Did Someone Say Withdrawal?

The Nation Monday 30 May 2005

For the first time since the war in Iraq began twenty-six months ago, the House of Representatives debated the need for US troops to exit Iraq. The modest amendment, introduced by Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California last Thursday evening, called on President Bush to develop a plan for the withdrawal of US forces. With virtually no prior notice or lobbying, 123 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted for Woolsey's amendment. But with no support from either the Democratic or Republican leadership, and thus no chance of passing, no major US newspaper felt obligated to cover the unprecedented proceedings.

Instead, the House added $49 billion more for the Iraqi occupation--on top of the $82 billion recently appropriated--as part of the $491 billion 2006 National Defense Authorization Act. The massive defense bill establishes a new fleet of nuclear submarines, provides millions for new aircrafts and ships, adds $100 million for a missile defense system and expands research for bunker-busting bombs. All of this the House could easily support. But not a non-binding call for a withdrawal plan.

"We have never voted one time together, not one time in the 11 years I have been here," conservative North Carolina Republican Walter Jones said in reference to his support for Woolsey's amendment. "What I am saying here tonight is we have a responsibility. We should not be into some endless, endless war in Iraq." Republicans Howard Coble, John Duncan, Jim Leach and Ron Paul agreed.

"With more than $200 billion on the line," Woolsey asked, "Do the Members not think that the American people deserve to know what the President plans to do in Iraq?"

Apparently not, as Republicans countered with a time-honored strategy: portray those opposed to the occupation as soft, sissy appeasers. "Make no mistake about it," said House Armed Forces Chairman Duncan Hunter, "This amendment is a message-sender. It is a message-sender to people like Al Sadr...It is a message-sender to Zarqawi...It is a message-sender to our troops, who might, in seeing if this amendment should pass, feel that the resolve of the American people is fading away." To buttress their militarism, Republicans introduced combat veteran after combat veteran to speak on the House floor. "It is interesting that as a combat veteran, I spoke to literally thousands of other combat veterans, and it is amazing the differences of their opinions versus liberal politicians," said Rep. Duke Cunningham, Vietnam vet.

The majority of America must then be liberals, judging from recent public opinion polls. Iraq tops the list of American concerns in the latest Gallup poll, with three-fourths of those respondents advocating an immediate withdrawal. Sixty-four percent of conservative Democrats in a Pew survey want the troops brought home as soon as possible. And fifty-seven percent of Americans told CNN/USA Today/Gallup that the Iraq war was not worth fighting.

Rather than prepare an exit strategy, the US military is instead planning to consolidate its forces in four massive American bases in Iraq. The move is not part of a plan to establish a permanent US military presence, officials assured the Washington Post. But the structures have distinctly permanent characteristics, replete with blast-proof barracks. The funding came as part of the $82 billion supplemental approved a few weeks back. Congress, to be sure, raised nary a peep.

Honor Their Sacrifice

The San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Monday 30 May 2005

With daily dispatches of car bombings, helicopter crashes and deadly clashes with insurgents, this Memorial Day brings with it more vivid reminders than many such days of the past. For all the celebrations that mark this heartfelt American holiday, the harrowing duties being carried out by U.S. troops overseas offer a stark picture of the grim realities of war.

In times of peace and prosperity, it is easier to forget the great valor and personal sacrifice of the millions of Americans who have died in combat. Today, with the aftermath of war raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, the price of the dedication of soldiers in harm's way is impossible to overlook.

For each generation looking back on its own war, the meaning of death never changes, just the reasons for why they occurred. But the politics and purpose behind each conflict do not diminish the bravery and suffering of soldiers lost.

Whether remembering family members lost in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf or the wars of today, the soldiers we commemorate deserve our lasting respect for their ultimate sacrifice. When we see the fresh flowers on the graves, the flags blowing in the wind, the parades and official tributes, it's important to remember that those casual images mark what Shakespeare called a "fellowship of death." No matter if we agree with the reason for the fight -- or the vision of those who would justify it -- the dead cannot be dishonored.

Our veterans will note that this is the 137th Memorial Day celebrated in this country since it was inaugurated to pay tribute to Union soldiers killed in the Civil War. Time may fade the memory of the oldest wars, but it never obscures the meaning of true duty and a greater purpose.

Remember the Wounded

By John Wheeler The Washington Post Monday 30 May 2005

We should recognize and honor all sacrifices for America.

Eleven years ago Lewis B. Puller Jr., winner of a Pulitzer Prize for the book "Fortunate Son" on his experiences as a Marine platoon commander who was severely wounded in Vietnam, took his own life. Puller had lost both legs and the use of his hands in the war. On May 11, 1994, he finally succumbed to stump pain, to frustration at his inability to grasp objects and to depression, which he had fought for 25 years.

We were close friends, and I can attest that Lew fought his troubles to the end. Despite his disability, he had just completed a trip to Hanoi to pick school sites for the Vietnam Children's Fund. The first school was named for him.

Wounds like Lew's -- from what is now called an improvised explosive device -- are more frequent in Iraq than they were in Vietnam. With protection around vital organs, the rate of wounded Americans having amputations is 6 percent -- three times the rate it was in Vietnam. Also, because of the angle from which such explosive devices strike, about one in five of those evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany has head or neck injuries; many have brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration.

Thanks to forward surgical teams, in mini-hospitals close to battle, the ratio of wounded to killed is 8 to 1 in Iraq, up from 5 to 1 in Vietnam. Surgeon Atul Gawande wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine about one Iraq case, "Injuries like his were unsurvivable in previous wars. The cost, however, can be high. The airman lost one leg above the knee, the other in a hip disarticulation, his right hand, and part of his face. How he and others like him will be able to live and function remains an open question."

Lew's case shows the need for recognition, support and encouragement for these wounded, especially to avert depression, isolation and suicide. Like Lew, many wounded veterans can continue to be very productive, but they can at the same time be afflicted by potentially fatal aftereffects.

Unfortunately, no Memorial Day ceremony or war memorial that I have seen has explicitly honored the wounded. In fact, under House Concurrent Resolution 587 of Feb. 10, 1966, Memorial Day is simply for paying "tribute to those who gave their lives."

This oversight needs correction. We need to honor the wounded as well as those who died. Their numbers are growing, and society needs to both acknowledge their sacrifice and understand their situation. And it needs, through this tribute, to give support and encouragement to the families of the wounded -- families that bear great anguish, time devoted to care and economic loss.

Some wounds are not as visible as others. The Purple Heart excludes post-traumatic stress disorder as well as infections and disease that often become evident after a veteran has left the war zone. The Department of Veterans Affairs has reported, concerning Afghanistan and Iraq, that these new wars "will produce a new generation of veterans at risk for the chronic mental health problems that result, in part, from exposure to the stress, adversity, and trauma of war-zone experiences. . . . [I]t is important to . . . raise the awareness of civilians back home, to prepare loved ones for soldiers' return."

The nation and its government need to give some thought to ways to honor the wounded and to recognize the full range of impairments suffered by those who have served and sacrificed for their country. Topics for discussion could include officially expanding the purpose of Memorial Day, establishing medals for cases excluded from the Purple Heart (severe illness in the war zone or later, and death in battlefield accidents), and mentioning the wounded, veterans who suffer illnesses and their families in war memorials. This is a good day to start.

Over 600 Dead Since Bush Trumpeted New Iraq Govt.

Bombings across Iraq Kill More Than 50 People
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Naseer Nouri The Washington Post Tuesday 24 May 2005

Government tries to demonstrate control.

Baghdad - Bombings targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces and Shiite Arab civilians at worship, at lunch, at home and on the road killed more than 50 people across Iraq on Monday, officials said, heightening sectarian tensions and taking the death toll past 600 since a new government was installed less than a month ago.

Iraq's Shiite-led administration, meanwhile, tried to portray itself as taking control of security. Iraqi television aired extended broadcasts of the trial of three accused insurgents facing the death penalty, and a new music video introduced on state TV featured Abul Waleed, commander of a feared police commando unit, saying: "We will cut off the arms of insurgents."

The U.S. military reported the deaths of five American troops Sunday -- three killed in two attacks in Mosul and a fourth killed in a car bombing in Tikrit, north of Baghdad. Another soldier died in a vehicle accident near Kirkuk, the military said.

Monday's violence followed a lull in bombings that lasted several days and the first significant overtures this weekend by Sunni Arab leaders to end a Sunni boycott of politics that had lasted more than two years.

Iraq's disgruntled Sunni minority, which long dominated the country's political and military leadership but was ousted from power along with Saddam Hussein in early 2003, has been at the forefront of the insurgency. Americans and Iraqis have hoped that drawing Sunnis into the new political process would quell the violence, but the issue remains unresolved. Insurgent attacks have intensified since the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari took office at the end of April.

In the deadliest of Monday's attacks, two bombings killed 30 people in the volatile northern town of Tall Afar, hospital officials said.

The first bomb exploded late Monday outside the home of a Shiite tribal leader, according to an emergency room director who identified himself only as Haidar and a hospital director who said his name was Saleh. A second bomb exploded as crowds gathered to help the wounded from the first blast, the medical officials said. The second bomb claimed most of the victims.

Another car bomb exploded late Monday outside a Shiite mosque at Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of Baghdad. The attack killed at least 10 people and injured 30, the Associated Press quoted hospital officials as saying.

At lunchtime, a car bomb exploded outside a cafe frequented by workers in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of north Baghdad, killing at least five people, hospital officials said.

The bomb was detonated by remote control, police said. While the intended targets appeared to have been police who also gather at the cafe, witnesses said the victims were civilians.

"I swear to God, I will not enter any restaurant if I see any policemen sitting there," laborer Saleem Nima said in a street littered with metal shards and body parts. Shopkeepers were already sweeping up shattered glass.

"There is no safe place in Baghdad, not even your bedroom," Nima said.

Insurgents "are cowards," said Nabeel Hassan, another laborer. "They cannot face these men man-to-man, so they show us how brave they are by killing these poor men who run all day to feed their families.''

In Tuz Khormato, south of the northern city of Kirkuk, explosives loaded into a pickup truck detonated, killing five people outside a city council office, said police Lt. Gen. Sarhat Qader, according to the Associated Press. A mortar round hit a house in Kirkuk, killing two people, police told the AP.

The day's violence began with gunmen killing a national security official, Maj. Gen. Wael Rubaei, as he drove to work in Baghdad. His driver also was killed. Officials of the new government and security forces have been frequent targets of assassination.

U.S. and Iraqi troops detained about 300 people in what a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, called the largest combined operation by the two countries' forces to date. The overnight sweeps targeted neighborhoods around the U.S.-run prison at Abu Ghraib and near the road to Baghdad's main airport. Both areas have been the scene of repeated insurgent attacks.

Jafari's government took to the airwaves to show that it was fighting back against insurgents.

State TV aired nearly an hour of videotape from a capital murder trial in the southern city of Kutin which three alleged members of the Ansar al-Sunna insurgent group were sentenced to death for killing at least three policemen. Spectators in the courtroom held up photographs of the men's alleged victims. The stooped, scarved mother of one of those killed asked the court to convict and execute the accused. The proceedings took place Sunday.

The three men are the first suspected insurgents to face the death penalty since Hussein fell. Many Iraqi leaders have been adamant about retaining the death penalty to ensure that Hussein would be executed if convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a trial expected this year.

A government-made music video on state TV showed one of Iraq's most feared police units in action, catching insurgents, digging up arms caches and patrolling the streets. Sunni leaders accuse the unit, the Wolf Brigade, of torture and summary killings of Sunni clerics and others.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, were expected to elect a commission Tuesday to start drafting a new constitution, which is the Jafari government's most important mandate. Lawmakers in the 275-seat National Assembly are to choose between a Shiite and a Kurd to chair the commission. Shiite politicians have insisted that a Shiite be picked.

US 'SENT DETAINEES TO EGYPT'

A new report by a leading human rights group says the United States and other countries have secretly sent dozens of Islamist detainees to Egypt, where they have most likely been tortured, in the past decade.

The 53-page report by Human Rights Watch said Egypt is the world's main recipient of detainees.

The report, titled Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt, identifies 61 people who have been transferred into Egyptian custody since 1994.

However some experts quoted by the report say the actual number of people sent to Egypt is much higher, as such transfers usually occur in secret and without legal safeguards.

The report cites analysts, lawyers and Islamic activists who believe 150 to 200 detainees have been transferred since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

Those transferred to Egypt, most of them Egyptians suspected of Islamist militancy, include people believed to offer useful intelligence for US authorities in Washington's war on terrorism.

Others mentioned in the report were two Yemenis transferred to Egypt, one to Yemen and another to US custody at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"Egypt ... has been the country to which the greatest numbers of rendered suspects have been sent," said the report.

While most of the countries transferring detainees to Egypt are Arab or South Asian, Sweden and the US are also on the list.

"The person sent back to Egypt under these circumstances is almost surely going to be tortured," Human Rights Watch deputy Middle East director Joe Stork said.

He said torture and other forms of mistreatment are so prevalent in Egypt that by sending detainees there, countries are violating the international convention against torture.

The report calls on foreign governments to halt the practice, at least until Egypt can prove it does not mistreat prisoners.

"Do not under any circumstances extradite, render, or otherwise transfer to Egypt persons suspected or accused of security offences unless and until the government of Egypt has demonstrated that it has ended practices of torture and ill-treatment," the report urged.

The report cited the case of Egypt-born Australian Mamdouh Habib, who said he was detained in Pakistan in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks and was interrogated by US agents before being sent to Egypt.

He has repeatedly alleged he was tortured in prison there for six months before his transfer to Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Habib was released and returned home earlier this year.

The ABC reports that the Egyptian Supreme Council for Human Rights has backed torture allegations by Egyptian police and security forces, in its first annual report.

US President George W Bush earlier this year insisted Washington does not engage in torture or send suspects to countries without assurances they won't be mistreated.

"We operate within the law and we send people to countries where they say they're not going to torture the people," he said at an April 28 news conference.

US officials said a classified directive signed by MR Bush after 9/11 gave the CIA broad power to transfer detainees without approval from the White House, according to Reuters.

How many more lives are we willing to lose?

Honor the Fallen : http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html

See the men and women who have died for this war: U.S. & Coalition/Casualties

See the statistics: http://icasualties.org/oif/

More Statistics: http://www.antiwar.com/casualties

Don't close your eyes to this - Write your Congressman - Express yourself Today!

Reid Calls Bush 'A Loser'

By Christina Almeida The Associated Press Saturday 07 May 2005

Las Vegas - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called President Bush "a loser" during a civics discussion with a group of teenagers at a high school on Friday.

"The man's father is a wonderful human being," Reid, D-Nev., told students at Del Sol High School when asked about the president's policies. "I think this guy is a loser."

Shortly after the event Reid called the White House to apologize, his spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. Reid spoke with Bush adviser Karl Rove, asking him to convey the apology to Bush, who was traveling in Europe.

The Nevada Democrat expressed "regret for the comments, that it was inappropriate," Hafen said. Reid was giving a late speech in Salt Lake City and was unavailable for comment, she said.

Asked for comment, a White House spokeswoman referred to a statement issued by the Republican National Committee. RNC spokesman Brian Jones called Reid's statement "a sad development but not surprising from the leader of a party devoid of optimism, ideas or solutions to the issues people care about most."

Reid visited the school to discuss Congress and the debate over judicial filibusters. He repeated that the Senate will be brought to a standstill if Republicans change the rules regarding filibusters to hasten the approval of Bush's judicial nominees.

Hafen said Reid told the teenagers that if Republicans change the filibuster rules, then they can "no longer count on Senator Reid working with them on the president's agenda."

Reid's comments were first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal on its Web site.

Soldier lifts lid on Camp Delta

For the first time, an army insider blows the whistle on human rights abuses at Guantánamo

Paul Harris in New York Sunday May 8, 2005 The Observer

An American soldier has revealed shocking new details of abuse and sexual torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in the first high-profile whistleblowing account to emerge from inside the top-secret base.

Erik Saar, an Arabic speaker who was a translator in interrogation sessions, has produced a searing first-hand account of working at Guantánamo. It will prove a damaging blow to a White House still struggling to recover from the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

In an exclusive interview, Saar told The Observer that prisoners were physically assaulted by 'snatch squads' and subjected to sexual interrogation techniques and that the Geneva Conventions were deliberately ignored by the US military.

He also said that soldiers staged fake interrogations to impress visiting administration and military officials. Saar believes that the great majority of prisoners at Guantánamo have no terrorist links and little worthwhile intelligence information has emerged from the base despite its prominent role in America's war on terror.

Saar paints a picture of a base where interrogations of often innocent prisoners have spiralled out of control, doing massive damage to America's image in the Muslim world.

Saar said events at Guantánamo were a disaster for US foreign policy. 'We are trying to promote democracy worldwide. I don't see how you can do that and run a place like Guantánamo Bay. This is now a rallying cry to the Muslim world,' he said.

Saar arrived at Guantánamo Bay in December 2002, and worked there until June 2003. He first worked as a translator in the prisoners' cages. He was then transferred to the interrogation teams, acting as a translator.

Saar's book, Inside the Wire, provides the first fully detailed look inside Guantánamo Bay's role as a prison for detainees the White House has insisted are the 'worst of the worst' among Islamic militants. His tale describes his gradual disillusionment, from arriving as a soldier keen to do his duty to eventually leaving believing the regime to be a breach of human rights and a disaster for the war on terror.

Among the most shocking abuses Saar recalls is the use of sex in interrogation sessions. Some female interrogators stripped down to their underwear and rubbed themselves against their prisoners. Pornographic magazines and videos were also used as rewards for confessing.

In one session a female interrogator took off some of her clothes and smeared fake blood on a prisoner after telling him she was menstruating. 'That's a big deal. It is a major insult to one of the world's biggest religions where we are trying to win hearts and minds,' Saar said.

Saar also describes the 'snatch teams', known as the Initial Reaction Force (IRF), who remove unco-operative prisoners from their cells. He describes one such snatch where a prisoner's arm was broken. In a training session for an IRF team, one US soldier posing as a prisoner was beaten so badly that he suffered brain damage. It is believed the IRF team had not been told the 'detainee' was a soldier.

Staff at Guantánamo also faked interrogations for visiting senior officials. Prisoners who had already been interrogated were sat down behind one-way mirrors and asked old questions while the visiting officials watched.

Saar also describes the effects prolonged confinement had on many of the prisoners. He details bloody suicide attempts and serious mental illnesses. One detainee slashed his wrists with razors and wrote in blood on a wall: 'I committed suicide because of the brutality of my oppressors.'

Saar details a meeting with an army lawyer where linguists, interrogators and intelligence workers at the base were told the Geneva Conventions did not apply to their work as the detainees could not be considered normal prisoners of war. At the end of the meeting the group was told: 'We still intend to treat the detainees humanely, but our purpose is to get any actionable intelligence we can and quickly.'

But Saar said that many, if not most, of the detainees were rarely interrogated at all after their initial arrival. They just sat listlessly in their cells for months on end. He believes that many of them were either simple footsoldiers caught up in the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere, or innocent men sold out to the Americans by local enemies settling a grudge or looking to collect reward money.

Saar accepts that some genuine terrorists have been held at Guantánamo. 'There are individuals there who I hope will never be set free,' he said, but he contends that they are in the minority. 'Overall, it is counter-productive,' he said.

Saar was an enthusiastic supporter of George Bush in the 2000 elections but he has changed his world view after being exposed to Guantánamo Bay. 'I believe in America and American troops,' he said, 'but it has drastically changed my world view and my politics.'

Saar left the army and has become a hate figure for some right-wing groups which say he and his book are unpatriotic. But Saar believes exposing the abuses of Guantánamo will lessen the damage done to America's reputation in the long run. 'The camp is a mistake. It does not need to be that way. There should be a better way, more in line with American morals,' he said.

How Long Can Bush Spin Big Lies into Truth on Iraq War?

By Andrew Greeley The Chicago Sun Times Friday 06 May 2005

As the criminal, sinful war in Iraq enters its third year, the president is in Europe to heal the wounds between the United States and its former allies, on his own terms, of course. The White House propaganda mill hails it as another victory for the president and ignores the fact that most Europeans still consider the war dangerous folly and the president a dangerous fool.

One hears new rationalizations for the war on this side of the Atlantic. After the hearings on Secretary Rice, a Republican senator, with all the self-righteous anger that characterizes many such, proclaimed, "The Democrats just have to understand that the president really believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

This justification is not unlike the one heard frequently at the White House, "The president believed the intelligence agencies of the world."

Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?

It is also asserted that the election settled the matters of the war and the torture of prisoners. These are dead issues that no longer need be addressed.

But the president received only 51 percent of the vote and carried only one more state than the last time (picking up New Mexico and Iowa and losing New Hampshire). This is a validation of the war and of prisoner abuse? This is a mandate to do whatever he wants to do and whatever the leadership of the evangelical denominations want? A percentage point and a single state are a mandate for more war? Never before in American political history!

Finally, we are told that the Iraqi election confirms the Bush administration policy in Iraq. The president's supporters must be in deep trouble to reach so far for that one. All the election proves is that the Iraqis want to run their own country. It also raises the possibility that Shia clerics will deliver Iraq into the hands of the Iranians. Some kind of victory!

How do these kinds of arguments play in the precincts? The survey data suggest that war has become more unpopular. The majority of the American people now think it was a mistake, in a shift away from the 51 percent that endorsed it on Election Day. Admittedly this is only a small change in the population, from a majority to a minority. Nor do the changers earn grace for their new opinions. They still endorsed the war on Election Day and are still responsible for it.

How long can the administration get along with its policies of spinning big lies into truth - as it has more recently done on Social Security?

Note the three most important Cabinet positions. Rice said that it was better to find the weapons of mass destruction than to see a mushroom cloud.

"Judge" Gonzales said the Geneva Convention was "quaint" and in effect legitimated the de facto policy of torture.

Rumsfeld repealed the "Powell Doctrine" - only go to war when you have the massive force necessary to win decisively and quickly. Brilliant businessman that he is (like Robert McNamara of the Vietnam era), he thought he could win with 130,000 troops (unlike the at least 200,000 that the Army chief of staff insisted) and hence made the current "insurgency" inevitable.

The presence of these three towering giants in the administration certainly confirms that the president is confident that he is "right" on Iraq and that he has mandates from the American people and from God which confirm that he is "right."

Nothing, in other words, has changed in the last two years. The war is still the "right thing to do," it is still part of the "war against terrorism," it is still essential to keep Arabs from blowing up our skyscrapers.

You can still get away with the "big lie" as long as Karl Rove and his team of spinners keep providing persuasive rationalizations. The American public is still supine, uneasy about the war, but not willing yet to turn decisively against it. Will that still be the case next year when we "celebrate" the third anniversary of the war? Is the patience of the American people that long-suffering? Is there no outrage left in the country? How many people have to die before the public realizes that American foreign policy is a tissue of lies?

General Demoted, but Cleared in Abuse Probe

By Josh White The Washington Post Friday 06 May 2005

President Bush approved yesterday an order demoting Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, the only general to be punished in connection with investigations into detainee abuse at U.S. military prisons.

Karpinski's rank was reduced to colonel, and she was issued a reprimand and relieved of her command. But the Army's inspector general recommended the sanctions based on a broad charge of dereliction of duty, as well as on a charge of shoplifting, essentially clearing her of responsibility for the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. As commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Karpinski oversaw more than a dozen prison facilities in Iraq in 2003.

"Though Brig. Gen. Karpinski's performance of duty was found to be seriously lacking, the investigation determined that no action or lack of action on her part contributed specifically to the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib," according to an Army news release. Instead, Army sources said, Karpinski was punished for leadership lapses and for failing to properly train and prepare her brigade in Iraq.

Pentagon officials have cited Karpinski's punishment as evidence that the military has taken the Abu Ghraib abuse seriously. But the inspector general's report does not link Karpinski's deficiencies to the abuse and, as reported last week, clears four other top officers who were in charge of the war in Iraq. Those officers were Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq; his deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski; Maj. Gen. Barbara G. Fast, Sanchez's top intelligence officer; and Col. Marc Warren, Sanchez's top military lawyer.

Sanchez, who now commands the Army's V Corps in Germany, was specifically cleared of allegations that he was derelict in his duties pertaining to detention and interrogation operations and that he improperly communicated interrogation policies. According to Pentagon investigations into the abuse, top generals believed that Sanchez bore some responsibility for failing to prevent or notice the abuse and for approving a set of interrogation tactics that allowed techniques such as using military dogs and placing detainees in stressful positions.

Human rights groups criticized the findings last week. They called for an independent investigation into the role of senior officials in abuse cases that were found to be widespread in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Neal A. Puckett, Karpinski's attorney, said yesterday that she has not been informed of her demotion. Puckett said the Army is seeking to punish a general officer to show that action has been taken, but has distanced her from the actual abuse to absolve other senior leaders.

"They're saying she's the only senior leader that had any part in this, but they're saying she didn't have a direct part in it," Puckett said. "I think they're trying to have it both ways. They are severing the chain of command right at her eyeball level, and not letting it go higher."

The shoplifting charge stemmed from a misdemeanor incident in which Karpinski allegedly stole cosmetics in Florida before she was promoted to one-star general. Her failure to disclose the arrest was against Army regulations.

Army officials said yesterday that about 25 percent of the 130 military members who have faced punishment for abuse were officers, including an unnamed colonel who received an administrative punishment, four colonels who were either reprimanded or administratively punished, three majors, 10 captains, six lieutenants and two chief warrant officers.

"Investigations into detainee abuse allegations are rank immaterial and will continue until all cases are completed," an Army news release said.

Memo: Bush Made Intel Fit Iraq Policy

By Warren P. Strobel and John Walcott Knight Ridder

Washington - A highly classified British memo, leaked in the midst of Britain's just-concluded election campaign, indicates that President Bush decided to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein by summer 2002 and was determined to ensure that US intelligence data supported his policy.

The document, which summarizes a July 23, 2002, meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers, reports on a visit to Washington by the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service.

The visit took place while the Bush administration was still declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war.

"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable," the MI-6 chief said at the meeting, according to the memo. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," weapons of mass destruction.

The memo said "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the US invasion in March 2003.

The White House has repeatedly denied accusations made by several top foreign officials that it manipulated intelligence estimates to justify an invasion of Iraq.

It has instead pointed to the conclusions of two studies, one by the Senate Intelligence Committee and one by a presidentially appointed panel, that cite serious failures by the CIA and other agencies in judging Saddam's weapons programs.

The principal U.S. intelligence analysis, called a National Intelligence Estimate, wasn't completed until October 2002, well after the United States and United Kingdom had apparently decided military force should be used to overthrow Saddam's regime.

The newly disclosed memo, which was first reported by the Sunday Times of London, hasn't been disavowed by the British government. A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington referred queries to another official, who didn't return calls for comment on Thursday.

A former senior US official called it "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired" during the senior British intelligence officer's visit to Washington. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

A White House official said the administration wouldn't comment on leaked British documents.

In July 2002, and well afterward, top Bush administration foreign policy advisers were insisting that "there are no plans to attack Iraq on the president's desk."

But the memo quotes British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a close colleague of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, as saying that "Bush had made up his mind to take military action."

Straw is quoted as having his doubts about the Iraqi threat.

"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran," the memo reported he said.

Straw reportedly proposed that Saddam be given an ultimatum to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors, which could help justify the eventual use of force.

Powell in August 2002 persuaded Bush to make the case against Saddam at the United Nations and to push for renewed weapons inspections.

But there were deep divisions within the White House over that course of action. The British document says that the National Security Council, then led by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with the UN route."

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is circulating a letter among fellow Democrats asking Bush for an explanation of the document's charges, an aide said.

Proof Bush Fixed The Facts

By Ray McGovern TomPaine.com Wednesday 04 May 2005

"Intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would see those words in black and white - and beneath a SECRET stamp, no less. For three years now, we in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been saying that the CIA and its British counterpart, MI-6, were ordered by their countries' leaders to "fix facts" to "justify" an unprovoked war on Iraq. More often than not, we have been greeted with stares of incredulity.

It has been a hard learning - that folks tend to believe what they want to believe. As long as our evidence, however abundant and persuasive, remained circumstantial, it could not compel belief. It simply is much easier on the psyche to assent to the White House spin machine blaming the Iraq fiasco on bad intelligence than to entertain the notion that we were sold a bill of goods.

Well, you can forget circumstantial. Thanks to an unauthorized disclosure by a courageous whistleblower, the evidence now leaps from official documents - this time authentic, not forged. Whether prompted by the open appeal of the international Truth-Telling Coalition or not, some brave soul has made the most explosive "patriotic leak" of the war by giving London's Sunday Times the official minutes of a briefing by Richard Dearlove, then head of Britain's CIA equivalent, MI-6. Fresh back in London from consultations in Washington, Dearlove briefed Prime Minister Blair and his top national security officials on July 23, 2002, on the Bush administration's plans to make war on Iraq.

Blair does not dispute the authenticity of the document, which immortalizes a discussion that is chillingly amoral. Apparently no one felt free to ask the obvious questions. Or, worse still, the obvious questions did not occur.

Juggernaut Before The Horse

In emotionless English, Dearlove tells Blair and the others that President Bush has decided to remove Saddam Hussein by launching a war that is to be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction." Period. What about the intelligence? Dearlove adds matter-of-factly, "The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy."

At this point, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirms that Bush has decided on war, but notes that stitching together justification would be a challenge, since "the case was thin." Straw noted that Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

In the following months, "the case" would be buttressed by a well-honed U.S.-U.K. intelligence-turned-propaganda-machine. The argument would be made "solid" enough to win endorsement from Congress and Parliament by conjuring up:

• Aluminum artillery tubes misdiagnosed as nuclear related;
  
• Forgeries alleging Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa;
  
• Tall tales from a drunken defector about mobile biological weapons laboratories;
  
• Bogus warnings that Iraqi forces could fire WMD-tipped missiles within 45 minutes of an order to do so;
  
• Dodgy dossiers fabricated in London; and
  
• A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate thrown in for good measure.

All this, as Dearlove notes dryly, despite the fact that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Another nugget from Dearlove's briefing is his bloodless comment that one of the U.S. military options under discussion involved "a continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli" - the clear implication being that planners of the air campaign would also see to it that an appropriate casus belli was orchestrated.

The discussion at 10 Downing St. on July 23, 2002 calls to mind the first meeting of George W. Bush's National Security Council (NSC) on Jan. 30, 2001, at which the president made it clear that toppling Saddam Hussein sat atop his to-do list, according to then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, who was there. O'Neil was taken aback that there was no discussion of why it was necessary to "take out" Saddam. Rather, after CIA Director George Tenet showed a grainy photo of a building in Iraq that he said might be involved in producing chemical or biological agents, the discussion proceeded immediately to which Iraqi targets might be best to bomb. Again, neither O'Neil nor the other participants asked the obvious questions. Another NSC meeting two days later included planning for dividing up Iraq's oil wealth.

Obedience School

As for the briefing of Blair, the minutes provide further grist for those who describe the U.K. prime minister as Bush's "poodle." The tone of the conversation bespeaks a foregone conclusion that Blair will wag his tail cheerfully and obey the learned commands. At one point he ventures the thought that, "If the political context were right, people would support regime change." This, after Attorney General Peter Goldsmith has already warned that the desire for regime change "was not a legal base for military action," - a point Goldsmith made again just 12 days before the attack on Iraq until he was persuaded by a phalanx of Bush administration lawyers to change his mind 10 days later.

The meeting concludes with a directive to "work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action."

I cannot quite fathom why I find the account of this meeting so jarring. Surely it is what one might expect, given all else we know. Yet seeing it in bloodless black and white somehow gives it more impact. And the implications are no less jarring.

One of Dearlove's primary interlocutors in Washington was his American counterpart, CIA director George Tenet. (And there is no closer relationship between two intelligence services than the privileged one between the CIA and MI-6.) Tenet, of course, knew at least as much as Dearlove, but nonetheless played the role of accomplice in serving up to Bush the kind of "slam-dunk intelligence" that he knew would be welcome. If there is one unpardonable sin in intelligence work, it is that kind of politicization. But Tenet decided to be a "team player" and set the tone.

Politicization: Big Time

Actually, politicization is far too mild a word for what happened. The intelligence was not simply mistaken; it was manufactured, with the president of the United States awarding foreman George Tenet the Medal of Freedom for his role in helping supervise the deceit. The British documents make clear that this was not a mere case of "leaning forward" in analyzing the intelligence, but rather mass deception - an order of magnitude more serious. No other conclusion is now possible.

Small wonder, then, to learn from CIA insiders like former case officer Lindsay Moran that Tenet's malleable managers told their minions, "Let's face it. The president wants us to go to war, and our job is to give him a reason to do it."

Small wonder that, when the only U.S. analyst who met with the alcoholic Iraqi defector appropriately codenamed "Curveball" raised strong doubt about Curveball's reliability before then-Secretary of State Colin Powell used the fabrication about "mobile biological weapons trailers" before the United Nations, the analyst got this e-mail reply from his CIA supervisor:

"Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about."

When Tenet's successor, Porter Goss, took over as director late last year, he immediately wrote a memo to all employees explaining the "rules of the road" - first and foremost, "We support the administration and its policies." So much for objective intelligence insulated from policy pressure.

Tenet and Goss, creatures of the intensely politicized environment of Congress, brought with them a radically new ethos - one much more akin to that of Blair's courtiers than to that of earlier CIA directors who had the courage to speak truth to power.

Seldom does one have documentary evidence that intelligence chiefs chose to cooperate in both fabricating and "sexing up" (as the British press puts it) intelligence to justify a prior decision for war. There is no word to describe the reaction of honest intelligence professionals to the corruption of our profession on a matter of such consequence. "Outrage" does not come close.

Hope In Unauthorized Disclosures

Those of us who care about unprovoked wars owe the patriot who gave this latest British government document to The Sunday Times a debt of gratitude. Unauthorized disclosures are gathering steam. They need to increase quickly on this side of the Atlantic as well - the more so, inasmuch as Congress-controlled by the president's party-cannot be counted on to discharge its constitutional prerogative for oversight.

In its formal appeal of Sept. 9, 2004 to current U.S. government officials, the Truth-Telling Coalition said this:

We know how misplaced loyalty to bosses, agencies, and careers can obscure the higher allegiance all government officials owe the Constitution, the sovereign public, and the young men and women put in harm's way. We urge you to act on those higher loyalties...Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now.

If persons with access to wrongly concealed facts and analyses bring them to light, the chances become less that a president could launch another unprovoked war - against, say, Iran.

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Ray McGovern served 27 years as a CIA analyst and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour.