By T Chris

Responding to Pentagon reports that Halliburton has overcharged the U.S. government by as much as $61 million for fuel in Iraq, President Bush declared that Halliburton would be expected to repay the overcharge. The company, formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, paid $1.09 per gallon more to a Kuwaiti subcontractor than it paid for the same fuel imported from Turkey.

While Halliburton claims that the Kuwaiti subcontractor was the only one that met the contract's requirements and argues that it earned only a few cents on the dollar for delivering the fuel, Halliburton's profits increased as a result of the overcharge.

Calling for a repayment of the overcharge with no additional sanction, and no promise of greater scrutiny of Halliburton's billing practices, provides no incentive for Halliburton or other war contractors not to continue a pursuit of excessive profits at the expense of taxpayers. If a government contractor less closely connected to the administration had overcharged for goods or services, wouldn't the Justice Department at least be asking whether it acted with fraudulent intent?

Human Rights Watch says hundreds of civilian deaths in Iraq could have been prevented by abandoning two misguided military tactics--cluster bombs and the U.S. "decaptiation" strategy. Their 147 page report released today is available here.

The use of cluster munitions in populated areas caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the coalition´s conduct of major military operations in March and April....U.S. and British forces used almost 13,000 cluster munitions, containing nearly 2 million submunitions, that killed or wounded more than 1,000 civilians.

Meanwhile, 50 strikes on top Iraqi leaders failed to kill any of the intended targets, but instead killed dozens of civilians, the Human Rights Watch report revealed. The U.S. “decapitation” strategy relied on intercepts of senior Iraqi leaders´ satellite phone calls along with corroborating intelligence that proved inadequate. As a result, the U.S. military could only locate targets within a 100-meter radius – clearly inadequate precision in civilian neighborhoods.

We wrote this somewhat detailed post on cluster bombing yesterday.

Lt. Col. Allen West was fined $5,000.00 for his misconduct towards an Iraqi prisoner.

In testimony at an Article 32 hearing -- the military's version of a grand jury or preliminary hearing -- West said the policeman, Yahya Jhrodi Hamoody, was not cooperating with interrogators, so he watched four of his soldiers from the 220th Field Artillery Battalion beat the detainee on the head and body.

West said he also threatened to kill Hamoody. Military prosecutors say West followed up on that threat by taking the suspect outside, put him on the ground near a weapons clearing barrel and fired his 9 mm pistol into the barrel.
Apparently not knowing where West's gun was aimed, Hamoody cracked and gave information about the planned ambush on West's convoy, thwarting the attack.

The decision was met by criticism from military prosecutors:

But while West's supporters call him a hero, military prosecutors said his actions amounted to torture and violated articles 128 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Prosecutor Capt. Magdalena Pezytulska said West should be tried for assault and for communicating a threat. "This is a case about a man who lost his temper," she argued. "There are consequences for [West's] actions."

West retains his eligibility for retirement and his pension. We don't begrudge him his pension or retirement benefits, he had 20 blemish-free years and earned them. As to the fine and lack of criminal sanction, that's what we in the industry call, "a kiss."

Our thoughts and best wishes are with Time Magazine senior correspondent Michael Weisskoph who lost a hand today in Iraq during a grenade attack on his vehicle. Weisskoph picked up the grenade to throw it out of the Humvee he was riding in when it exploded. He also suffered serious shrapnal wounds to his chest and arms. Time photographer James Nachtwey and two soldiers were also in the vehicle. All received some injuries.

Time would not offer details on the incident. But a memo sent to Weisskopf's former colleagues at The Washington Post said he picked up the grenade and tossed it out of the Humvee. It exploded, blowing off his hand and wounding him in the chest and arms. The memo said Nachtwey received shrapnel wounds that were not as serious.

"According to people he works with at Time, he picked up the grenade and tossed it out, losing his right hand in the process while saving four lives," the memo said.

The memo said Weisskopf's wife, Judith, had spoken with him and he was eager to return home. He was to return to Washington within a few days, the memo said.

From USA Today:

A four-month examination by USA TODAY of how cluster bombs were used in the Iraq war found dozens of deaths that were unintended but predictable. Although U.S. forces sought to limit what they call "collateral damage" in the Iraq campaign, they defied international criticism and used nearly 10,800 cluster weapons.

A cluster bomb is "a bomb that contains dozens or hundreds of small explosives and is dropped by aircraft." A cluster munition is "A piece of ordnance that contains dozens or hundreds of small explosives and is fired by ground-based howitzers or rocket launchers."

A world-wide moratorium campaign against cluster bombs is underway.

Cluster bombs have been controversial since they killed thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian civilians during and after the Vietnam War. They have since been used by armies around the world, including Russian forces in Chechnya and Sudanese government troops fighting rebels in a long-running civil war. But their use in urban areas of Iraq has given new momentum to a movement to restrict the use of cluster bombs.

....Cluster weapons are especially dangerous to civilians because they spray wide areas with hundreds of bomblets. Most are unguided "dumb" weapons, so they can miss their target, and many of the bomblets don't explode immediately.

Part 2 of USA Today's report is here. We urge you to read both reports in full.

Here is our earlier post on why cluster bombs should be banned.

Update: Human Rights Watch says hundreds of civilian deaths in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq could have been prevented by abandoning two misguided military tactics--cluster bombs and the U.S. "decaptiation" strategy. Their new 147 page report is available here.

This could be major:

Later this week, a key member of Congress will issue an all-points call for intelligence analysts to blow the whistle on President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others in the Bush administration who may have distorted, exaggerated, manipulated or lied about intelligence on Iraq in the run up to war.

By creating a "tip line" on his official Web site, Democratic congressman from California Henry Waxman is encouraging current and former U.S. national security officials to come forward and disclose how the administration played with intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. A ranking member on the House Committee on Government Reform, Rep. Waxman is making it possible for officials to go on the record or remain anonymous, according to one of his aides.

Saudi interrogators are not known for their bedside manner at interrogations. They are more widely known for beheadings. But, they've changed their tune when it comes to questioning Al Qaeda members:

There's a plan behind all this.

Over time, the clerics position the prisoners to repent and renounce their past allegiance to the network established by the Saudi-born fugitive bin Laden. Then traditional interrogators are brought in to question the prisoners and learn tactical information, officials said. "We have learned that what drove them into this cult, and what causes them to cooperate, is religion," said one senior Saudi official involved in intelligence work.

Saudi interrogators often bring clerics and a Quran to their prison interviews to establish a religious connection, a technique that has proved successful in eliciting information from terrorist suspects and reorienting them to less violent religious beliefs.

The tactic, similar to the way cult deprogrammers work in the United States, has impressed American counterparts enough that Saudi intelligence was permitted to use some of the principles on their citizens being held at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Saudi officials said. The tactic is getting results.

The religious reorientation is markedly different from some hard-core interrogation tactics that can use sleep deprivation, alternate rewards and punishment and other methods to elicit information.

Here's how it works: First, the Saudis identify midlevel and low-level al-Qaida prisoners who were attracted to Osama bin Laden's network through a perversion of Islam.

Then, shortly after these al-Qaida prisoners are taken into custody, Saudi interrogators send in a cleric who appears to espouse militant Islamic views to help build a personal bond with the young men and open a dialogue based on Islam, the officials said.

Once we connect with them, the interrogators slowly hand them over to a more moderate cleric, who sits with them and goes over what the Quran says and discusses what the traditions of the prophet are," one Saudi official explained.

Experts say the religious reprogramming tactic works well as a carrot in a society that also threatens a harsh stick - Islamic trials followed by swift, public beheadings of some criminals. It has developed over decades as the Saudis have looked for ways to rehabilitate their citizens.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Columnist Jay Bookman writes about the two of the Administration's false assertions : One is that the war on terror and the war in Iraq are the same. The second is that we are fighting each to protect America. Bookman says the Iraq war is not about terrorists. We agree. Remember this Dick Cheney statement?

"We are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there," Vice President Dick Cheney said a week ago, "so we do not have to face them on the streets of our own cities."

False.

Such statements are simply false. Our men and women in uniform are not fighting for their lives against international terrorists in Iraq. They are not fighting the people who attacked us on Sept. 11, nor are they fighting allies of those people.

Instead, the guerrillas who are launching mortars at our military bases, attacking our troops on patrol or hiding booby traps on Iraqi highways are native Iraqis who are trying to evict American troops from their country. Despicable and cowardly as their tactics are, the Iraqi resistance is almost entirely Iraqi. They are not attacking us because they hate Americans. They are attacking us because they hate Americans who are occupying their country.

The import of fighting two wars at the same time is sobering:

It is almost never wise to start a second war when the outcome of the first is still unsettled because you are inevitably forced to divide resources. With more than 100,000 troops and many billions of dollars committed to Iraq for years to come; with our limited Arabic-language intelligence assets now targeted at the Iraqi resistance, not at al-Qaida and its network; and with international support for our war on terror eroded by our high-handed invasion, we have committed the classic mistake of military overreach.

The war on Iraq and the war on terror are two different struggles. Tackled separately, either would have taken us years to win. Tackling them simultaneously was tragic foolishness on a very large scale, no matter how much the president claims otherwise.

Remember the two Afghans who died mysteriously while in U.S. custoday at Bagram Air Force base in Afganistan? Their deaths were ruled homicides, caused by blunt force injuries. The U.S. promised an investigation. Turns out, they won't tell us what they found.

Amnesty International criticized the U.S. today:

When apparent homicides occur in secret prisons, and promised investigations show no results, the country's cherished values of humane treatment and respect for the law are dishonored," William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a written statement. "The failure to account for the prisoners' deaths indicates a chilling disregard for the value of human life."

The official response to Amnesty's statement?

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said in Bagram on Saturday, "I accept that people under custody died here. I deny that they were mistreated."

Hundreds of prisoners were held and interrogated without charges at Bagram, and like those at Guantanamo, they were not afforded prisoner of war status.

Amnesty said that interviews of former Bagram prisoners that were conducted by the human rights group and by journalists have shown that detainees were subjected to ill treatment that may constitute torture, including blindfolding, prolonged forced kneeling, sleep deprivation and the cruel use of shackles.

The interrogations reportedly took place in a special area on the second floor. The Red Cross was denied access to this area. during their visits to other parts of the facility. For more on reports of mistreatment at Bagram, go here.

Update: Read the letter the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights sent to Lt. Gen. John Vines, U.S. Commander in Afganistan, about the deaths.

Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiassen dubs Iraq Operation Sitting Duck. We agree with him. He criticizes Bush and the false reasons he gave and continues to give for our being in Iraq in the first place. He correctly notes that now we are stuck and are likely to remain in Iraq for a long time. But what we especially like about the piece is his reminder to us that we do have a say in all this:

The question for Bush is how long before the American people decide that the best exit plan is to elect a president with an exit plan.

Attacks in Iraq left 11 dead yesterday: 7 Spaniards, 2 Japanese and 2 U.S. Soldiers, further solidifying November as the bloodiest month in the war to date.

Atrios expands on Matt Yglesias' review of incompetence within the Bush Administration concerning the War with Iraq. Atrios focuses on the failure of the Administration to make a legitimate case for war.

Matt uses the Administration's lame plan for Post-war Iraq as a starting point. He finishes here with this thought:

Being dishonest, immoral, and detached from reality isn't part of the essence of being a conservative or generally hawkish, but it is part of the essence of Bushism, and it clearly taints everything the president associates himself with.