By Tabassum Zakaria
Thu Sep 16, 2004 09:44 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6255423&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
2) PENTAGON NOT LISTING 17,000 WAR CASUALTIES
United Press International
September 15, 2004
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040915-041621-5455r.htm
3) Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan
Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger in Washington
The Guardian
Thursday September 16, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5017264-103550,00.html
4) Far graver than Vietnam
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on
Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html
5) Two Americans and Briton Are
Kidnapped by Rebels in Baghdad
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq
September 16, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/international/middleeast/16CND-IRAQ.html?h
p
6) UPDATE on Hostages in Iraq
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004
From: "Barbara Deutsch"
7) Torture for Profit
Private contractors face legal
action for crimes in Abu Ghraib
by David Phinney , Special to CorpWatch
September 15th, 2004
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11524
8) Intelligence Proposals Gain in Congress
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16panel.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) U.S. Intelligence Offers Gloomy Outlook for Iraq
By Tabassum Zakaria
Thu Sep 16, 2004 09:44 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6255423&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. intelligence report prepared for
President Bush in July offered a gloomy outlook for Iraq through
the end of 2005, with the worst scenario being a deterioration
into civil war, a U.S. government official said on Thursday.
The National Intelligence Estimate, which is a compilation
of views from various intelligence agencies, predicted three
possible scenarios from a tenuous stability to political
fragmentation to the most negative assessment of civil war, the
official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"There doesn't seem to be much optimism," the official said.
The New York Times first reported on the existence of the
50-page classified intelligence report, saying it had not
appeared to alter the more optimistic tenor of the Bush
administration's public statements on Iraq.
Iraq has been gripped by an insurgency involving constant
attacks on U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians and the kidnapping
and beheading of foreigners. More than 1,000 American troops
have died.
The July estimate was initiated under former CIA Director
George Tenet, who stepped down in July. The conclusions were
reached before the recent worsening of Iraq's security situation.
The previous National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in
October 2002 has been highly criticized for its assessments
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when no large
stockpiles have been found since the U.S. invasion in March
2003.
The 2002 report was a key piece of intelligence used by the
Bush administration in making its case for going to war. It was
later criticized for not taking into account dissenting views
from some intelligence agencies about the status of Iraq's
banned weapons programs.
National Intelligence Estimates are produced by the
National Intelligence Council, which is like a government think
tank that compiles assessments from various intelligence
agencies.
The National Intelligence Council reports to the CIA
director in his dual role of director of central intelligence
in which he has responsibility for overseeing the 15
intelligence agencies.
(c) Copyright Reuters 2004.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) PENTAGON NOT LISTING 17,000 WAR CASUALTIES
United Press International
September 15, 2004
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040915-041621-5455r.htm
Washington, DC -- The Pentagon has
nearly 17,000 service members medically
evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan
not listed on their public casualty
reports.
According to military data reviewed by
United Press International those
evacuees appear to fit the Pentagon's
own definition of war casualties.
The military has evacuated 16,765
individual service members from Iraq and
Afghanistan for injuries and illnesses
not directly related to combat,
according to the U.S. Transportation
Command, which is responsible for the
medical evacuations. Most are from
Operation Iraqi Freedom.
But the Pentagon's public casualty
reports, available at www.defenselink.mil,
list only service members who died or
were wounded in action, even though the
Pentagon's own definition of a war
casualty is: "Any person who is lost to
the organization by having been declared
dead, duty status -- whereabouts
unknown, missing, ill, or injured."
In addition to those evacuations,
32,684 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan
now out of the military sought medical
attention from the Department of
Veterans Affairs by July 22, according
to VA reports obtained by UPI. The
number of those visits to VA
doctors that were related to war is unknown.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan
Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger in Washington
The Guardian
Thursday September 16, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5017264-103550,00.html
The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, declared explicitly
for the first time last night that the US-led war on Iraq was illegal.
Mr Annan said that the invasion was not sanctioned by the UN security
council or in accordance with the UN's founding charter. In an
interview with the BBC World Service broadcast last night, he was
asked outright if the war was illegal. He replied: "Yes, if you wish."
He then added unequivocally: "I have indicated it was not in
conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and
from the charter point of view it was illegal."
Mr Annan has until now kept a tactful silence and his intervention
at this point undermines the argument pushed by Tony Blair that
the war was legitimised by security council resolutions.
Mr Annan also questioned whether it will be feasible on security
grounds to go ahead with the first planned election in Iraq
scheduled for January. "You cannot have credible elections if
the security conditions continue as they are now," he said.
His remarks come amid a marked deterioration of the situation
on the ground, an upsurge of violence that has claimed 200 lives
in four days and raised questions over the ability of the interim
Iraqi government and the US-led coalition to maintain control
over the country.
They also come as Mr Blair is trying to put the controversy over
the war behind him in the run-up to the conference season, a
new parliamentary term and next year's probable general election.
The UN chief had warned the US and its allies a week before
the invasion in March 2003 that military action would violate
the UN charter. But he has hitherto refrained from using the
damning word "illegal".
Both Mr Blair and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, claim that
Saddam Hussein was in breach of security council resolution
1441 passed late in 2002, and of previous resolutions calling
on him to give up weapons of mass destruction. France and
other countries claimed these were insufficient.
No immediate comment was available from the White House
late last night, but American officials have defended the war as
an act of self-defence, allowed under the UN charter, in view of
Saddam Hussein's supposed plans to build weapons of mass
destruction.
However, last September, Mr Annan issued a stern critique of
the notion of pre-emptive self-defence, saying it would lead to
a breakdown in international order. Mr Annan last night said that
there should have been a second UN resolution specifically
authorizing war against Iraq. Mr Blair and Mr Straw tried to
secure this second resolution early in 2003 in the run-up to
the war but were unable to convince a sceptical security council.
Mr Annan said the security council had warned Iraq in resolution
1441 there would be "consequences" if it did not comply with its
demands. But he said it should have been up to the council to
determine what those consequences were.
Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Far graver than Vietnam
Most senior US military officers now believe the war on
Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html
'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency
in July of last year. Since then, 812 American soldiers have been killed
and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day,
in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how he is
"winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the
National Guard convention on Tuesday.
But, according to the US military's leading strategists and prominent
retired generals, Bush's war is already lost. Retired general William
Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush
hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front.
That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too.
It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving
Bin Laden's ends."
Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and
head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going
to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good
options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being
conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so
unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The
priorities are just all wrong."
Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said:
"I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has
become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation
in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in
Germany and Japan."
W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic
studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't
think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the
anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding
several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and
becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.
"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," he told me.
"We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are
getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are
x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can
get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to
regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the
ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more
hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they
are confirmed in that view."
After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines
besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event
for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on
Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general
who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me.
I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the
White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded,
and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base.
"If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by
a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist
that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us
occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery
common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of
angels and the Prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven
to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and
emanating wonderful scents."
"I see no exit," said Record. "We've been down that road before.
It's called Vietnamisation. The idea that we're going to have an
Iraqi force trained to defeat an enemy we can't defeat stretches
the imagination. They will be tainted by their very association
with the foreign occupier. In fact, we had more time and money
in state building in Vietnam than in Iraq."
General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't
as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly
went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But
now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse
shape with our allies."
Terrill believes that any sustained US military offensive against the
no-go areas "could become so controversial that members of the
Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign". Thus, an attempted
military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political
legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."
General Hoare believes from the information he has received that "a
decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in
November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs
are all there."
He compares any such planned attack to the late Syrian dictator Hafez
al-Asad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said
Hoare. "US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there
would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their
leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle.
I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in
the street, a beacon for democracy."
General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration
the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever
seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen
a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose
interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin
Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the
equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by
pouring more in there. Tragic."
·Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is
Washington bureau chief of salon.com
sidney_blumenthal@ yahoo.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Two Americans and Briton Are
Kidnapped by Rebels in Baghdad
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq
September 16, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/international/middleeast/16CND-IRAQ.html?h
p
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 16 - Insurgents kidnapped two American
and one British contractor in a brazen dawn raid on their home in
one of Baghdad's most upscale neighborhoods, underscoring the
rapidly growing perils confronting foreign nationals in this war zone.
The three men worked for the Gulf Services Company, based in the
United Arab Emirates, and were believed to be involved in construction,
said neighbors and an American embassy official. The company was
operating in Iraq under the name of Al Khalij, said Col. Adnan Abdul-
Rahman, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Neighbors said the
men had received prior threats.
The incident took place without a struggle and without shots being
fired, neighbors said. The men were simply dragged from their homes
in the Mansour neighborhood and put into one or two cars. The
insurgents had head scarves swathed around their faces and at least
one wore all black, though it was unclear whether they carried any
guns, neighbors said.
"Come on, get in, get in the car!" one of the kidnappers said,
according to a 32-year-old neighbor who gave her name as
Um Brahim.
The abductions echoed those of two 29-year-old Italian women and
two of their Iraqi co-workers on Sept. 7. In both cases, the hostage
takers had no qualms about staging their raid during daylight hours
in the heart of the capital, when witnesses would likely be roaming
around.
These incidents are quickly forcing changes to the way foreigners
live and work here, with security advisors scrambling to boost the
presence of armed guards at private homes or move residents into
hotels.
In short, the insurgents are succeeding in tightening the circle in
which foreigners think they can safely operate, slowly squeezing in
the edges until a single ice floe remains among turbulent swells.
No group took immediate responsibility for the kidnappings today.
No armed guards worked at the two-story concrete home in which
the three victims lived, according to several neighbors. The three
foreigners were clearly trying to maintain a low profile in the area.
But as was the case with the Italian women, taking a soft approach
to security ultimately left them vulnerable amid the rising hostilities.
"I feel so sorry for what happened to them," said Um Brahim as she
stood in her driveway, right next door to the victims' home. "They
weren't working for a military company. It was a construction company."
The raid unfolded at around 6 a.m., when a blackout prompted two
of the victims to open the black metal gate of their home to turn on
a large generator sitting outside a four-foot front wall surrounding
the house. As the gate swung open, masked men rushed into the front
yard and seized the foreigners, said Bahir Saleem, a student living on
the block who said he spoke with several witnesses.
The insurgents then took a third man from the house.
Several neighbors said that up to two foreign Arabs usually lived
in the house and were responsible for maintaining the generator
and driving the Westerners around, but that they had left just a
day or two earlier.
One neighbor, Suham Moiyed, said a young boy emerged from the
house across the street to help start the generator, since that house
also received electricity from the machine, but that the kidnappers
told the boy's mother to get him back into the house.
The home, in which the Westerners had lived for about a year, is a
drab building in a middle- to upper-class area that had no visible
defenses. The wall around the house functions more as decoration
than protection. Four white plastic chairs surround a circular table
sit on the tiny front lawn.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) UPDATE on Hostages in Iraq
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004
From: "Barbara Deutsch"
Last Friday, Sept. 10, I sent around a Petition
for the Italian anti-war activists kidnapped in
Iraq. I wrote that the kidnappers were "most
likely in the pay of the CIA, and at the very
least are doing the work of the U.S. government
by kidnappings and executions directed against
civilian anti-war activists."
I received two comments from ostensibly radical
professors who criticized my comments for being
inaccurate and harmful to the cause. They
focused blame on Moslem extremists.
Below, I reprint an investigatory article from
today's British "Guardian" newspaper by Naomi
Klein and Jeremy Scahill which buttresses the
claim I made, with specific evidence, such as:
"The attackers were armed with AK-47s, shotguns,
pistols with silencers and stun guns -- hardly
the mujahideen's standard-issue rusty
Kalashnikovs. Strangest of all is this detail:
witnesses said that several attackers wore Iraqi
National Guard uniforms and identified
themselves as working for Ayad Allawi, the
interim prime minister."
There's lots more.
Just about every Islamic group, including the
leaders of the resistance in Iraq, have
condemned this kidnapping of the leaders of the
Italian antiwar movement and their fellow
workers.
I am amazed that some folks, despite their
decades of education at elite universities, or
most likely because of it, are unable to read
through the lines and understand what is really
happening in this world and who is behind the
horror.
Thank you Naomi Klein. Thank you Jeremy Scahill.
And most of all,
FREE SIMONA TORRETTA, SIMONA PARI,
RAAD ALI ABDUL AZZIZ and MAHNOUZ
BASSAM
- Mitchel Cohen
Brooklyn Greens/Green Party of NY
Who seized Simona Torretta?
This Iraqi kidnapping has the mark of
an undercover police operation
Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian
When Simona Torretta returned to Baghdad in
March 2003, in the midst of the "shock and awe"
aerial bombardment, her Iraqi friends greeted
her by telling her she was nuts. "They were just
so surprised to see me. They said, 'Why are you
coming here? Go back to Italy. Are you crazy?'"
But Torretta didn't go back. She stayed
throughout the invasion, continuing the
humanitarian work she began in 1996, when she
first visited Iraq with her anti-sanctions NGO,
A Bridge to Baghdad. When Baghdad fell, Torretta
again opted to stay, this time to bring medicine
and water to Iraqis suffering under occupation.
Even after resistance fighters began targeting
foreigners, and most foreign journalists and aid
workers fled, Torretta again returned. "I cannot
stay in Italy," the 29-year-old told a
documentary film-maker.
Today, Torretta's life is in danger, along with
the lives of her fellow Italian aid worker
Simona Pari, and their Iraqi colleagues Raad Ali
Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam. Eight days ago,
the four were snatched at gunpoint from their
home/office in Baghdad and have not been heard
from since. In the absence of direct
communication from their abductors, political
controversy swirls round the incident.
Proponents of the war are using it to paint
peaceniks as naive, blithely supporting a
resistance that answers international solidarity
with kidnappings and beheadings. Meanwhile, a
growing number of Islamic leaders are hinting
that the raid on A Bridge to Baghdad was not the
work of mujahideen, but of foreign intelligence
agencies out to discredit the resistance.
Nothing about this kidnapping fits the pattern
of other abductions. Most are opportunistic
attacks on treacherous stretches of road.
Torretta and her colleagues were coldly hunted
down in their home. And while mujahideen in Iraq
scrupulously hide their identities, making sure
to wrap their faces in scarves, these kidnappers
were bare-faced and clean-shaven, some in
business suits. One assailant was addressed by
the others as "sir".
Kidnap victims have overwhelmingly been men, yet
three of these four are women. Witnesses say the
gunmen questioned staff in the building until
the Simonas were identified by name, and that
Mahnouz Bassam, an Iraqi woman, was dragged
screaming by her headscarf, a shocking religious
transgression for an attack supposedly carried
out in the name of Islam.
Most extraordinary was the size of the
operation: rather than the usual three or four
fighters, 20 armed men pulled up to the house in
broad daylight, seemingly unconcerned about
being caught. Only blocks from the heavily
patrolled Green Zone, the whole operation went
off with no interference from Iraqi police or US
military - although Newsweek reported that
"about 15 minutes afterwards, an American Humvee
convoy passed hardly a block away".
And then there were the weapons. The attackers
were armed with AK-47s, shotguns, pistols with
silencers and stun guns - hardly the
mujahideen's standard-issue rusty Kalashnikovs.
Strangest of all is this detail: witnesses said
that several attackers wore Iraqi National Guard
uniforms and identified themselves as working
for Ayad Allawi, the interim prime minister.
An Iraqi government spokesperson denied that
Allawi's office was involved. But Sabah Kadhim,
a spokesperson for the interior ministry,
conceded that the kidnappers "were wearing
military uniforms and flak jackets". So was this
a kidnapping by the resistance or a covert
police operation? Or was it something worse: a
revival of Saddam's mukhabarat disappearances,
when agents would arrest enemies of the regime,
never to be heard from again? Who could have
pulled off such a coordinated operation - and
who stands to benefit from an attack on this
anti-war NGO?
On Monday, the Italian press began reporting on
one possible answer. Sheikh Abdul Salam
al-Kubaisi, from Iraq's leading Sunni cleric
organisation, told reporters in Baghdad that he
received a visit from Torretta and Pari the day
before the kidnap. "They were scared," the
cleric said. "They told me that someone
threatened them." Asked who was behind the
threats, al-Kubaisi replied: "We suspect some
foreign intelligence."
Blaming unpopular resistance attacks on CIA or
Mossad conspiracies is idle chatter in Baghdad,
but coming from Kubaisi, the claim carries
unusual weight; he has ties with a range of
resistance groups and has brokered the release
of several hostages. Kubaisi's allegations have
been widely reported in Arab media, as well as
in Italy, but have been absent from the
English-language press.
Western journalists are loath to talk about
spies for fear of being labelled conspiracy
theorists. But spies and covert operations are
not a conspiracy in Iraq; they are a daily
reality. According to CIA deputy director James
L Pavitt, "Baghdad is home to the largest CIA
station since the Vietnam war", with 500 to 600
agents on the ground. Allawi himself is a
lifelong spook who has worked with MI6, the CIA
and the mukhabarat, specialising in removing
enemies of the regime.
A Bridge to Baghdad has been unapologetic in its
opposition to the occupation regime. During the
siege of Falluja in April, it coordinated risky
humanitarian missions. US forces had sealed the
road to Falluja and banished the press as they
prepared to punish the entire city for the
gruesome killings of four Blackwater
mercenaries. In August, when US marines laid
siege to Najaf, A Bridge to Baghdad again went
where the occupation forces wanted no witnesses.
And the day before their kidnapping, Torretta
and Pari told Kubaisi that they were planning
yet another high-risk mission to Falluja.
In the eight days since their abduction, pleas
for their release have crossed all geographical,
religious and cultural lines. The Palestinian
group Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, the
International Association of Islamic Scholars
and several Iraqi resistance groups have all
voiced outrage. A resistance group in Falluja
said the kidnap suggests collaboration with
foreign forces. Yet some voices are conspicuous
by their absence: the White House and the office
of Allawi. Neither has said a word.
What we do know is this: if this hostage-taking
ends in bloodshed, Washington, Rome and their
Iraqi surrogates will be quick to use the
tragedy to justify the brutal occupation - an
occupation that Simona Torretta, Simona Pari,
Raad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnouz Bassam risked
their lives to oppose. And we will be left
wondering whether that was the plan all along.
· Jeremy Scahill is a reporter for the
independent US radio/TV show Democracy Now;
Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences
and Windows
jeremy@democracynow.org
www.nologo.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305523,00.html
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Torture for Profit
Private contractors face legal
action for crimes in Abu Ghraib
by David Phinney , Special to CorpWatch
September 15th, 2004
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11524
Employees of two high-profile defense contractors are accused
of involvement in close to one third of the torture and abuse
incidents cited in a recent Army investigation of Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq. In late August, following release of the report,
Defense department officials turned over the names of six CACI
International Inc. and Titan Corporation employees to the U.S.
Justice department for possible prosecution. But efforts to hold
private contract employees truly accountable may fall short due
to untested laws on contractor accountability and a U.S.
administration that critics say has repeatedly redefined torture
in its 'war on terror' and in the war on Iraq.
The 176-page Army report, produced under the direction of
Maj. Gen. George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones,
graphically details 44 incidents of abuse taking place at Abu
Ghraib involving military intelligence personnel and contractors.
It confirms prior findings of torture including head blows and
other physical assault, sodomy, rape, stripping prisoners of their
clothing, forcing detainees to masturbate and perform sex acts,
the use of unmuzzled dogs and other atrocities and abusive
practices.
Of the 44 documented incidents, from July 2003 to February 2004,
interrogators employed by CACI International, Inc., of Arlington, Va.,
and translators working for Titan Corp. of San Diego are accused of
being connected to 14.
Army investigators found evidence that these contract employees
violently assaulted prisoners, demanded that prisoners be forced
into unauthorized stress positions and threatened prisoners with
dogs. It also documents allegations of rape by one witness who
told investigators of a civilian, believed to be a translator who was
wearing a military uniform.
The report asserts that 35 percent of the interrogators provided
on contract by CACI "lacked formal military training as interrogators"
for what the Pentagon considers a critical military function that
should not be outsourced only in extreme and pressing situations.
The report also claims that the Army failed to properly investigate
the backgrounds of many of the contract employees.
The day after the Fay/Jones report was made public August 24,
Defense Department officials turned over the names of four CACI
and Titan employees accused of active participation in the abuse.
Also turned over for possible prosecution were two more employees
accused of failing to report torture and abuse that they witnessed.
From a variety of perspectives, "the use of contract interrogators
and linguists at Abu Ghraib was problematic," the report finds.
Leadership at the prison was "unprepared for the arrival of
contract interrogators and had no training to fall back on in
the management, control, and discipline of these personnel."
It also says, "Several people indicated in their statements that
that contractor personnel were 'supervising' government personnel
or vice versa. [One] Sergeant indicated that CACI employees were
in positions of authority, and appeared to be supervising government
personnel." The report concludes. "It would appear that no effort
to familiarize the ultimate user of the contracted services of the
contract's terms and procedures was ever made."
One CACI contractor, accused in the report of dragging a handcuffed
prisoner and drinking alcohol at the prison, is cited as being
belligerent to military command. At one point he is said to have
protested: "I have been doing my job for 20 years and do not
need a 20-year-old to tell me how to do my job."
Both companies have regularly denied such allegations and a
CACI internal investigation this summer found no wrongdoing
on the part of its employees, a source familiar with the review
said. And while the companies intend to aid government
investigations of Abu Ghraib, the spokesmen also said the
recent Army findings are far less damning than what was
originally claimed when the prison scandal originally surfaced
last spring.
In a company statement CEO Jack London said "Nothing in
the Fay report can be construed as CACI employees directing,
participating in or even observing anything close to what we
have all seen in the dozens of horrendous photos." London
stopped short of an unequivocal defense of his employees.
"Nonetheless, we are disappointed and disheartened by the
news that any of our employees or former employees are
alleged to have engaged in any improper or inappropriate
behavior."
Justice
Justice department prosecutors say they are still determining
how to proceed on the cases. But since both Justice and
Defense have rewritten the definition of torture several times
and because the Pentagon has yet to investigate the roles
played by the two companies, actual prosecutions are uncertain.
Meanwhile, private lawyers are waging two separate court
battles claiming that the torture is far more brutal and
widespread than what Pentagon investigators publicly
acknowledge and that the companies involved should
share the blame for the abusive treatment of detainees.
Titan and CACI are named as defendants in a suit filed in
Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. by Australian
lawyer Michael Hourigan. He's suing under the Alien Tort
Claims Act, on behalf of four former Abu Ghraib prisoners
and the widow of one detainee who died in custody. The suit
aims to determine what responsibility the contractors may
have in the events at Abu Ghraib, says Atlanta attorney
Roderick Edmond who is working with the plaintiffs.
"People really were tortured and real people really did die,"
he says. "These corporations need to be held accountable if
they were derelict in their responsibilities of training and
supervision and their employees were involved with directing
interrogation."
CACI rejects and denies the allegations and denounces the
suit as "malicious and farcical recitation of false statements
and intentional distortions."
A second suit, filed by the Center for Constitutional rights,
alleges even wider pattern of torture and is brought under
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act,
the 1970 law often used by prosecutors to go after organized
crime, which imposes both criminal and civil liability. The suit,
filed in Federal Court in San Diego, California alleges violations
of the Geneva Conventions, 8th, 5th, and 14th Amendments
to the U.S. Constitution as well as other U.S. and international
laws.
Prosecutions
The Titan employees will be considered for prosecution under
the still untested Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. Passed
in November 2000, the law permits prosecution in U.S. federal
courts of Defense Department contractors who commit crimes
while working with the military outside the United States.
But the law applies only to crimes carrying a minimum one-year
sentence and that may not include incidents of simple assault
says Michael Nardotti Jr., a law partner at Patton Boggs in
Washington in a May 11 interview with American Lawyer.
"Suppose the behavior involves humiliating the detainee, or
stripping him naked," said Nardotti, who served as judge
advocate general of the Army from 1993 to 1997. "What crime
would that constitute? You'd have to look at the whole list of
federal offenses and find one that is punishable by more than
one year."
Alex Ward, a legal fellow for Amnesty International, agrees. "It's
a very foggy area," he says. "But assuming that, at the very least,
the worst of what the contractors did is true, I imagine that would
be punishable."
Interrogators employed by CACI pose a more complex problem
for prosecutors. The company performed its interrogation work
for the Army under a contract originally intended to provide
information technology through the Interior Department. Because
CACI was technically operating through Interior - and not the
Defense Department - wrongdoing by CACI employees may be
outside the jurisdiction of the untested Military Extraterritorial
Jurisdiction Act.
Faced with that dilemma, a Justice Department task force under
the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia is
considering the U.S. criminal code covering torture for possible
prosecution, says spokesperson, Frank Schultz.
That statute, Title 18, amendment 2340a, defines torture as
inflicting "severe physical or mental pain or suffering" and
requires that "Whoever outside the United States commits or
attempts to commit torture" may be fined or imprisoned for
not more than 20 years.
"That's part of what is being looked at right now," Shultz said.
"It's the prosecutorial process."
Defining torture
That process may not go very far, says Scott Horton, an
attorney who is president of the New York based International
League of Human Rights. The group joined other human rights
organizations in a May 7 letter to President Bush that claims
that the patterns of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib are
widespread at other detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It requests that the president
rein in those responsible and assure that the treatment of
detainees is consistent with international humanitarian law.
"We are talking about an administration and attorney general
who have issued opinions saying that torture isn't torture, so
it's difficult to believe they seriously intend to prosecute anyone,"
Horton says. "They have established a policy at the highest level
to create an atmosphere of ambiguity."
In August, 2002, Jay Bybee, head of the justice department's
office of legal counsel wrote Alberto R Gonzales, the White House
counsel. "Certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but
still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to
fall within [a legal] proscription against torture."
Elisa Massimino, director of Human Rights First in the Washington,
D.C., office, says these and other memos from the Justice
Department, the White House and the Pentagon seek to bend
the rules on torture. "The laws are clear," she says. "The only
thing that became hazy is the administration."
Calls for wider investigation
On Sept. 8, 2004 eight retired generals and admirals joined
Human Rights First in a call for an independent investigation of
Abu Ghraib and other detention centers, saying that previous
probes fall short in providing a comprehensive assessment of
abuse or meaningful recommendations to address them.
"The use of contractors for what is a military function is a huge
issue," said retired Navy admiral, John Hutson, who served as the
Navy's judge advocate general from 1997 to 2000 and joined in
the call for an independent investigation. "It's a problem when
contractors are inserted in the chain of command."
The Fay report also points an accusing finger up the chain of
command, claiming that senior officers in Iraq neglected to
provide needed oversight or and lay out "clear, consistent
guidance" for the treatment of detainees. Another investigation
of Abu Ghraib led by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger
released Aug. 24 aimed even higher. It blames senior civilian and
military leaders at the Pentagon for fostering confused guidance,
poor planning and plodding response after problems at Abu
Ghraib became known.
While none of the dozen reports dealing with the treatment of
detainees has found direct responsibility by CACI or Titan
management for the events at Abu Ghraib, one investigation
spearheaded by the General Services Administration (GSA) did
review the CACI's interrogation task orders after the prison
abuse began making headlines. Because the Army awarded
these under a contract managed by the Interior Department
for technology services, GSA determined that interrogation
was clearly out of scope of the agreement's intent and could
be possible grounds for debarring or suspending CACI from
future government work. The GSA review also discovered
that a CACI employee, Thomas Howard, took part in writing
for the Army the very guidelines for the work (called in
contract jargon a "statement of work" ) to be performed by
CACI.
After the review, GSA suspension and debarment official
Joseph Neurauter said, in a July 7 letter to the company,
that he would not take formal action against CACI. Still,
Neurauter expressed concern that "CACI's possible role
in preparing statements of work continues to be an open
issue and potential conflict of interest." Neurauter
requested further response from the company.
Following further private discussions with GSA, CACI vowed
to comply with federal acquisition regulations in the future.
The Army then discontinued funneling the contract through
Interior and wrote a new agreement with CACI to continue the
interrogation work. "I do not feel that, at this time, it is
necessary for me to take any formal action to protect the
interests of the federal government," Neurauter concluded.
The new contract, announced by CACI on August 10, is for a
period of four months, worth $15.3 million, and has two
optional extensions worth up to $3.8 million each, for a
total value of $23 million.
Meanwhile, the Fay/Jones report found that it remains unclear
"who, if anyone, in Army contracting or legal channels approved
the use" of the original Interior contract.
Lawsuits may help investigations
The civil suits against CACI and Titan may have more hope
of shedding light on the role of the contractors than the GSA
investigations. Among other things, the Center for Constitutional
Rights lawsuit seeks to prove that CACI and Titan knowingly
collaborated with the Defense Department in the prison abuse.
Detroit attorney, Shereef Akeel, who is working on the lawsuit,
says that he discovered that abuse and torture are widespread
at the 23 U.S. detention facilities in Iraq. During a recent fact-
finding trip, he visited with detainees, former prisoners and
families who said they lost loved ones at the centers.
"It is horrific and devastating," Akeel says, adding that the abuse
begins when the military raids homes at night in search of suspected
insurgents. "Families would be robbed. They are stripped of their
dignity and property. The normal routine is a raid with translators
carrying guns asking where the father is and where the gold is."
Once at the facilities, Akeel says that detainees are subjected to
brutality, rape and other forms of abuse.
"This is torture for profit," he claims. "The government is there is
to promote 'democracy' while companies have two competing
masters - shareholders and the government - and they are there
for profit."
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) Intelligence Proposals Gain in Congress
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16panel.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 - The momentum behind creation of a new,
powerful job of national intelligence director gained force on
Wednesday with the introduction of a bipartisan Senate bill to
grant sweeping budget authority to such an official and a
simultaneous promise by House leaders to pass a related bill
before going home this fall to campaign for re-election.
The bill, introduced by the Republican and Democratic leaders of
the Governmental Affairs Committee, would establish the post of
national intelligence director and provide the director with control
over most of the government's estimated $40 billion annual
intelligence budget, including virtually complete authority over
spending by the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the
intelligence programs of the F.B.I. and the Homeland Security
Department.
Creation of such a post was the central recommendation of the
independent Sept. 11 commission, and the idea has been
endorsed by President Bush over the initial objections of some
senior aides.
The Governmental Affairs Committee bill has been designated
by Senate leaders as the chamber's chief legislative vehicle for
responding to the commission's recommendations for overhauling
the executive branch, and the bill's authors say it is has been
packaged for quick adoption in the Senate, possibly as early as
next week.
Although House Republican leaders have been notably cooler than
their Senate colleagues in their response to the commission's
findings and at one time suggested that there would be no time
to take up intelligence legislation before the November elections,
they vowed on Wednesday that they would approve a related
intelligence-overhaul bill before adjourning next month.
"We will vote on a final bill before Congress adjourns in October,"
said the House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay,
Republican of Texas.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said in a statement that the Republican
leadership would introduce a "comprehensive bill early next week"
with the goal of "having the bill on the House floor by late September."
House leaders have been unwilling to discuss many of the details
of their planned legislation, and members of the Sept. 11
commission and some lawmakers have said they fear that the
House may try to water down the commission's main
recommendations, creating a conflict with the Senate bill
and derailing final approval.
John Feehery, a spokesman for Mr. Hastert, said that while
the speaker supported the idea of a national intelligence
director, he was still uncertain how much budgetary and
other power should be granted.
"That's the big issue," Mr. Feehery said, "and it's a matter of
negotiation not only with our committees but also with the
White House."
The Senate bill was introduced by Senators Susan Collins, the
Maine Republican who is chairwoman of the Governmental
Affairs Committee, and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut,
the panel's ranking Democrat. Committee aides said that final
mark-up of the bill was scheduled for next Tuesday and
Wednesday, with the possibility of a final vote on the Senate
floor days later.
"We must transform our intelligence system to meet the threats
of today and the future," Senator Collins said at a news
conference to announce the bill. "We establish a national
intelligence director with strong authority - strong budget
authority, strong personnel authority."
She said that if the intelligence director "did not have strong
budget authority, we really would just be creating another
level of bureaucracy."
Senator Lieberman said the bill would produce "revolutionary
changes" in the way the government gathered and shared
intelligence.
"Under our plan, when somebody asks, 'Who's in charge?' the
question will not be met with blank stares and nonanswers,
which greeted the 9/11 commission every time they asked
somebody that question," Mr. Lieberman said.
While the Senate bill differs in significant ways from some of
the proposals made by the Sept. 11 commission - among other
things, the bill would not have senior officials of the C.I.A., the
F.B.I. and the Pentagon serve as deputies to the intelligence
director - it was still welcomed by the bipartisan commission.
In a joint statement, the commission chairman, Thomas H. Kean,
a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and the vice chairman,
Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic House member from Indiana
and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
welcomed the Senate bill, describing it as a "significant
breakthrough" that "appears to incorporate some of the
most important structural recommendations contained in our
report."
"We consider this legislation an important first step in moving
our nation in a direction that will greatly increase the safety of
the American people," they said.
Their statement was released by their newly opened educational
foundation, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which has been
created to continue to lobby the White House and Congress on
behalf of the commission's recommendations.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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