UnFairWitness

The Mysterious Energizer Chalabi

If Chalabi is an Iranian spy and "on the outs" with the USGOVCPA, why is he in Najaf making peace deals?

Iraq chaos and Duhbya's war trophy

CNN is reporting:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, Duhbya is playing with Saddam's pistol:

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

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

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

Another sermon from the NYT

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

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

Read the rest.....

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

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

Is the Chalabi Fan Club staying "on the reservation?"

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

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

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

My answer to the Saudi Riddle

First, read this excellent Billmon post. This is my reply to his question:

Al Qaeda's Saudi branch (or should I say home office?) has already proven its "bang men" are very good indeed. And while I'm sure every effort has been made to eliminate as many vulnerabilities as possible, it's hard to believe the kingdom's oil infrastructure has been spared because Al Qaeda doesn't have the means to attack it.

Knocking Saudi Arabia out of the oil producing business for two years would bring the global economy to its knees - and probably bring about the fall of the House of Saud. In other words, it would be an enormous victory for Al Qaeda, the kind that would make the current fiasco in Iraq look like a paper cut. And there's not much the United States could do about it, even if it invaded and occupied the Saudi oil fields. Iraq has already demonstrated the futility of trying to guard something as inherently vulnerable and sprawling as an oil infrastructure against a determined saboteur movement.

So why is Al Qaeda still fooling around with these attacks on foreign workers? Is it because they don't want to alienate Saudi popular opinion by destroying the goose that lays the petroleum eggs? Are they hoping to inherit the oil infrastructure intact once they take power? Do they have a implicit deal with the royal family (or some faction within it) to limit their attacks to the infidel devils and leave the valuable stuff alone?

There are several points to keep in mind about The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia when analyzing the attacks there.

Don't think of the "royal" family as monolithic. The "royal" family is deeply divided between the hard line wahhabists and "moderates" who actually (or pretend to) contemplate "reform" like Abdullah. Don't underestimate the hatred the hard-liners bear for the infidels (that would be people like us.) Alot of flack was thrown up after the last attack on a compound which obscured the fact that the muttawa had had that compound under surveillance because there were things going on there that were insulting to their view of Islam, like coffee shops where men and women mixed. Men and women mixing in public is illegal in KSA and they overlook it in some of the Western compounds where the infidels don't know any better, but in the last one, Muslims were participating in this loose behavior. That's why they were legitimate targets.

There are factions in the "royal" family that could out-Osama Osama. If a popular election were held in KSA today, Osama bin Laden would be elected as President. In other words, the views of the hard-line clerics are reflected in a substantial part of the population. People in favor of "reform" are in the minority and persecuted. CP Abdullah pays lip service to reform because the Americans insist he do so. There's no real evidence that anything he has actually done has advanced any reforms.

The Religious Policeman is a blog from KSA and in my opinion he strikes just the right notes of cynicism on the "royal family."

If you read the Religious Policeman's blog you will encounter many references to the Saudi practice of having third world nationals do all their menial work. Saudis do not work. This is funny, unfortunately it is also very true:

That's the clincher. They must be Saudis. How do I know?

1) They used a Third World National to do all their physical labour.

2) They haven't paid him yet.

(Perhaps I should explain. We man our factories with Third World Nationals. And when we have a bit of a cash-flow issue, we stop paying them. Sometimes for months. They're caught between a rock and a hard place. Funds running out, but they can't afford to go home, and if they did would lose the remote chance of back-pay. But that's another story.)

No one really knows the true figures on Saudi employment, but almost all the jobs Saudi nationals hold are cushy government jobs and the money for those comes almost exclusively from oil money. Now, who runs the oil business? Westerners do, that's who. So, here's the Saudi dilemma. Westerners and their giant oil companies are necessary to KSA's welfare state, BUT the wahabbi hardline clerics whose muttawa run the lives of ordinary Saudis and whose imams and mosques deliver fiery anti-western messages to the faithful are devoted to driving the westerners out. This clerical faction is aligned with a faction of the "royal" family. Unfortunately, while the average Saudi may have a very good education in Islam and Koran memorization, he has no technical skills. So who will run the oil business if the westerners leave? No one will in the short term. Maybe the Saudis will eventually get some of the presently nonexistent work force up to speed, but there would be a period of chaos first.

That's why there is no need to destroy oil infrastructure. The correct attack on the "moderate" and Western-aligned Saudi royals is to wipe out the western underpinning propping up their money machine. It's a two-fer for the wahhabists, getting rid of infidels while also destabilizing the faction of the royal family that they despise. Think of it this way - what the wahabbists in KSA are doing parallels what the insurgents in Iraq are doing (you can even think of KSA's problem being an American occupation by proxy-the proxy being CP Abdullah and other US/Western co-opted and dependent members of the royal family) with a couple of exceptions. There are Iraqis who are educated and skilled who can run the oil business. In KSA, decades of being on the dole have resulted in a population with no skills and no work ethic. The Iraqis can afford to blow up their oil infrastructure, which needs replacing after the years of sanction degradation anyway. The Saudis need to preserve their infrastructure because they won't be able to replace it anytime soon, without letting western infidels back in the country.

Deaths in Afghanistan

AP reports:

Military officials say former N-F-L player Pat Tillman was probably killed by shots fired by his fellow soldiers.

Initially the army suggested Tillman was killed by enemy fire in a gun battle in Afghanistan April 22nd.

Today an Army official issued a short statement saying Tillman was killed during a firefight with ten to 12 enemy combatants.

And, today, four more US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

Is there an "exit strategy" for Afghanistan? What's the goal there? Are all these people dying looking for Osama, or what?

Saturday blog tour

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

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

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

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

Bush Announces Twelve Step Plan For Iraq

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

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

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

Attack in Saudi Arabia - ongoing hostage situation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The incident is still happening, and they've taken hostages in the Oasis compound," said the western official.

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

---

UPDATE: Saudi security forces seeking to kill or capture the militants stormed the waterfront Oasis complex, where a housing manager said 50 hostages were still being held including Americans, Italians and Arabs.

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

Who is Iyad Allawi, anyway?

Iyad Allawi chosen as prime minister of Iraq's interim government (AFP)

Andrew Cockburn has the story on Iyad Allawi.

Michael Ledeen may not be an Iranian spy

Jim Henley defends Michael Ledeen

Najaf - another defeat for the US?

According to this article in Salon, here's what the "peace deal" in Najaf looks like:

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

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

Sounds like Fallujah déjà vu.

Puppets pick a PM for Iraq

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

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

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

Hassan Ali, a policeman, was also dismissive.

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

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

Another Reuters story is even more bizarre:

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

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

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

---

UPDATE:

The United Nations was caught off-guard on Friday when the Iraqi Governing Council announced it had chosen Iyad Allawi to lead the interim government taking office June 30 but "respects" the choice, U.N. officials said.

Although Allawi, a British-educated Shi'ite neurologist, had been high on the list put forward by U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. official was not present when the choice was made, chief U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Eckhard had earlier said the veteran U.N. diplomat was in the room when the Governing Council made its decision but then corrected himself.

"It's not how we expected it to happen," Eckhard said of Allawi announcement.

Brahimi has been in Iraq for the past three weeks consulting with Iraqi factions and the U.S.-led administration on the composition of the new government due to take over when the Governing Council is dissolved at the end of June.

He had been expected to announce the names himself to the U.N. Security Council in early June and had been consulting with a wide variety of Iraqi leaders, not just the 25-member U.S.-selected Governing Council.

"Mr. Brahimi respects the decision and is prepared to work with this person on the selection of the other posts in this interim government," Eckhard told reporters, adding that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also respected the choice and the word "respects" had been "a carefully chosen word."

"I assume this choice will hold, but the process isn't over yet," he said. "Let wait to see what the Iraqi street has to say about this name."

Eckhard acknowledged the process was not as first envisioned but said such decisions were ultimately up to the Iraqi people and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

Brahimi would now sit down with Allawi and discuss the other names that had emerged from his consultations, with an eye to choosing candidates for president, vice president and a Cabinet, Eckhard said.

"But in the end, it is the CPA and the Governing Council that will make this decision," he said.

Escape from the Abu Ghraib bus convoys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No wonder they hate freedom

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

Link swiped from Libertarian Jackass.

A reprimand for murder in Iraq

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

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

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

Abu Ghraib for the new American Embassy

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

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

He called the idea of destroying the prison "a waste of resources."

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

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

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

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

US neocons investigated for ties to Iranian spy Chalabi

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

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

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

The strange case of the missing "terrorist"

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

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

Iraqi Council Member Ambushed.

Here's a story about an Iraqi council member getting ambushed. We know there was an ambush, but we don't know any details because the "guard" who is telling the story "sped away when the shooting started, and said he did not know what happened to the others."

I bet this guy has trouble getting his next guard job.

---

UPDATE: Another tidbit of information: Ms Al-Khafaji was among several Shiite council members who travelled to Najaf today to help nail down a deal to stop the fighting in the holy city between US soldiers and Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Graner and England, just "following orders" they liked

Following orders?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old sarin shell "Not evidence of WMD" says military

UPI reports:

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

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

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

How the FReakers really "support the troops"

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

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

On the NYT's "apology"

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

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

Is Shahristani another Curveball?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest.

No wonder the White House likes him.

Americans know Bush is hated world-wide

I wandered across this post on a right-wing, pro-war, Bushie blog:

In the next month, President Bush will be traveling a lot. Besides all the campaign stops he'll make he'll go to France and Italy to for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, he'll head to Turkey for a NATO meeting, and he'll go to Georgia for the G-8 summit. At the overseas visits there should be plenty of anti-Bush protesters. Steven Kull, director of the program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, thinks this will surprise much of the American public. What protests may do is rally them around the President. Knocking off Saddam in spite of world opinion took courage. Seeing crass and harsh displays of anti-Bushism/anti-Americanism could create a backlash with the American public. Think of it as a form of blowback. Oh, wouldn't that just tick off the anti-Bushies?

Point one, why would anti-Bush protests surprise anyone? Here are Londoners toppling Bush in effigy on Trafalgar Square November 20, 2003:

Did that surprise anyone? I think Americans know Bush is hated worldwide. Here's some fresh Baghdad Iraqi graffiti I saw today in the Canadian press:

Speaking of Canadians, you know, those people just to the North of the US? Did you ever see this poll?

Canadians to Bush: Hope You Lose, Eh

Even before we know whom he will be running against this fall, Canadians have made their decision. Only 15 per cent, according to an exclusive new Maclean's poll, would definitely cast a ballot for Bush if they had the opportunity. And if Americans remain almost evenly divided -- some 50 per cent approve of his performance in the White House and he's running neck and neck with his likely Democratic challengers -- there is no such dithering on this side of the border. Just 12 per cent of us feel Canada is better off since he took office, and only a third of respondents will admit to liking the world's most powerful man, even just a little bit.

How about this one:

80% of Canadians dislike Bush: poll "More than eight in 10 Canadians harbour a strong dislike for U.S. President George Bush, according to a new poll released, hours before Prime Minister Paul Martin met the U.S. leader on Friday.

"Eighty-two percent of people polled by Ipsos-Reid for CTV and The Globe and Mail agreed with the statement that Bush "is not necessarily a friend of Canada and doesn't really know anything when it comes to Canadian issues."

And those are your immediate neighbors. It gets worse.....

Nearly two-thirds of respondents to an international poll for the BBC say they have an unfavourable opinion of George W Bush.

The survey of 11 countries - for the television programme What The World Thinks of America, to be aired this week in the UK - revealed that 57% of the sample had a very unfavourable, or fairly unfavourable attitude towards the American President.

The figure rose to 60% when discounting the views of the American respondents.

Shall we go on? Are you seriously suggesting that Americans haven't noticed that practically the entire world thinks George Bush is a creep? Far from inspiring any Bushie-fantasy "blowback" I think it is far more likely that the Dump Bush resolve indicated by the falling approval ratings Bush has been getting lately largely because of with the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq will grow.

Using Attack Dogs on Iraqis was the idea of Guantanamo Miller

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

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

Senator Levin read aloud from the secret annex:

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

He then turned to Cambone, demanding to know:

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

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

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

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

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

"Israbluf" leads to a one state solution in Israel and Palestine

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

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

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

NY Times: Sorry Judy Miller was a credulous dupe and we printed that WMD garbage

Well, we can hope they say that anyway.

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

Americans are angry about the war: poll

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

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

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

An Anti-War Presidential Ticket?

Interesting idea posted by Libertarian Jackass:

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

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