by TChris

A few days ago, TalkLeft argued that it isn't "unpatriotic" (as some on the right have suggested) to dissent from an unjust war. Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander of the U.S. Central Command, agrees:

"We've lost 799 kids and another 4,500 are injured and seriously maimed. We've spent $200 billion so far. Where are we for all that?"

"Some people are calling me unpatriotic for saying these things," Gen. Zinni concluded. "I think it's unpatriotic not to ask these questions."

Nor is it unpatriotic to recognize that the war has made the world less safe.

Confirming the assessment that the "world is far less safe" as a consequence of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq last year, the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) stated this week that the occupation "has become a potent global recruitment pretext for al Qaeda, which now has more than 18,000 militants ready to strike western targets."

True patriots care enough about their country to tell the truths that must be told -- even at risk to their careers.

Two profiles in courage stand out in the expose of the Iraqi prison disaster. They are Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba -- who investigated reports of the abuses of the Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison -- and Army Spc. Joseph Darby, the military policeman who alerted Army authorities by turning over a disc of photographs showing the shocking mistreatment of the prisoners.

by TChris

Iraq's current governing council is rejecting President Bush's offer to replace Abu Ghraib with a new supermax-style prison.

President Bush's offer to demolish Abu Ghraib prison — made in a speech Monday night — found little support among Iraqis, with the head of the Governing Council yesterday calling the idea "a waste of resources."

Instead of destroying useable buildings, the governing council would prefer to change the way the prison is operated.

by TChris

The secretary of defense and the national security adviser debate "whether there was any way to stop newspapers and television news programs from showing graphic photographs of the victims."

Pictures of Abu Ghraib? No. Pictures of My Lai, 1969.

A transcript of this 1969 telephone conversation, with its uncanny echoes of the Iraq war and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, at least in the fact of the photographs, if not in the severity of the wrongdoing, was released on Wednesday by the National Archives as part of 20,000 pages of records of Mr. Kissinger's telephone conversations.

The tapes show a secretary of defense frustrated by his inability to bury the truth.

In their conversation on Nov. 21, 1969, about the My Lai massacre, Mr. Laird told Mr. Kissinger that while he would like "to sweep it under the rug," the photographs prevented it.

by TChris

Did a Pentagon employee leak sensitive classified information to Chalabi? (Background here.) Bob Dreyfuss examines the available evidence and reasonably concludes:

Certainly, the CIA is a sworn enemy of Chalabi, and it has been for many years. And certainly, Chalabi's enemies would love to use the scandal over Chalabi's Iran connections to tarnish his Pentagon allies. But it seems to me unlikely that they would risk a formal investigation unless they had some concrete evidence to support what otherwise would be a witch hunt.

Trent Lott has another case of foot-in-mouth disease. Via Political Animal and Patridiot Watch, here are Lott's comments:

"Frankly, to save some American troops' lives or a unit that could be in danger, I think you should get really rough with them," Lott said. "Some of those people should probably not be in prisons in the first place."

When asked about the photo showing a prisoner being threatened with a dog, Lott was unmoved. "Nothing wrong with holding a dog up there unless it ate him," Lott said. "(They just) scared him with the dog."

Lott was reminded that at least one prisoner had died at the hands of his captors after a beating. "This is not Sunday school," he said. "This is interrogation. This is rough stuff."

Are we a nation of voyeurs, of paranoids, or merely one of citizens with a growing skepticism of what our leaders tell us? Kareem Fahim examines our fascination with the video depicting the killing and decapitation of Nicholas Berg in Paranoid Nation.

By the thousands, the curious still combed the Internet for poor Nicholas Berg last week....some great bulk of surfers simply craved a few seconds of ghastly footage. Others were no doubt moved by Berg's compelling and sadly concluded story, and the very public manner in which his family was forced to bear his death. But another faction was on the lookout for more obscure clues, bits of information to support a story line steeped in intrigue and, frankly, implausibility....

It was a reasonable response to the times. Faced with a war many Americans find implausible, waged by a president who lost credibility following bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction (provided by advisers with a plan for the world), this second faction blurred the line between healthy skepticism and paranoia. Many of those questioning the White House line on Berg were fringe, yes, but they fed on the doubts of a mainstream no longer sure what to believe. Last week, the U.S. either bombed a safe house for terrorists, or an Iraqi wedding. Ahmad Chalabi is either an asset and one of the fathers of the new Iraq, or a spy. And Donald Rumsfeld either authorized the kind of torture meted out at Abu Ghraib, or knew nothing.

Here's one historian's viewpoint:

President Bush is pulling at the heartstrings in his latest photo op. He's featured today shaking the new prosthetic hands of seven Iraqis whose hands were ordered amputated in 1995 at Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein. Bush does not deserve any credit:

Don North, a documentary producer, discovered the men last year and sought help for them in the United States, and a Houston journalist, Marvin Zindler, helped arrange for their surgeries and publicized their story.

Joe Agris, the plastic surgeon who fitted the men with high-tech hands last month, donated his services. The prosthetic devices, valued at $50k each, were also donated.

This is a shameless photo-op by Bush to support his war.

Some more fingerpointing within the Bush Administration--this time over who authorized the use of dogs during interrogations at Guantanamo. Col. Thomas Pappas, the most senior official at Abu Ghraib, testified under oath it was Major General Jeffrey Miller, who at one time commanded the Gitmo interrogation center. Miller flatly denies it.

"It was a technique I had personally discussed with General Miller, when he was here" visiting the prison, testified Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the officer placed in charge of the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib prison where abuses occurred in the wake of Miller's visit to Baghdad between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9, 2003. "He said that they used military working dogs at Gitmo [the nickname for Guantanamo Bay], and that they were effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information" from the prisoners, Pappas told the Army investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, according to a transcript provided to The Washington Post.

Pappas, who was under pressure from Taguba to justify the legality and appropriateness of using guard dogs to frighten detainees, said at two separate points in the Feb. 9 interview that Miller gave him the idea. He also said Miller had indicated the use of the dogs "with or without a muzzle" was "okay" in booths where prisoners were taken for interrogation.

Miller not only denies the conversations, he denies dogs were ever used at Guantanamo to frighten detainees. So far, there have been no pictures released of interrogation chambers at Gitmo, so we can't know if Miller is telling the truth. Have any of the released Guantanamo detainees mentioned being threatened by dogs?

by TChris

The U.S. and its partner-in-occupation, Great Britain, seem to be having a bit of a spat.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush's chief ally in Iraq, said today that forces of the U.S.-led coalition there will need the "consent" of the new Iraqi government to conduct some military operations after political power is transferred on June 30.

Blair told a news conference in London that "if there's a political decision as to whether you go into a place like Fallujah in a particular way, that has to be done with the consent of the Iraqi government and the final political control remains with the Iraqi government. That's what the transfer of sovereignty means.

The Bush adminsitration isn't inclined to ask anyone's "consent" to do as it pleases with the U.S. military.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, asked later about Blair's comment, phrased the issue differently, saying that "we would take into account whatever" Iraqi officials say "at a political and military level."

Powell added: "Now, ultimately, however, if it comes down to the United States armed forces protecting themselves or in some way accomplishing their mission in a way that might not be in total consonance with what the Iraqi interim government might want to do at a particular moment in time, U.S. forces remain under U.S. command and will do what is necessary to protect themselves."

In other words, as long as a military action can be characterized as necessary to "accomplish a mission," sovereignty won't stand in the way. Although Powell earlier said that the U.S. military will leave Iraq upon request of the interim government, his assurance was promptly contradicted by Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp, who told Congress that only an elected government could kick the U.S. military out of the country.

Four soldiers received reprimands today for abusing Iraqi prisoners--they forced the Iraqis to jump into the Tigris River. The four were based at Fort Carson, Colorado.

Fort Carson soldiers are also under investigation in two prisoner deaths:

Budzyna also said that members of another Fort Carson unit, the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, are being questioned about the deaths of two Iraqi prisoners: Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, 57, who was captured by the regiment in October, and Abdul Jaleel, 46.

The military has said Mowhoush died during interrogation Nov. 26 from asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression. The CIA said one of its agents may have been involved and referred the case to the Justice Department. Jaleel died Jan. 9 at a post near Al Asad, Iraq, of blunt force injuries and asphyxia, the Army said last week. The facility was the base camp of the 3rd Armored Cavalry.

Law Prof Eric Muller of Is That Legal? has given the subject of Justice Department lawyers providing advice on acceptable and non-acceptable interrogation techniques a lot of thought. He says the questions we should be asking are these:

In which executive departments have attorneys been called upon to review the legality under American and international law of interrogation methods such as "water boarding" (in which people are dipped into water to make them fear they're about to be drowned) and multi-year confinement of people in total isolation? (On the strategy of permanent solitary confinement, see the Declaration of Lowell Jacoby (.pdf), Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, on which the administration has relied in court.)
* What conclusions did these attorneys reach on the legality of these methods?
* How were disputes among attorneys or departments about the legality of these methods resolved? By whom?

by TChris

President Bush said little last night that was new, but what he said wasn't enough to satisfy those who believe that a handover of sovereignty should actually involve ... well ... a handover of sovereignty.

The president of the Iraqi Governing Council said today that a proposed U.S.-British blueprint for a post-occupation Iraq falls short of expectation, and several key U.N. Security Council members said the proposal presented to the United Nations does not make clear whether the new government will have full authority over Iraq's security, and when foreign troops would leave. They said that raises the question of whether there will be a true handover of power on June 30.

A sovereign nation would be entitled to tell the U.S. to take its soldiers and go home, but Bush offered no plan for withdrawing troops. He's letting the Iraqis decide whether we should demolish the Abu Ghraib prison, but he gave no suggestion that he intends to allow Iraqis meaningful control of their country after June 30.

The U.N. resolution that the U.S. proposed doesn't achieve true sovereignty any time soon.

The resolution sets no date for the troops to leave, although it calls for a review after 12 months, or earlier at the request of the elected government. France, Germany, China, Chile and Russia would like to have an earlier reassessment, or to simply leave the force's mandate to the new Iraqi government to decide.