Galloway: A Pack of Lies

If you ever wanted to hear a bunch of US Senators get told off, here's your chance.

George Galloway: Your case for war was a pack of lies.

MP3 courtesy of Crooks and Liars (they have a Realplayer video version if you prefer)

Are the documents implicating Galloway forgeries?

Galloway vs. The US Senate: Transcript of Statement 

Comments

[ow]

Tex,

Any idea where you can find a transcript of Galloway's speech?

These US politicians should know better than to mess with the Brits. With all the debating practice they get in Parliment they will eat your typical US politician alive - which it sounds like is what Galloway did.

[tex]

Here it is

Cheers!

[Frank Brockerman]

I found this quite interesting and thought you may as it begs the question, yet again, what liberal media?

In reference to U.K. MP Galloway's comments before the Senate panel this morning, he said, "I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies."

As of 2:23pm (PST), on CNN.com, their headlines portray something quite different. On their main page, the link to the full story says "U.K. lawmaker: Oil-for-food charges 'a pack of lies'."

And, when you go to that link (http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/17/oil.food/index.html)
the major thrust of his accusations are turned around. In between the third and fourth paragraphs talking about the oil-for-food scandal is the sentence :"He called the accusations against him "a pack of lies." When, in fact, he never did!

I called CNN and got routed to a Carolyn in the Public Information department who said she would pass my comment on.

How much more obvious do things need to be?

[ow]

Just read it - man what a total smackdown!!!!

Incredible, I defintely want to go home and see this on TV tonight just so I can watch what the stupid US Senators managed to stutter and get out of their mouths.

Like I say US politicians who don't know how to do anything but read whats on a teleprompter shouldn't mess with people who are used to debating in the British Pariliment. And at the very least, they should get their facts right so they don't look COMPLETELY stupid.

[tex]

Frank,

Fortunately, the video is all over, so at least they can't lie to people on the internet. That's the only encouraging thing I can think of to say about your post.

[tex]

ow,

The BBC website has the whole thing. It's very inspiring.

BBC Video

[Helen]

Thank you for posting this. I'm sure it makes people angry, both left and right. Me, it's just makes me want to cry.
Peace..............

[trithserum]

Now that's entertainment!!

[Suzanne]

I just listened to/watched the entire video as it is on BBC. Now, I have been suspect of the Iraq war premises, but I did not find Mr. Galloway's arguments to be convincing. He repeatedly did not speak to the questions that were being asked of him, and answered in ways that seemed like they were trying to divert attention away from the questions.

[James]

As a brit and a Scot. I can tell you that trying to intimdate "Gorgeous george" was a huge mistake on the part of your politicos.

They may have looked on it as daniel entering the lair of the lion, but after the former MP for Hillhead was finished with them it look more like a lion had entered a lair full of daniels.

[john]

well, he is from the west coast (scotland) so what do you expect?
as for the comments regarding not answering questions, pretty bog standard for politicians over here I'm afraid. I take it nobody gave big dod the script before he spoke?

[LenaDavid]

Please visit Galloway's RESPECT.com site.

I downloaded 5 minutes and have watched it again and again but online my computer doesn't play vids right and I started to download the whole magnificient solioquy but was afraid to keep my computer open for more than an hour while it downloaded because I've had trouble in the past doing that.

I did read and print out the transcript and left it in and around various stores in my BE THE MEDIA CAMPAIGN.

It is disgraceful that they struck Galloway's testimony from the Congressional Record and my short vid is of the camera just on Galloway but I have read and the photos over Galloway's shoulder seem to bear out the fact that the 13 or so Congressional members on the Oil For Food Scandal Committee were so intimidated by Galloway's reputation and the paucity of truth in the Rovian (attempted) smear of Galloway that only two Senators had the courage or fear of repercussions from the White House IF NOBODY SHOWED UP to question Galloway after the things they accused him of.

I believe Galloway when he said he gave his heart and soul and political career (and given the murderous nature of the Bush Crime Family, risked his family) by standing up to the Labor Party and indirectly to the Bush and Bilderberger rampage of genocidal murder and torture to steal Iraqi and other OPEC countries resources.

~Urge Congress to Establish Independent Commission to Investigate Detainee Abuse

Urge Congress to adopt legislation to establish an independent commission to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody and determine responsibility up the chain of command. Urge Members of Congress to cosponsor and pass H.R. 3033, introduced by Congressman Henry Waxman, or similar legislation establishing an independent commission.

***Iraqi detainees hold a fence as they watch the release of prisoners leaving the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. © AFP.

Support Independent Commission to Investigate Detainee Abuse
Amnesty International has received reports of torture or ill-treatment from released detainees who were held in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and other detention centers. Extensive evidence suggests that these are not isolated incidents. Call for an independent commission to investigate reports of detainee abuse and determine responsibility up the chain of command. Take action.

Denounce Torture Campaign: Full coverage. »
2005 Annual Report: Flash video. »
Latest news | More: What people are saying.

****http://www.amnestyusa.org/***If you've seen the news over the last week, you know about the release of our partner Amnesty International's Annual Report and their criticisms of human rights abuses by the U.S. government in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other detention camps around the world. You may have heard Bill Schulz, their Executive Director, on NPR or seen him on CNN, NBC, or Hardball.

Amnesty has exposed widespread abuses. Now we're asking you to help Amnesty build momentum for an independent commission and appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate fully what happened in these detention centers and hold anyone responsible accountable. Please click here:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/24673

Thank you!

Hilary S.
Environmental Activism Manager,
Care2.com

PS: Check out Amnesty's flash video here:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/24673

****Bush/Cheney started negotiations with Halliburton Brown and Root, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton and still received 3/4 of million dollars a year according to his tax returns for "services rendered" to Halliburton when he left more than 6 years ago. WAR PROFITEERING IS ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL!

~~~~~~~~

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Contract_that_spawned_Guantanamo_prisons_awarded_to_Halliburton_during_Cheneys_tenur_062

Pentagon auditors have also suggested KBR overcharged the Army by as much as 40 percent for dining facilities.

Formerly Brown & Root, the firm has a long and checkered history in military contracting.

It was among a consortium of firms charged with building hospitals in Vietnam during the U.S. engagement there, and was accused of pilfering millions from Pentagon coffers.

In 1967, the General Accounting Office faulted the firm for massive accounting lapses and for allowing thefts of materials. The company earned a nickname--Burn & Loot—and drew anti-war protesters who bemoaned the contracts as the embodiment of what President Dwight Eisenhower had called the military-industrial complex.

KBR received $5.5 billion in Iraq contracts for fiscal year 2004, and has billed the U.S. $10.5 billion so far to provide logistical support for the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Army awarded the firm a $72 million bonus in May for work in Iraq. They gave the firm the top ratings of "excellent" and "very good."

Halliburton said earlier this year it will seek to spin off KBR in a sale, spinoff or public offering.

1.html****http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/2am-index-eng

***
http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/693L9H?OpenDocument&style=custo_print

**The escalation of violence resulted in a shortage of water and sanitary facilities in many areas, with the ICRC responding to the needs of thousands of displaced families affected in Fallujah, Talafar and Najaf.

To address the basic needs of the population, a team of ICRC engineers, architects and technicians support local water boards and, in some cases, carry out direct repairs to local water production and treatment plants.

****
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11880379.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

GUANTANAMO BAY

Terror prison debate growing louder

More lawmakers said Congress should tackle the touchy topic of Guantánamo detention policy; meanwhile, Time magazine revealed some classified interrogation techniques.

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@herald.com

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle Sunday urged inquiries into the fate and policies of the Guantánamo Bay terror prison -- the same day Time magazine revealed explicit details about the interrogation of a captive who was compelled to urinate on himself and bark like a dog at the base in Cuba.

''We need to look at this issue thoroughly, both in open and closed session,'' said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press.

The goal, Weldon said, would be to ``come to a final determination as to whether or not this facility has, in fact, lost its viability.''

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein added on CNN's Late Edition: ``My own view is that we need to take a very good look at it. We need to come up with some recommendation to the administration. Not that they listen. But for our consciences, and I think for the purposes of justice, we need to do that.''

The White House said again Sunday that the captives at Guantánamo Bay ''seek to do harm to America,'' but added that the Bush administration has not ruled out alternatives to holding detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

''The president believes we should always be looking at all our options when it comes to how we best protect the American people. We should never limit our options,'' said White House spokesman David Almacy.

However, The Associated Press on Sunday quoted Vice President Dick Cheney as saying the United States has no current plans to close Guantánamo, and that it holds ''bad people.'' AP said he made the remarks Friday in an interview to be aired today on the Fox
News Channel.

The topic dominated Sunday news programs the same day Time magazine published explicit excerpts from a Pentagon-authenticated military interrogation log of Detainee 063 -- Mohamed al Kahtani, a Saudi -- who was thought by U.S. intelligence at one point to be the missing 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Time said the log shows that interrogators refused to permit Kahtani to go to the bathroom, leaving him strapped to a chair with an intravenous drip to urinate on himself.

They also taught him to ''bark,'' ''stay'' and ''come'' like a dog, to humiliate him; and forced him to stand nude, ostensibly to break his will to resist his U.S. interrogators.

The Pentagon issued an unusual and lengthy defense of the contents of the ''compromised classified interrogation log,'' which spans 84 pages and 50 days starting in November 2002. Kahtani's interrogations gave the U.S. a ''clear picture'' of the captive's links to al
Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, it said.

Kahtani was captured on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and taken to the prison camp in Cuba in February 2002, the Pentagon said, adding that U.S. immigration agents at Orlando airport had refused him entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Pentagon statement, however, does not contest the lurid details in the Time report, and does not make clear whether Kahtani has been moved from the base.

Feinstein, a senior member of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, ridiculed tactics used against Kahtani at Guantánamo as ill-advised.

''I don't know what tree we're barking up or why we're doing this,'' she said on CNN, noting that there never has been evidence that the Sept. 11 hijackers knew what they would be asked to do before they entered the United States.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., urged congressional intervention but did not echo fellow Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez in saying the Bush administration should consider simply closing the prison camp as a public relations gesture.

Rather, Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, advocated a more wide-ranging look at the policy that permits the Pentagon to hold 520 captives as so-called enemy combatants in southeast Cuba.

''This can't be a situation where we hold them forever and ever and ever until they die of old age,'' Hagel said.

On Wednesday, President Bush said his administration is always looking for alternatives on what to do about the detainees -- just hours after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in Europe that no one in the executive branch was considering an exit strategy.

Congress has never held public hearings specifically on the fate, financing or legal framework of the Pentagon's prison camp for alleged terrorists. On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee will examine overall detention policy, with an eye to making changes to how the cases of enemy combatants are handled in federal courts.

Previously, members of Congress have made day trips to the prison camp and usually have declared it humane. The Pentagon noted in its defense of treatment there on Sunday that 187 members of Congress or their staff have visited the base in three years.

In a rare dissent, Republican Sen. John McCain, an ex-Navy pilot held prisoner of war for six years by the Vietnamese, toured the prison in December 2003 then wrote Rumsfeld of his concern over the prisoners' state of legal limbo. Fellow Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., joined McCain on the tour and in the letter to Rumsfeld.

On Sunday, Graham said closing the base ''would be an overreaction'' but the Congress and the Bush administration need to ``come up with standard policies on detention and interrogation.''

Graham, who served in the Air Force as an attorney, said on CBS' Face the Nation: ``We need a place like Guantánamo Bay to house people we take off the battlefield in the war on terror, to interrogate them to get information to make us safer as a nation, and to hold them accountable. . . . Nobody is going to say move it to Florida, South Carolina, or Vermont, so I think Cuba is as good a place as any.''

Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., D-Del., kicked off the latest round of Guantánamo controversy a week ago -- arguing that the Bush administration should shut down the base because allegations of abuse there, true or not, have put Americans at greater risk.

By Sunday, the discussion on Guantánamo appeared to be bifurcating -- between whether and how to close it and whether and how much to investigate interrogation techniques used there, and who was responsible.

Either there's ''a culture of leadership or there's not a culture of leadership. Then there's a vacuum of leadership,'' said Hagel on CNN. ``If there's a vacuum, something will fill that vacuum. This kind of stuff fills a vacuum. It needs to be stopped. We have been reassured
over the last two years it's not happening when in fact it is happening.''

~~~~~~~~~~

News on Veterans for Common Sense today:
The Senate Judiciary Committee debates the legal rights of detainees at the U.S. Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The panel is also considering what branch or branches of government are authorized to determine procedures for prisoners

NPR: Senate Debates Treatment of Detainees

The alleged mistreatment of detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay sets off a heated Senate debate. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, compared a description of mistreatment -- submitted to a Pentagon investigator by an F-B-I agent -- to actions carried out by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Some Republicans accused Durbin of maligning American military personnel.

Medics Are Ordered to Report Abuse

The Defense Department's top health affairs official this week instructed all medical personnel who treat detainees in U.S. custody to report any suspected inhumane treatment and to protect their patients as they would U.S. soldiers, a new set of guidelines after
allegations of medic participation in abuse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
{4 American medical personnel who tried to do that died under very mysterious circumstances at Guantanamo Bay!}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Durbin Defends Guantanamo Comments

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) drew a White House rebuke yesterday for comparing the treatment of prisoners at the naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the interrogation tactics of the Nazis and the Soviet gulags. But Durbin defended his comments and said conditions there were not worthy of a democracy such as the United States.

Senate Makes Environment the Focus of Energy Bill

Heading toward a collision with the House and White House, the Senate sought Thursday to put an environmentally friendly stamp on its energy legislation as lawmakers and

President Bush struggle to agree on an elusive national power policy.

Antiwar Group Says Leaked British Memo Shows Bush Misled Public...
Opponents of the war in Iraq held an unofficial hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday to draw attention to a leaked British government document that they say proves their case that President Bush misled the public about his war plans in 2002 and distorted
intelligence to support his policy.

Patriots Against USA PATRIOT ACT

The editors of Esquire magazine once wrote, “If there is one thing that always comes out of a terrible tragedy, it is really dumb legislation.” On October 25, 2001, a mere 45 days after the 9/11attacks, Congress passed, with virtually no debate, House Resolution 3162, entitled “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” Act. You’ve probably heard it called by its ominous
acronym: USA PATRIOT.

U.S. Democrats cite British memo in Bolton fight

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats rejected a Republican compromise over John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador on Thursday and cited a British report backing their view that the Bush administration hyped intelligence on Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

Memo: Pentagon Concerned About Legality of Interrogation Techniques
The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws, ABC News has learned. Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 -- obtained by ABC News -- show that Alberto Mora, general
counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law.

During a January 2003 meeting involving top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes and other officials, the memo shows that Mora warned that "use of coercive techniques ... has military, legal, and political implication ... has international implication ... and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution."

Torture and Partisan Politics

In hearings this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Congress for the first time in many months began to address the issue of treatment of detainees and prisoners in the War on Terror. However, instead of addressing the abuses, partisan politicians are attacking
the messenger. White House press secretary Scott McClellan called the remarks of Senator Dick Durbin "reprehensible" and suggested that Durbin was attacking the troops.

Further remarks came from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner and others. Help spread the word that we need a real investigation -- not partisan spin.

In the American Bunker

I saw a movie last night that was excellent. It was also awful. The film was "The Downfall", the reputedly historically accurate depiction of the end of the Third Reich, showing Hitler and his crew holed up in their Berlin bunker, awaiting their appointment
with the Russian Army.

It was excellent in that it portrayed this scene so vividly, and it was awful because of the scene it so vividly portrayed. In the film, we see what happened when Germany allowed an emotionally ravenous psychopath to sate the voracious demands of his personal insecurities upon the world's stage.

U.S. raids test Iraqis' patience

In the uncertainty created by Iraq's insurgency, anyone might be the enemy. So with weapons drawn, a dozen U.S. soldiers charged down the ramps of their armored Stryker vehicles, roughly yanked three Iraqi students out of a car by their necks and shoved their faces into a nearby wall. "What's your name? Where are you going? Don't lie to me!" Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla shouted at the first teenager. "To my house to study," the trembling young man answered. "We have exams next week."

For troops on patrol, threats lurk at every step. Staff Sgt. Justin Sabo stood June 8 in the bright sunlight of a garbage-strewn street, looking up at the windows of homes. He wonders if anyone is looking down at him, wanting to kill him.

[LenaDavid]

Please visit Galloway's RESPECT.com site.

I downloaded 5 minutes and have watched it again and again but online my computer doesn't play vids right and I started to download the whole magnificient solioquy but was afraid to keep my computer open for more than an hour while it downloaded because I've had trouble in the past doing that.

I did read and print out the transcript and left it in and around various stores in my BE THE MEDIA CAMPAIGN.

It is disgraceful that they struck Galloway's testimony from the Congressional Record and my short vid is of the camera just on Galloway but I have read and the photos over Galloway's shoulder seem to bear out the fact that the 13 or so Congressional members on the Oil For Food Scandal Committee were so intimidated by Galloway's reputation and the paucity of truth in the Rovian (attempted) smear of Galloway that only two Senators had the courage or fear of repercussions from the White House IF NOBODY SHOWED UP to question Galloway after the things they accused him of.

I believe Galloway when he said he gave his heart and soul and political career (and given the murderous nature of the Bush Crime Family, risked his family) by standing up to the Labor Party and indirectly to the Bush and Bilderberger rampage of genocidal murder and torture to steal Iraqi and other OPEC countries resources.

~Urge Congress to Establish Independent Commission to Investigate Detainee Abuse

Urge Congress to adopt legislation to establish an independent commission to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody and determine responsibility up the chain of command. Urge Members of Congress to cosponsor and pass H.R. 3033, introduced by Congressman Henry Waxman, or similar legislation establishing an independent commission.

***Iraqi detainees hold a fence as they watch the release of prisoners leaving the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. © AFP.

Support Independent Commission to Investigate Detainee Abuse
Amnesty International has received reports of torture or ill-treatment from released detainees who were held in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and other detention centers. Extensive evidence suggests that these are not isolated incidents. Call for an independent commission to investigate reports of detainee abuse and determine responsibility up the chain of command. Take action.

Denounce Torture Campaign: Full coverage. »
2005 Annual Report: Flash video. »
Latest news | More: What people are saying.

****http://www.amnestyusa.org/***If you've seen the news over the last week, you know about the release of our partner Amnesty International's Annual Report and their criticisms of human rights abuses by the U.S. government in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other detention camps around the world. You may have heard Bill Schulz, their Executive Director, on NPR or seen him on CNN, NBC, or Hardball.

Amnesty has exposed widespread abuses. Now we're asking you to help Amnesty build momentum for an independent commission and appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate fully what happened in these detention centers and hold anyone responsible accountable. Please click here:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/24673

Thank you!

Hilary S.
Environmental Activism Manager,
Care2.com

PS: Check out Amnesty's flash video here:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/24673

****Bush/Cheney started negotiations with Halliburton Brown and Root, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton and still received 3/4 of million dollars a year according to his tax returns for "services rendered" to Halliburton when he left more than 6 years ago. WAR PROFITEERING IS ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL!

~~~~~~~~

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Contract_that_spawned_Guantanamo_prisons_awarded_to_Halliburton_during_Cheneys_tenur_062

Pentagon auditors have also suggested KBR overcharged the Army by as much as 40 percent for dining facilities.

Formerly Brown & Root, the firm has a long and checkered history in military contracting.

It was among a consortium of firms charged with building hospitals in Vietnam during the U.S. engagement there, and was accused of pilfering millions from Pentagon coffers.

In 1967, the General Accounting Office faulted the firm for massive accounting lapses and for allowing thefts of materials. The company earned a nickname--Burn & Loot—and drew anti-war protesters who bemoaned the contracts as the embodiment of what President Dwight Eisenhower had called the military-industrial complex.

KBR received $5.5 billion in Iraq contracts for fiscal year 2004, and has billed the U.S. $10.5 billion so far to provide logistical support for the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Army awarded the firm a $72 million bonus in May for work in Iraq. They gave the firm the top ratings of "excellent" and "very good."

Halliburton said earlier this year it will seek to spin off KBR in a sale, spinoff or public offering.

1.html****http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/2am-index-eng

***
http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/693L9H?OpenDocument&style=custo_print

**The escalation of violence resulted in a shortage of water and sanitary facilities in many areas, with the ICRC responding to the needs of thousands of displaced families affected in Fallujah, Talafar and Najaf.

To address the basic needs of the population, a team of ICRC engineers, architects and technicians support local water boards and, in some cases, carry out direct repairs to local water production and treatment plants.

****
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11880379.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

GUANTANAMO BAY

Terror prison debate growing louder

More lawmakers said Congress should tackle the touchy topic of Guantánamo detention policy; meanwhile, Time magazine revealed some classified interrogation techniques.

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@herald.com

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle Sunday urged inquiries into the fate and policies of the Guantánamo Bay terror prison -- the same day Time magazine revealed explicit details about the interrogation of a captive who was compelled to urinate on himself and bark like a dog at the base in Cuba.

''We need to look at this issue thoroughly, both in open and closed session,'' said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press.

The goal, Weldon said, would be to ``come to a final determination as to whether or not this facility has, in fact, lost its viability.''

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein added on CNN's Late Edition: ``My own view is that we need to take a very good look at it. We need to come up with some recommendation to the administration. Not that they listen. But for our consciences, and I think for the purposes of justice, we need to do that.''

The White House said again Sunday that the captives at Guantánamo Bay ''seek to do harm to America,'' but added that the Bush administration has not ruled out alternatives to holding detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

''The president believes we should always be looking at all our options when it comes to how we best protect the American people. We should never limit our options,'' said White House spokesman David Almacy.

However, The Associated Press on Sunday quoted Vice President Dick Cheney as saying the United States has no current plans to close Guantánamo, and that it holds ''bad people.'' AP said he made the remarks Friday in an interview to be aired today on the Fox
News Channel.

The topic dominated Sunday news programs the same day Time magazine published explicit excerpts from a Pentagon-authenticated military interrogation log of Detainee 063 -- Mohamed al Kahtani, a Saudi -- who was thought by U.S. intelligence at one point to be the missing 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Time said the log shows that interrogators refused to permit Kahtani to go to the bathroom, leaving him strapped to a chair with an intravenous drip to urinate on himself.

They also taught him to ''bark,'' ''stay'' and ''come'' like a dog, to humiliate him; and forced him to stand nude, ostensibly to break his will to resist his U.S. interrogators.

The Pentagon issued an unusual and lengthy defense of the contents of the ''compromised classified interrogation log,'' which spans 84 pages and 50 days starting in November 2002. Kahtani's interrogations gave the U.S. a ''clear picture'' of the captive's links to al
Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, it said.

Kahtani was captured on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and taken to the prison camp in Cuba in February 2002, the Pentagon said, adding that U.S. immigration agents at Orlando airport had refused him entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Pentagon statement, however, does not contest the lurid details in the Time report, and does not make clear whether Kahtani has been moved from the base.

Feinstein, a senior member of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, ridiculed tactics used against Kahtani at Guantánamo as ill-advised.

''I don't know what tree we're barking up or why we're doing this,'' she said on CNN, noting that there never has been evidence that the Sept. 11 hijackers knew what they would be asked to do before they entered the United States.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., urged congressional intervention but did not echo fellow Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez in saying the Bush administration should consider simply closing the prison camp as a public relations gesture.

Rather, Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, advocated a more wide-ranging look at the policy that permits the Pentagon to hold 520 captives as so-called enemy combatants in southeast Cuba.

''This can't be a situation where we hold them forever and ever and ever until they die of old age,'' Hagel said.

On Wednesday, President Bush said his administration is always looking for alternatives on what to do about the detainees -- just hours after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in Europe that no one in the executive branch was considering an exit strategy.

Congress has never held public hearings specifically on the fate, financing or legal framework of the Pentagon's prison camp for alleged terrorists. On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee will examine overall detention policy, with an eye to making changes to how the cases of enemy combatants are handled in federal courts.

Previously, members of Congress have made day trips to the prison camp and usually have declared it humane. The Pentagon noted in its defense of treatment there on Sunday that 187 members of Congress or their staff have visited the base in three years.

In a rare dissent, Republican Sen. John McCain, an ex-Navy pilot held prisoner of war for six years by the Vietnamese, toured the prison in December 2003 then wrote Rumsfeld of his concern over the prisoners' state of legal limbo. Fellow Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., joined McCain on the tour and in the letter to Rumsfeld.

On Sunday, Graham said closing the base ''would be an overreaction'' but the Congress and the Bush administration need to ``come up with standard policies on detention and interrogation.''

Graham, who served in the Air Force as an attorney, said on CBS' Face the Nation: ``We need a place like Guantánamo Bay to house people we take off the battlefield in the war on terror, to interrogate them to get information to make us safer as a nation, and to hold them accountable. . . . Nobody is going to say move it to Florida, South Carolina, or Vermont, so I think Cuba is as good a place as any.''

Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., D-Del., kicked off the latest round of Guantánamo controversy a week ago -- arguing that the Bush administration should shut down the base because allegations of abuse there, true or not, have put Americans at greater risk.

By Sunday, the discussion on Guantánamo appeared to be bifurcating -- between whether and how to close it and whether and how much to investigate interrogation techniques used there, and who was responsible.

Either there's ''a culture of leadership or there's not a culture of leadership. Then there's a vacuum of leadership,'' said Hagel on CNN. ``If there's a vacuum, something will fill that vacuum. This kind of stuff fills a vacuum. It needs to be stopped. We have been reassured
over the last two years it's not happening when in fact it is happening.''

~~~~~~~~~~

News on Veterans for Common Sense today:
The Senate Judiciary Committee debates the legal rights of detainees at the U.S. Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The panel is also considering what branch or branches of government are authorized to determine procedures for prisoners

NPR: Senate Debates Treatment of Detainees

The alleged mistreatment of detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay sets off a heated Senate debate. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, compared a description of mistreatment -- submitted to a Pentagon investigator by an F-B-I agent -- to actions carried out by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Some Republicans accused Durbin of maligning American military personnel.

Medics Are Ordered to Report Abuse

The Defense Department's top health affairs official this week instructed all medical personnel who treat detainees in U.S. custody to report any suspected inhumane treatment and to protect their patients as they would U.S. soldiers, a new set of guidelines after
allegations of medic participation in abuse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
{4 American medical personnel who tried to do that died under very mysterious circumstances at Guantanamo Bay!}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Durbin Defends Guantanamo Comments

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) drew a White House rebuke yesterday for comparing the treatment of prisoners at the naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the interrogation tactics of the Nazis and the Soviet gulags. But Durbin defended his comments and said conditions there were not worthy of a democracy such as the United States.

Senate Makes Environment the Focus of Energy Bill

Heading toward a collision with the House and White House, the Senate sought Thursday to put an environmentally friendly stamp on its energy legislation as lawmakers and

President Bush struggle to agree on an elusive national power policy.

Antiwar Group Says Leaked British Memo Shows Bush Misled Public...
Opponents of the war in Iraq held an unofficial hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday to draw attention to a leaked British government document that they say proves their case that President Bush misled the public about his war plans in 2002 and distorted
intelligence to support his policy.

Patriots Against USA PATRIOT ACT

The editors of Esquire magazine once wrote, “If there is one thing that always comes out of a terrible tragedy, it is really dumb legislation.” On October 25, 2001, a mere 45 days after the 9/11attacks, Congress passed, with virtually no debate, House Resolution 3162, entitled “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” Act. You’ve probably heard it called by its ominous
acronym: USA PATRIOT.

U.S. Democrats cite British memo in Bolton fight

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats rejected a Republican compromise over John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador on Thursday and cited a British report backing their view that the Bush administration hyped intelligence on Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

Memo: Pentagon Concerned About Legality of Interrogation Techniques
The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws, ABC News has learned. Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 -- obtained by ABC News -- show that Alberto Mora, general
counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law.

During a January 2003 meeting involving top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes and other officials, the memo shows that Mora warned that "use of coercive techniques ... has military, legal, and political implication ... has international implication ... and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution."

Torture and Partisan Politics

In hearings this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Congress for the first time in many months began to address the issue of treatment of detainees and prisoners in the War on Terror. However, instead of addressing the abuses, partisan politicians are attacking
the messenger. White House press secretary Scott McClellan called the remarks of Senator Dick Durbin "reprehensible" and suggested that Durbin was attacking the troops.

Further remarks came from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner and others. Help spread the word that we need a real investigation -- not partisan spin.

In the American Bunker

I saw a movie last night that was excellent. It was also awful. The film was "The Downfall", the reputedly historically accurate depiction of the end of the Third Reich, showing Hitler and his crew holed up in their Berlin bunker, awaiting their appointment
with the Russian Army.

It was excellent in that it portrayed this scene so vividly, and it was awful because of the scene it so vividly portrayed. In the film, we see what happened when Germany allowed an emotionally ravenous psychopath to sate the voracious demands of his personal insecurities upon the world's stage.

U.S. raids test Iraqis' patience

In the uncertainty created by Iraq's insurgency, anyone might be the enemy. So with weapons drawn, a dozen U.S. soldiers charged down the ramps of their armored Stryker vehicles, roughly yanked three Iraqi students out of a car by their necks and shoved their faces into a nearby wall. "What's your name? Where are you going? Don't lie to me!" Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla shouted at the first teenager. "To my house to study," the trembling young man answered. "We have exams next week."

For troops on patrol, threats lurk at every step. Staff Sgt. Justin Sabo stood June 8 in the bright sunlight of a garbage-strewn street, looking up at the windows of homes. He wonders if anyone is looking down at him, wanting to kill him.

[LenaDavid]

Please visit Galloway's RESPECT.com site.

I downloaded 5 minutes and have watched it again and again but online my computer doesn't play vids right and I started to download the whole magnificient solioquy but was afraid to keep my computer open for more than an hour while it downloaded because I've had trouble in the past doing that.

I did read and print out the transcript and left it in and around various stores in my BE THE MEDIA CAMPAIGN.

It is disgraceful that they struck Galloway's testimony from the Congressional Record and my short vid is of the camera just on Galloway but I have read and the photos over Galloway's shoulder seem to bear out the fact that the 13 or so Congressional members on the Oil For Food Scandal Committee were so intimidated by Galloway's reputation and the paucity of truth in the Rovian (attempted) smear of Galloway that only two Senators had the courage or fear of repercussions from the White House IF NOBODY SHOWED UP to question Galloway after the things they accused him of.

I believe Galloway when he said he gave his heart and soul and political career (and given the murderous nature of the Bush Crime Family, risked his family) by standing up to the Labor Party and indirectly to the Bush and Bilderberger rampage of genocidal murder and torture to steal Iraqi and other OPEC countries resources.

~Urge Congress to Establish Independent Commission to Investigate Detainee Abuse

Urge Congress to adopt legislation to establish an independent commission to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees in US custody and determine responsibility up the chain of command. Urge Members of Congress to cosponsor and pass H.R. 3033, introduced by Congressman Henry Waxman, or similar legislation establishing an independent commission.

***Iraqi detainees hold a fence as they watch the release of prisoners leaving the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. © AFP.

Support Independent Commission to Investigate Detainee Abuse
Amnesty International has received reports of torture or ill-treatment from released detainees who were held in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and other detention centers. Extensive evidence suggests that these are not isolated incidents. Call for an independent commission to investigate reports of detainee abuse and determine responsibility up the chain of command. Take action.

Denounce Torture Campaign: Full coverage. »
2005 Annual Report: Flash video. »
Latest news | More: What people are saying.

****http://www.amnestyusa.org/***If you've seen the news over the last week, you know about the release of our partner Amnesty International's Annual Report and their criticisms of human rights abuses by the U.S. government in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other detention camps around the world. You may have heard Bill Schulz, their Executive Director, on NPR or seen him on CNN, NBC, or Hardball.

Amnesty has exposed widespread abuses. Now we're asking you to help Amnesty build momentum for an independent commission and appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate fully what happened in these detention centers and hold anyone responsible accountable. Please click here:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/24673

Thank you!

Hilary S.
Environmental Activism Manager,
Care2.com

PS: Check out Amnesty's flash video here:
http://www.care2.com/go/z/24673

****Bush/Cheney started negotiations with Halliburton Brown and Root, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton and still received 3/4 of million dollars a year according to his tax returns for "services rendered" to Halliburton when he left more than 6 years ago. WAR PROFITEERING IS ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL!

~~~~~~~~

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Contract_that_spawned_Guantanamo_prisons_awarded_to_Halliburton_during_Cheneys_tenur_062

Pentagon auditors have also suggested KBR overcharged the Army by as much as 40 percent for dining facilities.

Formerly Brown & Root, the firm has a long and checkered history in military contracting.

It was among a consortium of firms charged with building hospitals in Vietnam during the U.S. engagement there, and was accused of pilfering millions from Pentagon coffers.

In 1967, the General Accounting Office faulted the firm for massive accounting lapses and for allowing thefts of materials. The company earned a nickname--Burn & Loot—and drew anti-war protesters who bemoaned the contracts as the embodiment of what President Dwight Eisenhower had called the military-industrial complex.

KBR received $5.5 billion in Iraq contracts for fiscal year 2004, and has billed the U.S. $10.5 billion so far to provide logistical support for the military in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Army awarded the firm a $72 million bonus in May for work in Iraq. They gave the firm the top ratings of "excellent" and "very good."

Halliburton said earlier this year it will seek to spin off KBR in a sale, spinoff or public offering.

1.html****http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/2am-index-eng

***
http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/693L9H?OpenDocument&style=custo_print

**The escalation of violence resulted in a shortage of water and sanitary facilities in many areas, with the ICRC responding to the needs of thousands of displaced families affected in Fallujah, Talafar and Najaf.

To address the basic needs of the population, a team of ICRC engineers, architects and technicians support local water boards and, in some cases, carry out direct repairs to local water production and treatment plants.

****
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11880379.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

GUANTANAMO BAY

Terror prison debate growing louder

More lawmakers said Congress should tackle the touchy topic of Guantánamo detention policy; meanwhile, Time magazine revealed some classified interrogation techniques.

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@herald.com

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle Sunday urged inquiries into the fate and policies of the Guantánamo Bay terror prison -- the same day Time magazine revealed explicit details about the interrogation of a captive who was compelled to urinate on himself and bark like a dog at the base in Cuba.

''We need to look at this issue thoroughly, both in open and closed session,'' said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press.

The goal, Weldon said, would be to ``come to a final determination as to whether or not this facility has, in fact, lost its viability.''

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein added on CNN's Late Edition: ``My own view is that we need to take a very good look at it. We need to come up with some recommendation to the administration. Not that they listen. But for our consciences, and I think for the purposes of justice, we need to do that.''

The White House said again Sunday that the captives at Guantánamo Bay ''seek to do harm to America,'' but added that the Bush administration has not ruled out alternatives to holding detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

''The president believes we should always be looking at all our options when it comes to how we best protect the American people. We should never limit our options,'' said White House spokesman David Almacy.

However, The Associated Press on Sunday quoted Vice President Dick Cheney as saying the United States has no current plans to close Guantánamo, and that it holds ''bad people.'' AP said he made the remarks Friday in an interview to be aired today on the Fox
News Channel.

The topic dominated Sunday news programs the same day Time magazine published explicit excerpts from a Pentagon-authenticated military interrogation log of Detainee 063 -- Mohamed al Kahtani, a Saudi -- who was thought by U.S. intelligence at one point to be the missing 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Time said the log shows that interrogators refused to permit Kahtani to go to the bathroom, leaving him strapped to a chair with an intravenous drip to urinate on himself.

They also taught him to ''bark,'' ''stay'' and ''come'' like a dog, to humiliate him; and forced him to stand nude, ostensibly to break his will to resist his U.S. interrogators.

The Pentagon issued an unusual and lengthy defense of the contents of the ''compromised classified interrogation log,'' which spans 84 pages and 50 days starting in November 2002. Kahtani's interrogations gave the U.S. a ''clear picture'' of the captive's links to al
Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, it said.

Kahtani was captured on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and taken to the prison camp in Cuba in February 2002, the Pentagon said, adding that U.S. immigration agents at Orlando airport had refused him entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Pentagon statement, however, does not contest the lurid details in the Time report, and does not make clear whether Kahtani has been moved from the base.

Feinstein, a senior member of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, ridiculed tactics used against Kahtani at Guantánamo as ill-advised.

''I don't know what tree we're barking up or why we're doing this,'' she said on CNN, noting that there never has been evidence that the Sept. 11 hijackers knew what they would be asked to do before they entered the United States.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., urged congressional intervention but did not echo fellow Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez in saying the Bush administration should consider simply closing the prison camp as a public relations gesture.

Rather, Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, advocated a more wide-ranging look at the policy that permits the Pentagon to hold 520 captives as so-called enemy combatants in southeast Cuba.

''This can't be a situation where we hold them forever and ever and ever until they die of old age,'' Hagel said.

On Wednesday, President Bush said his administration is always looking for alternatives on what to do about the detainees -- just hours after Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in Europe that no one in the executive branch was considering an exit strategy.

Congress has never held public hearings specifically on the fate, financing or legal framework of the Pentagon's prison camp for alleged terrorists. On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee will examine overall detention policy, with an eye to making changes to how the cases of enemy combatants are handled in federal courts.

Previously, members of Congress have made day trips to the prison camp and usually have declared it humane. The Pentagon noted in its defense of treatment there on Sunday that 187 members of Congress or their staff have visited the base in three years.

In a rare dissent, Republican Sen. John McCain, an ex-Navy pilot held prisoner of war for six years by the Vietnamese, toured the prison in December 2003 then wrote Rumsfeld of his concern over the prisoners' state of legal limbo. Fellow Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., joined McCain on the tour and in the letter to Rumsfeld.

On Sunday, Graham said closing the base ''would be an overreaction'' but the Congress and the Bush administration need to ``come up with standard policies on detention and interrogation.''

Graham, who served in the Air Force as an attorney, said on CBS' Face the Nation: ``We need a place like Guantánamo Bay to house people we take off the battlefield in the war on terror, to interrogate them to get information to make us safer as a nation, and to hold them accountable. . . . Nobody is going to say move it to Florida, South Carolina, or Vermont, so I think Cuba is as good a place as any.''

Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., D-Del., kicked off the latest round of Guantánamo controversy a week ago -- arguing that the Bush administration should shut down the base because allegations of abuse there, true or not, have put Americans at greater risk.

By Sunday, the discussion on Guantánamo appeared to be bifurcating -- between whether and how to close it and whether and how much to investigate interrogation techniques used there, and who was responsible.

Either there's ''a culture of leadership or there's not a culture of leadership. Then there's a vacuum of leadership,'' said Hagel on CNN. ``If there's a vacuum, something will fill that vacuum. This kind of stuff fills a vacuum. It needs to be stopped. We have been reassured
over the last two years it's not happening when in fact it is happening.''

~~~~~~~~~~

News on Veterans for Common Sense today:
The Senate Judiciary Committee debates the legal rights of detainees at the U.S. Navy prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The panel is also considering what branch or branches of government are authorized to determine procedures for prisoners

NPR: Senate Debates Treatment of Detainees

The alleged mistreatment of detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay sets off a heated Senate debate. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, compared a description of mistreatment -- submitted to a Pentagon investigator by an F-B-I agent -- to actions carried out by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Some Republicans accused Durbin of maligning American military personnel.

Medics Are Ordered to Report Abuse

The Defense Department's top health affairs official this week instructed all medical personnel who treat detainees in U.S. custody to report any suspected inhumane treatment and to protect their patients as they would U.S. soldiers, a new set of guidelines after
allegations of medic participation in abuse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
{4 American medical personnel who tried to do that died under very mysterious circumstances at Guantanamo Bay!}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Durbin Defends Guantanamo Comments

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) drew a White House rebuke yesterday for comparing the treatment of prisoners at the naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the interrogation tactics of the Nazis and the Soviet gulags. But Durbin defended his comments and said conditions there were not worthy of a democracy such as the United States.

Senate Makes Environment the Focus of Energy Bill

Heading toward a collision with the House and White House, the Senate sought Thursday to put an environmentally friendly stamp on its energy legislation as lawmakers and

President Bush struggle to agree on an elusive national power policy.

Antiwar Group Says Leaked British Memo Shows Bush Misled Public...
Opponents of the war in Iraq held an unofficial hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday to draw attention to a leaked British government document that they say proves their case that President Bush misled the public about his war plans in 2002 and distorted
intelligence to support his policy.

Patriots Against USA PATRIOT ACT

The editors of Esquire magazine once wrote, “If there is one thing that always comes out of a terrible tragedy, it is really dumb legislation.” On October 25, 2001, a mere 45 days after the 9/11attacks, Congress passed, with virtually no debate, House Resolution 3162, entitled “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” Act. You’ve probably heard it called by its ominous
acronym: USA PATRIOT.

U.S. Democrats cite British memo in Bolton fight

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats rejected a Republican compromise over John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador on Thursday and cited a British report backing their view that the Bush administration hyped intelligence on Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

Memo: Pentagon Concerned About Legality of Interrogation Techniques
The interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in 2002 triggered concerns among senior Pentagon officials that they could face criminal prosecution under U.S. anti-torture laws, ABC News has learned. Notes from a series of meetings at the Pentagon in early 2003 -- obtained by ABC News -- show that Alberto Mora, general
counsel of the Navy, warned his superiors that they might be breaking the law.

During a January 2003 meeting involving top Pentagon lawyer William Haynes and other officials, the memo shows that Mora warned that "use of coercive techniques ... has military, legal, and political implication ... has international implication ... and exposes us to liability and criminal prosecution."

Torture and Partisan Politics

In hearings this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Congress for the first time in many months began to address the issue of treatment of detainees and prisoners in the War on Terror. However, instead of addressing the abuses, partisan politicians are attacking
the messenger. White House press secretary Scott McClellan called the remarks of Senator Dick Durbin "reprehensible" and suggested that Durbin was attacking the troops.

Further remarks came from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner and others. Help spread the word that we need a real investigation -- not partisan spin.

In the American Bunker

I saw a movie last night that was excellent. It was also awful. The film was "The Downfall", the reputedly historically accurate depiction of the end of the Third Reich, showing Hitler and his crew holed up in their Berlin bunker, awaiting their appointment
with the Russian Army.

It was excellent in that it portrayed this scene so vividly, and it was awful because of the scene it so vividly portrayed. In the film, we see what happened when Germany allowed an emotionally ravenous psychopath to sate the voracious demands of his personal insecurities upon the world's stage.

U.S. raids test Iraqis' patience

In the uncertainty created by Iraq's insurgency, anyone might be the enemy. So with weapons drawn, a dozen U.S. soldiers charged down the ramps of their armored Stryker vehicles, roughly yanked three Iraqi students out of a car by their necks and shoved their faces into a nearby wall. "What's your name? Where are you going? Don't lie to me!" Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla shouted at the first teenager. "To my house to study," the trembling young man answered. "We have exams next week."

For troops on patrol, threats lurk at every step. Staff Sgt. Justin Sabo stood June 8 in the bright sunlight of a garbage-strewn street, looking up at the windows of homes. He wonders if anyone is looking down at him, wanting to kill him.