http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_602.shtml

Iraq: A victim of international terrorism

By Ghali Hassan

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Mar 17, 2006

‘Terrorism is the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature. This is done through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear’ [1].

‘Terrorism is the use, or threat, of action which is violent, damaging or disrupting, and is intended to influence the government or intimidate the public and is for purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause,’ Britain Terrorism Act 2000.

‘All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations,’ Article 2(4) UN Charter.

One of the common myths about the US war against the Iraqi people is that the US and its Western allies are on a “mission” to help the Iraqis in their aspiration for “democracy” and “freedom.” However, a brief analysis of the crimes committed against the Iraqi people in the last 15 years shows that the main aim of the US and its allies is the destruction of Iraq and Iraqi society.

Prior to 1990, Iraq was one of the more prosperous and economically advanced countries in the Arab world, boasting a sizeable middle class; technical capacity; and, compared to other Middle Eastern countries, relatively high standards of education and health care, as well as high numbers of women educated and contributing to the economy and the well-being of society.

As a result of the 1991 US war, Iraq’s industrial and agricultural capacity was completely destroyed by US bombings. Iraq’s, transportation and infrastructure systems were obliterated. “The world must learn that what we say goes,” said George Bush I to enthusiastic applause of “freedom-loving” Americans. The war was a one-sided massacre of innocent civilians masquerading as “liberation of Kuwait.”

Just after the heavy bombings ceased, in March 1991, a UN mission to Iraq led by the then Under-Secretary-General Martti Ahtisaari, described “near-apocalyptic results [wrought by the US War] upon the economic infrastructure of what had been, until January 1991, a rather highly urbanized and mechanized society. Now, most means of modern life support have been destroyed or rendered tenuous. Iraq has, for some time to come, been relegated to a pre-industrial age, but with all the disabilities of post-industrial dependency on an intensive use of energy and technology.”

More than 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq during the 1991 US war. A large number of these bombs were encased in ‘depleted’ (DU) uranium, a radioactive by-product of the enrichment process used to make nuclear fuel. The ‘dust’ which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years contaminates the air, land and water, and causes chromosomal radiation damage, especially to soft tissue, pregnant women and their foetuses. [2] Cancer researchers in Iraq and in the West have shown that due to DU residue, the ‘rate of cancer has increased nine-fold since the 1991 US war,’ particularly among pregnant women and their babies. According to the Pentagon's own report, the US-UK dropped 320 tonnes of DU on Iraq in 1991. Greenpeace puts the figure at an estimate of 800 tones. More that 100,000 DU shells dropped on the city of Basra and its surroundings. The destruction was deliberate and a long-lasting act of terrorism.

Eric Hoskins, a Canadian physician and coordinator of a Harvard study team, reported that the US War on Iraq “effectively terminated everything vital to human survival in Iraq -- electricity, water, sewage systems, agriculture, industry and health care.” [3] "All of Iraq’s 11 major electrical power plants as well as 119 substations were completely destroyed. Eight multi-purpose dams were repeatedly hit and destroyed -- this wrecked flood control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation and hydroelectric power. The health and education systems weren’t spared. Twenty-eight civilian hospitals and 52 community health centres were hit." In addition, more than 676 schools were damaged, including 38 completely destroyed (Media Lens 01 July 2002). Was all this for the sake of returning a tin-pot dictator to Kuwait?

Research by Thomas Nagy, professor of Expert Systems at George Washington University, revealed that the US military knew the effects of their attacks on the civilian population and proceeded with them nonetheless. Nagy wrote: “The health effects of the destruction of the water treatment system were not merely foreseeable in principle but were actually foreseen“. (The Progressive, September 2001). As Barton Gellman of the Washington Post wrote at the time quoting a Pentagon source; “People say, 'You didn't recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage,’” said the planning officer. “Well, what were we trying to do with [United Nations-approved economic] sanctions -- help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions.” (Washington Post, 23 June 1991)

To ensure that Iraq would be unable to repair or replace of what had been destroyed, the US and Britain maintained the genocidal sanctions against the Iraqi people, enforced by a massive military presence and weekly bombing raids designed to terrorise the Iraqi population. The sanctions have greatly impaired Iraq’s ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers. The health care system has deteriorated, and the education system and standard of living were near collapse. In addition, the sanctions were designed to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world and destroy the fabric of Iraqi society.

A once prosperous nation is being systematically de-developed, de-skilled and reduced to penury. As the 1999 UNICEF report points out: “In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990-1991, the infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affects at least 23 percent of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under five years of age, only 41 percent of the population have regular access to clean water, 83 percent of all schools need substantial repairs. The ICRC [Red Cross] states that the Iraqi health-care system is today in a decrepit state. UNDP [UN Development Program] calculates that it would take 7 billion dollars to rehabilitate the power sector country-wide to its 1990 capacity.” [4]

Former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday has repeatedly denounced what was happening as “a systematic program . . . of deliberate genocide.” His statements appeared in the New York Times and other mainstream media during 1998, so it can hardly be contended that the world, the American public in particular, was ”unaware” of them. He resigned from his post and refused to be part of this deliberate genocide.

It is estimated that the sanctions killed more than 1.6 million Iraqis. The UN's own report revealed that 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 were dying each month due to its own policy of implementing the sanctions. Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of State, openly confirmed Denis Holliday’s assessment. When Albright was asked in an interview on 60 Minutes on 12 May 1996, whether she had considered the resulting death of 500,000 Iraqi children, she calmly announced that, “We think the price is worth it” to see that US objectives were achieved. Democrats or Republicans; they all participated in the crimes against the Iraqi people and in the destruction of Iraq.

According to John and Karl Mueller (Sanctions of Mass Destruction, Foreign Affairs May/June 1999), the sanctions ”have taken the lives of more people in Iraq than have been killed by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history.” Therefore Iraq's genocide “arguably was the greatest genocide of the post World War II era.” Despite a worldwide outcry against the sanctions, the US and Britain -- with tacit approval from other Western states -- continued to enforce the sanctions violently.

The 13-year long sanctions on Iraq were the UN's biggest and most profitable mass murder in the history of the UN. While Iraqis children were malnourished and starved to death, obesity and corruption among UN member states and bureaucrats increased to levels unknown in the organization’s history. The pretext for this deliberate mass murder was Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It was well known that Iraq neither had WMD, nor posed a threat to the American people.

Iraq’s Resistance to this form of international terrorism proved to be successful. In 2002, despite the Anglo-American orchestrated terror against the Iraqi people, Iraq showed all signs of moving forward, and leaving the genocidal sanctions behind.

However, a campaign of anti-Iraq propaganda and lies perpetuated by Western governments, mainstream media and pundits collectively demonised the Iraqi people and played on the non-existent WMD as a given. Western public opinion, American in particular, was manipulated to the extent that if Iraq did indeed possess WMD, an unprovoked act of aggression against a sovereign nation would be justifiable.

Having failed to defeat the Iraqi people through genocidal sanctions, the Anglo-American armies unashamedly attacked Iraq again. In March 2003, Iraq was massively attacked in a preemptive and unprovoked act of aggression. The attack was a blatant and gross violation of international law and the UN Charter.

In the end, every pretext for the war (WMD and Iraq’s alleged connection to “terrorism”) has proved to be a lie. The UN declared the an “illegal” act of aggression. The motives for the US war were obvious: the removal of an independent government, enforcing the US-Israel Zionist domination of the region and control over Iraq’s oil resources.

According to Michael Mandel, professor of Law at York University in Canada; “If we judge [the war] by the standards laid down by the Nuremberg Tribunal that judged the Nazis after World War II, it is the supreme international crime.” [5] The Nazis who committed war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity were indicted and sentenced to death by hanging. So, in a just world, the perpetrators and promoters of the war on Iraq must be held accountable and stand trial on war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

During the three-week massive attacks on a defenceless people, Western leaders proudly announced to their nations that the one-sided mass murder of innocent Iraqi civilians was “morally” justified to spread “freedom” and “democracy.” Once again, Iraq was completely destroyed in barbaric fashion. Iraq’s cultural heritage was deliberately burned or looted. The Iraqi state, including the Iraqi Army and police were disbanded and replaced by occupying forces and imported criminals. The Pentagon and the UN estimate that the US and Britain “used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of bombs made of DU during attacks on Iraq in March and April 2003 -- far more than the 320-800 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War,” reported the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 04 August 2004. Today, the US continues its war crimes against the Iraqi people with indiscriminate bombing air raids on Iraqi towns and cities, killing innocent women and children and destroying properties in a barbaric and cowardly fashion.

After three years of violent occupation, the living conditions in Iraq have worsened since the invasion. There is no clean water and there is no adequate supply of electricity. Iraq remains a destroyed nation. The health care system is beyond repair and the education system has collapsed. A study conducted by the Norway-based Institute of Applied International Studies, or Fafo, in cooperation with Iraq's Central Office for Statistics and Information Technology, Iraq's Health Ministry, and the UNDP, reveals that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and 5 years has increased from 4 percent before the invasion to 7.7 per cent since the US invasion. In other words, despite the 13-year long genocidal sanctions, Iraqi children were living much better (by 3.7 percent) under the regime of Saddam Hussein than under the tyranny of George W. Bush. The study shows that about 400,000 Iraqi children are suffering from 'wasting' and 'emaciation' -- conditions of chronic diarrhoea and protein deficiency.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children have been needlessly killed by US and British forces. The true number of Iraqis killed may never be known. In October 2004, the respected and peer-reviewed British medical journal, The Lancet -- the only serious study so far –, published a ‘conservative’ estimate of 100,000 Iraqis killed, mostly women and children, by US forces. The US violence and destruction have since increased and the number of Iraqis killed could be more than half a million. (See The Lancet, 29 October 2004).

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are living in refugee camps and are unable to return to their destroyed towns and homes. Human rights, women's rights in particular, have disappeared. Instead of protecting the civilian population, as required by the Geneva Conventions, the Occupation is increasing the violence and crimes against the Iraqi people. According to the UN's recent assessment of the situation, “The ordinary Iraqi has absolutely no protection whatsoever from the state or from the authorities [and] the prevalence of torture is quite clearly established, [that] the degree of violence has increased exponentially since the invasion [and that] the country has been blown apart in terms of its social structures and social fabric.”

Iraq has been turned from a functioning state into a cluster of prisons where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi prisoners are tortured, abused and murdered by US and British forces and their collaborators. Any Iraqi, regardless of age and gender is prone to daily random raids and mass arrests by US forces and their collaborators. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been detained by US and British military forces at some time during the Occupation. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are still languishing in countless US and British-run prisons across Iraq. The majority of these prisoners are innocent civilians. Many Iraqi towns and villages have been walled in with sand and razor wire barriers, and turned into “concentration camps.”

Furthermore, to strip Iraq off its national independence and self-determination, the US and its secret agents (CIA and Israeli Mossad) instituted a terror program of systematic assassination and murder of thousands of Iraqis, including scientists, academics, prominent politicians and anti-Occupation voices. The “De-Baathification” program is modeled on the “Salvador Option” -- the program which was responsible for the murder of thousands of Latin Americans peace activists and intellectuals in El Salvador and other nations of Latin America. It is misleading to blame these premeditated murders of innocent people on Iraqis. For more on the US dirty role in Iraq see Nicolas Davies’ Online Journal article, 15 March 2006.

Despite the well-orchestrated terror, the Iraqi people -- by a large majority -- continue to demand an end to the violence and the occupation of their country, and refuse to submit to US dictate. The US and Britain, having destroyed Iraq, are now embarked on a long-term colonial occupation of the country by openly using an old imperialist tool: ‘divide and rule.’ This deliberate policy of terrorising the Iraqi population and destroying Iraq’s unity has been the aim of US imperialists and Israeli Zionists from the outset of the war. From the beginning, “the Americans made it clear that the Iraqis would have a hard time ever freeing themselves from the American military occupation,” wrote Michael Mandel. The show trial of President Saddam Hussein provides a perfect smokescreen to divert the public from the West’s deliberate genocide in Iraq, allowing it to intimidate and bully other defenceless nations.

While the pretexts for the Occupation have expired, the refusal by the Bush administration to end the Occupation and its continuing interference in Iraq's affairs left the country in stalemate without a legitimate government. The creation, financing and arming of ethnic militia groups was designed to fulfill the Occupation aim of cultivating violence, instilling fear among the population and controlling Iraq through criminal elements accountable to the occupying forces. Orchestrated and promoted by the occupying forces and the mass media as “civil war,” the violence and fratricidal killings are the only remaining pretext for the ongoing Occupation. Indeed, Iraqi community leaders and prominent anti-Occupation voices “hold the US responsible” for the violence, which they alleged is perpetuated “under US air cover” in order to “destabilise” the region. All Iraqis rejected the violence because they rightly believe that only the occupying forces and Israel stand to benefit from it.

In a recent promotion of civil war in Iraq, one of the Bush administration's closest advisors, Daniel Pipes, a cross-breed between a hardcore fascist and a hardcore Zionist, and a well-known Islamophobic ideologue wrote; “Iraq's plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular danger to the West. Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility, nor its burden. When Sunni terrorists target Shiites and vice versa, non-Muslims are less likely to be hurt. Civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy, but not a strategic one . . . Civil war will terminate the dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Middle Eastern countries, thus delaying the push toward elections. This would have the effect of keeping Islamists from being legitimated by the popular vote, as Hamas was just a month ago.” This is what Israeli and US Zionists have been advocating for years, especially during the ‘Iran-Iraq’ war. “Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria . . . In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible,” wrote Oded Yinon of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. [6]. The Zionists dream is an all out war in and bloodshed in Middle East for the benefit of Israel’s Zionist ideology.

It is not in Americans’ interest that for more than 15 years the Iraqi people have endured the longest and most violent international terrorism in history. The Iraqi people are demanding the immediate end to the Occupation and its associated violence. The longer the US remains in Iraq; it will only increase the destruction and bloodshed.

Yet the line persists among Westerners, Americans in particular, that the US and its allies are on a “mission” to “teach” Iraqis “democracy” and “freedom.” Most people are aware that this falsehood is a masked Western extremism. It is the enemy of democracy and freedom. Western extremism is not only destroying Iraq for no reason whatsoever, but also perpetuating violence around the world. It is time to demand the immediate end to international terrorism against the Iraqi people and pay reparations for the crimes committed against the nation of Iraq.


Notes:

[1] US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism Counteraction (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984).

[2] Laka Foundation (1999). Depleted Uranium: A Post-War Disaster for Environment and Health. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Laka Foundation.

[3] Hoskins, Eric (1992). The Truth behind Economic Sanctions, in Ramsey Clark et al. (Eds.), War Crimes: A Report on United States War Crimes against Iraq (Washington, D.C: Maisonneuve Press, 1992).

[4] CAFOD (2001). A People Sacrificed: Sanctions Against Iraq. London: Caritas Europe.

[5] Mandel, Michael (2004). How America Gets Away with Murder. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press.

[6] Shahak, Israel, (Ed.). (1982). The Zionist Plan for the Middle East. Belmont, MA: A.A.U.G. Inc. (p. 8-11).


Ghali Hassan lives in Perth, Western Australia. He can be reached at G.Hassan@exchange.curtin.edu.au.


Copyright © 1998-2006 Online Journal

"Where indeed, in which circle of hell, do we get such men?"

http://www.counterpunch.org/werther03182006.html

Weekend Edition
March 18 / 19, 2006

Bombs and Butchers

"Where Do We Get Such Men?"

By WERTHER

The question posed in our title rings historical and true, and nine out of ten readers might surmise it refers to the Marines at Khe Sanh, or perhaps the boys of Pointe du Hoc, or possibly the lost battalion almost 90 summers ago in the fields of France.

But it is artifice, a quote from a movie based on James Michener's novel, The Bridges of Toko-ri. It rings true because we think it ought to be true: because it tidies up the sordid and disjointed reality of violence in the name of a cause.

This process is behind the confidence trick of how the state mystifies and glorifies its underhanded acts. In war, we are supposed to think of Audie Murphy, or Alvin York, or Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain as typical exemplars. We should indeed think of such men, and honor their deeds. But due diligence requires we think of other men, whose acts in the name of the state, the state that acts in your name, were more important--meaning more consequential for our history.

Men like John Buchanan Floyd, Secretary of War in 1860, whose arguably treasonable acts armed an insurrection against the Constitution he had sworn to protect. Or Woodrow Wilson, possessed of messianic ego and pathological dishonesty, who fed American youth into the furnace of a senseless war even as he rammed through a supine Congress a law making criticism of himself punishable for up to ten years. Or Donald Rumsfeld, a disastrously incompetent successor to John Floyd Buchanan's portfolio: a man who arrogantly and inflexibly defends the quagmire in Iraq because it got rid of the supposed Devil Incarnate Saddam Hussein, even as he feigns amnesia regarding his 1980s diplomatic mission to assure Saddam of U.S. support.

Where, indeed, do we get such men? Why do they always seem to choke the upper levels of government like kudzu on a Georgia hillside? What is the structural morphology of human society that ordains such creatures shall insert themselves into the body politic and determine its fate?

The latest example of such men--that is, men whose relation to their country is that of a tapeworm to the large intestine--comes to us courtesy of a conference on the Vietnam War held by the John F. Kennedy Library on 11 March 2006.

Among the array of self-justifying participants, the choicest quote was offered by former Chief of Staff to President Nixon and later Secretary of State Alexander Haig. He said that military leaders in Iraq are repeating a mistake made in Vietnam by not applying the full force of the military to win the war.

"Every asset of the nation must be applied to the conflict to bring about a quick and successful outcome, or don't do it," he said. "We're in the midst of another struggle where it appears to me we haven't learned very much."

Haig, whose swansong in public office was a borderline hysterical (and unconstitutional) statement that he was "in charge" after the attempted assassination of President Reagan, made a sententious declaration at the Kennedy Library that sounded reasonable--until one subjects it to a moment's analysis. Notice that once the decision for war is made according to the Haig formula, every asset of the nation should be brought to bear. But who makes the decision for war? Is it a wise one? Is it even an honest one? A skeptic would suggest that the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a fraud, as was the declaration that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

With his silence, Haig implies that Americans are supposed to give a pass to "leaders" who lie the country into war, so long as those leaders direct it like berserkers. Is it the duty of Americans only to make every sacrifice necessary (and with a GDP of over $13 trillion, there are a lot of assets to be sacrificed; unfortunately they involve our children's standard of living), and never to question the rationale and the principle behind the war?

Haig does not expatiate on that question. Neither does he expound on precisely what it means to apply every asset. Would that mean fire-bombing? Nuclear weapons? Poison gas? These have been military means from time to time. Apparently the 57,000 U.S. military and up to two million Vietnamese deaths were not, in Haig's mind, a sign of serious warmaking.

Really? The United States dropped more bombs on Southeast Asia than in all the theaters of war in World War II. The basso profundo roar of a B-52 arc light mission shook the earth as it rent eardrums and pulped the internal organs of those military or civilians unfortunate enough to be in the immediate vicinity. Quang Tri Province may have been the most blasted and bombed real estate in the history of war.

Millions of acres of coastal mangrove forest (protecting the shore from typhoons and anchoring the way of life of the local peasantry) were wiped out. The Agent Orange defoliation campaign was a lasting success, as the Vietnamese population's scientifically interesting genetic mutations can attest even unto the present day. [2]

For an impressionistic portrait of a mere sideshow of the Vietnam War, we quote at length Simon Jenkins in the Times of London [3]:

"The bombing of Laos ranks among the most obscene acts of war. It was wanton destruction, power without restraint divorced from the purpose of battle, which is to take and hold territory. . . . Like medieval armies salting fields and poisoning wells, modern air forces leave behind them weapons which they know will sprout death for decades to come.

"By the time Nixon and Kissinger sent the Air Force's 'strategic' B52s to the Plain of Jars in 1970--against the pleading of local commanders--the Vietnam War was lost. But punitive bombing exacted a terrible revenge on Laos, as on Cambodia to the south. Laos suffered a monsoon of destruction, with a peak of 500 sorties a day. The B52s used napalm, defoliants and weapons which, on any definition, were 'chemical.' They bombed the plain's neolithic jars, like bombing Stonehenge. At night they hosed anything that moved with cannon."

What was the physical effect of the bombing?

"The beautiful plain, in reality a long valley flanked by high karst mountains, is still a morass of craters, each containing unknown horrors. Its settlements were more blasted than the Somme, more flattened than Dresden. The 500-year-old provincial capital of Xiang Khouang saw its temples reduced to dustclouds by B52s, described afterwards as 'looking like Hiroshima.' Nobody knows how many people died. The only memorial I saw was to the 320 villagers of Tham Piu, forced from their homes into a cave, where a direct hit from a T28 rocket incinerated them."

And more than three decades on, the dying persists:

"Still the war continues, killing and maiming hundreds. Every other day, someone treads on a bomb, plays with it or hits it with a hoe or a fishing line. Instantly the years roll back and blood and guts are everywhere. There are far too many bombs ever to be cleared."

This is the war Al Haig thinks the government, which succored his bank account, fought with one arm tied behind its back. This is the war our resident wise man says the government conducted with a blameworthy excess of moral scruple.

Where indeed, in which circle of hell, do we get such men?


Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based defense analyst


[1] "Ex-policymakers see Vietnam errors in Iraq," Associated Press, 12 March 2006.

[2] "The Legacy of Agent Orange," BBC, 29 April 2005

[3] "Bombs that Turn Our Leaders into Butchers," by Simon Jenkins, The Times of London, 17 January 2001

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/150306saddamsilenced.htm


Saddam Silenced For Fingering US In Iraq Bombings

One show trial ends prematurely, another begins

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 15 2006

After the murder of Slobo Milosevic prevented the true Butchers of Serbia, Wes Clark and Bill Clinton, from being brought to justice, on the very first day of Saddam Hussein's testimony the judge turned off his microphone and ordered all media to leave following Saddam's comments that the civil war in Iraq is being deliberately fueled by the US.

Over the past few weeks we have highlighted Israeli and US foreign policy documents that actually encourage not deter the break out of civil war in Iraq. Decades old blueprints document how inter-Arab conflict would be beneficial to the Neo-Cons, initiating ethnic cleansing in Iraq and drawing in Iran and Syria to provide a pretext to expand the war.

Several highly suspicious events over the past year, such as the Samarra Mosque bombing and the staged SAS attack on Iraqi police, have brought this eventuality closer.

High profile trials like those of Milosevic and Hussein often backfire because top level criminality on the part of the US government and its international henchmen NATO and the UN is always exposed by the defendant.

The Hague were losing the case against Milosevic because he provided documented evidence of US government support of Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden in the late 1990's and was about to call Bill Clinton as a witness.


Similarly, Saddam's defense consists of he fact that the chemical and biological weapons allegedly used to poison residents of Halabja in March 1988 were sold to him by the US government and specifically Donald Rumsfeld.

Today, Hussein fingered the hidden hand behind the staged bombings in Iraq and his microphone was immediately shut off by the judge. From the AP,

"What pains me most is what I heard recently about something that aims to harm our people," Saddam said. "My conscience tells me that the great people of Iraq have nothing to do with these acts."

"As Saddam continued reading from a prepared text, the judge repeatedly closed his microphone to prevent his words from being heard and told him to address the charges against him. Saddam ignored the judge and continued speaking."

"What happened in the last days is bad," he said, referring to the Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya shrine in the city of Samarra. "You will live in darkness and rivers of blood for no reason."

"Finally, Abdel-Rahman ordered the session closed to the public, telling journalists to leave the chamber. The delayed video feed also was cut.

"The court has decided to turn this into a secret and closed session," he said."


Since all transcripts of the trial are edited before their release we have no idea of the full extent of Saddam's comments. To emphasize how much of a dog and pony show trial this is, it was also reported that the entire trial was subject to a practice run before it even began, so the puppet judge is just working to a script and the whole farce has already been staged. Even the Financial Times of London remarked that this was "bizarre."

Neo-Cons and Globalists are sweating on the speculation that Saddam has cancerYahoohttp://www.prisonplanet.com/080104saddamcancer.html and will die before any damaging testimony leaks out. If not, don't be surprised if Saddam gets 'Slobo'd' and has a nasty accident or bizarrely decides to take the wrong drugs.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12397.htm

Pledging to Vote for Peace

By The Nation

03/18/06 "The Nation" - How many Americans would pledge to cast their votes in November only for candidates who want to end the war in Iraq?

According to a poll conducted for the new group Vote for Peace, 46 percent of likely voters agree with the pledge the group will be promoting in advance of the November, 2006, congressional elections: "I will not vote for or support any candidate for Congress or President who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign."

One in every five voters surveyed expressed strong agreement, while 26 percent said they were at least somewhat in agreement with the statement.

Among Democrats, agreement with the pledge rises to 67 percent (33 percent strongly). Fifty-nine percent (25 percent strongly) of Independents agree, while and 26 percent (5.5 percent strongly) of Republicans are on board.

"This poll demonstrates that anti-war voters are significant enough in size to effect the outcome of elections -- if they become organized. Just like pro-gun groups have organized, pro-choice and pro-life groups have organized -- now the anti-war constituency has been identified and the peace movement is ready to organize them. This will ensure that the anti-war movement will no longer be one that can be ignored," argues Kevin Zeese, an organizer of the nonpartisan Voters for Peace initiative that launched Friday.

Starting with grants of $1 million for the 2006 election season, Voters for Peace run a national campaign that will encourage voters to pledge to cast their ballots for anti-war candidates as part of a broader effort to educate the electorate about how to make the war an issue this fall. The pledge, which was inspired by a Nation magazine editorial that committed the publication to endorse only candidates who seek a rapid end to the war, can be found at the new group's website: Vote for Peace.

Already endorsed by many of the country's largest and most active anti-war organizations, including United for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, Not In Our Name, Democracy Rising, Code Pink, AfterDowningStreet and Peace Majority, the Voters for Peace initiative will reach across partisan and ideological lines.

Zeese says the initiative will seek to organize two million voters in 2006 and five million by 2008. And makes a convincing case that such organization could have a profound impact on both elections by putting more focused pressure on both major political parties.

"Organized anti-war voters who pledge not to vote for pro-war candidates may force the Democrats in particular to develop a stronger position against the war. The Democrats may now realize that if they fail to represent the anti-war community voters will stay home or vote for alternative party and independent candidates," explains Zeese, the president of the national group Common Sense for Drug Policy who is seeking Maryland's open U.S. Senate seat as an "independent unity" candidate in November.

"Republicans are not free to ignore the anti-war constituency either," adds Zeese. "Not only do more that 25 percent of Republican voters oppose candidates who support the war, but the fastest growing group of voters -- independents -- overwhelmingly support the pledge. So, that all important swing voter can cause Republicans to lose elections - and could become a new source of support for Democrats -- or if both parties fail to support voters wishes then candidates running independent of the two parties may find a new foundation on which to build an independent political movement."

Copyright © 2006 The Nation

---

MORE:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Organizing Voters to End War

Protests and Petitions are Not Enough

"I will not vote for or support any candidate for President or Congress who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq, and preventing any future war of aggression, a public position in his or her campaign"

http://www.votersforpeace.us/content.jsp?content_KEY=1470

Story lead from BuzzFlash.com

"Don't worry, Mr. President ... We have Kansas surrounded."

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060327/27fbi.htm

The Letter of the Law

The White House says spying on terror suspects without court approval is ok. What about physical searches?

By Chitra Ragavan

3/27/06

In the dark days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a small group of lawyers from the White House and the Justice Department began meeting to debate a number of novel legal strategies to help prevent another attack. Soon after, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to begin conducting electronic eavesdropping on terrorism suspects in the United States, including American citizens, without court approval. Meeting in the FBI's state-of-the-art command center in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the lawyers talked with senior FBI officials about using the same legal authority to conduct physical searches of homes and businesses of terrorism suspects--also without court approval, one current and one former government official tell U.S. News. "There was a fair amount of discussion at Justice on the warrantless physical search issue," says a former senior FBI official. "Discussions about--if [the searches] happened--where would the information go, and would it taint cases."

FBI Director Robert Mueller was alarmed by the proposal, the two officials said, and pushed back hard against it. "Mueller was personally very concerned," one official says, "not only because of the blowback issue but also because of the legal and constitutional questions raised by warrantless physical searches." FBI spokesman John Miller said none of the FBI's senior staff are aware of any such discussions and added that the bureau has not conducted "physical searches of any location without consent or a judicial order."

In December, the New York Times disclosed the NSA's warrantless electronic surveillance program, resulting in an angry reaction from President Bush. It has not previously been disclosed, however, that administration lawyers had cited the same legal authority to justify warrantless physical searches.

But in a little-noticed white paper submitted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Congress on January 19 justifying the legality of the NSA eavesdropping, Justice Department lawyers made a tacit case that President Bush also has the inherent authority to order such physical searches. In order to fulfill his duties as commander in chief, the 42-page white paper says, "a consistent understanding has developed that the president has inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches and surveillance within the United States for foreign intelligence purposes." The memo cites congressional testimony of Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, in 1994 stating that the Justice Department "believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes."

"Black-bag jobs." Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse says the white paper cited the Gorelick testimony simply to bolster its legal defense of the NSA's electronic surveillance program. Roehrkasse points out that Justice Department lawyers have told Congress that the NSA program "described by the president does not involve physical searches." But John Martin, a former Justice Department attorney who prosecuted the two most important cases involving warrantless searches and surveillance, says the department is sending an unambiguous message to Congress. "They couldn't make it clearer," says Martin, "that they are also making the case for inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless physical searches."

It could not be learned whether the Bush administration has cited the legal authority to carry out such searches. A former marine, Mueller has waged a quiet, behind-the-scenes battle since 9/11 to protect his special agents from legal jeopardy as a result of aggressive new investigative tactics backed by the White House and the Justice Department, government officials say. During Senate testimony about the NSA surveillance program, however, Gonzales was at pains to avoid answering questions about any warrantless physical surveillance activity that may have been authorized by the Justice Department. On February 6, Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, asked Gonzales whether the NSA spying program includes authority to tap E-mail or postal mail without warrants. "Can you do black-bag jobs?" Leahy asked. Gonzales replied that he was trying to outline for the committee "what the president has authorized, and that is all that he has authorized"--electronic surveillance. Three weeks later, Gonzales amended his answer to Leahy's question, stating that he was addressing only the legal underpinnings for the NSA surveillance program but adding: "I did not and could not address operational aspects of the program, or any other classified intelligence activities." In the past, when Congress has taken up explosive issues that affect the bureau, Mueller has made it a point, officials have said, to leave Washington--and sometimes the country--so as not to get pulled into the political crossfire. When Gonzales testified February 6, Mueller was on his way to Morocco.

Government officials told the magazine that Mueller and then Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who also questioned the NSA spying program, both believed that while it was a close call legally, the president did have authority to conduct electronic surveillance of terrorism suspects in the United States without court approval; both men, however, raised grave concerns about the possible use of any information obtained from any warrantless surveillance in a court of law.

At least one defense attorney representing a subject of a terrorism investigation believes he was the target of warrantless clandestine searches. On Sept. 23, 2005--nearly three months before the Times broke the NSA story--Thomas Nelson wrote to U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut in Oregon that in the previous nine months, "I and others have seen strong indications that my office and my home have been the target of clandestine searches." In an interview, Nelson said he believes that the searches resulted from the fact that FBI agents accidentally gave his client classified documents and were trying to retrieve them. Nelson's client is Soliman al-Buthe, codirector of a now defunct charity named al-Haramain, who was indicted in 2004 for illegally taking charitable donations out of the country. The feds also froze the charity's assets, alleging ties to Osama bin Laden. The documents that were given to him, Nelson says, may prove that al-Buthe was the target of the NSA surveillance program.

The searches, if they occurred, were anything but deft. Late at night on two occasions, Nelson's colleague Jonathan Norling noticed a heavyset, middle-aged, non-Hispanic white man claiming to be a member of an otherwise all-Hispanic cleaning crew, wearing an apron and a badge and toting a vacuum. But, says Norling, "it was clear the vacuum was not moving." Three months later, the same man, waving a brillo pad, spent some time trying to open Nelson's locked office door, Norling says. Nelson's wife and son, meanwhile, repeatedly called their home security company asking why their alarm system seemed to keep malfunctioning. The company could find no fault with the system.

In October, Immergut wrote to Nelson reassuring him that the FBI would not target terrorism suspects' lawyers without warrants and, even then, only "under the most exceptional circumstances," because the government takes attorney-client relationships "extremely seriously." Nelson nevertheless filed requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, with the NSA. The agency's director of policy, Louis Giles, wrote back, saying, "The fact of the existence or nonexistence of responsive records is a currently and properly classified matter."

"Maximum speed." For the FBI, the very mention of the term "black-bag jobs" prompts a bad case of the heebie-jeebies. In 1975 and 1976, an investigative committee led by then Sen. Frank Church documented how the FBI engaged in broad surveillance of private citizens and members of antiwar and civil rights groups, as well as Martin Luther King Jr. The committee's hearings and the executive-branch abuses that were documented in the Watergate investigation led to numerous reforms, including passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. The law created a special secret court tasked with approving electronic wiretaps in espionage and other national security investigations. After the Aldrich Ames spy case, Congress amended FISA to include approval of physical searches. After 9/11, the law was further amended to allow investigators to place wiretaps or conduct physical searches without notifying the court for 72 hours and to obtain "roving" wiretaps to allow investigators to tap multiple cellphones.

In justifying the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, Gonzales has argued that the review process required for a FISA warrant is too cumbersome for a program that is of "a military nature" and that requires "maximum speed and agility to achieve early warning."

White House lawyers, in particular, Vice President Cheney's counsel David Addington (who is now Cheney's chief of staff), pressed Mueller to use information from the NSA program in court cases, without disclosing the origin of the information, and told Mueller to be prepared to drop prosecutions if judges demanded to know the sourcing, according to several government officials. Mueller, backed by Comey, resisted the administration's efforts. "The White House was putting pressure on Mueller to broadly make cases with the intelligence," says one official. "But he did not want to use it as a basis for any affidavit in any court." Comey declined numerous requests for comment. Sources say Mueller and his general counsel, Valerie Caproni, continue to remain troubled by the domestic spying program. Martin, who has handled more intelligence-oriented criminal cases than anyone else at the Justice Department, puts the issue in stark terms: "The failure to allow it [information obtained from warrantless surveillance] to be used in court is a concession that it is an illegal surveillance."

Mueller has been criticized by some agents for being too close to the White House. His predecessor, Louis Freeh, made his break publicly from President Clinton, even returning his White House security access badge. Until recently, Mueller reported to the White House daily to brief Bush and Cheney. But Mueller has not shied away from making tough decisions. He refused to allow FBI agents to participate in CIA and Defense Department interviews of high-value prisoners because of the administration's use of aggressive interrogation techniques. In Iraq and at the Pentagon-run camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it has been FBI agents who have called attention to what they viewed as abuse of detainees.

It is unclear how much resistance from the FBI the White House and the Justice Department will be willing to brook. What is clear, however, is the extraordinary extent to which officials in both places inject themselves in the bureau's operations. In late 2004, President Bush asked then FBI Deputy Director Bruce Gebhardt, filling in for Mueller during the daily White House briefings, minute details about a suspected terrorism threat in Kansas. "Don't worry, Mr. President," responded Gebhardt, straight-faced. "We have Kansas surrounded."

MORE:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/17.html#a7564

Countdown: Warrantless physical searches


It never stops with this administration. Turley is up in arms over this one, calling it horrific-saying it removes the 4th amendment from the Constitution. He also rips Congress for laying down like dogs and not even holding serious hearing on the NSA warrantless searches.

Turley: ...the fact that it was so quick as a suggestion shows the inclinations unfortunately of this administration-it treats the constitution like some legal technicality, and instead of the thing we're trying to fight to protect.

Video-WMP Video-QT (GO TO SOURCE URL)
Atrios

"According to Countdown, "US News and World Report will tell us tomorrow that Bush administration lawyers (Torture Yoo and Abu Gonzales presumably) after 9/11 made the case that Bush had the power to engage in warrantless physical searches of terrorism suspects on domestic soil."

mcjoan has a transcript up...

Olbermann: (reading from a U.S. News & World Report press release) "Soon after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, lawyers in the White House and the Justice Department argued that the same legal authority that the same legal authority that allowed warrentless electronic surveillance inside the US, could also be used to justify physical searches of terror suspects homes & businesses without court approval. Doesn't that send chills down your spine?

Turley: Well it does. It's horrific, because what that would constitute is to effectively remove the 4th Amendment from the U.S. Constitution and the fact that it was so quick as a suggestion shows the inclinations, unfortunately, of this administration. It treats the Constitution as some legal technicality instead of the thing were trying to fight to protect. Notably, the U.S. News & World Report story says the FBI officals, or some of them apparently, objected... [W]e're seeing a lot of people in the administration with the courage to say "Hold it, this is not what we're supposed to be about. If we're fighting a war, it's a war of self definition and if we start to take whole amendments out of the Constitution in the name of the war on terror-we have to wonder what's left at the end, except victory."...read on