UnFairWitness

Who is Ilario Pantano?

Time has an interesting write up on a case I've been wondering about because there seems to be a crescendo of noise on the subject building in the blogs of the 101st Fighting Chickenhawksand other fringy Fox watching lairs.

On Feb. 1, the Marine Corps charged Pantano with at least seven violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including two counts of premeditated murder. According to the charge sheet filed by the Marines, Pantano killed both Iraqis--who turned out to be unarmed--by shooting them in the back with his M-16. Pantano is also charged with "willfully and wrongfully" damaging the Iraqis' automobile by smashing its headlights, taillights and rear window. Finally, Marine prosecutors say, he desecrated the bodies of the dead, still inside the car, by placing a sign on the roof that said, in the words of General Mattis, NO BETTER FRIEND, NO WORSE ENEMY. Pantano will face a preliminary hearing, probably in April, that will decide whether his case will be referred to a general court-martial. If that happens and he is found guilty, he will face a long prison sentence or even, possibly, the death penalty. The severity of the charges--and the vociferousness of Pantano's defense, led by his family and backed by fellow Marine officers, Fox News diehards and New York prep-school alums--means that the trial will be one of the most closely watched of any to come out of the Iraq war.

Pantano's lawyer is all over the news stories, claiming that Pantano is.....innocent! Imagine that. The buzz on the warflogger circuit is also that he's innocent. This is a sure thing, like WMDs in Iraq, even though there is even less evidence public either way in Pantano's case. All we really know is that some Marines in his command turned him in and the Marines charged him. Everyone who likes Pantano and/or the war thinks he's innocent. If you're antiwar, you may not have heard of him yet. But you will!

Piling on the Jumblatteers

There's a veritable pogrom going on at Antiwar.com against warbloggers suddenly enamored of Walid Jumblatt.

See here, here and here. And then lenin weighs in here:

Yet another crazed Jumblatt quoter pops up and is efficiently dispatched by lenin.

One of the Harry's Place commenters appeals for mercy for the Jumblatteers, "Oh, leave HP alone! Can't you see they're hanging to reality by their finger-nails? :)"

Ali Fadhil: Sit down, shut up and be democratic!

Ali, the "Free Iraqi" has written an interesting post about how the New Iraqi Democracy is working out. Apparently his comment was inspired by 4,000 Sadrist militiamen marching in the streets of Basra in a show of power today.

I say no to any reconciliation with terrorists aids, their supporters and with the fanatics who justify their acts and with anyone linked to them closely. No reward should be given to them, as this is what they're asking, a reward and not our forgiveness. They have to apologize not us and then we should sue them for any crimes they may have committed, and after that they can run for offices like all honest and good Iraqis have and if they win, then it's just fine for us!

Otherwise, he says, "We should fight these terrorists and fanatics that want to infiltrate the new system we want to build and ruin it from inside with their corrupt minds and with hands that are still stained with the blood of their victims."

I think Ali put a little too much faith in the power of elections. For one thing, he didn't win - Al Sadr did. Look whose army is marching in the streets.

Videotaped Fallujah mosque killing won't be prosecuted

It is reported that a US marine, who was captured on film killing a wounded Iraqi at point blank range during November's assault on Fallujah, will not be formally charged due to lack of evidence.

Here's a video of the shooting.

Here's an eyewitness account by the person who filmed the video.

Imperial absurdities

How absurd is it for a foreign country to send troops to another foreign country and then import other foreign troops in to guard them? And when one foreign country decides to pull its troops out of the invaded country the remaining foreign country's troops have to get some other foreign country to come and guard their troops that nobody wants there in the first place?

Aussies to guard SDF troops in Iraq

Why don't we just pile a few billion dollars up and burn them and everyone go home?

Whither Chalabi?

Juan Cole has a long post up in which he analyzes the somewhat sketchy information available about the process of choosing a candidate for PM of the Iraqi Assembly. Rather surprisingly, Ahmed Chalabi is still announcing to anyone who will listen that he has the votes to become PM. Cole explains how this might actually be true and also lays out a scenario which could result in Allawi retaining power.

Interestingly, Cole thinks that the women (33% of the seats by UN rule) might be the wild card that allow Chalabi to cobble together enough votes to be a contender, but Abu Aardvark reminds us of the truckloads of blackmail files Chalabi still has.

As I was writing this post, the wires began announcing that Chalabi has withdrawn from the PM contest, so now we can take all this reasoning about PM and apply it to whatever position Chalabi announces that he will win next since he never goes away.

Chalabi photo via billmon

The Perfume Atomizer Mystery Solved!

I think Jonathan Schwarz of A Tiny Revolution has figured out the answer to The Great Perfume Atomizer Mystery.

Breaking! Stupid speech at CPAC contains the missing Iraqi WMD!!

Radley Balko, one of the "credentialed bloggers" at CPAC (CPAC stands for Bush Cult-now you know) writes in response to Yglesias and Atrios expressing "alarm" over a speech given by Rep. Chris Cox. Cox's remarks seem to indicate that he suffers under the Fox Delusion that "we" have found WMD in Iraq. Here's the relevant paragraph in Balko's transcript of Cox's speech:

We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and the facilities to make them inside of Iraq, and even more about their intended use, including that a plan to distribute sarin, and the lethal poison ricin -- in the United States and Europe -- was actively being pursued as late as March 2003. The facility where the weapons were being made also housed a large inventory of perfume atomizers of various shapes and sizes to mimic the brands on store shelves in the United States. It doesn't take a wild imagination to understand the chilling implications. It does take imagination to combat it. And that's why we're lucky have an administration that gets it.

Radley says:

Seems the first clause in the first sentence of the last paragraph is the doozy. It's the first I've heard of the perfume atomizers too, though I could very well have simply missed those stories. Iraq's not my beat, so I don't have the time to read up as thoroughly as I'd like.

Well, Iraq is my beat and I haven't heard the perfume atomizer story. Maybe it was on Fox or Talon News or someone on FreeRepublic made it up - I must admit to having skipped alot of those "news" sources. Any readers have a clue where Cox got the atomizer story?

Quotable: Tom Knapp

Quotable - Tom Knapp: Has it occurred to anyone that George W. Bush appointing a "national intelligence director" is sort of like Larry Flynt appointing a "national abstinence czar?"

FReepers at CPAC 2004

What a difference a year makes.

"Jeff Gannon" and Bobby Eberle of GOPUSA at CPAC 2004

How Manadel al-Jamadi was killed in Abu Ghraib

Manadel al-Jamadi

Today, we have a new term to add to our ever-growing torture vocabulary list along with strappado and waterboarding. It's a technique called "Palestinian hanging," not because Palestinians do it, but because Palestinians are hung that way by Israelis.

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, director of research for Physicians for Human Rights, called the hyper-extension of the arms behind the back ``clear and simple torture.'' The European Court of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of torture in 1996 in a case of Palestinian hanging - a technique Iacopino said is used worldwide but named for its alleged use by Israel in the Palestinian territories.

I looked on B'Tselem's torture page, but they didn't have an illustration of a Palestinian hanging, so just imagine your arms shackled like this:


And then being hung by those shackles.

That's what happened to Manadel al-Jamadi, the man whose picture is held by his wife and son, below.

Here's an account of his last day:

Navy SEALs apprehended al-Jamadi as a suspect in the October 27, 2003, bombing of Red Cross offices in Baghdad that killed 12 people. His alleged role in the bombing is unclear. According to court documents and testimony, the SEALs punched, kicked and struck al-Jamadi with their rifles before handing him over to the CIA early on November 4. By 7am, al-Jamadi was dead.

This isn't the first time Navy SEALs have been implicated in torture.

Al-Jamadi was one of the CIA's ``ghost'' detainees at Abu Ghraib - prisoners being held secretly by the agency.

His death in November 2003 became public with the release of photos of Abu Ghraib guards giving a thumbs-up over his bruised and puffy-faced corpse, which had been packed in ice. One of those guards was Pvt. Charles Graner, who last month received 10 years in a military prison for abusing detainees.

Al-Jamadi died in a prison shower room during about a half-hour of questioning, before interrogators could extract any information, according to the documents, which consist of statements from Army prison guards to investigators with the military and the CIA's Inspector General's office.

One Army guard, Sgt. Jeffery Frost, said the prisoner's arms were stretched behind him in a way he had never before seen. Frost told investigators he was surprised al-Jamadi's arms ``didn't pop out of their sockets,'' according to a summary of his interview.

Frost and other guards had been summoned to reposition al-Jamadi, who an interrogator said was not cooperating. As the guards released the shackles and lowered al-Jamadi, blood gushed from his mouth ``as if a faucet had been turned on,'' according to the interview summary.

The military pathologist who ruled the case a homicide found several broken ribs and concluded al-Jamadi died from pressure to the chest and difficulty breathing.

Dr. Michael Baden, a distinguished civilian pathologist who reviewed the autopsy for a defense attorney in the case, agreed in an interview that the position in which al-Jamadi was suspended could have contributed to his death.

I checked the Corner to see if anyone had written that this was just like a frat hazing, but no one has, yet.

Porter Goss Hates America

James Bovard points out that Porter Goss Hates America:

"The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists," CIA director Porter Goss told a congressional committee yesterday. “ Goss warned: “Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists. Those jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism."

Bovard: "Goss's comments are perhaps the most serious theological deviation of the Bush era. Perhaps the CIA director has forgotten that positive thinking and blind allegiance are America's best hopes in the Global War on Terrorism."

Should torture ever be permissible?

Kevin Carson comes out in favor of torture "under certain limited circumstances."

I'm afraid Condi isn't going to like his proposal.

Iraqi PM speculation premature

There's much speculation going on about the selection of the Prime Minister of the Shiite and Kurdish National Assembly. A couple of items to remember.

Parties have three days after election ballots are released to challenge the results. Al Jazeera reports today that the Iraqi Independent Electoral Commission has received six complaints from political groups challenging the results of the January 30th elections.

Even before the results were announced, the commission had received some 359 complaints from inside and outside Iraq; not only from political groups but also from tribal congregations and citizens who weren't able to vote.

There have been serious allegations of voting irregularities especially around the northern city of Mosul, further complicating the count. Some leading Sunni Arab and Christian politicians have stated that thousands of their supporters were denied the right to vote.

Considering that it took them two weeks to count the ballots in the first place, there's no telling how long it will take to sort through all the challenges.

Adel al-Lami, an official with the electoral commission said, "We received six complaints until now, but there are other complaints sent by e-mail and we haven't retrieved them yet."

That email retrieval is hard work!

Second, the rule about how a Prime Minister is to be chosen:

When the votes are counted, the Iraqi people will have elected a 275-member Transitional National Assembly. The Assembly will:

• Serve as Iraq's national legislature.


• Name a Presidency Council, consisting of a President and two Vice Presidents. (By unanimous agreement, the Presidency Council will appoint a Prime Minister and, on his recommendation, cabinet ministers.)


• Draft Iraq's new constitution, which will be presented to the Iraqi people for their approval in a national referendum in October 2005. Under the new constitution, Iraq will elect a permanent government in December 2005.

So, whoever ends up on the "Presidency Council" must be elected by the Assembly. That means there must be an Assembly before there is a PM and although we all know there will be jockeying and horse trading behind the scenes the Assembly still has to vote for three people who will unanimously choose a PM.

At this point, we don't even know the names of the candidates who were elected and we don't know how the challenges to the balloting will be settled, so although it might be amusing to speculate on the identity of the Prime Minister candidates, choosing that person is the last step of a very ambiguous and complicated process.

Bad news from the home front of War on Terror

I had no idea the war was going this badly. The Editors take us right into the bloody trenches of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders with this action-packed report from the home front:

BLOGOSPHERE (Reuters) - Declining rates of reenlistment among right-wing pundits is forcing units on the home front in the War on Terror to operate at partial strength, limiting their effectiveness, say media sources. Factors such as long tours of duty, fierce and costly battles against a ruthless and evil enemy, and carpal tunnel syndrome have taken a severe mental and physical toll on the conservative punditry, and many pundits are opting not to enlist for second or third tours. There are rumors that a draft may be necessary to ensure that cable news, talk radio and the blogosphere have sufficient manpower to defeat the terrorists and their liberal allies.
[...]
Some pundits, however, continue to serve their cause, no matter the cost. We caught up with the unit of PFC Jonah Goldberg during a pitched battle against some objectively pro-Saddam Bush-haters. Goldberg shouted over the sound of mouse clicks and key strokes exploding all around.
[...]
“It’s like this,” said Goldberg said, grabbing a fistful of Cheetos from his pack. “I believed in this fight, and my country needed me. They needed able-bodied men – doughy, able to handle the rigors of sitting in a swivel chair for seven, eight hours at a time, and not afraid to put on a little TV make-up when the shit gets heavy. So I signed up.” He spit Cheetos-orange on the carpet. “Any man who won’t opinionate for his country and what he believes … well, I don’t call that a man at all.” At that he pulled up the sleeve on his regulation-issue Tommy Hilfiger powder-blue dress shirt to show me the tattoo on his meaty, girlish bicep. 'Born to Bloviate', it read, emblazoned on the bulging tummy of the Pillsbury Doughboy - the symbol of the feared 101st Fighting Keyboarders.

The enemy had brought in a few independent studies to fortify their position. Goldberg called for reinforcements, and emails supporting his stand began pouring in. As quickly as they arrived, Goldberg posted them to his weblog on the front. The action was getting furious, and, without looking, Goldberg opened an email from an unknown address. On the monitor was the image of a single white feather. Goldberg fell back in his office chair, and hit the ground and began moaning, softly and piteously.

“Medic!” shouted Derbyshire.......

“Heh. Indeed,” remarked Reynolds, Grand Field Marshall of All Blogospheric Forces. “Read the whole thing.”

AMERICAblog outs White House fake reporter Jeff Gannon as gay USMC hooker

AMERICAblog outs White House fake reporter Jeff Gannon as gay military hooker

Why does it matter that Jeff Gannon may have been a gay hooker named James Guckert with a $20,000 defaulted court judgment against him? So he somehow got a job lobbing softball questions to the White House. Big deal. If he was already a prostitute, why not be one in the White House briefing room as well?

This is the Conservative Republican Bush White House we're talking about. It's looking increasingly like they made a decision to allow a hooker to ask the President of the United States questions. They made a decision to give a man with an alias and no journalistic experience access to the West Wing of the White House on a "daily basis." They reportedly made a decision to give him - one of only six - access to documents, or information in those documents, that exposed a clandestine CIA operative. Say what you

Gannon at a Freeper rally before the 2004 White House Correspondents' dinner in Washington. Freeper: "Angelwood"

will about Monika Lewinsky - a tasteless episode, "inappropriate," whatever. Monika wasn't a gay prostitute running around the West Wing. What kind of leadership would let prostitutes roam the halls of the West Wing? What kind of war-time leadership can't find the same information that took bloggers only days to find?

None of this is by accident.

Someone had to make a decision to let all this happen. Who? Someone committed a crime in exposing Valerie Plame and now it appears a gay hooker may be right in the middle of all of it? Who?

Ultimately, it is the hypocrisy that is such a challenge to grasp in this story. This is the same White House that ran for office on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. While they are surrounded by gay hookers? While they use a gay hooker to write articles for their gay hating political base? While they use a gay hooker to destroy a political enemy? Not to mention the hypocrisy of a "reporter" who chooses to publish article after article defending the ant-gay religious-right point of view on gay civil rights issue.

Who in the White House is at the center of all of this? Who allowed this to go on in the People's House? Who committed the crime of exposing Valerie Plame? Jeff Gannon has the answers to these questions, and boy we know he loves to talk.

Now, after you view the post by John Aravosis, this clip is even funnier: Scott McClellan calling on Jeff Gannon

UPDATE: Related: After 'Gannon,' Reporters to Meet with White House on Credentialing About time.

Iraqi elections - seats by party

Juan Cole has worked out some numbers for seats by party:

• United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite): 133 seats
• Kurdish Alliance: 71
• Iraqiya (Allawi = Secular Shiites) 38
• Iraqiyyun (al-Yawir= Sunni Arabs) 5
• Turkmen Front of Iraq 3
• Cadres and the Chosen (Sadrist Shiites) 3
• People's Union (Communist) 3
• Kurdish Islamic Coalition 2
• Organization of Islamic Action (Shiite) 2
• Democratic National Alliance (Abd Faisal Ahmad) 1
• National Mesopotamian List (Christian) 1
• Welfare and Liberation Bloc (Mash'an al-Juburi, Sunni) 1
• Caucus for Iraqi National Unity (Nahru Muhammad Abdul Karim, Sunni) 1
• Independent Democrats (Adnan Pachachi, Sunni) 1
• Iraqi Islamic Party (Muhsin Abdul Hamid, Sunni; had withdrawn) 1
• Islamic Dawa Movement (splinter of Dawa, headed by Adil Majid) 1
• Iraqi National Caucus (Husain Muhammad Abdullah) 1
• Constitutional Monarchy Movement (Sharif Ali b. Husain) 1
• Royal Iraqi Hashimi Caucus (Sharif Ma'mul al-Naysan) 1
• National Democratic Alliance (Malik Duhan al-Hasan) 1
• Democratic Iraqi Caucus (Ahmad Jabir Abdullah) 1
• National Front for Iraqi Unity 1

See his post here for the details of how it works out.

Iraqi election roundup

Numbers being reported by most wire services:

• UIA, the main Shiite list: 47.6 per cent
• PUK/KDP Kurdish coalition: 25.4 per cent
• Allawi's list: 13.6 per cent.

Reuters:

Overall turnout was 8.55 million votes, which was 58 percent of those registered to vote. The Shi'ite United Iraqi Alliance won 4.075 million votes, the Kurds won 2.175 million and Allawi's list won 1.168 million, according to the tally released by the Electoral Commission on Sunday.

MSNBC reports:

Officials said that only 3,775 valid votes were cast in the insurgency-plagued Sunni province of Anbar.

That means the minority that dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein will have few seats in the 275-member assembly that will be formed by the election — and little political influence.

Which underestimates the political influence of bombs and guns, doesn't it?

---

UPDATE: AP reports:

The United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite alliance backed by Shiite Muslim clergy): 4,075,295

The Kurdistan Alliance (coalition of two main Kurdish factions): 2,175,551

The Iraqi List (headed by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi): 1,168,943

Iraqis (headed by interim Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer): 150,680

The Turkomen Iraqi Front (represents the countries ethnic Turks): 93,480

National Independent Elites and Cadres Party: 69,938

The Communist Party: 69,920

The Islamic Kurdish Society: 60,592

The Islamic Labor Movement in Iraq: 43,205

The National Democratic Alliance: 36,795

National Rafidain List (Assyrian Christians): 36,255

The Reconciliation and Liberation Entity: 30,796

Iraqi Islamic Party (main Sunni group headed by Mohsen Abdel-Hamid): 21,342

Assembly of Independent Democrats (headed by Sunni elder statesman Adnan Pachachi): 12,728

National Democratic Party (headed by Naseer Kamel al-Chaderchi, Sunni lawyer and member of the former Iraqi Governing Council): 1,603

Total votes: 8,550,571

Invalid votes: 94,305

___

Source: Iraq's election commission.

Guckert AKA Gannon at the 2004 White House Correspondents' Dinner

Katherine Brengle of dissidentvoice.org asks:

How is it that the news site Talon News was registered on March 29, 2003, and five days later, April 3, 2003, “Gannon” is first credentialed and appears in the White House press room? Was Talon News just a vehicle created for the sole purpose of slipping a plant into the White House press room? If so, who was behind it?

Possibly someone has already answered this question, but how did "Gannon" get into the White House Correspondent's Dinner on May 1, 2004? You'll remember that notorious dinner featuring the "joke" slideshow in which Bush pretended to look for WMD in his office, ha ha ha.

Here's a picture of Gannon at the White House Correspondents Dinner with Freeper "Angelwood" that I swiped off FreeRepublic.

How does a person get invited to the dinner, anyway?

Iraq Election Results Available Tomorrow?

Well, war has broken out yet again in Mosul, but never mind all that because, finally, two weeks after the "elections" we are promised results, allegedly by tomorrow morning. The suspense is a killer, but by tomorrow, we might know by what margin Ayatollah Sistani has won control of Iraq! The indispensable and indefatigable lenin has a roundup of Iraqi election news that really sets the tone for the big news tomorrow.

We're told that after the results are announced, there will be three days for lodging complaints, which should be an interesting three days, considering the protests disenfranchised Iraqis have held this week.

Baghdad election turnout >50%?

Knight Ridder's Tom Lasseter reports some Iraqi election returns:

In final results released Friday for local elections in Baghdad, a city with large Sunni neighborhoods, Shiite cleric-led parties posted large numbers and Sunni tickets gathered relatively few votes.

The local ticket backed by the Shiite Dawa party got 694,800 votes; the ticket backed by the Shiite Supreme Council for Revolution in Iraq got 264,130 votes; and another Shiite group received 156,229 votes.

The slate headed by elder Sunni statesman Adnan Pachachi received just 22,170 votes; and the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni party in Iraq, got 17,558.

That would mean that in a city of approximately 5 million, 1,154,887 voted. If we assume 2.5 million were eligible to vote, that would mean the turnout in Baghdad was less than 50%.

Ali Fadhil: The Right Iraqi

Ali, disgruntled former IraqtheModel blogger, now of the Free Iraqi blog decided to comment on the Michael Totten post in which he tells of how he and Christopher Hitchens manage to piss some Iraqis off so badly, they nearly came to blows in a restaurant.

Shorter Ali: You should've picked me!

True to form, he comes up with an anecdote to illustrate his point:

Ghassan AL Atiyyah happens to be a friend of my father, not a close one though. This man wants to include the "resistance" in the political process in Iraq. This maybe a good cause if it's done to save Iraq from further meaningless violence, but the problem is that Mr. Atiyyah sees that the "resistance" has actually done Iraq good by forcing the Americans to work harder!
This reminds me with a conversation I had with a similarly disturbed-minded friend who was hailing the "resistance". I asked him if he wanted the Americans to leave and he replied, "of course not! That would lead to a disaster" and I said, "then why do you support them in killing Americans?" and he said, "it's good for us because when they get attacked they work better and faster in rebuilding Iraq since such attacks would show them they're not doing a good job" I swear to God this was his answer!

Do Muslims swear to God? Just asking. Anyway, here's the main mistake Americans made in Iraq, according to Ali:

"...such quarrels are avoidable and such impressions could be changed if they had hosted and seeked the assistance of the right Iraqis.

Well, there you go. But, there's still hope!

I was asked many times what are America's mistakes in Iraq and I didn't answer for many reasons. First because I'm truly too grateful to count America's mistakes, second because I didn't think this was a policy but rather a mistake out of understandable ignorance and one that would be corrected fast.

But it wasn't corrected fast! Ali is still blogging and not running things in Iraq. Maybe Ahmed Chalabi needs an aide.

Oh, and lest you be left with the mistaken impression that Ali represented Ghassan AL Atiyyah's views correctly when he attributes this bizarre view to him, Mr. Atiyyah sees that the "resistance" has actually done Iraq good by forcing the Americans to work harder!, here's a real quote:

On January 30, 2005, elections will be held for an Iraqi National Assembly, which will draft the new Iraqi constitution. These elections could be instrumental in bolstering the new government and helping Iraq out of its current quagmire. Yet, they must be administered in a manner that does not lead to civil war. In particular, Sunni Arab moderates must be empowered. Although Sunni Arabs are a minority in Iraq, they are still very influential. An Iraq without a role for the Sunni Arabs would be as unworkable as a Lebanon without a role for the Maronites. Sunni Arabs are also needed as a balancing force between the Shiites and the Kurds. Without their active presence in political institutions, Iraq could become polarized between Kurds and extremist Shiites.

Accordingly, Iraqis must reach prior agreement on electoral policies that allow for Sunni Arab participation.

Yeah, I can't imagine why this "disturbed-minded" guy is more respected than Ali.

Wheels coming off Iraqi Election Wagon

AFP reports:

Hundreds of Arab and Turkmen protestors took to the streets of Iraq's disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk Friday, charging that last month's election had been riddled with fraud and demanding a re-run.

"No, no to federalism! No, no to fraud!", chanted the demonstrators, who gathered in the city centre before heading south to march past the offices of the two main Kurdish parties.

Kurds want Kirkuk to be made the capital of an enlarged autonomous region, and thousands of Kurds who were displaced from the city under Saddam Hussein were allowed to vote two weeks ago.

"There are documents and plenty of evidence showing that fraud took place during the elections in Kirkuk," said a statement which was distributed to protestors and signed by 16 Arab and Turkmen groups.

Among the signatories were the Ankara-funded Iraqi Turkmen Front, the Shiite religious party Dawa, and the movement of Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr.

"We ask for new elections to be held in Kirkuk to guarantee they are transparent, because Kirkuk is on the edge of a flaming pit," the document said.

Turkmen, Dawa and Sadrists? An odd combination, although if you consider the fact that whoever controls Kirkuk controls the northern Iraqi oil, it is reasonable for the Shi`a (Dawa and the Sadrists are Shiite) and Turkmen, who want a united Iraq, to object to the Kurds' attempt to hijack it.

The New Shi`a Army of Iraq

Bronwen Maddox in The Times reports:

It is also encouraging — up to a point — that the recruiting drive to the security forces has seen such interest from Shias. Some Iraqi security officers have told The Times that Shia recruitments make up as much as three quarters of the total.

If true, we now have a Shi`a government with a US-trained Shi`a security force in place in Iraq. One might even speculate as to whether the Badr Brigades are the New Iraqi Army.

Chaos in Iraq

It's unclear exactly what is going on south of Baghdad other than utter chaos, but here are two bizarre stories in the news today:

• At least 10 Iraqi policemen were killed in a gun battle with insurgents south of Baghdad on Thursday, police sources said.

  The battle, near the town of Salman Pak, about 65 km (40 miles) southeast of Baghdad, continued for several hours. Earlier police sources said at least 65 officers had been wounded.

  The fighting was so fierce that police reinforcements were unable to reach many of the wounded or recover the dead, who were left lying in the road.



• The bodies of more than 20 Iraqi drivers and security forces from a convoy of government trucks carrying sugar have been found south of Baghdad, police said.

  The drivers had all been burned in their vehicles. Police said they believed the convoy was attacked at least two days ago.

  "This morning a police patrol was in the Suwairah region and found about 20 vehicles that were taking sugar to Baghdad. They were all burned," said a police official.

  Suwairah is about 60 kilometres south of Baghdad.

  As well as the drivers, two policemen and two soldiers who were protecting the convoy were also killed, the official told AFP.

  "The bodies were rotting in the vehicles which indicates the attack was at least two days ago," he added.

UPDATE: A little more info on these two related incidents is coming out:

BAGHDAD : US helicopters attacked an Iraqi police station overrun by rebels as the Islamic new year started with dozens more deaths at insurgent hands.

At least six police were killed in the rebel assault on the police station, while the rotting bodies of more than 20 drivers from a government food convoy were found in the same region south of the capital, dubbed the triangle of death, and a dozen people were killed in other violence.

The US military sent in helicopters after insurgents overran the police station at Salman Pak, following a siege that lasted several hours.

The rebels had fired anti-tank rockets at the building, police said.

"The insurgents did assume control of the police station temporarily," a US military spokesman told AFP. "We attacked them with helicopters, which fired missiles, and the insurgents fled."

The US spokesman said six police and an unknown number of insurgents were killed. An official at Kindi hospital in Baghdad said earlier that 42 police were wounded in the fighting and two had died in hospital.

The bodies of more than 20 truck drivers and four Iraqi police and soldiers were found in the same region. Their convoy had been attacked at least two days earlier, police said, but no one had dared touch them.

The convoy had been taking sugar to Baghdad for food warehouses which distribute monthly rations. They were attacked on the road from Salman Pak to nearby Suwairah.

US MP Party girls in Iraq - Mudwrestling and boob-O-rama - Photos

WIIIAI writes:

I’m getting a certain amount of traffic today from search engines because Monday I mentioned mud-wrestling contests among American women MPs at one of our prison camps in Iraq. People want to see the pictures. You’ve gotta love the assumptions the Internet has created that if there is such an event, there will be pictures (in fact there are) and they will be posted to the internet (not yet). Information wants to be free, especially when it involves women mud-wrestling.

Well, I've been looking for a good excuse to post this picture:

That would be Miss Deanna Allen.

The photos showed at least three female soldiers baring their breasts to male soldiers and other women GIs in bras and panties wrestling in a plastic pool full of mud as men were cheering and snapping pictures.

One U.S. female soldier, identified as Deanna Allen, 19, of Black Mountain, N.C., was found guilty of indecent exposure and was demoted from specialist to private first class, but she is still a guard at the camp.

And some mudwrestling:

Iraqi vote recounts and rejected ballots

Ballot-counting in Iraq isn't going very well:

Iraqi officials said Wednesday they must recount votes from about 300 ballot boxes because of various discrepancies, delaying final results from the landmark national elections. Hundreds perhaps thousands of other ballots were declared invalid because of alleged tampering.
[...]
Officials had promised final results from the elections by Thursday, the end of the Iraqi work week. On Wednesday, however, election commission spokesman Farid Ayar said the deadline would not be met because of the recount.

''We don't know when this will finish,'' he said. ''This will lead to a little postponement in announcing the results.''
[...]
Commission official Adel al-Lami said the ballots in 40 boxes and 250 bags would not be counted because they appeared to have been stuffed inside them or, in some cases, improperly folded. Some of the boxes were not those approved by the commission, and others were improperly sealed, he said.

Already some factions have dismissed the election as illegitimate based on the fact that it was held under occupation. Thousands of Iraqis have protested the election because they weren't allowed to vote due to shortages of ballots and in some cases, polling centers that were never opened. Now there appear to be some substantial issues with a large number of ballots.

IDF attacks Israeli town

Whoops! The IDF "accidentally" attacks an Israeli town with fake Katyusha rockets.

via xymphora

Leave Iraq ASAP.

You'll never believe who said this:

I am — just bite down hard and say it, man — with Senator Edward Kennedy on this. I want U.S. forces to leave Iraq ASAP. If the place then descends into chaos, I'm fine with it. What's that you say? It would be awful hard on the Iraqis? Probably so. It would certainly be hard on those brave, civic-minded Iraqis — there are plenty of them — who would like to see constitutional government in their nation. However, there are people like that all over the world — there are scads of them in China, including some personal friends of mine. (To be a bit more precise, there are scads of them who are Chinese, though many now live in the West.) We can only do so much. God knows, we have done enough for Iraq, with blood and treasure. The rest is up to the Iraqis. If they make a pig's ear of it, that's a shame, but I can't see why it's our problem. There are lots of messed-up countries in the world. Iraq will be another one.

Answer here.

3 Egyptian hostage stories

Pick the version you like best:

1) U.S. troops manning a checkpoint Monday discovered four Egyptian technicians who had been kidnapped the day before in Baghdad, an Egyptian diplomat said. The four were freed and some arrests were made, he added.

2) Four Egyptian telecom engineers kidnapped in Baghdad have been released, Egyptian embassy sources and a spokesman for their company say.

"They were released this afternoon at around 6:30pm [local time]," Orascom spokesman Shamel Hanafi said.

"They are in good health and no ransom was paid. They should be leaving the country tomorrow early in the morning."

3) U.S. forces in Iraq stormed a house in Baghdad on Monday and freed Egyptian telecommunications engineers kidnapped since Sunday, the head of their Egyptian parent company said.

Naguib Sawiris, chairman of Egypt's Orascom Telecom, said U.S. forces raided a villa, possibly in the mainly Sunni al-Aadhamiya district, and freed two of the four Egyptians. The other two managed to escape on their own from a car they had been locked in, he added.

"All four are free," Sawiris told Reuters by telephone from Algeria.

"Two were released when U.S. forces barged into where they were being held in Baghdad and the other two escaped on their own ... The Americans caught one of the kidnappers," he said.

The conservative jihad against the press

FAKE. But, whodunit?

I see the conservative warblogs are on yet another anti-media jihad, so it looks like the US soldier hostage hoax needs to be revisited. To recap, the story of the US soldier hostage was broken by the AP under Robert Reid's byline from Baghdad. Reid reported:

Feb 1, 3:03 PM (ET)By ROBERT H. REID
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi militants claimed in a Web statement Tuesday to have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners. The U.S. military said it was investigating, but the claim's authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.

The posting, on a Web site that frequently carried militants' statements, included a photo of what that statement said was an American soldier, wearing desert fatigues and seated on a concrete floor with his hands tied behind his back. The figure in the photo appeared stiff and expressionless, and the photo's authenticity could not be confirmed.

Almost instantaneously, the story was "debunked" by...who else....Matt Drudge. Drudge's splashy title for his scoop, GI JOE: MILITANTS TAKE 'TOY' HOSTAGE; IRAQI WEBSITE WAS CLIP ART, was fortunately quickly picked up by bloggers, because it was eclipsed by the Pope's hospitalization (screen shot here.) The interesting thing about Drudge's scoop is the claim about "clip art." In not one news report will you find that allegation. I looked at the time and wondered where he got that bit of information, but assumed it would eventually be written up somewhere as the story developed, but it never was. So, where did Drudge get it? If anyone has any idea, email me and I'll post a correction.

So, why the warblogger flogging of a story that most commenters wrote off as an example of how idiotic the Iraqi jihadis are? Clearly, discrediting and ridiculing the jihadis was at least one purpose of the hoax. On that aspect, Antiwar.com reader "DK" identifies the most likely source of the hoax:

Having served in a military intelligence unit, I can tell you that this is most likely a "psy-ops" mission designed to undermine the credibility of the resistance. The chance of such an idea coming to the mind of Iraqis is very slim...even slimmer is the chance that one of these brand-new toys could be found in war-torn Iraq.

The media has been duped yet again. The "psy-ops" boys are chuckling in their underground bunkers.

Drudge's singular "clipart" claim is yet another clue that DK is right, as is the fact that the AP's Robert Reid, a veteran Middle East correspondent who has covered Iraq since 2002, was taken in, which raises the question of who could plausibly feed a fake story to Robert Reid. The warbloggers and Conservative noisemakers clearly want the impression to be that Reid was given the story by jihadis, thus implying, in keeping with one of their favorite themes, that the press is in bed with jihadi elements of the Iraqi resistance. We can thank Drudge's blundering headline for showing that to be false, because if the website was "clipart" then it wasn't a real jihadi website, now was it? It was a fake website and the question is whose fake website? If a fake website was put up, using clipart, it would then stand to reason that Reid was given his tip-off by the US military, which monitors jihadi websites, and was also provided a translation of the fake "statement" that accompanied the picture. The fake jihadi website probably existed just long enough to convince Reid that his source had evidence for his story and then it was pulled off the web before it could be examined in any detail. The mistake was made when it was leaked to Drudge who emphasized the media dupes falling for the fake story angle and triumphantly posting his clipart claim, which almost ruined the story's usefulness for the next phase. But for the few blogs which reproduced his headline verbatim and google cache, the slip-up would have disapeared.

Along with the notion of the press being in bed with the resistance, the conservative jihad against the press aims to create enough noise to discredit selected "bad news" from Iraq, as well as whip up some manufactured outrage on their scandal du jour, which, if successful, will take out Eason Jordan of CNN. The noise machine run by the War Party is in full swing on this issue. Here's a major conservative noisemaker tying it all together, with a little help from conservative propaganda tool Jack Kelly:

I though I was the only one who noticed that the fake hostage story, the alleged terrorist downing of a British C-130 transport, and the Eason Jordan controversy were related...

Jack Kelly, in The Toledo Blade The Pittsburgh Post Gazette , ties them altogether and notes ironically that the media has become a PR firm for terrorist organizations.

It's also interesting that the terrorists turned to the news media to recover lost momentum. Journalists who fell for these hoaxes may merely be idiots, and their silence about the implications of the hoaxes may simply be the by product of embarrassment. But the Web logger Shannon Love (Chicago Boyz) wonders:

"Why were the major media so quick to disseminate pictures of an action figure as a genuine hostage photo?" More to the point, why are major media so quick to disseminate anything that a terrorist group, or purported terrorist group, releases? ... For the terrorist, it is like being given millions of dollars in free advertising."

The story is why the story behind the failings at the AP and CNN is not being told anywhere except the blogosphere.

Emphasis above is mine. Read through the Who's Who of warblogging conservatives' comments here, and it is striking how they all hit exactly the same note.

All who value liberty should raise their voice in opposition to the demonstrated fascistic mentality of this conservative brownshirt lynch mob before they go any further in establishing the Police Statopia they crave, for which the destruction of the press is but one step.

Sistani: Islam sole source of legislation

Hot on the heels of Rumsfeld's statement today:

"The Shia in Iraq are Iraqis they are not Iranians, and the idea that they are going to end up with a government like Iran with a handful of mullahs controlling the country, I think is unlikely," Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

He said Iraq like other Muslim countries would find a way to include Islamic principles into the new constitution, which will be written after the results of last week's elections are known, without having religion dominate the new government.

The mullah in charge of Iraq announced:

Iraq's Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and another top cleric staked out a radical demand that Islam be the sole source of legislation in the country's new constitution.

One cleric issued a statement setting out the position and the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites made it known straight away that he backed demands for the Koran to be the reference point for legislation.

The national assembly formed after last month's historic elections is to oversee the drawing up of the new constitution and Sistani is the figurehead of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance expected to become the largest single bloc.

The role of Islam has been at the heart of months of debate between rival parties and factions as well as the US-led occupation authority which administered Iraq until last June.

Sistani leads the five most important clerics, known as marja al-taqlid, or objects of emulation, who had portrayed a more moderate stance going into the election.

The surprise statement was released by Sheikh Ibrahim Ibrahimi, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq al-Fayad, another of the marja.

"All of the ulema (clergy) and marja, and the majority of the Iraqi people, want the national assembly to make Islam the source of legislation in the permanent constitution and to reject any law that is contrary to Islam," said the statement.

A source close to Sistani announced soon after the release of the statement that the spiritual leader backed the demand.

"The marja has priorities concerning the formation of the government and the constitution. It wants the source of legislation to be Islam," said the source.

"We advise the government not to take decisions which would shock Muslims, such as the conscription of Muslims and the publication of their photos with foreign instructors," Ibrahimi went on his statement.

"We warn officials against a separation of the state and religion, because this is completely rejected by the ulema and marja and we will accept no compromise on this question.

"If they (the government) want the stability and security of the country, they must not touch the country's Islamic values and traditions," the sheikh said.

Rumsfeld should have consulted with the guy running the joint before shooting his mouth off, now that Iraq has been "liberated."

Prescient "Sting" graphic via Billmon.

Jonah Goldberg: Hypocrite, Chickenhawk

Chickenhawk:

"In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, "Why aren't we killing people yet?" And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people. Call it a "forceful response," "decisive action" — whatever. Those are all nice euphemisms for killing people. And the world is a better place because America saw the necessity of putting steel beneath the velvet of those euphemisms."

-- Jonah Goldberg

Chickenhawk:

I think that war with Iraq is necessary to save lives in the long run. I think that those who are opposed to toppling Saddam are risking American (and Arab and Israeli) lives too.

Soldiers will die in any war, that's why they call it war.

-- Jonah Goldberg