From Wings of Justice.com via Buzzflash.com :
april 5, 2006
Navy LCDR Charles Swift
We rarely begin our BuzzFlash "Wings of Justice Award" commendation with a mainstream media quotation, but this time we'll make an exception.
According to the Bloomberg news service, "He was supposed to arrange a plea bargain. Instead, Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift ended up fighting his commander in chief at the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Swift, the military lawyer for Guantanamo Bay inmate Salim Ahmed Hamdan, is asking the high court to block President George W. Bush's plan to use tribunals to try terrorism suspects."
The Supreme Court is now hearing the case.
Swift, among other things, accuses the military of trying to coerce a guilty plea from his client by threatening to take away his legal representation -- that is to say LCDR Swift -- if the Guantanamo inmate didn't plead guilty.
A loyal military man, Swift found that his superiors in the Pentagon had turned a bit too Kafkaesque and decided to follow the path of justice instead of career expediency.
Swift said, "If you start thinking about your career over your duty, it's time to get out.''
Too bad we don't have his kind of integrity and respect for the law and justice on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, BuzzFlash salutes you as this week's "Wings of Justice Award" honoree.
Wrap....
Friday, April 07, 2006
Los Alamos Nuclear Lab....in trouble...
From Lanl-the-real-story :
Friday, April 07, 2006
DX is facing another shutdown
DX is facing another shutdown.There have been three major incidents in DX Division in the past two weeks. One involved a DX manager. 6 weeks ago there was a stop work issued for another operation involving firearms use at DX. Since Nanos shut down the lab everyone in DX who knew what they were doing has either retired or quit.
They are left with inadequate procedures and a workforce that does not have the experience to fill in the gaps. This has led to a very dangerous work environment at DX.
Incident 1-- A firing point worker operating a mobile crane at DARHT failed to obey the signals of the ground crew and removed a counter weight from the crane without ensuring that the hook was directly over the load. This caused the load to swing into the cab damaging the crane. The independent inspector who came out to look over the crane after the incident said that he had seen this type of accident before but usually the cab is crushed and the operator injured or killed.
Incident 2-- An electrical accident placed a DX worker in the hospital due to a 110v shock.Incident 3-- A DX Division Manager ran a road block during an explosive operation. He ended up at the firing point where the operation was being conducted. This incident indicates the lack of knowledge that DX managers have regarding the operations they oversee and authorize. There are virtually no managers left in DX that have experience in explosive operations.
Work Stoppage – A stop work was issued for a test involving a firearm at DX. When the operation was reviewed by the Firearms Safety Committee it was found that DX procedures were woefully inadequate and the firearms were in a state of dangerous disrepair. When asked why this situation existed DX said that the person who used to do this work had retired.
# posted by Doug Roberts : 4/07/2006 11:25:00 AM
Comments:
Let me be the first to say "I TOLD YOU SO!"No organization can suffer the abuse of a person such as Admiral Butthead combined with the loss of experienced personnel.This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Wrap....
Friday, April 07, 2006
DX is facing another shutdown
DX is facing another shutdown.There have been three major incidents in DX Division in the past two weeks. One involved a DX manager. 6 weeks ago there was a stop work issued for another operation involving firearms use at DX. Since Nanos shut down the lab everyone in DX who knew what they were doing has either retired or quit.
They are left with inadequate procedures and a workforce that does not have the experience to fill in the gaps. This has led to a very dangerous work environment at DX.
Incident 1-- A firing point worker operating a mobile crane at DARHT failed to obey the signals of the ground crew and removed a counter weight from the crane without ensuring that the hook was directly over the load. This caused the load to swing into the cab damaging the crane. The independent inspector who came out to look over the crane after the incident said that he had seen this type of accident before but usually the cab is crushed and the operator injured or killed.
Incident 2-- An electrical accident placed a DX worker in the hospital due to a 110v shock.Incident 3-- A DX Division Manager ran a road block during an explosive operation. He ended up at the firing point where the operation was being conducted. This incident indicates the lack of knowledge that DX managers have regarding the operations they oversee and authorize. There are virtually no managers left in DX that have experience in explosive operations.
Work Stoppage – A stop work was issued for a test involving a firearm at DX. When the operation was reviewed by the Firearms Safety Committee it was found that DX procedures were woefully inadequate and the firearms were in a state of dangerous disrepair. When asked why this situation existed DX said that the person who used to do this work had retired.
# posted by Doug Roberts : 4/07/2006 11:25:00 AM
Comments:
Let me be the first to say "I TOLD YOU SO!"No organization can suffer the abuse of a person such as Admiral Butthead combined with the loss of experienced personnel.This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Wrap....
San Francisco Spy Room..NSA taps West Coast..
From Wired.com :
Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room
By Ryan Singel Also by this reporter
11:15 AM Apr, 07, 2006
AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.
On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.
According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.
"I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."
Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.
"While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T's internet service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal," Klein wrote.
The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and international providers, according to Klein's statement.
The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets," according to Klein's statement.
Narus, whose website touts AT&T as a client, sells software to help internet service providers and telecoms monitor and manage their networks, look for intrusions, and wiretap phone calls as mandated by federal law.
Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.
"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."
After asking for a preview copy of the documents last week, the government did not object to the EFF filing the paper under seal, although the EFF asked the court Wednesday to make the documents public.
One of the documents is titled "Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco," and is dated 2002. The others are allegedly a design document instructing technicians how to wire up the taps, and a document that describes the equipment installed in the secret room.
In a letter to the EFF, AT&T objected to the filing of the documents in any manner, saying that they contain sensitive trade secrets and could be "could be used to 'hack' into the AT&T network, compromising its integrity."
According to court rules, AT&T has until Thursday to file a motion to keep the documents sealed. The government could also step in to the case and request that the documents not be made public, or even that the entire lawsuit be barred under the seldom-used State Secrets Privilege.
AT&T spokesman Walt Sharp declined to comment on the allegations, citing a company policy of not commenting on litigation or matters of national security, but did say that "AT&T follows all laws following requests for assistance from government authorities."
Wrap...
Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room
By Ryan Singel Also by this reporter
11:15 AM Apr, 07, 2006
AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.
Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.
On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works.
According to a statement released by Klein's attorney, an NSA agent showed up at the San Francisco switching center in 2002 to interview a management-level technician for a special job. In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls.
"I learned that the person whom the NSA interviewed for the secret job was the person working to install equipment in this room," Klein wrote. "The regular technician work force was not allowed in the room."
Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room. During the course of that work, he learned from a co-worker that similar cabinets were being installed in other cities, including Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego.
"While doing my job, I learned that fiber optic cables from the secret room were tapping into the Worldnet (AT&T's internet service) circuits by splitting off a portion of the light signal," Klein wrote.
The split circuits included traffic from peering links connecting to other internet backbone providers, meaning that AT&T was also diverting traffic routed from its network to or from other domestic and international providers, according to Klein's statement.
The secret room also included data-mining equipment called a Narus STA 6400, "known to be used particularly by government intelligence agencies because of its ability to sift through large amounts of data looking for preprogrammed targets," according to Klein's statement.
Narus, whose website touts AT&T as a client, sells software to help internet service providers and telecoms monitor and manage their networks, look for intrusions, and wiretap phone calls as mandated by federal law.
Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.
"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."
After asking for a preview copy of the documents last week, the government did not object to the EFF filing the paper under seal, although the EFF asked the court Wednesday to make the documents public.
One of the documents is titled "Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco," and is dated 2002. The others are allegedly a design document instructing technicians how to wire up the taps, and a document that describes the equipment installed in the secret room.
In a letter to the EFF, AT&T objected to the filing of the documents in any manner, saying that they contain sensitive trade secrets and could be "could be used to 'hack' into the AT&T network, compromising its integrity."
According to court rules, AT&T has until Thursday to file a motion to keep the documents sealed. The government could also step in to the case and request that the documents not be made public, or even that the entire lawsuit be barred under the seldom-used State Secrets Privilege.
AT&T spokesman Walt Sharp declined to comment on the allegations, citing a company policy of not commenting on litigation or matters of national security, but did say that "AT&T follows all laws following requests for assistance from government authorities."
Wrap...
Rep Ron Paul...going to war again...
From Information Clearing House:
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
Once again we're unilaterally declaring a pre-emptive war against a country and a people that have not harmed us and do not have the capacity to do so. And don't expect Congress to seriously debate a declaration of war resolution. For the past 56 years Congress has transferred to the executive branch the power to go to war as it pleases, regardless of the tragic results and costs.
Windows Video and transcript
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12640.htm
Wrap....
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
Once again we're unilaterally declaring a pre-emptive war against a country and a people that have not harmed us and do not have the capacity to do so. And don't expect Congress to seriously debate a declaration of war resolution. For the past 56 years Congress has transferred to the executive branch the power to go to war as it pleases, regardless of the tragic results and costs.
Windows Video and transcript
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12640.htm
Wrap....
Thursday, April 06, 2006
US Immigration Agency corrupt....
From Associated Press:
Former Immigration Official Alleges Fraud
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 7, 2006
Filed at 12:05 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Corruption plagues the agency that determines the legal status of immigrants, and its employees often don't conduct proper background checks of immigration applicants, a former agency official told lawmakers Thursday.
As a result, ''the integrity of the United States immigration system has also been corrupted and the system is incapable of ensuring the security of our homeland,'' Michael Maxwell said.
''Ours is a system that rewards criminals, facilitates the movement of terrorists, (and) supports foreign agents,'' said Maxwell, who had been in charge of the Office of Security and Investigations at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services until resigning in February.
The agency's director, Emilio Gonzalez, has said that the Homeland Security Department's inspector general will investigate reports of fraud and sloppy procedures. Gonzalez also has insisted that security concerns come first even though the agency is under pressure to get through a backlog of immigration applications.
Angelica Alfonso-Royals, a spokeswoman, said Thursday the agency's top priority ''continues to be preserving and enhancing the integrity of the immigration system.'' She said the agency has confidence in the system but continually strives for improvement and ''it takes allegations seriously.''
Maxwell testified before the House International Relations Committee's terrorism and nonproliferation panel. He alleged that the agency has awarded immigrant benefits, including citizenship, without complete background checks.
As Maxwell spoke before the House panel, senators on the other side of the Capitol worked on compromise legislation that, if approved, would open the way to legal status and eventual citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.
Maxwell said the immigration agency has failed to investigate more than 500 criminal complaints against its own employees for allegations that include bribery, harboring illegal immigrants, money laundering and aiding known terrorists or being influenced by foreign intelligence services.
In one example, Maxwell said, the agency employed an Iraqi-born U.S. citizen suspected of being a foreign intelligence agent to review asylum applications.
''These breaches compromise virtually every part of the immigration system itself, leaving vulnerabilities that have been and likely are being exploited by criminals and adversaries of the United States,'' Maxwell said.
He said the agency's senior officials repeatedly ignored major national security vulnerabilities, covered them up or dismissed them.
Wrap...
Former Immigration Official Alleges Fraud
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 7, 2006
Filed at 12:05 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Corruption plagues the agency that determines the legal status of immigrants, and its employees often don't conduct proper background checks of immigration applicants, a former agency official told lawmakers Thursday.
As a result, ''the integrity of the United States immigration system has also been corrupted and the system is incapable of ensuring the security of our homeland,'' Michael Maxwell said.
''Ours is a system that rewards criminals, facilitates the movement of terrorists, (and) supports foreign agents,'' said Maxwell, who had been in charge of the Office of Security and Investigations at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services until resigning in February.
The agency's director, Emilio Gonzalez, has said that the Homeland Security Department's inspector general will investigate reports of fraud and sloppy procedures. Gonzalez also has insisted that security concerns come first even though the agency is under pressure to get through a backlog of immigration applications.
Angelica Alfonso-Royals, a spokeswoman, said Thursday the agency's top priority ''continues to be preserving and enhancing the integrity of the immigration system.'' She said the agency has confidence in the system but continually strives for improvement and ''it takes allegations seriously.''
Maxwell testified before the House International Relations Committee's terrorism and nonproliferation panel. He alleged that the agency has awarded immigrant benefits, including citizenship, without complete background checks.
As Maxwell spoke before the House panel, senators on the other side of the Capitol worked on compromise legislation that, if approved, would open the way to legal status and eventual citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.
Maxwell said the immigration agency has failed to investigate more than 500 criminal complaints against its own employees for allegations that include bribery, harboring illegal immigrants, money laundering and aiding known terrorists or being influenced by foreign intelligence services.
In one example, Maxwell said, the agency employed an Iraqi-born U.S. citizen suspected of being a foreign intelligence agent to review asylum applications.
''These breaches compromise virtually every part of the immigration system itself, leaving vulnerabilities that have been and likely are being exploited by criminals and adversaries of the United States,'' Maxwell said.
He said the agency's senior officials repeatedly ignored major national security vulnerabilities, covered them up or dismissed them.
Wrap...
Reigning in BushCo's executive secrets....
From Secrecy News:
BIPARTISAN EXECUTIVE BRANCH REFORM BILL ADVANCES IN HOUSE
An ambitious bill to promote an entire menu of "good government"reforms in the executive branch was endorsed on a bipartisan basis in the House Government Reform Committee today and reported to the full House.
The bill would notably limit the use of "pseudo-classification"markings such as "sensitive but unclassified" and "for official use only" unless they are authorized by statute or regulation. Such markings have been increasingly used by government agencies to restrict public access to unclassified information.
The "Executive Branch Reform Act of 2006," HR 5112, was introduced by Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and Ranking Member HenryWaxman (D-CA), and unanimously supported by the Committee's members.
Among its various provisions the bill would: end secret meetings between lobbyists and most executive branch officials; enhance protections for national security whistleblowers; and ban covertly sponsored government propaganda.
See the text of the "Executive Branch Reform Act of 2006,"introduced April 6, here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2006/hr5112.pdf
Wrap...
BIPARTISAN EXECUTIVE BRANCH REFORM BILL ADVANCES IN HOUSE
An ambitious bill to promote an entire menu of "good government"reforms in the executive branch was endorsed on a bipartisan basis in the House Government Reform Committee today and reported to the full House.
The bill would notably limit the use of "pseudo-classification"markings such as "sensitive but unclassified" and "for official use only" unless they are authorized by statute or regulation. Such markings have been increasingly used by government agencies to restrict public access to unclassified information.
The "Executive Branch Reform Act of 2006," HR 5112, was introduced by Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and Ranking Member HenryWaxman (D-CA), and unanimously supported by the Committee's members.
Among its various provisions the bill would: end secret meetings between lobbyists and most executive branch officials; enhance protections for national security whistleblowers; and ban covertly sponsored government propaganda.
See the text of the "Executive Branch Reform Act of 2006,"introduced April 6, here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2006/hr5112.pdf
Wrap...
Off the roof...one more time in Iraq....
From The Guardian:
The tethered goat strategy
Amid an internal crisis of credibility, Condoleezza Rice has washed her hands of her department Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday April 6, 2006
The Guardian
Since the Iraqi elections in January, US foreign service officers at the Baghdad embassy have been writing a steady stream of disturbing cables describing drastically worsening conditions. Violence from incipient communal civil war is rapidly rising. Last month there were eight times as many assassinations committed by Shia militias as terrorist murders by Sunni insurgents. The insurgency, according to the reports, also continues to mutate.
Meanwhile, President Bush's strategy of training Iraqi police and army to take over from coalition forces - "when they stand up, we'll stand down" - is perversely and portentously accelerating the strife. State department officials in the field are reporting that Shia militias use training as cover to infiltrate key positions. Thus the strategy to create institutions of order and security is fuelling civil war.
Rather than being received as invaluable intelligence, the messages are discarded or, worse, considered signs of disloyalty. Rejecting the facts on the ground apparently requires blaming the messengers. So far, two top attaches at the embassy have been reassigned elsewhere for producing factual reports that are too upsetting.
The Bush administration's preferred response to increasing disintegration is to act as if it has a strategy that is succeeding. "More delusion as a solution in the absence of a solution," said a senior state department official. Under the pretence that Iraq is being pacified, the military is partially withdrawing from hostile towns in the countryside and parts of Baghdad. By reducing the number of soldiers, the administration can claim its policy is working going into the midterm elections.
But the jobs the military doesn't want to perform are being sloughed off on state department "provisional reconstruction teams" (PRTs) led by foreign service officers. The rationale is that they will win Iraqi hearts-and-minds by organising civil functions.
The Pentagon has informed the state department it will not provide security for these officials and that mercenaries should be hired for protection instead. Internal state department documents listing the PRT jobs, dated March 30, reveal that the vast majority of them remain unfilled by volunteers. So the professionals are being forced to take the assignments in which "they can't do what they are being asked to do", as a senior department official told me.
Foreign service officers, as a rule, are self-abnegating in serving any administration. The state department's Intelligence and Research Bureau was correct in its scepticism before the war about Saddam Hussein's possession of WMDs, but was ignored. The department was correct in its assessment in its 17-volume Future of Iraq project about the immense effort required for reconstruction after the war, but it was disregarded. Now its reports from Iraq are correct, but their authors are being punished. Foreign service officers are to be sent out like tethered goats to the killing fields. When these misbegotten projects inevitably fail, the department will be blamed. Passive resistance to these assignments reflects anticipation of impending disaster, including the likely murder of diplomats.
Amid this internal crisis of credibility, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has washed her hands of her department. Her management skills are minimal. Now she has left coercing people to fill the PRTs to her counsellor, Philip Zelikow, who, by doing the dirty work, is trying to keep her reputation clean.
While the state department was racked last week by collapsing morale, Rice travelled to England to visit the constituency of Jack Straw. She declared that though the Bush administration had committed "tactical errors, thousands of them" in Iraq, it is right on the strategy. Then she and Straw took a magic carpet to Baghdad to try to overthrow Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari in favour of a more pliable character.
"Did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that after Vietnam we'd be doing this again?" one top state department official remarked to another last week. Inside the department, people wonder about the next "strategy" after the hearts-and-minds gambit of sending diplomats unprotected to secure victory turns into a squalid fiasco. "Helicopters on the roof?" asked an official.
· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of The Clinton Wars
Wrap...
The tethered goat strategy
Amid an internal crisis of credibility, Condoleezza Rice has washed her hands of her department Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday April 6, 2006
The Guardian
Since the Iraqi elections in January, US foreign service officers at the Baghdad embassy have been writing a steady stream of disturbing cables describing drastically worsening conditions. Violence from incipient communal civil war is rapidly rising. Last month there were eight times as many assassinations committed by Shia militias as terrorist murders by Sunni insurgents. The insurgency, according to the reports, also continues to mutate.
Meanwhile, President Bush's strategy of training Iraqi police and army to take over from coalition forces - "when they stand up, we'll stand down" - is perversely and portentously accelerating the strife. State department officials in the field are reporting that Shia militias use training as cover to infiltrate key positions. Thus the strategy to create institutions of order and security is fuelling civil war.
Rather than being received as invaluable intelligence, the messages are discarded or, worse, considered signs of disloyalty. Rejecting the facts on the ground apparently requires blaming the messengers. So far, two top attaches at the embassy have been reassigned elsewhere for producing factual reports that are too upsetting.
The Bush administration's preferred response to increasing disintegration is to act as if it has a strategy that is succeeding. "More delusion as a solution in the absence of a solution," said a senior state department official. Under the pretence that Iraq is being pacified, the military is partially withdrawing from hostile towns in the countryside and parts of Baghdad. By reducing the number of soldiers, the administration can claim its policy is working going into the midterm elections.
But the jobs the military doesn't want to perform are being sloughed off on state department "provisional reconstruction teams" (PRTs) led by foreign service officers. The rationale is that they will win Iraqi hearts-and-minds by organising civil functions.
The Pentagon has informed the state department it will not provide security for these officials and that mercenaries should be hired for protection instead. Internal state department documents listing the PRT jobs, dated March 30, reveal that the vast majority of them remain unfilled by volunteers. So the professionals are being forced to take the assignments in which "they can't do what they are being asked to do", as a senior department official told me.
Foreign service officers, as a rule, are self-abnegating in serving any administration. The state department's Intelligence and Research Bureau was correct in its scepticism before the war about Saddam Hussein's possession of WMDs, but was ignored. The department was correct in its assessment in its 17-volume Future of Iraq project about the immense effort required for reconstruction after the war, but it was disregarded. Now its reports from Iraq are correct, but their authors are being punished. Foreign service officers are to be sent out like tethered goats to the killing fields. When these misbegotten projects inevitably fail, the department will be blamed. Passive resistance to these assignments reflects anticipation of impending disaster, including the likely murder of diplomats.
Amid this internal crisis of credibility, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has washed her hands of her department. Her management skills are minimal. Now she has left coercing people to fill the PRTs to her counsellor, Philip Zelikow, who, by doing the dirty work, is trying to keep her reputation clean.
While the state department was racked last week by collapsing morale, Rice travelled to England to visit the constituency of Jack Straw. She declared that though the Bush administration had committed "tactical errors, thousands of them" in Iraq, it is right on the strategy. Then she and Straw took a magic carpet to Baghdad to try to overthrow Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari in favour of a more pliable character.
"Did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that after Vietnam we'd be doing this again?" one top state department official remarked to another last week. Inside the department, people wonder about the next "strategy" after the hearts-and-minds gambit of sending diplomats unprotected to secure victory turns into a squalid fiasco. "Helicopters on the roof?" asked an official.
· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of The Clinton Wars
Wrap...
BushCo pays off Texan oil friends...
From Information Clearing House:
Trillion Dollar WarNobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, 63, discusses the true $1 trillion cost of the Iraq conflict. The only people benefiting in this war are Bush's friends in the oil industry. He has done the American economy and the global economy an enormous disfavor, but his Texan friends couldn't be happier
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12634.htm
Wrap...
Trillion Dollar WarNobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, 63, discusses the true $1 trillion cost of the Iraq conflict. The only people benefiting in this war are Bush's friends in the oil industry. He has done the American economy and the global economy an enormous disfavor, but his Texan friends couldn't be happier
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12634.htm
Wrap...
BushCo insists on building new nukes...
From the LA Times via truthout.org :
Bush Administration Unveils Nuclear Weapons Complex Blueprint
By Ralph Vartabedian
The Los Angeles Times
Thursday 06 April 2006
The administration's proposal would modernize the nation's complex of laboratories and factories as well as produce new bombs.
The Bush administration on Wednesday unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the United States' decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity.
The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.
Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it claims will no longer be reliable or safe.
Under the plan, all of the nation's plutonium would be consolidated into a single facility that could be more effectively and cheaply defended against possible terrorist attacks. The plan would remove the plutonium now kept at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by 2014, though transfers of the material could start sooner. In recent years, concern has sharply grown that Livermore, surrounded by residential neighborhoods, could not repel a terrorist attack.
But the administration blueprint is facing sharp criticism, both from those who say it does not move fast enough to consolidate plutonium stores and from those who say restarting bomb production will encourage aspiring nuclear powers across the globe to develop weapons.
The plan was outlined to Congress on Wednesday by Thomas D'Agostino, head of nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department. While the weapons proposal would restore the capacity to make new bombs, D'Agostino said it is part of a larger effort to accelerate the dismantling of aging bombs left from the Cold War.
D'Agostino acknowledged in an interview that the Administration is walking a fine line by modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons program while assuring other nations that it is not seeking a new arms race. The credibility of the argument rests on the U.S. intent to sharply reduce its overall inventory of weapons.
The administration is also moving quickly ahead with a new nuclear bomb program known as the "reliable replacement warhead," which began last year. Originally described as an effort to update existing weapons and make them inherently more reliable, it has been broadened and now includes the potential for new bomb designs. Weapons labs currently are engaged in a design competition.
The U.S. built its last nuclear weapon in 1989 and last tested a weapon underground in 1992. Since the Cold War, the U.S. has depended on massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons to deter attacks. By contrast, it would now increasingly rely on the capability to build future bombs for deterrence, D'Agostino said.
The blueprint calls for a modern complex to design a new nuclear bomb and have it ready in less than four years, allowing the nation to respond to changing military requirements. Such proposals in the past, such as for a nuclear bomb to attack underground bunkers, provoked concern that they undermine U.S. policy to stop nuclear proliferation.
The impetus for the plan is a growing recognition that efforts to maintain older nuclear bombs and keep up a large nuclear weapons industrial complex are technically and financially unsustainable. Last year, a task force led by San Diego physicist David Overskei recommended that the Energy Department consolidate the system of eight existing weapons complexes into a single site.
Overskei said Wednesday that the cost of security alone for the current infrastructure of plants over the next two decades is roughly $25 billion. Security costs have grown, because the Sept. 11 attacks have forced the Energy Department to assume terrorists could mount a larger and better armed strike force.
Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department security consultant and now an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, criticized the plutonium consolidation plan in House testimony, saying it delays the difficult work too far into the future. Stockton added in an interview that the plutonium transfer at Livermore could be accomplished in a few months.
Until now, Livermore lab officials have sharply disagreed with the idea of removing plutonium from their site, saying it was essential to their work. On Wednesday, a lab spokesman said the issue is "far less controversial" and the "decision rests in Washington."
The Bush plan, described at a hearing of the strategic subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, would consolidate much of the weapons capacity, but not as completely or quickly as outside critics would like.
The overall plan would not be fully implemented until 2030. A critical part of restarting U.S. nuclear bomb production involves so-called plutonium pits, hollow spheres surrounded by high explosives. The pits start nuclear fission and trigger the nuclear fusion in a bomb.
The plutonium pits were built at the Energy Department's former Rocky Flats site near Denver, until the weapons plant was shut down in 1989 after it violated major environmental regulations.In recent years, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has attempted to start limited production of plutonium pits and hopes to build a certified pit that will enter the so-called "war reserve" next year. Los Alamos would be producing about 30 to 50 pits per year by 2012, but the Energy Department said that is not enough to sustain the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
In his testimony, D'Agostino estimated plutonium pits would last only 45 to 60 years, after which they would be too unreliable and might result in an explosion smaller than intended. Critics outside the government sharply dispute that conclusion, saying there is no evidence that pits degrade over time and that the nation can maintain an adequate nuclear deterrent by carefully maintaining its existing weapons.
Wrap...
Bush Administration Unveils Nuclear Weapons Complex Blueprint
By Ralph Vartabedian
The Los Angeles Times
Thursday 06 April 2006
The administration's proposal would modernize the nation's complex of laboratories and factories as well as produce new bombs.
The Bush administration on Wednesday unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the United States' decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity.
The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.
Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it claims will no longer be reliable or safe.
Under the plan, all of the nation's plutonium would be consolidated into a single facility that could be more effectively and cheaply defended against possible terrorist attacks. The plan would remove the plutonium now kept at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by 2014, though transfers of the material could start sooner. In recent years, concern has sharply grown that Livermore, surrounded by residential neighborhoods, could not repel a terrorist attack.
But the administration blueprint is facing sharp criticism, both from those who say it does not move fast enough to consolidate plutonium stores and from those who say restarting bomb production will encourage aspiring nuclear powers across the globe to develop weapons.
The plan was outlined to Congress on Wednesday by Thomas D'Agostino, head of nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a part of the Energy Department. While the weapons proposal would restore the capacity to make new bombs, D'Agostino said it is part of a larger effort to accelerate the dismantling of aging bombs left from the Cold War.
D'Agostino acknowledged in an interview that the Administration is walking a fine line by modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons program while assuring other nations that it is not seeking a new arms race. The credibility of the argument rests on the U.S. intent to sharply reduce its overall inventory of weapons.
The administration is also moving quickly ahead with a new nuclear bomb program known as the "reliable replacement warhead," which began last year. Originally described as an effort to update existing weapons and make them inherently more reliable, it has been broadened and now includes the potential for new bomb designs. Weapons labs currently are engaged in a design competition.
The U.S. built its last nuclear weapon in 1989 and last tested a weapon underground in 1992. Since the Cold War, the U.S. has depended on massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons to deter attacks. By contrast, it would now increasingly rely on the capability to build future bombs for deterrence, D'Agostino said.
The blueprint calls for a modern complex to design a new nuclear bomb and have it ready in less than four years, allowing the nation to respond to changing military requirements. Such proposals in the past, such as for a nuclear bomb to attack underground bunkers, provoked concern that they undermine U.S. policy to stop nuclear proliferation.
The impetus for the plan is a growing recognition that efforts to maintain older nuclear bombs and keep up a large nuclear weapons industrial complex are technically and financially unsustainable. Last year, a task force led by San Diego physicist David Overskei recommended that the Energy Department consolidate the system of eight existing weapons complexes into a single site.
Overskei said Wednesday that the cost of security alone for the current infrastructure of plants over the next two decades is roughly $25 billion. Security costs have grown, because the Sept. 11 attacks have forced the Energy Department to assume terrorists could mount a larger and better armed strike force.
Peter Stockton, a former Energy Department security consultant and now an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, criticized the plutonium consolidation plan in House testimony, saying it delays the difficult work too far into the future. Stockton added in an interview that the plutonium transfer at Livermore could be accomplished in a few months.
Until now, Livermore lab officials have sharply disagreed with the idea of removing plutonium from their site, saying it was essential to their work. On Wednesday, a lab spokesman said the issue is "far less controversial" and the "decision rests in Washington."
The Bush plan, described at a hearing of the strategic subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, would consolidate much of the weapons capacity, but not as completely or quickly as outside critics would like.
The overall plan would not be fully implemented until 2030. A critical part of restarting U.S. nuclear bomb production involves so-called plutonium pits, hollow spheres surrounded by high explosives. The pits start nuclear fission and trigger the nuclear fusion in a bomb.
The plutonium pits were built at the Energy Department's former Rocky Flats site near Denver, until the weapons plant was shut down in 1989 after it violated major environmental regulations.In recent years, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has attempted to start limited production of plutonium pits and hopes to build a certified pit that will enter the so-called "war reserve" next year. Los Alamos would be producing about 30 to 50 pits per year by 2012, but the Energy Department said that is not enough to sustain the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
In his testimony, D'Agostino estimated plutonium pits would last only 45 to 60 years, after which they would be too unreliable and might result in an explosion smaller than intended. Critics outside the government sharply dispute that conclusion, saying there is no evidence that pits degrade over time and that the nation can maintain an adequate nuclear deterrent by carefully maintaining its existing weapons.
Wrap...
Okay...here's the truth about the Green Zone, Iraq...
Martyr of Good and Bad.......
We are back in Baghdad or actually the Green Zone for a few days now. R&R wasnt bad, gave us some time to relax and reflect on what we wanna do. We both decided its time to leave. HUBBY feels betrayed, angry and deflated. He really has put his heart into his program, yet he was betrayed by all those around him and now he is convinced that there is nothing more for him to do here.
While on R&R, we got to watch what has been happening in Iraq...Something we dont really hear or see while being physically present. Thats why we dont consider ourselves being in the real Baghdad. The Green Zone is a far far place....far from reality....We were actually missed around here...Colleagues were glad to see us back...some of them even hinted that they thought we were gone for good...hmm a thought that didnt escape our mind...
I asked my Iraqi colleagues who live in the red zone about the situation. They said ever since the 22nd of Feb when the 2 shrines were hit things have become really bad...the explosions have become worst and the killings is now a mayhem....I ask if its civil war...some of them say yes others say no...the latter say now, be it a sunni or a shia you get killed...there is no difference. The former on the other hand, says dont believe that there isnt a civil war, there is and this current government failed.
Failed with all the meaning of the word. Majority of people want Allawi, which to me is not a surprise. When I say but he is an ex baathist, their response "we would rather have someone who knows how to rule with an iron fist rather than someone who has no care in the world about the people"....I dunno what to think anymore...before, my colleagues would work inorder to survive...now they tell me they work to save some money and get out of here. This is their goal, their goal is to leave this place to leave this "hell hole" as they put it....
Continued here: http://neurotic-iraqi-wife.blogspot.com/
Wrap....
We are back in Baghdad or actually the Green Zone for a few days now. R&R wasnt bad, gave us some time to relax and reflect on what we wanna do. We both decided its time to leave. HUBBY feels betrayed, angry and deflated. He really has put his heart into his program, yet he was betrayed by all those around him and now he is convinced that there is nothing more for him to do here.
While on R&R, we got to watch what has been happening in Iraq...Something we dont really hear or see while being physically present. Thats why we dont consider ourselves being in the real Baghdad. The Green Zone is a far far place....far from reality....We were actually missed around here...Colleagues were glad to see us back...some of them even hinted that they thought we were gone for good...hmm a thought that didnt escape our mind...
I asked my Iraqi colleagues who live in the red zone about the situation. They said ever since the 22nd of Feb when the 2 shrines were hit things have become really bad...the explosions have become worst and the killings is now a mayhem....I ask if its civil war...some of them say yes others say no...the latter say now, be it a sunni or a shia you get killed...there is no difference. The former on the other hand, says dont believe that there isnt a civil war, there is and this current government failed.
Failed with all the meaning of the word. Majority of people want Allawi, which to me is not a surprise. When I say but he is an ex baathist, their response "we would rather have someone who knows how to rule with an iron fist rather than someone who has no care in the world about the people"....I dunno what to think anymore...before, my colleagues would work inorder to survive...now they tell me they work to save some money and get out of here. This is their goal, their goal is to leave this place to leave this "hell hole" as they put it....
Continued here: http://neurotic-iraqi-wife.blogspot.com/
Wrap....
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Corporations to shrink presence in Green Zone...
From Strategic Forecasting, Inc:
Iraq: Leaving the Green Zone
By Fred Burton
The U.S. government recently has ordered several multinational corporations operating in Baghdad to begin reducing their presence in the area known as the "Green Zone." In essence, corporations have been advised to attempt to reduce their staffs and to seek locations outside the sector, which currently is protected by U.S. military troops.
Orders for a corporate downsizing from the "Green Zone" (or, as it is formally known, the "International Zone") fit perfectly with the political objectives of both the Bush administration and the nascent Iraqi government. A significant U.S. military drawdown is anticipated in the coming months, and that movement of troops will have deep implications for many -- not least of which will be the multinationals and other corporations that have been sheltered inside the Green Zone and that now will be factoring increasingly significant security considerations into their operational planning.
Hundreds of foreign companies -- ranging from giant infrastructure companies like Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root to food and consumer-product companies like Coca-Cola Co. and Nokia -- currently operate in Iraq.
Though many corporations fulfill their government contracts in Iraq through subcontractors, all of them require protection from insurgents, terrorists and common criminals. This need will take on increasing urgency as employees move beyond the bounds of the Green Zone -- a district where it can be difficult even for military troops to retain a sense of what conditions are like in other parts of Baghdad or Iraq.
Leaving the Green Zone: Political Implications
The Green Zone is a section of prime Baghdad real estate, measuring about four square miles, that is cradled by a bend of the Tigris River. The name "green zone" derives from military terminology reflecting the threat of enemy activity in the area; a "red zone" would entail high risks of enemy activity, while danger levels in "green zones" are much lower.
In Baghdad, the Green Zone houses Iraqi government offices, the headquarters of the U.S.-led military coalition, and offices of many of the companies involved in reconstruction efforts and support to military troops. It also remains home to many Iraqis who were living in the neighborhood before it was cordoned off by soldiers and secured with walls, barricades and checkpoints.
The recent eviction notice to corporations can be viewed as a sign that the United States is preparing to scale back its presence in the capital and the rest of Iraq -- a move that would meet with several political objectives for both Washington and Baghdad.
From a U.S. perspective, reducing the military footprint in the Green Zone would be a very effective way of showing that it is reducing its presence in the country as a whole. The area is, after all, the location of all the most important political players concerned with Iraq, and it is intimately familiar to the foreign journalists covering those issues. Conveying a sense, if not an overt message, that the U.S. presence is being reduced will be important for the Bush administration and Republican Party -- particularly as November's midterm congressional elections draw nearer.
The move also is likely to play well with the military itself; the U.S. Army has sought to extricate itself from Green Zone security burdens for quite some time. For example, approximately 800 troops, more than a full battalion, were dedicated to security in the Green Zone in August 2004, and the leadership of an entire brigade spent about 60 percent of its time dealing with security there -- not to mention the additional resources (including Navy SEALs, military police and other personnel) tasked with security for Iraqi political leaders. At that time, the Army proposed turning over portions of the zone to Iraqi control -- hoping to free up units for other duties, such as fighting insurgents.
The Iraqis certainly are not averse to such proposals; because the Green Zone is the primary seat of government within Baghdad, who controls the area is an issue with high symbolic implications. Having Iraqis providing protection would improve the government's image as a legitimate authority and reduce the sense that the area is under U.S. occupation.
Scaling back the Green Zone -- both in terms of U.S. presence and the area's physical size -- also would remove a source of considerable irritation to the residents of Baghdad. Given the existence of multiple checkpoints and tight security, entering and leaving the Green Zone can take hours for ordinary Iraqis. Several important roads that pass through the Green Zone are closed, including one of the main bridges connecting downtown Baghdad with the southern part of the city. Eliminating these inconveniences would remove a source of tension between coalition forces and locals.
Eviction Notice: Business Implications
For the businesses that have based significant operations from the Green Zone, the implications are altogether different.The first concern, of course, is security -- both for employees and for operations. This is not a new concern; violence and Iraq are hardly strangers. But the nature of the violence in the country is shifting and will continue to do so as the political process unfolds. Jihadist activity and the Sunni insurgency can be expected to decline over time, but threats to corporations from crime will remain -- and probably grow, incorporating former insurgents.
As it stands now, most of the violence in Baghdad stems from the activities of criminal gangs -- robbery, smuggling, kidnappings, sectarian killings -- rather than from political insurgents (though the insurgency gets most of the public's attention). The security challenge is complex; ordinary criminals have picked up paramilitary capabilities and even can be armed with mortars and improvised explosive devices, making it difficult to distinguish them from insurgents. Under any circumstances, it is doubtful that Iraqi security forces will be able to control the situation after a major U.S. withdrawal, and things easily could get worse.
All of which means that corporations that have relied on the protection of U.S. military troops, both within and beyond the Green Zone, will face new and heightened risks once the drawdown begins in earnest. And there are few quick -- or cheap -- solutions.
The most logical step, of course, would appear to be hiring private security contractors to fill the void left by U.S. troops. However, private U.S. security firms are despised in the Muslim world because they are viewed as playing a role in abuses of Muslim prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and this makes them a target for militants of many descriptions. As the presence of security contractors in Iraq grows, their risk quotient will rise in tandem -- and that concern will be factored into contracts and passed along as a cost to their customers.
In general, corporations and NGOs operating in or around Iraq can expect to see their operating costs go up -- and these are not inconsiderable at present. Security must be provided for facilities, personnel and transportation of commercial goods. Private security firms have been known to charge $700 for a single seat in a convoy from Baghdad International Airport to the Green Zone. Pay scales for private security contractors are another factor to consider. Western security contractors are seen as preferable to Iraqi security forces, whose loyalties -- for tribal and cultural reasons -- can be suspect, but the supply of skilled employees in this industry is small. Salaries exceeding $100,000 per year, with housing and food supplied, are not unusual, and competition for skilled employees likely will only push the costs upward as the need for security services grows.
Insurance needs also will have to be considered from a number of angles. Ancillary costs -- such as hazard pay or bonuses to employees who sign "hold harmless" waivers -- are nothing new, but kidnap-and-ransom insurance and life insurance premiums could escalate. Moreover, insurance carriers -- who have the option of refusing to provide coverage at any price -- might choose to do so as the security environment in Iraq shifts and troops withdraw. And all of these considerations -- including competitive pay scales to retain employees -- could become particularly acute if large numbers of contractors were to be killed or injured in a strike by insurgents.
Transportation of goods and people, to and from Baghdad and other parts of the region, also must be taken into account. In Iraq, helicopters -- flying low and fast -- are considered the safest way to travel between fortified coalition bases. The military has allowed civilian contractors to hitch rides on its helicopters as space permits, but as the military presence is reduced, corporations increasingly will be forced to arrange -- and pay for -- secure transport themselves. Meanwhile, overland transportation -- the primary means of moving commercial cargo throughout the country -- will take on new importance.
The Shift to Soft Targets
To be sure, there are opportunities amid the risks, and these will ripple across a number of industries as multinationals and others adjust to the new realities in Baghdad.
Apart from the private security industry, the opportunities may be particularly evident in areas bordering Iraq -- in places like Amman, Kuwait City and Dubai. Many Western companies, in the face of the Iraqi insurgency, already have pulled expatriates back to these areas, and the trend is likely to intensify now that the U.S. government has issued its guidance to the Green Zone's corporate residents.
But that certainly will not mean a cessation of reconstruction efforts in Iraq; so long as the benefits of lucrative government contracts continue to outweigh the costs of operations, the multinationals will remain in the region. Rather, it could translate into increased demand for communications infrastructure, housing and transportation for new waves of foreign workers coming into these or other cities.
Viewed from another angle, however, the movement of corporate assets could simply mean a geographic shift for certain kinds of security threats -- particularly those from jihadists. Jordan, the birthplace of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been the target in several thwarted plots, and al-Zarqawi himself took note of the Western business presence in Amman when he claimed responsibility for the bombings of three hotels there last November.
Other countries in the region -- such as Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- are not known as playgrounds for jihadists, but militants could be tempted to strike in such places if they are viewed as being rich with important targets.
In short, the exodus from the Green Zone can be seen as the continuation of a larger trend in the U.S. war against al Qaeda: Over time, government policy increasingly has pushed the security risks away from hard targets, such as military installations, toward "soft targets" like private businesses and transportation infrastructure. The nature of violence in Iraq is changing, but the country can be expected to remain unstable following the U.S. military drawdown. Whether the threat comes from jihadists or street criminals, there will be no shortage of weapons, ordnance and actors in play. Foreign corporations -- even if their primary facilities are not physically located in Iraq -- will feel the effects.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
Wrap...
Iraq: Leaving the Green Zone
By Fred Burton
The U.S. government recently has ordered several multinational corporations operating in Baghdad to begin reducing their presence in the area known as the "Green Zone." In essence, corporations have been advised to attempt to reduce their staffs and to seek locations outside the sector, which currently is protected by U.S. military troops.
Orders for a corporate downsizing from the "Green Zone" (or, as it is formally known, the "International Zone") fit perfectly with the political objectives of both the Bush administration and the nascent Iraqi government. A significant U.S. military drawdown is anticipated in the coming months, and that movement of troops will have deep implications for many -- not least of which will be the multinationals and other corporations that have been sheltered inside the Green Zone and that now will be factoring increasingly significant security considerations into their operational planning.
Hundreds of foreign companies -- ranging from giant infrastructure companies like Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root to food and consumer-product companies like Coca-Cola Co. and Nokia -- currently operate in Iraq.
Though many corporations fulfill their government contracts in Iraq through subcontractors, all of them require protection from insurgents, terrorists and common criminals. This need will take on increasing urgency as employees move beyond the bounds of the Green Zone -- a district where it can be difficult even for military troops to retain a sense of what conditions are like in other parts of Baghdad or Iraq.
Leaving the Green Zone: Political Implications
The Green Zone is a section of prime Baghdad real estate, measuring about four square miles, that is cradled by a bend of the Tigris River. The name "green zone" derives from military terminology reflecting the threat of enemy activity in the area; a "red zone" would entail high risks of enemy activity, while danger levels in "green zones" are much lower.
In Baghdad, the Green Zone houses Iraqi government offices, the headquarters of the U.S.-led military coalition, and offices of many of the companies involved in reconstruction efforts and support to military troops. It also remains home to many Iraqis who were living in the neighborhood before it was cordoned off by soldiers and secured with walls, barricades and checkpoints.
The recent eviction notice to corporations can be viewed as a sign that the United States is preparing to scale back its presence in the capital and the rest of Iraq -- a move that would meet with several political objectives for both Washington and Baghdad.
From a U.S. perspective, reducing the military footprint in the Green Zone would be a very effective way of showing that it is reducing its presence in the country as a whole. The area is, after all, the location of all the most important political players concerned with Iraq, and it is intimately familiar to the foreign journalists covering those issues. Conveying a sense, if not an overt message, that the U.S. presence is being reduced will be important for the Bush administration and Republican Party -- particularly as November's midterm congressional elections draw nearer.
The move also is likely to play well with the military itself; the U.S. Army has sought to extricate itself from Green Zone security burdens for quite some time. For example, approximately 800 troops, more than a full battalion, were dedicated to security in the Green Zone in August 2004, and the leadership of an entire brigade spent about 60 percent of its time dealing with security there -- not to mention the additional resources (including Navy SEALs, military police and other personnel) tasked with security for Iraqi political leaders. At that time, the Army proposed turning over portions of the zone to Iraqi control -- hoping to free up units for other duties, such as fighting insurgents.
The Iraqis certainly are not averse to such proposals; because the Green Zone is the primary seat of government within Baghdad, who controls the area is an issue with high symbolic implications. Having Iraqis providing protection would improve the government's image as a legitimate authority and reduce the sense that the area is under U.S. occupation.
Scaling back the Green Zone -- both in terms of U.S. presence and the area's physical size -- also would remove a source of considerable irritation to the residents of Baghdad. Given the existence of multiple checkpoints and tight security, entering and leaving the Green Zone can take hours for ordinary Iraqis. Several important roads that pass through the Green Zone are closed, including one of the main bridges connecting downtown Baghdad with the southern part of the city. Eliminating these inconveniences would remove a source of tension between coalition forces and locals.
Eviction Notice: Business Implications
For the businesses that have based significant operations from the Green Zone, the implications are altogether different.The first concern, of course, is security -- both for employees and for operations. This is not a new concern; violence and Iraq are hardly strangers. But the nature of the violence in the country is shifting and will continue to do so as the political process unfolds. Jihadist activity and the Sunni insurgency can be expected to decline over time, but threats to corporations from crime will remain -- and probably grow, incorporating former insurgents.
As it stands now, most of the violence in Baghdad stems from the activities of criminal gangs -- robbery, smuggling, kidnappings, sectarian killings -- rather than from political insurgents (though the insurgency gets most of the public's attention). The security challenge is complex; ordinary criminals have picked up paramilitary capabilities and even can be armed with mortars and improvised explosive devices, making it difficult to distinguish them from insurgents. Under any circumstances, it is doubtful that Iraqi security forces will be able to control the situation after a major U.S. withdrawal, and things easily could get worse.
All of which means that corporations that have relied on the protection of U.S. military troops, both within and beyond the Green Zone, will face new and heightened risks once the drawdown begins in earnest. And there are few quick -- or cheap -- solutions.
The most logical step, of course, would appear to be hiring private security contractors to fill the void left by U.S. troops. However, private U.S. security firms are despised in the Muslim world because they are viewed as playing a role in abuses of Muslim prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and this makes them a target for militants of many descriptions. As the presence of security contractors in Iraq grows, their risk quotient will rise in tandem -- and that concern will be factored into contracts and passed along as a cost to their customers.
In general, corporations and NGOs operating in or around Iraq can expect to see their operating costs go up -- and these are not inconsiderable at present. Security must be provided for facilities, personnel and transportation of commercial goods. Private security firms have been known to charge $700 for a single seat in a convoy from Baghdad International Airport to the Green Zone. Pay scales for private security contractors are another factor to consider. Western security contractors are seen as preferable to Iraqi security forces, whose loyalties -- for tribal and cultural reasons -- can be suspect, but the supply of skilled employees in this industry is small. Salaries exceeding $100,000 per year, with housing and food supplied, are not unusual, and competition for skilled employees likely will only push the costs upward as the need for security services grows.
Insurance needs also will have to be considered from a number of angles. Ancillary costs -- such as hazard pay or bonuses to employees who sign "hold harmless" waivers -- are nothing new, but kidnap-and-ransom insurance and life insurance premiums could escalate. Moreover, insurance carriers -- who have the option of refusing to provide coverage at any price -- might choose to do so as the security environment in Iraq shifts and troops withdraw. And all of these considerations -- including competitive pay scales to retain employees -- could become particularly acute if large numbers of contractors were to be killed or injured in a strike by insurgents.
Transportation of goods and people, to and from Baghdad and other parts of the region, also must be taken into account. In Iraq, helicopters -- flying low and fast -- are considered the safest way to travel between fortified coalition bases. The military has allowed civilian contractors to hitch rides on its helicopters as space permits, but as the military presence is reduced, corporations increasingly will be forced to arrange -- and pay for -- secure transport themselves. Meanwhile, overland transportation -- the primary means of moving commercial cargo throughout the country -- will take on new importance.
The Shift to Soft Targets
To be sure, there are opportunities amid the risks, and these will ripple across a number of industries as multinationals and others adjust to the new realities in Baghdad.
Apart from the private security industry, the opportunities may be particularly evident in areas bordering Iraq -- in places like Amman, Kuwait City and Dubai. Many Western companies, in the face of the Iraqi insurgency, already have pulled expatriates back to these areas, and the trend is likely to intensify now that the U.S. government has issued its guidance to the Green Zone's corporate residents.
But that certainly will not mean a cessation of reconstruction efforts in Iraq; so long as the benefits of lucrative government contracts continue to outweigh the costs of operations, the multinationals will remain in the region. Rather, it could translate into increased demand for communications infrastructure, housing and transportation for new waves of foreign workers coming into these or other cities.
Viewed from another angle, however, the movement of corporate assets could simply mean a geographic shift for certain kinds of security threats -- particularly those from jihadists. Jordan, the birthplace of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been the target in several thwarted plots, and al-Zarqawi himself took note of the Western business presence in Amman when he claimed responsibility for the bombings of three hotels there last November.
Other countries in the region -- such as Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates -- are not known as playgrounds for jihadists, but militants could be tempted to strike in such places if they are viewed as being rich with important targets.
In short, the exodus from the Green Zone can be seen as the continuation of a larger trend in the U.S. war against al Qaeda: Over time, government policy increasingly has pushed the security risks away from hard targets, such as military installations, toward "soft targets" like private businesses and transportation infrastructure. The nature of violence in Iraq is changing, but the country can be expected to remain unstable following the U.S. military drawdown. Whether the threat comes from jihadists or street criminals, there will be no shortage of weapons, ordnance and actors in play. Foreign corporations -- even if their primary facilities are not physically located in Iraq -- will feel the effects.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
Wrap...
The evil Patriot Act...reworked...
From Secrecy News :
A LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE REAUTHORIZED PATRIOT ACT (CRS)
On March 9, the President signed into law the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act, which made permanent 14 of the 16 sections of the Patriot Act that were set to expire. A new report from the Congressional Research Service provides a detailed, 74 page analysis of the Act, including the various modifications made in the reauthorization process.
See "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005: A LegalAnalysis," March 24, 2006: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33332.pdf
Wrap...
A LEGAL ANALYSIS OF THE REAUTHORIZED PATRIOT ACT (CRS)
On March 9, the President signed into law the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act, which made permanent 14 of the 16 sections of the Patriot Act that were set to expire. A new report from the Congressional Research Service provides a detailed, 74 page analysis of the Act, including the various modifications made in the reauthorization process.
See "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005: A LegalAnalysis," March 24, 2006: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33332.pdf
Wrap...
SCOTUS transcript confusion...
From www.scotusblog.com :
Commentary: How not to read a Court transcript
11:16 AM Lyle Denniston
The chief prosecutor of the war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Air Force Col. Morris D. Davis, has a law degree and a separate master of laws degree (in government procurement). He has had a variety of military law assignments since December 1983. On Tuesday, he met with reporters at the Cuban base that serves as the military's prison camp for suspected enemy terrorists, and read a statement of his views about a Supreme Court oral argument.
According to The New York Times story on the encounter, found here, Col. Davis suggested that a member of the Supreme Court -- Justice Stephen G. Breyer -- was mistaken in saying during a hearing that "this is not a war, at least not an ordinary war." This was a reference to Breyer's statements from the bench in the oral argument on March 28 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (05-184). (Col. Davis' statement is also discussed by Jess Bravin in a story filed for the Dow Jones news wire; it can be found here.)
"A few hours after Justice Breyer said this is not a war," Davis' statement to the press said, "enemy combatants launched a major attack on coalition forces in southern Afghanistan." (There was more to the statement, but its full text does not appear to be available online.)
For Col. Davis' continuing legal education, a look at the transcript of the Breyer comments shows the Justice saying the following (a direct quotation from the transcript):
I'm trying to focus this. And, in my mind, I take their argument as saying, "Look, you want to try a war crime. You want to say this is a war crimes tribunal. One, this is not a war, at least not an ordinary war. Two, it's not a war crime, because that doesn't fall under international law. And, three, it's not a war crime tribunal or commission, because no emergency, not on the batttlefield, civil courts are open, there is no military commander asking for it, it's not in any of those in other respects, like past history. And if the President can do this, well, then he can set up commissions to go to Toledo, and, in Toledo, pick up an alien, and not have any trial at all, except before that special commission." Now, I've tried to summarize a whole bunch of points for you to get at, as you wish.
(This is taken from page 66, beginning on line 13, and continuing for three lines on page 67 of the transcript, which is available here. Breyer was directing his question to Solicitor General Paul D. Clement.)
Note that Breyer is summarizing the arguments of the opponents of military commissions. The transcriber understood that it was a quotation, not a statement of Breyer's own views, because there are quotation marks at the beginning and end of Breyer's references to the other side's argument.
Wrap...
Commentary: How not to read a Court transcript
11:16 AM Lyle Denniston
The chief prosecutor of the war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Air Force Col. Morris D. Davis, has a law degree and a separate master of laws degree (in government procurement). He has had a variety of military law assignments since December 1983. On Tuesday, he met with reporters at the Cuban base that serves as the military's prison camp for suspected enemy terrorists, and read a statement of his views about a Supreme Court oral argument.
According to The New York Times story on the encounter, found here, Col. Davis suggested that a member of the Supreme Court -- Justice Stephen G. Breyer -- was mistaken in saying during a hearing that "this is not a war, at least not an ordinary war." This was a reference to Breyer's statements from the bench in the oral argument on March 28 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (05-184). (Col. Davis' statement is also discussed by Jess Bravin in a story filed for the Dow Jones news wire; it can be found here.)
"A few hours after Justice Breyer said this is not a war," Davis' statement to the press said, "enemy combatants launched a major attack on coalition forces in southern Afghanistan." (There was more to the statement, but its full text does not appear to be available online.)
For Col. Davis' continuing legal education, a look at the transcript of the Breyer comments shows the Justice saying the following (a direct quotation from the transcript):
I'm trying to focus this. And, in my mind, I take their argument as saying, "Look, you want to try a war crime. You want to say this is a war crimes tribunal. One, this is not a war, at least not an ordinary war. Two, it's not a war crime, because that doesn't fall under international law. And, three, it's not a war crime tribunal or commission, because no emergency, not on the batttlefield, civil courts are open, there is no military commander asking for it, it's not in any of those in other respects, like past history. And if the President can do this, well, then he can set up commissions to go to Toledo, and, in Toledo, pick up an alien, and not have any trial at all, except before that special commission." Now, I've tried to summarize a whole bunch of points for you to get at, as you wish.
(This is taken from page 66, beginning on line 13, and continuing for three lines on page 67 of the transcript, which is available here. Breyer was directing his question to Solicitor General Paul D. Clement.)
Note that Breyer is summarizing the arguments of the opponents of military commissions. The transcriber understood that it was a quotation, not a statement of Breyer's own views, because there are quotation marks at the beginning and end of Breyer's references to the other side's argument.
Wrap...
Kaloogian plus other odd Repubs vying for Duke Cunningham's seat...
From www.voiceofsandiego.org :
No Democrats in 'The Ranch'
By KEITH TAYLOR
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Staid, wealthy old North County is getting its share of publicity now with the scramble of a multitude of odd politicians to fill the remaining months of the Duke's term. Since I live far from that affluent neighborhood, I can sit back and enjoy the show, and a show it is.
When the Navy piped me over the side in 1970, I sold insurance for a number of years. Following the odd notion that rich people have money and will spend it, I peddled my wares in the area surrounding the Rancho Santa Fe zip code. I was partially right.
One of my favorite stories about the area involved the late Jane Brett, a realtor. She was once asked to serve on the election board because they wanted a Democrat for balance. When Jane said she was an Independent the reply was, "Oh yes, but you know there are no Democrats in the Ranch."
Of the current pols vying for the Cunningham-tainted 50th, my favorite to watch is Howard Kaloogian. He's the guy who in 1997 initially opposed a law which would allow women to breast-feed their babies in public. Not a complete dunce, he backed off when faced with women who weren't at all happy with being shunted to the back of the bus -- or restaurant in this case.
Fortunately, references to mammary glands aren't part of this current platform. Perhaps someone told him that trying to keep one class of citizens out of sight isn't good politics. So he is sticking to the tried-and-true, saving a sinking presidency. Kaloogian jumped on board the "war-is-good" bandwagon. To prove it, he went to Baghdad, or to somewhere. His Web site, purported to show him walking the streets of that beleaguered city. Everything was peaceful as could be. You could even see the graffiti on the walls. Oops! That turned out to be in Turkey, not Baghdad.
True to form he had an "explanation," three of them in fact. Then he had another equally peaceful photograph. This "peaceful scene" included a building which was later blown up.
But don't bet against Howard. The 50th is home of many rich business moguls that gave overwhelming support to a president. I'm sure they like his tax plans, and perhaps the war doesn't touch them, but I wonder how many would keep on a manager who ran up uncontrollable debt while deliberately cutting income. Those guys didn't earn that coveted 92067 zip code with voodoo economics.
But politics is politics and up there politics means Republican. They have a colorful history of . . . uh, of unusual candidates.
In 1962, they chose James B. Utt over Lionel Van Deerlin by some 64,000 votes. Van still grumbles about that. That's not, I suspect, because he lost an election. He did that more than once. No, Van lost to a guy who claimed that barefoot Africans in Georgia were training to help the United Nations take over the country.
Utt stayed on until 1970 when he was replaced by John Schmitz, a man who said he joined the John Birch Society in order to appeal to the liberal wing of his constituency. One of his more notable constituents was the president of the United States, a fellow many thought pretty conservative himself. But not liberal enough, Schmitz. When his president was about to go to China, he remarked, "I have no objection to President Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back." But the most telling thing of all about John Schmitz was that even the John Birch Society dumped him.
Up there, odd candidates aren't limited to the Republican Party. In 1980 the Democrats nominated a former Ku Klux Klan member and then leader of the White Aryan Nation, Tom Metzger, for congress. Mercifully the Republicans were again running popular, and rational, Clair Burgener. The Democratic Party endorsed him and Burgener won his last election with 82 percent of the votes.
Two years later Republican voters pulled another even more curious rabbit out of the hat by nominating Johnny Crean. His bizarre behavior as a candidate led the Republican leaders to jump ship. They backed Ron Packard for the seat and North County had an independent representative until Packard was able to change his politics back to the accepted and proper party.
Hint: If you are something of a liberal and want to sell insurance up there don't talk politics. And if you want to hang on to your money don't bet against the likes of Kaloogian.
Keith Taylor is a retired navy officer living in Chula Vista. He can be reached at KRTaylorxyz@aol.com. Or write a letter to the editor.
Wrap...
No Democrats in 'The Ranch'
By KEITH TAYLOR
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Staid, wealthy old North County is getting its share of publicity now with the scramble of a multitude of odd politicians to fill the remaining months of the Duke's term. Since I live far from that affluent neighborhood, I can sit back and enjoy the show, and a show it is.
When the Navy piped me over the side in 1970, I sold insurance for a number of years. Following the odd notion that rich people have money and will spend it, I peddled my wares in the area surrounding the Rancho Santa Fe zip code. I was partially right.
One of my favorite stories about the area involved the late Jane Brett, a realtor. She was once asked to serve on the election board because they wanted a Democrat for balance. When Jane said she was an Independent the reply was, "Oh yes, but you know there are no Democrats in the Ranch."
Of the current pols vying for the Cunningham-tainted 50th, my favorite to watch is Howard Kaloogian. He's the guy who in 1997 initially opposed a law which would allow women to breast-feed their babies in public. Not a complete dunce, he backed off when faced with women who weren't at all happy with being shunted to the back of the bus -- or restaurant in this case.
Fortunately, references to mammary glands aren't part of this current platform. Perhaps someone told him that trying to keep one class of citizens out of sight isn't good politics. So he is sticking to the tried-and-true, saving a sinking presidency. Kaloogian jumped on board the "war-is-good" bandwagon. To prove it, he went to Baghdad, or to somewhere. His Web site, purported to show him walking the streets of that beleaguered city. Everything was peaceful as could be. You could even see the graffiti on the walls. Oops! That turned out to be in Turkey, not Baghdad.
True to form he had an "explanation," three of them in fact. Then he had another equally peaceful photograph. This "peaceful scene" included a building which was later blown up.
But don't bet against Howard. The 50th is home of many rich business moguls that gave overwhelming support to a president. I'm sure they like his tax plans, and perhaps the war doesn't touch them, but I wonder how many would keep on a manager who ran up uncontrollable debt while deliberately cutting income. Those guys didn't earn that coveted 92067 zip code with voodoo economics.
But politics is politics and up there politics means Republican. They have a colorful history of . . . uh, of unusual candidates.
In 1962, they chose James B. Utt over Lionel Van Deerlin by some 64,000 votes. Van still grumbles about that. That's not, I suspect, because he lost an election. He did that more than once. No, Van lost to a guy who claimed that barefoot Africans in Georgia were training to help the United Nations take over the country.
Utt stayed on until 1970 when he was replaced by John Schmitz, a man who said he joined the John Birch Society in order to appeal to the liberal wing of his constituency. One of his more notable constituents was the president of the United States, a fellow many thought pretty conservative himself. But not liberal enough, Schmitz. When his president was about to go to China, he remarked, "I have no objection to President Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back." But the most telling thing of all about John Schmitz was that even the John Birch Society dumped him.
Up there, odd candidates aren't limited to the Republican Party. In 1980 the Democrats nominated a former Ku Klux Klan member and then leader of the White Aryan Nation, Tom Metzger, for congress. Mercifully the Republicans were again running popular, and rational, Clair Burgener. The Democratic Party endorsed him and Burgener won his last election with 82 percent of the votes.
Two years later Republican voters pulled another even more curious rabbit out of the hat by nominating Johnny Crean. His bizarre behavior as a candidate led the Republican leaders to jump ship. They backed Ron Packard for the seat and North County had an independent representative until Packard was able to change his politics back to the accepted and proper party.
Hint: If you are something of a liberal and want to sell insurance up there don't talk politics. And if you want to hang on to your money don't bet against the likes of Kaloogian.
Keith Taylor is a retired navy officer living in Chula Vista. He can be reached at KRTaylorxyz@aol.com. Or write a letter to the editor.
Wrap...
Senators Kerry & Feingold on Iraq...3 pt plan...
From NY Times:
Two Deadlines and an Exit
By John F. Kerry
The New York Times
Wednesday April 05 2006
We are now in the third war in Iraq in as many years. The first was against Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. The second was against terrorists whom, the administration said, it was better to fight over there than here. Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war.
Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion. We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our valiant soldiers can't bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq's leaders are unwilling themselves to make the compromises that democracy requires.
As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. It must be won politically. No American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi politicians refuse to resolve their ethnic and political differences.
So far, Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines - a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections.
Now we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet.
Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave.
If Iraq's leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year's end. Doing so will empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country. Only troops essential to finishing the job of training Iraqi forces should remain.
For this transition to work, we must finally begin to engage in genuine diplomacy. We must immediately bring the leaders of the Iraqi factions together at a Dayton Accords-like summit meeting. In a neutral setting, Iraqis, working with our allies, the Arab League and the United Nations, would be compelled to reach a political agreement that includes security guarantees, the dismantling of the militias and shared goals for reconstruction.
To increase the pressure on Iraq's leaders, we must redeploy American forces to garrisoned status. Troops should be used for security backup, training and emergency response; we should leave routine patrols to Iraqi forces. Special operations against Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists in Iraq should be initiated only on hard intelligence leads.
We will defeat Al Qaeda faster when we stop serving as its best recruitment tool. Iraqis ultimately will not tolerate foreign jihadists on their soil, and the United States will be able to maintain an over-the-horizon troop presence with rapid response capacity. An exit from Iraq will also strengthen our hand in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and allow us to repair the damage of repeated deployments, which flag officers believe has strained military readiness and morale.
For three years now, the administration has told us that terrible things will happen if we get tough with the Iraqis. In fact, terrible things are happening now because we haven't gotten tough enough. With two deadlines, we can change all that. We can put the American leadership on the side of our soldiers and push the Iraqi leadership to do what only it can do: build a democracy.
--------
John F. Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004.
******************
Russ Feingold Statement on Kerry's Call for Withdrawal From Iraq
t r u t h o u t Statement
Wednesday 05 April 2006
Statement of US Senator Russ Feingold on Senator John Kerry's Call for an End to Our Military Mission in Iraq.
"Since August 18, 2005, I have been calling on the Administration to aim to redeploy U.S. military personnel from Iraq by the end of this year so that we can focus on the threat posed by global terrorist networks. I applaud Senator Kerry's call today for our combat forces to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year. Senator Kerry has been a strong leader in calling for a clear, coherent strategy to complete our military mission in Iraq while engaging Iraq's leaders with genuine diplomacy.
Having just visited Iraq last month, I witnessed the desperate need for Iraqi politicians to form a unity government to prevent the country from falling deeper into violence. Senator Kerry is absolutely right to say that the end of this year is a reasonable target date for redeploying our troops in Iraq."
Wrap...
Two Deadlines and an Exit
By John F. Kerry
The New York Times
Wednesday April 05 2006
We are now in the third war in Iraq in as many years. The first was against Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. The second was against terrorists whom, the administration said, it was better to fight over there than here. Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war.
Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion. We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our valiant soldiers can't bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq's leaders are unwilling themselves to make the compromises that democracy requires.
As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. It must be won politically. No American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi politicians refuse to resolve their ethnic and political differences.
So far, Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines - a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections.
Now we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet.
Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave.
If Iraq's leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year's end. Doing so will empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country. Only troops essential to finishing the job of training Iraqi forces should remain.
For this transition to work, we must finally begin to engage in genuine diplomacy. We must immediately bring the leaders of the Iraqi factions together at a Dayton Accords-like summit meeting. In a neutral setting, Iraqis, working with our allies, the Arab League and the United Nations, would be compelled to reach a political agreement that includes security guarantees, the dismantling of the militias and shared goals for reconstruction.
To increase the pressure on Iraq's leaders, we must redeploy American forces to garrisoned status. Troops should be used for security backup, training and emergency response; we should leave routine patrols to Iraqi forces. Special operations against Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists in Iraq should be initiated only on hard intelligence leads.
We will defeat Al Qaeda faster when we stop serving as its best recruitment tool. Iraqis ultimately will not tolerate foreign jihadists on their soil, and the United States will be able to maintain an over-the-horizon troop presence with rapid response capacity. An exit from Iraq will also strengthen our hand in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and allow us to repair the damage of repeated deployments, which flag officers believe has strained military readiness and morale.
For three years now, the administration has told us that terrible things will happen if we get tough with the Iraqis. In fact, terrible things are happening now because we haven't gotten tough enough. With two deadlines, we can change all that. We can put the American leadership on the side of our soldiers and push the Iraqi leadership to do what only it can do: build a democracy.
--------
John F. Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, was the Democratic nominee for president in 2004.
******************
Russ Feingold Statement on Kerry's Call for Withdrawal From Iraq
t r u t h o u t Statement
Wednesday 05 April 2006
Statement of US Senator Russ Feingold on Senator John Kerry's Call for an End to Our Military Mission in Iraq.
"Since August 18, 2005, I have been calling on the Administration to aim to redeploy U.S. military personnel from Iraq by the end of this year so that we can focus on the threat posed by global terrorist networks. I applaud Senator Kerry's call today for our combat forces to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year. Senator Kerry has been a strong leader in calling for a clear, coherent strategy to complete our military mission in Iraq while engaging Iraq's leaders with genuine diplomacy.
Having just visited Iraq last month, I witnessed the desperate need for Iraqi politicians to form a unity government to prevent the country from falling deeper into violence. Senator Kerry is absolutely right to say that the end of this year is a reasonable target date for redeploying our troops in Iraq."
Wrap...
Fundies will love the Christian publisher...
From Publishers Lunch:
Penguin Creates Christian Label
We noted in late February that Penguin was at least considering an inspirational imprint and today the company has announced the creation of Penguin Praise, a Christian publishing program. Joel Fontinos will serve as publisher, and Berkley editor Denise Silvestro will be executive editor for the line.
Rather than an entirely freestanding publishing program, Praise books will often be issued in conjunction with other Penguin Group imprints and the launch program includes existing Penguin Group authors such as T.D. Jakes and Reverend Don Piper. Putnam/Praise has also licensed exclusive trade rights to the Contemporary English Version (CEV) edition of the Bible, from the American Bible Society.
Fontinos says in the announcement: "The Penguin Praise publishing program represents the culmination of Penguin's ten years of successfully publishing into the Christian book market and becomes the gateway through which we can continue to increase our CBA presence in many exciting and unique ways. We are also sending a signal to our CBA accounts that their titles are being published through a full-service publishing program that has 100 percent reach into the CBA markets as well as the ABA markets. The program allows us to determine, on a book-by-book basis, where to best position our authors and their books while having the option to publish titles under the Praise logo or under an imprint's primary logo."
Strang Communications, which has sold and distributed select Penguin Group titles to the CBA market, will handle the Praise line along with the Noble sales group.
[NOTE: Think $$$$$$$$]
Wrap...
Penguin Creates Christian Label
We noted in late February that Penguin was at least considering an inspirational imprint and today the company has announced the creation of Penguin Praise, a Christian publishing program. Joel Fontinos will serve as publisher, and Berkley editor Denise Silvestro will be executive editor for the line.
Rather than an entirely freestanding publishing program, Praise books will often be issued in conjunction with other Penguin Group imprints and the launch program includes existing Penguin Group authors such as T.D. Jakes and Reverend Don Piper. Putnam/Praise has also licensed exclusive trade rights to the Contemporary English Version (CEV) edition of the Bible, from the American Bible Society.
Fontinos says in the announcement: "The Penguin Praise publishing program represents the culmination of Penguin's ten years of successfully publishing into the Christian book market and becomes the gateway through which we can continue to increase our CBA presence in many exciting and unique ways. We are also sending a signal to our CBA accounts that their titles are being published through a full-service publishing program that has 100 percent reach into the CBA markets as well as the ABA markets. The program allows us to determine, on a book-by-book basis, where to best position our authors and their books while having the option to publish titles under the Praise logo or under an imprint's primary logo."
Strang Communications, which has sold and distributed select Penguin Group titles to the CBA market, will handle the Praise line along with the Noble sales group.
[NOTE: Think $$$$$$$$]
Wrap...
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
A selection of books on the way....
From Publishers Weekly Lunch:
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT:
Monkey Town author Ronald Kidd's ON BEALE STREET, the story of a Memphis teen who befriends the young Elvis Presley and discovers racism and rock and roll in the summer of 1954, to Alyssa Eisner at Simon & Schuster, in a nice deal, by Jodi Reamer at Writers House (NA).jreamer@writershouse.com
FOREIGN:
Foreign rights to Richard Doetsch's debut thriller, THE THIEVES OF HEAVEN, in which a burglar is hired to orchestrate a remarkable theft, to Philip Wilson Warsaw in Poland, by Milena Lukic; to R.A.O. International Publishing in Romania; to Via Print in Serbia, all by Prava I Prevodi. Previous rights sold for World Spanish, Russian, Czech Republic, Bulgarian, Brazilian Portuguese by Al Longden at Rights Unlimited, on behalf of the Cynthia Manson Literary Agency.
German rights to Paul Kropp's young adult novel, RUNNING THE BASES, a humorously honest look at the misadventures of teenage dating, to Saueländer/Patmos, by Suzanne de Roche at Liepmann AG, on behalf of Ron Eckel at Random House Canada.reckel@randomhouse.com
BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:
salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and the salesforce.com Foundation's THE BUSINESS OF CHANGING THE WORLD, detailing the most important corporate philanthropic efforts across the globe, with such contributors as Michael Dell and Peter Gabriel, to Jeffrey Krames at McGraw-Hill, by James Levine at Levine Greenebrg Literary Agency (world).lydia_rinaldi@mcgraw-hill.com
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Jefferson's Great Gamble and Young Patriots author Charles A. Cerami's DINNER AT MR. JEFFERSON'S: Five Men, Eight Great Wines, and An Evening That Changed America, a narrative account of one of the most important dinner parties in American history, a single great evening that put the young nation on a path to power and respect, to Hana Lane at Wiley, by Bob Silverstein at Quicksilver Books (world).quickbooks@optonline.net
HUMOR:
Bev West and Jason Bergund's BAD BRIDE: 222 Not-So-Blushing Brides and Weddings Gone Wild, a humorous collection of wedding photos revealing the pissed-off control queen beneath the veil, to Rebecca Isenberg at Warner, in a very nice deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group.
MEMOIR:
Sharon Osbourne's big UK bestseller EXTREME, a memoir, to Karen Murgolo at Springboard (after colleagues from Warner had passed previously), by Time Warner UK.
NARRATIVE:
Former Boston Globe reporter Alison Bass's SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER, a literary narrative that captures the anything-goes decade of drug development in the 90s, showing how one enterprising sleuth exposed the underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry and helped change the way drugs are tested and sold in the U.S, to Amy Gash of Algonquin, at auction, by James Levine of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).jlevine@levinegreenberg.com
POP CULTURE:
NY Post reporter Michael Kane's untitled book on cybergaming, a look at the world of competitive cybergaming, seen through the top players and team owners as they make their way through national tournaments to the World Championships of the web's CounterStrike, to Alessandra Lusardi at Viking, in a very nice deal, by Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (NA).sglick@dystel.com alessandra.lusardi@us.penguingroup.com
SPORTS:
Richard Bradley's THE GREATEST GAME: The Yankees, The Red Sox, and The Playoff that Saved Baseball, about the one-game playoff between the Yankees and the Red Sox in 1978, to Martin Beiser at Free Press, for publication in April 2008, by Suzanne Gluck of the William Morris Agency.carisa.hays@simonandschuster.com
Curt Sampson's GOLF DADS: Profiles of Fathers, Their Children and the Game that Binds them, a series of 10 stories about the unique bond forged between fathers and children around the game of golf, including high profile athletes such as Nicklaus, Hogan, Singh, Trevino, and Sorenstam, as well as stories of lesser known golfers, such as in his recent "Back to the Mariposas" piece in Sports Illustrated about the son of a renowned lepidopterist, to Susan Canavan at Houghton Mifflin, in a pre-empt, by Byrd Leavell at the Waxman Literary Agency (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Son of Auberon Waugh and grandson of Evelyn Waugh, Alexander Waugh's THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF WITTGENSTEIN, focusing on Paul Wittgenstein, the Austrian pianist who lost his right arm in World War I but continued his concert career, to tell the larger story of a family of great wealth and conspicuous genius marked by tragedy - all three of Paul's elder brothers committed suicide - and indelible achievement - his younger brother was the iconic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, to Gerry Howard at Doubleday, by Gillon Aitken at Gillon Aitken Associates. Bloomsbury is publishing in the UK.
FOREIGN:
Canadian rights to the winner of the 2005 Governor-General's award for A Perfect Night to Go to China and former CBC TV's On the Arts film critic David Gilmour's first non-fiction work THE FILM CLUB, a poignant account of the two years Gilmour spent teaching life lessons to his high school dropout son by showing him the world's best (and occasionally worst) films, to Patrick Crean at Thomas Allen & Sons, by Sam Hiyate at The Rights Factory.US/UK: Sam@therightsfactory.com FOREIGN: rights@imriedervis.com
FILM:
Michael Gates Gill's HOW STARBUCKS SAVED MY LIFE, to Universal, for Tom Hanks to star and Gus Van Sant to direct, with Tom Hanks' Playtone Productions producing, in a pre-empt, by Shari Smiley at CAA, on behalf of Gillian MacKenzie of the Gillian MacKenzie Agency.gmackenzie@gillianmackenzieagency.com
Wrap...
CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT:
Monkey Town author Ronald Kidd's ON BEALE STREET, the story of a Memphis teen who befriends the young Elvis Presley and discovers racism and rock and roll in the summer of 1954, to Alyssa Eisner at Simon & Schuster, in a nice deal, by Jodi Reamer at Writers House (NA).jreamer@writershouse.com
FOREIGN:
Foreign rights to Richard Doetsch's debut thriller, THE THIEVES OF HEAVEN, in which a burglar is hired to orchestrate a remarkable theft, to Philip Wilson Warsaw in Poland, by Milena Lukic; to R.A.O. International Publishing in Romania; to Via Print in Serbia, all by Prava I Prevodi. Previous rights sold for World Spanish, Russian, Czech Republic, Bulgarian, Brazilian Portuguese by Al Longden at Rights Unlimited, on behalf of the Cynthia Manson Literary Agency.
German rights to Paul Kropp's young adult novel, RUNNING THE BASES, a humorously honest look at the misadventures of teenage dating, to Saueländer/Patmos, by Suzanne de Roche at Liepmann AG, on behalf of Ron Eckel at Random House Canada.reckel@randomhouse.com
BUSINESS/INVESTING/FINANCE:
salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and the salesforce.com Foundation's THE BUSINESS OF CHANGING THE WORLD, detailing the most important corporate philanthropic efforts across the globe, with such contributors as Michael Dell and Peter Gabriel, to Jeffrey Krames at McGraw-Hill, by James Levine at Levine Greenebrg Literary Agency (world).lydia_rinaldi@mcgraw-hill.com
HISTORY/POLITICS/CURRENT AFFAIRS:
Jefferson's Great Gamble and Young Patriots author Charles A. Cerami's DINNER AT MR. JEFFERSON'S: Five Men, Eight Great Wines, and An Evening That Changed America, a narrative account of one of the most important dinner parties in American history, a single great evening that put the young nation on a path to power and respect, to Hana Lane at Wiley, by Bob Silverstein at Quicksilver Books (world).quickbooks@optonline.net
HUMOR:
Bev West and Jason Bergund's BAD BRIDE: 222 Not-So-Blushing Brides and Weddings Gone Wild, a humorous collection of wedding photos revealing the pissed-off control queen beneath the veil, to Rebecca Isenberg at Warner, in a very nice deal, by Jenny Bent at Trident Media Group.
MEMOIR:
Sharon Osbourne's big UK bestseller EXTREME, a memoir, to Karen Murgolo at Springboard (after colleagues from Warner had passed previously), by Time Warner UK.
NARRATIVE:
Former Boston Globe reporter Alison Bass's SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER, a literary narrative that captures the anything-goes decade of drug development in the 90s, showing how one enterprising sleuth exposed the underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry and helped change the way drugs are tested and sold in the U.S, to Amy Gash of Algonquin, at auction, by James Levine of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency (world).jlevine@levinegreenberg.com
POP CULTURE:
NY Post reporter Michael Kane's untitled book on cybergaming, a look at the world of competitive cybergaming, seen through the top players and team owners as they make their way through national tournaments to the World Championships of the web's CounterStrike, to Alessandra Lusardi at Viking, in a very nice deal, by Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (NA).sglick@dystel.com alessandra.lusardi@us.penguingroup.com
SPORTS:
Richard Bradley's THE GREATEST GAME: The Yankees, The Red Sox, and The Playoff that Saved Baseball, about the one-game playoff between the Yankees and the Red Sox in 1978, to Martin Beiser at Free Press, for publication in April 2008, by Suzanne Gluck of the William Morris Agency.carisa.hays@simonandschuster.com
Curt Sampson's GOLF DADS: Profiles of Fathers, Their Children and the Game that Binds them, a series of 10 stories about the unique bond forged between fathers and children around the game of golf, including high profile athletes such as Nicklaus, Hogan, Singh, Trevino, and Sorenstam, as well as stories of lesser known golfers, such as in his recent "Back to the Mariposas" piece in Sports Illustrated about the son of a renowned lepidopterist, to Susan Canavan at Houghton Mifflin, in a pre-empt, by Byrd Leavell at the Waxman Literary Agency (world).
GENERAL/OTHER:
Son of Auberon Waugh and grandson of Evelyn Waugh, Alexander Waugh's THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF WITTGENSTEIN, focusing on Paul Wittgenstein, the Austrian pianist who lost his right arm in World War I but continued his concert career, to tell the larger story of a family of great wealth and conspicuous genius marked by tragedy - all three of Paul's elder brothers committed suicide - and indelible achievement - his younger brother was the iconic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, to Gerry Howard at Doubleday, by Gillon Aitken at Gillon Aitken Associates. Bloomsbury is publishing in the UK.
FOREIGN:
Canadian rights to the winner of the 2005 Governor-General's award for A Perfect Night to Go to China and former CBC TV's On the Arts film critic David Gilmour's first non-fiction work THE FILM CLUB, a poignant account of the two years Gilmour spent teaching life lessons to his high school dropout son by showing him the world's best (and occasionally worst) films, to Patrick Crean at Thomas Allen & Sons, by Sam Hiyate at The Rights Factory.US/UK: Sam@therightsfactory.com FOREIGN: rights@imriedervis.com
FILM:
Michael Gates Gill's HOW STARBUCKS SAVED MY LIFE, to Universal, for Tom Hanks to star and Gus Van Sant to direct, with Tom Hanks' Playtone Productions producing, in a pre-empt, by Shari Smiley at CAA, on behalf of Gillian MacKenzie of the Gillian MacKenzie Agency.gmackenzie@gillianmackenzieagency.com
Wrap...
Monday, April 03, 2006
Note: Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Period.
From Information Clearing House:
Blix: Iran Years Away From Nuclear Bomb:
Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday that Iran is a least five years away from developing a nuclear bomb, leaving time to peacefully negotiate a settlement.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12626.htm
Wrap...
Blix: Iran Years Away From Nuclear Bomb:
Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Monday that Iran is a least five years away from developing a nuclear bomb, leaving time to peacefully negotiate a settlement.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12626.htm
Wrap...
Honor & Courage = Sen John Conyers...
Note: If anyone deserves honors, Sen Conyers does. It's about time!
Rep. John Conyers Presented Backbone Award For Bold Leadership
Six grassroots citizen groups unite in an expression of gratitude.
Washington, D.C. - Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) is lauded by Tim Carpenter, Director of Progressive Democrats of America as "the heart and soul of the Democratic Party."
Rep. Conyers has been a consistent thorn in the side of the Bush administration. Utilizing his senior position on the House Judiciary Committee, he has published two landmark investigations on both election irregularities (What Went Wrong In Ohio) and potentially impeachable offenses related to the Iraq war (The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War.)
As exemplified by most Democratic Senators' refusal thus far to support Feingold's resolution for censure, most politicians on Capitol Hill seem allergic to forcefully calling on the Bush Administration for disclosure and accountability.
John Conyers has not shied away from confrontation. He has effectively united with grassroots forces to address a crisis of confidence both in our elections and regarding the threat of unbridled, unaccountable executive power.
Six grassroots organizations: the Backbone Campaign, Democrats.com, AfterDowningStreet.org, Progressive Democrats of America, HipHopCaucus.org, and Cities for Progress--united to express their gratitude to Congressman John Conyers in an informal presentation in his Washington, D.C. office. Bill Moyer, Director of the Backbone Campaign, made the presentation on their behalf.
Below is the text of Moyer's presentation:
"At the Backbone Campaign, we like to emphasize that it is the people who lead, and the leaders who follow, but Congressman Conyers, your career forces us to acknowledge one of the few exceptions to that rule.
"We could easily justify this award by listing your years of commitment to civil rights, to economic justice, to exposing racism and the lingering shameful reverberations of slavery. We could easily justify this award with your consistent and persistent advocacy for a health care system worthy of a nation, as wealthy as our own. We could surely find many long past accomplishments to justify presenting you this award, but that is unnecessary.
"Though you have served longer than all but one of your colleagues, your stride, pace, and passion are unequaled by any of those younger than yourself. Your activities in the last 18 months are enough to inspire awe. In that time you have spearheaded efforts to expose the truth and force accountability in GannonGate, The Plame Outing, The Downing Street minutes, NSA spying, and more.
"Your leadership was pivotal in the investigation of election irregularities in Ohio. You have led the fight to bring accountability to an Administration that claims to be above the law. Your bills HR 635, 636 and 637 for investigation and censure represent the exact kind of leadership we think will rejuvenate and energize the Americans who feel let down by those members of both parties who have allowed the Bush administration to violate laws, treaties, and the trust of Americans.
"Sir, we know you love Jazz, but you most definitely ROCK!
"Congressman Conyers, YOU ARE OUR CHAMPION, and therefore on behalf of Backbone Campaign, Progressive Democrats of America, Democrats.com, AfterDowningStreet.org, HipHopCaucus.org, and Cities for Progress, it is my honor and great privilege to present to you this Backbone Award."
"Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is proud to join with the Backbone Campaign in honoring Rep. Conyers, who is the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Congressmen Conyers has been at the forefront of Congress for the last 40 years leading the struggle for peace and justice," stated PDA Director Tim Carpenter.
Wrap...
Rep. John Conyers Presented Backbone Award For Bold Leadership
Six grassroots citizen groups unite in an expression of gratitude.
Washington, D.C. - Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) is lauded by Tim Carpenter, Director of Progressive Democrats of America as "the heart and soul of the Democratic Party."
Rep. Conyers has been a consistent thorn in the side of the Bush administration. Utilizing his senior position on the House Judiciary Committee, he has published two landmark investigations on both election irregularities (What Went Wrong In Ohio) and potentially impeachable offenses related to the Iraq war (The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War.)
As exemplified by most Democratic Senators' refusal thus far to support Feingold's resolution for censure, most politicians on Capitol Hill seem allergic to forcefully calling on the Bush Administration for disclosure and accountability.
John Conyers has not shied away from confrontation. He has effectively united with grassroots forces to address a crisis of confidence both in our elections and regarding the threat of unbridled, unaccountable executive power.
Six grassroots organizations: the Backbone Campaign, Democrats.com, AfterDowningStreet.org, Progressive Democrats of America, HipHopCaucus.org, and Cities for Progress--united to express their gratitude to Congressman John Conyers in an informal presentation in his Washington, D.C. office. Bill Moyer, Director of the Backbone Campaign, made the presentation on their behalf.
Below is the text of Moyer's presentation:
"At the Backbone Campaign, we like to emphasize that it is the people who lead, and the leaders who follow, but Congressman Conyers, your career forces us to acknowledge one of the few exceptions to that rule.
"We could easily justify this award by listing your years of commitment to civil rights, to economic justice, to exposing racism and the lingering shameful reverberations of slavery. We could easily justify this award with your consistent and persistent advocacy for a health care system worthy of a nation, as wealthy as our own. We could surely find many long past accomplishments to justify presenting you this award, but that is unnecessary.
"Though you have served longer than all but one of your colleagues, your stride, pace, and passion are unequaled by any of those younger than yourself. Your activities in the last 18 months are enough to inspire awe. In that time you have spearheaded efforts to expose the truth and force accountability in GannonGate, The Plame Outing, The Downing Street minutes, NSA spying, and more.
"Your leadership was pivotal in the investigation of election irregularities in Ohio. You have led the fight to bring accountability to an Administration that claims to be above the law. Your bills HR 635, 636 and 637 for investigation and censure represent the exact kind of leadership we think will rejuvenate and energize the Americans who feel let down by those members of both parties who have allowed the Bush administration to violate laws, treaties, and the trust of Americans.
"Sir, we know you love Jazz, but you most definitely ROCK!
"Congressman Conyers, YOU ARE OUR CHAMPION, and therefore on behalf of Backbone Campaign, Progressive Democrats of America, Democrats.com, AfterDowningStreet.org, HipHopCaucus.org, and Cities for Progress, it is my honor and great privilege to present to you this Backbone Award."
"Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) is proud to join with the Backbone Campaign in honoring Rep. Conyers, who is the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Congressmen Conyers has been at the forefront of Congress for the last 40 years leading the struggle for peace and justice," stated PDA Director Tim Carpenter.
Wrap...
The good guy: Fitzgerald...
From truthout.org :
Fitzgerald Knew Identity of Leaker From Start
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t Report
Monday 03 April 2006
The special counsel appointed in late December 2003 to investigate the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson found out the identity of the Bush administration official who disclosed her undercover status to syndicated columnist Robert Novak just two months after the probe began.
But in early February 2004, a month after he started the investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald shifted gears and started to build a perjury and obstruction of justice case against White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby according to several attorneys close to the investigation.
That month, Justice Department investigators working on the leak case approached a senior official in the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney who had been identified by witnesses as having played a major role in the Plame Wilson leak.
The Bush administration official was given an ultimatum: either cooperate with the special counsel's probe or face criminal charges for his involvement in the leak, attorneys close to the case said.
The senior official decided to cooperate with the investigation and told Fitzgerald that Libby and Rove spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson, the attorneys said.
The official has been identified by attorneys and four current and former White House officials as John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton.
Hannah worked with Libby on the issue of weapons of mass destruction as part of an informal team known as the "White House Iraq Group." Hannah told friends last year that he was worried he might be implicated by the investigation, according to a report in the Washington Post.
Libby was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators related to his role in the leak. Hannah was named Cheney's national security adviser the day Libby was indicted.
Hannah's cooperation early on in the leak investigation ultimately helped Fitzgerald and his staff discover the identity of the Bush administration official who leaked information about Plame Wilson's work with the CIA to Novak, these sources said.
The identity of the individual who leaked Plame Wilson's CIA status to Novak is still publicly unknown. No one in the White House was aware that Hannah was cooperating with the special counsel, the sources said, adding that information Hannah provided to Fitzgerald was instrumental in securing a perjury indictment against Libby. Hannah's attorney did not return numerous calls for comment.
The disclosure of Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status was an attempt by White House officials to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the administration's pr-war Iraq intelligence.
Wilson wrote an editorial in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, accusing President Bush of knowingly "twisting" Iraq intelligence by citing bogus claims in his January 2003 State of the Union address about Iraq's attempt to acquire yellow-cake uranium from Niger. Wilson revealed that he had personally traveled to Niger a year earlier on behalf of the CIA to check out the uranium allegations and had reported back that it was untrue.
A week after Wilson's editorial was published, Novak printed the identity of Wilson's wife and said she worked at the CIA. He said two White House officials told him the trip was a boondoggle because Plame Wilson had recommended her husband to check out the Niger claims.
Fitzgerald was tapped by the Department of Justice in December 2003 to investigate whether White House officials violated a 1982 federal law making it a felony to knowingly disclose the identity of an undercover CIA officer.
A month or so after obtaining testimony from Hannah and more than a dozen other senior White House officials who may have been involved in the leak, Fitzgerald sent a letter to his boss, then-acting Attorney General James Comey, seeking confirmation that he had the authority to investigate and prosecute individuals for additional crimes that may have been committed during the probe.
Comey responded to Fitzgerald in writing on February 6, 2004, confirming that the special prosecutor had the authority to prosecute "perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses."
It was the conflicting testimony Fitzgerald obtained from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove that prompted Fitzgerald to send a letter to Comey, attorneys and current and former administration officials close to the probe said.
From the moment Fitzgerald received Comey's response, the investigation changed course and moved to an obstruction of justice and perjury probe against Rove and Libby, the sources close to the investigation said.
Rove was questioned by FBI investigators at least five times between October 2003 and February 2004. Libby was questioned by investigators at least twice during that time, according to attorneys familiar with Rove and Libby's interviews with investigators.
Libby and Rove said in interviews with FBI investigators that they found out about Plame Wilson's identity from reporters. Rove testified that he couldn't recall who in the media told him that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and was married to the former ambassador.
Rove told FBI investigators on five occasions and testified twice before a grand jury that he distributed damaging information about Plame to the Republican National Committee, outside political consultants and the media after Novak had disclosed her identity, according to the attorneys who are familiar with Rove's testimony.
However, Rove was actually a source for Novak and another reporter who wrote about Plame Wilson but failed to disclose that fact in nearly a dozen times he was questioned about his role in the leak.
Sources said that Fitzgerald is now preparing the paperwork to present to a grand jury outlining the charges against Rove in hopes of securing an indictment.
The attorneys close to the case said that in order to build a rock-solid perjury and obstruction case against Libby, Fitzgerald needed to secure the testimony of the journalists Libby spoke to about Plame Wilson.
The investigation surely would have ended in 2004, the attorneys said, but journalists Fitzgerald subpoenaed went to court to fight the subpoena and the legal challenge delayed the case for nearly a year.
In the end, the testimony of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller - both of whom identified Libby as their source of information on Plame Wilson - convinced the grand jury that Libby lied about his role in the leak.
In the interest of fairness, any person identified in this story who believes he has been portrayed unfairly or that the information about him is untrue will have the opportunity to respond in this space.
Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.
Wrap...
Fitzgerald Knew Identity of Leaker From Start
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t Report
Monday 03 April 2006
The special counsel appointed in late December 2003 to investigate the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson found out the identity of the Bush administration official who disclosed her undercover status to syndicated columnist Robert Novak just two months after the probe began.
But in early February 2004, a month after he started the investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald shifted gears and started to build a perjury and obstruction of justice case against White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby according to several attorneys close to the investigation.
That month, Justice Department investigators working on the leak case approached a senior official in the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney who had been identified by witnesses as having played a major role in the Plame Wilson leak.
The Bush administration official was given an ultimatum: either cooperate with the special counsel's probe or face criminal charges for his involvement in the leak, attorneys close to the case said.
The senior official decided to cooperate with the investigation and told Fitzgerald that Libby and Rove spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson, the attorneys said.
The official has been identified by attorneys and four current and former White House officials as John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton.
Hannah worked with Libby on the issue of weapons of mass destruction as part of an informal team known as the "White House Iraq Group." Hannah told friends last year that he was worried he might be implicated by the investigation, according to a report in the Washington Post.
Libby was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators related to his role in the leak. Hannah was named Cheney's national security adviser the day Libby was indicted.
Hannah's cooperation early on in the leak investigation ultimately helped Fitzgerald and his staff discover the identity of the Bush administration official who leaked information about Plame Wilson's work with the CIA to Novak, these sources said.
The identity of the individual who leaked Plame Wilson's CIA status to Novak is still publicly unknown. No one in the White House was aware that Hannah was cooperating with the special counsel, the sources said, adding that information Hannah provided to Fitzgerald was instrumental in securing a perjury indictment against Libby. Hannah's attorney did not return numerous calls for comment.
The disclosure of Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status was an attempt by White House officials to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the administration's pr-war Iraq intelligence.
Wilson wrote an editorial in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, accusing President Bush of knowingly "twisting" Iraq intelligence by citing bogus claims in his January 2003 State of the Union address about Iraq's attempt to acquire yellow-cake uranium from Niger. Wilson revealed that he had personally traveled to Niger a year earlier on behalf of the CIA to check out the uranium allegations and had reported back that it was untrue.
A week after Wilson's editorial was published, Novak printed the identity of Wilson's wife and said she worked at the CIA. He said two White House officials told him the trip was a boondoggle because Plame Wilson had recommended her husband to check out the Niger claims.
Fitzgerald was tapped by the Department of Justice in December 2003 to investigate whether White House officials violated a 1982 federal law making it a felony to knowingly disclose the identity of an undercover CIA officer.
A month or so after obtaining testimony from Hannah and more than a dozen other senior White House officials who may have been involved in the leak, Fitzgerald sent a letter to his boss, then-acting Attorney General James Comey, seeking confirmation that he had the authority to investigate and prosecute individuals for additional crimes that may have been committed during the probe.
Comey responded to Fitzgerald in writing on February 6, 2004, confirming that the special prosecutor had the authority to prosecute "perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses."
It was the conflicting testimony Fitzgerald obtained from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove that prompted Fitzgerald to send a letter to Comey, attorneys and current and former administration officials close to the probe said.
From the moment Fitzgerald received Comey's response, the investigation changed course and moved to an obstruction of justice and perjury probe against Rove and Libby, the sources close to the investigation said.
Rove was questioned by FBI investigators at least five times between October 2003 and February 2004. Libby was questioned by investigators at least twice during that time, according to attorneys familiar with Rove and Libby's interviews with investigators.
Libby and Rove said in interviews with FBI investigators that they found out about Plame Wilson's identity from reporters. Rove testified that he couldn't recall who in the media told him that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and was married to the former ambassador.
Rove told FBI investigators on five occasions and testified twice before a grand jury that he distributed damaging information about Plame to the Republican National Committee, outside political consultants and the media after Novak had disclosed her identity, according to the attorneys who are familiar with Rove's testimony.
However, Rove was actually a source for Novak and another reporter who wrote about Plame Wilson but failed to disclose that fact in nearly a dozen times he was questioned about his role in the leak.
Sources said that Fitzgerald is now preparing the paperwork to present to a grand jury outlining the charges against Rove in hopes of securing an indictment.
The attorneys close to the case said that in order to build a rock-solid perjury and obstruction case against Libby, Fitzgerald needed to secure the testimony of the journalists Libby spoke to about Plame Wilson.
The investigation surely would have ended in 2004, the attorneys said, but journalists Fitzgerald subpoenaed went to court to fight the subpoena and the legal challenge delayed the case for nearly a year.
In the end, the testimony of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller - both of whom identified Libby as their source of information on Plame Wilson - convinced the grand jury that Libby lied about his role in the leak.
In the interest of fairness, any person identified in this story who believes he has been portrayed unfairly or that the information about him is untrue will have the opportunity to respond in this space.
Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak investigation, and is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t.
Wrap...
As for John McCain....UGH!
From the NY Times:
Op-Ed Columnist
John and Jerry
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Well, I'll be damned. At least, that's what the Rev. Jerry Falwell says. Last month Mr. Falwell issued a statement explaining that, in his view, Jews can't go to heaven unless they convert to Christianity. And what Mr. Falwell says matters — maybe not in heaven, but here on earth. After all, he's a kingmaker in today's Republican Party.
Senator John McCain obviously believes that he can't get the Republican presidential nomination without Mr. Falwell's approval. During the 2000 campaign, Mr. McCain denounced Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance." But next month Mr. McCain will be a commencement speaker at Liberty University, which Mr. Falwell founded.
On "Meet the Press" yesterday, Mr. McCain was asked to explain his apparent flip-flop. "I believe," he replied, "that the Christian right has a major role to play in the Republican Party. One reason is because they're so active and their followers are. And I believe they have a right to be a part of our party."
So what has happened since the 2000 campaign to convince Mr. McCain that Mr. Falwell is not, in fact, an agent of intolerance?
Maybe it was Mr. Falwell's TV appearance with Mr. Robertson on Sept. 13, 2001, during which the two religious leaders agreed that the terrorist attack two days earlier was divine punishment for American immorality. "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Mr. Falwell, who also declared, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "
Or maybe it was Mr. Falwell's appearance on "60 Minutes" in October 2002, when he declared, "I think Muhammad was a terrorist." Muhammad, he said, was "a violent man" — unlike Mr. Falwell, I guess, who said of terrorists that we should "blow them all away in the name of the Lord."
After each of these incidents, by the way, Mr. Falwell issued what were described as "apologies." But they weren't apologies — they were statements along the lines of, "I'm sorry that some people were upset by what I said." It's clear that in each case Mr. Falwell's offensive remarks were not a slip of the tongue; they reflected his deeply held beliefs.
And that's why it's important to hold someone like Mr. McCain — who is still widely regarded as a moderate, in spite of his extremely conservative voting record — accountable when he cozies up to Mr. Falwell. Nobody thinks that Mr. McCain shares all of Mr. Falwell's views. But when Mr. McCain said that the Christian right had a right to be part of the Republican Party, he was in effect saying that Mr. Falwell's statements were within the realm of acceptable political discourse.
Just to be clear: this is a free country, and Mr. Falwell has a right to say what he thinks, even if his views include the belief that other people, by saying what they think, brought down God's wrath on America. By the same token, any political party has a right to include Mr. Falwell and his supporters, just as any politician has a right to make a political alliance with Mr. Falwell.
But if you choose to make common cause with religious extremists, you are accepting some responsibility for their extremism. By welcoming Mr. Falwell and people like him as members of their party, Republicans are saying that it's O.K. — not necessarily correct, but O.K. — to declare that 9/11 was America's punishment for its tolerance of abortion and homosexuality, that Islam is a terrorist religion, and that Jews can't go to heaven. And voters should judge the Republican Party accordingly.
As for Mr. McCain: his denunciation of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson six years ago helped give him a reputation as a moderate on social issues. Now that he has made up with Mr. Falwell and endorsed South Dakota's ban on abortion even in the case of rape or incest, only two conclusions are possible: either he isn't a social moderate after all, or he's a cynical political opportunist.
Wrap...
Op-Ed Columnist
John and Jerry
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Well, I'll be damned. At least, that's what the Rev. Jerry Falwell says. Last month Mr. Falwell issued a statement explaining that, in his view, Jews can't go to heaven unless they convert to Christianity. And what Mr. Falwell says matters — maybe not in heaven, but here on earth. After all, he's a kingmaker in today's Republican Party.
Senator John McCain obviously believes that he can't get the Republican presidential nomination without Mr. Falwell's approval. During the 2000 campaign, Mr. McCain denounced Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson as "agents of intolerance." But next month Mr. McCain will be a commencement speaker at Liberty University, which Mr. Falwell founded.
On "Meet the Press" yesterday, Mr. McCain was asked to explain his apparent flip-flop. "I believe," he replied, "that the Christian right has a major role to play in the Republican Party. One reason is because they're so active and their followers are. And I believe they have a right to be a part of our party."
So what has happened since the 2000 campaign to convince Mr. McCain that Mr. Falwell is not, in fact, an agent of intolerance?
Maybe it was Mr. Falwell's TV appearance with Mr. Robertson on Sept. 13, 2001, during which the two religious leaders agreed that the terrorist attack two days earlier was divine punishment for American immorality. "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Mr. Falwell, who also declared, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "
Or maybe it was Mr. Falwell's appearance on "60 Minutes" in October 2002, when he declared, "I think Muhammad was a terrorist." Muhammad, he said, was "a violent man" — unlike Mr. Falwell, I guess, who said of terrorists that we should "blow them all away in the name of the Lord."
After each of these incidents, by the way, Mr. Falwell issued what were described as "apologies." But they weren't apologies — they were statements along the lines of, "I'm sorry that some people were upset by what I said." It's clear that in each case Mr. Falwell's offensive remarks were not a slip of the tongue; they reflected his deeply held beliefs.
And that's why it's important to hold someone like Mr. McCain — who is still widely regarded as a moderate, in spite of his extremely conservative voting record — accountable when he cozies up to Mr. Falwell. Nobody thinks that Mr. McCain shares all of Mr. Falwell's views. But when Mr. McCain said that the Christian right had a right to be part of the Republican Party, he was in effect saying that Mr. Falwell's statements were within the realm of acceptable political discourse.
Just to be clear: this is a free country, and Mr. Falwell has a right to say what he thinks, even if his views include the belief that other people, by saying what they think, brought down God's wrath on America. By the same token, any political party has a right to include Mr. Falwell and his supporters, just as any politician has a right to make a political alliance with Mr. Falwell.
But if you choose to make common cause with religious extremists, you are accepting some responsibility for their extremism. By welcoming Mr. Falwell and people like him as members of their party, Republicans are saying that it's O.K. — not necessarily correct, but O.K. — to declare that 9/11 was America's punishment for its tolerance of abortion and homosexuality, that Islam is a terrorist religion, and that Jews can't go to heaven. And voters should judge the Republican Party accordingly.
As for Mr. McCain: his denunciation of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson six years ago helped give him a reputation as a moderate on social issues. Now that he has made up with Mr. Falwell and endorsed South Dakota's ban on abortion even in the case of rape or incest, only two conclusions are possible: either he isn't a social moderate after all, or he's a cynical political opportunist.
Wrap...
PNAC/BushCo strike again...Info Internet War....
From the Sunday Herald.com :
America's war on the web
While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones. Investigations editor Neil Mackay reports
IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will.
In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald.
The Pentagon has already signed off $383 million to force through the document’s recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in the US talk of “a revolution in the concept of warfare”. The report orders three new developments in America’s approach to warfare:
lFirstly, the Pentagon says it will wage war against the internet in order to dominate the realm of communications, prevent digital attacks on the US and its allies, and to have the upper hand when launching cyber-attacks against enemies.
lSecondly, psychological military operations, known as psyops, will be at the heart of future military action. Psyops involve using any media – from newspapers, books and posters to the internet, music, Blackberrys and personal digital assistants (PDAs) – to put out black propaganda to assist government and military strategy. Psyops involve the dissemination of lies and fake stories and releasing information to wrong-foot the enemy.
lThirdly, the US wants to take control of the Earth’s electromagnetic spectrum, allowing US war planners to dominate mobile phones, PDAs, the web, radio, TV and other forms of modern communication. That could see entire countries denied access to telecommunications at the flick of a switch by America.
Freedom of speech advocates are horrified at this new doctrine, but military planners and members of the intelligence community embrace the idea as a necessary development in modern combat.
Human rights lawyer John Scott, who chairs the Scottish Centre for Human Rights, said: “This is an unwelcome but natural development of what we have seen. I find what is said in this document to be frightening, and it needs serious parliamentary scrutiny.”
Crispin Black – who has worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee, and has been an Army lieutenant colonel, a military intelligence officer, a member of the Defence Intelligence Staff and a Cabinet Office intelligence analyst who briefed Number 10 – said he broadly supported the report as it tallied with the Pentagon’s over-arching vision for “full spectrum dominance” in all military matters.
“I’m all for taking down al-Qaeda websites. Shutting down enemy propaganda is a reasonable course of action. Al-Qaeda is very good at [information warfare on the internet], so we need to catch up. The US needs to lift its game,” he said.
This revolution in information warfare is merely an extension of the politics of the “neoconservative” Bush White House. Even before getting into power, key players in Team Bush were planning total military and political domination of the globe. In September 2000, the now notorious document Rebuilding America’s Defences – written by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think-tank staffed by some of the Bush presidency’s leading lights – said that America needed a “blueprint for maintaining US global pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power-rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests”.
The PNAC was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary; Bush’s younger brother, Jeb; Paul Wolfowitz, once Rumsfeld’s deputy and now head of the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, now indicted for perjury in America.
Rebuilding America’s Defences also spoke of taking control of the internet. A heavily censored version of the document was released under Freedom of Information legislation to the National Security Archive at George Washington University in the US.
The report admits the US is vulnerable to electronic warfare. “Networks are growing faster than we can defend them,” the report notes. “The sophistication and capability of … nation states to degrade system and network operations are rapidly increasing.”
T he report says the US military’s first priority is that the “department [of defence] must be prepared to ‘fight the net’”. The internet is seen in much the same way as an enemy state by the Pentagon because of the way it can be used to propagandise, organise and mount electronic attacks on crucial US targets. Under the heading “offensive cyber operations”, two pages outlining possible operations are blacked out.
Next, the Pentagon focuses on electronic warfare, saying it must be elevated to the heart of US military war planning. It will “provide maximum control of the electromagnetic spectrum, denying, degrading, disrupting or destroying the full spectrum of communications equipment … it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities”. Put simply, this means US forces having the power to knock out any or all forms of telecommunications on the planet.
After electronic warfare, the US war planners turn their attention to psychological operations: “Military forces must be better prepared to use psyops in support of military operations.” The State Department, which carries out US diplomatic functions, is known to be worried that the rise of such operations could undermine American diplomacy if uncovered by foreign states. Other examples of information war listed in the report include the creation of “Truth Squads” to provide public information when negative publicity, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, hits US operations, and the establishment of “Humanitarian Road Shows”, which will talk up American support for democracy and freedom.
The Pentagon also wants to target a “broader set of select foreign media and audiences”, with $161m set aside to help place pro-US articles in overseas media.
02 April 2006
Wrap...
America's war on the web
While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones. Investigations editor Neil Mackay reports
IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will.
In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald.
The Pentagon has already signed off $383 million to force through the document’s recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in the US talk of “a revolution in the concept of warfare”. The report orders three new developments in America’s approach to warfare:
lFirstly, the Pentagon says it will wage war against the internet in order to dominate the realm of communications, prevent digital attacks on the US and its allies, and to have the upper hand when launching cyber-attacks against enemies.
lSecondly, psychological military operations, known as psyops, will be at the heart of future military action. Psyops involve using any media – from newspapers, books and posters to the internet, music, Blackberrys and personal digital assistants (PDAs) – to put out black propaganda to assist government and military strategy. Psyops involve the dissemination of lies and fake stories and releasing information to wrong-foot the enemy.
lThirdly, the US wants to take control of the Earth’s electromagnetic spectrum, allowing US war planners to dominate mobile phones, PDAs, the web, radio, TV and other forms of modern communication. That could see entire countries denied access to telecommunications at the flick of a switch by America.
Freedom of speech advocates are horrified at this new doctrine, but military planners and members of the intelligence community embrace the idea as a necessary development in modern combat.
Human rights lawyer John Scott, who chairs the Scottish Centre for Human Rights, said: “This is an unwelcome but natural development of what we have seen. I find what is said in this document to be frightening, and it needs serious parliamentary scrutiny.”
Crispin Black – who has worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee, and has been an Army lieutenant colonel, a military intelligence officer, a member of the Defence Intelligence Staff and a Cabinet Office intelligence analyst who briefed Number 10 – said he broadly supported the report as it tallied with the Pentagon’s over-arching vision for “full spectrum dominance” in all military matters.
“I’m all for taking down al-Qaeda websites. Shutting down enemy propaganda is a reasonable course of action. Al-Qaeda is very good at [information warfare on the internet], so we need to catch up. The US needs to lift its game,” he said.
This revolution in information warfare is merely an extension of the politics of the “neoconservative” Bush White House. Even before getting into power, key players in Team Bush were planning total military and political domination of the globe. In September 2000, the now notorious document Rebuilding America’s Defences – written by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think-tank staffed by some of the Bush presidency’s leading lights – said that America needed a “blueprint for maintaining US global pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power-rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests”.
The PNAC was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary; Bush’s younger brother, Jeb; Paul Wolfowitz, once Rumsfeld’s deputy and now head of the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, now indicted for perjury in America.
Rebuilding America’s Defences also spoke of taking control of the internet. A heavily censored version of the document was released under Freedom of Information legislation to the National Security Archive at George Washington University in the US.
The report admits the US is vulnerable to electronic warfare. “Networks are growing faster than we can defend them,” the report notes. “The sophistication and capability of … nation states to degrade system and network operations are rapidly increasing.”
T he report says the US military’s first priority is that the “department [of defence] must be prepared to ‘fight the net’”. The internet is seen in much the same way as an enemy state by the Pentagon because of the way it can be used to propagandise, organise and mount electronic attacks on crucial US targets. Under the heading “offensive cyber operations”, two pages outlining possible operations are blacked out.
Next, the Pentagon focuses on electronic warfare, saying it must be elevated to the heart of US military war planning. It will “provide maximum control of the electromagnetic spectrum, denying, degrading, disrupting or destroying the full spectrum of communications equipment … it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities”. Put simply, this means US forces having the power to knock out any or all forms of telecommunications on the planet.
After electronic warfare, the US war planners turn their attention to psychological operations: “Military forces must be better prepared to use psyops in support of military operations.” The State Department, which carries out US diplomatic functions, is known to be worried that the rise of such operations could undermine American diplomacy if uncovered by foreign states. Other examples of information war listed in the report include the creation of “Truth Squads” to provide public information when negative publicity, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, hits US operations, and the establishment of “Humanitarian Road Shows”, which will talk up American support for democracy and freedom.
The Pentagon also wants to target a “broader set of select foreign media and audiences”, with $161m set aside to help place pro-US articles in overseas media.
02 April 2006
Wrap...
Sunday, April 02, 2006
A new book found on New Orleans...
From www.g21.net :
KATRINA & THE LOST CITY OF NEW ORLEANS by Rod Amis
New Orleans is the Lost City of America.
New Orleans has disappeared as surely as the lost city of Atlantis or the lost city of Pompeii, which former mayor Marc Morial and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA.) have compared us to in their statements.
That New Orleans, the New Orleans I mean to tell you about, that will never, ever, exist again--that city of love, lust, death and sex--will never exist again.
A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Fund. The cooks, servers and restaurant workers of New Orleans have provided fabulous times and memories for millions. Now we must remember them in their time of need.
To order on Amazon.com, go here!
Wrap...
KATRINA & THE LOST CITY OF NEW ORLEANS by Rod Amis
New Orleans is the Lost City of America.
New Orleans has disappeared as surely as the lost city of Atlantis or the lost city of Pompeii, which former mayor Marc Morial and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA.) have compared us to in their statements.
That New Orleans, the New Orleans I mean to tell you about, that will never, ever, exist again--that city of love, lust, death and sex--will never exist again.
A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Fund. The cooks, servers and restaurant workers of New Orleans have provided fabulous times and memories for millions. Now we must remember them in their time of need.
To order on Amazon.com, go here!
Wrap...
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Molly, my favorite Texan, has a few choice words....
From AlterNet.org via truthout.org :
Immigration 101
By Molly Ivins
AlterNet.org
Thursday 30 March 2006
Racists seem to think that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in the US - are getting away with something.
In 1983, I was a judge at the Terlingua Chili Cookoff, and my memory of the events may not be perfect - for example, for years I've been claiming Jimmy Carter was president at the time, but that's the kind of detail one often loses track of in Terlingua.
Anyway, it was '83 or some year right around there when we held The Fence climbing contest. See, people talked about building The Fence back then, too. The Fence along the Mexican border. To keep Them out.
At the time, the proposal was quite specific - a 17-foot cyclone fence with bob wire at the top. So a test fence was built at Terlingua, and the First-Ever Terlingua Memorial Over, Under or Through Mexican Fence Climbing Contest took place. Prize: a case of Lone Star beer. Winning time: 30 seconds.
I tell this story to make the one single point about the border and immigration we know to be true: The Fence will not work. No fence will work. The Great darn Wall of China will not work. Do not build a fence. It will not work. They will come anyway. Over, under or through.
Some of you think a fence will work because Israel has one. Israel is a very small country. Anyone who says a fence can fix this problem is a demagogue and an ass.
Numero Two-o, should you actually want to stop Mexicans and OTMs (other than Mexicans) from coming to the United States, here is how to do it: Find an illegal worker at a large corporation. This is not difficult - brooms and mops are big tip-offs. Then put the CEO of that corporation in prison for two or more years for violating the law against hiring illegal workers.
Got it? You can also imprison the corporate official who actually hired the illegal and, just to make sure, put some Betty Sue Billups - housewife, preferably one with blonde hair in a flip - in the joint for a two-year stretch for hiring a Mexican gardener. Thus Americans are reminded that the law says it is illegal to hire illegal workers and that anyone who hires one is responsible for verifying whether or not his or her papers are in order. If you get fooled and one slips by you, too bad, you go to jail anyway. When there are no jobs for illegal workers, they do not come. Got it?
Of course, this has been proposed before, because there is nothing new in the immigration debate. As the current issue of Texas Monthly reminds us, the old bracero program dating from World War II was actually amended in 1952 to pass the "Texas proviso," shielding employers of illegal workers from criminal penalties. They got the exemption because Texas growers flat refused to pay the required bracero wage of 30 cents an hour. Instead of punishing Texas growers for breaking the law, Congress rewarded them.
In 1986, the Reagan administration took a shot at immigration reform and reinstated penalties on employers. They weren't enforced worth a darn, of course. In 2004, only three American companies were threatened with fines for hiring illegal workers. Doesn't work if you don't enforce it.
This brings us to the great Republican divide on the issue. Conservatives, in general, are anti-immigrant for the same reasons they have always been anti-immigrant - a proud tradition in our nation of immigrants going back to the days of the Founders, when Ben Franklin thought we were going to be overrun by Germans. But Business likes illegal workers. The Chamber of Commerce lobbies for them. They're lobbying now for a new bracero program. What a bonanza for Bidness.
Old-fashioned anti-immigrant prejudice always brings out some old-fashioned racists. This time around, they have started claiming that Mexicans can't assimilate. A sillier idea I've never heard. Why don't they come to Texas and meet up with Lars Gonzales, Erin Rodriguez and Bubba at the bowling alley. They can drink some Lone Star, listen to some conjunto and chill.
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Aren't y'all grateful that we're down here doing exactly nothing for the people of our state, legal or illegal? Think what a terrible message it would send if you swapped Texas with Vermont, and they all got health care. In Texas, we never worry about illegals taking advantage of social benefits provided by our taxpayers. Incredibly clever, no?
One nice thing about the benefit of long experience with la frontera is that we in Texas don't have to run around getting all hysterical about immigrants. The border is porous. When you want cheap labor, you open it up; when you don't, you shut it down. It works to our benefit - it always has.
Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.
Wrap...
Immigration 101
By Molly Ivins
AlterNet.org
Thursday 30 March 2006
Racists seem to think that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in the US - are getting away with something.
In 1983, I was a judge at the Terlingua Chili Cookoff, and my memory of the events may not be perfect - for example, for years I've been claiming Jimmy Carter was president at the time, but that's the kind of detail one often loses track of in Terlingua.
Anyway, it was '83 or some year right around there when we held The Fence climbing contest. See, people talked about building The Fence back then, too. The Fence along the Mexican border. To keep Them out.
At the time, the proposal was quite specific - a 17-foot cyclone fence with bob wire at the top. So a test fence was built at Terlingua, and the First-Ever Terlingua Memorial Over, Under or Through Mexican Fence Climbing Contest took place. Prize: a case of Lone Star beer. Winning time: 30 seconds.
I tell this story to make the one single point about the border and immigration we know to be true: The Fence will not work. No fence will work. The Great darn Wall of China will not work. Do not build a fence. It will not work. They will come anyway. Over, under or through.
Some of you think a fence will work because Israel has one. Israel is a very small country. Anyone who says a fence can fix this problem is a demagogue and an ass.
Numero Two-o, should you actually want to stop Mexicans and OTMs (other than Mexicans) from coming to the United States, here is how to do it: Find an illegal worker at a large corporation. This is not difficult - brooms and mops are big tip-offs. Then put the CEO of that corporation in prison for two or more years for violating the law against hiring illegal workers.
Got it? You can also imprison the corporate official who actually hired the illegal and, just to make sure, put some Betty Sue Billups - housewife, preferably one with blonde hair in a flip - in the joint for a two-year stretch for hiring a Mexican gardener. Thus Americans are reminded that the law says it is illegal to hire illegal workers and that anyone who hires one is responsible for verifying whether or not his or her papers are in order. If you get fooled and one slips by you, too bad, you go to jail anyway. When there are no jobs for illegal workers, they do not come. Got it?
Of course, this has been proposed before, because there is nothing new in the immigration debate. As the current issue of Texas Monthly reminds us, the old bracero program dating from World War II was actually amended in 1952 to pass the "Texas proviso," shielding employers of illegal workers from criminal penalties. They got the exemption because Texas growers flat refused to pay the required bracero wage of 30 cents an hour. Instead of punishing Texas growers for breaking the law, Congress rewarded them.
In 1986, the Reagan administration took a shot at immigration reform and reinstated penalties on employers. They weren't enforced worth a darn, of course. In 2004, only three American companies were threatened with fines for hiring illegal workers. Doesn't work if you don't enforce it.
This brings us to the great Republican divide on the issue. Conservatives, in general, are anti-immigrant for the same reasons they have always been anti-immigrant - a proud tradition in our nation of immigrants going back to the days of the Founders, when Ben Franklin thought we were going to be overrun by Germans. But Business likes illegal workers. The Chamber of Commerce lobbies for them. They're lobbying now for a new bracero program. What a bonanza for Bidness.
Old-fashioned anti-immigrant prejudice always brings out some old-fashioned racists. This time around, they have started claiming that Mexicans can't assimilate. A sillier idea I've never heard. Why don't they come to Texas and meet up with Lars Gonzales, Erin Rodriguez and Bubba at the bowling alley. They can drink some Lone Star, listen to some conjunto and chill.
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Aren't y'all grateful that we're down here doing exactly nothing for the people of our state, legal or illegal? Think what a terrible message it would send if you swapped Texas with Vermont, and they all got health care. In Texas, we never worry about illegals taking advantage of social benefits provided by our taxpayers. Incredibly clever, no?
One nice thing about the benefit of long experience with la frontera is that we in Texas don't have to run around getting all hysterical about immigrants. The border is porous. When you want cheap labor, you open it up; when you don't, you shut it down. It works to our benefit - it always has.
Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.
Wrap...
Correction: Bechtel leaving Los Alamos, not coming..
From Pahrump Valley Times:
March 31, 2006
Bechtel out at the Nevada Test Site
By PHILLIP GOMEZPVT
The Nevada Test Site's principal management and operations contractor for the past 11 years, Bechtel Nevada Corp., will no longer be in the driver's seat after July 1. The decision is expected to affect a small number of Bechtel employees living in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and the more than 200 who live in Pahrump.
The Department of Energy's semi-autonomous agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, announced earlier this week the selection of National Security Technologies LLC, to replace Bechtel. The transition to the new contractor is to begin Saturday.
As NTS contractor, Bechtel Nevada comprises both Bechtel Nevada and Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies Inc. More than half of Bechtel Nevada's employees work in the Las Vegas area or at the nearby Nevada Test Site, according to the company's Web site. Bechtel employs 267 persons who reside in Pahrump, according to media contact Leann Inadomi.
A clause in the contract provides for continued employment to most employees wanting to keep their jobs, according to National Nuclear Security Administration spokespersons. The majority of Bechtel employees, about 2,900 in number, will be retained in the transition, but some 100 key personnel will not be, said Inadomi.
Bechtel is also the principal contractor for the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Repository on the edge of the NTS near Lathrop Wells in Amargosa Valley, the contract for which is unaffected by NNSS's new contract with NSTec. The terms of NSTec's contract are for the next five years with potentially five additional years after that.
NSTec is to manage operations at the 1,375-square-mile facility established in 1951 as the nation's premier atomic proving grounds. Global defense behemoth Northrop Grumman Corp., the managing partner in NSTec, is headquartered in Los Angeles. Others in the joint venture are AECOM, CH2M Hill and Nuclear Fuel Services.
Northrop Grumman, with approximately 125,000 employees and operations in all 50 states and 25 countries, plans for about 3,000 employees in its technical services division to work on the contract.
The government puts out bids on a regular basis, said media contacts for the NNSA. A little over a year ago bids were reviewed and NSTec was selected for offering the best proposal.Under the contract, NSTec will be responsible for managing and operating the NTS, Nellis Air Force Base and satellite facilities in North Las Vegas. In addition, nuclear laboratories, air force bases and scientific offices across the nation will fall under the new contractor's management auspices, including Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in Livermore and Santa Barbara, Calif.
NSTec's Test Site work will include management of the nuclear explosives safety team, which supports the Department of Energy's efforts to prevent or slow the spread of nuclear weapons and to bolster the department's counter-terrorism mission.The contract also states that NSTec provide technical support in hazardous chemical spill testing, emergency response training and conventional weapons testing.
Some of NSTec's specific duties will include remote field experiments; physical and environmental science; design and fabrication of electronic, mechanical and structural systems; remote and robotic sensing; management of multi-laboratory facilities; engineering, construction and mining operations; chemical, explosives and hazardous materials systems and technologies; and waste management for various categories of waste.
The NNSA is responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad.
For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006
Wrap...
March 31, 2006
Bechtel out at the Nevada Test Site
By PHILLIP GOMEZPVT
The Nevada Test Site's principal management and operations contractor for the past 11 years, Bechtel Nevada Corp., will no longer be in the driver's seat after July 1. The decision is expected to affect a small number of Bechtel employees living in Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas and the more than 200 who live in Pahrump.
The Department of Energy's semi-autonomous agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, announced earlier this week the selection of National Security Technologies LLC, to replace Bechtel. The transition to the new contractor is to begin Saturday.
As NTS contractor, Bechtel Nevada comprises both Bechtel Nevada and Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies Inc. More than half of Bechtel Nevada's employees work in the Las Vegas area or at the nearby Nevada Test Site, according to the company's Web site. Bechtel employs 267 persons who reside in Pahrump, according to media contact Leann Inadomi.
A clause in the contract provides for continued employment to most employees wanting to keep their jobs, according to National Nuclear Security Administration spokespersons. The majority of Bechtel employees, about 2,900 in number, will be retained in the transition, but some 100 key personnel will not be, said Inadomi.
Bechtel is also the principal contractor for the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Repository on the edge of the NTS near Lathrop Wells in Amargosa Valley, the contract for which is unaffected by NNSS's new contract with NSTec. The terms of NSTec's contract are for the next five years with potentially five additional years after that.
NSTec is to manage operations at the 1,375-square-mile facility established in 1951 as the nation's premier atomic proving grounds. Global defense behemoth Northrop Grumman Corp., the managing partner in NSTec, is headquartered in Los Angeles. Others in the joint venture are AECOM, CH2M Hill and Nuclear Fuel Services.
Northrop Grumman, with approximately 125,000 employees and operations in all 50 states and 25 countries, plans for about 3,000 employees in its technical services division to work on the contract.
The government puts out bids on a regular basis, said media contacts for the NNSA. A little over a year ago bids were reviewed and NSTec was selected for offering the best proposal.Under the contract, NSTec will be responsible for managing and operating the NTS, Nellis Air Force Base and satellite facilities in North Las Vegas. In addition, nuclear laboratories, air force bases and scientific offices across the nation will fall under the new contractor's management auspices, including Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in Livermore and Santa Barbara, Calif.
NSTec's Test Site work will include management of the nuclear explosives safety team, which supports the Department of Energy's efforts to prevent or slow the spread of nuclear weapons and to bolster the department's counter-terrorism mission.The contract also states that NSTec provide technical support in hazardous chemical spill testing, emergency response training and conventional weapons testing.
Some of NSTec's specific duties will include remote field experiments; physical and environmental science; design and fabrication of electronic, mechanical and structural systems; remote and robotic sensing; management of multi-laboratory facilities; engineering, construction and mining operations; chemical, explosives and hazardous materials systems and technologies; and waste management for various categories of waste.
The NNSA is responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad.
For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006
Wrap...
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