And he didn't even want the job.

What are we to do with disappointing but lawfully elected leaders:
-here in the good old US of A?
-outside our fine country?

1. run em out of town
2. string em up, professional executions preferred ; required:
have the leader step down voluntarily onto a trap door.
3. recount the ballots again
4. give em a fist full of Euros and let Sarkozy find a nice place for them on the Cote D'Azur as his contribution.
5. starve them out of power
6. pour them some Russian tea.
7. say, yay, hey, it's ok, it's their country now ( and we're running a deficit)

_{"George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," Shmuley Boteach}

Don't Carpool with Nouri al-Maliki

Strategy that fails to win hearts and minds
Airpower allowed Nato to move into Taliban areas but at high cost for the alliance

For a chilling display of the awesome power of American air strikes, look no further than the internet.

A nine-minute clip on YouTube offers a terrifying glimpse of the way the war is being won and lost in southern Afghanistan. The video, filmed from the belly of a Spectre AC-130 gunship, shows an attack on an alleged insurgent camp, rendered through a quivering black and white screen and the pilot's mechanical monotone.

The crosshairs wander across a cluster of buildings, seeking out targets and shredding them to pieces. The bombs blitz mud dwellings, turn vehicles into fireballs, and mow down dozens of small white figures - people - as they sprint hopeless for their lives. "You are clear to level the building," says the voice. The only sop to local sensitivities is that the Americans avoid hitting a mosque.

This is the death-dealing air power that has allowed Nato and US troops to spread deep into Afghanistan's most remote and hostile territory. Without the two-tonne bombs, streams of bullets and laser-guided missiles that these warplanes can unleash, British troops would have never spread across Helmand, not without higher casualties.
...
Last month a British officer in Helmand asked an American unit to vacate his area, the New York Times reported, because blistering bomb strikes were destroying efforts to win "hearts and minds".

Changing Taliban tactics are forcing Nato to use bigger bombs.

At the start of their mission last year Apache pilots said they used their biggest weapon - the laser-guided Hellfire missile - only rarely.

But one pilot the Guardian interviewed a year later said he had fired dozens of Hellfires in recent weeks.

The Taliban had adapted, he said - they had learned to hide from the Apache's sophisticated systems.

"We'd like to do it another way. But there's no clean way to fight this war," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2155942,00.html

More at FDL, including the YouTube video of the AC130's extraordinary destructive power in action, "rooting out the terrorists":

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/08/26/losing-afghanistan/

"But there's no clean way to fight this war,"

A rather sad epitaph that summarises the mindset driving anti-resistance warfare in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And if non-discriminatory murderous airpower isn't enough, here is what the Brits are bringing to bear against "the Taliban":

Army gets new 'enhanced blast' weapon to fight Taliban

British soldiers in Afghanistan are being supplied with a new "super weapon"to attack Taliban fighters more effectively, defence officials said yesterday.

The "enhanced blast" weapon is based on thermobaric technology used in the powerful bombs dropped by the Russians to obliterate Grozny, the Chechen capital, and in US "bunker busters".

Defence officials insisted yesterday that the British bombs were different. "They are optimised to create blast [rather than heat]", one said, adding that it would be misleading to call them "thermobaric".

So-called thermobaric weapons have been used by the US against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban underground bases. Combined heat and pressure kill people over a wide area by sucking the air out of lungs and destroying internal organs.

Defence officials described the new weapon as a shoulder-launched "light anti-structure munition".

They said the bombs would be more effective than conventional weapons such as anti-tank missiles which often miss their targets. Even when they hit the damage is limited to a confined area.

The new weapons would be more effective against buildings and structures used by the Taliban, they said.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, described the weapons as a "serious step change" for the British army. He added: "The continuing issue of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has enormous importance in the battle for hearts and minds. If these weapons contribute to the deaths of civilians then a primary purpose of the British deployment is going to be made yet more difficult."

The deployment of the weapons should have been announced to MPs, Sir Menzies said. "We need much more transparency."

The MoD said in a statement that it was buying "a small number of enhanced blast munitions for use on operations". It added: "These have been procured in full accordance with the UK's obligations under international humanitarian law. It is important to us that our forces can choose from a wide suite of weaponry so they can respond appropriately and proportionately to any threat." The weapons would be used "proportionally under specific rules of engagement", the MoD said.

A "legal review" for the weapon - officially the lightweight anti-structure missile (ASM) - considered issues including whether it was prohibited or restricted under international law, whether it could be used discriminately, and whether it would cause unnecessary suffering.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2154380,00.html

After criticising the Yanks for blasting buggery out of the civilian population with their F-16s and AC-130s, the UK introduces this?

BBCThe UN says opium production in Afghanistan has soared to record levels, with an increase on last year of more than a third.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report says the amount of opium produced there has doubled in the last two years.

It says Helmand province is now the biggest single drug-producing area in the world, surpassing whole countries such as Colombia.

Afghanistan now accounts for more than 93% of the world's opiates.

Despite billions of dollars of aid and tens of thousands of international troops, the report says 193,000 hectares of opium poppies are being grown in Afghanistan.

'Insurgency link'

"The results are very bad, terrifyingly bad, because cultivation has increased by 17% to an historic level," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Office on Drugs and Crime.

"No other country beside China in the 19th Century ever had such a large amount of land dedicated to illegal activities.

"The province of Helmand in the south has cultivated more opium than in the rest of Afghanistan. It has become the largest single entity in terms of both production and cultivation," he said.

Whatever happened to the "war on drugs"?

From the McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Iraqi insurgents taking cut of U.S. rebuilding money

BAGHDAD — Iraq's deadly insurgent groups have financed their war against U.S. troops in part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. rebuilding funds that they've extorted from Iraqi contractors in Anbar province.

The payments, in return for the insurgents' allowing supplies to move and construction work to begin, have taken place since the earliest projects in 2003, Iraqi contractors, politicians and interpreters involved with reconstruction efforts said.

A fresh round of rebuilding spurred by the U.S. military's recent alliance with some Anbar tribes — 200 new projects are scheduled — provides another opportunity for militant groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq to siphon off more U.S. money, contractors and politicians warn.

"Now we're back to the same old story in Anbar. The Americans are handing out contracts and jobs to terrorists, bandits and gangsters," said Sheik Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, the deputy leader of the Dulaim, the largest and most powerful tribe in Anbar. He was involved in several U.S. rebuilding contracts in the early days of the war, but is now a harsh critic of the U.S. presence.
...
One Iraqi official said the arrangement makes sense for insurgents. By granting safe passage to a truck loaded with $10,000 in goods, they receive a "protection fee" that can buy more weapons and vehicles. Sometimes the insurgents take the goods, too.

"The violence in Iraq has developed a political economy of its own that sustains it and keeps some of these terrorist groups afloat," said Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, who recently asked the U.S.-led coalition to match the Iraqi government's pledge of $230 million for Anbar projects.

Despite several devastating U.S. military offensives to rout insurgents, the militants - or, in some cases, tribes with insurgent connections - still control the supply routes of the province, making reconstruction all but impossible without their protection.

One senior Iraqi politician with personal knowledge of the contracting system said the insurgents also use their cuts to pay border police in Syria "to look the other way" as they smuggle weapons and foot soldiers into Iraq.

"Every contractor in Anbar who works for the U.S. military and survives for more than a month is paying the insurgency," the politician said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "The contracts are inflated, all of them. The insurgents get half."

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he was aware of the "insurgent tax" that U.S.-allied contractors are forced to pay in Anbar, though he said it wasn't clear how much money was going to militant groups and how much to opportunistic tribesmen operating on their own.
...
In one contract for a major U.S. company, the contractor said, he gave cash payments to tribal leaders and trusted them to buy the goods in Anbar instead of having to pay insurgents to bring the goods in from Baghdad. He said the tribesmen took photos as proof that they used the money properly and had to hide the supplies in their homes for fear insurgents would find out they'd been left out of the deal.

The contractor said such scenarios are extremely rare and very dangerous. More typical, he said, was a recent order he took to haul gravel to U.S. bases in Anbar.

"If I do it in the Green Zone, it's just putting gravel in Hesco bags and it would be about $16,000," the contractor said. "But they needed it for Ramadi and Fallujah. I submitted an invoice for $120,000 and I'd say about $100,000 of that went to the mujahideen," as Iraqis sometimes call Sunni insurgents.
(much more...a fascinating piece...)
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19232.html

The spirit of free enterprise is truly alive and flourishing amongst the new best friends in al-Anbar.

Taliban say to free all 19 South Korean hostages

By Jan Agha

GHAZNI, Afghanistan, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents said on Tuesday they would release 19 South Korean Christian volunteers they have held for nearly six weeks provided Seoul pulls out its troops and stops Korean missionary work in Afghanistan by year-end.

South Korea's presidential office issued a statement setting out the terms of the agreement, and Taliban representative Qari Mohammad Bashir confirmed a deal had been struck.

The Taliban's conditions did not include their main previous demand -- the release of a group of militants held prisoner by the Afghan government.

"By the end of 2007, they will withdraw their forces from Afghanistan," Bashir told reporters, standing side by side with Korean negotiators in Ghazni province.

"They will not send to Afghanistan those they sent for promulgation of ... Christianity and will ban others from coming again for promulgation of Christianity," he said.

"All Korean nationals in any field working in Afghanistan will leave Afghanistan by the end of August," he said, adding that the Taliban would start freeing the hostages on Wednesday.

The announcement followed the resumption of negotiations, which had been on hold for two weeks after the Korean side said it was unable to meet the kidnappers' demand for the release of Taliban prisoners held by the government in exchange for the hostages, most of them women.

"The government will take every possible measure to make sure the hostages are safely back in their families' arms as soon as possible," a South Korean presidential spokesman said, adding that their release could take time.

The South Korean government had decided before the hostage crisis to pull out its small contingent of engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Since the hostages were taken it has banned its nationals from travelling there.

The insurgents seized 23 Korean Christian volunteers on July 19 from a bus in Ghazni province. They killed two male hostages early on in the crisis, but released two women as a gesture of goodwill during the first round of talks.

"CAPITULATION"

Afghan Trade and Industry Minister Amin Farhang criticised South Korea's government for pulling its troops out of the country and expressed the hope that other countries would not follow Seoul's example.

"If every government were to do this it would be the beginning of a kind of capitulation," Farhang told Germany's Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper. "It's like a demand of the Taliban."

The result of capitulation will likely be more abductions, the paper reported Farhang as saying.

more

August 29, 2007

Strike inside Pakistan due to ‘mistake’: NATO

KABUL: The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has admitted it did not have permission from Pakistan to strike Taliban positions across the border over the weekend, citing a “miscommunication” problem.

The coalition had insisted it was given the go-ahead for the attack inside Pakistan on Saturday that destroyed six Taliban firing posts on both sides of the frontier, killing more than a dozen rebels. This was rejected by the Pakistan Army, which said it had not been asked for authorisation. The foreign ministry in Islamabad said reports of permission being given were “speculative and fabricated”. The coalition said in a statement late Monday it had investigated further and found that Pakistan had not actually given permission. “We regret the miscommunication in this event,” said the coalition’s deputy commanding general for operations, Brigadier General Joseph Votel.

more

Six coalition soldiers among 35 killed in Afghanistan (2nd Roundup)

Aug 28, 2007, 16:19 GMT

Kabul - Six foreign soldiers, seven Afghan security forces and 22 insurgents have been killed in the latest Taliban-led violence in Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday.

Three NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers were killed and six others were wounded on Tuesday in a suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF said in a statement.

The attack took place when ISAF forces were working on a project at a bridge construction site, the statement said, adding that a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-packed vest 'instantly killing himself and two nearby soldiers.'

'The wounded soldiers were evacuated to a nearby ISAF facility for medical treatment, and one died en route,' it said, but did not disclose the identity of the victims, nor did it say where exactly the incident took place.

The majority of the forces stationed in southern Afghanistan are US soldiers.

The coalition also reported late Monday that three of its soldiers and two Afghan troops were killed in an ambush in the eastern province of Kunar. Seven Afghan and three coalition soldiers were injured, it said.

Another four Afghan army soldiers were killed and three were wounded in a roadside bomb in Khogyani district of eastern Nangarhar province also on Monday, defence ministry said in a statement.

One Afghan policeman was killed and two were wounded in another roadside bomb blast in Zherai district of southern Kandahar province on Monday evening, Sayed Agha Saqib, provincial police chief said.

The Taliban posted a statement posted on their website taking responsibility and said they hit the police vehicle with a rocket launcher following the roadside bomb blast.

more

Middle East News
US troops arrest Iranian ministry delegation in Baghdad: report

Aug 28, 2007, 21:46 GMT

Tehran - United States troops on Tuesday night arrested a delegation of the Iranian energy ministry in Baghdad, Iran's state news agency IRNA reported.

The delegation members, who were supposed to sign an energy agreement with their Iraqi counterparts, were arrested in Baghdad's Sheraton hotel and transferred in four vehicles to an unknown venue, IRNA said without mentioning the number of the Iranians involved.

The US detained five Iranian diplomats last January, accused by Washington of being members of the Iranian revolutionary guard and backing Iraqi insurgents.

Tehran categorically denied the US charges and called on their immediate release.

Conflict of timetables

Leader
Wednesday August 29, 2007
The Guardian

As the Americans struggle to extricate themselves from Iraq, they are creating an increasingly difficult dilemma for their British allies. Should our troops in southern Iraq stay on until some point at which their withdrawal will not complicate or undermine the American search for their own way out? Or should they leave as soon as our government determines our soldiers are no longer serving any useful purpose in terms of either British interests or the interests of Iraqis, a point which many people believe has either already arrived or soon will. Viewed cynically, the American effort, for which Bush was bullishly seeking support yesterday in his second big speech on Iraq in a week, can be seen as a quest for "anything they can get away with without taking responsibility for defeat", in the recent words of a distinguished retired American general.

More generously interpreted, it can be understood as a genuine last attempt by diplomats, soldiers, and others to positively shape events in Iraq while devising an eventual exit for the United States which limits the damage to America's position in the world. But the British problem, as the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell argued in effect in a letter to the prime minister this week, is that our men in the south are no longer achieving much, while our casualties are mounting. Sir Menzies asked for an official commitment to the quite rapid timetable which the Brown government has unofficially already indicated it intends to follow, with nearly all troops out by next spring. He did not get it, and the question is whether Brown, wishing not to embarrass President Bush in the run-up to the important report on the surge in mid-September, merely wants to keep the issue quiet for the time being, or whether he might be contemplating bending the British timetable to suit the United States.

more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2157845,00.html

Christian Science Monitor, By Gordon Lubold, August 29

Baghdad - Iraq's security forces have been plagued with charges of human rights abuses, corruption, and disloyalty ever since they were hurriedly assembled by US advisers in the wake of Saddam Hussein's fall.

Many of the problems within the fledgling Army and police are the result of not having enough skilled officers to command inexperienced ground troops, experts say.

As a result, Iraqis and their US advisers are stepping up efforts to bring many ex-officers from Mr. Hussein's Army back into the fold, a measure they say will improve the quality of the country's forces.

Planned Request Signals Confidence That Congress Won't Prevail on Pullout

Washington Post, By Thomas E. Ricks, August 29

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

The request -- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

The request is being prepared now in the belief that Congress will be unlikely to balk so soon after hearing the two officials argue that there are promising developments in Iraq but that they need more time to solidify the progress they have made, a congressional aide said.

Iraq's Sadr suspends militia activity for 6 months

BAGHDAD, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mehdi Army militia to suspend its activities for up to six months and his movement to shut its offices for three days, a top aide said on Wednesday.

Reading from a statement he said was signed by Sadr, aide Hazim al-Araji said the cleric had ordered his followers to "freeze (the activities of) the Mehdi Army, without exception, to restructure it in a way that will preserve its principles, for a maximum period of six months."

The decision followed two days of gunbattles that appeared to pit the two biggest Shi'ite groups -- followers of Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia, and the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) -- against each other. The fighting in Kerbala killed 52 people and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were forced to flee an annual Shi'ite ceremony in the holy city.

The statement called for a three-day period of mourning for the violence, which took place during a pilgrimage. It said Sadrist offices throughout the country should be shut.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL944545.htm

Faster, deadlier pilotless plane bound for Afghanistan

By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. — The Air Force this fall will deploy a new generation of pilotless airplane with the bombing power of an F-16 to help stop the stubborn Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The Reaper is an upgraded version of the Predator, which has become one of the military's most sought-after planes since it first appeared in Afghanistan in 2001. The Reaper can fly three times as fast as a Predator and carry eight times more weaponry, such as Hellfire missiles, the Air Force said.

The Reaper's greater range and speed make it better suited than the Predator to Afghanistan with its vast, rugged terrain. The Reaper will also be deployed to Iraq. Its speed and arms will let it track and kill moving targets able to elude a Predator, said Brig. Gen. James Poss, director of intelligence for Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

Air Force officials cite the June 2006 killing of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was tracked by a Predator but ultimately killed by bombs dropped by an F-16. The Reaper "is ideal for that type of target," said Lt. Col. Gregory Christ, director of staff at Creech.

Despite the Predator's success, field commanders wanted a faster, more lethal alternative, said Col. Charles Bartlett, leader of the Air Force's unmanned aircraft task force.

Such demand has prompted the Air Force to rush to train operators and crews. In 2003, the Air Force trained fewer than 40 Predator operators. In 2008, that will soar to 160. It has trained 10 Reaper operators this year, and expects to train 19 more in 2008.

The Reaper squadron will start small and has only four aircraft, said Maj. David Small, an Air Force spokesman. It will ultimately have 20 planes, he said.

Most Reapers, like Predators, are flown from bases in the United States, such as Creech, which is about an hour north of the Las Vegas strip.

The Reaper carries about the same payload as the F-16 but can stay aloft as much as eight times longer than the F-16, which must refuel about every two hours.

"You've got a lot of ammo circling overhead on call for short-notice strikes," said John Pike, director of the military think tank, Globalsecurity. "It seems like a good idea."

Demand for Predator flights has exploded. This year, Predator flight hours are expected to exceed 70,000 hours, more than triple the total in 2003.

Combat pilots say they miss the feel of flying but say remote-control aircraft are here to stay.

"This is the future," said Chad Miner, chief of weapons and tactics at Creech, a Predator trainer and an F-16 pilot. "I would love to … jump in an F-16 and go. But I'm a more valuable asset to the military doing this. It's not the sexiest answer, but it's true."

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-08-27-reaper-afghanistan_N.htm

Iraq's Maliki speaks on government, future
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — Looking tired and pale but speaking firmly, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki told McClatchy Newspapers Tuesday that he has no intention of resigning despite rising U.S. criticism of his government.

In a 50-minute interview in his office in Baghdad's Green Zone, Maliki strongly defended his tenure and said that he doesn't expect to be forced out. He said his efforts at national reconciliation, not the surge of additional U.S. troops or actions by Iraqi security forces, are responsible for improved security.

He blamed the United States and its early policies in Iraq for the sectarianism that plagues the country, and said he opposed the current U.S. policy of working with former Sunni Muslim insurgent groups who've turned against al Qaida in Iraq because that, too, promotes sectarianism.

Still, he said he isn't yet willing to send Americans home. "Now there is a need for them to stay on," Maliki said. "When the security situation becomes stable, the need will no longer be there."

The interview was Maliki's first with an American news organization since U.S. officials began a drumbeat of criticism against him last week.

Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Hillary Clinton of New York called for the Iraqi parliament to replace him, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq called the government's performance "extremely disappointing" and a new assessment of Iraq by the U.S. intelligence community predicted that Maliki's government would grow even weaker over the next 12 months.

Maliki, however, appeared unbowed.

"I wish to give reassurance: Those who speak about pushing out the present regime, whether Carl Levin or Mrs. Hillary Clinton or the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who apologized for his remarks — none of these pose a real threat to the continuance of this government and the continuance of the political process," he said.

"As for the Iraqi politicians, our partners in the Iraqi government, they pose no threat even if they called for our resignation, for they have no authority within the democratic frame to depose us."

At one point, asked if Iraq's parliament could agree on anything, let alone replacing him, he laughed and said, "So, the government is safe, then."

He said he has the support of Iraq's supreme Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, and that he talks to him regularly. He said he'd stopped meeting with fiery Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr, whose supporters in parliament were critical to his election, because Sadr no longer is influential even within his own movement.

arghhh more

With the acquittal of Lt. Col. Steven Jordan of mistreatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib scandal, the US military confirms that "chain of command" apparently stopped with the likes of Sgt. Charles Graner and PFC Lynndie England et al, and no "top-down" prosecutions will ever be mounted to bring to justice the real perps.
Ah, accountability, it's what makes America great.

Abu Ghraib officer spared prison
The only US army officer to be charged over the Iraq jail abuse scandal has been reprimanded for disobeying an order not to discuss the inquiry.
Lt-Col Steven Jordan had faced up to five years in jail for e-mailing soldiers about the investigation.

He had been in charge of the prison's interrogation unit when pictures of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners were taken in 2003.

He was cleared on Tuesday of three charges of mistreatment of detainees.

Lt-Col Jordan, who did not appear in any of the photographs, had pleaded not guilty to all charges at his court martial.

Final trial

"We view this as very much a victory," defence attorney Major Kris Poppe said after the sentencing.

The defence argued that although he was nominally in charge of the interrogation centre, Lt-Col Jordan did not have direct control over the interrogations.

The prosecution contended that he had fostered a climate conducive to abuse by divorcing himself from the training and supervision of the soldiers under his command.

John Sifton, senior counterterrorism researcher with Washington-based Human Rights Watch, called the prosecution of Lt-Col Jordan "amateurish and half-baked", and said the military lacked the will to get to the bottom of the abuse.

Lt-Col Jordan's trial was the last related to the prison abuse scandal. Eleven soldiers have been convicted of carrying out abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Hina Shamsi, deputy director of New York-based Human Rights First, told the Associated Press news agency that none of the courts martial "has given the systemic accounting the nation needs of what happened, why, and how far up the chain of command responsibility lies".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6968989.stm

Following the administrative hand-slap given to Lt-Col. Jordan (see above) Scott Horton puts together the whole sordid saga of failed accountability in this wretched affair:

Another Verdict on Abu Ghraib
Yesterday at Fort Meade, a jury consisting of nine colonels and one brigadier general rendered a verdict in the case of Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan. He was acquitted on all charges related to the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. He was convicted of disobeying an order that he not speak with third persons about the investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Paul von Zielbauer reports on the case in the New York Times:

Colonel Jordan’s acquittal on most charges means that no officers have been found criminally responsible for the abuses at the prison. Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the military intelligence officer who ran Abu Ghraib, was punished administratively by senior Army commanders for improperly allowing military dogs to be used during interrogations to frighten detainees. Janis Karpinski, the brigadier general who was the military police commander at Abu Ghraib, was reprimanded and demoted.

During Colonel Jordan’s seven-day court-martial, Army lawyers representing him argued that he was not responsible for training and supervising the military police soldiers who abused detainees from mid-September to late December 2004. Rather, his lawyers argued, he served as a manager of sorts at the prison, focused on making living and working conditions at Abu Ghraib, a notorious complex that Saddam Hussein’s government had used to torture its enemies, as accommodating as possible.

The jury members apparently were not convinced by the conclusions of two generals who had investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal and found that Colonel Jordan’s “tacit approval” of violent techniques by the military police during an episode in November 2003 was “the causative factor that set the stage for the abuses that followed for days afterward.”

This leaves a curious record in prosecutions coming out of Abu Ghraib. Accountability, it seems, is something which applies to enlisted personnel and noncommissioned officers who make the mistake of being caught in photographs. The officers who were supposedly in charge of the facility and giving them guidance escape without serious punishment.

I believe there is a way in which the jury’s actions make perfect sense. If the jury believed that the atmosphere that prevailed in the prison and led to the abuse was the product of conscious Department of Defense policy, and that Colonel Jordan (and Colonel Pappas, who escaped with nonjudicial punishment) were doing exactly what their superiors far up the line would have them do, then the decision to acquit is easily understood.
‘Blame the Grunts,’ Continued
Moreover, this meshes perfectly with a strategy formulated at the top of the chain of command, in the office of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld himself. After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a commission composed of close friends of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and headed by former Secretary of Defense Schlesinger, issued a report which exculpated Rumsfeld without ever interviewing him or examining any evidence of his involvement, or that of others in the Office of Secretary of Defense, in the affair. It was one of the most breathtaking whitewash jobs in American history. Schlesinger pursued a strategy of “blaming the grunts” for everything that happened—it was “Animal House on the nightshift” in the words of his famous tag line.

(much more, incl. statements from "whistle-blower" (and former interrogator at Abu Ghraib) Cpt. Sam Provance...)

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90001049

New York Times, By David S. Cloud & Eric Schmitt, August 30

Washington - Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department’s inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, the officials said.

Pentagon officials said they did not yet have evidence that Iraqi security forces or Kurdish officials were selling or giving the weapons to Kurdish separatists, as Turkish officials have contended.

It was possible, they said, that the weapons had been stolen or lost during firefights and smuggled into Turkey after being sold in Iraq’s extensive black market for firearms. Officials gave widely varied estimates — from dozens to hundreds — of how many American-supplied weapons had been found in Turkey.

BBC, August 30

An outbreak of cholera in two northern Iraqi provinces has killed eight people and infected 80 others, the Kurdistan Regional Government has said.

Kurdish Health Minister Zeryan Othman said local health authorities were also treating 4,250 suspected cases of the disease in Sulaimaniya and Tamim.

Specialist teams and emergency aid have been sent to the affected regions.

Serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment, worsened by crumbling local infrastructure, are being blamed.

A report by the UK-based charity, Oxfam, and the NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) last month warned that 70% of Iraq's population did not have adequate water supplies and that only 20% had access to effective sanitation.

AP, By Matthew Lee, August 29

WASHINGTON (AP, August 30) - The Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush's Iraq war strategy, congressional auditors have determined.

The Associated Press has learned the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq are unfulfilled ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline. That's when Bush is to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public, also said the administration is preparing a case to play down the findings, arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, "all or nothing" standards when compiling the document.

The GAO is to give a classified briefing about its findings to lawmakers on Thursday. It is not yet clear when its unclassified report will be released but it is due Sept. 1 amid a series of assessments called for in January legislation that authorized Bush's plan to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq, where there is now a total of more than 160,000 troops.

[...]

The memo argues that the GAO will not present a "true picture" of the situation in Iraq because the standards were "designed to lock in failure," according to portions of the document read to the AP by an official who has seen it.

The Boston Globe, By Bryan Bender, August 30

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon cannot sustain its current force levels in Iraq beyond next summer, effectively giving the Bush administration and the Iraqi government until the middle of 2008 to capitalize on recent security improvements before the US military must draw down its forces, according to US military officials and foreign policy analysts.

When the 15-month combat tours end for the nearly 30,000 additional US troops President Bush sent to Iraq earlier this year to secure the country, the Army will be unable to replace them without damaging morale or troop readiness, senior Army officials say. Those forces will complete their tours during the spring and summer of 2008, according to Army deployment schedules.

[...]

Keeping 160,000 troops in Iraq beyond the middle of next year would require the Army to reduce further the amount of time troops spend at home -- already scaled back from two years to less than 12 months in some cases -- before sending them back to the combat zone. But Army Secretary Peter Geren, the service's top official, recently said he sees "no possibility" of extending the duty tours of US troops beyond 15 months.

These are the critical on-the-ground constraints as the White House and Congress prepare to receive a much-anticipated September progress report, which will probably fuel the debate over the war. The practical limits on current troop deployments have led military officials and analysts to warn that there will be a window of less than 12 months for the military to show sustained, and sustainable, success -- and for the Iraqi government to fashion a political settlement between warring factions.

By then, they said, the White House will have little choice but to phase down the American military commitment in Iraq.

AP IMPACT: US commanders request energy beam weapon, but worry it could be seen as torture

The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 29, 2007

WASHINGTON: President Saddam Hussein had been gone from Iraq for just a few weeks, and U.S. forces in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, already were being called unwelcome invaders. One of the first big anti-American protests of the war escalated into shootouts that left 18 Iraqis dead and 78 wounded.

It would be a familiar scene in Iraq's next few years: Crowds gather, insurgents mingle with civilians. Troops open fire, and innocents die.

All the while, according to internal military correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. commanders were telling Washington that many civilian casualties could be avoided by using a new nonlethal weapon developed over the past decade.

Military leaders repeatedly and urgently requested the device. It uses energy beams instead of bullets and lets soldiers break up unruly crowds without firing a shot.

It is a ray gun that neither kills nor maims, but the Pentagon has refused to deploy it because of the possibility that the weapon might be seen as a torture device.

Perched on a Humvee or a flatbed truck, the Active Denial System gives people hit by the invisible beam the sense that their skin is on fire. They move out of the way quickly and without injury.

On April 30, 2003, two days after the first Fallujah incident, Gene McCall, then the top scientist at Air Force Space Command in Colorado, typed out a two-sentence e-mail to Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"I am convinced that the tragedy at Fallujah would not have occurred if an Active Denial System had been there," McCall told Myers, according to the e-mail obtained by AP. The system should become "an immediate priority," McCall said.

Myers referred McCall's message to his staff, according to the e-mail chain.

McCall, who retired from government in November 2003, remains convinced the system would have saved lives in Iraq.

"How this has been handled is kind of a national scandal," McCall said by telephone from his home in Florida.

A few months after McCall's message, in August 2003, Richard Natonski, a Marine Corps brigadier general who had just returned from Iraq, filed an "urgent" request with officials in Washington for the energy-beam device.

The device would minimize what Natonski described as the "CNN Effect": the instantaneous relay of images that depict U.S. troops as aggressors.

A year later, Natonski, by then promoted to major general, again asked for the system, saying a compact and mobile version was "urgently needed," particularly in urban settings.

Natonski, now a three-star general, is the Marine Corps' deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations. He did not respond to an interview request.

In October 2004, the commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force "enthusiastically" endorsed Natonski's request. Lt. Gen. James Amos said it was "critical" for Marines in Iraq to have the system.

Senior officers in Iraq have continued to make the case. One December 2006 request noted that as U.S. forces are drawn down, the nonlethal weapon "will provide excellent means for economy of force."

The main reason the tool has been missing in action is public perception. With memories of the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal still fresh, the Pentagon is reluctant to give troops a space-age device that could be misconstrued as a torture machine.

"We want to just make sure that all the conditions are right, so when it is able to be deployed the system performs as predicted — that there isn't any negative fallout," said Col. Kirk Hymes, head of the Defense Department's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

Reviews by military lawyers concluded it is a lawful weapon under current rules governing the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a Nov. 15 document prepared by Marine Corps officials in western Iraq.

Private organizations remain concerned, however, because documentation that supports the testing and legal reviews is classified. There's no way to independently verify the Pentagon's claims, said Stephen Goose of Human Rights Watch in Washington.

"We think that any time you have an emerging technology that's based on novel physical principles, that this deserves the highest level of scrutiny," Goose said. "And we really haven't had that."

Another issue for the weapon is cost.

The Pentagon has spent $62 million (€45.5 million) developing and testing the system over the past decade, a scant amount compared to other high-profile, multibillion-dollar military programs.

Still, officials say the technology is too expensive, although they will not say what it costs to build. They cite engineering challenges as another obstacle, although one U.S. defense contractor says it has a model ready for production.

For now, there is no firm schedule for when the system might be made and delivered to troops.

Commanders in Iraq say the go-slow approach has had devastating consequences.

There is no way to calculate how many civilian deaths could have been avoided had the energy beam been available in Iraq. The bulk of the civilian casualties are due to sectarian warfare.

According to Associated Press statistics, more than 27,400 Iraqi civilians have been killed and more than 31,000 wounded in war-related violence just since the new government took office in April 2005.

The Active Denial System is a directed-energy device, although it is not a laser or a microwave. It uses a large, dish-shaped antenna and a long, V-shaped arm to send an invisible beam of waves to a target as far away as 500 yards.

With the unit mounted on the back of a vehicle, U.S. troops can operate a safe distance from rocks, fire bombs and small-arms fire.

The beam penetrates the skin slightly, just enough to cause intense pain. The beam goes through clothing as well as windows, but can be blocked by thicker materials, such as metal or concrete.

The system was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico. During more than 12 years of testing, only two injuries requiring medical attention have been reported; both were second-degree burns, according to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate Web site.

Prototype units have been assembled by the military, the most promising being a larger model that sits on the back of a flatbed truck. This single unit, known as System 2, could be sent to Iraq as early as next year, according to Hymes of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate.

Hymes' office, which nurtures promising technologies that can be used by the military branches, plans to spend $9 million (€6.6 million) over the next two years on the effort.

Money for additional systems is not likely to be available until 2010, when an Air Force command in Massachusetts is expected to take control of the program, he said.

Recognizing the potential market, defense contractor Raytheon has invested its own money to build a version that the company calls "Silent Guardian." Although Hymes said the Raytheon product "is not ready yet," company representatives say it is.

Mike Booen, Raytheon's vice president for directed energy programs, said the company has produced one system that is available immediately.

"We have the capacity to build additional systems as needed," he said.

Raytheon has not sold any Silent Guardians to U.S. or foreign customers, and Booen would not discuss the product's price.

American commanders in Iraq already have asked to buy Raytheon's device.

A Dec. 1, 2006, urgent request signed by Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Robert Neller sought eight Silent Guardians.

Neller, then the deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, called the lack of such a nonlethal weapon a "chronic deficiency" that "will continue to harm" efforts to resolve showdowns with as little firepower as possible.

Other requests from officers in Iraq asked for the system as part of a broader weapons package on wheels, one that could shoot bullets as well as the nonlethal beam.

Such a versatile system would let troops deal with "increasingly complex operational environments where combatants are routinely intermixed with noncombatants," Army Brig. Gen. James Huggins said in an April 2005 memo to Pentagon officials.

Huggins, then chief of staff of the Multi-National Force in Iraq and now deputy commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, wanted 14 vehicles for missions ranging from raids to convoy escorts.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq from its base in the United States, endorsed the request, saying it was "critical to build upon our success in the counterinsurgency battle," according to its memo to the Pentagon.

The vehicles were not delivered, however. Robert Buhrkuhl, a senior Pentagon acquisition official, said during congressional testimony in January that combining the various fixtures on a single vehicle presented major technical challenges.

In an interview, Franz Gayl, who was Neller's science adviser until the unit returned in February, blamed an entrenched, "risk-averse" military acquisition system for moving too slowly.

Gayl calls the system a "disruptive innovation": an unconventional piece of equipment that breaks new ground and therefore is viewed skeptically by the offices that buy combat gear.

If the energy-beam weapon had been fielded when U.S. forces invaded Iraq, "many innocent Iraqi lives would have been spared," Gayl said.

_http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=7313447__

On the Net:

http://www.raytheon.com/products/silent_guardian/

posted in full under fair use

U.S.: Military Alone Can't Beat Taliban

Thursday August 30, 2007 3:16 PM

By CHRIS BRUMMITT

Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Military force alone is unlikely to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, a top U.S. commander said Thursday, noting that most insurgencies end with a political solution.

Maj. Gen. Robert Cone, who is in charge of equipping and training Afghan security forces to take over from international troops, said the local units were making good progress, but declined to say when they would be strong enough to allow foreign forces to go home.

Meanwhile, a senior Taliban leader was killed in a clash with Afghan and foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan army officer said.

Violence is soaring in Afghanistan despite years of counterinsurgency operations by international troops and millions of dollars spent in equipping the country's army and police units.

Cone cautioned that military force alone would likely not be enough to beat the Taliban and other militants battling foreign and Afghan government troops.

``You can say you defeated them in a single campaign ... but again given the complex nature of this environment, they might be back again the very next year,'' he told a media conference in the capital Kabul. ``I think the real issue is probably not a military solution in the long term.''

President Hamid Karzai earlier this year said he had met with unspecified Taliban militants to try to reach a political settlement, but he did not elaborate on the extent of the contacts.

Cone, who arrived in Afghanistan in July, said the ``military will have a significant impact on the overall solution, but in reality most insurgencies are dealt with by political solution in the end.''

Hundreds of former members of the hard-line Taliban regime, including a sprinkling of former senior commanders and officials, have reconciled with the government since they were ousted from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

But current rebel leaders have apparently refused to hold talks, and in the past year, thousands more fighters have joined the insurgency, which this year alone has left more than 3,900 people dead, especially in southern and much of eastern Afghanistan. The exact number of insurgents is unclear.

There are more than 42,000 Afghan Army soldiers, and some 75,000 police members, with plans to create a 70,000-man army and 82,000-strong police force by the end of 2008. There also are more than 50,000 foreign troops in the country, including U.S.-led coalition and NATO-led forces.

Formal talks with the Taliban would be politically very sensitive because of the close relationship top commanders are believed to have with al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden.

In the southern Helmand province, meanwhile, senior Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani, known as Mullah Brother, was reported killed during clashes with Afghan and foreign troops, said Maj. Gen. Ghulam Muhiddin Ghori, an Afghan army officer.
.
The report could not be independently verified, and a NATO official in southern Afghanistan said that they were not aware of the clash.

more

New York - A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that prosecutors can introduce evidence in the trial of Oscar Wyatt that suggests the Texas oil tycoon tipped off Iraq about the impending 2003 U.S. invasion.

On the eve of Wyatt's trial in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin also allowed evidence that defense lawyers said unfairly suggested payments made by Wyatt to Iraq's state oil marketing organization were bribes passed on to Saddam Hussein.

Wyatt goes on trial September 5 at federal court in Manhattan, accused of paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq to win oil contracts and corrupting the oil-for-food program.

Wyatt, 83, has pleaded innocent to all charges.

The U.N. oil-for-food program was set up in the 1990s to let Iraq sell oil to buy civilian goods for its people living under U.N. sanctions imposed over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

It administered some $67 billion worth of oil, and U.S. and U.N. investigations have found that lobbyists, U.N. and Iraqi officials enriched themselves through kickbacks and bribery.

Wyatt's former company, the Coastal Corporation, dealt in Iraqi oil and Wyatt had traveled a number of times to Iraq, meeting senior officials including Saddam.

Wyatt's defense also objected to evidence showing portions of a diary of a former Iraqi state oil agency employee. It includes suggestions Wyatt provided the Iraq government with information about when the United States would invade and bomb Iraq and how many troops would be sent.

Thinking Beyond Maliki

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, August 31, 2007; A15

The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had more than 15 months to try to pacify the Sunni insurgency by offering national accords on oil-sharing, provincial elections and de-Baathification. It has done none of these. Instead, Gen. David Petraeus has pacified a considerable number of Sunni tribes with grants of local autonomy, guns and U.S. support in jointly fighting al-Qaeda.

Petraeus's strategy is not very pretty. It carries risk. But it has been effective.

The Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, however, is not happy with Petraeus's actions. One top Maliki aide complained that they will leave Iraq " an armed society and militias."

What does he think Iraq is now? Except that many Sunni militias that were once shooting at Americans are now shooting at al-Qaeda.

The nature of the war is changing. In July, 73 percent of the attacks that caused U.S. casualties in Baghdad were from Shiite militants, not Sunnis. Maliki is no fool. As more Sunni tribes are pacified, he can see the final military chapter of this war coming into focus: the considerable power of the American military machine slowly turning its face to -- and its guns on -- Shiite extremists.

Of the many mistakes committed in Iraq, perhaps the most serious was to have failed to destroy Moqtada al-Sadr and the remains of his ragged army when we had him cornered and defeated in Najaf in 2004. As a consequence, we have to face him once again. The troop surge has already begun deadly and significant raids into Mahdi strongholds in Baghdad.

Sadr is hurting. On Wednesday, after many were killed in Shiite-on-Shiite fighting in Karbala, he called for a six-month moratorium on all military operations in order to permit him to " rehabilitate" his increasingly disorganized forces.

At the same time, however, Maliki is denouncing us for overkill in our raids on Shiite areas. A rift between Washington and Baghdad is opening. It will only widen as long as Maliki is in power.

Now, Maliki is no friend of Sadr or Iran. He knows that if they ultimately prevail, they will swallow him whole. But Maliki is too weak temperamentally and politically to make the decisive move in the other direction -- toward Sunni and Shiite moderates -- in order to make the necessary national compromises.

So he hedges his bets. He visits Iran and, then, while on a Syrian visit, responds to calls for the Iraqi parliament to bring his government down by saying, " Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria" and warning darkly that Iraq "can find friends elsewhere."

Maliki is not just weak but unreliable. Time is short. We should have long ago -- say, when national security adviser Stephen Hadley wrote his leaked memo last November about Maliki's failure -- begun working to have this dysfunctional government replaced.

Even the French foreign minister, upon returning from a recent fence-mending trip to Iraq, called for Maliki's replacement. (One can discount his later apology as pro forma.) Such suggestions are often denounced as hypocritical and contrary to democracy. Nonsense. In a parliamentary system, a government serves only if it continues to command confidence. hahahahahahahaha

more swill here

posted to newswire by LemanRuss

Scrap the Iraqi police?" Panel Will Urge Broad Overhaul of Iraqi Police

David S. Cloud | Washington | August 31, 2007

New York Times - WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — An independent commission established by Congress to assess Iraq’s security forces will recommend remaking the 26,000-member national police force to purge it of corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings, administration and military officials said Thursday.

Iraqi police officers stood watch recently at a checkpoint in Baghdad. A commission established by Congress is recommending that the police be purged of corrupt officers and Shiite militants.

The commission, headed by Gen. James L. Jones, the former top United States commander in Europe, concludes that the rampant sectarianism that has existed since the formation of the police force requires that its current units “be scrapped” and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization, according to one senior official familiar with the findings. The recommendation is that “we should start over,” the official said.

posted to newswire by LemanRuss

Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals

By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks | Washington | Thursday, August 30,

Washington Post - Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

London | Fri Aug 31

Reuters - Britain fought back against criticism in Washington over its performance in Iraq on Friday, taking the unusual step of publishing an editorial in a U.S. newspaper staunchly defending its record.

The opinion-editorial, jointly signed by the defense and foreign ministers, follows weeks of commentary, largely in the American press, in which military analysts, former generals and unnamed administration sources have suggested that British forces have failed in Basra and are set to flee.

The barrage has built up sincb Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair, Washington's staunchest ally, as British prime minister in June, and spurred the response from Defence Secretary Des Browne and Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

"Recent weeks have brought a lot of misplaced criticism of the United Kingdom's role in southern Iraq. It is time to set the record straight," they wrote in the Washington Post.

"The question some people have asked is: Have British forces failed in Basra? The answer is no.

"We believe we remain on track to complete the return of full sovereignty to the Iraqi people as planned. The United Kingdom is sticking to the mission we took on four years ago."

While the re-statement of its commitment may assuage some critics and reassure the administration of President George W. Bush, there are growing calls in Britain for troops to be withdrawn, particularly with the rate of soldiers' deaths increasing in recent weeks.

Britain has 5,500 troops in Iraq, based in two locations in Basra, in the far south of the country. Five thousand are based at a vast airport complex on the city's outskirts and the remainder in an old palace in the city centre. There are plans to pull the 500 at the Basra Palace out of the country soon.(continued at link)

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}

Karzai Regime Interior Ministry Shuns Investigation

As Canadian officials continue to dodge questions over the whereabouts of tens of millions of dollars in aid intended for Afghanistan’s beleaguered national police, a senior source close to President Karzai claims that corrupt Afghan officials at the Ministry of Interior are only part of the problem.

American consultants, the source claims, exercise overall control of international funds going into the ministry, and have flatly refused, on several occasions, to provide detailed accounting – even to President Karzai and his staff.

more

Photos (h/t markfromireland) from Radio Sawa of the damage in Karbala:
Karbala The damage looks more extensive than initial western reports suggested. There were reports of two different battles going on -
one involving shopowners, the other pilgrims at one gate (or more) who were angry at
the type of security being enforced ... with the real "battle" developing after Green Zone forces fired on the protestors. At least that is what I was hearing as it was happening.

From Azzaman this morning (Azzaman is an Iraqi news source which tends to be quite reliable and moderate):

Karbala still under curfew after bloody clashes

By Hadeel al-Jawari and Basel Abdulmajeed

Azzaman, August 31, 2007

The carnage in the religious city of Karbala could not have come at a worst time for the U.S. and the pro-government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

More than four years into the occupation, U.S. troops and their Iraqi-trained forces are not yet in a position to spread their authority on a single Iraqi city.

The government is so weak that it even cannot point the finger at the real perpetrators, with Maliki preferring to blame “armed criminal gangs and outlaws and remnants of the Saddam regime.”

The clashes on Tuesday left more than 50 dead and 200 injured and took place while hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Muslim Shiites had gathered for a major religious festival.

The fighting cut short the celebration and the angry pilgrims returned home without fulfilling any of the rituals required by the occasion.

Maliki and his senior aides including ministers of defense and interior rushed to Karbala but they could almost do nothing despite the heavy presence of Iraqi police, security and army.

Residents say many police officers in the city refused to fight or simply left the scene of clashes. Now Maliki has ordered the expulsion of what he has described as “defeatist elements in the police force who did not shoulder their duties in confronting the gunmen.”

But if Maliki carries through his threat of dismissing the police officers and other security personnel who did not move a finger while innocent Iraqis were being gunned to death, he will have to sack the entire Iraqi police force and security personnel.

Iraq’s new police and security forces are built on sectarian and factional lines and members owe their allegiance to their sects and factions rather than the national government – if there is such a government in Iraq.

Residents and pilgrims give a version of events which runs contrary to that of the government. They speak of popular discontent and anger which many pilgrims vented during the ceremony.

Not only bullets were used in the clashes. Many pilgrims resorted to stones and sticks to attack government-appointed guards of the shrine as well as officials.

The government is in fact not telling the truth about the scale of the clashes, damage and casualties. Some of those involved, who we cannot name for security reasons, described the events as a revolt against the government and its U.S. protectors.

Vehicles were set ablaze and Azzaman correspondents counted at least 15 torched cars among them police vehicles and ambulances.

Three days after the clashes the city was still under curfew with tanks and armored vehicles cordoning off the shrines’ area as thousands of pilgrims conducted a vigil demanding the government to remove its siege.

The correspondents could hear pilgrims shout slogans condemning the central government.

Hospital sources say more than 50 people were killed and at least 300 were injured. The sources said the toll could be higher because ambulances still cannot move freely in areas where the clashes took place.

Canadian soldier dies of gunshot wound at ISAF headquarters in Kabul
Comment on this article (0) Print E-mail
(National News) Saturday, 01 September 2007, 06:03 PST
by cp.org
RETAIL WEB

KABUL (CP) - A member of the Canadian Forces has been found dead of a gunshot wound inside a secure compound in the Afghan capital.

A military statement says the soldier serving at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul died shortly after 7:30 a.m. local time today.

The victim had been found seriously injured in his room an hour earlier and doctors were unable to save him.

Few other details are available. However, military officials ruled out enemy action, saying the incident occurred within the ISAF compound.

Both ISAF and Canadian military officials are investigating and say they have not ruled out either murder or suicide.

The deceased's name is being temporarily withheld at the family's request.

Prince George Citizen

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1282371,00.html

US 'intellectually bankrupt' over Iraq

Article from: Agence France-Presse

From correspondents in London

September 01, 2007 01:44pm

THE head of the British army during the invasion of Iraq has blasted the US for its handling of the aftermath.

General Sir Mike Jackson laid into the then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a stinging attack, said The Daily Telegraph, which is to serialise his forthcoming autobiography, Soldier.

Gen Jackson branded US policy after the March 2003 invasion "intellectually bankrupt" and slammed Rumsfeld's claim that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical".

Gen Jackson said Mr Rumsfeld was "one of the most responsible for the current situation in Iraq".
The retired general's comments are likely to fuel perceived tensions over Iraq between allies Britain and the US.

The Daily Telegraph said Gen Jackson felt the US approach to combating global terrorism was "inadequate" and too focused on military might rather than nation-building and diplomacy.

Gen Jackson also defended the record of Britain's military mission in Basra, Iraq's second city.

General Jack Keane, a former vice-chief of staff of the US army, said there was "frustration" in Washington at Britain's role in southern Iraq as he shed light on media reports that American officials think British forces have failed there.

"I don't think that's a fair assessment at all," Gen Jackson said.

"What has happened in the south, as throughout the rest of Iraq, was that primary responsibility for security would be handed to the Iraqis once the Iraqi authorities and the coalition were satisfied that their state of training and development was appropriate.

"In the south we had responsibility for four provinces. Three of these have been handed over in accordance with that strategy. It remains just in Basra for that to happen."

The general also attacked the decision to hand control of planning the post-invasion administration of Iraq to the Pentagon.

All the planning carried out by the State Department had "gone to waste", he argued.

more

Sistani's aide killed in Basra, four dead near Kirkuk (Extra)

Sep 1, 2007, 13:15 GMT
dpa

Baghdad - Unknown gunmen killed an aide of Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the southern city of Basra during the night, police sources told a local news agency Saturday.

According to the independent Voices of Iraq news agency, the armed attackers shot down Moslem al-Battat, the imam and preacher of al- Orwa mosque, in al-Farsi area in central Basra only minutes after he finished his night prayers.

Separately, Iraqi authorities said Saturday that a group of militants attacked a civilian car on al-Huweija road, 40 kilometres west of Kirkuk, killing three people - including two brothers - and kidnapping what was believed to be the third brother. The motive behind the attack was unknown.

In Qadaa al-Huweija, 55 kilometres west of the northern city, another group of gunmen shot down a civilian and wounded three others who were moved to a nearby hospital for treatment.

A US Marine was ordered to execute a room full of Iraqi women and children during an alleged massacre in Haditha that left 24 people dead, a military court heard Thursday.

The testimony came in the opening of a preliminary hearing for Marine Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who faces 17 counts of murder over the Haditha killings, the most serious war crimes allegations faced by US troops in Iraq.

Wuterich, dressed in desert khakis, spoke confidently to confirm his name as the hearing to decide if he faces a court martial began at the Marines' Camp Pendleton base in southern California.

The 27-year-old listened intently as Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza recounted how Marines had responded after a roadside bomb attack on their convoy in Haditha on November 19, 2005 left one comrade dead.

Mendoza said Marines under Wuterich's command began clearing nearby houses suspected of containing insurgents responsible for the bombing.

At one house Wuterich gave an order to shoot on sight as Marines waited for a response after knocking on the door, said Mendoza.

"He said 'Just wait till they open the door, then shoot,'" Mendoza said.

Mendoza then said he shot and killed an adult male who appeared in a doorway.

During a subsequent search of the house, Mendoza said he received an order from another Marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, to shoot seven women and children he had found in a rear bedroom.

"When I opened the door there was just women and kids, two adults were lying down on the bed and there were three children on the bed ... two more were behind the bed," Mendoza said.

"I looked at them for a few seconds. Just enough to know they were not presenting a threat ... they looked scared."

After leaving the room Mendoza told Tatum what he had found.

"I told him there were women and kids inside there. He said 'Well, shoot them,'" Mendoza told prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Sean Sullivan.

Haditha murders

Iraqi PM: Criticism 'Signals' Militants

Sunday September 2, 2007 3:46 PM

By BASSEM MROUE

Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's beleaguered prime minister accused his American critics on Sunday of underestimating how hard it is to rebuild his country and failing to appreciate his government's achievements ``such as stopping the civil and sectarian war.''

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Report: Britain Leaves Final Basra Base

Sunday September 2, 2007 7:46 PM

LONDON (AP) - British troops began withdrawing Sunday from their base inside the southern Iraqi city of Basra - their final position in the country's second-largest city, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.

The BBC reported the 550 soldiers stationed at Basra Palace were joining around 5,000 other personnel at an air base camp on the fringes of the city. Britain's defense ministry could not immediately confirm the details.

Maj. Mike Schearer, a spokesman for British forces in Basra, declined comment: ``We never speak about future or ongoing operations. I'm afraid we have nothing to say on that.''

a masterful PR artiste? Several stories appeared last week on wide-ranging investigations of weapons diversion and procurement corruption during Petraeus' command tour heading training and logistics for Iraqi forces in 2004-5, and at least one indictment handed down concerned one of the good General's direct reports, Lt Col. Levonda Selph. Petraeus refuses all comment on the charges and on the investigations, and nobody is daring to run with this all the way to the top.
And, of course, there has been a minor tsunami of "codels" (conned-dels?) fetching up in the Green Zone, getting their PP briefings from Petraeus and co., with the added fillip of "sliming" of less-than-convinced members of Congress by publishing insulting "summaries" of these members' public views on the "surge" or the entire war to date.
Greg Sargent at TPM-Horse's Mouth puts it together:

Why Was Petraeus Able To Shift The Debate On Iraq? The Media Enabled It
So who's to blame for the fact that General Petraeus' aggressive PR surge is showing signs of success in advance of the September showdown between the White House and Congress over Iraq?

Kevin Drum has a provocative post up in which he concludes that the liberal blogosphere and liberal establishment were badly "outplayed" by Petraeus' PR "blitzkrieg." Kevin reaches this sobering conclusion: "Even though there's been no discernible political progress, minimal reconstruction progress, and apparently no genuine decrease in violence, he's managed to convince an awful lot of people that the first doesn't matter, the second is far more widespread than it really is, and the third is the opposite of reality."

Meanwhile, Atrios adds that part of the blame lies with our elected leaders, who "have chosen to play along."

Without discounting any of these conclusions, I think it's necessary to add another explanation for the apparent success of Petraeus' PR push: The media, in some cases out of incompetence and in others by design, helped him get away with it, and indeed actively enabled it.

If you step back and survey the totality of media's performance this summer on the Iraq debate, it becomes a good deal clearer just how awful it's all been -- and just how complicit these failings were in helping to shift the debate:

(1) Big news orgs repeatedly twisted the words of Democrats who had returned from Iraq to make their assessments sound more positive than they were.
...
(2) Big news orgs shifted the definition of the success of the surge from a political goal
...
(3) Many news organizations gave tons of coverage to outside experts who said the surge is working, while giving little to none to people who said it wasn't.
...
4) Multiple news outlets repeatedly and falsely described the September Iraq assessment as representing the sole judgment of Petraeus, echoing White House propaganda.
...
5) News orgs and pundits are now baselessly asserting that the White House is "confident" that it will "win" the September showdown with Dems over Iraq.
...
Again, this isn't to minimize the failings of liberals and Dems here. As I noted some time ago (too lazy to find the link), the Dem Congressional leadership was for some time surprisingly mute while Petraeus and the White House kicked their campaign into high gear. This is partly a function of Congress being on recess -- any Congressional staffer will tell you how hard it is to wrest a statement from members of Congress during August -- but this just ain't a good enough excuse.

Still, media coverage does play a big role here -- though gauging just how big is dicey -- because Congressional insiders are heavily attuned to, and influenced by, shifts in media tone and insider pundit opinion. So the coverage, should it continue in this vein, probably will end up helping persuade skittish Congressional Dems that Petraeus' ongoing PR surge just can't be resisted, if it hasn't persuaded some of them of this already.

http://tinyurl.com/2cqmxg

The General is a classic example of those careerists singled out by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, in his swingeing critique of current military leadership, and although Greg Sargent deservedly dishes the media for its slavishly devoted praising of the man, where are Congressional Demos on this, and why aren't they calling for open testimony/Q&A when
Petraeus comes calling in a few days? Who is this guy, an untouchable as Gen. Douglas McArthur once was whenever he strode into Congress?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/09/media_helped_pe.php