The Rag Blog

The Red Crescent’s suspension of its work in Baghdad has seriously affected the lives of thousands of Iraqis

BAGHDAD, 8 Jan 2007 (IRIN) – Displaced families in the capital, Baghdad, have urged the Iraqi Red Crescent Society to continue supporting people who have been displaced as a result of sectarian violence.

“We need urgent help because since the [Red Crescent] volunteers in the capital stopped their work, we have been seriously suffering with the lack of assistance, medical care at camps, and especially food,” said Ibraheem Rabia’a, a displaced metal-worker who acts as a spokesperson for a group of 120 families living in abandoned government buildings on the outskirts of the capital.

According to the Brookings Institution, 650,000 Iraqis are internally displaced, living in camps or abandoned buildings. A further one million people are estimated to have been displaced before March 2003. Local NGOs, like the Red Crescent and Iraqi Aid Association, believe that at least 30 percent of the total number are living in the capital, Baghdad.

The Red Crescent suspended its activities in Baghdad after 36 people were abducted, 30 of them Red Crescent staff members, on 17 December. The move spurred the organisation, which was the main provider of aid in Baghdad, into closing 40 of its subsidiary offices in the capital.

Editor’s Note: From both the White House and Congress, there’s lots of talk about how important it is to look to the future, not dwell on the past. But one of the painful lessons from the Iraq debacle is that Official Washington’s failure to understand the past — and the real histories of key players — contributed to the present catastrophe.

In this guest essay, two former U.S. intelligence analysts — Ray McGovern and W. Patrick Lang — argue that the United States can ill afford letting the Iraq War-era liars off lightly, even if that means taking a hard look back over the past several years:

Lies have consequences.

All those who helped President George W. Bush launch a war of aggression—termed by Nuremberg “the supreme international crime”—have blood on their hands and must be held accountable. This includes corrupt intelligence officials. Otherwise, look for them to perform the same service in facilitating war on Iran.

“They should have been shot,” said former State Department intelligence director, Carl Ford, referring to ex-CIA director George Tenet and his deputy John McLaughlin, for their “fundamentally dishonest” cooking of intelligence to please the White House. Ford was alluding to “intelligence” on the menacing but non-existent mobile biological weapons laboratories in Iraq.

Ford was angry that Tenet and McLaughlin persisted in portraying the labs as real several months after they had been duly warned that they existed only in the imagination of intelligence analysts who, in their own eagerness to please, had glommed onto second-hand tales told by a con-man appropriately dubbed “Curveball.”

In fact, Tenet and McLaughlin had been warned about Curveball long before they let then-Secretary of State Colin Powell shame himself, and the rest of us, by peddling Curveball’s wares at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003.

After the war began, those same analysts, still “leaning forward,” misrepresented a tractor-trailer found in Iraq outfitted with industrial equipment as one of the mobile bio-labs. Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay, then working for NBC News, obliged by pointing out the equipment “where the biological process took place… Literally, there is nothing else for which it could be used.”

George Tenet knows a good man when he sees him. A few weeks later he hired Kay to lead the Pentagon-created Iraq Survey Group in the famous search to find other (equally non-existent, it turned out) “weapons of mass destruction.”

He was especially hard on the little things. — said of the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse, from Raising Arizona (1987)

This is a reflection on a previous botched and very public murder in this Iraq undertaking.

“He tried to kill my dad,” or so GWB is reported to have said of the late Saddam. This unfounded statement motivated or so it seems, the House of Bush to bring down a biblical scourge upon the House of Hussein and collaterally, the peoples of Iraq and America. This war looks like a personal vendetta bankrolled by the American taxpayer. The little things to which the title refers are those of us who are paying, in blood or money.

Of course the fact is that the Bush daddy is still alive and living large off his Carlyle Group profits and his taxpayer-funded federal retirement, but the House of Hussein is obliterated in the clearest Old Testament terms.

Saddam Hussein’s sons and grandson were murdered by the U.S. military. In effect, a pestilence of the Angel of Death eliminated his first born, not to mention second and grandson, thrown in as a bonus point.

The U.S. military must be capable of blocking off, barricading and controlling a small gunfight. Intelligence indicated the location of the Hussein heirs and the U.S. Army then went “balls to the wall.” Clearly, the Army could have isolated the brothers and negotiated or starved them out. It worked with Noreiga, so why not the Hussein family? Every indicator I read implied that Qusay and Uday could have been captured if the U.S. were so inclined.

Well, it was easy to kill them all, but that hasn’t brought peace and security to Iraq or America. In fact, when and if Osama bin Laden is treated to a similar fate, the world will not automatically become a safer place. The opposite is a more likely outcome. Target stores everywhere will have to be especially vigilant in their department which trolls for sanitizing images of political martyrs. Finding Che on the DVD boxes was just the beginning.

Last month a coincidence of birth and death signaled a transition for South America and indeed for the world.

The former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died even as leaders of South American nations concluded a two-day summit meeting in Cochabamba, Bolivia, hosted by President Evo Morales, at which the participants and the agenda represented the antithesis of Pinochet and his era.

In the Cochabamba Declaration, the presidents and envoys of 12 countries agreed to study the idea of forming a continent-wide community similar to the European Union.

The declaration marks another stage toward regional integration in South America, 500 years after the European conquests. The subcontinent, from Venezuela to Argentina, may yet present an example to the world on how to create an alternative future from a legacy of empire and terror.

The United States has long dominated the region by two major methods: violence and economic strangulation. Quite generally, international affairs have more than a slight resemblance to the Mafia. The Godfather does not take it lightly when he is crossed, even by a small storekeeper.

Previous attempts at independence have been crushed, partly because of a lack of regional cooperation. Without it, threats can be handled one by one. (Central America, unfortunately, has yet to shake the fear and destruction left over from decades of U.S.-backed terror, especially during the 1980s.)

To the United States, the real enemy has always been independent nationalism, particularly when it threatens to become a “contagious example,” to borrow Henry Kissinger’s characterization of democratic socialism in Chile.

On Sept. 11, 1973, Pinochet’s forces attacked the Chilean presidential palace. Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president, died in the palace, apparently by his own hand, because he was unwilling to surrender to the assault that demolished Latin America’s oldest, most vibrant democracy and established a regime of torture and repression.

The official death toll for the coup is 3,200; the actual toll is commonly estimated at double that figure. An official inquiry 30 years after the coup found evidence of approximately 30,000 cases of torture during the Pinochet regime. Among the leaders at Cochabamba was the Chilean president, Michelle Bachelet. Like Allende, she is a socialist and a physician. She also is a former exile and political prisoner. Her father was a general who died in prison after being tortured.

At Cochabamba, Morales and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela celebrated a new joint venture, a gas separation project in Bolivia. Such cooperation strengthens the region’s role as a major player in global energy.

A STAGGERING 337,553 prescriptions for antidepressants were written for children and adolescents in the past year, raising fears about whether “happy pills” are being used as a quick-fix for despondent youngsters.

Australia’s drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, has not approved any antidepressant medicines for children or adolescents younger than 18 but can not prevent doctors from prescribing them.

Medical regulators and drug companies warn against the use of antidepressants in young people and there is concern that the drugs, including the newer breed known as serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), have been associated with suicidal behaviour in the young.

Yet more than 75,500 prescriptions for antidepressants were written for children under 15 in 2005-06, according to figures prepared exclusively by Medicare Australia for The Sunday Age.

A further 262,000 antidepressant prescriptions were filled for youths aged between 15 and 20 in 2005-06. In Victoria there were 12,351 antidepressant scripts for children aged 14 and younger in 2005-06. In the 15-to-20 age group, 64,663 medicines were prescribed.

There is concern particularly that Prozac (fluoxetine), the only SSRI that appears to be more effective than a placebo in children, will become the new Ritalin, the drug of choice for a spate of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder diagnoses in the 1990s.

Britain faces an ecological catastrophe that could wreak havoc on wildlife populations when the first outbreak of Asian flu hits the country.

Scientists say they fear that tons of the anti-viral agent Tamiflu – taken by Britons trying to combat the disease – would be flushed down sewers into rivers and lakes.

Natural populations of microbes would be killed off by a deluge of water polluted with concentrated amounts of the anti-viral drug. As a result, birds, fish and other creatures that rely on these bacteria and viruses for their survival could be devastated.

In addition, waters containing Tamiflu would provide ideal conditions for the evolution of drug-resistant strains of bird flu virus. These strains would then infect wildfowl and ultimately human beings, triggering a second outbreak of the disease – although this time Tamiflu would provide no protection against the virus.

‘Anti-viral drugs are quite new and no one has ever planned to use them in the vast quantities that are now being considered,’ said Dr Andrew Singer, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxford. ‘However, there are some very alarming environmental implications about giving out millions of doses of Tamiflu in order to combat an outbreak of Asian bird flu. These have not been considered by health authorities. This is unknown terrirory.’

The prospect of a pandemic of bird flu sweeping the world is a growing worry for scientists, doctors and health officials. They fear that the deadly flu strain H5N1, which is now established in poultry in many areas of the Far East, could soon mutate so that it infects human beings. A pandemic that would affect hundreds of millions of people could spread rapidly around the world as a result.

FOR those who have failed in a decade or three’s worth of New Year’s resolutions to become better workers, spouses, parents, athletes or lovers, there is a new frontier in personal growth — or at least a proliferation of products, mostly hawked over the Internet, that promise to help turn the last bit of untrammeled downtime (sleep) into an opportunity for improvement.

New health products have emerged, often from the margins of commerce. Old self-help approaches like subliminal “sleep learning” have evolved and found new life on the Web.

“While you sleep!” has become an Internet marketing catchphrase. The idea plays on two classic, if contradictory, American impulses: the desire to get ahead, and the compulsion to avoid the slightest expenditure of effort.

There are diet pills sold under names like Lose and Snooze and Sleep ’n Slim, which contain collagen and which the makers say can help maximize the body’s metabolism. There are foot pads from Japan that look like tea bags and promise to drain toxins and restore energy while you sleep.

On one Web site, hypnotictapes.com, besides recordings designed to improve public speaking or break addiction to alcohol or heroin, there are programs promising to help you, at least partly while sleeping, “Overcome Fear of Clowns” and “Master the Bagpipes.”

The Washington media spent the holidays trying to guess what the President’s new plan for Iraq might be. Meanwhile in the back rooms of the White House Karl Rove and White House Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten were doing what any world-class chess player does when facing defeat — plot a series of aggressive moves to throw their opponent off balance in the hopes of regaining the initiative.

How do I know this? Well, since God only talks to Rev. Pat Robertson – and, when He can’t get through to Pat, George W. Bush – I didn’t get it from Him. No it came to me in this news flash late yesterday:

Washington, D.C. – As President Bush prepares a new statement and stance on the war in Iraq, his cabinet is once again in the midst of transition. In the latest change, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte will resign to become deputy secretary of state, according to a government official….The shift, while seemingly abrupt, will allow Negroponte to return to his former career path as a diplomat. Negroponte will serve under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

It was that last line that gives away the strategy. “Negroponte will serve under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.”

Never! Negroponte quits as head of one of the most important and powerful posts in government, a job that puts him face to face with the President of the United States every morning, of everyday of the week, to accept a position as Rice’s assistant?

Fat chance.

So what’s up? Here’s what I think is up — and if I were Bush I would be itching to get on with the game.

Move 1: Announce what the administration knows will be a very unpopular decision to send more troops to Iraq.

Move 2: Let the Democrat-controlled Congress throw a fit and hold hearings the administration knows will stir up additional opposition and shake loose new damning information on the administrations march to war and mismanagement of that war.

Move 3: Just when all the above is hitting the fan, Dick Cheney announces he is retiring from office early due to “health concerns,” and because he does not want to be “a distraction” when he is called to testify in purjury trial of his former No. 2. Scooter Libby.

Move 4: The next day Bush announces he will nominate Condoleezza Rice to replace Cheney.

Move 5: At the same time Bush announces he is nominating Negroponte to replace Rice as Secretary of State.

The above series of moves makes political sense on so many levels that I consider it inevitable. Think about it:

For Cheney: By all reports, Cheney has been sidelined within the administration. No longer being a major player – actually the major player — is so NOT Dick Cheney. If he can’t run the show, he’s not interested. Also, leaving before the end of Bush’s final term would put some daylight between Cheney and the shoddy Bush legacy — not a lot of daylight, but a lot more than if Cheney stays until January 2009.

For Bush: Appointing the first woman and the first African American to the vice presidency, Bush knows, would put him in the history books for something besides the mess his war has made out of the Middle East. By appointing Rice VP he would lock in for all history his place as the first US President to have a female and black as his No. 2 — an historical “two-fer.”

NEW YORK, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ — A draft report recently produced by the Baghdad embasy’s director of strategic communications Ginger Cruz suggests that despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the United States has lost the battle for Iraqi public opinion, reports Baghdad Bureau Chief Scott Johnson in Newsweek’s January 15 issue (on newsstands Monday, January 8). “Insurgents, sectarian elements and others are taking control of the message at the public level,” the draft states. Videos of U.S. soldiers being shot and blown up, and of the bloody work of sectarian death squads, are now pervasive. The images inspire new recruits and intimidate those who might stand against them. “Inadequate message control in Iraq,” the document warns, “is feeding the escalating cycle of violence.” (A U.S. Embassy spokesperson claims the draft reflects Cruz’s personal views, not official policy.)

Sunni insurgents in particular have become expert at using technology to underscore — some would say exaggerate — their effectiveness. “The sophistication of the way the enemy is using the news media is huge,” Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told Newsweek just before he returned to the United States. Most large-scale attacks on U.S. forces are now filmed, often from multiple camera angles, and with high- resolution cameras. The footage is slickly edited into dramatic narratives: quick-cut images of Humvees exploding or U.S. soldiers being felled by snipers are set to inspiring religious soundtracks or chanting, which lends them a triumphal feel. In some cases, U.S. officials believe, insurgents attack American forces primarily to generate fresh footage. Advancements in technology have also made these videos easy to download and disseminate. “Literally, it’s only hours after an attack and [the videos] are available,” says Andrew Garfield, a British counterinsurgency expert who has advised U.S. forces in Baghdad. “You can really say it’s only a cell-phone call away.”

So was this what the Iraq war was fought for, after all? As the number of US soldiers killed since the invasion rises past the 3,000 mark, and President George Bush gambles on sending in up to 30,000 more troops, The Independent on Sunday has learnt that the Iraqi government is about to push through a law giving Western oil companies the right to exploit the country’s massive oil reserves.

And Iraq’s oil reserves, the third largest in the world, with an estimated 115 billion barrels waiting to be extracted, are a prize worth having. As Vice-President Dick Cheney noted in 1999, when he was still running Halliburton, an oil services company, the Middle East is the key to preventing the world running out of oil.

Now, unnoticed by most amid the furore over civil war in Iraq and the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the new oil law has quietly been going through several drafts, and is now on the point of being presented to the cabinet and then the parliament in Baghdad. Its provisions are a radical departure from the norm for developing countries: under a system known as “production-sharing agreements”, or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq’s oil.

PSAs allow a country to retain legal ownership of its oil, but gives a share of profits to the international companies that invest in infrastructure and operation of the wells, pipelines and refineries. Their introduction would be a first for a major Middle Eastern oil producer. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world’s number one and two oil exporters, both tightly control their industries through state-owned companies with no appreciable foreign collaboration, as do most members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Opec.

WASHINGTON — An estimated 100,000 employees of US defense contractors working in Iraq are no longer immune from military prosecutions, because of a little-noticed provision in a 2007 defense spending bill aimed at holding private contractors accountable for crimes committed in war zones.

For the past three years, an unprecedented number of private contractors in Iraq have performed jobs previously reserved for the military, with immunity from military rules that govern troops and from criminal prosecution in Iraqi courts.

The legal loophole caused outrage during the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004. Soldiers involved in abusing prisoners were sentenced in military courts, but the civilian interrogators working alongside them for Titan Corp. and CACI International, two private firms, faced no punishment.

The 2007 Defense Bill, enacted in October, placed contractors and others who accompany the military in the field under the same set of military laws that govern the armed forces.

“Basically 100,000 contractors woke up to find themselves under the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” said Peter W. Singer , a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes on civilian military contractors and whose article on a defense blog Thursday called attention to the change.

Previously, the code applied to “persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field” only during a war, which US courts interpreted to mean a war declared by Congress. No such declaration was made in the Iraq conflict. Now, Congress has amended the code to apply to persons accompanying an armed force during a “declared war or contingency operation.”

The amendment, spearheaded by Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, was the latest in a series of moves by lawmakers to plug legal loopholes that had allowed contractors who had committed crimes overseas to escape justice. A Senate aide said the amendment passed with little discussion. “There was a concern about whether we have an adequate allocation of legal responsibility for contractors,” said the aide, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “If they are not subject to Iraqi law, what law are they subject to?”