Bush's speech. The advance on it is that he's going to promise to tear down Abu Ghraib prison and try to convince the American public that he has an exit plan from Iraq.

Nearly 800 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq last year, according to the Pentagon. And more than 5,500 Iraqi civilians have died violently in Baghdad and three provinces in the past year, an Associated Press count says.

There's nothing he can say that will satisfy us or make us think invading Iraq was a good idea. It was an unnecessary war that caused an unnecessary loss of life.

Did he convince any of you?

Update: Left Coaster asks the President, what about making sure we have a free America before claiming to be able to free Iraq?

by TChris

Sean Baker was a member of a Military Police company assigned to Guantanamo Bay in January 2003, when he was ordered to play the role of a detainee during a training exercise. Baker quickly learned how detainees are treated when things go wrong.

Baker says what took place next happened at the hands of four U.S. soldiers - soldiers he believes didn't know he was one of them - has changed his life forever. "They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down," said Baker. "Then he - the same individual - reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds ... when I couldn't breath, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was 'red.'"

The beating didn't stop until one of the soldiers noticed that Baker was wearing Army boots.

Baker sustained a traumatic brain injury that left him with a seizure disorder. Military records confirm that his injury "was due to soldier playing role as a detainee who was uncooperative."

A "training" exercise implies teaching and supervision. Who supervised the senseless beating of a soldier? And what, exactly, was being taught?

FPC Lynndie England, the now-pregnant soldier shown in the ubiquitous photo leading an Iraqi prisoner around on a leash, is asking the military court to throw out her statement to investigators because she was questioned after she asked for a lawyer.

"She had invoked her right to counsel, and those statements are illegal. In a civilian court, those would be immediately suppressed," [England lawyer] Zapor told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. Defendants in military courts have the same rights to lawyers that criminal defendants have in civilian courts.

The U.S.has been investigating the deaths of two prisoners at Bagram Collection Point in Afghanistan in 2002. It turns out that there are links between military intelligence officers at the Bagram detention facility and Abu Graib.

For both of the Afghan prisoners, who died in a center known as the Bagram Collection Point, the cause of death listed on certificates signed by American pathologists included blunt force injuries to their legs. Interrogations at the center were supervised by Company A, 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, which moved on early in 2003 to Iraq, where some of its members were assigned to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib. Its service in Afghanistan was known, but its work at Bagram at the time of the deaths has now emerged in interviews with former prisoners, military officials and from documents.

....In Iraq, at least three members of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion who had been assigned to the joint interrogation center at Abu Ghraib have been quietly disciplined for conduct involving the abuse of a female Iraqi prisoner there, an Army spokesman said....At least one officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, served in supervisory positions at the interrogation units both at the Bagram Collection Point from July 2002 to December 2003 and then again at the joint center at Abu Ghraib, according to Army officials.

Two other prisoners, who survived Bagram and were sent to Guantanamo, and were later released after the U.S. determined they had done nothing wrong (and provided them with letters to that effect) described their treatment at Bagram:

Saturday the U.S. said there was no wedding in Iraq at which celebrants were killed:

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."

Now we learn there was a wedding, and it was videotaped.

A videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert, escorting a bridal car decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.

The videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck. ...video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.... An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video - which runs for several hours.

Is there another explanation for this man's death?

by TChris

Two thousand pages are missing from the congressional copy of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's classified report of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. The Pentagon referred to the missing pages, about a third of the total report, as "an oversight."

by TChris

TalkLeft has been wondering for some time why the Bush administration has been in bed with Ahmad Chalabi (see, for instance, this and this and this). Despite Chalabi's denials, evidence is growing that Chalabi passed highly classified information to Iran. Now the question is: how did Chalabi get his hands on highly classified information?

Federal investigators now suspect that Mr. Chalabi funneled a wide array of Pentagon and C.I.A. secrets to Iran — much more material than they believe he might have obtained through his political contacts with Americans, they said. "This was not the kind of stuff that he would have gotten by accident," one official said.

Investigators are looking a "handful" of officials, primarily in the Pentagon, who could have passed the information along to Chalabi.

A jail cell in Jordan has already been reserved for Chalabi, but Jordan might have to wait for Chalabi to serve a term in a U.S. prison for espionage.

by TChris

The NY Times recaps the murky status of homicide investigations regarding prisoners who died in the Bagram Detention Center in Afghanistan, and links members of a military intelligent unit responsible for interrogations at both Bagram and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. The LA Times reports that two military intelligence soldiers who appear in pictures taken at Abu Ghraib, Spcs. Armin J. Cruz and Israel Rivera, have been ordered to remain in Bahgdad as the investigation of prisoner abuse continues.

In an interview, Houston defense attorney Guy L. Womack, who represents Army Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., said that he expected a wave of charges in coming weeks against military intelligence officers, who he said he believed were directing the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

A defense lawyer representing another guard being court-martialed said Cruz and Rivera were present on the tier during the torture because they wanted to make sure the abuse was carried out.

The military claims that its homicide investigations have been slowed by the difficulty of locating witnesses or participants who have transferred out of Iraq. Now that the scandal has been publicized, the military seems to be doing a better job of keeping track of its soldiers. While Rivera and Cruz will remain in Iraq, neither has been charged, and it is unclear whether they are regarded as witnesses or targets of the investigation.

Pot-TV says it has torture videos available for viewing on its website. We haven't viewed them so we can't vouch for them, but you can take a look for yourselves. [Update: The link goes directly to the show page. To view the video, click the link on the left that says "RealPlayer"and the show will start. It is a news show with the video of prison abuse mixed in.]

The following program contains scenes of police and prison guard brutality, profane language, full frontal male nudity and torture and humiliation. Intended for mature audiences with strong stomachs only!

In this first part of a three part series, Loretta Nall exposes the torture and human rights abuses that are inflicted on American prisoners, many of whom are convicted of simple possession only. These acts are committed every day in the supposed Land of the Free. The abuses and torture meted out by sadistic “rent-a-guard” private contractors in a Texas jail directly mirrors the abuses and torture meted out by sadistic “rent-a-soldier” private contractors at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

WHERE IS THE AMERICAN OUTRAGE FOR OUR OWN PEOPLE?

The Asia Times reports that leading forensic experts say the Nicholas Berg decapitation video was staged, and he likely was dead before the decapitation. They give several reasons.

In other Berg news, the Guardian reports that authorities have information that the execution squad was led by one of Saddam Hussein's nephews.

[comments now closed]

Ahmed Chalabi made the round of Sunday news shows this morning and denied passing on sensitive U.S. info to Iran.

“It’s not true. It’s a false charge,” Chalabi said on ABC’s “This Week” television program. “It’s a smear.”

Iran also denies the charges:

Iran denies any intelligence sharing Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said suggestions that Chalabi had passed sensitive U.S. intelligence to Iran were baseless. “We have not received any classified information, neither from Chalabi nor any member of the Iraqi Governing Council,” Asefi said.

Chalabi blamed George Tenet for the smear:

Chalabi said the CIA, which had viewed his Iraqi National Congress group with skepticism for years, was trying to discredit him and that CIA Director George Tenet was behind the accusation that he gave American secrets to Iran. “We never provided any classified information from the U.S. to Iran, and neither I nor anyone in the INC. And that is a charge being put out by George Tenet,” Chalabi said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Chalabi challenged the Tenet to bring his information before Congress:

Cheers to the United Kingdom which has announced that it will boycott the trial of Saddam Hussein if the death penalty is sought.

Government policy and the European Convention on Human Rights lay down that the British cannot hand the prisoners over if there is any risk of them being executed. The death penalty has been suspended in Iraq, on British insistence, but is expected to be reintroduced.

....Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty International, said: "The death penalty is arbitrary, cruel and wrong... The UK authorities must obtain assurances that prisoners will not face the death penalty before handing them over to another authority."

....Bill Rammell, a Foreign Office minister, said last week, in a written answer to a question from the Tory MP Andrew Robathan, who wants the death penalty re-introduced in the UK, that the British authorities will have to refuse to supply any evidence that might help send the former president to his death.

[Ed. A few people emailed us they were getting error messages trying to comment on this post. It happened to us as well, so we're closing the comments so we don't frustrate any more readers. We have no idea why it's happening, but rest assured we haven't done anything to keep anyone from commenting.]