Welcome to Baghdad

Despite $2 billion spent, residents say Baghdad is crumbling. Is this winning hearts and minds? Is this progress?

Talib Abu Younes put his lips to a glass of tap water recently and watched worms swimming in the bottom.

Electricity flickers on and off for two hours in Muthana Naim's south Baghdad home then shuts off for four in boiling July heat that shoots above 120 degrees.

Fadhel Hussein boils buckets of sewage-contaminated water from the Tigris River to wash the family's clothes.

The capital is crumbling around angry Baghdadis. Narrow concrete sewage pipes decay underground and water pipes leak out more than half the drinking water before it ever reaches a home, according to the U.S. military.

Over 18 months, American officials spent almost $2 billion to revive the capital ravaged by war and neglect, according to Army Gen. William G. Webster, who heads the 30,000 U.S. and foreign troops and 15,000 Iraqi soldiers known collectively as Task Force Baghdad. But the money goes for long-term projects that yield few visible results and for security to protect the construction sites from sabotage.

As a result, Iraqis have seen scant evidence of improvement in their homes, streets or neighborhoods. They blame American and Iraqi government corruption.

"We thank God that the air we breathe is not in the hands of the government. Otherwise they would have cut it off for a few hours each day," said Nadeem Haki, 39, an electric-goods shop owner in the upscale Karrada district in the east of the capital.

Of the major completed projects in Baghdad, more than $38 million went to sewage projects, $375,000 to a water main and $101.2 million to electricity generation and transmission.

Others are in the works. More than $792 million is being invested in water, sewage and electricity projects across the capital, according to U.S. military documents.

The progress is slow and the rewards incremental. Parts of the city - such as the impoverished Shiite Muslim neighborhood Sadr City, once flooded with green rivers of sewage - now have functioning sewer systems.

"The things that go below the ground and provide enough electricity are incredibly expensive, especially when you have to pay for security for that local job site," Webster said.

As renovations are made, insurgent attacks often undermine the work, leaving the city's residents frustrated that there are days they can't flush their toilets. Over three weeks, three main water lines were attacked, leaving swaths of the city without water for days.

Power generation in the city has increased by about 232 megawatts but the demand has doubled, so the greater supply hasn't resulted in many more hours of service. Three more electricity projects are expected to be complete by the end of the year, including the Dora Power Plant, a $101.5 million project that will supply 428 more megawatts to Iraqi homes, according to U.S. military documents.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars also have been spent to repair and install feeder lines to make sure all parts of the city receive electricity.

A public campaign began in June to build confidence in the Ministry of Electricity. On billboards, TV commercials and radio announcements reminiscent of American-produced public service announcements, messages read:

"Electricity is a blessing, help us protect it,"

"The demand for electricity is growing faster than we can supply it,"

"We ask for your support and understanding."

But understanding wanes when the smell of sewage fills every other block, drinking water is often contaminated and Iraqis resort to sleeping on their roofs to take a break from the sauna-like heat inside their homes, waking up covered in dust.

Electricity production is up to 16 hours a day in Iraqi homes according to U.S. military documents, but most Iraqis say they get eight hours of power a day on average, sometimes as many as 12. In poor areas such as New Baghdad, in the east of the capital, people go days without power, they said.

With about $2 billion already invested, Baghdad should be sparkling, said its mayor, Alaa Mahmoud al Timimi. He hasn't been consulted on American projects, besides signatures for completed developments, and has threatened to resign if he doesn't get a larger budget to solve his city's problems. The $85 million he was allocated can't keep up with the city of 6.5 million, he said.

He's already playing catch-up. Over 12 years the city was allocated about $3 per person per year, he said.

"Baghdad is an ignored city," said Timimi, who's a civil engineer. "The people, they blame me. I need money to rebuild the capacity of water (supply) and ... (for) sewage, garbage collection, power."

Electricity lines are tangled above the streets like strands of spaghetti, supply machinery dates to 1958 and fuse boxes have been ripped from the walls in electricity stations.

"It's too slow. If I had $2 billion I would have done three to five times more," Timimi said. "The Americans told me this is our money and we will spend it towards our plans. They do it their way."

But rebuilding Baghdad can't be done in a day or even two years, apparently. Oil refineries, electricity plants and water plants weren't maintained under Saddam Hussein, and unforeseen expenses often hinder projects.

Sometimes the simple installation of an air conditioner at a school reveals that not enough electricity is being generated to make it work, said Lt. Col. William Duddleston, a spokesman for Task Force Baghdad's Government Support Team.

"People in Baghdad don't understand, because many of them had 24 hours of electricity while people in Basra had five," he said, referring to Iraq's southern port city. Electric power is now distributed more evenly around the country, so Baghdad has suffered.

The capital was ruled with both favoritism and neglect under the past regime, Webster said recently: Those in Saddam's good graces had round-the-clock electricity while others had none.

Lt. Col. Vincent Quarles, the commander of the 4-3 Brigade Troops Battalion, oversees neighborhood reconstruction projects in about one-quarter of Baghdad. He looks at sites in the Karrada district. Some are almost done: Pipes have been renovated, holding tanks for purified water sealed and small water-purification pumps installed.

But it's sometimes a two-steps-forward, one-step-back process. At one sewage plant in east Baghdad, they'd almost finished renovations when a decaying pipe collapsed and the ground caved in. Now the work will begin again.

"It's hard to see all the progress that's been made, but things are getting better," Quarles said.

Knight Ridder special correspondent Mohammed al Awsy contributed to this report.

Welcome to what used to be Baghdad.

Guardsman Pleads Guilty in Killing of Iraqi Officer

This is a story that's bound to be ignored by the right wing blogsphere.

FORT KNOX, Ky., July 25 - A 22-year-old National Guard soldier pleaded guilty today to killing an Iraqi police officer while they were on patrol together, and then shooting himself to cover up the crime.

With his parents and his wife, Amber, looking on, Cpl. Dustin M. Berg of the Indiana National Guard, said he felt "great remorse" about shooting Hussein Kamel Hadi Dawood al-Zubeidi in 2003.

Military prosecutors, who say the fatal shooting sowed a mistrust between Iraqi police officers and American soldiers that continues today, have asked a judge to sentence Corporal Berg to 45 months in prison and to discharge him dishonorably from the Army.

"I should have considered the Iraqi police officer to be an ally and not a threat," Corporal Berg said in court. "I believe I am negligent for the shooting. I should have used reasonable care. I should not have killed Mr. Zubeidi. I acted too quickly."

As he spoke, Corporal Berg held a crumpled tissue in his hand and frequently wiped his eyes and nose. Behind him, sitting in the courtroom's spectator section, his wife, who is seven months pregnant, and his parents wept openly.

The soldier had also been charged with two counts of lying to the military, but those charges were dismissed today.

Corporal Berg, of Ferdinand, Ind., served twice in Iraq with the First Battalion, 152nd Infantry, based in Jasper, Ind.

At least eight other American soldiers have been convicted or have entered guilty pleas related to charges of killing Iraqis.

The shooting occurred in November 2003 while Corporal Berg and Mr. Zubeidi were on patrol outside a flea market. The soldier testified that he had seen a suspected insurgent and moved to retrieve a radio to call his unit for instructions, but that Mr. Zubeidi had pointed a rifle at him and told him not to inform his superiors.

Corporal Berg said he had been in fear for his life, and in a "split-second decision," shot Mr. Zubeidi three times.

The soldier said he then shot himself with Mr. Zubeidi's AK-47 rifle because other soldiers in his unit had faced severe punishment for protecting themselves against suspicious Iraqis and he felt that Army investigators would not believe he killed the police officer in self-defense.

Thinking the unfamiliar weapon would fire only one bullet at a time, Corporal Berg said he accidentally shot himself three times in the abdomen instead of just once - because the weapon had been set on automatic fire. The soldier was hospitalized, but his wounds had not been life-threatening.

The soldier told Army officials that Mr. Zubeidi had shot him, and Corporal Berg was awarded a Purple Heart. Eventually, however, the soldier acknowledged that the wounds had been self-inflicted.

"I shot myself on purpose," Corporal Berg said today. "I didn't want there to be an investigation."

He added, "I'm lucky to be alive today."

Unfortunately the Iraqi Policeman wasn't as lucky was he Corporal Berg? It would be terrible if that's where the story ended, but hey this is Iraq and things always get worse! The recommended sentence for Berg is 45 months. Yep that's right 45 months for murder. Can you imagine if he had committed that crime in the states? Would four years be enough for murder?

Rove and Libby To Face Perjury Charges?

Just when they thought they managed to cover the Rove affair, something else hits the press.

Rove, Libby Accounts in CIA Case Differ With Those of Reporters

July 22 (Bloomberg) — Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity, the person said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame’s name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.

These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a covert intelligence agent.

Murray Waas also picks up the story here

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove’s first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said.

Also leading to the early skepticism of Rove's accounts was the claim that although he first heard that Plame worked for the CIA from a journalist, he said could not recall the name of the journalist. Later, the sources said, Rove wavered even further, saying he was not sure at all where he first heard the information.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, has said that Rove never knew that Plame was a covert officer when he discussed her CIA employment with reporters, and that he only first learned of her clandestine status when he read about it in the newspaper. Luskin did not return a telephone call today seeking comment for this story.

If recently disclosed press accounts of conversations that Rove had with reporters are correct, Novak and Rove first spoke about Plame on July 8, 2003. It was three days later, on July 11, that Rove also spoke about Plame to Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper. Three days after that, on July 14, Novak's column appeared in which he identified Plame as an "agency operative." According to Novak's account, it was he, not Rove, who first broached the issue of Plame's employment with the CIA, and that Rove at most simply said that he, too, had heard much the same information.

Novak's column came during a period of time when senior White House officials were attempting to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was then asserting that the Bush administration had relied on faulty intelligence to bolster its case to go to war with Iraq. Wilson had only recently led a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was covertly attempting to buy enriched uranium from the African nation to build a nuclear weapon. Wilson reported back that the claims were most likely the result of a hoax. But President Bush had still cited them during a State of the Union address as evidence that Hussein had an aggressive program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

In the column, Novak called Plame an "agency operative," thus identifying her as a covert CIA agent. But Novak has since claimed that his use of the phrase "agency operative" was a formulation of his own, and that he did not know, or mean to tell his readers, that she had a covert status with the agency.

Rove, too, has told federal investigators he did not know that Plame had a covert status with the CIA when he spoke with Novak, and Cooper, about Plame.

The distinction as to whether Rove specifically knew Plame’s status has been central to the investigation led by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald; under the law, a government official can only be prosecuted if he or she knew of a person's covert status and "that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent."

But investigators were also skeptical of Novak's claim that his use of the term "operative" was a journalistic miscue because it appeared to provide legal protection for whoever his source or sources were. And although Novak's and Rove's accounts of their conversations regarding Plame were largely consistent, they appeared to be self-serving.

It has been, in large part, for all of these reasons that Fitzgerald so zealously sought the testimony of reporters Cooper and Judith Miller of The New York Times, according to sources sympathetic to Fitzgerald. Cooper testified to Fitzgerald's grand jury last week, after earlier having been found in civil contempt for refusing to do so. In contrast, Miller has refused to testify, and is currently serving a sentence in an Alexandria, Virginia, jail.

Finally, also driving Fitzgerald's investigation has been Rove's assertions that he only found out about Plame's status with the CIA from a journalist -- and one whose name he does not recall. But as The New York Times first disclosed on July 16, senior Bush administration officials first learned that Plame worked for the CIA from a classified briefing paper on July 7, 2003, exactly a week before Novak's column naming Plame appeared and at the time that senior Bush administration officials were devising a strategy to discredit Wilson.

The classified memorandum, dated June 10, 2003, was written for Marc Grossman, then the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and reportedly made claims similar to those made by Wilson: that the Bush administration had relied on faulty intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Hussein to make the case to go to war with Iraq. The report was circulated to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and a slew of other senior administration officials who were then traveling with President Bush to Africa.

Fitzgerald has focused on whether Rove might have learned of Plame's identity from one of the many senior White House officials who read the memo, according to the Times account and attorneys whose clients have testified before the federal grand jury.

Murray Wass is covering the whole saga on his blog Whatever Already.

Where is accountability?

Sacked whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has some really dramatic revelations about here time at the FBI. I wonder if Charles will post this story? What kind of spin would he put on it?

Over four years ago, more than four months prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, in April 2001, a long-term FBI informant/asset who had been providing the bureau with information since 1990, provided two FBI agents and a translator with specific information regarding a terrorist attack being planned by Osama Bin Laden. This asset/informant was previously a high- level intelligence officer in Iran in charge of intelligence from Afghanistan. Through his contacts in Afghanistan he received information that: 1) Osama Bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting 4-5 major cities, 2) the attack was going to involve airplanes, 3) some of the individuals in charge of carrying out this attack were already in place in the United States, 4) the attack was going to be carried out soon, in a few months. The agents who received this information reported it to their superior, Special Agent in Charge of Counterterrorism, Thomas Frields, at the FBI Washington Field Office, by filing “302” forms, and the translator, Mr. Behrooz Sarshar, translated and documented this information. No action was taken by the Special Agent in Charge, Thomas Frields, and after 9/11 the agents and the translators were told to ‘keep quiet’ regarding this issue. The translator who was present during the session with the FBI informant, Mr. Behrooz Sarshar, reported this incident to Director Mueller in writing, and later to the Department of Justice Inspector General. The press reported this incident, and in fact the report in the Chicago Tribune on July 21, 2004 stated that FBI officials had confirmed that this information was received in April 2001, and further, the Chicago Tribune quoted an aide to Director Mueller that he (Mueller) was surprised that the Commission never raised this particular issue with him during the hearing (Please refer to Chicago Tribune article, dated July 21, 2004). Mr. Sarshar reported this issue to the 9/11 Commission on February 12, 2004, and provided them with specific dates, location, witness names, and the contact information for that particular Iranian asset and the two special agents who received the information. I provided the 9/11 Commission with a detailed and specific account of this issue, the names of other witnesses, and documents I had seen. Mr. Sarshar also provided the Department of Justice Inspector General with specific information regarding this case.

For almost four years since September 11, officials refused to admit to having specific information regarding the terrorists’ plans to attack the United States. The Phoenix Memo, received months prior to the 9/11 attacks, specifically warned FBI HQ of pilot training and their possible link to terrorist activities against the United States. Four months prior to the terrorist attacks the Iranian asset provided the FBI with specific information regarding the ‘use of airplanes’, ‘major US cities as targets’, and ‘Osama Bin Laden issuing the order. ’ Coleen Rowley likewise reported that specific information had been provided to FBI HQ. All this information went to the same place: FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, and the FBI Washington Field Office, in Washington DC.

In October 2001, approximately one month after the September 11 attack, an agent from (city name omitted) field office, re-sent a certain document to the FBI Washington Field Office, so that it could be re-translated. This Special Agent, in light of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, rightfully believed that, considering his target of investigation (the suspect under surveillance), and the issues involved, the original translation might have missed certain information that could prove to be valuable in the investigation of terrorist activities. After this document was received by the FBI Washington Field Office and retranslated verbatim, the field agent’s hunch appeared to be correct. The new translation revealed certain information regarding blueprints, pictures, and building material for skyscrapers being sent overseas (country name omitted). It also revealed certain illegal activities in obtaining visas from certain embassies in the Middle East, through network contacts and bribery. However, after the re-translation was completed and the new significant information was revealed, the unit supervisor in charge of certain Middle Eastern languages, Mike Feghali, decided NOT to send the re-translated information to the Special Agent who had requested it. Instead, this supervisor decided to send this agent a note stating that the translation was reviewed and that the original translation was accurate. This supervisor, Mike Feghali, stated that sending the accurate translation would hurt the original translator and would cause problems for the FBI language department. The FBI agent requesting the retranslation never received the accurate translation of that document. I provided this information to the 9/11 Commission on February 12, 2004, and to the Department of Justice Inspector General in May 2002.

The latest buzz topic regarding intelligence is the problem of sharing information, intelligence, within intelligence agencies and between intelligence agencies. To this date the public has not been told of intentional blocking of intelligence, and has not been told that certain information, despite its direct links, impacts and ties to terrorist related activities, is not given to or shared with Counterterrorism units, their investigations, and countering terrorism related activities. This was the case prior to 9/11, and remains in effect after 9/11. If Counterintelligence receives information that contains money laundering, illegal arms sale, and illegal drug activities, directly linked to terrorist activities; and if that information involves certain nations, certain semi- legit organizations, and ties to certain lucrative or political relations in this country, then, that information is not shared with Counterterrorism, regardless of the possible severe consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents cited ‘direct pressure by the State Department,’ and in other cases ‘sensitive diplomatic relations’ is cited. I provided the Department of Justice Inspector General and the 9/11 Commission with detailed and specific information and evidence regarding this issue, and the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this, and the names of certain U.S. officials involved in these transactions and activities.

Now, after almost 4 years, we get to hear new bits & pieces: FBI & Midhar’s Case; FBI & Abdel-Hafiz Case; FBI & Saudi planes leaving just days after 9/11 without having the passengers questioned; FBI & Youssef Case;… and the list goes on.

Today, after nearly four years since 9/11, the American people still do not know that thousands of lives can be jeopardized under the unspoken policy of ‘protecting certain foreign business relations.’ The victims family members still do not realize that information and answers they have sought relentlessly for almost 4 years has been blocked due to the unspoken decisions made and disguised under ‘safeguarding certain diplomatic relations .’

Where is the so-called congressional oversight? Why has the 9/11 Commission intentionally omitted this info; although they’ve had it all along? Where is accountability?

Where indeed?

A Question of Ethics

Shocking news! Charles is reporting that Caribou Coffee won't sell pork, beer or lottery tickets because the owners operate the business according to the Islamic principle known as Shari'ah.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16806_No_Pork_at_Caribou&only

Wow! I mean that's shocking. Fancy that! Muslims running a business to Islamic principles. I mean, Christians wouldn't do it would they? Or Jews? Those groups have no business principles based on their faith do they Charles?

Christian Business Principles

Basic Principles of Jewish Business Ethics

I wonder if you could buy pork at a Kosher deli or lottery tickets from a Christian bookshop?

Reporting from Utopia: Charles Johnson

It seems Charles Johnson is taking an active interest in violent crime in Australia as a sideline to his usual War on Terror content. Charles lives in the utopian city of Los Angeles where as we know there are no rapes, murders or "fourteenth century tribal savagery". Could it be Charles is suggesting that these rapists were undertaking their crimes in the name of Islam?

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16786_Sydneys_Gang_Rape_Trial&only

Worse still, is his closing line (yes, I know hard to believe, Charles wrote some editorial);

This article does not mention that the Sydney rapists had a disquietingly large amount of support from the Australian Muslim community

Any evidence for that Charles? Are you going to back up the claim that there was a 'disquietly large amount of support' from Australian Muslims? Didn't thinks so.

"He should have been captured and then killed as slowly as possible, IMHO"

The "lizardoid minions" on the execution killing of a Brazilian electrician.

#1 noshariaincanada 7/22/2005 07:18AM PDT
Good work!
#2 Americain 7/22/2005 07:19AM PDT
GOOD!
#18 Anant 7/22/2005 07:24AM PDT
#3

I, too, am outraged at the way this man was gunned down like some sort of animal.

He should have been captured and then killed as slowly as possible, IMHO
#19 Tinker 7/22/2005 07:24AM PDT
Why was there only one cop shooting?
#31 Bob's Kid 7/22/2005 07:29AM PDT
Way.to.go.
#35 Kragar (Proud to be kafir) 7/22/2005 07:29AM PDT
I understand the shooting, but wasnt tying his body to the back of the train and dragging it once around London a bit much?

Oh wait, thats just what I would do, nevermind.
#36 I've had a Gutful 7/22/2005 07:30AM PDT
The police deserve medals, the muslim council of britain should put up (the suspects and preachers of hate) or shut the fuck up. If only they spoke up as quickly after the bombings!

All my friends and aquaintances defiantly rejoiced at this news.

Reap the whirlwind islamofascists.

#40 Sarah D. 7/22/2005 07:30AM PDT
#19 Tinker

Why waste bullets? Obviously one shooter was all that was necessary.

May his aim remain true.
#61 Powderfinger 7/22/2005 07:35AM PDT
Ladies and gentlemen, please. Let's be civilized.

5 rounds, point blank to the back of the head is sufficient.
#76 ColoradoJim 7/22/2005 07:38AM PDT
Good on you Metropolitan Police! Nice work. Does the Koranimal get his 72 raisins now?

ALLAHU FUBAR!
#148 BIG 7/22/2005 08:08AM PDT
Complaining about expending five rounds? Let me get my checkbook out to replace the funds used in accomplishing this task. It is money well spent and I'll include a bit extra for the next incident.

To the London cops. Good job. Don't worry about the ammo used. You are worth it!
#155 AmericanGirl 7/22/2005 08:14AM PDT
Good on the London police. Islamofascists reaping what they have sown. They want war? Give it to them.


Then, finally, the truth comes out:

#208 stuiec 7/23/2005 08:49PM PDT
OK, so the guy they iced was a Brazilian, and not carrying a bomb.

Perhaps a misunderstanding and a total cock-up.

What did these celebrating lizards have to say to that?

NOTHING.

(With thanks to IFC)

Hate-Everything Lies for Lizards

Charles has today cut-and-pasted a piece written by Alan Dershowitz about a children's book that 'allegedly; lionizes the anti-American hard left (whatever that means).

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16744_Hate-America_Lies_For_Kids&only

In it Dershowitz has this to say about Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman;

Nor are all of Shetterly’s heroes paragons of truth. A recent book, The Anti-Chomsky Reader, documents the reality that Chomsky chronically “fabricates facts,” fakes figures, misquotes authorities, distorts data, plays “fast and loose with source material,” and engages in “blatant professional mendacity.” No wonder historian Arthur Schlesinger called Chomsky an intellectual crook.” Noam Chomsky is not an “American who tells the truth,” and brainwashing children to believe that he is constitutes a form of literary child abuse.

The same can be said of Amy Goodman, who at least in my experience is among the most dishonest, biased and ideologically blinded radio talk show hosts. She doesn’t tell the truth, unless it happens to comport with the radical left line. Her political correctness is to correctness as military music is to music.

Now it's fair to say that Dershowitz seems to have a little obsession with both Chomsky and Goodman but to accuse them of being dishonest, fabricating facts and distorting data is a tad hypocritical considering his reputation for doing the same. The interview that brings some of these things to light is here and reproduced below;

On MSNBC’s Scarborough Country on 8 September 2003, renowned appellate lawyer, Harvard Law professor, and author Alan Dershowitz said: "I will give $10,000 to the PLO…if you can find a historical fact in my book that you can prove to be false." The book Dershowitz refers to is his latest work The Case For Israel. Author and professor Norman Finkelstein takes him on and charges that Dershowitz makes numerous factual errors in his book. Finkelstein teaches at DePaul University and is the author of four books including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.

Listen to: Segment | Watch 128k
stream | Watch 256k stream

TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Why don't we start with you laying out the thesis of your latest book, The Case for Israel.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I wanted to write a progressive liberal case for the two-state solution, which I think that most Israelis favor and have favored for a long time. I dedicate the book to Professor Aaron Barak, the president of the Israeli Supreme Court and for a reason. Because I argue in the book that no country in history faced with comparable threats both external and internal has ever triedas hard to comply with the rule of law. I compare Israel favorably to the United States. In this regard: its court intervened actively in support of Palestinian rights. Even during fighting in war time during the Jenin events engaging in certain actions which in its view violated the rule of law, The Israeli Supreme Court had banned the kind of rough interrogation techniques that are now being employed by the United States in Guantanamo Bay. Israel is the only country in modern history that has never deliberately and explicitly retaliated against those who attack its civilian targets. For example, during the Six Day war in 1973 war, the 1948 war, it's own residential areas were bombed by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, 1600 shells lobbed into west Jerusalem. Israel never bombed Amman, Damascus or Cairo, they bombed areas of Beirut, and in the process have killed innocent civilians. That is deliberately targeting civilians and going after the way the United States did in Iraq, of which I am very critical, but nonetheless with the United States did going after military targets, knowing that they're going to kill civilians in the process. And so myself, I oppose the settlements, always opposed the settlement, since 1967 I opposed the occupation. I think Israel made in my view a terrible view in my view what it should have done is made border adjustments pursuant to U.N. resolution 242 which I actually consulted with justice Goldburg, he was the ambassador to the U.N. was involved in the process of that 242 resolution, which presupposed some territorial adjustments. The problem is, Israel should never have occupied people. Land is different from people. And today I think unilaterally what it ought to do eventually is if it can't find the peace partner to make some unilateral changes, small ones. End the settlements, in fact my peace proposal is that Israel ought to have a schedule for ending settlements. That is a schedule for saying on so and so date the settlement ends conditioned on best efforts by the Palestinians to end terrorism. That would create incentive to ending terrorist acts. By the way you never condition anything on the end of terrorism, that gives terrorists a veto. What you condition it is on making good faith efforts and if we can get Israel to end the settlements and occupation and the Palestinian leadership to stop using terrorism as a tactic, I think finally something could have happened in 1917, two-state solution, in 1937 when the commission recommended noncontiguous Jewish homeland and Israelis accepted it and the Arabs rejected it. In 1947 when the U.N. allocated that portion of Palestine that had majority of Jews in it to a Jewish state, and the portion of Palestine that had Palestinian majority in it to an Arab state, could have had a two state solution. Could have had a two state solution in 2001 and 2000 and Barak and president Clinton offered to be sure noncontiguous state on 90% of the west bank and capital and Jerusalem with the 35 billion dollar refugee package. When Arafat responded by violence, came back to the table maybe we'll negotiate for more. The two-state solution is inevitable. It's going to happen. Only question is how long it takes to happen. My hope is that we can have a reasonable serious debate about the future, about the rights and wrongs I think the rights and wrongs on both sides. But I'm nervous because I heard from my debating partner in the beginning what sounded like it was going to be simply an ad hominem attack on me as to whether I'm qualified to teach at Harvard. I would hope we could elevate the discussion, keep it on the merits. I won't attack Mr. Finkelstein on his merits of his position, let people read his book and judge for themselves. And if he would refrain from personal attacks on me, let people judge the book on the merits. I think we can move the ball forward and have a reasonable serious debate. I think it would be interesting to know where we agree and disagree. What facts we share in common, what facts we have different views on and whether they're empirical and could be subjected to reasonable resolution, where we have moral disagreements, I really think that in the end today you read the news about Israel is other good news. There is a prisoner exchanges between Hizbollah and Israel which Israel would get back one person, civilian who was captured by Hezbollah in exchange for Israel giving back 400 or so prisoners. There's movement forward. Let's not destroy that movement forward by getting involved in meaningless ad hominem discussion, let's see if we can elevate the debate see if we can really move forward to the two state solution that I think virtually everybody in the world today wants.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Alan Dershowitz, author of The Case for Israel. Norman Finkelstein, your response.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I appreciate Alan Dershowitz's seriousness at least in these remarks. I have no intention whatsoever of getting involved in an ad hominem debate with Mr. Dershowitz. I'm interesting in the facts. I was asked to come in and discuss his new book. I went home, purchased one copy, in fact I purchased two copies. I read the book very carefully. I did what someone serious does with a book. I read the text, I went through the footnotes. I went through it very carefully. There's only one conclusion one can reach having read the book. This is a scholarly judgment, not an ad hominem attack. Mr. Dershowitz has concocted a fraud. In fact Mr. Dershowitz has concocted a fraud which, amazingly, in large parts, he plagiarized from another fraud. I found that pretty shocking, shocking coming from a Harvard professor. I find it shocking coming from any professor.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: We have to cut off I just want to warn everybody here that although I'm not a litigious person when you make allegations . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I'm proceeded to . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: When you make allegations of plagiarism that's a . . . It has great legal implications. And I can't obviously sit quietly by and . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I agree. Well that's -- Let's look at the evidence.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: . . . of plagiarism . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Let's look at the evidence. In the first two chapters of your book you extensively reproduce all of Joan Peters' pages in her book. I read it carefully. In 1984 . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Show me one sentence.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I am going to show you I think I have . . .I made available the charts to you.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: You've shown me nothing. Let's start with that. That's a categorical lie. What you're hearing now on radio is a claim that Mr. Finkelstein made available to me certain charts. That is a lie.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Mr. Dershowitz, I think you had about five minutes' time I wasn't looking at the clock. If we're going to have a civil debate you're going to have to remain . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: It's not going to be about me, let me be very clear about that.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I have no interest in you, Mr. Dershowitz. None at all. I'm interested in the scholarship, I'm interested in the facts, I'm interested in your book. In 1984 one Joan Peters published a book called From Time Immemorial, the book was universally recognized by serious scholars to be a fraud. Without wanting to toot my own horn I'm widely recognized as the person who exposed the fraud. I know that book inside out. I read it at least four times, I went through all 1854 footnotes. I started to read your book, Mr. Dershowitz, I then came to chapter one footnotes 10, footnote 11, footnote 12, footnote 13, footnote 14, footnote 15, footnote 16, all of the quotes are from Joan Peters. They're so from Joan Peters that you have a long quote here from Mark Twain on pages 23 to 24. I turned to Joan Peters page 159 to 60, identical quote from Twain with the ellipses in the . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Is the Twain quote wrong?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: . . . with the ellipses . . . let me finish sir. They're in the same places. The identical quote from Twain with the ellipses in the same places.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: It's been quoted, as you know.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Mr. Dershowitz, I . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: What's your point?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Let me finish . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I would ask you a question. Is it a direct quote? Is it an accurate quote of Twain? Did Twain say . . .

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Dershowitz the way we can have a civilized discussion here is that each person will get a chance to make their point and won't be cut off.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: You have a nearly full page quote from one William Young, a British consul from May 1839.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Is it an accurate quote?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I'm going to finish, sir. On page 18 of your book. I turn to Joan Peters, page 184, the identical quote with the ellipses I'm holding it up for the camera perhaps they can see this is the length of the quote.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Is it an accurate quote?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: It's in the identical place. Last point. I'm not going to go through chapter two where there are 29 plagiarisms from Joan Peters.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: To be very clear, it's not plagiarism to quote Mark Twain correctly.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Except that you cite Mark Twain not Joan Peters. I'm a professor, sir. I know what plagiarism is.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: And plagiarism is . . . What is your definition of plagiarism?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: We're not going to get involved in that now.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: You're using a word you're not going to tell us what you mean by it?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The documentation, you know what we'll let everybody else decide for themselves because documentation one last example. I want to make it very clear, in Joan Peters' book From Time Immemorial she coins a phrase. The phrase is "turn speak”.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: She borrows it from . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Sir, I'm sorry she coins the phrase, you see you don't know what you're talking about that's pretty terrible. She coins the phrase, "turn speak,” she says she's using it as a play off of George Orwell which is, all listeners know, used the phrase “news speak”. She coined her own phrase, "turn speak”. You go to Mr. Dershowitz’s book he got so confused in his massive borrowings from Joan Peters that on two occasions -- I'll cite them for those who have a copy of the book -- on page 57 and on page 153 he uses the phrase, quote, George Orwell's turn speak. Turn speak is not Orwell, Mr. Dershowitz, you're the Felix Frankfurt chair at Harvard, you must know that Orwell would never use such a clunky phrase as turn speak.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I like it.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, maybe you like it. Evidently Joan Peters liked it. But George Orwell never heard of it to the best of my knowledge.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to break for stations to identify themselves. 60 seconds. When we come back professor Dershowitz can respond. We're talking to professor Alan Dershowitz author of a new book it's called The Case for Israel and debate with Norman Finkelstein. You're listening to Democracy Now! Stay with us.

[Music Break]


AMY GOODMAN: More music here from the late Frank Lowe as we continue our debate on Alan Dershowitz’s new book called The Case for Israel. Alan Dershowitz is professor of law at Harvard law school. In discussion with Norman Finkelstein who teaches at Depaul University in Chicago. His book Image and Reality: The Origins of the Israel Palestinian Conflict, Professor Dershowitz, your response to this very serious charge of plagiarism.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: It's a frivolous charge, of course. What happened was this. Of course I read the Peters book, anybody writing a book on the Middle East, anybody, would. I also read The Myths and Facts, a book put out originally by AIPAC then published separately and independently probably 30 or 40 other books which use the same quotes, they're very extensively used quotes by Mark Twain because Mark Twain traveled to Palestine, Mark Twain is a very prominent American writer. What he saw in Palestine is very relevant to the debate. He saw barren lands, didn't see a Palestinian community. He saw empty roads and he writes extremely vividly and one scholar is entitled to read a book as I did, Peters' book and to find quotes in the book and check them against the original quotes. And find them to be accurate and then do what I did, I don't know whether or not Mr. Finkelstein read footnote 31 that appears on page 246 which says, the research of French Cartographer Vital relied on for the I may of mispronounced it.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: You misspelled it.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: See Joan Peters From Time Immemorial, then Peters' conclusions and data have been challenged and then I quote from Hitchens, I did not in any way rely on them in this book. In other words, what I did, it's very common for scholars to do that. Is I read her books, I read Mr. Finkelstein's criticism of them I came away from enough doubt about the conclusions that although I don’t regard the Peters' book in any way as a fraud, I think it was well intentioned effort to recreate and very difficult to recreate events that existed in 1890 and 1900. Did I find her quotes which have been as I said used extensively by Facts and Myths and other publications, to be quite compelling. This book and none of my writing, I don't purport to be independent historian who goes back to the Middle East and reads original documents. I'm doing what a lawyer would do and what lawyers do is they find sources, they check the sources, I had a research staff that obviously checked the sources. I haven't heard a word from Mr. Finkelstein suggesting that the quote from Mark Twain is not an accurate quote. If Peters had made up a quote that hadn't existed. Mark Twain had never written it then somebody borrowed the quote without going to check back on whether Mark Twain had said that, obviously that would be a serious charge. I've done nothing like that. The vast majority of my book deals with current situations. In fact I start my book by saying there has to be a statute of limitations on grievances. I don't try to base the case for Israel on the fact that Jews lived in Palestine before the birth of Jesus or the fact that Jews were expelled from what is now Israel in 72 A.D. and I argue that Palestinians can't really make the case against the two state solution based on historic claims that go back 100 years but first couple of chapters which are quite brief, I recount never purporting to be creative or original in the recounting, I recount what has been accepted as traditional history. That includes the fact that the land particularly what is now what would be western Palestine, what was the part of Palestinian allocated to Israel in the 1947 division was land that before the Jews got there in the first 1880 in the beginning of the 20th century was land that was coming into disuse. Now these are controversial, by the way, there are some Palestinians who say you shouldn't trust Mark Twain. Some Palestinians say you shouldn't trust the various English travelers. Reasonable people could disagree about that. I quote those sources, I lay them out there for people to read so that they can evaluate the claims that Israel was established on the basis of colonialism. I make the following argument which I'd love to hear from Finkelstein’s rebuttal. You can't be a colonialist country unless another country sent people there as soldiers to take over that country. For example, France sent its settlers to Algeria. England sent settlers to India. Dutch and other countries sent their settlers to parts of Africa with guns to take over. What did the Jews do during the first and second? They escaped from countries that were persecuting them. They escaped from Russia and Poland, Lithuania. They didn't come at the request of those countries, if you claim people were colonialist you have to say on whose behalf they were working. The Jews weren't working on behalf of Russia or Poland or Lithuania. They came as refugees. Much like American Jews came as refugees to America. The ones who went to Palestine went with rakes and hoes to try to build the land, to try to join collectively with the local population. They did in fact improve the land as the result of work projects in western Palestine many Arabs from eastern Palestine moved there, I cite statistics, Peters cites the same statistics in fact showing in various the fact that I can't remember the exact numbers, Jews moved there attracted 300 or 400, you may disagree with it. But those are the data that I presented and we can reasonably disagree with that. Now I just want to make one point about Mr. Finkelstein’s research. I don't want to get ad hominem into this debate. But for example I do quote Mr. Finkelstein at one point I think only once in the book. That is he makes an argument in the collection that to judge the 1947 partition the only fair way to do it is to look at either all of Palestine, which I don't know whether he needs to include what became Jordan, trans-Jordan or not or you have to look at what became of Israel after the 1948 war. I disagree with that. What I say respectfully in the book is that when you look at the fairness of the 1947 petition, you only look at the land that was allocated to the state of Israel. In that land Jews were clearly a majority according to the U.N. census to be sure once the Arab nations attacked Israel, once the Palestinians attacked Israel there was a war and Israel secured more land which was regularized by a crease fire in 1949. What Mr. Finkelstein does is he counts that land and says, look how much they got and look at the proportion of Jews and Palestinians that's not the correct demographic to look at. So we can have reasonable . . .

AMY GOODMAN: Let's get the response to that.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Stay away from the ad hominems and get to the merit of the case.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Professor Dershowitz, I'm not a professor at Harvard but I do . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: You seem to resent that a lot.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I do teach elsewhere. And when we discuss issues like falsifying information, plagiarizing, lifting whole cloth from other books I've never heard that called ad hominem for a serious scholar and a serious academic, those are very fundamental issues.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: But when they're false . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: If they're false then you dispute them. To characterize them as ad hominem seems really out of court for a professor . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: You said I don't deserve to teach at Harvard that sounds pretty . . .

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Dershowitz let Norman make his case.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: You raise that issue then I'll address it then returning to the substantive issues of your book.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: First tell me why I shouldn't be teaching at Harvard.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: On page 207 of your book you say that to deliberately misinform, miseducate, and misdirect students is a particularly nasty form of educational malpractice.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Of which I accuse Noam Chomsky and others.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I consider what you have done in the book to be a paradigmatic illustration of misinforming, miseducating and misdirecting. Allow me to finish.

AMY GOODMAN: Let him make his point.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Allow me to finish, Mr. Dershowitz, I've with very respectful of your time. On page 213 you discussed Holocaust fraud by Robert Soan and you write, quote, "it was their extensive historical research” referring to his book.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: That's right.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Instead there was the fraudulent manufacturing of false anti-history.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: That's right. And Chomsky wrote as you . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Please don't bring in Mr. Chomsky. He can defend himself. We're talking about you and your book. It was the kind of deception referring to the book that let me quote clearly, for which professors are rightly fired.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I stand by that.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Not because their views are controversial, let me underline this again, but because they are violating the most basic canons of historical scholarship.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Let me respond to that. You compare me to . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I didn't ask . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: You made up the story that the Holocaust . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I'm referring to your standards. I have no interested in someone else; I'm talking about your standards. To miseducate, misinform and misdirect to violate the standards of historical scholarship are grounds for expulsion.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Absolutely.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: It's not an ad hominem argument, it's using your standards.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: No, it's an ad . . .

AMY GOODMAN: I'm going to interrupt here because I want to get to some of the main points of your book. Also we were intrigued on watching Scarborough Country when you debated, the offer that you made just play it for a moment.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Tell you what I will give $10,000 to the P.L.O. in your name if you can find historical fact in my book that you can prove to be false. I issue that challenge, I issue it to you, I issue it to the Palestinian Authority, I issue it to Noam Chomsky to Edward Said, every word in my book is accurate and you can't just simply say it's false without documenting it. Tell me one thing in the book now that is false?

AMY GOODMAN: Okay. Let's go to the book. The Case for Israel -- $10,000.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Let me tell you what he came up with this is really fascinating if you show the rest of the clip. He came up he said on television, I saw a photograph or a videotape of Israeli soldiers aiming their guns at that, whatever 12-year-old boy who was caught in the cross fire and killed and I actually upped the offer to $25,000 if he could produce a photograph or if he could produce proof that he had seen that. Why was I so confident? Because German television did a very thorough study of that one particular incident. Let's just spend one minute on that. What happened is when that child was killed in his father's arms, the nation of Israel went into almost universal mourning, it was as if they were sitting shiva on one of their own children. A child had died, it looked as if possibly Israeli soldier might have shot him. When you contrast that to how Palestinians respond to a child dying in Israel from terrorism -- dancing in the streets -- it's a very striking comparison. Then German television did a study they found out that the Israeli soldiers were positioned in a way that it was physically impossible for the bullet from an Israeli soldier to have hit that Palestinian child and it was virtually certain that the bullet had come from a Palestinian gun. In my view that's not particularly relevant when a child is caught in cross fire it's a tragic death resulting from the crossfire. Which bullet actually hit was not relevant. But that was the answer that he came up with.

AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, first of all I want to clarify the monetary issue. Is it now $25,000?

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: $25,000 on that issue.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Just on that issue. In general $10,000.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Let me be clear

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: We just saw the tape. I think it's clear.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I made it very clear I said afterward a material willful . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I don't want afterwards. Professor Dershowitz it's on tape. We just saw it. We're not talking about a spelling mistake. We're not talking about a minor . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: All right. Let's talk about . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Serious material. Let's start. Number one, I'm going to first deal with just concrete facts which are not particularly controversial, which can easily be confirmed. On page 80 of your book you write, according to Benny Morris between . . .

AMY GOODMAN: Benny Morris is an Israeli historian.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I have a copy of his book here, which I'll hold up. 2,000 to 3,000 Palestinians were made refugees during the second stage of the flight. Here is the book. Page 256, do you read what the sentence says.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Let me read you what I say, in some areas Arab . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Please don't read the whole paragraph.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Let me put in the context. Chomsky says that Morris does not believe that any Arab leaders told the Palestinians to leave. I say, in some areas I quote from Morris, in some areas Arab commanders ordered . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I'm not pursuing that.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: . . . to clear the ground for military purposes to prevent surrender. More than half dozen villages, et cetera, were abandoned during these months as result of such orders. Elsewhere in east Jerusalem in many villages, the Arab commanders ordered women, old people and children to be sent away out of harm's way. Indeed psychological preparation for the removal of the dependents had begin in 1947-48 and Arab League periodically endorsed such a move. And I say therefore, Chomsky is simply wrong when he says that there's no evidence, he says again in another point, nobody today believes that any of the refugees were told to leave. I dispute that by quoting Morris himself.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: You seem to have obsession with Mr. Chomsky but he's not here. I'm here. Let's look at . . .

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I was surprised . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Let's be serious.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: I agree with you.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Read the next sentence. Morris estimates in your book I have right in front of me. Next sentence.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: That between 2,000 and 3,000 Arabs fled their homes.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Can you please what Mr. Morris wrote.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: You're talking about . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Please read what he wrote.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: If I have the whole book I will find for you if you want to take time. Norm Finkelstein if you want the . . .

AMY GOODMAN: I'm looking at page 256 of Morris book.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Phase two now same one as you. You're talking about . . .

AMY GOODMAN: About 2,000 to 3,000 Arabs fled their homes.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The difference between 2,000 and 3,000 and 200,000 and 300,000. You could check this many times, Mr. Dershowitz. But you are really going to have to pay the $10,000. I hope you allow me to earmark it for Jenin.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: We're talking about a variety of . . .

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: It is not the O.J. trial. This is not the O.J. trial. We're not going to play a game.

AMY GOODMAN: Is your point that you're citing that Norm Finkelstein is in Alan Dershowitz's book he says 2,000 to 3,000.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: It's 200,000 to 300,000.

So that's dishonesty, plagiarism and lying Mr Dershowitz......well done. No wonder he's got a chip on his shoulder after showing himself up so badly.

What Integrity Looks Like

One of the few politicians doing right by US soldiers is a conservative Christian Republican congressman. Not the usual anti-war campaigner.

Until recently, I've been completely unimpressed with Washington antics. Politicians get paid a lot of money to do their jobs. They take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Watching them blatantly abdicate their responsibility in the run-up to the Iraq war was almost as difficult as watching most of America let them get away with it.

Worse, however, has been watching these elected officials sit on their hands as Americans die every day in the desert amid the stateside failure of policy and leadership.

I had all but given up. Then I met Walter Jones, a Republican congressman from North Carolina. While generally conservative, he's got a solid track record of recklessly leading with his heart and voting his conscience.

I first heard of him prior to the invasion of Iraq. Like many others on Capitol Hill, the White House sold him on the idea that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States and that there were links between Iraq and 9/11. Angry that our allies saw such overwhelming evidence in a different light, Walter Jones insisted that french fries be renamed "freedom fries" in House office building cafeterias.

Since the invasion, Jones has distinguished himself by actually paying attention to facts as the Bush administration's arguments started to show cracks. He began to see in Iraq what he saw Vietnam: a war justified by false pretenses and empty ideology that had the real consequence of needlessly killing American soldiers. Jones started sending personal letters with handwritten words of condolences to the families of every soldier killed in Iraq. The hallways outside of his Capitol Hill office are lined with the faces of the fallen.

My family recently went to Washington to thank Walter Jones for his efforts. One of those pictures in his hallway is of my brother, Sgt. Sherwood Baker. One of those letters he sent is on my living room table.

Sherwood was killed in Baghdad last year. His death has kept my faith at the fore. That faith is challenged, quite honestly, when I hear the warmakers extolling their belief in Christ as their savior as they drop cluster bombs and commit other people's children to the hell of war.

Walter Jones could easily be considered one of "them" -- a Christian conservative. I sat next to him in his office and quickly relearned how wrong it is to label a person. As a Christian myself, I understood immediately that his personal belief in Christ has been the basis of his actions. The most obvious aspect of our meeting was the authenticity of his humility.

He began by speaking specifically to my mother and the mothers of two other fallen soldiers who were with us.

Tears have been easy for me to come by over the last 14 months since Sherwood died. The catalyst could be the unabated laughter of my nephew or the national anthem; anything, really, that brings Sherwood to mind.

When Walter Jones said this simple sentence, "If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have voted for this war," I found myself unable to hold them back.

I waded through the election rhetoric last year waiting to hear those courageous words. My brother was on the security detail of the Iraq Survey Group. He died looking for those non-existent weapons of mass destruction that President Bush used as a rationale for this disastrous war.

Walter Jones is now introducing legislation that seeks a timetable for exiting Iraq.

The leadership that advocated for the Iraq war has displayed a deplorable contempt for reality. Our troops suffer injury and death every day. The Bush administration, meanwhile, finds it best to nurse its own bruised egos, to spin history and the truth on their heads just to make themselves look good.

Walter Jones, on the other hand, has done what Jesus would ask. Those principles have led him through a maze of unchecked passion and righteousness. And now, he finds himself in catharsis, staring at revelation. Some call this the path. The next step on that path is to try to right the wrong.

As a conservative Republican congressman who has changed his mind about the war, he's in a position to do it. This country needs a restoration of integrity and competence in our government. Walter Jones stands as a beacon of hope that we are pointed in the right direction.

This piece originally appeared in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Via Dante Zappala, Alternet

The BBC and the 'T' word

LINK::Much was made of the BBC's alleged reluctance to call the suspects involved in the London bombings terrorists. Here's BBC chairman Michael Grade answering those accusations;

Mr Grade was also questioned on the Today programme about the controversy surrounding the BBC's coverage of the London bomb attacks.
When pressed to say whether the perpetrators of the attacks were terrorists, he replied: 'Yes, and the BBC had been describing them as such.

'Not only my view, it's the view of all BBC journalists and editors and it has been very clearly signalled in all our news outlets

'The fact is that the BBC's coverage has used the words 'terror, terrorist' very freely on all our major news outlets. There was some subediting on a couple of pages of a website that I haven't got to the bottom of yet but which the director general I am sure will tell the governors about.'

Growing Doubts

Not really suprising news I know, but for some reason it hasn't made it onto the right wing blogsphere.

WASHINGTON -- Americans have growing doubts about President Bush's honesty and his effectiveness, according to a poll taken at a time people are uneasy with the war in Iraq, uncertain about the economy and nervous about the terrorist threat.

Half of those in the poll taken by the Pew Research Center, 49 percent, said they believe the president is trustworthy, while almost as many, 46 percent said he is not. Bush was at 62 percent on this measure in a September 2003 Pew poll and at 56 percent in a Gallup poll in April. One of Bush's strong suits throughout his presidency has been the perception by a majority of people that he is honest.

The slide in trust in Bush comes at a time the White House is answering questions about top aide Karl Rove's involvement in the public leak of the identity of a CIA operative.

Read more here.

Iraqi Christians find safety in Syria

I'm sure Charles simply missed a story like this. It seems Iraqi Christians are seeking refuge in 'terror supporting', 'Christian/Jew hating' Syria rather than free, democratic Iraq.

Damascus, Syria -- Seated in his parish office, Father Sarmad Yousef reflected on his hard choices: to disobey his archbishop by remaining in Syria or to return to Iraq, where his name has appeared on a death list.

"After the Americans came, I was one of the people telling the Iraqi Christians not to leave," he said. "After the violence started, I stopped telling them that."

Christians all over Iraq face a similar dilemma as relentless violence engulfs the country, some directly targeting them.

Staying in the midst of the threats is dangerous, yet leaving means abandoning communities, church property and a heritage with centuries-old roots.

Before the U.S.-led war, roughly 750,000 Christians lived in Iraq, out of a population of 25 million. Most were Chaldean and Assyrian, but there also were Armenian, Jacobite and Greek Orthodox Christians and a small number of Protestants. Most of them lived either in Baghdad or in northern Iraq around Mosul.

Since then, 15,000 to 20,000 Christians have fled to Syria, according to Christian groups, out of "about 700,000" Iraqis, most of them in flight from the war, according to the U.N. high commissioner for refugees.

Yousef, a 30-year-old Chaldean Catholic who came here in August 2004, was the parish priest of Baghdad's St. Pathion Church, with 800 families under his stewardship. Today, he occupies a simple office in Damascus, decorated with small portraits of St. Therese, the patron saint of his new church, cradling a bouquet of pink roses.

He says he actively supported the United States when coalition troops first entered Baghdad in April 2003 and helped organize community meetings on their behalf. Such support came with grave risks, and he narrowly missed two drive-by shooting attacks.

But when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal came to light, Yousef says, his view changed. Nor was he alone.

"Before that, Iraqis loved Americans," said Yousef, his eyes lowered. "Directly after that -- those photos, that scandal directly destroyed the dignity of Iraqis."

The Shiite Crescent

Jesse Jackson hits the nail on the head.

Would you buy a used car from George W. Bush? On the fundamental questions of war and peace, of calling on the bravest young American men and women to sacrifice their lives, this administration and this president no longer have a shred of credibility. With U.S. forces mired in Iraq, it grows harder to separate the logic from the lies in this president's ''war of choice.''

Consider the headlines of the past week. The new Iraqi president, Ibrahim al-Jafaari, has traveled to Iran to cement a security alliance with the fundamentalist Iranian mullahs, prime members of the president's Axis of Evil. Ali Shamkhani, the Iranian defense minister, hailed the pact as ''a new chapter in our relations with Iraq.'' Has the United States spent $200 billion and sacrificed nearly 2,000 lives and left thousands more maimed and wounded so the mullahs of Iran who despise the United States could gain an ally in Iraq and create a ''Shiite crescent'' in the Persian Gulf? It is hard to imagine any outcome that could be more destabilizing in this critical region of the world.

This nightmare sensibly haunts the administration. Thus, Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who has done more to bring forth the truth about the war than anyone, reports that the administration sponsored an ''off the books'' covert effort to fix the elections in Iraq to deny Shiite parties a majority.

The White House hailed the elections as a grand success, a free and unfettered expression of democracy. But according to Hersh's intelligence sources, fraud was widespread on all sides. And the White House cooked up an off-the-books operation designed to help the party of acting Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a U.S. ally and former CIA retainer. It apparently worked. Allawi's party did much better than expected. The pro-U.S. Kurds did better than expected. The Shiite religious parties were denied a majority. Despite this, al-Jafaari, head of the Shiite Dawa party and a fundamentalist who spent a decade in exile in Iran, became head of the government.

The administration, of course, issued a formal statement denying any covert operation designed to rig the election. But the statement is worded carefully to deny only ''any covert helping of individual candidates for office.'' It doesn't mention political parties.

And even if the White House spokesmen end up denying it all, who could believe them? This is the White House that dismissed as ''ridiculous'' reports that political guru Karl Rove was involved in an effort to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson by outing his wife, who was a CIA employee operating under cover. ''This White House doesn't operate that way,'' we were assured. If any aide were involved, he or she would be dismissed immediately. Now it is clear that that denial was a lie. This White House does operate that way. Rove was up to his eyebrows in the effort to discredit Wilson. And the president's promise to remove anyone involved is apparently inoperative.

This is a disgrace for President Bush and the Republican Congress, but it is a calamity for our country. We are mired in a war launched on false pretenses by an administration that, as our British allies concluded, fixed the intelligence to fit the policy. U.S. forces are mired in an occupation that, according to the CIA, is generating recruits for al-Qaida. The new leadership of Iraq is forging a close alliance with Iran's fundamentalist rulers, our leading enemies in the region. Within Iraq, not surprisingly, a civil war is beginning, for neither Sunnis nor Kurds will accept fundamentalist Shiite rule.

We desperately need wise and credible leadership to guide us though this catastrophe. But Americans are slowly beginning to understand that this president and his administration lack both candor and credibility. The craven and corrupt GOP Congress puts partisan politics over the nation's security and insulates the White House from public accountability. Our bitterly divided, partisan political culture turns vital and difficult questions of war and peace into political spitball fights.

Surely the young men and women at risk in Iraq deserve far better than this. Republicans control the White House and the Congress. Is there a profile of courage among them who will call this administration to account?

More spammer fun

Hey, look: the spammer's got a new IP. This one (12.161.199.131) resolves to:
--
OrgName: KENNAMETAL
OrgID: KENNAM-1
Address: 1600 TECHNOLOGY WAY
City: LATROBE
StateProv: PA
PostalCode: 15650
Country: US

NetRange: 12.161.199.0 - 12.161.199.255
CIDR: 12.161.199.0/24
NetName: KENNAMET224-199
NetHandle: NET-12-161-199-0-1
Parent: NET-12-0-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 2001-12-20
Updated: 2001-12-20

TechHandle: JZ345-ARIN
TechName: Hanson, Jeff
TechPhone: +1-724-539-5438
TechEmail: ***********@kennametal.com

OrgTechHandle: JZ345-ARIN
OrgTechName: Hanson, Jeff
OrgTechPhone: +1-724-539-5438
OrgTechEmail: ***********@kennametal.com
--
Dear Kennametal,

Please close your open ports. Thank you.

What are the chances of LGF reporting this?

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has criticized the radical Hamas faction for breaking the truce with Israel that all Palestinian groups had agreed upon.

I wonder wether Charles will put up that oh so funny picture of Abbas with a speech bubble with "I don't want or accept a civil war. But if they insist on breaking the truce without abiding by the consensus, let them bear the responsibility." as the quote.

LINK

Spammer of the week

Folks, this week's top spammer comes to you from IP 82.96.100.100. The IP is registered to a German/Austrian Company. Details

In The Firing Line

Charles seems to be desperately searching for positive news concerning the Rove/Plame fiasco and has now picked up on a piece by Andrew C. McCarthy accusing the CIA for 'outing' Valerie Plame. It seems this story just get's worse and worse and now new allegations are surfacing. I wonder who Charles will have to borrow a hatchet job from about this one.

Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Prosecutors investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, a CIA officer who had worked undercover, have been told that Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat." Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said.

The disclosures about the officials' roles illustrate White House concern about Wilson's July 6, 2003, article, which challenged the administration's assertion that Iraq had sought to purchase nuclear materials. Wilson's article appeared as Rove and other Bush aides were preparing the 2004 reelection campaign strategy, which was built largely around the president's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

It is not surprising that White House officials would be upset by an attack like Wilson's or seek to respond aggressively. But special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is examining whether they or others crossed the legal line by improperly disclosing classified information, or whether they perjured themselves in testifying later about their actions. Both Rove and Libby have testified.

News of the high-level interest in discrediting Wilson comes as White House defenders, most notably officials at the Republican National Committee, argue that Rove has been vindicated of suspicion that he was a primary source of the leak. Knowingly revealing the identity of a covert operative is a federal crime.

Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.

Muslims condemn bombings as the work of a 'perverted ideology'

I wonder how Charles will spin this?

Ten days after Islamic radicals carried out deadly attacks on the London transport system,

Britain's largest Sunni Muslim group issued a binding religious edict yesterday, a fatwa, condemning the July 7 suicide bombings as the work of a "perverted ideology."

The Sunni Council denounced the bombings as anti-Islamic and said the Koran forbids suicide attacks.

"Who has given anyone the right to kill others? It is a sin. Anyone who commits suicide will be sent to hell," said Mufti Muhammad Gul Rehman Qadri, the council chairman. "What happened in London can be seen as a sacrilege. It is a sin to take your life or the life of others."

Muslims should not use "atrocities being committed in Palestine and Iraq" to justify attacks such as those in London that killed 55 people when suicide bombers struck three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, the fatwa declared.

"We equally condemn those who may have been behind the masterminding of these acts, those who incited these youths in order to further their own perverted ideology," Mr. Qadri said.

More than 2,000 Sunni clerics, scholars and community leaders attended yesterday's meeting, which had been scheduled before the bombings.

The bombings have prompted the government to propose new legislation outlawing "indirect incitement" of terrorism -- including public praise for those who carry out attacks.

Wenig Grüne Fußball

An LGF'er showed his fascist underbelly in our comments section earlier. Pablo/Powderfinger who the post was aimed at agreed with it until one of the LGFW regulars pointed out the similarity between the comment and one made by Adolf Hitler. He then went into reverse gear and posted spam (ie flooding the comments section), nic-jacked and back peddled to hide his embarrassment. Here's the post.

Pablo, this only proves that if we somehow eliminated every terrorist in the world, we'd still have a Muslim problem."

Charming.

UPDATE:

Even more charming is the vile spam being posted in the comments attached to this post. It never ceases to amaze me the depths an LGF'er will sink in defence of Charles and his blog. Racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, threats of violence, spamming, nic-jacking etc etc.

The Good News

Turning a blind eye

Here's a great piece from Oread Daily about the Dept. of Homeland Security's apparent blindness to far-right terrorism in the USA.

Back in April, my friend Bill Berkowitz wrote a column at Working for Change which asked the question, “Ten years after Oklahoma City, why doesn't the Department of Homeland Security see America's homegrown right-wing terrorists as a major threat?”

Now US News World Report is asking the same question.

US News reports that Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project now says in the ten years since the Oklahoma City bombing nearly 60 right-wing terror plots have been uncovered in this country. These plots have included the intention to use various chemical bombs and other weapons.

The most recent plot mentioned in that report relates to the May, 2005 arrest of two South Jersey residents who are alleged to be members of neo-nazi skinhead groups on a federal charge of possession of stolen weapons by convicted felons.

Gabriel Carafa, 24, and Craig Orler, 28 are accused of illegally selling to police informants guns and 60 pounds of urea to use in a bomb. Their arrest came, according to the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office after an extensive state and federal undercover investigation.

The federal complaint alleges that Orler has at least three prior state convictions for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and burglary, while Carafa has been convicted of bias intimidation and distribution of a controlled dangerous substance. According to Vaughn L. McKoy, Director, Division of Criminal Justice, the Office of Bias Crime, the investigation determined that Carafa is a known member and leader of both the Church of the Creator and a neo-nazi skinhead group called The Hated. Orler is allegedly a member of “The Hated”.

The US News article also mentions:

• Oct. 25, 2004: FBI agents in Tennessee arrested Demetrius "Van" Crocker after he allegedly tried to purchase ingredients for deadly sarin nerve gas and C-4 plastic explosives from an undercover agent. Crocker, who was involved with white supremacist groups, was charged with trying to get explosives to destroy a building and faces more than 20 years in prison.

• April 10, 2003: The FBI raided the home of William Krar, of Noonday, Texas, and discovered an arsenal of more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and remote control briefcase bombs, and almost 2 pounds of sodium cyanide, enough to make a bomb that could kill everyone in a large building. Krar, reportedly associated with white supremacist groups, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for possession of a chemical weapon.

In his much earlier column, Berkowitz reports on other incidents. He writes that, “Militia leaders in Michigan tried to organize what they were calling "Operation Resurrection," an attempt to spirit Terri Schiavo from her Pinellas County, Florida hospice death-bed to an undisclosed location; the head of Aryan Nations, a white supremacist group, took to praising the militants of al Qaeda, urging his followers to get that "jihadic feeling"; federal agents seized a weapons cache consisting of "more than 50 machine guns and seven hand grenades in what authorities described as the largest weapon seizure in Southern Illinois…”

Yet as Berkowitz pointed out Homeland Security refuses to see right wing terrorist as threats to national security.

Berkowitz back in April wrote that Mike German, a 16-year undercover agent for the FBI who spent most of his career infiltrating radical right-wing groups told the Congressional Quarterly in regards to right wing terrorists and groups, "They are still a threat, and they will continue to be a threat. If for some reason the government no longer considers them a threat, I think they will regret that," said German, who left the FBI last year. "Hopefully it's an oversight."

Meanwhile, for homegrown terrorists, Homeland Security continues to only point at groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Interesting.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security has taken note of this. He tells the Memphis Commercial Appeal that it's a mistake for the administration to list property-damaging environmental activists as "eco-terrorists" but omit the threat from right-wing militia "Patriots" like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, anti-government tax protesters or white supremacists -- groups that have already proven they're dangerous.

"Supposedly, the department takes the position that the radical environmentalists and other people are the only people domestically which pose a threat to the homeland," Thompson said. "But when you look at past history, the Oklahoma bombing was not a left-wing terrorist's doing. These were so-called right-wing Patriots ... We ought to look at every vulnerability that's out there."

When he asked to testify before the Senate’s Environmental and Public Works Committee when it held a hearing on "eco-terrorism,” he was turned down by Committee Chair James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma. As part of his testimony, Rep. Thompson was prepared to deliver remarks based upon a House Committee on Homeland Security report released a month earlier entitled, "10 Years After the Oklahoma City Bombing: the Department of Homeland Security Must Do More to Fight Right-Wing Terrorists."

In a letter dated May 19, 2005 sent to Senate Committee Chairman James Inhofe, Rep. Thompson voiced his dismay at being refused the right to testify earlier that week before the Committee when it held its hearing examining activities of the Earth Liberation Front ("ELF") and the Animal Liberation Front ("ALF"). The Senator's refusal is believed to be the only time a Member of Congress has been denied permission to testify before a Committee when he has formally requested to do so.

"Only once in recent memory has a Congressional Committee Chairman refused to the request of a Member of Congress to testify," Rep. Thompson notes. "Even then, a subsequent hearing was held specifically so the Member would have the opportunity to provide relevant testimony, which would have been the case in this instance. It is extremely disappointing that your denial was not provided in writing, as was my original request."

Rep. Thompson in his letter also pointed out that, “…35 homes under construction in the Maryland subdivision of Hunters Brooke were partially or entirely destroyed by arson in December, 2004. The perpetrators torched the entire subdivision because they believed many of the families who would move in were African American. This arson attack was characterized as 'the worst arson in Maryland history,' and this one incident caused approximately $10 million in damage -- almost 1/10th the damage alleged to have been caused by ALF and ELF -- and all other environmental extremist groups -- in the last 14 years. Right-wing domestic terror groups are also responsible for the destruction of other infrastructure such as abortion clinics, minority houses of worship, and federal buildings.”

He added, “Domestic terrorism that destroys property is terrible -- whether committed by leftwing or right-wing "special interest" domestic terrorists.”

Other experts on domestic terrorism have expressed dimsay over the departments blindness to right wing terror. One of them, James O. Ellis III, a senior terror researcher for the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), said ... that whereas left-wing groups...have focused mainly on the destruction of property, right-wing groups have a much deadlier and more violent record and should be on the list. 'The nature of the history of terrorism is that you will see acts in the name of [right-wing] causes in the future.”

So three months after Bill asked, the question remains, “…why doesn't the Department of Homeland Security see America's homegrown right-wing terrorists as a major threat?”

Sources: Source Watch, WorkingForChange, Office of the Attorney General-State of New Jersey, Find Law, Commercial Appeal (Memphis), US News and World Report.

Why doesn't the Dept. of Homeland Security see America's homegrown right-wing terrorists as a major threat? Perhaps it's because one of the most notorious, most consisted and most willing to engage in war and death is currently President of the USA. Or it could be that the extreme right just aren't fashionable enough for the neo-cons. They're fixation seems to be exclusively Islamic terror and regime change.

Plame-Rove inanity?

Does anybody else remember Charles Johnson reporting (or rather cutting and pasting somebody else's report) that Karl Rove wasn't the source of the Plame leak? In fact the piece portrayed Mr Rove as some sort of whistleblowing hero. For those of you who missed it here's the post.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16638_Karl_Rove_Whistleblower&only

And another trumped-up leftist cause du jour bites the dust.

Exclaimed Charles, except the story refuses to go away. As noted in his latest post on the subject.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=16675_What_Media_Bias&only

Seems like Charles is now on the offensive. Claiming that the media are biased against Rove and Bush and that 'Lefty anti-Bush' Crooks and Liars blog believes the real threat to America is George W. Bush and not acts of terrorism like the one committed in London. Sounds like Charles is worried his favorite non-elected spin meister is for the chop. He even goes as far as describing this massive news story (check out every news outlet!) as;

Plame-Rove inanity

Pull the other one Charles.

Maybe you should ask the Russians?

America's top military commander General Richard Myers, says he believes there will be a big increase in violence, ahead of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections in September.

Our Washington correspondent Michael Rowland reports that the Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Myers says although progress is being made in Afghanistan the country remains extremely volatile.

General Myers expects Coalition troops to face a surge of violence from Taliban rebels in the months leading up to the elections.

"Certainly there are remnants of Taliban, well trained, good fighters, been fighting for a long time, very capable, that are currently pretty much staying to the hills," he said.

Staying to the hills in small well trained groups beat the Soviets. Maybe the US Government should read up on that war.

Spreading freedom, democracy and kickbacks

LINKSeems the Iraqi Defense Ministry is really getting into the swing of US style military contracts. Wholesale fraud and corruption, the wasting of $300 million dollars and all under the noses (yeah right) of the US appointed supervisors.

The Iraqi Defense Ministry has squandered more than $300 million on faulty and outdated equipment in what appears to be a massive web of corruption that flourished under U.S.-appointed supervisors for a year or longer, U.S. and Iraqi military officials said this week.

Vendors are suspected of vastly overcharging for substandard equipment, including helicopters, machine guns and armored vehicles, and kicking back money to Iraqi Defense Ministry buyers.

The defective equipment has jeopardized the lives of Iraq's security forces and exposed a lack of oversight for one of the country's most crucial rebuilding projects.

Officials of Iraq's recently elected government have fired the main suspects in the scandal, and several former defense overseers are under investigation for possible criminal charges, Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi said in an interview this week.

"I view corruption as an incubator for terrorism," said al-Duleimi, who took office in May and isn't implicated in the scandal. "If you can't defend against corruption, you can't defend against terrorism."

The suspected fraud slowed the training and equipping of Iraqi forces, whose performance against deadly insurgents is the key gauge for when the U.S. military can begin withdrawing its 135,000 troops from Iraq.

Al-Duleimi said investigators are looking at more than 40 questionable contracts that allegedly sent a huge chunk of the ministry's annual budget into the pockets of senior Iraqi defense officials and their foreign business partners. Investigators are looking at purchases dating back to the June 28, 2004, transfer of sovereignty.

Chickenhawk has doubts

Douglas Feith has admitted to the Washington Post that too few troops have been deployed in the war on Iraq. He also critiscised American policy of not transferring power early enough and the lack of any real plan to train Iraqi exiles before the war to help the US.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Mr Feith expressed doubts over whether the right balance was struck on the size of the invasion force in Iraq.

He said: "I am not asserting to you that I know that the answer is, we did it right. What I am saying is it's an extremely complex judgement to know whether the course that we chose with its pros and cons was more sensible."

The US military has faced criticism that its current 135,000-strong force in Iraq is too small to curb the insurgency.

Mr Feith said "course corrections" also had to be made because of policy misjudgements.

The Pentagon said in January that Mr Feith, who oversaw the Office of Special Plans, was stepping down for personal reasons. Critics claim his office misrepresented intelligence on Iraq before the war.

Karl Rove's Trove of Trouble

This of course a leftist plot to discredit him according to Californian political genius Charles Johnson.

In a turn of events worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, Karl Rove is falling from the dizzying heights of untouchable omnipotence to the sordid depths of political scapegoat. Long regarded as Bush's political Svengali, Rove now finds himself in the cross-hairs of a legal and political manhunt for the White House official responsible for revealing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Having staunchly defended Rove in the past against his alleged involvement in the outing of Plame, the White House now finds itself in the untenable position of withholding comment in deference to the ongoing criminal investigation. No one, not even the press, is buying the White House's current policy of silence on Rove's involvement in the Plame affair. The skepticism arises out of the fact that, while the investigation was ongoing, the White House on repeated occasions summarily dismissed any question of Rove's involvement as "totally ridiculous."

The White House's abrupt switch from dismissive boasting to contrite silence speaks volumes. Like corporate executives or major league baseball players who take the Fifth rather than testify before Congress about their malfeasance or steroid use, the White House's sudden resort to "no comment" amounts to a silent admission of wrongdoing. If someone didn't have the goods on Rove, you can rest assured that the White House would still be arrogantly brushing aside any and all questions about his role in outing Plame. For Rove, the jig is up, and the White House knows it.

The rest of this article can be read here.

US willing to negotiate with Iraqi insurgents

So much for George W. Bush and his hard line on terror. Seems the US so bogged down in Iraq is open to 'discussions' with selected elements of the Iraqi insurgency. Can you imagine the uproar on LGF if their British, Australian or Italian allies in Iraq negotiated with these people?

The new U.S. ambassador to Iraq has denounced an insurgent attack that killed at least 27 people, many of them children. But the ambassador says the United States is open to having discussions with some selected elements of the Iraqi insurgency.

Incoming U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad condemned the insurgent attack, blaming it on "foreign terrorists" who use children for what he labeled "cannon fodder."

"That is yet another indication of the kind of people these terrorists are," he said. "They use children, as well as they target children."

One U.S. soldier was among the more than two dozen people, most of them Iraqi children, who were killed by a suicide car bomber in Baghdad. The bomb was detonated as a group of U.S. soldiers was handing out chocolate to children.

But Mr. Khalilzad, who is about to take up his post, said the United States is willing to talk to some elements of the Iraqi insurgency, so long as they are not foreign terrorists or what he called "hardcore Baathists" of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.

"So we want to isolate those [elements]. But Iraqis who have an interest in a successful Iraq, who would like to live in a situation where minority rights are protected, where Iraq can work for Iraqis. So, yeah, we're willing, in cooperation with the Iraqi government and others, to talk to them," he said.