Army Probe Finds Abuse at Jail Near Mosul

The New York Times
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newly released government documents say the abuse of prisoners in Iraq by U.S. forces was more widespread than previously reported.

An officer found that detainees ``were being systematically and intentionally mistreated'' at a holding facility near Mosul in December 2003. The 311th Military Intelligence Battalion of the Army's 101st Airborne Division ran the lockup.

Records previously released by the Army have detailed abuses at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq as well as at sites in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The documents released Friday were the first to reveal abuses at the jail in Mosul and are among the few to allege torture directly.

``There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or translators engaged in physical torture of the detainees,'' a memo from the investigator said. The January 2004 report said the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions were violated.

Top military officials first became aware of the Abu Ghraib abuses in January 2004, when pictures such as those showing soldiers piling naked prisoners in a pyramid were turned over to investigators. The resulting scandal after the pictures became public tarnished the military's image in Arab countries and worldwide and sparked investigations of detainee abuses.

The records about the Mosul jail were part of more than 1,200 pages of documents referring to allegations of prisoner abuse. The Army released the records to reporters and to the American Civil Liberties Union, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

``They show the torture and abuse of detainees was routine and such treatment was considered an acceptable practice by U.S. forces,'' ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said.

Guards at the detention facility near Mosul came from at least three infantry units of the 101st Airborne, including an air-defense artillery unit. The investigating officer, whose name was blacked out of the documents, said the troops were poorly trained and encouraged to abuse prisoners.

According to the report, the abuse included:

-- Forcing detainees to perform exercises such as deep knee bends for hours on end, to the point of exhaustion.

-- Blowing cigarette smoke into the sandbags the prisoners were forced to wear as hoods.

-- Throwing cold water on the prisoners in a room that was between 40 degrees and 50 degrees.

-- Blasting the detainees with heavy-metal music, yelling at them and banging on doors and ammunition cans.

No one was punished for the abuses, however, because the investigating officer said there was not enough proof against any individual. The report did not say what actions might have amounted to torture or which individuals might have committed them.

CNN Special: "Memory" and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Why is it that some people develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and some don't? Are some people genetically prone to developing PTSD? Can PTSD be prevented? These are just a few questions that Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores in "Memory," an upcoming CNN primetime special. The special, premiering Sunday, March 27th, will address how memory plays into PTSD -- and how future research may find ways to prevent the disorder.

"You can give people medication, so that when they see these bad things, it doesn't have an emotionally devastating impact on them," Gupta says. Horrible memories that resurface in veterans can be triggered by anything -- the sound of fireworks, a helicopter, or an emotional moment that brings to mind images of fellow troops.

Two of the main questions Gupta addresses are -- can PTSD be prevented, and are certain people predisposed to the disorder? To explore these areas, Gupta takes viewers through the structure of the brain and the components of memory, how the mind and body work together to create memories, and how in some cases -- like PTSD -- memories can go bad.

With so many troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, treating the disorder is becoming an extremely relevant issue. Gupta reveals that people who develop PTSD show changes in the size of the hippocampus -- the part of the brain that creates memory. "The hippocampus is the soul of memory," Gupta says, "and it was found that people with PTSD have a smaller hippocampus, and in some cases, the hippocampus is less functional." The question is whether the hippocampus shrinks due to the stress that causes PTSD, or whether people with PTSD have a smaller hippocampus to begin with.

While therapy is still a mainstay of treatment, research is trying to find ways of preventing the disorder altogether. Gupta explains that some medication may lessen the effect of terrible memories -- preventing them from negatively reemerging later in life. "There are ways to prevent the hormones that cause someone to remember bad memories so intensely, and block the mind and body from remembering bad memories in such detail," Gupta says. As he and his team explore other possibilities, they outline ways to increase the memory's existing potential.

Gupta visits Fort Bragg in California and Fort Drumm in New York to get a feel for what troops actually go through during combat and in prisoner of war situations. "I have such tremendous respect for our military and the things that they go through. The training is intense -- both physically, emotionally, and mentally." Training is certainly an important aspect of the armed services, but nothing can prepare troops for the emotional stress that causes PTSD. Thanks to new research by the specialists like the ones in "Memory," there is hope for better treatment, awareness, and even prevention.

"Memory" premieres Sunday, March 27 at 10pm on CNN.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is senior medical correspondent for the health and medical unit at CNN. Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon and an assistant professor of neurosurgery, plays an integral role in the network's medical coverage, which includes daily packages, the half-hour weekend show Weekend House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and coverage of breaking medical news. Based in Atlanta, he also co-hosts Accent Health for Turner Private Networks, provides medical segments for the syndicated version of ER on TNT, contributes health news stories to CNN.com and writes a column for TIME magazine.

Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military

by Ann Scott Tyson The Washington Post Saturday 19 March 2005

Heavy demands offset combat experience.

Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts.

The unexpectedly heavy demands of sustained ground combat are depleting military manpower and gear faster than they can be fully replenished. Shortfalls in recruiting and backlogs in needed equipment are taking a toll, and growing numbers of units have been broken apart or taxed by repeated deployments, particularly in the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.

"What keeps me awake at night is, what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?" Gen. Richard A. Cody, Army vice chief of staff, said at a Senate hearing this week.

The Iraq war has also led to a drop in the overall readiness of U.S. ground forces to handle threats at home and abroad, forcing the Pentagon to accept new risks -- even as military planners prepare for a global anti-terrorism campaign that administration officials say could last for a generation.

Stretched by Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States lacks a sufficiently robust ability to put large numbers of "boots on the ground" in case of a major emergency elsewhere, such as the Korean Peninsula, in the view of some Republican and Democratic lawmakers and some military leaders.

They are skeptical of the Pentagon's ability to substitute air and naval power, and they believe strongly that what the country needs is a bigger Army. "The U.S. military will respond if there are vital threats, but will it respond with as many forces as it needs, with equipment that is in excellent condition? The answer is no," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

To be sure, the military has also benefited from two years of war-zone rotations, and from a historical perspective it is holding up better than many analysts expected. U.S. troops are the most combat-hardened the nation has had for decades, and reenlistment levels have generally remained high. The war has also spurred technological innovation while providing momentum for a reorganization of a military that in many ways is still designed for the Cold War.

Moreover, military leaders are taking steps to ease stress on the troops by temporarily boosting ranks; rebalancing forces to add badly needed infantry, military police and civil affairs troops; and employing civilians where possible. Yesterday, defense officials worried about recruiting announced that they will raise the age limit, from 34 to 40, for enlistment in the Army Guard and Reserve. The Pentagon is spending billions to repair and replace battle-worn equipment and buy extra armor, radios, weapons and other gear.

Yet such remedies take time, and no one, including senior officials, can predict how long the all-volunteer force can sustain this accelerated wartime pace. Recruiting troubles, especially, threaten the force at its core. But with a return to the draft widely viewed as economically and politically untenable, senior military leaders say the nation's security depends on drumming up broader public support for service.

"If we don't get this thing right, the risk is off the scale," said Lt. Gen. Roger C. Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, the military's most stressed branch.

A Tough Sell

At dusk the night the Iraq war started in March 2003, Staff Sgt. Spurgeon M. Shelley was near the Kuwaiti border, watching the orange glow of missiles streak overhead as he guided one Marine ammunition convoy after another north across the line of departure.

Manning a dirt berm while wearing his gas mask and full chemical suit, Shelley was determined to make it home alive to see his daughter, Lena, 2. "I'm going to do whatever I have to, to survive," he told himself.

Today, Shelley is on duty in what he calls a "one-man fighting hole" on another battlefield -- a Marine recruiting station in Lexington Park, Md., in St. Mary's County -- with a mission to persuade young men and women to enlist, and probably go to war.

One recent night, after making dozens of fruitless phone calls to high school students, Shelley said his recruiting job is more taxing than combat. "I hear 'no' more times in one day than a child would hear in their entire childhood," he said. "If I had hair, I'd pull it out."

The active-duty Army and Marine Corps, and five of six reserve components of the military, all failed to meet at least some recruiting goals in the first quarter of fiscal 2005, according to Defense Department statistics. The active-duty shortfalls came amid rising concern among Army and Marine officials that their services risk missing annual recruiting quotas for the first time this decade.

Shelley, for example, has signed up four people in nearly six months, despite working 16-hour days. Asked why recruiting is so difficult, he has a quick reply: "The war."

Increasingly, surveys show that the main reason young American adults avoid military service is that they -- and to a greater degree their parents -- fear that enlisting could mean a war-zone deployment and death or injury. One survey showed such fears nearly doubling among respondents from 2000 to 2004.

Indeed, today's recruiting problems reflect a widespread concern dating from the conception of the all-volunteer force in 1973 -- that a military composed wholly of volunteers would not supply adequate troops for a lengthy ground war.

But confidence in the force has since grown as it gained discipline and professionalism. Meanwhile, overseas missions proliferated, even as the military downsized drastically. The Army shrank from 40 active-duty and National Guard divisions during the Vietnam War to 28 when the Cold War ended, and it has 18 now.

The military is seeking to rebuild forces, adding temporarily 30,000 Army soldiers and 5,000 Marines. But the war isn't the only obstacle. Rising college attendance and an expanding job market are giving high school graduates more choices. "It's times like this when unemployment is reaching 5 percent that is a critical level" for undercutting recruitment, said Curtis L. Gilroy, director of accession policy for the Defense Department.

To meet its targets, the Army is considering expanding the use of enlistment bonuses of as much as $20,000. Both the Army and the Marines are adding hundreds of recruiters, who "will have to work very, very hard," Gilroy said.

Shelley's situation exemplifies the pressure on today's recruiters. Up at 6:30, he consults his "plan of attack," a white sheet of paper on which he pencils in his activities by the hour. At lunchtime, he hits fast-food restaurants. When school lets out at 2:45, he starts calling potential recruits at home. In early evening, he goes to gas stations or the 7-Eleven, scouting for youths with "less desirable" jobs. At night, he is out "AC-ing," or "area canvassing," until 10:30.

Palming the steering wheel of his steel-gray Dodge Stratus one night, Shelley cruises slowly past a Chick-fil-A. Scanning the cars, he estimates who's in the restaurant and whether it's worth going in. It's not.

He makes one last, failed pitch of the day -- to an overweight young man stacking tomatoes at Giant -- and heads home. As long as the war drags on, recruiting won't improve, he predicts. "I think it's going to get worse."

Growing Demands

As the military struggles to find fresh recruits, there is unprecedented strain on service members and their families.

Since 2001, the U.S. military has deployed more than 1 million troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 341,000, or nearly a third, serving two or more overseas tours.

Today, an entrenched insurgency in Iraq ties down 150,000 U.S. troops, inflicting upwards of 1,500 deaths so far -- more than 10 times the number killed in the major combat operations that President Bush declared ended on May 1, 2003.

Because of the spreading violence from the insurgency, coupled with a smaller foreign coalition than was hoped for, the U.S. Army and Marines in particular have scrambled to keep a force of roughly 17 brigades in Iraq until now, rather than draw down to eight brigades or even be out altogether, according to previous military projections.

Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace Jr., the Army's operations chief, is a kind of circus master responsible for juggling limited units and equipment and prioritizing who does what. Ringed by organizational charts in his Pentagon office, the West Point graduate from Richmond ticked off the far-flung corners from which the Army has had to muster forces.

"We've deployed units of the Old Guard!" he said, referring to the first-ever deployment of the ceremonial guard from Fort Myer, when a company was dispatched to Djibouti last year. "We've reached up inside of Alaska and grabbed the forces up there," he said. "Korea! Who would have ever thought that we would have deployed a combat formation?" he said, referring to a brigade sent from South Korea to Iraq.

Two years ago, the Army released 2,500 recruiters so they could ship out with tactical units, officials say. The Marines also sent scores fewer people to recruiting school because they were needed for military operations.

Reenlistment rates, which have remained strong despite lengthy combat tours, took a slight downturn in the active-duty Army and Army National Guard during the first four months of fiscal 2005. The Army met 94 percent of its target for getting first-term soldiers to reenlist, and it hit 96 percent among those in mid-career. An earlier study of troops in Bosnia showed they were initially more likely to reenlist than those who had stayed home, but their renewal rates dropped as the number, length and danger of deployments increased.

"I worry about the soldiers with the second and third tour . . . since 9/11," Cody, the Army vice chief, told reporters Thursday.

As it rounds up troops for deployments, the Army has had to allocate limited equipment. It has shuffled thousands of items from radios to rifles between units, geared up new industrial production, and depleted the Army's pre-positioned stocks of tanks, Humvees and other assets to outfit units for combat.

Army stocks in Southwest Asia are exhausted, and those in Europe have also been "picked over," one U.S. official said. Roughly half of the Army and Marine equipment stored afloat on ships has been used up, the official said. Refilling the stocks must wait until the Iraq war winds down, Army officials say.

Meanwhile, a sizable portion of Marine and Army gear is in Iraq, wearing out at up to six times the normal rate. Battle losses are mounting; the Army has lost 79 aircraft and scores of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. "We are equip-stretched, let there be no doubt about it. . . . This Army started this war not fully equipped," Cody said in recent congressional testimony.

The priority on allocating scarce resources to deployed units means that forces rotating back home -- especially reserve units -- are dropping in readiness. In many cases, they are being rated at the lowest level, C4, because of a lack of functioning equipment, required training or manpower.

"The Army in the aggregate is reporting readiness levels that are less today than they have been in the past," said Paul W. Mayberry, deputy to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

The Pentagon says that by rotating duties, it maintains enough ready forces and pre-positioned equipment to handle a crisis on the Korean Peninsula and other contingencies. But U.S. lawmakers are concerned.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said he worries primarily about the U.S. ability to respond if "some problem should arise on the Korean Peninsula."

"How capable are we of handling another major conflict?" asked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "It's pretty obvious that it would be incredibly difficult because of the portion of our resources devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan. What if a conflict broke out with North Korea or Iran?"

Feeling the Strain

Of all the military branches, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are suffering the most, as they provide between a third and half of the troops in Iraq, despite a legacy of chronic shortages in their manning and equipment.

"The real stress on the system was the fact that no one envisioned that we would have this level of commitment for the National Guard," which shipped seven combat brigades to Iraq and Afghanistan for the most recent rotation, Cody said.

Because the Army traditionally undersupplies Guard and reserve units, few had the troops or gear needed when mobilized. As a result, large numbers of soldiers and equipment were shifted from one unit to another, or "cross-leveled," to cobble together a force to deploy.

"We were woefully underequipped before the war started. That situation hasn't gotten any better. As a matter of fact, it gets a little bit worse every day, because we continue to cross-level," Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told Congress this month.

The widespread fracturing of units is making it increasingly difficult for the Army to assemble viable forces from the remaining hodgepodge -- most of which have low readiness ratings, Army figures show. "It's a little bit like Swiss cheese. We've taken out holes in the units," Lovelace said. "Those holes are a lot of times leaders, and they are hard to grow."

Already, the Guard and Reserve have deployed the vast majority of their forces most needed for fighting counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan -- such as military intelligence, civil affairs, infantry and military police -- bringing into question whether the Pentagon's two-year limit on reserve mobilizations is sustainable.

"Can we do this forever? No. We can't do this forever at current levels," the Army National Guard's Schultz said in an interview.

In a sign of deeper problems, career citizen-soldiers frustrated by broken units and long, grueling war-zone duties are increasingly leaving the Guard. Attrition among career guardsmen is running at nearly 20 percent, said Schultz, who expects that as many as a third of the members of some units rotating back from Iraq will quit.

Recruitment is sluggish, reaching just 75 percent of the target for the first quarter of fiscal 2005 -- meaning that the Guard is unlikely to reach its desired strength of 350,000 soldiers this year.

The viability of the Army Guard and Reserve will prove decisive, senior Army leaders say, as they consider in 2006 whether to permanently increase the size of the active-duty Army, and if so by how much. It also marks a critical test of the military's ability to appeal to the civilian population, not only with bonuses and education benefits, but also with an ethos of self-sacrifice that it considers the bedrock of the all-volunteer force.

"For the all-volunteer force to work, it has to work all the time, not just in peacetime," Schultz said. "It's now time to answer the call to serve, to assemble on the village green."

Why Iraq Withdrawal Makes Sense

By Norman Solomon t r u t h o u t | Perspective Friday 18 March 2005

President Bush just told reporters that he has no intention of setting any timetable for withdrawal. "Our troops will come home when Iraq is capable of defending herself," he said. Powerful pundits keep telling us that a swift pullout of U.S. troops would be irresponsible. And plenty of people have bought into that idea - including quite a few progressives. Such acceptance is part of what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the madness of militarism."

Sometimes, an unspoken assumption among progressive activists is that the occupation of Iraq must be tolerated for tactical reasons - while other issues, notably domestic ones, are more winnable on Capitol Hill. But this acceptance means going along with many of the devastating effects of a militarized society: from ravaged budgets for social programs to more authoritarian attitudes and violence in communities across the country.

"The bombs in Vietnam," King said in 1967, "explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America." He rejected the insistent claims that it would be more prudent to avoid clear opposition to the war in order to concentrate on domestic issues. "I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted," he said. "I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam."

As spring 2005 begins, many who like to praise Martin Luther King are going out of their way to evade the fundamental destructiveness of this war. Of course, throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, a prevailing argument was that removing U.S. troops would be a betrayal of U.S. responsibility to the people of South Vietnam. Today, likewise, opposition to a swift U.S. pullout from Iraq is often based on the idea that the American military must stay because of a responsibility to the people of Iraq.

But most Iraqis want the U.S. military out of their country - pronto. As Newsweek reported in its Jan. 31 edition: "Now every major poll shows an ever-larger majority of Iraqis want the Americans to leave." Yet we hear that U.S. troops must stay for the good of the Iraqi people - even though most of those people clearly want U.S. troops to leave. (Are we supposed to believe that Americans know better than Iraqis whether American troops should stay in Iraq?)

To paper over such illogic, a media-stoked myth tells us that getting out of Iraq is a notion remaining outside the boundaries of what the U.S. public could take seriously. Most politicians and pundits insist that it's off the table. But polls are telling a different story.

"According to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken after the Iraq elections, 59 percent of the public believes the United States should pull its troops out of Iraq in the next year," Amy Quinn of the Institute for Policy Studies wrote in early March. "Yet the ranks of those actively demanding that the president produce an exit strategy from Iraq are slim."

In mid-March, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a large proportion of the U.S. population has a negative view of the war. For instance, the poll asked: "All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting or not?" Only 45 percent said "worth fighting," while 53 percent said "not worth fighting."

Such nationwide poll numbers hardly indicate a country where few people are interested in proposals for extricating U.S. troops from Iraq. But the point is not only that political space exists in the United States for a grassroots movement to effectively organize for a swift pullout. It's also the best alternative for Iraq.

Consider the perspective of David Enders, a brave American journalist who has been in Iraq most of the time since the invasion. While writing for such outlets as MotherJones.com, the Nation magazine and the British daily Independent, he actually covers Iraqi society firsthand rather than staying behind American lines. Days ago, responding to my questions via email from Iraq, Enders provided some of the reasons for his assessment that American troops should leave rather than stay. For instance:

• "It is the will of the Iraqi people." Enders cites a recent survey by Iraqi pollster Saadun Al-Dulaimie, who found that 85 percent of Iraqi people want U.S. troops out of their country as soon as possible.
  
  
• "The U.S. does not provide security for the average Iraqi, and it never has."
  
  
• "The U.S. has not prevented a civil war from taking place. If anything, it has exacerbated it."
  
  
• "It is not morally derelict to pull out; it's morally derelict to stay. Returning real control and sovereignty to Iraqis is the most effective way to prevent the country from breaking apart. U.S. troops complain Iraqis don't want to stand up and fight for themselves, and a big part of the reason is the occupiers' presence."

Meanwhile, Enders voices enthusiasm for the resolution sponsored by more than two dozen members of the House of Representatives "expressing the sense of Congress that the President should develop and implement a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq" (House Concurrent Resolution 35.)

This spring, as U.S. activists work to build a strong movement against the war, the need to pressure Congress is clear. What's less apparent is the need to also push - and, if necessary, confront - hesitant progressive organizations that are taking the easy way out by refusing to challenge the ongoing war.

Fortunately, some national organizations are providing forthright leadership to pursue the goal of getting U.S. troops out of Iraq. Those groups - including United for Peace & Justice, Progressive Democrats of America, Military Families Speak Out, TrueMajority, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Code Pink, Campus Antiwar Network, Veterans for Peace, Iraq Pledge of Resistance, American Friends Service Committee, Democracy Rising and U.S. Labor Against the War, to name just a dozen - inspire as they organize.

Only clear opposition to the war can change the terms of the national debate. Taking the paths of least resistance won't get us very far.

---

Norman Solomon's latest book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," will be published in early summer. His columns and other writings can be found at: normansolomon.com.

Why Graft Thrives in Postconflict Zones - A report issued Wednesday said Iraq could become 'the biggest corruption scandal in history.'

By Mark Rice-Oxley The Christian Science Monitor Thursday 17 March 2005

A report issued Wednesday said Iraq could become 'the biggest corruption scandal in history.'

London - Five Polish peacekeepers are arrested for allegedly taking $90,000 worth of bribes in Iraq. Several Sri Lankan officials are suspended for mishandling tsunami aid. US audits show large financial discrepancies in Iraq. Reports of aid abuse taunt Indonesia.

Two of the world's biggest-ever reconstruction projects - Iraq and post-tsunami Asia - are facing major tests of credibility, as billions of dollars of aid and reconstruction money pour in.

And according to a major report released Wednesday by Transparency International (TI), an international organization that focuses on issues of corruption, the omens are not good.

From Iraq and Afghanistan to Cambodia and Bosnia, from the wrecked coasts of Asia to the kleptocratic carve-up in some African countries, crisis zones are proving to be fertile soil for corruption, the report argues.

"Many postconflict countries figure among the most corrupt in the world," says Philippe le Billon of the University of British Columbia, Canada, in the TI report. "Corruption often predates hostilities and in many cases it features among the factors that triggered political unrest or facilitated conflict escalation."

The report cites weak government, haphazard law and order, armed factions that need appeasing, and a scramble for rich resources as factors that render a country prone to corruption.

Nations that face security threats are even more vulnerable, since they require protection money and may not be able to keep monitors safe.

Bosnia is a good example. During the breakdown of communism in the late 1980s, factions scrambled for assets by plundering state companies, a situation exacerbated by the 1992-1995 war.

Wartime sanctioned nefarious activity. Criminal gangs became cherished paramilitary groups; black markets flourished; underworld players became rich and powerful. After peace was declared in 1995, the world community was wary of upsetting the status quo. It's still unclear how much of the $5 billion spent on aid after the war ended up in the pockets of shady characters.

"These elements were either part of the ruling political parties, or criminal elements that were financing the ruling political parties," says James Lyon, an analyst in Belgrade with the International Crisis Group.

In Iraq, allegations range from petty bribery to large-scale embezzlement, expropriation, profiteering and nepotism. The TI report says it could become "the biggest corruption scandal in history."

"I can see all sorts of levels of corruption in Iraq," says report contributor Reinoud Leenders, "starting from petty officials asking for bribes to process a passport, way up to contractors delivering shoddy work and the kind of high-level corruption involving ministers and high officials handing out contracts to their friends and clients."

The recent elections may help, he adds, but already he notes a tendency for political bargaining indicative of "dividing up the cake of state resources."

But it is not just about Iraqis dividing up the cake. US audits of its own spending have found repeated shortcomings, including a lack of competitive bidding for contracts worth billions of dollars, payment of contracts without adequate certification that work had been done, and in some cases, outright theft.

A report on the disbursement of Iraqi oil revenues to ministries by the Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq until last July found a $340 million contract awarded by the electricity ministry without a public tender.

A January report by special inspector Stuart Bowen found that $8.8 billion dollars had been disbursed from Iraqi oil revenue by US administrators to Iraqi ministries without proper accounting.

And earlier this week, it emerged that the Pentagon's auditing agency found that Halliburton, the Houston oil services giant formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, overcharged by more than $108 million on a contract.

A Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, faces a number of investigations for overcharging, including one case where it charged the Army more than $27 million dollars to transport $82,000 worth of fuel from Kuwait to Iraq, according to excerpts of the report released this week by Rep. Henry Waxman (D) of California.

In a written statement. Halliburton defended the cost, explaining that delivering the fuel was "fraught with danger."

Analysts also point to an entrenched culture of graft in the Iraqi government.

It doesn't help that much of Iraq needs physical rebuilding, which involves the sector more vulnerable to corruption than any other: construction.

"Public works and construction are singled out by one survey after another as the sector most prone to corruption - in both the developing and the developed world," says TI chairman Peter Eigen.

Construction is considered prone to sleaze for several reasons: the fierce competition for "make or break" contracts; permits and approvals that are open to requests for backhanders; opportunities for delays and overruns; and the physical cover-up opportunity presented by plaster and concrete.

With whole swaths of Southeast Asia requiring rebuilding after the tsunami, experts worry that construction corruption could take a deadly toll.

"The cost will be lives lost," said Eigen, noting that cheap materials and corner-cutting can prove lethal in earthquake-prone parts of the world.

So how to battle corruption? Good governance is clearly the No. 1 priority, but TI identifies several other initiatives that can help improve probity.

These include vetting contractors and blacklisting those with shady records, ensuring competitive bidding for deals and assuring independent auditing and multilayered monitoring involving local communities, rotating staff in sensitive positions, and encouraging donors to disburse funds in a timely fashion to reduce pressure on local officials and prevent accounting trickery.

"We are simply making the case that a series of norms should be applied which make it much more feasible to avoid the kind factors driving corruption," says Lawrence Cockcroft, chairman of TI UK.

House Approves $81.4 Billion War Spending Package

By Liz Sidoti The Associated Press

Washington - The House on Wednesday approved an $81.4 billion emergency spending package for combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would push the total cost of the wars beyond $300 billion.

By a 388-43 vote, the House gave President Bush most of the money he had requested, with strong support from both Republicans and Democrats. The Senate will consider its version in April.

The legislation is the fifth emergency spending plan Bush has sent to Congress for wars since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It provides $76.8 billion for defense-related expenses and, overall, is roughly $500 million less than the president's request.

In a statement, Bush said the House passage showed a "strong bipartisan support for our troops and for our strategy to win the war on terror."

"The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are building new democracies and defying the terrorists, and America is standing with them," he said.

In a setback for the White House, the House trimmed president's request for Afghan reconstruction projects and State Department programs and prohibited any money in the bill from being used to build a sprawling U.S. embassy in Baghdad, despite intense lobbying by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The moves sent a signal to the president that while lawmakers would give troops what they needed, emergency spending packages for the war should only be used to pay for urgent matters.

"The reason for this supplemental is to provide as quickly as possible money flows in support of our troops," Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said in urging passage.

The White House said in a statement that while it supports the bill as a whole, the president is concerned that the legislation does not adequately pay for matters deemed urgent by the administration, including the State Department programs.

U.S. diplomatic officials in Iraq currently are working out of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces and the White House says a fortified U.S. embassy in Iraq is needed immediately. "Postponing construction will delay moving our people into more safe, secure and functional facilities," the White House said.

Excluding the latest spending package, Congress has approved $228 billion since the 2001 terrorist attacks for the two wars, the Pentagon's other efforts to hunt terrorists and rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. That's according to tracking by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for Congress.

The bulk of the money in bill the House passed Wednesday would go to the Army and the Marine Corps, the two service branches bearing the brunt of the war fighting. It would be spent for body armor, medical supplies, night-vision devices, communications equipment, weapons, ammunition and armor kits for combat vehicles. The legislation also increases the one-time death benefit for survivors of troops killed while on duty to $100,000 from $12,000.

The House bill provided $1.8 billion more for defense costs than the president had requested, reflecting a commitment on the part of both Republicans and Democrats to support U.S. troops.

As debate got under way on the bill Tuesday, the House added $100 million for disaster relief and famine assistance for the Sudan through an amendment sponsored by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.

Other spending in the bill includes:

• $656 million in direct assistance for relief and long-term reconstruction for Indian Ocean countries recovering from the December tsunami and $222 million to replenish U.S. military accounts tapped earlier for initial tsunami aid.
  
  
• $590 million to train police and battle narcotics in Afghanistan.
  
  
• $580 million for international peacekeeping missions, most of which is for Sudan.
  
  
• $200 million in economic assistance for the Palestinian Authority.

Exiting Iraq

By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 14 March 2005

I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
Question enrages him: at once, good-night.
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.

- Lady Macbeth, Act III, Scene IV

Cindy Sheehan had a son. His name was Casey, and he served in the 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. Casey Sheehan's unit came under fire in Baghdad on April 4th, 2004, from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, and he was killed. He was 24 years old.

Cindy Sheehan co-founded the group Gold Star Families for Peace. She has heard much from the Bush administration about completing the mission in Iraq in order to honor those who have died there. "My family and my group are offended," she writes, "by hearing this administration say that our troops have to remain in Iraq and complete 'the mission' to honor our loved ones' sacrifices. First of all, no one can explain the mission to us and we don't want any more innocent blood spilled just because it is too late for our soldiers and our families."

Cindy Sheehan is not alone. A woman on the t r u t h o u t FYI blog writes, "My husband and I lost our son to a roadside bomb In Iraq. He was the gunner on an unarmored humvee in a 14 vehicle convoy out picking up supplies. Our family will simply never recover. Our lives forever changed. I wouldn't wish this pain on my worst enemy. But to think that his life was wasted for a lie is just not acceptable. Something good must come from all of this. I will never stop working to help bring home the National Guard, seeing that they get the help they need when they get home, and helping people realize the true cost of this immoral war."

"My nephew," writes another woman, "signed up as soon as he could after 9/11 because he (with 17 yr. old bravado) thought he could find those bad guys. He was sent to Afghanistan where the hunt for Osama was on. Then suddenly he was shipped into Baghdad where he was KIA on night patrol, hit by an IED while driving an unarmored Humvee. Iraq did not attack us. Saddam was not a threat. He was not connected to Bin Laden. But boy, Iraq sure is connected to terrorism now -- and who can really be surprised? Look what we've done and continue to do to their land and citizens. There was no good reason or way to start this war and there is no good way to get out of it, but we have to!"

"I am a disabled Vietnam War combat vet," writes a man on the blog, "and, as such, I would like to add my perspective to this debate. If we pulled out immediately there will be consequences for the Iraqi people but we have to trust that they will work it out. I was in the Vietnam War in 1967 & 1968 and I prayed every day that I was there that the people back home would demand an immediate pull out as that was the only way the Vietnamese would be able to shape their own destiny. We as a country have been actively trying to shape the World to fit our needs ever since the end of WW II (and probably before that) and the consequences of these meddlings have been so much death, destruction, and lifelong wounds to those who participated in these endeavors either as tools or as victims. Pull out now. We have helped (as only we can) the Iraqis enough."

Specialist E-4 Patrick Resta served as an Army medic in Iraq before returning home. He spoke last week at Brown University about what is happening in that country, and where the troops stand on 'completing the mission.' "One of the most important things veterans can do, like myself," he said, "is come out here and present a true picture of Iraq, because the American media isn't letting people have that true picture." Resta describes soldiers spending their own money to buy armor, traveling through hostile territory in unprotected vehicles, using sandbags to augment their meager protection. He further described an overwhelming belief among the rank-and-file troops that the time has come to get out. "There was a running joke that 'Iraq' stood for 'I really am quitting,' " he said.

There are 1,516 families who endure the pain described by Cindy Sheehan and the others. Tens of thousands of other families have endured and will continue to endure the trauma of a loved one who has been maimed in Iraq. For the living soldiers still in Iraq and those who have returned, there is the probability of mental and emotional damage from what they saw and did, the impact of which is impossible to quantify and which will be with them and us for years to come. 198,000 Iraqi families have been forced to absorb the death of a loved one, and there is no accounting for the untold thousands of families who have had a member maimed, battered, tortured or radicalized past all recall.

It is enough.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq was based upon lies about weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda connections, and the fantasy that a people can be bombed and strafed into accepting a Western view of things, that democracy can be created at the point of the sword, that democracy was the point of this exercise in the first place. The occupation today is sustained by lies, both of omission by the news media and of the bare-face-hanging-out variety.

It is enough.

When the invasion and occupation of Iraq becomes an intellectual exercise, it is simple enough to put forth arguments for staying. One does not run into a china shop with a free-swinging baseball bat, smash everything in sight, and then scuttle out the door muttering, "Wasn't me." The potential for ethnic and religious civil war in Iraq is very real, as is the danger of an alliance between a newly-minted fundamentalist Iraqi government and the radicals in Iran on top of all that oil, as is the potential for Rwanda-style chaos in Iraq giving birth to a safe home base for international terrorism. These issues are real, and cannot be ignored.

Yet this is not an intellectual exercise. This is a flesh-and-bone reality, which Cindy Sheehan and the others can attest to with their words and the oceans of tears they have shed. For all the Bush administration prattle about democracy on the march and completing the mission, the fact is that democracy was never on the table and the mission has become a bloody and disorganized holding action that was never intended to reach a conclusion, but was intended to establish a permanent military presence in the region. The reality of the mess, in the minds of administration officials, justifies continued occupation.

A true plan for success in Iraq could involve the following:

• End the Houston-based contracting of work in Iraq and open the doors to Iraqi companies and workers. The believers in privatization here should practice what they preach and allow Iraqis to make money off the work and repairs needing to be done. As funds flow into the Iraqi economy, burgeoning and reconstituted private companies can take it upon themselves to make sure the lights work, the roads are paved, the water is running, and the trash is picked up. Once upon a time, Iraq was the most modern and industrialized nation in that region, filled with highly educated workers who know how to run a country. The Iraqi people must be allowed to run their country once again, and must be paid well for their work by Iraqi employers not beholden to profit margins in the United States.
  
  
• Arrange for the creation of a base of operations outside of Iraq where an Iraqi National Guard and police force can be trained to take over the security of their country. The old Christian canon states that whenever two or three people are gathered together to pray, Jesus is with them. In Iraq, whenever two or three people are gathered together to sign up for the army or the police, a suicide bomber is there with them to deal death. Establishing a place away from the violence where Iraqis can be prepared and armed for the work needed to gain control of the country will ultimately allow American forces to back away from policing the country, something that has been the chief aggravating factor among that populace. Doing this away from the violence will allow Iraqis to sign up for this work without fear of being blown sideways out a recruiting station.
  
  
• Until the infrastructure is repaired and security forces are assembled, steps must be taken to achieve stability without an American face on the action. Work in good faith with both the United Nations and the Arab League to assemble a large security force comprised of people from the region. Care must be taken to avoid any pitfalls regarding potential ethnic and religious friction between the Iraqi people and these Arab security forces, but this can be managed. Once Iraqi infrastructure is restored and a security and police force is in place, the Arab forces can begin a phased withdrawal. Meanwhile, American forces can be removed en masse.
  
  
• Practice what has been preached about bringing democracy to that nation. Democracy is not the installation of some bastardized Vichy government managed by remote control from Washington. The Iraqi people will never accept such a government, and the violence and chaos will never end. Provide security by way of the aforementioned steps and let the people decide how their country will be governed. The recent farce of an election did not achieve this; almost all of the candidates were anonymous because they feared assassination, and large swaths of the populace did not participate because they saw it as the sham it was. Let the government be formed as it will, and prepare for the diplomatic ramifications.
  
  
• A vital element to the process will be the establishment of a set timetable for withdrawal. Timetables are dangerous; if they are not met, rage is the inevitable result. Yet the changes required of our status in Iraq need date markers and deadlines to push the process along, and the Iraqi people need to know exactly when their country will be their own again.

These steps, properly fleshed out, could 'complete the mission' in a reality-based fashion. Other possible solutions have likewise been offered from a broad spectrum of involved parties. Unfortunately, we are not dealing with reality-based people in the Bush administration. We are dealing with people who denounce torture, terrorism and Syria while sending people to Syria to be tortured, despite the fact that Syria is known to support terrorism.

'Bizarro World' does not begin to encompass the kind of pretzel-logic we are dealing with here. So long as these Bush people are where they are, so long as there is political strength to be gained from perpetuating the war-party image they have concocted, and so long as there is one dime to be squeezed out of oil and military contracting by the companies that created and sustain this administration, we will never leave Iraq.

Unless, that is, they are not given any other choice. Before the invasion, millions of people took to the streets all across America and the world to try and stop this thing. After the invasion, a sense of despair filled those who opposed the war. In the two years since, that despair has deepened into a near state of surrender.

The time for despair is over. There are political, social and economic pressures that can be brought to bear against this administration and its war policies, so long as there are people willing to put their shoulders to the wheel, so long as people believe that they can achieve what seems today to be the impossible. This must happen, because it is enough.

This coming weekend, and specifically on March 19th, a global protest is planned to mark the two-year anniversary of 'Shock and Awe,' and to demand the U.S. withdraw from Iraq. Actions are taking place in cities and towns all across the country. Be a part of that, wherever you are. If there is no action planned near you, organize one yourself. Make your participation, and the participation of your friends and family, an absolute requirement. Make that day the point of a new beginning in this struggle. As a well-known doctor once said, you do have the power. Use it in the name of all you hold dear and all you hope for.

This year, we get loud.

Remembering all those arguments made 1,500 deaths ago

Wed Mar 9, 5:03 PM ET By Joseph L. Galloway, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Something about anniversaries prods us to pause and reflect on what's transpired in the intervening time. March 20 is the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), and it's a good time to consider what's happened since then.

Do you recall our civilian leadership's rationale for a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)? President George Bush (news - web sites) and Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and, yes, former Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) told the world that the United States had no choice but to invade Iraq. They said Saddam was hiding chemical and biological weapons, and that his scientists would be able to produce a nuclear weapon in a few years.

Do you remember those who predicted that the operation would be financed in large part by sales of Iraqi oil? It would be cheap, easy and, oh yes, so swift that civilian leaders in the Pentagon (news - web sites) ordered the military to plan to begin withdrawing from Iraq no later than the summer of 2003.

There was no need for much post-war planning because there wasn't going to be any post-war. America would come, conquer and get out. If Iraq was broken, its new government headed by the neo-conservatives' favorite exile, Ahmad Chalabi, could fix it. There would be no need for American nation-building, just some modest humanitarian aid.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's office had visions of a replay of the almost effortless destruction of Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s hated Taliban regime using precision-guided munitions, Special Operations forces with laser pointers and Afghan allies.

In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, less would be more, lighter would be better and faster would be best of all. Any Third World regime could be taken down by a few special operators and some airplanes. The Army's heavy divisions were relics of the Cold War.

When then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki reluctantly answered a senator's persistent questioning by suggesting that occupying and pacifying Iraq, an unruly nation the size of California with 25 million citizens, might require a force of "hundreds of thousands," he was mugged by Rumsfeld's minions.

Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz hastened to the Hill the next day and told the legislators that Shinseki's estimate was "wildly off the mark," and that Iraq wouldn't be nearly as tough as Afghanistan had been because Iraq didn't have the sort of nasty ethnic divisions one found in Afghanistan.

At that moment, in late February 2003, on the eve of the invasion, the U.S. invasion force of 278,000 American troops began to dwindle as someone tried to prove the job could be done with fewer than Shinseki's 200,000 troops. Call that the Shinseki Threshold.

One division's tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles bobbed around at sea for weeks and arrived too late for the attack. A second division of tanks and Bradley armored vehicles slated for the follow-up to the invasion was canceled; a third division's deployment to Iraq was postponed for several months. Military Police units needed to secure a hundreds of miles of dangerous supply lines - and to establish law and order - disappeared from the war plan.

A strike force that amounted to an Army division and a Marine Expeditionary Force, with Air Force and Navy fighters and bombers, took down Baghdad in three weeks.

But as the invasion forces regrouped, the world witnessed an orgy of looting and burning of government ministry buildings, and even the power plants upon which a city of 11 million people depended. There was no one to prevent it.

Birthing democracy, Rumsfeld allowed, can be "messy."

After nearly 18 months, the Pentagon admitted that a team of nearly 1,000 intelligence officials and scientists had combed Iraq for evidence of chemical and biological weapons or any sign of an active nuclear weapons program. They found nothing.

This war that was supposed to be a cakewalk has taken the lives of 1,510 American troops and sent thousands more home, maimed by improvised explosive devices that tear off arms and legs.

American taxpayers have paid more than $200 billion in two years for a war we were told wouldn't cost much, if anything, and the cost in fiscal 2006 will be at least $70 billion more.

Now the administration tells us that we had to attack not because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda, but because he wasn't a democrat. Sadly, however, the costs of trying to make Iraq a democracy probably would have been lower, and the chances of succeeding better, if we hadn't gone to war with flimsy evidence and wishful thinking.

---

ABOUT THE WRITER

Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young." Readers may write to him at: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, 700 12th St. N.W., Suite 1000, Washington, D.C. 20005-3994.

White House Acknowledges Iran Intel 'Hard to Come By'

By REUTERS Published: March 13, 2005

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House acknowledged on Sunday the difficulty of gathering good intelligence in Iran but said Tehran's behavior was ``suspicious enough'' to warrant stepping up pressure over its nuclear program.

``Intelligence in Iran is hard to come by. It is a very closed society. They keep their secrets very well,'' White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley told CNN's ``Late Edition.''

Hadley was asked whether, given the intelligence failures in pre-war Iraq, he was convinced that U.S. intelligence in Iran was good enough to declare that it was developing a nuclear bomb.

On ``Fox News Sunday,'' Hadley also cautioned the Iranian government against taking comfort in President Bush's decision to back Europe in offering limited economic incentives to Tehran to abandon its suspected nuclear arms program.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who also appeared on the Sunday news shows, said the decision sends a message to Tehran that it now faces a united trans-Atlantic front.

After weeks of friction with Russia over its involvement in nuclear projects in Iran, Rice said Moscow's deal to take back all spent nuclear fuel from Iran's Russian-built Bushehr power plant ``demonstrated, we believe, that they (the Russians) also do not believe that the Iranians should have this kind of activity.''

In return for U.S. support for incentives, Britain, France and Germany said they would haul Tehran before the U.N. Security Council if it resumed uranium enrichment and nuclear reprocessing activities, which could be used to develop an atomic bomb.
``I do not think that the Iranian regime can take much comfort in this, because, as part of this arrangement, the Europeans now for the first time are talking about Iranian support to terror and the need for this Iranian regime to listen to their people and to give them a greater role in the political process,'' Hadley said.

Rice set no deadline for the negotiations but said, ``Everybody understands that there has to be a permanent arrangement in which the Iranians forgo the means by which to develop nuclear weapons, and that needs to happen sooner rather than later.''
The U.S. intelligence community faces major credibility problems after reporting that pre-war Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear arms. The assertions were a main justification for the 2003 U.S. invasion but no such weapons have been found.

Hadley defended U.S. nuclear charges against Iran, citing the way it hid its uranium enrichment program and other activities from international inspectors.

``The failure to disclose and the lack of compliance with their (international) agreements raises serious suspicions, in not only our mind, but in the Europeans' mind,'' Hadley said.

``Their behavior has been suspicious enough that not only the United States but also the Europeans are concerned and think we need some guarantees ... that are clear that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon capability,'' he added.

His comments come less than a week after The New York Times reported that a presidential commission investigating pre-war intelligence about Iraq's weapons has concluded that U.S. data on Iran's arms is ``inadequate.''

US May End Up in Dock at UN Human Rights Meet

By REUTERS

Published: March 13, 2005

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States, usually a finger-pointer on human rights, could end up in the dock itself over reports of torture and abuse in its war on terror when the United Nations begins a worldwide scrutiny this week.

Activists, such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch, are urging members of the Commission on Human Rights to condemn Washington for mistreatment of prisoners detained abroad.

If any such move emerges during the commission's annual session, which starts on Monday, the United States will be in a similar position to Cuba, Iran and Sudan, countries which Washington and others are likely to seek to pillory.

``If the commission is going to be taken seriously, it needs to be looking at the United States as well as Cuba, China and other serious human rights situations,'' said Loubna Freih, Geneva representative of Human Rights Watch.

The United States has been strongly criticized over revelations of abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan and allegations of mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

But for many activists and diplomats, it is debatable whether the commission, whose 53 members include many states whose rights' records are questionable, can still be taken seriously.

Sudan, whose government has been accused by a U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry of ``heinous crimes'' in its western Darfur region, is a member, as are Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia, two other countries where critics say abuse is common.

A high level panel of experts probing the workings of the U.N., at the request of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, concluded its credibility had been eroded because members were more concerned with protecting themselves and their allies than in exposing rights violations.

POLITICAL HEAT

Launched in 1946, the Geneva-based commission examines nations' adherence to treaties and conventions on issues ranging from illegal killings and arbitrary detention to women's rights, child pornography and the right to food and health.

But the most political heat has traditionally been generated by report cards on individual countries.

Israel's actions in Palestinian territory under military occupation will be again condemned, as will North Korea, Myanmar and possibly Belarus, diplomats say.

The six week session could also see tough words for Nepal, where King Gyanendra sacked the government and took full powers, adding to what Amnesty International says is a ``human rights catastrophe.''

However, it was not certain there would be a fresh bid to censure China over reported repression of ethnic and religious minorities and other alleged abuses, or Russia over continuing kidnappings and disappearances blamed on security forces in the rebel region of Chechnya. Russia was last criticized in 2001, but China has always successfully used procedural maneuvers to block any bid to condemn it.

And African members of the commission may rally enough support to ensure that Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe's government has been widely accused of repressing dissent, again escapes rebuke, diplomats say.

In the case of Washington, so far only its political enemy Cuba has said it will attempt to bring the prisoner abuse issue before the commission.

Montana call for Iraq troop return sparks debate

12 Mar 2005 00:59:16 GMT By Laura Zuckerman SULA, Mont., March 11 (Reuters) -

Newly elected Gov. Brian Schweitzer infuriated Republican lawmakers -- the minority party in state government for the first time in more than a decade -- who see his request as a back-door way to criticize the Bush administration over Iraq.

Montana's Democratic governor has touched off a political fight with state Republicans after calling for the return of National Guard troops serving in Iraq to help out during what many fear will be a record-setting wildfire season.

"He's figured out how to use the wildfire season to protest the Iraq war," said Senate Minority Leader Bob Keenan said on Tuesday. "It's an anti-war statement and condemnation of Bush's actions." The governor and his supporters deny those charges in a growing political battle that comes as weather experts say a seven-year drought and a severely reduced snowpack could lead to a devastating summer of wildfires.

They also worry that limited resources stretched thinner by National Guardsmen serving overseas could make it difficult to combat the kind of massive blazes that engulfed the state in 2000 when some 2,400 wildfires torched nearly 950,000 acres of mostly public land.

"Everything right now is pointing to the possibility of a large and damaging fire season," said Bruce Thoricht, meteorologist with the federal Northern Rockies Coordination Center in Missoula. Gov. Schweitzer ignited the firestorm last week when he said Montana, which backed Bush's re-election, would disproportionately suffer the pain of proposed cuts in the federal budget, with money targeted for firefighting slashed in half.

Democrats also say the drought-plagued, fire-prone Western state about the size of Germany never has enough resources to fight summer blazes even with all the troops at home. "I would be remiss as chief executive of Montana not to look at the cards I'm dealt and not recognize it's not a good hand and we need new cards," the governor told Reuters earlier this week. As fire season approaches, about 1,500 of Montana's 3,500 National Guard troops have been deployed on federal active duty, said Montana Guard spokesman Maj. Scott Smith.

Smith declined to weigh in on the governor's position but a Pentagon spokesman Lt. Colonel Mike Milord said in an e-mail on Tuesday the state's Guard force was at 56 percent and that deals with neighboring states would provide for more troops during emergencies this summer.

And the bulk of the Guard's helicopters -- critical in shuttling fire crews and equipment to blazes -- are unavailable, either because they are in Iraq or their aviation officers are absent.

Taiwan: War bill a big provocation

Monday, March 14, 2005 Posted: 9:01 AM EST (1401 GMT)

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Taiwan's government has warned that China's new anti-secession law is a "war bill" that will have a "serious impact" on security in the region.

Calling the measure a "serious provocation," Joseph Wu, chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council told The Associated Press it "restricts Taiwan's freedom and democracy, and has a serious impact on security in the East-Asia region."

On Monday, China's National People's Congress authorized the use of military force to stop any independence move by the island.

The measure "represents the common will and strong determination of the Chinese people to safeguard the territorial integrity" of China, NPC chairman Wu Bangguo said.

But Wu added the measure would only be used if Taiwan declared independence or if negotiations for peaceful reunification are exhausted.

Leaders in Beijing consider Taiwan a renegade province after Nationalist troops lost the civil war on the mainland and fled to the island in 1949.

China has long threatened to take military action to prevent Taiwan from declaring formal independence, but Monday's move lays a legal framework behind those threats.

Taiwan officials were quick to call the measure a "war bill," coming as China boosts its military spending by 13 percent to $30 billion.

"The anti-secession law is a law that authorizes war," Taiwan cabinet spokesman Cho Jung-tai told reporters.

"It has caused resentment in Taiwan and opposition in the international community. China has to bear the responsibility and pay a price for this law."

But Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said the new legislation was not a "war bill" and warned outsiders not to get involved.

"This is a law advancing peaceful unification between the sides. It is not targeted at the people of Taiwan, nor is it a war bill," Wen said at a news conference, shortly after the law was passed.

The law also declares that the status of Taiwan "is China's internal affair, which subjects to no interference by any outside forces."

In Washington, the Bush administration last week called it "unhelpful" and urged Beijing to reconsider the bill.

China hopes the law will deter Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian from pushing for the island's independence before the end of his second and last term in 2008, analysts told Reuters news agency.

Despite the legislation, analysts say the People's Liberation Army has no immediate plans to attack Taiwan and the "non-peaceful" means is not specifically a reference to war. It could, for example, be economic sanctions or blockades.

Reuters reports the new law will feature in talks between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing in Beijing on March 20-21.

Washington recognizes China but is Taiwan's main supporter and arms supplier.

U.S. President George W. Bush has pledged to help Taiwan defend itself against any Chinese attack.

A Case Study in Postwar Chaos

by T. Christian Miller The Los Angeles Times Saturday 12 March 2005

The dealings of coalition officials in Iraq and a contractor now accused of fraud illustrate what went wrong in early rebuilding efforts.

Washington - Mike Battles needed money fast. It was June 2003 and his cash-starved company had just won a contract to guard the Baghdad airport.

Battles turned to a lender that had lots of cash and few questions about how it would be spent: the U.S.-led coalition in charge of Iraq.

As Battles later told criminal investigators, he descended into a vault in the basement of one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, where a U.S. government employee handed him $2 million in $100 bills and a handwritten receipt.

Battles "was informed that the contracting process would catch up" later to account for the money, according to a statement he gave investigators.

By the time it did, the adventures of his fledgling security company, Custer Battles, had become a case study in what had gone wrong in the early days of the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq, not least the haphazard and often ineffective U.S. oversight of the projects.

Today, Battles and his partner, Scott Custer, are facing a criminal investigation, lawsuits by former employees and a federal order suspending them from new government business because of allegations of fraud.

Neither Custer nor Battles responded to requests for interviews made through their attorney. However, in court records and interviews with criminal investigators, the two men have denied any wrongdoing.

They have blamed the accusations on disgruntled employees who were fired; on former employees who now compete with Custer Battles for security work in Iraq; and on government officials who harbor grudges against the company.

Court records, internal company memos, interviews with current and former employees and government investigators, and confidential documents from a Pentagon criminal investigation reviewed by The Times depict a company that ran into trouble almost from the moment it hit the ground in Iraq.

Company employees allegedly forged invoices, clashed with government officials and tried to dodge taxes. The company is accused of missing deadlines, providing shoddy equipment, failing to deliver services and botching routine security inspections, the records and interviews show.

Along the way, two of its guards allegedly moved to attack some Iraqi teenagers. And U.S. officials were startled to discover that Custer Battles was also operating a dog kennel and a catering service on airport grounds, according to interviews.

Just as worrisome as the allegations, perhaps, has been the U.S. government's response.

Beginning shortly after Custer Battles won its Baghdad airport contract, at least five senior U.S. government officials or consultants came to suspect wrongdoing by the firm or its employees, records show. Yet over the next 14 months, the company continued to win new government business, and even today holds a key contract in the U.S. program to equip and arm Iraq's new security forces.

Not until September 2004, when the U.S. Air Force acted to prevent the company from receiving any new federal contracts, did Custer Battles' explosive growth slow.

In most cases, high turnover and enormous workloads among government officials prevented them from taking action against a company that repeatedly deflected attempts to examine its operations, the records and interviews show. It was a messy situation easily exploited.

"They were the only constant in a sea of change," said Frank Willis, who oversaw civil aviation during a six-month stint working for the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, which administered Iraq. "That's called playing the chaos, and they were masters at it."

Army Col. Richard Ballard, then inspector general for the U.S.-led forces that invaded Iraq, said he lacked the staff to focus on Custer Battles in the face of other problems such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

"In an environment where an organization is undermanned, overworked and struggling just to let contracts … there are few checks and balances," said Ballard, who is now retired. "That environment characterized the contracting process in Iraq during the second half of 2003, and probably still does today."

A series of government audits of the Iraq reconstruction process has confirmed lax oversight and identified billions of unaccounted-for dollars.

In an interview, the firm's attorney said the company may have made mistakes in paperwork but denied that Custer and Battles had defrauded the government. The attorney, John Boese, said the two men had fulfilled all contract terms in the midst of a war zone.

"The rules were nightmarish. They didn't really exist. Radar O'Reilly from 'MASH' would clearly go to jail under these rules," said Boese, referring to the television character who was famous for maneuvering through military bureaucracy.

At first glance, Custer Battles seemed an unlikely candidate to win work on critical missions.

Before Iraq, Custer Battles had never landed a government contract. The 2-year-old firm booked less than $200,000 in revenue before the war, providing private security services in Afghanistan, its lawyers said.

The company's two founders were brash, energetic and inexperienced. Custer was a former Army Ranger. Battles was an ex-CIA agent who had made an unsuccessful run for Congress in 2002 as a Rhode Island Republican.

But within six months of landing the airport deal, Custer Battles had taken in $32 million in revenue from its contracts, records show. The two men built a headquarters, complete with swimming pool, at the airport.

The company won the $16.8-million contract to protect the airport despite never having guarded a site. It beat two more-experienced firms, according to interviews and records, by promising to start work sooner than anybody else, a key criterion in Iraq's post-invasion mayhem.

Coalition officials initially expected Custer Battles to perform routine security. Instead, the airport quickly became an insurgent target and the firm was suddenly guarding a fortified facility and surrounding grounds.

Such rapidly changing missions became a common difficulty in Iraq. Coalition officials frequently altered contract terms, ordering up million-dollar changes with a handwritten scrawl or spoken order.

Some contractors resisted such haphazard changes, delaying the reconstruction process. Others, like Custer Battles, rolled with the new demands, tallying charges with little paper trail to account for them.

First to raise concern was Ballard, who found that Custer Battles employees lacked training and equipment. In 20 on-site inspections, Ballard said, he watched guards wave trucks through without inspecting them. He said he never saw Custer Battles use dog teams, as the firm had promised, to screen incoming vehicles.

Ballard said he also witnessed two company security guards in black fatigues conducting what he termed an unauthorized mission, firing an automatic weapon into the air, in an attempt to stop young Iraqis suspected of firing rounds near an airport checkpoint. He halted the incipient attack.

Ballard said his attempt to investigate the firm was blocked by Custer, who disputed his authority despite a written order from U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top military official in Iraq. Ballard recommended that the coalition terminate the contract. But he became distracted by the scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison, he said, and took no formal action before leaving Iraq.

"I concluded that they were intentionally attempting to defraud the government," he said.

Willis, a retired senior official at the U.S. Department of Transportation who oversaw the civilian side of the Baghdad airport, clashed with Custer Battles repeatedly.

Without seeking permission, the company opened a dog kennel at the airport, offering bomb-sniffing dogs to other clients, Willis said. It also began mysteriously bringing in Filipino workers, apparently to work on catering contracts. On one visit to Custer Battles headquarters, Willis found 40 Filipinos living in cramped quarters.

Willis demanded that Custer justify use of the airport to expand his business. He said Custer rebuffed him. Willis left Iraq after six months of service, and again no formal action was taken.

Custer Battles continued to guard the airport until June 2004. Although the government did not extend the contract, the firm won high praise from Douglas Gould, the fourth coalition official in a year to oversee the airport.

A U.S. official said Gould, who took over last spring, was aware of "rumors" about problems with Custer Battles. But nobody passed on word that the Pentagon had opened a criminal investigation of a money-exchange contract in October 2003.

"Nothing was raised as a red flag," the U.S. official said.

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Soon after Custer Battles won the airport deal, it landed a second job: a $9.8-million contract to build housing for workers in a project to exchange Iraq's old currency for newly minted dinars. That contract would grow to be worth as much as $21.4 million.

The coalition team heading the project soon grew frustrated with Custer Battles. The company had missed deadlines to set up the camps. Its trucks frequently broke down. Subcontractors complained to coalition officials of not being paid, according to a memo from a government consultant obtained by The Times.

Then the consultant found a spreadsheet that appeared to show that the firm was artificially boosting profit, according to a memo from the consultant. The spreadsheet indicated that the company had invoiced the government $2.1 million for $913,000 worth of work.

Despite the Pentagon investigation, coalition officials approved an additional $5.6 million in contract changes, saying they would recoup any money paid out on fraudulent invoices later, records show.

"Termination of work by Custer Battles … would have a disastrous impact on the success of the currency exchange program," Al Runnels, then the chief financial officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority, wrote in a memo in November 2003.

As the criminal investigation progressed, two Custer Battles insiders came forward and described a complex scheme to defraud the government.

The insiders told investigators that the company had set up shell companies in the Cayman Islands to create fake invoices. They said Custer Battles submitted the invoices to the government to be reimbursed for work done by the offshore companies without disclosing that it owned them.

The subsidiaries' invoices were padded with a markup that led to profits of as much as 130%, versus the 25% limit the contract imposed, the whistle-blowers told investigators.

The two whistle-blowers, William "Pete" Baldwin and Robert Isakson, confirmed their account in interviews with The Times. Both men worked for Custer Battles and left under acrimonious circumstances. They have filed a civil lawsuit under the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue on behalf of the government. If successful, the men are entitled to a portion of the money returned to the government.

(A firm run by Isakson has since been sued by the U.S. Agency for International Development alleging fraud. The suit claims that the firm, DRC Inc., illicitly profited from a contract for construction work in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1999. Isakson has denied wrongdoing.)

Pentagon auditors tried to take a look at the company's books on the money-exchange contract in February 2004. But Custer Battles was able to block inquiries from the Defense Contract Audit Agency because there was no provision in the contract for an audit, according to the Pentagon.

The investigative trail was further obscured by ambiguity in the contract. In denying illegal behavior, lawyers for Custer Battles argued that the company was to be paid a fixed price, which meant there would be no incentive to inflate its costs. But some contract documents reviewed by The Times contradict this interpretation.

The attorneys for Custer Battles said the fraud allegations were ludicrous because the company had lost money on the contract. Company records submitted by the firm say that the company received about $9 million from the government and spent more than $14 million. The attorneys also said the Cayman Island firms were legitimate businesses.

"This is not about not delivering," Boese said. "These are questions about accounting and contract interpretation."

Finally, in September, the Air Force issued what's known in the business as a "death sentence," forbidding any U.S. agency to issue contracts to Custer Battles or a long list of affiliated companies and people. It can, however, fulfill its existing contracts.

The Justice Department continues a criminal investigation of the company, and the whistle-blower case is proceeding slowly through the courts.

The case raises questions about the U.S. government's performance in an area as important as the reconstruction of Iraq.

"We went to Iraq to show them how a nation of laws works," said Patrick Burns, a spokesman for Taxpayers Against Fraud, which monitors fraud and has closely followed the Custer Battles case.

"Instead, we're teaching them how to get away with fraud."