked a police station early Saturday in Azamiyah, in the northern part of the city, killing one policeman, according to police officials.

Clashes spread in Azamiyah before dawn, with a number of U.S. armored vehicles seen in flames. Footage by Associated Press Television News showed a smashed and burning U.S. Humvee, with what appeared to be the remains of a body in the driver's seat.

Smoke rose from burning shops along a commercial street. U.S. helicopters circled overhead and ambulances were driving to the scene of the clashes.

In western Baghdad, heavy fighting broke out Saturday between gunmen and Iraqi National Guards and American troops in the Amiriyah neighborhood, where three National Guardsmen were killed by roadside bombs, said policeman Akram al-Azzawi.

Nearby, a roadside bomb exploded as a U.S. patrol passed in the Khadra area, wounding two U.S. troops, according to policeman Ali Hussein of the Khadra police station. The U.S. military had no immediate confirmation.

In downtown Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle just after noon at an intersection on Saadoun Street, a bustling commercial street. One Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded in the blast, which sent black smoke rising above the city center and set several cars ablaze.

And in the western part of the city, gunmen in a car chased down a vehicle carrying employees of the Ministry of Public Works on their way to work Saturday, opened fire and killed four of them, a ministry spokesman said. Amal Abdul-Hameed — an adviser to the ministry in charge of urban planning — and three employees from her office were killed, said spokesman Jassim Mohammed Salim.

The spasm of violence came a day after Iraqi forces backed by U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque — one of the country's most important Sunni mosques — as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers in the Azamiyah neighborhood.

The operation appeared to be part of a government crackdown on militant clerics opposed to the U.S.-led attack on Fallujah. Witnesses said at least three people were killed and 40 others arrested.



Congregants at the Abu Hanifa mosque said they heard explosions inside the building, apparently from stun grenades. Later, a reporter saw a computer and books, including a Quran, scattered on the floor of the imam's office near overturned furniture. U.S. soldiers were seen inside the mosque compound.

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched an offensive that they say has secured most of Fallujah, hoping to tame the insurgents' strongest bastion ahead of January elections. But many militants are believed to have fled the city to continue attacks elsewhere — and the operation risks alienating Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, whose participation in elections is seen as key to legitimacy.

Insurgents have carried out a wave of violence across Iraq coinciding with the Fallujah offensive. Mosul — Iraq's third-largest city with more than a million residents about 225 miles north of Baghdad — has been a center of violence.

Officials were trying to identify the four decapitated bodies found Thursday in the city, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia.

An extremist group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, said in a Web statement Saturday that it kidnapped and killed two members of a Kurdish political group in Mosul. It posted a video showing two men being shot. The men wore robes bearing the initials of their group, the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The claim's authenticity could not be verified.

On Friday, a statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group said it had "slaughtered" two Iraqi National Guard officers "in the presence of a big crowd" in Mosul. The claim included no photos or video and could not be verified.

There was no way of knowing immediately whether the decapitated bodies were connected to either claim.

[tonytohono]

Is there any way to change the name of this thread to "The Room Full of Hot Wind"?

[DVD Burner]

Is there any way to change the name of this thread to "The Room Full of Hot Wind"?

it already has a counter part. it's called politics & reigion.

it's all the same.

[cowboyangel]

Is there any way to change the name of this thread to "The Room Full of Hot Wind"?

how about the room of sad truth?