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May 2004Re-certificationPosted: Monday, May 31, 2004 Venezuela's Signature Re-certification Ends Without Major Incident but with Many Minor Ones Caracas, May 31, 2004 (Venezuelanalysis.com) - At the end of the third day in which Venezuelans who want a recall referendum against President Chavez could re-certify invalidated signatures, both the opposition and pro-government sectors claimed success. While no major incident interfered with the process, police forces arrested several individuals and carried out several raids in several locations where forged identity documents were found. New York Times says it was duped by Pentagon 'cunning' Posted: Monday, May 31, 2004 David Teather in New York Monday May 31, 2004 The Guardian UK The New York Times donned sackcloth and ashes again yesterday when its ombudsman said the newspaper had been duped by "the cunning campaign" of those that wanted the world to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Some stories, Daniel Okrent said, "pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets on the shoulders of editors". The half-page critique of the newspaper's coverage during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq followed a separate admission signed by "the editors" last week that said the newspaper had not been as "rigorous as it should have been" in questioning Iraqi exiles. Mr Okrent said that in the run-up to the invasion, "cloaked government sources ... insinuated themselves and their agendas into prewar coverage". The newspaper's failure, he said, was institutional. "To anyone who read the paper between September 2002 and June 2003, the impression that Saddam Hussein possessed, or was acquiring, a frightening arsenal of WMD seemed unmistakable." Full Article Latest News Posted: Monday, May 31, 2004 ¤ Car bomb rocks busy Baghdad street ¤ Bomb Kills at Least 15 in Karachi Shi'ite Mosque ¤ America's Abu Ghraibs ¤ 16 Killed As Bomb Blasts Pakistan Mosque ¤ Iraqis Decry U.S. Over President Choice ¤ Baghdad Blast Kills Four Iraqis ¤ Memorial Day, Forever? ¤ America's battle to regain respect ¤ Much in dispute before Iraq shift ¤ Alleged Halliburton ties haunt Cheney ¤ Thousands died so that Bush could play cowboy with Saddam's gun ¤ Iraq and The Times ¤ Bad News for the Americanized ¤ Iraq, R.I.P. ¤ IDF razes 20 additional Palestinian homes in Rafah raid ¤ North Korea Accuses U.S. of War Pretext Plot ¤ U.N. Troops Heading Back to Haiti ¤ U.S. is lost in Afghanistan ¤ Where Does Iraq Stand Among U.S. Wars? ¤ China Accuses U.S. of Pushing Taiwan Independence ¤ Casualty count in Iraq still rising ¤ U.N. to assess rights of Iraqis ¤ Iraqi council member assassinated ¤ Paying the price for incompetence ¤ British oil executive was among the first to die ¤ The oil connection ¤ 2 U.S. Troops Killed in Clash With Gunmen ¤ New York Times says it was duped by Pentagon 'cunning' ¥ The main stream media has always been willing pawns for the Government ¤ The Chalabi affair exposes a massive failure of intelligence ¤ Jailed - for showing dislike of US invaders ¤ Military Completed Death Certificates for 20 Prisoners Only After Months Passed ¤ The Problem Is At the Top ¤ On Their Way to Abu Ghraib ¤ Politics and terror warnings ¤ The Pentagon's Plunge into Barbarism ¤ To look again ¤ Abu Ghraib prompts denial, spin, evasion ¤ Split over presidency delays deal on Iraqi govt ¤ Bush needs some good news ¥ Or some bad news in fact any type will work right now ¤ Army Is Investigating Assaults and Thefts by G.I.'s Against Iraqi Civilians ¤ Inside The Takedown ¤ American contractors' role in Chalabi raid revealed ¤ Never mind the truth ¤ America's home-grown war ¤ Curse of wartime presidents strikes G.W. Bush ¤ Car explodes in Baghdad ¤ Aristide to Live in Exile in S. Africa ¤ Car bomb rocks busy Baghdad street ¤ The Abu Ghraib Scandal Cover-Up? ¤ Cheney office denies role in Halliburton deal ¤ 'Friendly fire' killed American football star in Afghanistan > It is an embarrassment for the US military, however, > which had earlier given a fairly detailed account of the > events leading up to his death. In that version, Cpl Tillman > was said to have died after the second unit in a two-unit convoy > came under attack and he turned back with his men to help his comrades. ¥ Caught lying again ¤ For Shame ¤ How Bush got into this quagmire ¤ U.S. Marines See Falluja Brigade in New Iraq Army ¤ Council defies US over top job choice ¤ Oil price quakes as hostages killed Latest News Posted: Sunday, May 30, 2004 ¤ Bush Keeps Saddam's Pistol As Trophy ¤ Bulldozers crush Gaza children's dreams and build its martyrs ¤ Saudis Try to Calm Oil Execs After Attack ¤ Bush Doctrine Breeds Terror and Tyranny ¤ Saudi Arabia hostage standoff ends ¤ How Much Is Hussein's Departure Worth? ¤ Cheney coordinated Halliburton Iraq contract: report ¤ Israel threatens to kill Nasrallah ¤ Bush and Blair should be punished ¤ Government uses Tillman to sell war on terrorism ¤ Was Nick Berg a US spy? ¤ Big Oil Guzzles Profits As Gas Prices Rise ¤ N.Y. Times' latest misstep is also greatest ¤ The Paper Trail: Did Cheney Okay a Deal? ¤ An Iraq Pledge to Watch Closely ¤ Bush was sure that Iraq’s oil reserves would be flowing again by now ¤ A policy of lies ¤ Whatever you ask, please do not ask why we 'hate' you' ¤ It was the porn that made them do it ¤ UN observer killed ¤ Two Killed in Attack on Convoy in Baghdad ¤ April-May GI Iraq Death Toll Tops 200 ¤ Red Cross Plans Investigation at Iraqi Prison ¤ The Empire at Oil's End ¤ Gunmen Kill 2 Foreigners, Seize 3 in Baghdad ¤ The handover that became a shambles: ten U-turns on the road to 'peace' ¤ Two dared to speak truths about Abu Ghraib ¤ Polish Army `outraged' at prisoner-abuse accusations ¤ Attack On Iraqi Governing Council Member Kills Two ¤ Palestinian Home Demolitions Breach International Rights, Says UN ¤ Violence in the Middle East ¤ Quake hampers floods rescue efforts ¤ New Iraqi government takes shape ¤ Howard says finding WMDs still possible ¤ Bush silent on Iraq as he lauds heroes ¤ UK troops investigated over deaths of 10 civilians ¤ Iraq prison abuse 'widespread' ¤ SF gallery owner becomes target after showcasing painting of Iraqi abuse ¤ Saudi Forces Killed Two Militants in Khobar ¤ Friendly fire killed sports star turned soldier ¤ Iraqi defectors tricked us with WMD lies, but we must not be fooled again ¤ UN sidelined in choice of Iraqi leader ¤ Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or Mass Distraction? ¤ Scant Evidence Cited in Long Detention of Iraqis ¤ Iraq's interim PM gets to work amid confusion over how he was chosen ¤ Carter in Caracas as Venezuela checks a million Chavez recall signatures ¤ Militia clashes with US as ceasefire fails ¤ Tough weekend for Tillman news ¤ Tillman wasted by 'friendly fire' Abu Hamza al-Masri: Made in the USA Posted: Sunday, May 30, 2004 By Kurt Nimmo, www.kurtnimmo.com It is a bit of historical data rarely quoted by Fox News or CNN as they clank out soundbite-sized backgrounders on terrorism: Many of America's Islamic enemies were custom-made to order by the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate) in Afghanistan. Abu Hamza al-Masri is no exception. "In an 11-count indictment unsealed in New York on Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Mr. Masri faced charges of hostage-taking and conspiracy in connection with an attack in Yemen in 1998 on 16 tourists, including two Americans. Four hostages -- three Britons and one Australian -- were killed and several others were wounded when the Yemeni Army tried to rescue them," reports the New York Times. No doubt about it. Abu Hamza al-Masri is not a nice person. But he was precisely the kind of not nice person the United States recruited to terrorize and kill Soviet conscripts. Masri lost both hands and an eye fighting for the CIA against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Carter State Department knew exactly what sort of reactionary fanatics they were unleashing back in 1979 -- not only on the Soviets, but the people of Afghanistan. But they didn't care about the people of Afghanistan and admitted as much. "[T]he United States' larger interest ... would be served by the demise of the [pro-Soviet] Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan," a classified State Department report stated in 1979, months before the Soviets rolled across the border to support the Taraki-Amin regime. "The question here was whether it was morally acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives for our geopolitical interests," Zbigniew Brezinski, Carter's national security adviser, later offered as an explanation. In other words, screw the people of Afghanistan. Let them suffer under opium-growing warlords and fanatical Taliban extremists. It was all in the best interest of the United States and especially oil and natural gas multinationals eager to build pipelines and get product to market. Crazed Islamic fundies like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar -- "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater," as journalist Tim Weiner describes him -- were recruited to fight the Soviets. Pakistan's brutal Zia-ul-Haq teamed with the CIA and Pakistan's ISI to organize, train, and unleash the mujahideen. "Estimates of how much money the U.S. government channeled to the Afghan rebels over the next decade vary, but most sources put the figure between $3 billion and $6 billion, or more," writes Phil Gasper (Afghanistan, the CIA, bin Laden, and the Taliban). It was, the CIA proudly boasted, the most successful intelligence mission in history. Under the affable guidance of Reagan, Gasper writes that At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks ... The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads ... CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahideen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons ... Although the CIA claimed that the purpose was to attack military targets, mujahideen trained in these techniques, and using chemical and electronic-delay bomb timers supplied by the U.S., carried out numerous car bombings and assassination attacks in Kabul itself. As Ahmed Rashid of the Daily Telegraph of London explains, between "1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan Mujaheddin. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas that Zia's military government began to fund in Pakistan and along the Afghan border. Eventually more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad." (Osama Bin Laden: How the U.S. Helped Midwife a Terrorist.) After the Soviets packed up and left the country in defeat, the United States essentially turned its back on the mujahideen and war ravaged Afghanistan. But this dismal fact does not particularly concern intellectuals such as Samuel Huntington. Instead, as Huntington views the situation through his "Clash of Civilizations" blinders, the problem is the CIA's war left a whole lot of disenfranchised Muslims strewn about. It's not this disenfranchisement per se that bothers Huntington and his fellow Islamophobe scholars, but rather the fact these formerly useful castaway Muslims are now on the prowl, ready and able to raise hell due to their hatred and jealousy of our American Idol way of life. "The war left behind an uneasy coalition of Islamist organizations intent on promoting Islam against all non-Muslim forces," writes Huntington. "It also left a legacy of expert and experienced fighters, training camps and logistical facilities, elaborate trans-Islam networks of personal and organization relationships, a substantial amount of military equipment including 300 to 500 unaccounted-for Stinger missiles, and, most important, a heady sense of power and self-confidence over what had been achieved and a driving desire to move on to other victories." As AG Ashcroft and the Bushites see it, Abu Hamza al-Masri embodies this "driving desire to move on to other victories" in the name of al-Qaeda and worldwide jihad versus McDonald's, as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times characterizes it. The partially blind and handicapped cleric stands accused of providing material support for al-Qaeda to further a holy war in Afghanistan and conspiracy to aid the Taliban in its guerrilla war against the Good and Righteous as they kick down doors and slaughter wedding party guests. In other words, Masri faces life in prison -- or possibly the death penalty -- for doing what the CIA and Pakistan's ISI trained and encouraged him to do all those years ago. The United States changed the rules of the game. Hamza refused to get with the program. Now he will serve as a poster child for all that is wicked and violent with hidebound Muslims. "Hamza is the real deal," Raymond W. Kelly, New York City's police commissioner, told the New York Times. "He is suspected of providing material support to trainees in Osama bin Laden's terrorist camps, as well as dispatching associates from England to help establish a jihad training site on US soil. Think of him as a freelance consultant to terrorist groups worldwide." And while we are thinking about that "jihad training site on US soil," maybe we should also think about the fact that many Afghan mujaheddin were sent to Camp Peary, the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, as John Cooley, a former journalist with the ABC television network and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has documented. Kelly neglected to mention those very Afghan terrorist camps were financed by the United States and provided all the training and equipment necessary to kill infidels. But then police commissioners and neocons can't be expected to connect the dots. Or tell the American people about the real deal -- in large part militant Islam was engineered and encouraged by the United States, "despite whatever setbacks this might mean." Nor did Kelly mention -- or is he likely to know -- that shoppers in Rawalpindi and Peshawar can still buy textbooks published as part of a series underwritten by a USAID $50 million grant to the University of Nebraska in the 1980s. These books encourage radical Islam as a way to counter Marxism and urge Afghan children to "pluck out the eyes of the Soviet enemy and cut off his legs." The maniacal Taliban -- friends of the United States until they were considered obstructionist on Unocal's gas pipeline deal -- used these USAID-produced books in their madrassas. For Bush, Ashcroft, the Zionist neocons, and the rapture-dizzy Christian Zionists, Abu Hamza al-Masri is the perfect Islamic fanatic. In the weeks ahead, as he is extradited from Britain to face the death penalty in America, the cleric will be held up as a primary example of the inherent viciousness and homicidal character of al-Qaeda and radical Muslims in general who want nothing more than to force us at the point of an AK47 to face Mecca five times a day. Few will mention -- least of all Fox and the slavish Bush Ministry of Disinformation where the intellectually incurious lap up easily digestible propaganda flavored as news -- that Abu Hamza al-Masri was doing precisely what the CIA trained him to do. Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Visit his excellent no holds barred blog at www.kurtnimmo.com Exiled Allawi was responsible for 45-minute WMD claim Posted: Saturday, May 29, 2004 independent.co.uk The choice of Iyad Allawi, closely linked to the CIA and formerly to MI6, as the Prime Minister of Iraq from 30 June will make it difficult for the US and Britain to persuade the rest of the world that he is capable of leading an independent government. He is the person through whom the controversial claim was channelled that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could be operational in 45 minutes. In the mid-1990s the INA claimed to have extensive contacts in the Iraqi officer corps. Dr Allawi began to move from the orbit of MI6 to the CIA. He persuaded his new masters that he was in a position to organise a military coup in Baghdad. Full Article Latest News Posted: Saturday, May 29, 2004 ¤ Rwanda - Part I ¤ 'Terror lady' in U.S. custody, says Pakistan ¤ Many killed, hostages taken in Saudi attacks ¤ Gunmen Kill 10 in Saudi Housing Compound ¤ Moore interviewed Berg for 'Fahrenheit 9/11' ¤ 4 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan ¤ CIA stooge Allawi gets Iraqi presidency as reward for bogus WMD claim ¤ In my name ¤ WAR ON TERROR: 16 KILLED IN GUN BATTLE ¤ Rumsfeld Says 'War on Terror' Just Beginning ¤ Tens of thousands hit by floods in Caribbean as more rains fall ¤ Quake Rattles Flood-Hit Hispaniola ¤ Who killed Nick Berg? ¤ Jews fear being blamed for Iraqi war ¤ Collective Penalities in Iraq ¤ The Long Shadow of CIA Torture Research ¤ Abu Hamza al-Masri: Made in the USA ¤ Don't Let Bush Destroy Another Piece of Iraqi History ¤ What the Times Did was Bad; What It Didn't Do was Worse ¤ Jung Meets Bush ¤ US aircraft bombard southern Afghanistan ¤ 'What the Arab world hears when Bush speaks' ¤ Service Members Killed in Afghanistan, Iraq ¤ America in expectation of a major terrorist attack ¤ British-educated surgeon is new Iraqi prime minister ¤ How Chalabi and the White House held the front page ¤ Explosion Hits Russian Train Near Chechnya ¤ Reports: Tillman Killed by Friendly Fire ¤ Lying or Confused? ¤ Bush Doctrine Breeds Terror and Tyranny ¤ New reports question war on terror ¤ For Iraqi women, Abu Ghraib's taint ¤ 23 killed in Iran quake ¤ US warplanes, ’copters violate Pak airspace ¤ Too bad to be true ¤ IRAQI WOMEN RAPED AT ABU GHRAIB: REPORTS ¤ Attackers Shell American Base in Najaf ¤ With 2 Wars, U.S. Need of Munitions Is Soaring ¤ Guantanamo sent Its Interrogators to Iraqi Prison ¤ Exiled Allawi was responsible for 45-minute WMD claim ¤ Profile: Iyad Allawi ¤ Surprise at Iyad Allawi's PM nomination ¤ Iraqi with MI6 links is new prime minister ¤ AP: Intelligence Agents Accused in Abuse ¤ Five foreigners gunned down in Saudi ¤ F.B.I. Issues and Retracts Urgent Terrorism Bulletin Fatal Error: The Lies of Our Times Posted: Friday, May 28, 2004 by Amy Goodman and David Goodman www.democracynow.org In our new book, The Exception To the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them, we titled one chapter "The Lies of Our Times" to examine how The New York Times coverage on Iraq and its alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction helped lead the country to war. Yesterday, The New York Times, for the first time, raised questions about its own coverage in an 1,100-word editor's note. Here is an excerpt from our section of the book on the New York Times and Iraq. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." -- Andrew H. Card, White House Chief of Staff speaking about the Iraq war P.R. campaign, September 6, 2002 In the midst of the buildup to war, a major scandal was unfolding at The New York Times-the paper that sets the news agenda for other media. The Times admitted that for several years a 27-year-old reporter named Jayson Blair had been conning his editors and falsifying stories. He had pretended to be places he hadn't been, fabricated quotes, and just plain lied in order to tell a sensational tale. For this, Blair was fired. But The Times went further: It ran a 7,000-word, five-page expose on the young reporter, laying bare his personal and professional escapades. The Times said it had reached a low point in its 152-year history. I agreed. But not because of the Jayson Blair affair. It was The Times coverage of the Bush-Blair affair. When George W. Bush and Tony Blair made their fraudulent case to attack Iraq, The Times, along with most corporate media outlets in the United States, became cheerleaders for the war. And while Jayson Blair was being crucified for his journalistic sins, veteran Times national security correspondent and best-selling author Judith Miller was filling The Times' front pages with unchallenged government propaganda. Unlike Blair's deceptions, Miller's lies provided the pretext for war. Her lies cost lives. If only The New York Times had done the same kind of investigation of Miller's reports as it had with Jayson Blair. The White House propaganda blitz was launched on September 7, 2002, at a Camp David press conference. British Prime Minister Tony Blair stood side by side with his co-conspirator, President George W. Bush. Together, they declared that evidence from a report published by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed that Iraq was "six months away" from building nuclear weapons. "I don't know what more evidence we need," crowed Bush. Actually, any evidence would help-there was no such IAEA report. But at the time, few mainstream American journalists questioned the leaders' outright lies. Instead, the following day, "evidence" popped up in the Sunday New York Times under the twin byline of Michael Gordon and Judith Miller. "More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction," they stated with authority, "Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today." In a revealing example of how the story amplified administration spin, the authors included the phrase soon to be repeated by President Bush and all his top officials: "The first sign of a 'smoking gun,' [administration officials] argue, may be a mushroom cloud." Harper's publisher John R. MacArthur, author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, knew what to make of this front-page bombshell. "In a disgraceful piece of stenography," he wrote, Gordon and Miller "inflated an administration leak into something resembling imminent Armageddon." The Bush administration knew just what to do with the story they had fed to Gordon and Miller. The day The Times story ran, Vice President Dick Cheney made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows to advance the administration's bogus claims. On NBC's Meet the Press, Cheney declared that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes to make enriched uranium. It didn't matter that the IAEA refuted the charge both before and after it was made. But Cheney didn't want viewers just to take his word for it. "There's a story in The New York Times this morning," he said smugly. "And I want to attribute The Times." This was the classic disinformation two-step: the White House leaks a lie to The Times, the newspaper publishes it as a startling expose, and then the White House conveniently masquerades behind the credibility of The Times. "What mattered," wrote MacArthur, "was the unencumbered rollout of a commercial for war."4 Judith Miller was just getting warmed up. Reporting for America's most influential newspaper, Miller continued to trumpet administration leaks and other bogus sources as the basis for eye-popping stories that backed the administration's false premises for war. "If reporters who live by their sources were obliged to die by their sources," Jack Shafer wrote later in Slate, "Miller would be stinking up her family tomb right now." After the war, Shafer pointed out, "None of the sensational allegations about chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons given to Miller have panned out, despite the furious crisscrossing of Iraq by U.S. weapons hunters." Did The New York Times publish corrections? Clarifications? Did heads roll? Not a chance: Judith Miller's "scoops" continued to be proudly run on the front pages. Here are just some of the corrections The Times should have run after the year-long campaign of front-page false claims by one of its premier reporters, Judith Miller. FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS Scoop: "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts," by Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordon, September 8, 2002. The authors quote Ahmed al-Shemri (a pseudonym), who contends that he worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program before defecting in 2000. " 'All of Iraq is one large storage facility,' said Mr. Shemri, who claimed to have worked for many years at the Muthanna State Enterprise, once Iraq's chemical weapons plant." The authors quote Shemri as stating that Iraq is stockpiling "12,500 gallons of anthrax, 2,500 gallons of gas gangrene, 1,250 gallons of aflatoxin, and 2,000 gallons of botulinum throughout the country." Oops: As UN weapons inspectors had earlier stated-and U.S. weapons inspectors confirmed in September 2003-none of these claims were true. The unnamed source is one of many Iraqi defectors who made sensational false claims that were championed by Miller and The Times. Scoop: "White House Lists Iraq Steps to Build Banned Weapons," by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon, September 13, 2002. The article quotes the White House contention that Iraq was trying to purchase aluminum pipes to assist its nuclear weapons program. Oops: Rather than run a major story on how the United States had falsely cited the UN to back its claim that Iraq was expanding its nuclear weapons program, Miller and Gordon repeated and embellished the lie. Contrast this with the lead paragraph of a story that ran in the British daily The Guardian on September 9: "The International Atomic Energy Agency has no evidence that Iraq is developing nuclear weapons at a former site previously destroyed by UN inspectors, despite claims made over the weekend by Tony Blair, western diplomatic sources told The Guardian yesterday." The story goes on to say that the IAEA "issued a statement insisting it had 'no new information' on Iraq's nuclear program since December 1998 when its inspectors left Iraq." Miller's trumped-up story contributed to the climate of the time and The Times. A month later, numerous congressional representatives cited the nuclear threat as a reason for voting to authorize war. Scoop: "U.S. Faulted Over Its Efforts to Unite Iraqi Dissidents," by Judith Miller, October 2, 2002. Quoting Ahmed Chalabi and Defense Department adviser Richard Perle, this story stated: "The INC [Iraqi National Congress] has been without question the single most important source of intelligence about Saddam Hussein." Miller airs the INC's chief complaint: "Iraqi dissidents and administration officials complain that [the State Department and CIA] have also tried to cast doubt on information provided by defectors Mr. Chalabi's organization has brought out of Iraq." Oops: Miller championed the cause of Chalabi, the Iraqi exile leader who had been lobbying Washington for over a decade to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. As The Washington Post revealed, Miller wrote to Times veteran foreign correspondent John Burns, who was working in Baghdad at the time, that Chalabi "has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD [weapons of mass destruction] to our paper." Times readers might be interested to learn the details of how Ahmed Chalabi was bought and paid for by the CIA. Chalabi heads the INC, an organization of Iraqi exiles created by the CIA in 1992 with the help of the Rendon Group, a powerful public relations firm that has worked extensively for the two Bush administrations. Between 1992 and 1996, the CIA covertly funneled $12 million to Chalabi's INC. In 1998, the Clinton administration gave Chalabi control of another $98 million of U.S. taxpayer money. Chalabi's credibility has always been questionable: He was convicted in absentia in Jordan of stealing some $500 million from a bank he established, leaving shareholders high and dry. He has been accused by Iraqi exiles of pocketing at least $4 million of CIA funds. In the lead-up to war, the CIA dismissed Chalabi as unreliable. But he was the darling of Pentagon hawks, putting an Iraqi face on their warmongering. So the Pentagon established a new entity, the Office of Special Plans, to champion the views of discredited INC defectors who helped make its case for war. As Howard Kurtz later asked in The Washington Post: "Could Chalabi have been using The Times to build a drumbeat that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction?" Scoop: "C.I.A. Hunts Iraq Tie to Soviet Smallpox," by Judith Miller, December 3, 2002. The story claims that "Iraq obtained a particularly virulent strain of smallpox from a Russian scientist." The story adds later: "The information came to the American government from an informant whose identity has not been disclosed." Smallpox was cited by President Bush as one of the "weapons of mass destruction" possessed by Iraq that justified a dangerous national inoculation program-and an invasion. Oops: After a three-month search of Iraq, " 'Team Pox' turned up only signs to the contrary: disabled equipment that had been rendered harmless by UN inspectors, Iraqi scientists deemed credible who gave no indication they had worked with smallpox, and a laboratory thought to be back in use that was covered in cobwebs," reported the Associated Press in September 2003. Scoop: "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert," by Judith Miller, April 21, 2003. In this front-page article, Miller quotes an American military officer who passes on the assertions of "a man who said he was an Iraqi scientist" in U.S. custody. The "scientist" claims that Iraq destroyed its WMD stockpile days before the war began, that the regime had transferred banned weapons to Syria, and that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. Who is the messenger for this bombshell? Miller tells us only that she "was permitted to see him from a distance at the sites where he said that material from the arms program was buried. Clad in nondescript clothes and a baseball cap, he pointed to several spots in the sand where he said chemical precursors and other weapons material were buried." And then there were the terms of this disclosure: "This reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials. Those officials asked that details of what chemicals were uncovered be deleted." No proof. No names. No chemicals. Only a baseball cap-and the credibility of Miller and The Times-to vouch for a "scientist" who conveniently backs up key claims of the Bush administration. Miller, who was embedded with MET Alpha, a military unit searching for WMDs, pumped up her sensational assertions the next day on PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: Q: Has the unit you've been traveling with found any proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? JUDITH MILLER: Well, I think they found something more than a smoking gun. What they've found...is a silver bullet in the form of a person, an Iraqi individual, a scientist, as we've called him, who really worked on the programs, who knows them firsthand. Q: Does this confirm in a way the insistence coming from the U.S. government that after the war, various Iraqi tongues would loosen, and there might be people who would be willing to help? JUDITH MILLER: Yes, it clearly does.... That's what the Bush administration has finally done. They have changed the political environment, and they've enabled people like the scientists that MET Alpha has found to come forth. Oops: The silver bullet got more tarnished as it was examined. Three months later, Miller acknowledged that the scientist was merely "a senior Iraqi military intelligence official." His explosive claims vaporized. A final note from the Department of Corrections: The Times deeply regrets any wars or loss of life that these errors may have contributed to. UP IN SMOKE Tom Wolfe once wrote about a war-happy Times correspondent in Vietnam (same idea, different war): The administration was "playing [the reporter] of The New York Times like an ocarina, as if they were blowing smoke up his pipe and the finger work was just right and the song was coming forth better than they could have played it themselves." But who was playing whom? The Washington Post reported that while Miller was embedded with MET Alpha, her role in the unit's operations became so central that it became known as the "Judith Miller team." In one instance, she disagreed with a decision to relocate the unit to another area and threatened to file a critical report in The Times about the action. When she took her protest to a two-star general, the decision was reversed. One Army officer told the Post, "Judith was always issuing threats of either going to The New York Times or to the secretary of defense. There was nothing veiled about that threat." Later, she played a starring role in a ceremony in which MET Alpha's leader was promoted. Other officers were surprised to watch as Miller pinned a new rank on the uniform of Chief Warrant Officer Richard Gonzales. He thanked her for her "contributions" to the unit. In April 2003, MET Alpha traveled to the compound of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi "at Judy's direction," where they interrogated and took custody of an Iraqi man who was on the Pentagon's wanted list-despite the fact that MET Alpha's only role was to search for WMDs. As one officer told the Post, "It's impossible to exaggerate the impact she had on the mission of this unit, and not for the better." After a year of bogus scoops from Miller, the paper gave itself a bit of cover. Not corrections-just cover. On September 28, 2003, Times reporter Douglas Jehl surprisingly kicked the legs out from under Miller's sources. In his story headlined AGENCY BELITTLES INFORMATION GIVEN BY IRAQ DEFECTORS, Jehl revealed: An internal assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that most of the information provided by Iraqi defectors who were made available by the Iraqi National Congress was of little or no value, according to federal officials briefed on the arrangement. In addition, several Iraqi defectors introduced to American intelligence agents by the exile organization and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, invented or exaggerated their credentials as people with direct knowledge of the Iraqi government and its suspected unconventional weapons program, the officials said. The Iraqi National Congress had made some of these defectors available to...The New York Times, which reported their allegations about prisoners and the country's weapons program. Poof. Up in smoke went thousands of words of what can only be called rank propaganda. This Times confession was too little, too late. After an unnecessary war, during a brutal occupation, and several thousand lives later, The Times obliquely acknowledged that it had been recycling disinformation. Miller's reports played an invaluable role in the administration's propaganda war. They gave public legitimacy to outright lies, providing what appeared to be independent confirmation of wild speculation and false accusations. "What Miller has done over time seriously violates several Times' policies under their code of conduct for news and editorial departments," wrote William E. Jackson in Editor & Publisher. "Jayson Blair was only a fluke deviation.... Miller strikes right at the core of the regular functioning news machine." More than that, Miller's false reporting was key to justifying a war. And The Times' unabashed servitude to the administration's war agenda did not end with Iraq. On September 16, 2003, The Times ran a story headlined SENIOR U.S. OFFICIAL TO LEVEL WEAPONS CHARGES AGAINST SYRIA. The stunningly uncritical article was virtually an excerpt of the testimony about to be given that day by outspoken hawk John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control. The article included this curious caveat: The testimony "was provided to The New York Times by individuals who feel that the accusations against Syria have received insufficient attention." The article certainly solved that problem. The author? Judith Miller-preparing for the next battlefront. Reproduced from: www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/26/1610213 Latest News Posted: Friday, May 28, 2004 ¤ Attackers Shell American Base in Najaf ¤ Terror threat source called into question ¤ Terror warning surprises Homeland Security Dept. ¤ If Fear Fails, What's Next? ¤ Has the U.S. Government Committed War Crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq? ¤ Pie-in-the-sky optimisim - again ¤ 10 ways we botched Iraq ¤ 'George Bush: Commander In.... please!' ¤ Will Bush the Beheader use terrorism to become America's Pinochet? ¤ 'The Administration that Cried Wolf' ¤ 'To tell the truth' ¤ Can bin Laden Save Bush? ¤ Two Japanese journalists killed in Iraq ¤ How War in Iraq Derails Real War on Terror ¤ Major 'Liberal' Outlets Clog Media Diets ¤ A Super-Size Scandal ¤ Teacher Suspended Over Berg Video Anomalies ¤ New Iraq premier ¤ 23 Killed in Northern Iran Earthquake ¤ Pakistan on the march again ¤ Washington Intrigue ¤ U.S., U.N. Blindsided on Iraq PM Announcement ¤ Now the sovereignty muddle ¤ Clashes erupt in Kufa ¤ White House Divided Over Terror Alert ¤ Nine killed in held Kashmir violence ¤ Democracy there and democracy here ¤ US and the failure of our democracy ¤ DUBYA A DANGER TO THE WORLD ¤ Healthy disagreement ¤ How Much Is Hussein's Departure Worth? ¤ A few major omissions in Bush's speech to nation ¤ Evangelicals Give US Foreign Policy an Activist Tinge ¤ For Iraqi women, Abu Ghraib's taint ¤ Rhetoric vs. Reality in Iraq ¤ Worry and Anger Over Iraq Situation ¤ Karpinski Was 'Set Up,' but Sanchez Takes the Fall ¤ $226 Million in Govt Ads Helped Pave the Way for War ¤ The Americans have lost control of almost the entire country ¤ NY editor slams apology for his record ¤ Catch-22 revisited ¤ Fatal Error: The Lies of Our Times ¤ Wish you were here ¤ Bodies found after reporters attacked in Iraq ¤ Gov't Turf Battle Over Terror? ¤ Terror label 'astonishes' Israel ¤ Officials Defend Terror Attack Warning ¤ Only a Lull Before Another Storm ¤ 'There Are So Many People the Americans Have Shot' ¤ UN: Bullies and Beggars ¤ Soldiers fire to disperse Lebanese strikers ¤ In the dock: the radical cleric who became an embarrassment ¤ Latest US Terror Warning Raises Questions ¤ Interrogators hid identities ¤ 'Full Iraqi sovereignty', says Chirac Latest News Posted: Thursday, May 27, 2004 ¤ Pending Draft Legislation Targeted for Spring 2005 ¤ Reserve recruiters' tactic may skirt edge of deception ¤ New Transcripts Point to US Role in Chile Coup ¤ U.S. dismisses report on human-rights abuses ¤ Iraqi dissidents: Down, but far from out ¤ Warning on al-Qaeda rings hollow ¤ Bush's Iraq: almost unrecognizable ¤ Fatal Error: The Lies of Our Times ¤ Bush's Credibility Problem ¤ Oil Money And A Smart Energy Policy Don't Mix ¤ Ragging the Dogs of War at the New York Times ¤ The Times Confesses...Kind Of ¤ Banana Republicans ¤ Can't find Iraqis taped in arms plot, Powell says ¤ Did the Washington Post Create Ahmed Chalabi? ¤ Is the US govt crying 'wolf'? ¤ Terrorists on Ashcroft's 'Wanted List' Already in Jail ¤ Al-Qaida suspects : Who are they? ¤ New photos show Abu Ghraib tactics ¤ Sovereignty-lite: The devil is in the details ¤ Rodin sculptures used in protest of treatment of Iraqi prisoners ¤ Scientist jailed by Saddam is tipped for PM ¤ Blair tried to block US inquiry into WMD ¤ No 10 denies rift with Bush over control of troops ¤ Healthy disagreement ¤ The Bush orthodoxy is in shreds ¤ Island flood toll soars to 2,000 ¤ Israel holds British journalist ¤ Israel detains British journalist who broke nuclear whistleblower's story ¤ New York Times admits failures in run-up to war ¤ War on terror leaves human rights at 50-year low, claims Amnesty ¤ UN fury over Bush attempts to install PM ¤ Emin: 'I'm more upset about kids being killed in Iraq' ¤ Amnesty: 'Bankrupt' war on terror is world's most damaging conflict in 50 years ¤ Amnesty: War on Terror Used to Justify Abuses ¤ Amnesty: Abu Ghraib Cases Not Isolated ¤ U.S. war policy 'grave error' ¤ Bush Has a Plan - Really ¤ US fears al-Qaida squad is in place for election hit ¥ But would'nt a Bombing aid Bush? ¤ Terror suspects named by FBI ¤ Scepticism over new US terror warning ¤ Analysts Say U.S. Threat Warning Is Back-Covering ¤ Does Terrorists' Chatter Matter? ¤ New York Police Unaware of New Terror Plot ¤ An Overreaction? ¤ Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War ¤ U.S. Has So Far Provided $191B for Wars ¤ Countries under scrutiny ¤ U.S. using some Iraqis as bargaining chips ¤ Home With the Armadillos ¤ Competition, Not Mea Culpas: the Real Cure for Media Bias ¤ Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter Crosses The NY Times' Line of 'Strict Neutrality' ¤ Mass graves hold hundreds of flood victims ¤ Bush under fire over terror alert ¤ Australia denies hiding knowledge of Iraqi prisoner abuse ¤ Russian electricity workers, two Iraqis killed ¤ Drug causing GIs permanent brain damage ¤ Caribbean flood death toll nears 2,000 ¤ The fall of the vulcans ¤ Battles continue in Najaf ¤ George's Bumper Sticker Mythology ¤ The Priorities of the Godly Latest News Posted: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 ¤ The things Bush didn't mention in his speech ¤ Report: US Needed 500,000 Troops to Pacify Iraq ¤ U.S. Civilian Working at Abu Ghraib Disputes Army's Version of Role in Abuses ¤ The New Draft UN Resolution Allows for Perpetual Occupation ¤ Bush and Sharon: The Oil Connection ¤ More on Morons and War Crimes ¤ Anger Rising ¤ Follow Torture Trail at Abu Ghraib ¤ About That Invitation to Join the Bush-Cheney '04 Team... ¤ The Bush and Kerry Tilt ¤ President Bush’s May 24 Speech on Iraq: A Critique ¤ Amnesty slams 'bankrupt' vision of US in damning report ¤ Amnesty blasts U.S., allies in report ¤ How Palestine is dying in Iraq ¤ Pakistan blast kills one, wounds 27 ¤ 'The New York Times,', Finds Much to Fault in its Iraq WMD Coverage ¤ The worst US media performances ¤ Haitian singer says Marines traumatized her ¤ Follow torture trail at Abu Ghraib ¤ Furore over torture in Iraq prompts new revelations of US abuse in Afghanistan ¤ Weapons of mass homophobia ¤ Jogging in the twilight zone ¤ Amnesty: Attacks on Israeli civilians - crimes against humanity ¤ Statistics for the Palestinian Intifada ¤ Caribbean Flooding Kills More Than 660 ¤ Bush administration has used 27 rationales for war in Iraq, study says ¤ Uncovering the Rationales for the War on Iraq ¤ Iraqis snap up CDs of abuse images ¤ Battles continue in Najaf ¤ Blast rocks Baghdad hotel ¤ US soldiers accused of theft ¤ Bomb damages Pakistani gas pipeline ¤ Abuse of Captives More Widespread, Says Army Survey ¤ The other obstacle we face in Iraq - ourselves ¤ Magical History Tour ¤ Our Iraq Legacy May be Chaos and Anarchy ¤ Washington Pushes Freedom – But Not for Al-Jazeera ¤ Psyops In Fourth Generation War ¤ Millions 'Warehoused' Without Rights for 10 Years or More ¤ EU Interested in Boosting Energy Cooperation With Iran ¤ Tracing a Civilian's Odd Path to His Gruesome Fate in Iraq ¤ The Times and Iraq ¤ General Is Said To Have Urged Use of Dogs ¤ Who Would Try Civilians of U.S.? No One in Iraq ¤ ''America's Chechnya'' ¤ Two US soldiers killed in Iraq ¤ Amnesty International Wants Iraqi Prison To Stay ¤ Large-Scale Battles Reported in Afghanistan ¤ Mehdi Army Grows as Tempers Rage Over ‘Wedding Massacre’ ¤ Two out of three voters say no to more UK troops ¤ This Made Ashcroft Gag ¤ This is Your Bill for the War ¤ Israel Attained Nuclear Weapons With U.S. Assistance ¤ Americans raping Iraqi juveniles ¤ U.S. went to war in Iraq to help Israel ¤ The trouble with joint intelligence ¤ Back to the UN ¤ Nine Killed in Overnight Clashes in Iraq ¤ Bloody vengeance or assault on terrorists ¤ Deserter Accuses U.S. of War Crimes ¤ Occupation has boosted al-Qaida, says thinktank ¤ Iraq Civilian Interrogator Hiring Blocked ¤ Blair and Powell clash over Iraqi veto on Allied forces ¤ Abu Ghraib and the Dow ¤ Our Psyops Disasters ¤ The Madness Of King George ¤ 18 Iraqis killed, shrine of Hazrat Ali (RA) damaged ¤ The Rape of Rafah (part-II) ¤ African Union to inaugurate Security Council ¤ Bush’s message and ME reality ¤ Amnesty slams Australia's human rights record ¤ Internet sex scandal rocks US politics ¤ Violent Caribbean storms kill 502 ¤ Habib tortured till he passed out: inmate ¤ US troopers ordered Iraqis to jump off bridge ¤ Secrecy may have cost Russian virus scientist her life ¤ Bush speech alarms even war enthusiasts ¤ Fightings kill 9, wound 50 in Najaf ¤ Terrorists Planning Summer Attack ¤ FAKE TERROR - THE ROAD TO WAR AND DICTATORSHIP Latest News Posted: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 ¤ The Geneva Conventions & Moral Authority ¤ Iraq abuse insider disciplined ¤ Abu boo-boo: President tortures the name of shame ¤ Bush Sr.'s Iraq-Iran Secrets ¤ Go to Hell, Bush!!! ¤ White man's burden ¤ Marching Off the Cliff ¤ US created al Qaeda to encounter ''Iranian system'' ¤ War returns with a vengeance as Bush fails the Afghan people ¤ Bush-Cheney Iraq War Worst Disaster In American Foreign Policy History? ¤ 'In line for the rapture' ¤ War Crimes: What Secrets Can the Photos Reveal? ¤ America's brutal culture of unseen oppression ¤ Iraqis dismiss Bush's Abu Ghraib plan ¤ Iraq Speech: Bush Offers Nothing New Except Prison ¤ Bush Promises the Appearance of Chaos Ahead ¤ Bush's Speech: Simply More of the Same ¤ US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war ¤ Iran 'steered White House into eliminating its enemy' ¥ Iran to blame for Iraq War? ¥ These links tell a different story... ¤ The 2003 Iraq War - Made in Israel! ¤ The United States of Israel ¤ Is Congress Aiding A Massive Israeli Deception? ¤ Israel Urges US to Attack Iraq:"Sooner, Rather than Later" ¤ J.Raimondo: Hollings is right: It's all about Israel ¤ Israels involvement in Iraq: Torture and Petroleum ¤ Israel urges US to strike ¤ The war on Iraq: Conceived in Israel ¤ The spies who pushed for war ¤ War will benefit Israel, Cheney tells Jews in Boca ¤ War Launched to Protect Israel - Bush Adviser ¤ Israel and the US War on Iraq ¤ Bush outlines strategy for Iraq ¤ No normal wedding? Cartoon ¤ Wedding party video casts doubt on American version of attack ¤ US to demolish Abu Ghraib jail and punish its general ¤ Iraq's day of reckoning ¤ Bush tortures pronunciation again ¤ Bush's speech on Iraq ¤ No pass for U.S. brass in Iraq ¤ Homeless and angry, Palestinians call for justice ¤ Dead were civilians, Israeli army admits ¤ UN troops buy sex from teenage refugees in Congo camp ¤ The wheels come off ¤ Neo-Cons Call For Exterminating the Resistance ¤ 39 more Iraqis killed in fighting ¤ Hundreds feared dead in Caribbean floods ¤ Afghanistan, the war the world forgot ¤ The Rape of Rafah (part-1) ¤ Treatment of prisoners by US ¤ Censuring inhumane acts ¤ Bush's vision of Iraq vs reality ¤ US dodges sovereignty issue ¤ You Call This 'Sovereignty'? ¤ US Offers Iraq 'Sovereignty Lite' ¤ Nothing new except prison ¤ Socrates the destroyer ¤ Our Darkest Days Are Here ¤ War College Predictions Proving Accurate ¤ New U.S. proposal on Iraq draws quick criticism at UN ¤ Emigrés Caught Between Bush and Castro ¤ Doonesbury strip to run roll call of US war dead ¤ 18 killed in Baghdad clashes ¤ UN draft sets no date for Iraq troop exit ¤ Iraqi oil pipeline badly damaged ¤ US jails in Afghanistan being reviewed ¤ The Real Shame of Abu Ghraib ¤ Israeli Agents Believed Involved in Abu Ghraib Latest News Posted: Monday, May 24, 2004 ¤ Iraqi city of Karbala left in ruins by US military ¤ Gulf War III ¤ Training Wheels and Fighting Words ¤ A Lie By Any Other Name Still Smells ¤ US: More oil from Saudi Arabia ¤ Taiwan says no marines to go to Iraq ¤ U.S. seeks U.N. approval of multinational force in Iraq ¤ U.N. Iraq Draft Gives No Exit Date for Foreign Force ¤ More Dirty Tricks in TortureGate ¤ "Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time ¤ Bomb Now or Forever Hold Your Peace ¤ An Abut Ghraib Photo We Didn't See on the Front Page of the NYTs ¤ The Nicholas Berg execution ¤ The Picture Gets Worse ¤ Iraq to get veto on foreign troop action - Britain ¤ Surge in drug deaths linked to falling cost and rise in casual use ¤ Iraqi Scientist Killed In U.S. Detention: Report ¤ 373 Palestinian Teens Abused in Israeli Jails Flashback ¤ Evidence points to US cover-up of Afghan massacre ¤ The White House Even Lies About the Weather! ¤ Bush Suffers Cuts, Bruises While Biking ¤ 'But I thought ...' will forever haunt Bush's Iraq policy ¤ Britons killed in Baghdad blast ¤ 'Rumsfeld's long list of failures' ¤ It's Not Just the Emperor Who is Naked ¤ What Have We Done? ¤ Did Somebody Say War? ¤ How Fascism Starts ¤ No Honor Among Thieves ¤ U.S. Adventure in Iraq Amounts to Big Con Job ¤ George "Black Eye" Bush misses daughter's graduation day ¤ Nicholas von Hoffman on the big lie ¤ No 10 'worked with Sun to manage news' ¤ Which bumbling fumbling idiot should lead? ¤ Bush to Spell Out Iraq Plan, Major Fighting Flares ¤ Video shows destruction at Iraq wedding party ¤ Afghan Deaths Linked to Unit at Iraq Prison ¤ 'You did this to mess with me' ¤ US military kills 32 in Kufa mosque raid ¤ Iraqi scientist 'died at US base' ¤ 33 die in Kashmir bus blast ¤ Norwegian soldier killed in Kabul ¤ 'We Killed 30 Civilians In 6 Weeks. I Felt We Were Committing Genocide' ¤ War Crimes & Double Standards ¤ If You Can’t Trust Chalabi-the-Thief, Whom Can You Trust? ¤ U.S. Death Total Tops 800 ¤ Ordinary Iraqis killed: 11,500 and not counting ¤ American Shame in Rafah ¤ Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up' ¤ Strip clubs' naked ambition to oust Bush ¤ Singh faces first crisis as Kashmir bomb kills 33 ¤ 'I will always hate you people' ¤ New doubts over pre-war intelligence ¤ First Afghan private TV station goes on air ¤ The Other U.S. Military ¤ The failing Iraqi Operation Cartoon ¤ US soldiers storm mosque in worst day of fighting with Sadr's militia ¤ Bush gives new pledge on 'full sovereignty' ¤ What powers should be handed over? ¤ What have we done? ¤ The myth of the reluctant occupier ¤ Israel remains in Rafah, storms Nablus The Myth of the Reluctant Occupier Posted: Monday, May 24, 2004 www.theage.com.au Iraq is a strategic prize in the Arab world with huge reserves of oil. America will stay put, writes Scott Burchill. Now a new orthodoxy is shaping comment and analysis about events in Iraq. Let's call it the "reluctant occupier myth". Having removed Saddam and his cohorts from power and set Iraq on a path towards democracy, the US is now preparing to leave - the "Vietnamisation" of Iraq. It will find a smooth way out by returning sovereignty to a new Iraqi administration, initially on July 1 through the auspices of the UN and then early next year through democratic elections. Coalition forces, which don't want to be in Iraq a day longer than is necessary to "finish the job", will stay on for a time to "maintain" security, but only at the pleasure of a new interim government in Baghdad. Like the earlier myths, this one is also a fabrication. It is difficult to see what could be more obvious than that the US is desperately trying to stay in Iraq - and specifically, in charge in Iraq. Despite disingenuous claims that coalition troops would leave if asked to by a new Iraqi authority after July 1, US Secretary of State Colin Powell got closer to the truth when he stated on April 26 that "I hope they (the Iraqi people) will understand that in order for this government to get up and running - to be effective - some of its sovereignty will have to be given back (to Washington)". So, coalition troops will stay on regardless. After all, what was the point of invading in the first place if they were going to get out? Full Article Latest News Posted: Sunday, May 23, 2004 ¤ Ordinary Iraqis killed: 11,500 and not counting ¤ U.S.: Geneva rules didn't fully apply ¤ Professor Denounced for POW Memo for Bush ¤ Hundreds rally against Iraq abuse ¤ Berg decapitation video was filmed inside the Abu Ghraib prison ¤ War Crimes in the name of Democracy and Freedom ¤ Bush is a war criminal, Livingstone tells rally ¤ 240 missing in Bangladesh ferry disasters ¤ Fighting in Kufa kills 32 Mehdi fighters: US military ¤ The Great Whitewash: The 9/11 Commission and the Avoidance of the Truth ¤ Iraq reveals mounting mental health problems in our military ¤ US soldiers killed in ambush near Falluja ¤ OPEC unity strained over Saudi output plan ¤ Many dead in Iraq clashes ¤ Roof collapses at Paris airport ¤ UN says IDF troops raid UN office in Jenin ¤ Rumsfeld bans camera phones ¤ Wolfowitz's blunders cost us dearly ¤ 'Spray and slay': are American troops out of control in Iraq? ¤ U.S. Disputed Protected Status of Iraq Inmates ¤ Bush team shrugs off Cannes result ¤ Civilian Interpreter at Abu Ghraib Fired ¤ Pakistan restored to full membership of Commonwealth ¤ Report: US general witnessed Iraq abuse ¤ Tehran warns US over Iraq policy ¤ Report Links U.S. General to Iraq Prison Abuse Case ¤ Official Compares Israeli Action to Nazi's ¤ Kashmir Bus Explosion Kills 26 Soldiers ¤ Five killed in Baghdad suicide car bombing ¤ Manmohan Singh sworn in as PM ¤ Massive anti-war protest held in London ¤ US names general for review of Afghan jails ¤ Afghan woman killed in raid: US military ¤ Bay of Goats ¤ Breaking Bombshell: It's Iran's Fault!! ¥ Sure... ¤ The revenge of the CIA ¤ Sworn Statements by Abu Ghraib Detainees ¤ Anti-War Protesters Call for Blair and Bush to Resign ¤ Iraq abuse unveiled in January ¤ US force 'risks catastrophe' ¤ US tactics 'heavy handed' says Straw memo ¤ Marines admit abuse at second prison ¤ New allegations of systematic abuse of Iraqis by British troops ¤ Iraqis lose right to sue troops over war crimes ¤ Iraqi prisoner 'was beaten, kicked and left to die by Marines' ¤ UN cries freedom to contented colonies ¤ Road to freedom ¤ Here be monsters ¤ Victims of Israeli raid pile up in a flower storeroom ¤ Iraq: The Wedding Party Massacre ¤ Behind the Walls of Abu Ghraib Latest News Posted: Saturday, May 22, 2004 ¤ Can Iraq Get Any Worse? ¤ Nothing New About Abuse of Prisoners ¤ A Political Obituary: Colin Powell, DOA ¤ Bush's Crusades and the Carlyle Group ¤ America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq ¤ Democracy in Latin America ¤ Bushwhacked in the Caribbean ¤ The Rape of Rafah ¤ Assume the Worst ¤ Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers ¤ Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib ¤ Sexual Domination in Uniform: An American Value ¤ The Necrophilia War ¤ Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy ¤ Senor Shows Human Side, Is Whisked Away by Security Contractors ¤ Russert subpoenaed in CIA leak probe ¤ What price Israeli security? ¤ Is Congress Aiding A Massive Israeli Deception? ¤ More charges arise in Iraqi abuse ¤ 37 Died In American Custody In Iraq, Afghanistan, Admits Pentagon ¤ Skipped autopsies in Iraq revealed ¤ U.S. Says No Evidence of Wedding at Site ¤ 'Cheap hoods and thug-brained goons' ¤ Video shows Iraq wedding carnage ¤ Video of wedding attack shows survivors sifting through debris ¤ Anti-US demonstrations shake Bahrain ¤ German shot dead in Riyadh ¤ Arafat appeals for international protection ¤ Security Official Wounded in Baghdad Blast ¤ Qaddafi, Scorning Agenda, Walks Out of Arab Summit ¤ Anti-war protesters to call for Iraq pullout ¤ Blair will delay extra troops until after June 10 poll ¤ Israel Launches "Dirty War" In Rafah: Le Monde ¤ The United States of Israel ¤ Report Says Iraqi Prisoners Abused for Punishment or Amusement ¤ Israeli Troops Kill 4-Year-Old Palestinian -Witnesses ¤ Report Cites Marines in Iraqi's Death at a Camp ¤ Gadhafi Walks Out of Arab League Summit ¤ All is not rosy in the Arab League ¤ Israel Kills 4-year-old Palestinian Girl In Rafah ¤ 5 Afghans Die and 4 U.S. Soldiers Are Wounded in Clashes ¤ Chalabi Raid Sends 'Wrong Message' to America's Arab Allies ¤ U.N.: 128 Palestinians killed last 30 days ¤ Army captain accused of photographing soldiers in shower resigned ¤ Outcry Over Rule Changes that Allow More Pesticides, Hormones ¤ Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins Top Honor at Cannes Film Festival ¤ How America Came to Justify Prisoner Abuse ¤ The Year of the Troops? ¤ Released Iraqi Prisoners Tell of Abuse ¤ Abu Ghraib: inmates raped, ridden like animals, and forced to eat pork ¤ Outsourcing Torture and the Problems of 'Quality Control' ¤ Abu Ghraib Soldiers Were Properly Trained ¥ Yes they passed Torure 101 with flying colors ¤ Bomb Kills 5 Outside Iraqi Official's Home ¤ Tension rises as bulldozers tear down zoo in Rafah ¤ A window on the world of Abu Ghraib ¤ Abu Ghraib and the Berg Beheading: To look or not to look ¤ Our Iraq Legacy May be Chaos and Anarchy ¤ Iraq sarin shell is not part of a secret cache ¤ Bush's path to reelection runs through Iraq ¤ Beautiful minds and ugly truths ¤ Hubris and hypocrisy: America is failing to honor its own codes ¤ War will benefit Israel, Cheney tells Jews in Boca ¤ Israel Urges US to Attack Iraq: "Sooner, Rather than Later" ¤ US forces battle militia in several Iraqi cities ¤ At least five dead in Baghdad car bombing ¤ Chalabi: From White House to dog house ¤ If they can do it to Chalabi ¤ Iran used Chalabi to dupe U.S., report says ¤ Israel razes more Gaza homes ¤ Bomb Kills 5 Outside Iraqi Official's Home ¤ 9 U.S. Prison Deaths Probed As Homicides ¤ When war no longer makes sense ¤ Soldier Who Refused to Return Is Found Guilty of Desertion ¤ 3 year old Palestinian girl was shot dead by Israeli forces ¤ Six dead in blast at Iraqi official's home ¤ Anti-US demonstrations shake Bahrain ¤ Pentagon urged to release Guantanamo tapes ¤ Dogs and Other Harsh Tactics Linked to Military Intelligence ¤ U.S. officials sought ways to avoid POW laws ¤ Gaza Paradox: Israeli Army Moves In So It Can Pull Out ¤ Rights Groups: No War Crimes Exemption for US ¤ Rafah: The Movie ¤ Punishment and Amusement ¤ The Picture Gets Worse ¤ Doctors: US Obstructed Care in Fallujah ¤ The sexual sadism of our culture, in peace and in war ¤ Australia takes US word on alleged abuse ¤ Letter to Ashcroft Requesting Special Counsel to Determine (PDF) > if The Bush Administration Violated the War Crimes Act when it > Approved the Use of Torture Techniques Banned by Int'l Law ¤ U.S. Planes, Tanks Hit Militia in Karbala ¤ History's Fools Latest News Posted: Friday, May 21, 2004 &¤ New pics published, former detainees say forced to denounce Islam, eat pork ¤ The Abu Ghraib Prison Photos ¤ More Iraq Torture Photos ¤ Iraq sarin shell is not part of a secret cache ¤ Robert Fisk Interview on ABC Late Night Live (Audio) ¤ `They didn't even spare one child' ¤ Stopping the carnage in Rafah ¤ The word you're looking for is "lies" ¤ Who really smuggled weapons to Rafah? ¤ Last Spanish troops leave Iraq ¤ Geneva Conventions? Ha! Justice memos explained how to skip prisoner rights ¤ How fascism starts ¤ Pentagon protege humiliated as US and Iraqi police raid Baghdad villa ¤ Berg Conspiracy Theories ¤ Conspiracy theories surround Berg ¤ Berg beheading: No way, say medical experts ¤ CNN airs video of U.S. abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib ¤ US voices "strong" support for Israel ¤ U.S.: Our Support for Israel Still Strong ¤ |
