Denver Post

The Medal of Freedom as Medal of Shame, Duplicity, and Failure?
Luis Carlos Montalván
Article Last Updated: 02/26/2008 05:05:12 PM MST

George Washington once said, "I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man." What might President Washington have thought about President Bush's standards for judging meritorious service?

From artists to astronauts, politicians to former Presidents, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, has been bestowed upon those whom our Presidents and citizenry have esteemed the highest. President Truman created the award and President Kennedy broadened the medal's scope to its present standard: for "especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interest of the United States, World Peace or cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

Past Medal of Freedom awardees include Pope John Paul II, Simon Wiesenthal, retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Frank Sinatra, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They were leaders and examples among those who have been rightfully honored with our nation's highest distinction.

In 2004, President Bush awarded the Medal of Freedom to three men central to his Iraq policy. Bush described retired Gen. Tommy Franks, former CIA Director George Tenet and former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, as having "pivotal roles in great events and whose efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty."

None of these men deserved the Medal of Freedom as awarded by the likes of Harry Truman or George Herbert Walker Bush. To award our highest civilian distinction to men who have besmirched the ideals of our nation, compromised our national and international reputation and are among the architects of a disastrous Iraq policy is reprehensible.

Contrary to President Bush's encomium of them, those men have made our country less secure and have significantly damaged the cause of human freedom. Nevertheless, American legislators and ordinary citizens alike have sat back and continued to allow this Administration the luxury of trampling the Medal of Freedom into a Medal of Shame.

Retired Gen. Tommy Franks

Franks, the retired four-star Army general who initially commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, received the Medal for having 'led the forces that fought and won two wars in the defense of the world's security and helped liberate more than 50 million people from two of the worst tyrannies in the world," said Bush.

The arguments for Franks' dereliction of duty with respect to conveying insufficient troop numbers to occupy and stabilize Iraq post invasion are well known. He allowed Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to dominate war planning, and essentially to fire General Shinseki (for saying we'd need "at least several hundred thousand" boots on the ground), which led to the insufficient troop numbers to stabilize the country following the invasion.

What hasn't been so well known until recently is that, in his retirement, Gen. Franks received $100,000 to endorse the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes Foundation. Using the cachet of his General's stars, Tommy Franks urged well-meaning and generous Americans to contribute to a charity currently under investigation for fraud. He profited handsomely from the charitable instincts of patriotic Americans to support those troops injured under his dereliction of duty - when in fact only some 25% of those donations actually made it to those troops. General Tommy Franks truly earned a Medal of Shame.


George Tenet

Tenet left the CIA in July 2004 after seven years as director. He has been criticized for intelligence failures before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the never-proven pre-war allegations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

His now infamous "slam dunk" assurance to Bush regarding the outcome of an invasion of Iraq led to a significant untruth (the famous 16 words about how Saddam Hussein had obtained or tried to obtain nuclear-related material in Niger) in Bush's State of the Union speech on January 28, 2003, and to Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech at the UN in which he declared that there was proof of WMD.

Yet Bush credited him as "one of the first to recognize and address the threat to America from radical networks." He said that after September 11th, Tenet was 'ready with a plan to strike back at al Qaeda and to topple the Taliban."

Since Iraq had nothing to do with al Qaeda's attacks on US targets, how did the invasion and occupation of Iraq "strike back" at it? With the Taliban in resurgence in Afghanistan and the 'Talibanization' of parts of Iraq itself, how has the Taliban been "toppled"? George Tenet's Medal of Duplicity was well-deserved, indeed.


L. Paul Bremer III

Bremer was the top civilian U.S. official in postwar Iraq, overseeing the transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government. "For 14 months Jerry Bremer worked day and night in difficult and dangerous conditions to stabilize the country, to help its people rebuild and to establish a political process that would lead to justice and liberty," Mr. Bush said.

Bremer suggested the United States had paid a price in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations because it did not have enough troops in place to stop the looting.

The reality was that Bremer discarded policies and activities that had been put in place by retired Gen. Jay Garner based on lessons learned from previous experience, and he was the one who imposed the now-infamous de-Baathification process, which cost many American lives and untold billions in financing. He disbanded the Iraqi army and he purged the country's entire governing group. He continually and deliberately misinformed Washington about what was really going on in Iraq.

George Bush claimed that Bremer worked "to stabilize the country" - but there has never been any stability since the invasion; that Bremer worked "to help its people rebuild" - but it is not at all clear what has been rebuilt, except perhaps the infrastructure of corruption; and that Bremer worked "to establish a political process to justice and liberty" - but the processes which have flourished have resulted in ethnic cleansing of whole sectors of Baghdad and elsewhere. "Justice and liberty" for whom, Mr. Bremer and Mr. President? L. Paul Bremer, III richly merits the Medal of Failure bestowed upon him by President Bush.


Rekindling the Spirit of Freedom's Heroes

If General Tommy Franks, George Tenet, and L. Paul Bremer, III had had even the slightest hint of honor, decency, and self-respect, they would never have accepted the Medal of Freedom to begin with. They would undoubtedly not have put their names on self-congratulatory books, from which each, presumably, has profited handsomely - while courageous and honorable veterans who fought in their names go hungry and homeless this very night.

Bestowing the Medal of Freedom on three of the individuals most responsible for the Iraq debacle insults former award winners, our courageous military personnel, and the American people.

Let us hope that future Presidents choose more wisely upon whom to bestow our nation's highest civilian honors. For this Administration has brought disgrace to the Medal that Presidents Truman and Kennedy established to give the nation and the world ideals and role models to live up to.

Perhaps Franks, Tenet, and Bremer might someday develop some honor, decency, and self-respect and thereupon give back the Medals of Shame, Duplicity, and Failure they accepted. Only then might the Medal of Freedom have a chance to regain its lost dignity and gravitas.

Let's not hold our collective breaths, however.

Luis Carlos Montalván is a former Army captain who served two tours in Iraq, and is recovering from various combat wounds.

I decided to post my OpEd in today's Denver Post for a few reasons. First, because the message is important. Second, because General Ricardo Sanchez's book is due out soon and I hope people don't buy it. Lastly, because we must hold these people accountable. The longer this takes, the more endangered we become.~Luis

(photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

This is yet another example of why the "Surge" of 30,000 troops was idiotic. As the 12 of us (former Army captains) stated in our Washington Post article in October, a surge of insufficient forces to Bagdad would only displace insurgents, AQ and other terrorist elements. This has proven to be the case and will regrettably continue to be the case as the Civil War continues and intensifies. Still, American Generals and the Administration hold on to a pipe dream of reconciliation amongst a completely divided parliament and national government (if you wish to call it that). The Surge has neither served its purpose nor will it.~Luis

War and Occupation in Iraq
Chapter 1, Gobal Policy Forum
Introduction

“We will help Iraqis build an Iraq that is whole, free and at peace with itself and with its neighbors… that respects the rights of Iraqi people and the rule of law; and that is on the path to democracy.” – US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice [1]

On March 20, 2003 , the United States , the United Kingdom and a Coalition of allies invaded Iraq and overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. They claimed to bring peace, prosperity and democracy. But ever since, violence, civil strife and economic hardship have wracked the land. Thousands of innocent people are now dead and wounded, millions are displaced, several of Iraq 's cities lie in ruins, and enormous resources have been squandered.

Much has been written about the war and occupation, but there is little available that presents a comprehensive picture and an assessment of the responsibility of the Coalition. Most public discussion of Iraq today – especially in the United States – focuses on inter-ethnic conflict among Iraqis, the “civil war,” ethnic cleansing, terror bombings and the like. Commentators often blame these tragedies on flawed concepts such as Iraqis' age-old ethnic hatreds, the extremism of Islam, or the meddlesome impulses of neighboring countries. Anything but the occupation itself.

Although the occupation is the central political reality in Iraq , Coalition influence and Coalition violence too often fade into the background of Western political discourse. When Interior Ministry forces commit yet another atrocity, for instance, few mention that a hundred US advisors work in the ministry and heavily influence its every move. [2] Amazingly, some commentators and political leaders have re-branded Coalition forces as humanitarian agents who must be allowed to continue their work to promote peace and stability in the unruly country. The Iraq Study Group presented such a perspective, as do the major media and many leading political figures.

This report assesses the war and occupation after the passage of four years. It considers the evidence from the vantage point of international law. It draws extensively on information in the public domain – reports by governments, the United Nations, human rights organizations, and other NGOs, as well as journalists' accounts. The report considers the role of the United Nations, the legality of the occupation in action, and the human consequences of the conflict. The information assembled presents an argument for a swift end to the occupation and groundwork for a peaceful post-occupation Iraq .

This report considers above all the actions and the responsibility of the United States and the United Kingdom. The US and the UK are powerful nations that claim to defend and promote the global rule of law. As permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, they present themselves as the guardians of order and justice in the world, insisting on the “rule of law,” and chastising others for violations of law and breaches of the peace. They should be held to the highest standards, since they constantly and vigorously apply such standards to others.

Certainly, there are various kinds of responsibility for the Iraq tragedy. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who left behind a fractured and badly weakened society. The terrible long-lasting war with Iran (1980-88) and the punishing thirteen years of UN sanctions unquestionably took their toll. Yet the US and UK governments supported Saddam for many years with arms and aid, even while he was carrying out his worst excesses. [3] And they authored the thirteen years of comprehensive UN economic sanctions, which harmed the Iraqi people and left Saddam in power. [4]

While the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are innocent victims of the bloodshed and violence, some Iraqis share responsibility for recent events. Some have participated in reprehensible acts – by setting off bombs in crowded city streets, attacking religious shrines, killing innocent civilians, and operating gangs for robbery, kidnapping, extortion and murder. Iraqis in and out of the government have been implicated in sectarian strife, militias, assassinations, bombings, and death squads, as well as massive corruption.

But none of these acts by Iraqis can justify the wrongdoing of the Coalition. Those who started the war and occupation, particularly the US and the UK, must take responsibility for the death and destruction they have wrought, as well as the breakdown of public order, the rise of sectarianism and the economic chaos that their rule has provoked. They destroyed the Iraqi state and now are reaping the consequences. They must also take responsibility for the erosion of international law and the undermining of international cooperation that the war and occupation has created.

The False Arguments for War

Prior to the invasion, the US and the UK pressed the UN Security Council to authorize the “use of force” against Iraq . They argued that force was necessary to prevent the Iraqi government from developing or using weapons of mass destruction that could be targeted against other nations. They declared that Iraq was in “material breach” of Security Council resolutions and they presented evidence to the Council, notably in the famous meeting of February 5, 2003 . Secretary of State Colin Powell said then: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." [5] But most Council members were skeptical and in the end the Council did not authorize military action. We now know that Iraq did not possess weapons of this type and had destroyed virtually all of them in 1991, twelve years before the invasion. [6]

The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom , with their renowned intelligence services, were almost certainly aware before the war that the evidence for mass destruction weapons in Iraq was weak or even non-existent. Memoirs and other accounts suggest that Bush administration officials were discussing a war against Iraq in early 2001 without reference to WMDs [7] and that President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair talked about an attack on Iraq at the White House on September 20, 2001 . [8] As UK intelligence chief Sir Richard Dearlove commented in a meeting with Prime Minister Blair in June 2002: “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” by leaders in Washington . [9]London was soon at work on a parallel campaign of exaggerated and false claims, including two notorious “dossiers” released by Downing Street . [10] US Secretary of State Colin Powell later described his speech to the Security Council as a “blot” on his record. [11]

The two countries also claimed that they acted in legitimate “self-defense” under article 51 of the UN Charter. Yet we now know that Iraq posed no clear and immediate threat of offensive military action and the policymakers knew that. [12] Carne Ross, the senior Iraq expert at the UK mission to the UN, later testified that he saw US and UK intelligence traffic on Iraq every working day for four and a half years, and not a single report suggested that Saddam had significant WMD capability or posed a threat to the UK or any other country. [13]

Washington also claimed that Saddam Hussein was giving support to al-Qaeda and promoting international terrorism that threatened the United States. This too was false and those propagating the accusation knew it was not true. A thorough investigation by the Select Committee on Intelligence of the US Senate later showed that these claims were irresponsible and had no basis in fact. [14]

Finally, the US and the UK put forward humanitarian arguments, such as liberating the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and his frightful human rights abuses. [15] The war, they contended, would bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. But if Washington and London were so concerned about this issue, why had they earlier cooperated with Saddam, given him arms, aid and military assistance, and even shielded him from censure by UN human rights bodies? [16]

The War and the Coalition

As the timing of the conflict approached, Washington assembled a “coalition of the willing” to give its military action greater legitimacy and to lend it the appearance of a multilateral effort, with wide support. Washington announced that its “Coalition” had attracted 49 countries. [17] But some of the members contributed no military contingents, while many others participated only in a symbolic way. Kazakhstan 's contingent in 2003 numbered 29, Moldova 's 24 and Iceland 's just two. [18] The military force that invaded Iraq was almost entirely composed of US and UK combat units. The total force numbered just over 300,000 ground troops, as well as large naval and air assets. [19]

Massive aerial bombardment, to “shock and awe,” preceded the ground campaign. The US made use of reprehensible weapons such as napalm, depleted uranium munitions and cluster bombs, an early sign that the Coalition would exercise little moral or legal restraint. [20] Saddam Hussein's troops were no match for the enormous military might brought into the field by the United States . In just under three weeks, on April 8, Coalition forces entered Baghdad . Though many Iraqis welcomed the fall of the dictator, they did not throw flowers or cheer the arrival of the Coalition troops, as some Washington pundits had predicted. Soon after, on May 2, President Bush gave his “mission accomplished” speech aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.

Destruction of the Iraqi State and the Breakdown of Public Order

In the first days of the occupation, the Coalition demobilized the Iraqi police force and army, laying open Iraqi cities to looting and arson while the Coalition military stood by. Seventeen government ministries were gutted, including the Ministries of Education, Health, Culture and Trade, while Coalition forces protected only the Oil Ministry. [21] Fires destroyed most Iraqi government records, while thieves made off with furniture, computers, and everything else, even ripping copper wires out of the walls to sell for scrap. Looters simultaneously attacked banks, businesses and even major hospitals. Iraq 's leading cultural institutions were sacked, including the National Museum and National Library and many were badly damaged by fire. Concerned Iraqis, international scholars and humanitarian leaders pleaded with Coalition officials and military commanders to protect Iraq's institutions and cultural treasures, but to no avail. [22]

In the absence of any civil authority, there began robberies, kidnappings, murders and the settling of scores from the old regime. Chaos ruled the neighborhoods and many people sought arms to defend themselves. A strange nonchalance seemed to grip the Coalition leadership. “Stuff happens,” said US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, shrugging off the looting of the National Museum in a news conference on April 11. [23]

In May, the Coalition took a final step to disband the army and cancel all military pensions, stripping 400,000 families of their main livelihood. [24] A radical “de-Baathification” was also set in motion, which purged more than 30,000 members of the old ruling party from all official posts, with virtually no effort to exempt those who were innocent of the crimes of the old regime. [25] This removed many of the most qualified people from state service, dealing a devastating blow to what was left of the old state apparatus.

The Strange Postwar Role of the Security Council and the UN

Having refused to authorize the use of force, the Security Council sharply reversed course after the invasion. Keen to avoid further tension with Washington and persuaded that no alternative options were available, Council members agreed to several resolutions that conceded legality to the occupation and provided it with financing from Iraq 's oil revenue. Resolution 1483 of May 22, 2003 recognized the US and the UK as “occupying authorities,” an effort to insure compliance with international humanitarian law. At the same time, the resolution also gave the Coalition the right to sell Iraqi oil, to take billions of dollars from the UN's Oil for Food accounts and to spend as they saw fit for “purposes benefiting the Iraqi people.” [26] The Council's anti-war majority was hopeful that, as the resolution insisted, the UN would play a “vital role” in Iraq , eventually taking over real responsibility. But this was self-deception. The US had no intention of ceding authority to the United Nations and left only the most marginal role to it.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's Special Representative in Baghdad, tried to stake out an independent function for the UN, but the US-led administration in Iraq gave him little room for maneuver, rejecting his proposals for broad consultation with Iraqis of all political persuasions. The “vital role” foreseen by the Security Council never materialized. On August 19, 2003 , a truck bomb destroyed UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing Vieira de Mello and thirteen members of his staff. Thereafter, the organization drastically reduced its presence in the country and moved its Iraq operations to Amman, Jordan .

Yet in October 2003, the Security Council took another fateful step with Resolution 1511. In exchange for US-UK promises that a political process would soon lead to elections and a turnover of authority to Iraqis, the Council gave an official UN mandate to the occupation, making the Coalition a “multinational force” (MNF). The US and the UK afterwards stepped up their claims that they were acting on behalf of the UN and that the UN has provided legal authorization for what they do.

Since that time, despite the many violations of international law by the Coalition, the Council has twice renewed the mandate. [27] But it has never exercised any meaningful oversight of the MNF nor has it had a frank and full discussion of the Iraq matter. A few ambassadors, like Juan Gabriel Valdes of Chile and Adolfo Aguilar Zinser of Mexico, tried to press the issue early on, but Washington forced their governments to recall them, making it very clear that no dissent would be tolerated. [28] As other ambassadors have reported ruefully since then, Washington does not even accept questions when it presents periodic reports to the Council in the name of the MNF. [29]

US Rule in Iraq

In place of the Iraqi state, the US established the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), a governing body without Iraqi participation, headed by Paul Bremer, a Pentagon appointee. [30] Bremer set up his offices in Saddam's former Republican Palace and ruled the country by decree, with almost unlimited powers. To protect the unpopular CPA from a growing Iraqi resistance movement, Bremer organized a tightly-controlled, four square mile security area in the middle of Baghdad known as the “Green Zone,” where the CPA and the military high command could live and work in relative safety. With virtually no Arabic speakers and only the most minimal knowledge of the country, Bremer and his team of youthful Republican enthusiasts from Washington set out to rebuild Iraq according to neo-conservative principles.

Bremer radically restructured Iraq 's public institutions and the Iraqi economy. He issued over a hundred sweeping decrees. In one of the first such “Orders,” he suspended all tariffs, customs duties and import fees, opening Iraq 's economy to the effects of free trade after years of protectionism. Meanwhile, the CPA was freely spending Iraq 's oil revenues and the billions taken over from the UN Oil-for-Food account. CPA staff and military officers handed out millions in cash, in hopes of winning Iraqi friends and “jump starting” the Iraqi economy. A spirit of corruption, beginning in the CPA itself, quickly took root. Halliburton, Parsons, Fluor and other huge construction companies, took billions in “reconstruction” contracts. [31] Behind the scenes, planning was under way for the privatization of Iraq's fabulous oil resources, from which US and UK companies like Exxon, Shell and British Petroleum expected an enormous profit. While Bremer gave wide publicity to a newly-created Iraq stock exchange, Iraq 's banking system was dysfunctional, its industry collapsing, and even its vital oil sector sinking. Unemployment and poverty rose steadily.

Repression

In the absence of a functioning local police, Coalition forces faced directly the increasingly unhappy populace. Troops were totally unfamiliar with the local culture and unable to communicate with the people in their language. These inexperienced and unprepared soldiers were heavily armed and backed up by deadly air power and long-distance artillery. Their first impulse was to take up positions in the heart of Iraqi cities, provoking immediate conflict.

In Falluja, soon after taking control, US forces seized a school in the city center as a military outpost. Fallujans demanded the facility back for their children. On April 28, 2003, just five days after the US army moved into the city, several hundred protesters assembled in front of the building. It was a key test of democratic dissent after the dictatorship. Edgy US soldiers opened fire on the crowd with automatic weapons, killing seventeen and wounding more than seventy. [32] Two more bloody incidents followed in the next three days. Falluja soon became a center of the anti-occupation resistance. Similar incidents took place in Mosul and other cities.

As clashes of this kind spread, the Coalition reacted with increasingly repressive force. Military squads began to enter and search houses, kicking down doors, destroying furniture, shouting orders (in English) and arresting inhabitants. [33] In neighborhood sweeps, troops summarily arrested hundreds of Iraqis, subjecting them later to abusive interrogation. Soon, thousands of Iraqis were locked up in Coalition jails and prison camps, without charge and with no opportunity to defend themselves in court. [34] Torture began in the very earliest weeks. [35]

The Coalition also used extensive covert operations, with thousands of special forces including Army Rangers, Navy Seals, Delta Force, and the UK Special Air Services. [36] Additionally there were CIA and MI6 units, special groups of Military Intelligence and other “black ops” forces. In the name of the search for Saddam and the pursuit of terrorists, these shadowy forces carried out secret military-type operations, seizure of suspects and extremely brutal interrogations in secret camps. [37]

Finally, the Coalition brought to Iraq large numbers of private military contractors, soon to number in the tens of thousands. [38] Some, like employees at Blackwater, DynCorp and CACI International, were former US Special Forces soldiers, police officers, intelligence service personnel and others with special skills in clandestine warfare, interrogation, force protection, and the like. Heavily armed and exempt from any accountability, even under the military justice system, these soldiers of fortune were highly-paid and drawn from many countries in addition to the US and the UK. [39] They were deployed as interrogators in Coalition prisons, bodyguards for Coalition officials in the Green Zone, “force protection” units, special warfare squads, trainers of Iraqi commando units and much more. [40] They epitomized the option of violence and repression that was the unwavering strategic choice of the occupation authorities.

Coalition-Sponsored Militias, Commandoes, and Death Squads

The Coalition created or expanded Iraqi irregular forces. Before the invasion, the US and the UK had given covert support to Kurdish peshmergas -- party/tribal militias in Iraqi Kurdistan. [41] In 2003, they numbered tens of thousands of fighters. Coalition commanders announced that the peshmergas could keep their weapons and maintain their units, since they were considered as operating “under Coalition supervision.” [42] Peshmergas enforced Kurdish rule over non-Kurdish minorities in the North. And the Coalition command used peshmergas to attack insurgent targets in the North and Center. This policy promoted Kurdish separatism and greatly increased Sunni and Shia resentment against the Kurds.

The US had also armed, trained and funded a sizeable militia of the Iraq National Congress under the leadership of Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who was a Pentagon favorite and tipped as a future prime minister. This militia, called the “Free Iraq Forces,” was set up in 2002 and enjoyed multi-million dollar funding by the Pentagon. [43] Very shortly after the invasion, the US air force flew Chalabi and 600 of his militia into Nasiriya in the South. [44] A multi-million dollar CPA contract (nominally to guard oil installations), later reportedly bankrolled the militia, as did a stipend to the INC/Chalabi from the Pentagon of $342,000 a month. [45] Chalabi's forces fought pitched battles with rivals in Baghdad. Many accused them of car theft, fraud, illegal seizure of assets of former Baathists, and outright murder.

The Scorpions were yet another irregular Iraqi force, built by the CIA and operating from the beginning very clandestinely. [46] This force came to light most prominently in the brutal beating (and eventual death) of an Iraqi detainee in US custody in November 2003. [47]

By the fall of 2003, Washington had clearly opted for a dirty war. A war-funding bill, proposed by the Pentagon and passed by Congress in November included $3 billion in monies for Iraqi militias. [48] After mid-2004, the Coalition made increasing use of Iraqi irregular forces as well as special units set up under the nominal control of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior.

Pentagon sources and news reporters spoke of this policy as “the Salvador option,” referring to US counter-insurgency tactics in Central America in the 1980s. [49] James Steele, a special advisor in the US embassy who had played a key role in the dirty wars of Central America, was assigned to advise many of these units. [50] New irregular units, set up in the summer and fall of 2004, included the Hilla SWAT Team, the Iraqi Freedom Guard, the Amarah Brigade, and the Special Police Commandos, sometimes referred to as the Wolf Brigade. [51] Many were trained and armed by the Coalition. [52] Some functioned as death squads, carrying out targeted assassinations. Many of the Iraqi commanders were former officers of Saddam's secret police and special army units, restored again to favor after the wholesale de-Baathification purges. [53] Some of these groups were extremely violent and undisciplined and they sometimes ran amok, looting, burning, torturing and executing.

Violence multiplied. Ethnic and religious groups as well as political parties set up militias for their own defense (or for aggressive political ends). SCIRI, the leading Shia political party, expanded its Badr Brigades, while cleric Moktada al-Sadr strengthened his Mahdi Army. [54] Neighborhoods and political leaders hired armed guards. Government figures used official police and army units as semi-independent militias. Armed gangs came into being to carry out lucrative kidnappings in cities as well as armed robbery and the seizure of goods on highways. The Coalition, by playing the militia card, had redoubled the violence in the country and further undermined the state.

“A Free and Sovereign Iraq”

From the beginning, the United States and its partners insisted that they were establishing a democratic Iraq that would soon be a model for the entire region. But in practice, they ruled with minimal consultation and little understanding of the country and its people. For a year, the Coalition Provisional Authority ruled Iraq from its confines in the Green Zone, promulgating orders, decrees, memoranda and public notices. [55] Most of the CPA staff worked on six-month assignments and had little opportunity to learn about the country before heading home. [56]

Bremer and the CPA set up a “Governing Council” made up of US-handpicked Iraqis, friendly to the occupation. [57] Many had spent decades in exile and they had few roots in contemporary Iraq . Some, like Iyad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi, had worked for years directly on Washington 's payroll. [58] By naming the Governing Council on the basis of sectarian affiliation and “balance,” the CPA gave prominence to the sectarian dimension of Iraqi politics and deepened sectarian rivalries. [59] “Divide-and-rule” tactics seemed to be at work.

At the end of June 2004, the CPA turned over “sovereignty” to Iraqis and dissolved itself. The Coalition announced that a “sovereign” Iraqi Interim Government was now in charge and in New York the Security Council welcomed the transition. [60] The new Interim Government had been hand picked by Bremer, with the assistance of UN special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi. Though supposedly composed of technocrats, it contained familiar personalities, chosen and presented (again) according to sectarian identity. [61] CIA-linked Allawi was the new Prime Minister. Bremer finally departed with most of his staff, but an enormous US presence remained.

The trappings of sovereignty had been put in place. Iraq again had ministries, civil servants, a nascent police force and army, as well as prisons, a Ministry of Finance, even an intelligence service. And, of course, there were elections -- touted by the Coalition as proof of success and the ultimate benchmark of democracy. But the reality was quite different. Ambassador John Negroponte, who followed Bremer, continued to exercise overwhelming influence in the country, at the head of the world's largest US embassy. Each ministry had dozens of US “advisors” guiding policy. [62] The army was entirely under US command and the intelligence service took its orders (and payroll) from the CIA. [63]

The initial elections for the 275-member Iraqi National Assembly took place on January 30, 2005 . Because of dangerous security conditions, international election experts supervised the elections from outside the country, relying on information from mostly partisan Iraqi monitors. The International Mission for Iraqi Elections declared that the elections “generally met recognized standards.” [64] Critics ], though, complained that the elections were organized on a flawed basis with a single national constituency and unified lists of candidates, that no meaningful campaigning had been possible, and that the elections had taken place under conditions that violate international human rights standards. [65] Another cloud over the election was the extremely low Sunni turn out.

The process of drafting and approving a new Constitution was also problematic, leading to further sectarian rancor. The referendum ground-rules, stipulated in the interim constitution, were changed at the last minute before the vote of October 15, 2005 [66] and voting irregularities cast a shadow over the results. [67] Instead of the widely-expected rejection, the constitution was declared adopted. Parliamentary elections followed on December 15 with an outcome that gave power to sectarian blocs of Kurdish and Shia parties. The political process had become increasingly sectarian and rising violence made issue-based campaigning virtually impossible. When finally a new constitutional parliament took office in early 2006, the fleeting hopes generated by the elections had already begun to fade among the Iraqi public. Months of maneuvering were required to form a government. The political leadership under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proved weak, sectarian and incapable of uniting the country. Symblically sited in the fortified Green Zone along with the huge US embassy, the parliament and the government leaders had little room for political maneuver. Corruption flourished in the ministries. Militias multiplied. The government's authority scarcely had any meaning, inside or outside the Green Zone.

A Landscape of Massive Illegality

In the chapters that follow, this report examines the tragic landscape of the occupation. It shows in detail how US forces used indiscriminate and especially injurious weapons and how the Coalition failed to act to prevent the destruction of Iraqi institutions and cultural heritage, including hospitals, universities, libraries, museums and archeological sites. The report also shows how the Coalition used massive military might that badly damaged or destroyed a dozen of Iraq 's cities, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Coalition forces have held thousands of Iraqis in unlimited detention without charge or trial, subjecting many to abusive interrogation and torture. Coalition troops routinely kill Iraqi civilians at checkpoints, during house searches, and during military operations of all kinds and Coalition troops have committed murder and atrocities. A “reconstruction” program has squandered billions of dollars in Iraqi funds through theft, fraud and gross malfeasance.

The report documents how hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died. More than four million have been displaced, including over two million that have fled the country. Poverty is widespread, illness and mortality of children exceptionally high, and food insecurity rising steadily. Iraqis vigorously oppose the long-term bases that the US is constructing and the enormous embassy complex that symbolizes hegemony. By an overwhelming majority, Iraqis want the Coalition to withdraw, as repeated public opinion polls show.

For some readers, the broad themes of the report will be familiar. But the chapters seek a deeper and more complete picture than has previously been available. The report describes a landscape of massive illegality and violence. Documenting the many gross violations of international law, the report calls on the international community to address the Iraq crisis and find alternatives for the future. Peace cannot return to Iraq as long as the occupation continues.

Please read this entire piece for it speaks volumes for the reality of the situation.~Luis

Los Angeles Times
February 22, 2008

Surge Doesn't Equal Success

If things are so much better in Iraq, why are we just back where we started?

By Michael Kinsley

Why was President Bush's decision a year ago to send another 30,000 troops to Iraq called the surge? I don't know who invented this label, but the word "surge" evokes images of the sea: a wave that sweeps in, and then sweeps back out again. The second part was crucial.

What made the surge different from your ordinary troop deployment was that it was temporary. In fact, the surge was presented as part of a larger plan for troop withdrawal. It was also, implicitly, part of a deal between Bush and the majority of the people in this country who want out of Iraq. The deal was: Just let me have a few more soldiers to get Baghdad under control, and then everybody, or almost everybody, can pack up and come home.

In other words: You have to increase the troops in order to reduce them. This is so perverse on its face that it begins to sound Zen-like and brilliant, like something out of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War." And in Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, the administration conjured up its own Sun Tzu, a brilliant military strategist.

It is now widely considered beyond dispute that Bush has won his gamble. The surge was a terrific success. Choose your metric: attacks on American soldiers, car bombs, civilian deaths, potholes. They're all down, down, down. Lattes sold by street vendors are up. Performances of Shakespeare by local repertory companies have tripled. Skepticism seems like sour grapes. If you opposed the surge, you have two choices. One is to admit that you were wrong, wrong, wrong. The other is to sound as if you resent all the good news and remain eager for disaster. Too many opponents of the war have chosen option two.

But we needn't quarrel about all this -- or deny the reality of the good news -- to say that, at the very least, the surge has not worked yet. The test is simple and built into the concept of a surge: Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started? And the answer is no.

In fact, Bush laid down the standard of success when he announced the surge more than a year ago: "If we increase our support at this crucial moment and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home." At the time, there were about 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq. Bush proposed to add up to 20,000 troops. Although Bush never made any official promises about a timetable, the surge was generally described as lasting six to eight months.

By last summer, the surge had actually added closer to 30,000 troops, making the total American troop count about 160,000. Today, there are still more than 150,000 American troops in Iraq. The official plan has been to get that number back down to 130,000 by July, and then to keep on going so that there would be about 100,000 American troops in Iraq by the time Bush leaves office. Just lately, though, http:Petraeus has come up with another Zen-like idea: He calls it a "pause." And the administration has signed on, meaning that the total number of American troops in Iraq will remain at 130,000 for an undetermined period.

So the best we can hope for, in terms of American troops risking their lives in Iraq, is that there will be just as many in July -- and probably in January, when time runs out -- as there were a year ago. The surge will have surged in and surged out, leaving us back where we started. Maybe the situation in Baghdad, or the whole country, will have improved. But apparently it won't have improved enough to risk an actual reduction in the American troop commitment.

And consider how modest the administration's standard of success has become. Can there be any doubt that it would go for a reduction to 100,000 troops -- and claim victory -- if it had any confidence at all that the gains it brags about would hold at that level of support? The proper comparison isn't with the situation a year ago. It's with the situation before we got there.

Imagine that you had been told in 2003 that when George W. Bush finished his second term, dozens of American soldiers and hundreds of Iraqis would be dying violently every month; that a major American goal would be getting the Iraqi government to temper its "de-Baathification" campaign so that Saddam Hussein's former henchmen could start running things again (because they know how); and "only" 100,000 American troops would be needed to sustain this equilibrium.

You might have several words to describe this situation, but success would not be one of them.

Michael Kinsley, a contributing editor to Opinion, is The Times' former editorial page editor. He is also former editor of the New Republic, Slate and Harper's.

Kinsley's article well articulates what I offered in my NY Times OpEd just over a year ago. 30,000 troops were never enough. Corruption is the biggest problem. I told the chickenhawks at AEI that during the Iraq Planning Group last year but they insisted on focusing on tactics in Baghdad. Brilliantly stupid...~Luis

Al-Sadr threatens to end cease-fire
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 59 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr may let a six-month cease-fire expire as soon as Saturday, a move that could send his Shiite militia fighters back out on the streets and jeopardize recent security gains that have led to a sharp decline in violence.

Iraqi police, meanwhile, held funerals Wednesday for 14 officers killed the night before as they responded to a rocket attack launched from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood against U.S. bases in the capital.

In a separate attack, three American troops were killed by a roadside bomb Tuesday night in northwestern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Their names were not released.

Al-Sadr's Shiite Mahdi Army is among the most powerful militias in Iraq, and the cease-fire he ordered last August has been credited with helping reduce violence around Iraq by 60 percent or more in the past six months.

Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying that the cease-fire was extended, "then that means the freeze is over." Al-Sadr's followers would be free to resume attacks.

On an Internet site representing al-Sadr, al-Obeidi said that al-Sadr "either will announce the extension or will stay silent and not announce anything. If stays silent, that means that the freeze is over."

Al-Obeidi said that message "has been conveyed to all Mahdi Army members nationwide."

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a military spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement that the cease-fire declared by al-Sadr's last August was good for the Iraqi people.

"Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr's cease-fire has been helpful in reducing violence and has led to improved security in Iraq. We would welcome the extension of the cease-fire as a positive step," he said, using an honorific reserved for senior clerics.

While the U.S. has welcomed the cease-fire, it also has insisted on continuing to stage raids against what it calls Iranian-backed breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army militia — moved that have angered the cleric's followers.

Influential members of al-Sadr's movement said earlier this month they had urged the radical cleric to call off the cease-fire, which was initially set to expire at the end of the month.

Al-Sadr's followers have claimed the U.S.-Iraqi raids, particularly in the southern Shiite cities of Diwaniyah, Basra and Karbala, are a pretext to crack down on the wider movement, which has pulled its support for the Washington-backed government.

No one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's rocket attack, the second in as many days, but in both cases the explosives apparently were launched from Shiite militia strongholds in the capital, underscoring the fragility of the truce.

The blast that killed the Iraqis occurred after police, acting on a tip, discovered rockets primed for firing behind a deserted ice factory.

A band played Wednesday as four pick-up trucks carried the coffins of the slain police in a slow-moving funeral procession. Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani walked with other officials at the back of the line.

Brig. Gen. Jihad al-Jubouri, head of the anti-bombing squad at the Interior Ministry, said the blast killed 11 bomb experts and three other officers.

A dust storm that has gripped much of Iraq for the last two days kept police from identifying a booby trap that set off the initial explosion, he said. The storms, which shut down the capital's airport and sent dozens of Baghdad residents to hospitals with breathing difficulties, were expected to abate Thursday.

Officials had initially said that as many as 15 police were slain and up to 27 wounded.

Four U.S. soldiers were wounded in Tuesday's rocket attack against their outposts in the capital, the military said.

On Monday, a rocket volley landed on an Iraqi housing complex near the Baghdad international airport and a nearby U.S. military base, killing at least five people and wounding 16, including two U.S. soldiers, officials said.

The attacks have been among the most intense to strike the capital in weeks as violence has declined sharply with an influx of some 30,000 U.S. troops, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and al-Sadr's cease-fire.

In yet more violence, Samir al-Attar, deputy minister of Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology, was wounded Wednesday when two roadside bombs detonated near his convoy about a minute apart as he was driving through Baghdad, according to police and ministry officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't allowed to release the information.

It is arrogant of the Generals and the Administration to think that after 5 years of bungling this war (which became a Civil and Regional War as a result of their bungling), the Sunni, Shia and Kurds are going to somehow miraculously reconcile their differences. The Iraq Civil War will have to arrive at a conclusion without foreign interference. Therefore, we should exit immediately and help manange the borders to prevent undue foreign influence and prevent American loss of life.~Luis

US accused of killing anti-Al Qaeda members
Posted Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:28am AEDT

More than 100 members of an anti-Al Qaeda front in central Iraq have handed their resignations to their US military employers, accusing them of killing 19 of their group, their leader said.

The walk-out occurred in Juruf Sakher village near the city of Hilla, 120 kilometres south of Baghdad, said Sabah al-Janabi, leader of the anti-Qaeda Awakening group in the area.

"The group, which comprises 110 members, resigned in protest at organised assassinations by the coalition forces," said Mr Janabi.

According to Mr Janabi and a local police official, Ali al-Lami, three members of the Awakening group were killed on Saturday when they were attacked with gunfire from a US helicopter.

"It was the third incident in a month. We have lost 19 men while 12 have been injured because of coalition attacks," said Mr Janabi.

Approached for comment, the US military did not immediately reply.

The Awakening groups began in western Anbar province where Sunni tribal leaders in September 2006 turned on their former Al Qaeda allies and caused them to flee.

Since then they have sprung up across the country, supported and paid for by the US military which sees them as essential to help hold areas cleared by an American "surge" of some 30,000 troops.

US commanders say there are now around 130 such groups across Iraq with a total of about 80,000 volunteers, 80 percent of them Sunni and the remainder Shiite.

On Monday, about 3,500 demonstrators, mainly Awakening members, marched through the streets of Baquba north of Baghdad to demand the sacking of the police chief whom they claim was behind kidnappings in the city.

Abu Haider al-Katib, a spokesman for the 1920s Revolution Brigades, the largest of the Awakening components, said that if their demands were not met, they would "take up arms" against the police "and US troops if they support the police."

The protests underscore the US military's tenuous position.

Many of the volunteer fighters are former Sunni insurgents who signed up with the Americans for $US10 a day and the promise of a job in the security forces.

The effort has been credited with helping reduce the number of attacks across Iraq by 62 per cent since June, but many Shiite leaders are suspicious of the groups, believing they could transform into militias.

US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus has acknowledged that there are problems with some groups and that limited infiltration by Al Qaeda is possible.

But he says the aim is to bring as many of the volunteers as possible into the Iraqi security forces where they would fall under Government control.

- AFP

The idiotic strategy of paying off Iraqis to not kill Americans and each other is not going to work for much longer.~Luis

Iraq: Bombing Creates New Enemies
By Dahr Jamail, IPS News
Posted on February 14, 2008, Printed on February 14, 2008

Now that the smoke has cleared and the rubble settled, residents of a group of bombed Iraqi villages see the raid as really a U.S. loss.

Many Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill.

"The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq," Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, a military researcher in Baghdad, told IPS. "U.S. military and political tactics failed in this area, and that is why this massacre. This kind of bombing is usually used for much bigger targets than small villages full of civilians. This was savagery."

The attack on Juboor and neighbouring villages just south of Baghdad had begun a week earlier with heavy artillery and tank bombardment. The attack followed strong resistance from members of the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Juboor tribe against groups that residents described as sectarian death squads.

"On Jan. 10, huge aircraft started bombing the villages," Ahmad Alwan from a village near Juboor told IPS. "We took our families and fled. We have never seen such bombardment since the 2003 American invasion. They were bombing everything and everybody."

Residents said two B1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped at least 40,000 pounds of explosives on the villages and plantations within a span of 10 minutes.

"The al-Qaeda name is used once more to destroy another Sunni area," Akram Naji, a lawyer in Baghdad who has relatives in Juboor told IPS. "Americans are still supporting Iranian influence in Iraq by cleansing Baghdad and surroundings of Sunnis."

The cluster of Sunni villages was bombed just weeks after the U.S. military encouraged families to return to their village after heavy bombing earlier in which scores of people were killed. Many residents had fled fearing sectarian death squads, which they say were backed by the U.S.

Few people in the village now talk the language of reconciliation of U.S. President George W. Bush and of some Iraqis in the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

"We have no alternative but to fight this occupation and its allies," a former army officer in Baghdad speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. "We can see clearly now that Americans came with the idea that we, Sunni Arabs, are the enemies they have in mind no matter what we do to please them. We will fight for our existence, and this massacre will not go unpunished."

"It was a miracle that I could evacuate my family at the last minute," said Omar Hussein, who fled for Dora in Baghdad from the bombarded area. "My house and farm are on the outskirts of the village. I took my family out the minute I saw the aircraft in the sky.

"Apache helicopters later fired at the trucks that were carrying the families out of the area, and killed so many civilians. They took some wounded people to their military base. I am sure hundreds of people would have been killed. It is just like the Fallujah crime."

Thousands died in prolonged attacks on Fallujah to the west of Baghdad, particularly in 2004 and 2005.

Taha Muslih al-Joboory, his wife and three sons were among those reported killed in the bombing. Juboory was an Iraqi journalist who lived all his life in the area. Many families were reported buried under the rubble of their houses.

The U.S. military said that the aircraft which bombed the area targeted "suspected militant hide-outs, storehouses and defensive positions."

"We know they will get away with their crime now, but we will teach our children that America and the whole West are our enemies, so that they take revenge for these crimes," 35-year-old Nada, a woman who has relatives in the village told IPS.

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who reports from Iraq. Ali al-Fadhily is IPS' Baghdad correspondent.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

The situation in Iraq will crumble beyond its current state of Civil War in the months ahead. Arrogant American Generals and greedy politicians in Washington will watch their purported "Surge" strategy success unravel. Wait and see...~Luis

Iraqis in China

The ecumenism of commerce

Feb 7th 2008 YIWU
From The Economist print edition

Iraqis and other Middle Easterners transform a Chinese market town

AT THE Baghdad Restaurant in downtown Yiwu a score of Middle Eastern men are watching an Arabic news documentary on television. Kurd and Turk, Baghdad Shia and Saudi Arabian Wahhabi have bridged the sectarian rifts that bedevil their homelands. “We're all Muslims,” says an Iraqi when asked if he identifies himself with Shia or Sunni. “There's no big difference between us.” Having left home not least because of persistent tensions—“I'm here because in my country there's too much fighting to do business,” says the restaurant owner—these men have no intention of replicating them here in China.

Their sense of solidarity is deepened by the loneliness of being in a foreign country. Some of them have been based here as long as eight years. But most of Yiwu's Middle Easterners have only a rudimentary grasp of Mandarin. “It's hard learning a new language at my age,” sighs one Iraqi. Commerce forms their chief bond with Yiwu, China's largest small-commodities market. The Middle Easterners come on long-term business visas; after buying cheap clothes and hardware in bulk, most jet to Dubai, Baghdad or Tehran before returning for another six months of trade. Some work as consultants or visa agents. For the entrepreneurially inclined, Yiwu offers a wealth of opportunity.

The Middle Eastern presence has served as a magnet for Chinese Muslims. Although Arab merchants called here in centuries past, Yiwu had virtually no Muslims till about 2000, when Middle Eastern traders were drawn to its burgeoning market. Hui (members of China's indigenous Muslim minority) from as far as Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai in the west followed. Yiwu is cosmopolitan and friendlier to Islam than parts of China's west. Many of the Hui who come speak Arabic, allowing them to find lucrative jobs with Middle Eastern businessmen. At its peak, says a local imam, the city's Muslim population (foreign and Chinese) now reaches 20,000.

The Muslims keep apart from the Han Chinese; the Hui tend to feel that they have more in common with their co-religionists than with their compatriots. “The problem with China,” says one Hui, “is that it's an atheist country, which means people do whatever they want to.” Some of the Han, especially poorer people, denounce the Arabs' “bad influence”. Even so, business is booming and, as successful capitalists, Han, Hui and foreign Muslim alike know better than to let prejudice interfere.

This article makes two important points. Firstly, that most Iraqis really don't care about religious differences (this is a frequent misconception held by Americans). It is because corrupt leaders (tribal, ethic and sectarian) have stifled the stabilization of Iraq for five years (as well as the stupidity of our Generals and the greed of the Bush Administration) that the situation in Iraq became and remains a state of Civil War. Secondly, it is pretty telling that Iraqis of all denominations are getting along better in a communist/totalitarian government like China.~Luis

US raids Sadr City; 1 killed
By HAMID AHMED, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 45 minutes ago

U.S. troops raided Baghdad's largest Shiite slum early Thursday and arrested 16 people, American and Iraqi officials and witnesses said. The U.S. military said one person died.

The military also announced the death of a U.S. soldier killed by a roadside bomb a day earlier in western Baghdad. At least 3,950 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In Sadr City, the U.S. said it was targeting "criminal elements" responsible for mortar and EFP attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops. EFPs, or explosively formed penetrators, are sophisticated roadside bombs that fire a molten slug capable of piercing even the most heavily armored military vehicles. They have been responsible for hundreds of American military deaths.

Two people were wounded in the nighttime raid, and one of those subsequently died, U.S. Navy Lt. Michael Street, a military spokesman, said in an e-mail response to an Associated Press query.

Police and residents said American soldiers in Humvees backed by helicopters sealed off a block of the neighborhood and raided four houses. The front door lock on one of the houses was shattered by gunfire, and 22-year-old Arkan Abid Ali was shot in the chest and wounded, witnesses said.

Diaa Shakir, 20, said he heard gunfire coming from inside houses U.S. soldiers had entered, as he watched the operation from the window of his home nearby.

Ali was one of 16 Iraqis, including three teenage boys, detained by U.S. forces, an Iraqi police officer said on customary condition of anonymity.

Two women and an elderly man also were wounded and taken to Sadr City hospital, he said. It was unclear which of the wounded had died.

Sadr City is home to about 2.5 million of the Iraqi capital's poorest residents. Overwhelmingly Shiite, the neighborhood has also been a base for the Mahdi Army loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The firebrand figure called a cease-fire for the militia in August, but some rogue members are believed to have ignored the order. The area has been the frequent site of U.S. raids over the past several months.

Al-Sadr's office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf released a statement Thursday threatening to expel militiamen who break the cease-fire.

"We have nothing to do with anyone from the Mahdi Army who violates the cease-fire with armed activities. They will be considered out of the organization," the statement said. "You all must know that our goal is independence."

Al-Sadr's cease-fire order is credited along with last summer's arrival of about 30,000 additional U.S. troops with helping tamp down violence in Baghdad. U.S. and Iraqi officials are hopeful that the cleric will continue to order restraint among his men.

Also Thursday, gunmen stormed a house northeast of Baghdad, separated out the women and children inside and killed three brothers — all members of a U.S.-backed neighborhood watch group, police said.

The attack happened early Thursday in the Muradiyah area near Baqouba, about 35 miles northeast of the capital. Such groups — comprised mostly of Sunni tribesman partnering with the Americans to oust al-Qaida from their hometowns — have become frequent targets recently because of their alliance with U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The gunmen planted explosives in the house and blew it up before leaving, police said. U.S. military officials had no immediate comment on the incident.

Meanwhile south of Baghdad, a truckload of weapons, ammunition and explosives were seized at an Iraqi police checkpoint at the entrance to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, police said. The contraband was hidden in the back of a truck carrying baking flour, they said.

Three mortar tubes, four rocket launchers and several bars of dynamite were discovered when the truck was halted about 50 miles south of the capital.

The U.S. military also announced three other raids, including a Wednesday operation that killed five suspected insurgents near the village of Khalis north of Baghdad.

Another suspect was arrested the same day along with two large weapons caches in western Baghdad, the military said. More than 100 mortar rounds and 66 rocket-propelled grenade launchers were seized, it said.

In another statement, the military said it arrested a former lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi Army on Monday. The man was suspected of using money taken from government contracts to finance weapons trafficking in southern Baghdad, it said.

What isn't made clear in this article is the significance of the seizure of 66 rocket-propelled grenade launcers (lookout aviators!). To the warrior is this mounting evidence that terrorist and insurgent cells (elements of the Iraq Civil War) are preparing for more sophisticated complex ambushes and attacks against different sects, ethnic groups and "Coalition Forces."

Additionally, the arrest of the former Iraqi Army Colonel for corruption is but a drop in the bucket reflection of the corruption endemic throughout the entire Iraqi Army and Police forces. This is great cause for concern as it will be the undoing of America's War and ultimately, our national security at home.~Luis

Bush shouldn't complicate future with Iraq promises
By The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 01/31/2008 09:12:46 PM MST

The next president of this country is going to have a hard enough time dealing with the bungled Iraq war.

It would be unfair, to say the least, if President Bush were to complicate matters further by making long-term promises and negotiating the installation of a permanent U.S. military base in Iraq in the waning months of his tenure.

Yet that seems to be the purpose of a signing statement the president issued this week after putting his signature to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008.

The crux of the matter is a proviso in the defense act in which Congress prohibits spending taxpayer money to put a permanent military base in Iraq. It was an effort by federal lawmakers to head off the commitments that Bush seems to be making that will long outlast his time in office.

It is among the sections of the bill that Bush, by issuing a signing statement, said he would not obey because it infringes on his presidential powers.

It has been widely reported that the Bush administration has been negotiating a long-term pact with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that maps how the U.S. would be involved in Iraq, including keeping its government safe from internal and external threats.

Some in Congress and academia believe this meets the textbook definition of a treaty, and if it were one, Congress would have to approve such a pact.

The Bush administration has been forceful in its opinion that the agreement it is forging with Iraq is not a treaty, and therefore does not need to go to Congress.

Whether it technically is a treaty is an important issue, but not the only one. Bush has had nearly five years in pursuing his policies in Iraq. It has been a disaster. It's time he stops creating messes that the next president, and ultimately the American people, will be responsible for cleaning up.

Beyond that injustice there also is the president's continuing abuse of presidential signing statements.

President Bush has used them prolifically to say he doesn't intend to comply with certain sections of bills that he believed to be unconstitutional.

The president justifies his actions by saying Congress cannot pass laws that infringe on the powers the Constitution gives to the executive branch. The trouble is, this administration has a rather expansive interpretation of executive power.

In the last month, Americans have demonstrated a considerable appetite for participating in caucuses and primaries in an effort to choose the next president. The presidential race involves a critical choice in light of many pressing issues, including the Iraq war, which has left many Americans disillusioned and angry.

The last thing this country needs is for the decisions of this administration to become an even heavier millstone around the neck of the next president.

This is a clever way for this Administration to justify the invasion and failed occupation of Iraq. The proposition to establish permanenet bases in Iraq will only exercerbate the extremely volitle situation of the continuing Civil War. Congress and Presidental candidates must vigorously fight to curtail the Administration from perpetuating their damaging legacy for the next Amisitration to potentially have to undue.~Luis

The New York Times
January 29, 2008
An American Builder’s Failures in Iraq Are Found to Have Been More Widespread
By JAMES GLANZ

Rebuilding failures by one of the most heavily criticized companies working in Iraq, the American construction giant Parsons, were much more widespread than previously disclosed and touched on nearly every aspect of the company’s operation in the country, according to a report released Monday by a federal oversight agency.

Previous reports by federal inspectors and by news organizations identified numerous examples of construction failures in Parsons Corporation projects in Iraq, including dozens of uncompleted or shoddily built health care clinics and border forts, as well as disastrous sewage and plumbing problems at the Baghdad police academy that left parts of it unusable.

But the new report, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent federal agency, examined nearly 200 Parsons construction projects contained in 11 major “job orders” paid for in a huge rebuilding contract. There were also three other nonconstruction orders. The total cost of the work to the United States was $365 million.

The new report finds that 8 of the 11 rebuilding orders were terminated by the United States before they were completed, for reasons including weak contract oversight, unrealistic schedules, a failure to report problems in a timely fashion and poor supervision by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which managed the contracts.

“There was a confluence of shortfalls here,” said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who leads the inspector general’s office. “It was obviously an unworkable plan.”

In response to the report, a spokeswoman for the company, Amber Thompson, released a statement saying, in part, that “Parsons put forth its best efforts to simultaneously build or refurbish hundreds of facilities across Iraq.”

“We did so under an extremely hazardous security environment while simultaneously contending with constantly changing demands by government officials regarding what they wanted, where and for how much,” Ms. Thompson said.

The work, Ms. Thompson said, was carried out with other challenges, such as a United States requirement to work with Iraqi contractors whose capabilities often fell short. “Despite the challenges we faced, Parsons completed many of the required facilities” and completed most of the work on many others, Ms. Thompson said.

But William L. Nash, a retired Army major general who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the report filled out a tapestry of failure illustrating that American military and civilian officials in Iraq failed to absorb lessons learned in the 1990s about how to carry out rebuilding in conflict zones.

“To me,” Mr. Nash said, “it further illustrates the disconnect between the military and the C.P.A.,” or the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American administrative authority after the 2003 invasion.

Congress has asked the inspector general’s office to look at all of the major contractors that worked in Iraq and assess their work. A previous assessment found that another major American construction company, Bechtel National, had successfully completed 10 of 24 job orders for rebuilding water, sewage and electricity plants in a huge contract.

Mr. Bowen had no specific explanation why Parsons’s rate of success was much lower than that of the other company he has closely examined so far, saying only that each set of contracts was “its own study.”

But earlier, more limited examinations of Parsons’s work in Iraq had already suggested serious shortcomings. Mr. Bowen’s office had previously found, for example, that Parsons had completed just 6 of 141 primary health care clinics called for in one of the contracts and that urine and fecal matter leaking from poor plumbing had made major portions of the Baghdad police academy unusable.

Last fall, more than a year after the first federal inspections, a reporter from The New York Times again visited the academy, the Baghdad Police College, and found that many of the problems persisted. Parsons has said that it did everything required in its contract to carry out the construction and fix the problems.

Mr. Bowen said his latest information indicated that the Army Corps was still trying to complete the clinics left unfinished by Parsons. It is expected that only 130 of the 141 clinics will actually be completed and turned over to the Iraqis; of those, work is continuing on 56.

The Parsons contracts that are the subject of Monday’s report called for reconstruction of major government buildings along with the health care facilities and certain housing projects. The report said Parsons had successfully completed several ministry buildings in Baghdad and a number of maternity and pediatric hospitals in what has been the relatively placid northern part of Iraq.

Of the projects that Parsons did not complete, a majority of the planned work had been carried out on a number of them, although many were also behind schedule, the report found.

Mr. Bowen’s office itself has recently been the focus of an investigation based on accusations of mismanagement by former employees who left his office on unhappy terms. The investigation is being carried out by the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, an office associated with the White House.

Mr. Bowen’s investigations have repeatedly embarrassed an administration that has sought to portray the Iraq rebuilding effort as successful. On Monday, Mr. Bowen said he believed that the investigation of his office continued but had no new information on its focus.

This Administration is comprised of so many SOBs it is not to be believed. Mr. Bowen is a hero and his staff is doing an honest and dirty job of exposing the lies and corruption of many. No wonder this Administration counters with attempts to discredit him.

With respect to contractors, I can personally attest to their incompetence and corruption. And, I will continue in my efforts to expose their criminal and immoral behavior in Iraq.~Luis