The World Today Just Nuts

David Fitzsimmons and David Horsey are liars

2012-01-29T23:48:00.000-08:00

My latest comic just went up. I'm putting it below.

That's called "The Arm Grab." Thank you to C.I. because I called it "The Cropped Photo." She called me -- from a post-SAG Awards party -- as she was quickly working on her "And the war drags on . . ." entry for tonight to ask me what I thought of "The Arm Grab"? She said the comic didn't note a cropped photo. She was right, it didn't. Sometimes I forget what I want to write when I do the dialogue.

C.I.'s point was that calling it "The Arm Grab" will draw more attention to what the press ignored. So thanks to C.I., it ended up better than it was. (And I'm amazed she was able to think clearly at all. I heard ____ singing in the background. I asked, "Do you have the radio on?" "Oh, no, that's really ___. He's a little tipsy and singing for all of us right now.")

The reason I did this comic was (a) we talked about doing a feature at Third on this but ran out of time (a lot of people wanted to go to the Awards with C.I.) and (b) I looked online tonight and there are comics on this topic . . . comics that lie!

David Fitzsimmons lies in his comic here. And David Horsey lies here. You may insist, "Maybe they didn't lie, maybe they didn't see the photo." Their cartoons are about the photo so clearly they saw it. (If you haven't, click here to view it at Gawker. I'm not a Gawker fan but it's one of the few sites with the uncropped photo and one of the few sites that will display the photo a year from now. USA Today, for example, will have the article a year from now but not the photo if their other articles are anything to go by.)

It's amazing how in both comics, Barack doesn't have his hand on Brewer. When in the uncropped photo he does. And when that's what the news media REFUSED to report on. I mention Norah O'Donnell in the comic not just because she was tight with Dick Cheney (hosting a party for his pregnant office assissant in Bush's first term among other things) but also because she did a video report on the issue for CBS and used the cropped photo. That wasn't an accident on her part.

If you want to discuss what happened, then discuss it. But don't ignore the fact that Barack was gripping Brewer's left arm.

The Approved Cover

2012-01-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

That's "The Approved Cover" from July 20, 2008 -- the third in the series of my responding to the attack on a satirical cover The New Yorker ran. As I've explained previously:

As I explained last week:

This 2008 New Yorker cover inspired not one but three comics. Actually not the cover, the reaction to it.

The cover was a funny send-up, an obvious parody. But the Cult of St. Barack threw a fit and said copies should be burned -- yes, KPFA, on air promoted BOOK BURNING. So-called free speech radio allowed that IDIOT Aimee Allison (the mixed, bi-racial fool) to advocate for BOOK BURNING. What a little ass.

So while that nonsense was going on, I offered three other versions in solidarity with The New Yorker.

And this week I did a State of the Union comic that ended up being very popular. The community always is very kind and enjoys what I do and I appreciate that. In terms of outside? I never know what's going to be a hit with them. There's a 2010 comic that got a ton of hits this week. You just never know why that happens or what makes it interesting to someone.

(That's an attempt at answering a question Barry e-mailed.)

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday January 26, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, police are among the targeted in Iraq, in the US victims of the burn pits continue to suffer, fact checks fail on PBS, and more.

The Pentagon's US death toll for the Iraq War stands at 4487. That number doesn't include Staff Sgt Danielle Nienajadlo. Her service in Iraq included Balad Air Base. As Beth Hawkins (Mother Jones) reported two years ago, Danielle Nienajadlo quickly began suffering "headaches that kept her awake; unexplained bruises all over her body; an open sore on her back that wouldn't heal; vomiting and weight loss. In July 2008, after three miserable months, Nienajadlo checked into the base emergency room with a 104-degree fever." In a letter to Traveling Soldier in 2010, Danille's mother Lindsay Wiedman shared, "The Army still did not consider Danielle a Iraq casualty! And she was! Her very bosses that she went to while being very sick didn't believe her that she was sick. She suffered. SFC Addy was whom she went to and he said she was just trying to get out of Iraq! That was not who my daughter was. She valued her Army career, her family, me, her sister and would never not complete a hard days work. She could work Addy! Danielle died on the 20th. She would have completed her chemo the 21st. They were trying to get her to the stage of stem cell transplant. I miss her and am grieving! I blame Addy and Balad, Iraq. And I believe she should should have been considered a casualty! She deserved a big medal and the honors worth so more! I pray with time that Addy and her other bosses realize they helped kill my daughter." Along with her mother, BURNPITS 360 31-year-old Danielle's survivors include "3 sons Isaiah and Ian Jones and Titan Sanchez and her husband Jamie Nienajadlo." They note that on their Our Fallen Heroes page which also notes Ssg Steven Ochs -- dead at 32, Major Kevin E. Wilkins -- dead at 2, survived by wife Jill Wilkins and three children, Sgt Billy McKenna -- survived by wife Dine McKenna and their two daughters, and Jessica Sweet. Jeff Glor (CBS Evening News -- link is text and video) reported in June 2010, "Christopher Sweet blames his wife's leukemia on the burn pits she was exposed to in Afghanistan. Diagnosed in September 2008, Jessica Sweet died five months later." Sadly, it's very unlikely that those five will be the last.

Former-Senator Byron Dorgan explained November 6, 2009 when he chaired a Democratic Policy Committee hearing on burn pits, "Today we're going to have a discussion and have a hearing on how, as early as 2002, US military installations in Iraq and Afghanistan began relying on open-air burn pits -- disposing of waste materials in a very dangerous manner. And those burn pits included materials such as hazardous waste, medical waste, virtually all of the waste without segregation of the waste, put in burn pits. We'll hear how there were dire health warnings by Air Force officials about the dangers of burn pit smoke, the toxicity of that smoke, the danger for human health. We'll hear how the Department of Defense regulations in place said that burn pits should be used only in short-term emergency situations -- regulations that have now been codified. And we will hear how, despite all the warnings and all the regulations, the Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal, Kellogg Brown & Root, made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of US troops to toxic smoke." In addition, Disabled American Veterans notes:

In a 2006 memorandum to the Pentagon, Air Force Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, who was in charge of assessing environmental health hazards at Balad Air Base in Iraq, raised serious concerns about toxic exposures from burn pits.
The letter, which was signed by Lt. Col. James R. Elliott, the Air Force's chief medical officer at Balad, confirmed the environmental dangers that open air burn pits posed to the soldiers and airmen who lived on one of the largest U.S. installations in Iraq.

Iraq War veteran Captain Leroy Torres is one of many Americans who knows the destruction and damage burn pits cause. He and his wife Rosie Torres have worked very hard to get the word out. In an attempt to explain the realities of life post-burn pit and to spur government action, Rosie Torres shares the following:

The barriers faced by those affected by toxic exposure stem from the various components that define the word Toxic Exposures and Burn Pits. It's those same barriers that for thousands of reservists and their families have left them financially, emotionally, and mentally broken. Our story is far too familiar for those that have been affected, so here is our story. I am the wife of Captain Leroy Torres, prior to his deployment I was working full time for the Department Of Veteran Affairs and he served a dual role in his community as both a full time State Trooper for the State of Texas and a U.S. Army Reservist. Our salaries combined placed us comfortably in the bracket of about $90,000 a year, but all that changed the day he stepped foot onto the airbase in Balad, Iraq. Camp Anaconda, the FOB with the largest Burn Pit in existence, the place where all of our dreams and hopes turned into toxic chemicals. The same chemicals that followed us home and have haunted us for the past 3 years.

For thousands of reservists the story goes like this, the soldier returns from war and immediately the effects of toxic exposure surface like the invisible wounds that they are. The soldier begins seeking treatment at various healthcare facilities only to discover that neither DOD nor VA is acknowledging toxic exposure from particulate matter or burn pits. The only option left if you happen to be blessed with the luxury of private insurance is to seek specialized healthcare in the private sector. Desperately seeking answers to the question of why this once active and healthy soldier can no longer function at the capacity that he/she once did. Why the once healthy father/mother, husband, wife, daughter, son can no longer breathe, why the diagnosis of cancer, why the white matter and the lesions in the brain, the fertility issues, the fatigue, the parasitic infections, the list goes on and on. The family spends their life savings traveling to access specialized healthcare from the physicians they call their heroes. The only healthcare providers brave enough to stand behind the truth of how toxic chemicals affect the body.

The family exhausts all of their finances to gain answers, the soldier can no longer work due to multiple diagnosis and symptoms immediately forcing the once successful career person to give up their life-long dreams. The reservists files an LOD which can take up to two years, the veteran files a claim with the VA which will never grant a rating compensation because there is no category for toxic exposures. All of this forces the family into an abyss of darkness, mental stress, financial stress, and denial of acceptance to their new way of life. The once productive, healthy, and functioning military family is suddenly falling apart at the seams. The gap between VA and DOD for the reservist component of the military service members wounded must be bridged by identifying the needs of those affected immediately. Too many people are losing their homes, their life savings, and their hope, hope in a system that once promised to care for them once they returned.

As I watch my husband deteriorate before my eyes, I wonder what happened to that Captain that stood tall and strong, the father that ran 2 miles twice a week with his boys, the state police officer that served on the tactical squad, and the husband that could run circles around me but instead he is now a patient of doctors from every specialty, pulmonary, neurology, Gastroenterology, Infectious disease.

As I walked into the waiting room of the State Department of Human Services to ask for public assistance I thought to myself how can this be possible. What happened to the Captain's wife, to the once full time VA employee, why have we lost our medical tricare insurance for our children, why are we asking for help? My husband holds a masters degree and we are both educated professionals, what happened to our lives? The toxic exposures from the burn pits from war happened to our lives and to thousands of others coming home. It's only a matter of time.

The Torres family advocates for a national registry for the victims of burn pits and are active with BurnPits 360 (Rosie Torres is the executive director):

BurnPits360 is serving as a pathway of advocacy to assist veterans, their families, and civilian contractors who have been negatively affected by toxic burn pits. Contractors were assigned the task of properly disposing of any and all trash on military installations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations in the Middle East. Unfortunately, instead of using incinerators, the contractors disposed of the waste through toxic burn pits and now thousands of veterans have been put at serious risk.

BurnPits360 is inviting anyone that has been affected from exposure to toxic burn pits and environmental hazards to sign up on the registry. We are conducting a voluntary cohort anonymous study with Dr. Szema at Stony Brook University. The study simply requires self-reporting your information on the online registry, providing a proof of military service (DD-214), a signed legal consent form, and additional questionnaires. This study will help to provide vital information to doctors and researchers that will help properly diagnose and treat the vast array of medical complications arising from these exposures. It will provide the Department Of Defense and the Department Of Veteran Affairs with data that will allow them to develop a healthcare model for specialized healthcare specific to toxic exposures and environmental hazards.

The importance of this registry is to serve as a model for all military personnel, civilian contractors, and their families to self-report injuries and deaths from toxic exposure from burn pits and other environmental hazards. It will also assist in proving causation and the correlation between the exposure and the illness, as well as determine all areas of possible exposure. It will provide the VA with the data needed to develop legislative language for the development of a compensation and pension category specific to toxic exposures.

Most importantly, this study is completely anonymous. None of your personal information will be shared at any time. (In such cases where information would ever need to be made public, it would not be done so without the members written consent, whereas the veteran, contractor, and/or their family have the option to decline to participate at that time.)

Should you be interested in participating in the study, please contact Burn Pits 360 via email [burnpitadvocates@burnpits360.org] or by telephone [361-816-4015].

Daniel Meyer is a disabled veteran and activist alerting the country to the dangers of burn pits. Julie M. McKinnon (Toledo Blade) noted that Meyer attended the Statue of the Union speech Tuesay at the invitation of US House Rep Shelley Berkley who told the newspaper, "As a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, Staff Sergeant Meyer proudly served our nation in time of war, and we salute his valor and recognize the bravery and sacrifice of all the men and women in America's armed forces, our veterans, and their families." Along with his work with BurnPit 360, he also makes a huge impact by sharing his story and raising issues and awareness at his website Daniel Meyer Blog.com. Despite the bravery he shows and the bravery of others, those suffering from burn pits repeatedly have to reinvent the wheel and re-educate the public and the Congress about the burn pits effects that they now live with, explain the need for a federal registry, explain the need for the VA to recognize and educate. The first Burn Pits Symposium takes place this month and we'll note that at the end of the snapshot.

On the issue of the State of the Union, different people will have different opinions. There is no universal take. At Third, Ava and I offer a feminist take on the media -- "a" feminist take, not "the" feminist take. It's a difference Time magazine and Nate Rawlings need to grasp. Interviewing Democrat Paul Reickhoff -- who has worked so often and so hard to turn out votes for Democrats -- does not provide "How the Vets Scored It" -- it provides how one did. It is less than honest and highly insulting to allow Reickhoff to speak for all veterans. Reickhoff is someone we have called out here repeatedly for well over six years and done so most recently when he decided he was the person, him, to speak about what it was like to be a female veteran -- him, he was the voice for female veterans. Adam Kokesh is an Iraq War veteran. I doubt very seriously his take on the speech was the same as Paul Reickhoff. Adam Kokesh is with Veterans for Ron Paul.

Adam Kokesh: Today we filed a permit application with DC MPD -- Metro Police Dept -- and on Sunday the Veterans for Ron Paul organizing committee met, walked the route and everything is on track for the Ron Paul Is The Choice Of The Troops (Veterans and Active Duty March On The White House) on Presidents Day, February 20th. For all of you who shared my video announcement from New Hampshire, thank you so much for helping to get that video to over 50,000 views in two weeks and to help us get to over 750 RSVPs on the Facebook events page already. Thanks to everybody who's stepped up on the organizing team and to the two people who already donated to the case. So the details are still pending final approval but here's what you need to know. On Presidents Day, February 20th, we will rally at the Washington Monument at noon and, at 1400 hours, 2:00 pm, we will form up on 15th street, facing north towards Constitution Avenue and step off as soon as we have verified the proof of service of everyone in the formation. There will also be a truck, thanks to Jim Kiisner, to follow the formation for any veterans who might be disabled or not capable of marching with us. We will march to the White House do an about face to turn to a folded flag to hold the salute for as many seconds as troops have died since Obama became president and march back to the monument. So who's going to speak at the rally?

They're having a contest in which the top 18 video makers will be allowed to speak at the rally. We'll try to note that next week. There's just not room. I planned to spend several days on the Human Rights Watch report but only had time and space for it Monday and (hopefully) tomorrow. I will note that Feburary 1st, Adam's birthday, he's asking that you "make a contibution to the cause" here to cover the costs of the march and they hope there's enough money to also cover the transportation costs of veterans who might not otherwise be able to be present. We're still on the State of the Union. As Betty noted, last night on The NewsHour, there was a fact check on the Iraq portion of Barack's speech. Betty wrote, "I am a member of The Common Ills community. We have a number of military members and a number of members whose loved ones are in the military. This does include US troops who remain in Iraq. So to hear Glenn Kessler LIE in a fact check that all US troops had left Iraq was shocking." Here for video, transcript and audio of The NewsHour (PBS) segment. This is the section Betty (rightly) calls out (and Betty gives Gwen credit for bringing up the contractor aspect at least).

Glenn Kessler: Well, I mean, he's correct that, obviously, U.S. troops have left Iraq. The question is, you know, what have they left? And you can look at the way the American troops departed. There was an effort originally the administration made in order to extend the security agreement. And then they were either unwilling or unable to extend that agreement. And that's why the troops left. He is able to say he fulfilled a campaign promise. But, at the moment, Iraq is in a very unstable situation.

Gwen Ifill: Well, and if American contractors are still on the ground, aren't there Americans still on the ground?

Glenn Kessler: Yes, there are Americans there, too. There's a huge State Department presence as well, and being protected by those contractors. So it's troops, but, you know, combat troops -- but there are certainly a lot of Americans there.

You can also read Kessler's fact-check or 'fact'-check at the Washington Post. Betty's message to Kessler:

On behalf of community members who are in Iraq still or have family members in the military still serving in Iraq, I say, "F**k you, Glenn Kessler." And I don't make a point to curse at my site. But it needs to be said and said loudly until the press stops disrespecting those military members who remain in Iraq.

I support Betty and her statements 100%, without reservation. In addition, I will add that if you are fact checking, know your damn facts. Barack did not promise, if elected, troops would leave at the end of 2011. All troops didn't leave but even if you're too stupid or too much of a liar to grasp this fact, you should get that his promise was a brigade a month, first thing he'd do upon being sworn in. He did not keep his promise. Samantha Power lied to American voters but did let British audiences know in March 2008 that Barack had no intention of keeping that campaign 'promise' and she was right and Glenn Kessler is wrong, he is damn wrong and it is offensive, as Betty noted, to members of this community who either are still serving in Iraq or have a loved one still serving in Iraq. Meanwhile Mike selected Rabbi Michael Lerner as "genius of the week" for being the only voice of truth about the State of the Union speech at POLITICO's Arena yesterday. Rabbi Lerner:

What populism, what message? As usual there were a series of proposals with no common theme. We were told that the model for America was the military - why can't we be like they are, perfect in every way? We were told by the man who was elected from discontent over the war in Iraq that the war was completely worthwhile. Give me a break. This man has neither moral compass nor the political sense to state clearly and unequivocally that government is needed to stop the excesses of the rich and the corporations.

Ian Wilder (On The Wilder Side) reminds that not only is their disagreement over Barack's claims but some of the disagreement comes from politicians willing to speak out, " Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, called today for a Green New Deal to counter the 'trickle down economic agenda' laid out by President Obama in his State of the Union address. Stein plans to release her alternative at 8:30pm Eastern Time in a 'People's State of the Union: A Green New Deal for America' that will be given via her campaign website'." The video is posted there and we'll note this from it:

"The President has subverted the progressive ideals of the New Deal. He's imposing his vision of a 'grand bargain' that represents the effective philosophical merger of the Democratic and Republican parties. "

"The President presented a rosy picture of the current state of the economy by tossing out a few anecdotes and cherry-picked statistics. He seemed almost oblivious to recent news that 48% of Americans are living in poverty or near poverty, the greatest number in 50 years of record keeping. If he thinks things are going so well, maybe that's why he sees no reason to change course."

Matt Reichel (Dissident Voice) has a very strong piece rebuking Barack's claims in that speech but we only have room for one sentence from it, "It's all the same Hope and Change Pony Show." On the reality, Barack wouldn't touch, this week's. Black Agenda Radio, hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, (airs each Monday at 4:00 pm EST on the Progressive Radio Network), featured an interview with journalist Chris Hedges about the dangerous National Defense Authorization Act.

Chris Hedges: Yeah, the way the law is written is, when you read it really closely, really terrifying because it's the whim of the security and surveillance state whoever they want to go after they can pretty much do so under this piece of legislation and then, of course, the way they do it is to use the military to carry out extraordinary rendition on American city streets. And I think to listen to the Obama White House, you know Obama assured in his signing statement that he would not use this legislation to target American citizens? Well [US Senator] Dianne Feinstein proposed inserting into this legislation a clear statement that American citizens would be exempted from it and this was rejected by both the Democractic Party and the Obama White House. They had an opportunity to do it and they didn't. And we know from leaks out of [US Senator] Carl Levin's office that the difficulty that the Obama White House had with the bill was not over the denial of due process but the fact that the executive branch wanted to abrogate for itself the right to decide who, what American citizens would be subject to arrest and detention without access to a lawyer or courts by the military and who would be given exemptions. It was a debate about the prerogatives of the executive branch, it was never a debate about due process or the rule of law.

Glen Ford: Now if we don't have due process, do we have the rule of law?

Chris Hedges: Well if you don't have due process, you don't have the rule of law.

Glen Ford: Are you optimistic?

Chris Hedges: I don't have a lot of faith in the Supreme Court. We saw the case of Jose Padilla. They used to call him the sort-of missing hijacker. He was a US citizen held for three and a half years in a military brig without access to a lawyer or due process. It was challenged, went up to the Supreme Court and, before the Supreme Court took up the case, he was transferred to a civilian court and the Supreme Court said they wouldn't rule on it because it was moot. I mean, they sort of passed it. But given the composition of this particular Supreme Court, I wouldn't say I'm optomistic but I still say we have to try.

Glen Ford: Apologists for Obama say, 'Well this law is nothing new. President Bush claimed the right to detain anyone based on his own criteria and without charges. And that this is nothing new. But it is something new when you codify it into law with the benediction of the Congress.

Chris Hedges: They're right only in this sense: Under the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act, they already were doing a lot of this stuff -- including, of course, targeting American citizens for assassinations. Barack Obama serving as judge, jury and executioner for Anwar al-Awlaki, the cleric who was murdered in Yemen. But I think that most legal scholars saw that as a fairly radical interpretation of that piece of legislation. This [NDAA] essentially legalizes, overturns 200 years -- over 200 years -- of law to permit the armed forces or the military to carry out domestic policing. And I think the other important point about this legislation is that the 2001 act was tied to groups who were directly related to al Qaeda. This now permits this kind of war against a multiplicity of groups, many of which didn't even exist when 9-11 happened -- groups in Yemen, groups in Somolia. It's a way of sort of cementing into place the permanent war psychosis. And remember that these people can be picked up by the military, held without charges, without trial, without access to an attorney, in the language of the bill, until the end of hostilities. Well, you know, when is that? This is an endless war. The 2001 act was bad enough but, you know, at this point to pass a piece of legislation like this which goes into effect in March is catastrophic assault against what's left of civil liberties and our anaemic democracy.

Glen Ford: If this bill had moved through Congress when Bush was president, would you have expected a hailstorm of protest?

Chris Hedges: The Democratic Party is very good at expressing moral outrage against George Bush or Republicans but doing absolutely nothing to counter those activities. So yeah, you would have had the Democratic Party and the liberal establishment speaking out against it and expressing deep disgust and distaste for these measures yet at the same time I think what these people do and what they say is very different.

And if you doubt it, note this about 2005 -- when Democrats were the minority in the House of Representatives, were the minority in the Senate and didn't control the White House but were desperate to change that by getting one house of Congress in the 2006 mid-terms.

Cindy Sheehan: [. . .] that's what happened to the anti-war movement I was a part of without me even knowing it. And the Democrats told me to my face, "Cindy, if you help us take back the House, we'll help you end the war." You know, Nancy Pelosi told me that, Barack Obama told me that, Hillary Clinton told me that, John Kerry, all of the leading Democrats said it right to my face, "If you help us take back the House" -- and this was in 2005 when I had -- I had the Democratic base which is actually anti-war at their heart but you know they'll go against their hearts every single time when it comes to voting. They said, "You help us take back the House, we'll help you end the war." Well look what happened. You know they used the energy of the anti-war movement and the Camp Casey movement to get back in power and they totally betrayed the movement.

She was speaking on Peter Santilli's The Overthrow Show, and she termed the State of the Union another campaign speech and one with meaningless promises.

Iraq was again plagued with bombings today. Peter Cave (Australia's ABC) reports a Mussayib home bombing targeting police officers and "brothers Ahmed and Jihad Zuwaiyin" and "killing everyone inside including six children aged under 10" as well as both police officers and their wives. Al Rafidayn notes that four of the children were under ten and two boys who were approximately ten-years-old. DPA adds, "The police officer said the blast was caused by several roadside-type bombs placed near the house's outer walls, which destroyed it. Four people were wounded and six nearby houses were also damaged." Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observes, "The violence has raised concerns among citizens about the ability of Iraqi security forces to ensure order, particularly after the United States withdrew troops at the end of 2011." In addition to the bombing of the two families, Sinan Salaheddin and Yahya Barzanji (AP) note, "Also Thursday, a motorcycle bomb missed a passing police patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, but killed two civilians and wounded five others, the city's police commander Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir said." In addition, Reuters notes a the "son of a Sunni tribal leader" was shot dead in Mosul, a Kirkuk sticky bombing last night claimed 1 life and left another person injured and a Kirkuk drive-by shooting last night left 2 police officers dead.

Dan Morse and Asaad Majeed (Washington Post) explain, "The attacks come amid a political crisis that has virtually paralyzed the government in the last six weeks." Nouri kicked off the political crisis by refusing to honor the November 2010 Erbil Agreement he signed off on (the agreement which allowed him to become prime minister despite his State of Law coming in second in the March 2010 elections). He intensified the conflict in October 2011 when he began ordering the arrest of hundreds of Sunnis -- insisting that they were attempting to launch a coup and were terrorists. As reported by the Iraqi media earlier this month, most have been released and the rest are expected to be -- there was no coup attempt. Then came December and Nouri's return from DC, emboldened by his face-to-face with supporter Barack Obama. Nouri immediately demanded that Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq be stripped of his post and that Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi be arrested for terrorism. Both al-Mutlaq and al-Hashemi are Sunnis and members of Iraqiya. Last week saw several prominent Sunnis and Iraqiya members arrested in various provinces.

Since last month, President Jalal Talabani (Kurd) and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi (Iraqiya) have been calling for a national conference. This month there was a meet-up of various political players to firm up the details for the national conference and a final meet-up was supposed to have taken place last Sunday; however, over the weekend, Talabani had to travel to Germany for spinal surgery and the meet-up is now on hold. This week, Nouri and State of Law began demanding that if any national conference takes place, it can't be called a national conference. As Sheikh (Dar Addustour) notes that demand as well as the demand that it not be open to all political leaders but just the the three presidencies (Talabani, Nouri and al-Nujaifi) and the leaders of blocs in parliament and Sheikh notes that the demands, if implemented, will be like a bullet to the body and kill the hopes of any success of resolving the crisis. Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq leader Ammar al-Hakim is in Turkey currently (meeting with officials) and AP quotes him stating, "I want to invite Iraqiya to return to parliament and take its place in parliament. We say that we will examine their just demands and do whatever is necessary."

Today Gulf News interviews US Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey about the political crisis. Excerpt.

GN: Former general David Petraeus and General Ray Odierno met up with Al Iraqiya leaders as the political crisis started in the country after the US army's withdrawal. What can you tell us about the meetings?

JJ: General Petraeus is the head of the Central Intelligence Agency and General Ray Odierno is the US army's Chief of Staff and as part of their normal contacts in the region they visit here and they visit any other country in the region. I wouldn't read anything special into that.

GN: The Obama administration is proceeding with the sale to Iraq of almost $11 billion in weapons and training. Do you think that any assistance to Iraq's security forces ought to be conditional on the government's commitment to resolve its disagreements?

JJ: First of all, when we provide weapons we provide them with guarantees that they will be used for their proper purposes. The weapons given to the Iraqis are not for internal security, they are to be used to defend their borders and to eventually defend their air space and this is something any sovereign country needs and Iraq currently does not have. So this is something which is important for Iraq as a state and it has nothing to do with political conflicts.

GN: Thousands of Iraqi and American lives were sacrificed in ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussain. A slide back to dictatorship, when much of the region is striving for democracy, would render their sacrifices meaningless. What are your thoughts in this regard?

JJ: We believe that Iraq remains the most democratic country in the Middle East. Obviously it faces very severe problems now and it is in the middle of a very difficult political controversy and we hope that it will be able to get out of it. We continue to support a united federalist, and democratic Iraq.

As noted earlier, the first ever Burn Pit Symposium takes place next month.

1st Annual Scientific Symposium on

Lung Health after Deplyoment to Iraq & Afghanistan

February 13, 2012

sponsored by

Office of Continuing Medical Education

School of Medicine

Stony Brook University

Location

Health Sciences Center, Level 3, Lecture Hall 5

Anthony M. Szema, M.D., Program Chair

Stony Brook

University

Medical Center

This program is made possible by support from the Sergeant Thomas Joseph Sullivan Center, Washington, D.C.

2 WAYS TO REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE

* Register with your credit card online at: http://www.stonybrookmedicalcenter.org/education/cme.cfm

* Download the registration form from:

http://www.stonybrookmedicalcenter.org/education/cme.cfm and

fax form to (631) 638-1211

For Information Email: cmeoffice@stonybrook.edu

1st Annual Scientific Symposium on

Lung Health after Deployment to Iraq & Afghanistan

Monday, February 13, 2012

Health Sciences Center

Level 3, Lecture Hall 5

Program Objective: Upon completion, participants should be able to recognize new-onset of lung disease after deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

8:00 - 9:00 a.m. Registration & Continental Breakfast (Honored Guest, Congressman

Tim Bishop

9:00 - 9:30 Peter Sullivan, J.D., Father of Marine from The Sergeant Thomas Joseph

Sullivan Center, Washington, D.C.

9:40 - 10:10 Overview of Exposures in Iraq, Anthony Szema, M.D., (Assistant

Professor of Medicine and Surgery, Stony Brook University)

10:10 - 10:40 Constrictive Bronchiolitis among Soldiers after Deployment, Matt

King, M.D. (Assistant Professor of Medicine, Meharry Medical College,

Nashville, TN)

10:40 - 11:10 BREAK

11:10 - 11:40 Denver Working Group Recommendations and Spirometry Study in

Iraq/Afghanistan, Richard Meehan, M.D., (Chief of Rheumatology and

Professor of Medicine, National Jewish Health, Denver, CO)

11:40 a.m. - Microbiological Analyses of Dust from Iraq and Afghanistan, Captain Mark

12:10 p.m. Lyles, D.M.D., Ph. D., (Vice Admiral Joel T. Boone Endowed Chair of

Health and Security Studies, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI)

12:10 - 12:20 Health Care Resource Utilization among Deployed Veterans at the White

River Junction VA, James Geiling, M.D., (Professor and Chief of Medicine,

Dartmouth Medical School, VA White River Junction, VT)

12:20 - 1:20 LUNCH AND EXHIBITS

Graduate students Millicent Schmidt and Andrea Harrington (Stony Brook

University) present Posters from Lung Studies Analyzed for Spatial

Resolution of Metals at Brookhaven National Laboratory's National

Synchrotron Light Source

1:20 - 1:40 Epidemiologic Survey Instrument on Exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan,

Joseph Abraham, Sc.D., Ph.D., (U.S. Army Public Health Command,

Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD)

1:40 - 2:10 Overview of the Issue Raised during Roundtable on Pulmonary Issues

and Deployment, Coleen Baird, M.D., M.P.H., (Program Manager

Environmental Medicine, U.S. Army Public Health Command)

2:10 - 2: 40 Reactive Oxygen Species from Iraqi Dust, Martin Schoonen, Ph.D.

(Director Sustainability Studies and Professor of Geochemistry, Stony

Brook University)

2:40 - 2:50 BREAK

2:50 - 3:15 Dust Wind Tunnel Studies, Terrence Sobecki, Ph.D. (Chief Environmental

Studies Branch, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research

and Engineering Laboratory, Manchester, NH)

3:15 - 3:45 Toxicologically Relevant Characteristics of Desert Dust and Other

Atmospheric Particulate Matter, Geoffrey S. Plumlee, Ph.D. (Research

Geochemist, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO)

3:44 - 4:15 In-situ Mineralogy of the Lung and Lymph Nodes, Gregory Meeker, M.S.

(Research Geochemist, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO)

Continuing Medical Education Credits

The school of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The School of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brooke designates this live activity for a maximum of 6 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM. Physicians should only claim the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

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the washington post
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the news hour

Take Three

2012-01-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

From July 20, 2008, that's "Take Three."

As I explained last week:

This 2008 New Yorker cover inspired not one but three comics. Actually not the cover, the reaction to it.

So while that nonsense was going on, I offered three other versions in solidarity with The New Yorker.

I've got one more of that series.

An e-mail asked about whether or not I get a hard time about my Barack comics.

In 2008, I got a lot of hate mail.

I didn't care.

That's dropped off significantly. But there are White people who still feel the need to e-mail me and gripe.

It's just White people.

Black people know what racism is and they're not going to start screaming in an e-mail at me the way some White people will.

I think it probably also helps that (a) I'm Black and (b) I have a history that pre-dates Barack online. My comics have shown that I will take on Bush (and did while a lot of others were cowards) and I will take on any politicians. I don't bow before politicians.

And I think because I have that history and because I played it fair in the primaries -- I made fun of everyone on the Democratic side (not sure about the GOP side but I'm not sure I knew all the GOP players -- I don't think I did a Mitt Romney comic in 2008 and didn't even know he was running in 2008 until this year when someone mentioned it on NPR).

Most people know I supported Hillary and they know if she was president, she'd be the focus of almost every comic and I'd be making fun of her. (I've done two of her since the 2008 election. One was about Barack hiding behind her skirts and the other was comparing her and Leon Panetta to pigs over their wish list in terms of the budget.)

I like Hillary. But if she were president, even though I would've voted for her, I'd still be sending her up because that's what you do if you're a political cartoonist, you go after the big targets.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, January 19, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, Ayad Allawi talks to Jane Arraf about the political crisis, another pre-national conference meeting gets scheduled, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta accomplishes a first (to his great credit), the network TV media ignore the first and send a message, US citizens work on starting a citizens burn pit registry, and more.

Yesterday at the Pentagon, something major happened (here for video, here for transcript), a sitting Secretary of Defense called a press conference to talk about sexual assault in the military. That was Leon Panetta who noted, "Let me close bys peaking directly to the victims of sexual assault in this department. I deeply regret that such crimes occur in the US military. And I will do all I can to prevent these sexual assaults from occurring in the Department of Defense. I'm committed to providing you the support and resources you need and to taking whatever steps are necessary to keep what happened to you from happening to others. The United States military has a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault. And we will hold the perpetrators appropriately accountable. I expect everybody in this department to live up to the high standards that we have set and to treat each other with dignity and respect. In a military force, where the promise is to help each other in battle and to leave nobody behind, that promise must begin by honoring the dignity of every person on or off the battlefield."

Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates preceded Panetta in the office. The rate of sexual assault has been on the rise since the 90s. Yet Rumsfeld and Gates never addressed it publicly. If questioned by Congress in a hearing, they would offer some empty words. The same at a press conference. But they did not call press conferences to address the issue. Prior to Panetta, the pattern has been ignore it and know damn well that the press will assist you in ignoring it. Robert Gates spent several months in 2011 on a farewell tour with the press allegedly examining his performance but they never noted the military suicide rate and they never noted sexual assault.

So what the hell were they grading him on? (The answer was, they graded him on if they really, really loved him or just loved him. I was present for the "off the record" farewell photo ops between Gates and the press.)

Secretary Leon Panetta: When I was sworn into the office of Secretary of Defense, I said that I had no higher responsibility than to protect those who are protecting America. Our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day to try to keep America safe. We have a moral duty to keep them safe from those who would attack their dignity and their honor. That's why I've been so concerned by the problem of sexual assault in the military. Sexual assault has no place in this department. It is an affront to the basic American values we defend and it is a stain on the good honor of the great majority of our troops and their -- and our -- families. As leaders of this department, we're committed to doing everything we can to ensure the safety, dignity and well-being of our people. These men and these women who are willing to fight and to die, if necessary, to protect and serve our country, they're entitled to much better protection. Their families and their dependents also sacrifice and serve and so, for that reason, we have to spare no effort in order to protect them against this heinous crime. The number of sexual assaults in the military is unacceptable. Last year, 3,191 reports of sexual assault came in. But I have to tell you that because we assume that this is a very underreported crime, the estimate is that the number actually is closer to 19,000. One sexual assault is too many. Since taking this office, I've made it a top priority to do everything we can to reduce and prevent sexual assault, to make victims of sexual assault feel secure enough to report this crime without fear of retribution or harm to their career and to hold the perpretrators appropriately accountable.

There's more but we'll stop there. There was no Tailhook exposed this week. There was no rush to defuse a just breaking scandal. Panetta did what the last two serving as Secretary of Defense should have done, he showed that the Department took it seriously by making it a focus, not an aside.

Had Gates or Rumsfeld done the same at any point in their lengthy time in office (Panetta became Defense Secretary last July), they might not be the plantiffs in a law suit right now. As Burke PLLC notes:

On Feb. 15, 2011, we filed a lawsuit in Virginia federal court on behalf of 16

active duty military and veteran victims of sexual trauma, including persons

who allege they were raped by their military colleagues. The case is Cioca

et al v. Rumsfield and Gates, C.A. 11 cv 151 in the U.S. District Court of Eastern District of Virginia. Our investigation in this case continues.
Additionally, [Susan] Burke has been invited to speak on institutional failings

that have led to extensive rape and sexual assault in the military at the 2011 National Conference on Civil Actions for Criminal Acts hosted by The

National Crime Victims Bar Association and The National Center for Victims

of Crime. The conference will be held from June 20 to June 22, 2011 at the

Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Her presentation will discuss potential solutions for these issues.

If you are interested in potentially participating in this lawsuit, please contact Susan Sajadi. Read more about military rape litigation.

As disclosed before, I know Susan Burke and I know Leon Panetta. Knowing Leon is why I took a pass on this yesterday. I figured we'd string together various reports and I wouldn't have to say anything personally. But that required news actually being covered. And, of course, that so rarely happens.

At the increasingly embarrassing CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, they gave thanks for the wrecked ocean liner over the weekend. There was no news there but they had footage and opened the broadcast with it. Three days of coverage out of this, it's been a gift for Scott Pelley and for CBS Evening News . . . if not for viewers. The story was no different at ABC or NBC or PBS. (And ABC and Chris Cuomo will turn the wreck into a 'special' Friday night. Pick the bones, pick them dry. But don't pretend you've supplied news.)

Women and men in the military are at risk of sexual assault; however, victims are more often women. And, as we've seen over and over, when a story's focus can be seen as female, over and over, it gets ignored. (When Katie Couric anchored the CBS Evening News, sexual assault, breast cancer and other issues that might be seen as effecting primarily women did get covered.) The networks had plenty of time for the snow in Seattle -- a story that really only effected Seattle. They just didn't have time for major news in terms of sexual assault in the military which also included policy changes.

Secretary Leon Panetta: Over the holidays, we announced two new policies that provide greater support for the victims of sexual assault. The first policy gives victims who report a sexual assault an option to quickly transfer from their unit or installation to protect them from possible harassment and remove them from proximity to the alleged perpetrator. Second, we will also require the retention of written reports of sexual assault to law enforcement to be retained for a period of 50 years. The reason for that is to have these records available so that it will make it easier for veterans to file a claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs at a later date. These two policies are the first of a broader package of proposals that we will be presenting in the coming months, many of which will require legislative action by the Congress. Today, I want to announce some additional steps that we are taking. First, I've directed the establishment of a DoD sexual assault advocate certification program which will require our sexual assault response coordinators and victim advocates to obtain a credential aligned with national standards. This will help ensure that the victims of sexual assault receive the best care from properly trained and credentialed professionals who provide crucial assistance from the moment an assault is committed. Second, I have directed the department to expand our support to assault victims to include military spouses and adult military dependents, who will now be able -- this was not the case before -- they will now be able to file confidential reports and receive the services of a victim advocate and a sexual assault response coordinator. In addition, we're going to ensure that DoD civilians stationed abroad and DoD US citizen contractors in combat areas receive emergency care and the help of a response coordinator and a victim advocate. Third, because sexual assault cases are some of the toughest cases to investigate and to prosecute, I've increased funding for investigators and for judge advocates to receive specialized training. We're also putting in place one integrated data system. The data systems, frankly, were spread among the various services. We're going to put them together into one data system in order to track sexual assault reports and monitor case management so that we'll have a comprehensive data base for information available later this year. And, finally, in addition to our focus on taking care of victims and holding perpetrators appropriately accountable, we've been focusing on what more can we do to try to prevent sexual assault. Our leaders in uniform, officers and enlisted are on the front lines of this effort -- they have to be. We must all be leaders here. For this reason, I'm directing an assessment -- due in 120 days -- on how we train our commanding officers and senior enlisted leaders on sexual assault prevention and response and what we can do to strengthen that training. It's important that everyone in uniform be alert to this problem and have the leadership training to help prevent these crimes from occuring.

They missed all the above. But don't worry, that because, for example, ABC World

News with Diane Sawyer couldn't cover the sexual assault story, they missed the big news stories. No, they had time, they made time, to show the very important YouTube video of a bird playing in the snow.

My opinion? A great deal more is needed by the Defense Dept and I would include the firing of one woman we've regularly advocated for the firing of (if you refuse to testify to Congress, you should be fired, end of story). I think the words will be measured months from now in terms of whether, in practice, much changed.

But I give Leon Panetta applause for addressing the topic. Until a sitting Secretary of Defense is willing to use time to address the topic, nothing's going to change. Until a Secretary of Defense makes clear that this issue matters at the top, it's not going to matter. Leon Panetta sent a strong signal yesterday, a needed one, and became the first sitting Secretary of Defense to do so. Much more needs to be done and I hope it is but I give Leon Panetta credit for doing more than any of his predecessors have. (And I've said here and face-to-face that I will measure his performance based on this issue and the issue of suicides in the military. Those are the issues that the press should have been grading Robert Gates on.)

Another issue veterans face is exposure to Burn Pits -- veterans, service members and contractors. Stony Brook University holds the first ever Burn Pit Scientific Symposium February 13th and, in addition, there is a move towards a citizen registry:

Should you be interested in participating in the study, please contact Burn Pits 360 via email [burnpitadvocates@burnpits360.org] or by telephone [361-816-4015].

Still on veterans issues,

Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Her office notes:

For Immediate Release
January 19, 2012
Contact:
Murray: 202-224-2834
Filner: 202-225-9756

Murray, Filner Request GAO Review of VA's Sterilization of Reusable Medical Equipment Policies and Procedures

(Washington, D.C.) -- Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA) sent a letter to Government Accountability Office (GAO) Comptroller Gene Dodaro expressing concern over reports of shortcomings in the sterilization of reusable medical equipment. In the letter, they urge the GAO to investigate whether VA's leadership is taking appropriate actions to address these problems across the system.

"On numerous occasions, VA has reported to Congress about the various investigations it has conducted and the problems these investigations have identified, which they claim have led to the development of new processes and procedures to reduce the risk of these problems reoccurring," Senator Murray and Congressman Filner said in the letter. "However, we continue to hear about the same types of quality of care incidents at VA medical facilities and we are concerned that this is an indication that VA is not effectively learning from these incidents and subsequently translating those lessons into system-wide improvements."
The full text of the letter follows:

January 19, 2012

The Honorable Gene L. Dodaro

Comptroller General of the United States

Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20548

Dear Mr. Dodaro:

We know of repeated quality of care problems throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system. Some of these problems, such as shortcomings in the sterilization of reusable medical equipment, reoccur with unacceptable frequency. This raises concerns as to whether VA's leadership is taking appropriate actions, including the appropriate disciplinary actions, to effectively address the problems across the system. On numerous occasions, VA has reported to Congress about the various investigations it has conducted and the problems these investigations have identified, which they claim have led to the development of new processes and procedures to reduce the risk of these problems from reoccurring. However, we continue to hear about the same types of quality of care incidents at VA medical facilities and we are concerned that this is an indication that VA is not effectively learning from these incidents and subsequently translating those lessons into system-wide improvements.

Therefore, we request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct a review of VA's processes and procedures for responding to quality of care incidents that occur within its health care system. Specifically, we request that GAO review the following:

1. What processes and procedures does VA use to respond to quality of care incidents that occur at its medical facilities, including quality assurance reviews and disciplinary actions? To what extent do these processes and procedures compliment and inform each other? What, if any, gaps or inconsistencies exist?

2. How does VA determine which processes and procedures to use to respond to quality of care incidents? What factors contribute to why certain processes and procedures are chosen by VA over others?

3. What challenges, if any, do VA staff face when using these processes and procedures?

4. To what extent are the processes and procedures carried out consistently across VA's health care system?

5. What data, if any, does VA systematically collect with regard to its employees' involvement in quality of care incidents, including clinicians and others? How, if at all, are these data trended and analyzed? To what extent are these data used to determine what actions to take in response to these incidents?

6. To what extent does VA use the data to identify opportunities for system-wide quality improvement?

As a follow-on to the above work, we also request that GAO perform an in-depth assessment of the extent to which VA medical facilities follow the processes and procedures used to respond to quality of care incidents.

Thank you for your work to improve the care and services our veterans receive. We look forward to reviewing your findings.

Sincerely,

PATTY MURRAY
Chairman Ranking Democratic Member
Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs

BOB FILNER
Ranking Democratic Member
House Committee on Veterans Affairs
###

Turning to Iraq, yesterday the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad was attacked. Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the following statement:

Today at 13:50 local time (12.50 Turkish local time) a rocket attack (RPG) was launched against our Embassy in Baghdad. One of the rockets hit the concrete blocks placed in front of our Embassy's protective outer walls without causing any death or injury. It has been learned that the other rocket exploded in the car from where it was fired.
We strongly condemn this heinous attack perpetrated against our Embassy. Furthermore, we expect the Iraqi authorities to capture the perpetrators of the attack as soon as possible, bring them promptly to justice and take all the necessary security measures in order to decidedly prevent the recurrence of such attacks.
Necessary demarches have been made in this regard with the Iraqi authorities and it has been reminded with emphasis that ensuring the security of diplomatic missions is the host country's obligation. The Iraqi authorities confirmed that they would take the necessary steps regarding the security of our Embassy in compliance with their responsibilities stemming from international law and adopt every measure to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.
Turkey will closely follow up on the measures to be taken by the host country to ensure the security of our diplomatic missions in Iraq.

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers' Miami Herald) reports, "No one has claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack, in which assailants fired three rockets at the embassy. But the timing of the assault, just days after an acrimonious exchange between al-Maliki and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raised suspicions that al-Maliki sympathizers were responsible."

On Morning Edition (NPR -- link is audio and transcript), Sean Carberry reported on the visit back to Iraq that Aseel Albanna made after 20 years of living in the US. It starts with the high of her exclaiming, "I can't believe I'm here, I just have sheer joy inside me." It descends rather quickly as she expresses dismay at what has happened to Baghdad, how her neighborhood "used to be a beautiful neighborhood [. . .] this is really shocking. This neighborhood used to be like all brand new houses, beautiful yards, beautiful streets, beautiful greenery and now I don't know how to describe it. It's just a mess."

Just a mess also describes the political climate in Baghdad where the political crisis continues. Deutsche Welle notes, "After the 2010 elections, the ethnic and religious groups signed a power-sharing agreement in Erbil. But Maliki appeared to have other plans from the outset. Formally, a joint government does exist. [. . .] Maliki did not name a defense minister, for example. The post was actually earmarked for a Sunni. At the same time, he filled central positions with his own party supporters or just took them over himself." Economist Kadhim Habeb is quoted stating, "Maliki's goal is to push through his sole reign. He is a little despot." Sam Dagher (Wall St. Journal) reports that Iraqiya met in Baghdad yesterday to explore Nouri al-Maliki's ouster while Kurdish officials did the same in Erbil. Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) notes the political crisis continues to thrive and al-Salhy runs through some possibilities:

The political blocs are working out details of a conference to help sort out the political turmoil but it may not happen this month. The conference, some politicians say, could ease tensions and allow Sunni lawmakers to save face and go back to their jobs, ending the boycott.
In Sunni-majority Salahuddin province a bid to win more autonomy from Baghdad is gaining steam, although a quick resolution is unlikely. Petitions have been distributed, a constitutionally necessary step toward a referendum on greater self-rule.
Maliki's Shi'ite allies are trying to take advantage of the turmoil to win government jobs, power within ministries and provincial councils and the release of prisoners.
Kurdistan may use the presence of Hashemi and support for Maliki as bargaining chips to win concessions in its ongoing disputes with Baghdad over oil and land rights and the region's share of the national budget.

Aswat al-Iraq reports that Sunday will be another meeting to prepare for a national conference where the various blocs could attempt to talk through a resolution. Since last month President Jalal Talabani and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi have been calling for a national conference. Jane Arraf (Al Jazeera) interviews Ayad Allawi today (link is text and video). Excerpt:

Ayad Allawi: Once we see positive steps taken by the government to reduce the tension to embark on dialogue and to revert back to the agreement power sharing then, of course, we'll reciprocate. Indeed our history is very clear, we won the elections but because of the veto against us from foreign powers, after nine months we decided for the sake of the Iraqi people to compromise and to accept that Prime Minister from the other bloc, the losing bloc, the second bloc -- not losing but the second bloc, to take the premiership position. And this is all done for the sake of the Iraqi people and for the -- for the sake of Iraq. Then -- but based on partnership -- and when we agreed on partnership then when we saw nothing was implemented, the Iraqiya constituents have been targeted, arrests -- widespread arrests, torture, intimidation. And then this moved into targeting the leaders of Iraqiya, accusing them in the media of doing wrong things. And this is unheard of in judiciary channels, that people are exposed on TV and media and so on. And we saw no movements along the lines of implementing the power sharing and then these intimidations started. And now we agreed to attend this national conference to find a way out of the mess that Iraq is in. For all this we have done for the sake of Iraq and for the sake of Iraq all these compromises to make sure that this government will function, that the country will recover and that the country will be able to face its own destiny without Americans, without foreign powers inside Iraq. But unfortunately this is where we're at now.

Yesterday, another arrest took place. Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) explains, "Baghdad Provincial Council Vice President Riyadh al-Adhadh was arrested on terrorism charges and stands accused of financing a terrorist group in Abu Ghraib. Adhadh is a Sunni doctor who founded a free clinic in Adhamiya and is the focus of an English-language documentary on Iraq. The Iraqi Islamic Party condemned the action and called it an "unprecedented escalation" in the political arena." The arrest doesn't help the political climate. The message of late has been that Nouri is targeting Iraqiya and not Sunnis -- placing the emphasis on Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi's and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq's political affiliation and not tying in the arrests that began in October (over 800 Iraqis were arrested -- largely Sunni -- charged with plotting a coup -- less widely reported was the announcement a few weeks ago that they would all be released -- there was no plot). al-Adhadh is Sunni and part of the Iraqi Accord -- a Sunni political party which had significant problems and battles with Nouri during Nouri's first term as prime minister. For more on the Iraqi Accord, you can refer to this Carnegie Endowment for International Peace page. And, if these arrests continue, it's going to take more than the current planned PSAs to stop an increased hardening between the two major sects in Iraq.

As Nouri gears up for the reported televising of another set of 'confessions' against Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, Al Mada notes that Iraqiya spokesperson Maysoun Damluji has pointed out that the airing of these 'confessions' runs contrary to the Constitution an to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which Iraq is a signature to. She observes that it risks the impartiality and independence of the court and thrwarts the ability of a defendant to present their case fairly. I am stating that Nouri (the State) cannot release these 'confessions' to the media and still claim that they are honoring the Constitution's presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Violence continues in Iraq. Reuters notes 1 person shot dead in Mosul, a Baquba roadside bombing which left two police officers injured, a Baquba homebombing targeting a Sahwa which injured him, "his wife and one of his children" (Sahwa are also known as "Awakenings" and "Sons Of Iraq" -- they are largely Sunni and were put on the US payroll in the last years of the Bush administration to get them to stop attacking the US military and US military property -- as then Gen David Petraeus testified to Congress in April 2008; Nouri al-Maliki was supposed to take over paying Sahwa, he was supposed to find security jobs for some and, for others, find non-security government jobs, this was to bring them into the political process, he refused to do so); a Baquba home bombing targeted the Baquba mayor (no one was injured), four Baquba bombs targeted a Shi'ite family (no one was injured), three Baquba grocery stores were bombed, 1 police officer was shot dead in Baghdad last night, 1 person was shot dead in Jalawla last night and 1 Sahwa was shot dead in Samara last night (three other people were also shot).

Back in the US, Brent Frazier (Nashville's News Channel 5, link has text and video) reports on Iraq War veteran Sal Gonzalez. Excerpt.

Brent Frazier: 26-year-old Sal Gonzalez will tell you he came to the CMA Music Fest back in 2006 and never left. Tonight the Los Angeles native played to a packed Exit/In and he hopes somebody in the crowd liked what they heard.

Sal Gonzalez: I'm an American. That's -- that's the only thing I am, that's the only thing I ever will be.

Brent Frazier: Retired US Marine Sal Gonzalez can tell you his story --

Sal Gonzalez: -- was a bomb, an IED. It was just placed on the side of the road, buried.

Brent Frazier: How he joined the military at 18 --

Sal Gonzalez: I'm not going to deny that I was a Marine and that I went to serve my country. I'm very proud of that fact.

Brent Frazier: How he dodged death overseas.

Sal Gonzalez: Going through combat, losing somebody

Brent Frazier: But he'd rather sing to you.

For more on Sal Gonzalez, you can watch this video which is another interview with him and features some of his music. He is on Facebook and he is on MySpace where you can stream some of his songs. Sal Gonzalez is attempting to get the word out on Not Alone which is a resource for service members and veterans (and their families) dealing with PTSD and combat stress.

iraq

mcclatchy newspapers
sahar issa

the wall street journal
sam dagher

al jazeera
jane arraf
reuters
suadad al-salhy
npr
morning edition
sean carberry

al mada
antiwar.com
margaret griffis

news channel 5
brent frazier
sal gonzalez

Take Two

2012-01-12T23:00:00.000-08:00

That's "Take Two" from July 20, 2008.

This 2008 New Yorker cover inspired not one but three comics. Actually not the cover, the reaction to it.

So while that nonsense was going on, I offered three other versions in solidarity with The New Yorker.

People sometimes ask me about the hate I must get from the Cult for what I do? I got in 2008. Not so much now. In part because they know they don't have any effect on me. In part because even they realize Barack was a myth.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, January 12, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, Marc Lynch abuses the factual record, State of Law plays Don Rickles, Erdogan continues to warn about a possible civil war in Iraq, and more.

Marc Lynch (Foreign Policy) decides to play Columbus and 'discover' Iraq today. It wasn't pretty.

If the "last American troops officially left Iraq before Christmas," who's guarding the US Embassy in Baghdad?

Phantom Marines?

Why does Nouri al-Maliki say 700 US troops remain in Iraq as trainers?

"Then-candidate Barack Obama promised" 16 months for troops to leave Iraq, starting with when he was sworn in. You can't just rewrite history. Events happened, they took place, and you can't pretend otherwise.

It's not just wrong, it's insane. Why the hell would Barack promise 2011?

Because of the SOFA?

The SOFA wasn't released until after the Iraqi Parliament voted on it. Does Lynch know when that was? Probably not.

That was November 27, 2008. A Thursday. Thanskgiving Day. Only after that vote took place did the White House release the SOFA. So Barack promised to do what the American public didn't know?

How is that possible?

And why would Candidate Barack agree to abide by a SOFA?

Barack's position as a candidate was that Bush didn't have the power to negotiate a SOFA. He objected to it. As did Joe Biden. (And a host of others, but we're talking about the Obama-Biden ticket.) And it wasn't until after the election that Team Obama's vanished the objection to the SOFA from the official website.

These are events that happened and, you, Marc Lynch, have a lot of nerve writing of Iraq "at this point very few care" when you yourself so obviously don't care as evidenced by your very loose living arrangement you have with the facts.

Marc Lynch also wants to share some opinions but when you don't even get the facts right, have you really earned that? I don't think so. You don't ignore your vegetables and then get to have cake and ice cream. So sorry.

Jeremy Herb (The Hill) reports that Senator Ben Nelson has declared in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta that the costs of protecting the US Embassy in Baghdad should be covered by the Iraqi government: "Nelson, who is retiring at the end of the year, pointed to testimony from Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsy at a November 2011 Senate hearing, when Dempsey said that a host nationa has the first responsibility for securing embassies." In Iraq, US Senator John McCain's discussion on Face The Nation (CBS News) Sunday is in the news. Dar Addustour features quotes from the interview but they're not always what McCain said. And, in the case of McCain's remarks on Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, you really can't have two quotes because McCain only made one statement on al-Hashemi, "The Vice President of Iraq is now hiding out in Erbil." So how they're getting two different quotes -- in quotes -- on al-Hashemi from McCain is beyond me. He was noted in one sentence only. Al Mada focuses on the reactions to the statements which include State of Law MP Izzat Shabandar dismissing McCain as an American-Israeli War Hawk. Bahaa al-Araji is with the Sadr bloc and he states that Iraq is not likely to split into three states (McCain: "I think there's clearly an unraveling going on which could eventually lead basically into three different kinds of states in Iraq."). To clear up one point in Al Mada's reporting, Face The Nation airs on Sunday mornings. McCain made those remarks on live TV Sunday. To clear up confusion in other reporting -- it was not a "debate." He spoke one on one with host Bob Schieffer.

Turning to the topic of violence, Reuters notes, "Gunmen wearing military uniforms bombed an equipment storage yard belonging to Angola's national oil company near an oilfield in northern Iraq, police sources said on Thursday." In addition, Reuters reports a Latifiya roadside bombing which left four pilgrims injured, a Baghdad shooting which left 2 police officers dead, a Kifl car bombing which claimed 1 life and left twelve people injured, a Jbela roadside bombing which left five pilgrims injured, a Mosul shooting in which 1 person was shot dead and, dropping back to Wednesda for the last two, a Baaj shooting which left 2 suspects killed and a Baquba roadside bombing which targeted a Sahwa and left three of his children injured.

The pilgrims wounded and killed this week have been observing Arbaee which concludes Saturday. An Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers explains:

For generations, Muslims used to commemorate the anniversary of the Arba'inya by walking from everywhere in Iraq and Arab land to the holy shrine in Karbala in spite of many kinds of danger basically death. Many rulers tried to prevent people from going to Karbala by many ways. During the Abbasian era which lasted for over a century, the caliphs imposed taxes to prevent people from going to but people paid happily. When they found out that money is not enough to stop people, they ordered to cut one hand from every pilgrim but again, they failed because people gave their hands. At the end the authorities ordered to kill one from every ten pilgrims and one more time, they failed because sacrificed their souls. During the modern history, things didn't change a lot. In Saddam's era, Arba'inya visit meant certain death. Even after 2003, the situation stayed the same. The pilgrims are still a target but this time not for the authorities in Iraq but for the Islamic extremists. The only change was the method. Instead of cutting the hand of pilgrims or killing one of ten, the insurgents chose to kill the biggest number of pilgrims by car bombs, suicide bombers and even poisoned food and drinks. Thousands of men, women and even kids were killed by brutal attacks in all the Shiite cities just because they love Imam Hussein. In fact, the attacks targeted even the Shiite people in others countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. But did the extremists succeed? One more time, the answer is no.

Jomana Karadsheh (CNN -- link is video and text) reports on the pilgrimage and speaks to Said Duraid Mohammed who is making the holy journey. He tells her, "We are used to bombings. It is normal for us to face that in our daily life. And for the pilgrimage and Imam Hussein, we are ready to step on the bombs." Abdelamir Hanoun (AFP) notes officials estate 15 milliion will make the pilgrimage to Karbala by Saturday.

Turning to the non-sacred, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spent the last few days noting the dangerous political crisis in Iraq and calling on efforts to address it. From Tuesday's snapshot:

Vestnik Kavkaza reports, "The US has made a big mistake by withdrawing from Iraq, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, 1news.az reports. Erdogan met his Norwegian counterpart Jens Stoltenberg and reminded him that he had warned US president and vice-president about repercussions from such step. The Turkish premier noted that the situation in Iraq remains tense and inter-religious conflicts may arise at any moments. Turkey is a neighboring state and cannot remain indifferent to the situation. He added that Iran is planned to be involved in the process." KUNA also notes Erdogan making public statements of concern about what's taking place in Iraq and they offer this context, "Erdogan made these remarks amidst political conflict between the Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's rule of law coalition and the Iraqiya List after a judicial committee issued an arrest warrant for vice-president Tareq Al-hashimi on terrorism charges."

And from Wednesday's snapshot:

Thomas Seiberg (The National) reports, "Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime miniser has started a bid to end the power struggle in Iraq, warning that religious strife had turned the neighbouring country into a 'sea of blood'. Mr Erdogan was scheduled to talk to Nouri Al Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, by telephone yesterday. There was no word on whether a statement would be released afterwards." Today's Zaman adds, "In a telephone conversation late on Tuesday, Erdogan told Maliki that transformation of mistrust into animosity toward a coalition partner will negatively affect democracy in Iraq, a veiled warning to the Iraqi prime minister that his latest arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi is a blow to democracy in the war-torn country." Hurriyet Daily News reports on a speech Erdogan gave Tuesday "to his party's parliamentary group" in which he alluded to Nouri al-Maliki, "Without naming him directly, Erdoğan slammed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, saying 'a positive outcome cannot be expected from a mindset which is sending tanks to besiege the homes of ministers from his own coalition'." Nouri started that as soon as he returned to Iraq after his meet up with Barack Obama in DC. Saturday, December 17th, Liz Sly (Washington Post) reported, "In recent days, the homes of top Sunni politicians in the fortified Green Zone have been ringed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, and rumors are flying that arrest warrants will be issued for other Sunni leaders." Nouri received praise yesterday as well, Al Mada reports. The militant group Army of the Mujahideen declared support for Nouri and his efforts to form a "single and unified Iraq" . . and that they claimed that they had been behind the rocket attack on the Green Zone ceremony celebrating the creation of the Iraqi Army.

The response from Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law political slate? Aswat al-Iraq notes National Alliance MP Ali al-Shalah declared, "Iraq is not an Ottoman province, and never will be." Of course, factually, Iraq was once part of the Ottoman Empire until the British (via the League of Nations) divided it up in 1920. al-Shalah suggested the Turkish prime minister should "attend [to] the Turkish internal affairs, where some Turkish quarters suffer racist violations." If you use the link, you'll be saying, "Uh, you're wrong, he's National Alliance." He's State of Law. And Aswat al-Iraq knew that recently. For example, last week. In addition, yesterday Aswat al-Iraq reported State of Law MP Ibraheem al-Rekabi declared that Turkey was "responsible for the latest crisis among the political entities." This blame everyone else approach echoes not only Nouri's style but the 'diplomatic' approach State of Law's has been practicing for weeks now such as the December 30th when Dar Addustour reported State of Law MP Yassin Majid declared that Erdogan should keep "his nose" out of Iraqi political matters. Political matters? Aswat al-Iraq terms it "a major political crisis." If State of Law thought they could bully Erodgan into silence, they were wrong. Today's Zaman reports he met today with Ayad Allawi (leader of Iraqiya) to express "that he is concerned over possible chaos in Iraq caused by anti-democratic and sectarian approaches" and feels that civil war in Iraq is a possibility if the political blocs can not reach an understnding.

Robert Koehler (Huffington Post) weighs in on the crisis:

The sale of arms to Iraq (remember Iraq?) -- $11 billion worth of almost everything, fighter jets, battle tanks, cannons, armored personnel carriers, armor and helmets, even sport utility vehicles -- is going to move forward even though it makes little sense from multiple points of view, including U.S. geopolitical interests. As far as I can tell, the sale is going to go through because "war persists" -- or something persists, a force invisible to reporters and beyond the control of diplomats (at least those who speak on the record).

"The Obama administration is moving ahead with the sale . . ." the Times informs us, "despite concerns that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is seeking to consolidate authority, create a one-party Shiite-dominated state and abandon the American-backed power-sharing government."

Well, so much for democracy. So much for talking about anything noble. Excuse me if I seem to be speaking as though I'm surprised. The only thing that surprises me is how quickly and thoroughly our pretenses disintegrate once we're done with them, and how baldly we get on with business as usual. Or rather, business as usual gets on with us.

Maliki's agenda is to cut the Sunnis out of the government, and the Iraqi military has "evolved into a hodgepodge of Shiite militias more interested in marginalizing the Sunnis than in protecting the country's sovereignty," creating conditions ripe for civil war, which the arms sale would grease. Well, moral concerns always play second fiddle in these matters.

Nouri al-Maliki caused the political crisis by targeting members of Iraqiya, his political rivals and the winners of the 2010 elections (State of Law came in second). The targeting included demanding that Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq be stripped of his position (hasn't happened yet) and that Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi be arrested for terrorism (ibid). Al Mada reports that al-Mutlaq issued a statement declaring no regrets over criticizing Nouri and stating he was behaving like a dictator. In the new statement, al-Mutlaq also declared that Nouri lacks wisdom and State of Law MP Yassin Majid -- apparently the Don Rickles of State of Law -- or at least their Joan Rivers -- responded by calling al-Mutlaq incompetent. Aswat al-Iraq notes that al-Mutlaq met with the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler and al-Saleh's office issued a statement declaring, "Mutlaq has called during the metting of the United Nations to shoulder its responsibility, highly assessing Kobler's role to settle the problems and find understandings to strengthen democracy in Iraq." Meanwhile State of Law MP Salam al-Maliki took to the airwaves of Alsumaria TV to proclaim that al-Mutlaq must apologize to Nouri or propose a candidate to take over his (al-Mutlaq's) job.

Alsumaria TV notes, "Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and his Parliament Speaker Osama Al Nujaifi agreed, in a meeting in Sulaymaniyah on December 27, upon holding a national congress for all Iraqi political parties in order to deal with state governance issues and bring forth related solutions." This week, steps have been taken to get the ball rolling on that. Yesterday came news that KRG President Massoud Barzani would not be attending if the conference is in Baghdad (that's where it's supposed to be held currently). Hossam Acommok (Al Mada) reports that Barzani's announcement is still being discussed. Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman states that among the reasons for Barazani's refusal to attend a Baghdad conference the failure of Nouri al-Maliki to implement the Erbil Agreement is chief among them.

Which takes us from political crisis to the Political Stalemates. Political Stalemate I began following the March 2010 elections when Nouri refused to give up power -- despite the fact that his term as prime minister was over and despite the fact that State of Law came in second, Iraqiya came in first. Per the will of the Iraqi people and the Constitution, Iraqiya should have had the prime minister-designate (prime minister-designate becomes prime minister if he or she is able to name a Cabinet in 30 days -- nominate the ministers, get Parliament to vote to approve each one).

The White House decided to back Nouri -- and not the Iraqi people or democracy which makes Barack's ridiculous statements about Iraqi elections obscene -- and when efforts were started to get the UN to appoint a caretaker government, the US blocked those efforts. Nouri was already repeatedly caught running secret prisons. Pretty much every year, Ned Parker would report for the Los Angeles Times on another just discovered secret prison. Nouri would deny it for a couple of weeks. Then, once Iraqi outrage died down, Nouri would allow that it was the only one. And then another would be discovered. And then another. The secret prisons weren't day spas. That's not why they were kept secret. They were off the book locations where torture took place. Under Nouri's command. The White House elected to back a torturer. When some idiot like David Shorr whimpers, "Why should you say Barack owns Iraq?" -- the reply is because he backed a known torturer and not the Iraqi people. And US allies objected to the White House about backing Nouri -- including England and France.

Without the White House's backing, Nouri would have been forced out of the post (his term had expired) and not hung on to it for eight months after the elections.

Political Stalemate I could have continued forever. Nouri was very happy with it. He fired his Minister of Electricity and did so with no oversight from Parliament. He illegally named another Minister of Electricity (he farmed out the duties to the Minister of Oil) again without oversight from Parliament. He did whatever he wanted.

The Erbil Agreement ended Political Stalemate I. The US brokered agreement gave Nouri the post of prime minister. In return, Nouri was supposed to do many things including hold a referendum on Kirkuk (something the Constitution required him to do by the end of 2007 but Nouri ignored the Constitution throughout his first term -- and, again, this is who Barack Obama decided to back for a second term), create an independent national security commission to be headed by Iraqiya's Ayad Allawi, and more.

Nouri got what he wanted and then trashed the agreement. He still could have been stopped -- and should have. 30 days to form a Cabinet. Failure to do so, per the Constitution, means the President (of Iraq -- maybe the use of the term "president" confused Barack?) names another person to be prime minister-designate and they have 30 days. (Actually, the wording is such that the President could conceivably name the same person to another 30 days -- if he or she was willing to put up with any political heat.) Nouri failed to come up with a full Cabinet. He could have been stopped at the end of December 2010 as his 30 days expired. But the US government had made clear he had their backing.

And that was the start of the (ongoing) Political Stalemate II. The failure on Nouri's part to honor the Erbil Agreement.

This week Asawat al-Iraq reported that Iraqiya MP Liqa' al-Wardi stated that Nouri's inability to fill the security ministries was responsible for the deterioration of Iraq's security. She focused on the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Interior. The third security ministry post is also empty, Minister of National Security. All three are Cabinet positions. All three were never filled (although he was required to). When he refused to fill them at the end of December, Nouri critics declared this a power grab and stated Nouri wasn't filling them so he could control them. US outlets usually insisted that Nouri would fill the posts in a matter of weeks. It is one year and one month later. The posts remain empty and have never been filled. Guess US outlets got punked and Nouri critics were correct.

And finally, in the US, as December (and 2011) came to a close, Senator Amy Klobuchar's office issued the following:

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced today that President Obama has signed into law provisions she and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) authored supporting survivors of sexual assault in the military as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. The Klobuchar-Collins provisions will require the Department of Defense to develop a coordinated policy to ensure the preservation of documents connected with sexual assault reports in the military and provide full privacy and identity protection for the victim. In addition to the provisions, Klobuchar also included an amendment requiring the Department of Defense to guarantee storage of most documents connected with reports of sexual assaults in the U.S. military for an estimated 50 years.

"If an American in uniform suffers the horrific trauma of sexual assault while fighting for their country, they shouldn't have to fight to receive care and pursue justice," Klobuchar said. "This important legislation will now become the law of the land and help ensure survivors of sexual assault have the support they need and deserve."

"Senator Klobuchar's amendment is an important milestone in continuing efforts to establish a sound DOD policy for records preservation vital to veterans seeking VA benefits for conditions related to military sexual trauma (MST)," said Donald L. Samuels, National Commander of the Disabled American Veterans. "The veterans community salutes her leadership and determination on this important issue."

"VFW applauds Senator Klobuchar for her efforts to provide improvements within VA and DOD in cases of sexual assault documentation -- She has been at the forefront of the fight for MST victims. Her amendment will help provide many victims the evidence to validate claims for VA disability for MST," said Ray Kelley, Legislative Director for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

Until today there has been no coordinated policy across the U.S. service branches to ensure the preservation of medical and other reports connected with sexual trauma. Each service branch has been left to develop its own policy, resulting in inconsistent recordkeeping and frequent destruction of records. Long-term preservation of records can help a victim seek medical and disability assistance, and certain records can also be used as evidence in a later crime involving the same perpetrator.

In recent years there has been an increase in reports of sexual assaults in the military. According to the Department of Defense, there were 3,158 official reports of sexual assaults in the military in 2010. Because most incidents are not reported to a military authority, the Pentagon estimates this number represents only 13 to 14 percent of total assaults -- making the total estimated number of sexual assaults in the military over 19,000 in 2010.

Research has shown that sexual trauma not only hurts the victims, but can also take a toll on their fellow servicemembers by severely undermining unit cohesion, morale, and overall force effectiveness.

Klobuchar's and Collins' Support for Survivors Act, much of which is included in the National Defense Authorization Act, will:

· Require the Department of Defense to develop a policy to ensure the preservation of documents connected with reports of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military.

· Ensure full privacy and identity protection for both the victim and the perpetrator, if known.

· Grant the VA access to documents only at the request of a servicemember, for the purpose of assisting with the processing of a disability compensation claim.

· Allow the Department of Defense to review the data (but not the names of the individuals mentioned in the reports) to improve research and reporting.

Senator Klobuchar's efforts to support military sexual assault victims have been supported by the Disabled American Veterans, The American Legion, AMVETS, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and the Wounded Warrior Project. The Support for Survivors Act was also endorsed by the Service Women's Action Network.

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iraq
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face the nation
aswat al-iraq
the huffington post
robert koehler
todays zaman
aswat al-iraq
dar addustour
al mada
hossam acommok
cnn
jomana karadsheh

Wheel of Greed

2012-01-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

From June 22, 2008, that's "Wheel of Greed." Barack's on Wheel of Fortune. The puzzle is: "SCREW PUBLIC FINANCING." Barack promised he would use public financing. As had all of the two party candidates since Watergate. All used it for the general election. But Barack was a Wall Street Boy Toy so he broke his promise.

Behind him are three members of The Cult of St. Barack. Katrina vanden Heuvel, John Nichols and Matthew Rothschild really disgraced themselves. They were far from the only cult members.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, January 5, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, bombs slam Iraq, the League of Righteous is "honestly sorry" for killing a British citizen several years ago (and for lying this summer that he was still alive?), the political crisis continues, Nouri saw 'terrorists' trying to overthrow the government but now they're being released, and more.

On this week's. Black Agenda Radio, hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, (airs each Monday at 4:00 pm EST on the Progressive Radio Network), Iraq was noted. Excerpt.

Nellie Bailey: But first, the US and its allies were on a military offensive in 2011 except in Iraq where the Americans were forced to withdraw almost all of their uniformed forces. But that doesn't mean the Americans are gone. We spoke with Tony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Tony Monteiro: Don't forget the bulk of the troops might be out of Iraq but they're not out of the region. When you look at the Obama administration's policy, it is a continuation of the neo-conservative policy of the Bush administration and those policies were defined by the objective of regime change and bringing democracy -- so-called -- to the Middle East. And Iraq was supposed to be the first domino and the most important domino to fall in this respect. Now the other side of that is while they're allegedly moving out of Iraq, of course the troops are in Kuwait and other parts of the Persian Gulf. But the US is ramping up its war talk against Iran. Iran is a neighbor of Iraq. In fact, Iran sits between Iraq and Afghanistan. So, it is my opinion that this thing is not over. That the US, and this is of course Vice President Biden's point of view, the United States should reserve the option of going back into Iraq. And certainly with the Maliki government under increasing stress and opposition, that government is not beond -- in the not too distant future -- calling for the American troops to come back. And I guess the third thing I would say is that a lot of this has to do with the 2012 election. After the election, all best are off, we have a new set of options. And we can not forget that the largest US Embassy in the world is in Baghdad, Iraq -- over 17,000 so-called diplomats but mainly CIA, military intelligence. So Iraq is not over by a long shot.

Glen Ford: The US had a long list of nations marked for regime change. There has been regime change in Libya and it appears that the United States and the Europeans are intent on making regime change in Syria.

Tony Monteiro: And you know, even if they do not bring about complete regime change, they want to make these states -- such as Libya, such as Syria, such as Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq -- failed states, states that in order to even exist or to function must rely on the United States and NATO. So you have this attempt on the part of the United States and NATO to manage a political, social and economic chaos in the Middle East.

Political, social and economic chaos pretty much describes the Iraq rocked today by bombings. An Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers shares (at Inside Iraq), "As an Iraqi citizen, I wouldn't really care about our politicians and their fight because I never felt for a moment that any of them represents me or any regular people but the only thing that pushes me to care is the fuel of this fight. Since the political fight ignited between the Iraqi politicians, poor Iraqis were always the fuel that inflames it. Hundreds of thousands were killed or missed since 2003 and God knows when the bath of blood would stop in my bleeding country. Prayers of mothers, fathers and sons couldn't stop the blood shedding because their political brothers always pray for more blood for political gains since fuel is always available and cheap as they believe."

Baghdad was again slammed with explosions. Early on Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) explained, "A series of bombings in Baghdad left 24 dead and dozens wounded Thursday, intensifying fears of an increase in sectarian violence in the midst of a political crisis." BBC News (link has text and video) adds, "The ministry told the BBC that at least 66 people were wounded in the blasts, which occurred in the capital's Sadr City and Kadhimiya neighbourhoods." Lee Moran (Daily Mail) notes things kicked off with a motorcycle bombing, then a roadside bombing followed by two more bombings.

Adrian Blomfield (Telegraph of London) observes, "For the second time in a fortnight, the Iraqi capital echoed to the wail of ambulance sirens as the fragility of the country's threadbare confessional consensus was exposed once again." Blomfield's noting the December 22nd Baghdad bombings: "Dan Morse and Aziz Alwan (Washington Post) count 17 bombings, 65 dead and 207 injured while Kareem Raheem (Reuters) notes the death toll has risen to 72." With attacks elsewhere in Iraq, the final death toll passed that.

In addition to the Baghdad bombings, southern Iraq was also targeted. Early on,

AP counted 30 dead in a southern Iraq bombing. AFP stated it was a Nasiriyah roadside boombing. In addition to the 30 dead, Adrian Blomfield (Telegraph of London) reported the Nasiriyah bombing has left seventy-two injured. Reuters noted government officials said it wasn't a roadside bombing, it was a suicide bombing. Jamal Hashim (Xinhua) would report later in the day that the bomber wore a suicide vest and note that the pilgrims killed were making a pilgrimage to Karbala "to commemorate the Arbaeen religious ritual, the climax of which will be on Jan. 13. Arbaeen is the end of 40 days of mourning for the Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammed's grandson who was killed at the battle of Karbala in 680 A.D." Reuters notes 29 dead from Baghdad bombings (68 injured) and 44 dead in the Nassiriya bombing (81 injured) for a total of 73 dead (74 if the suicide bomber is counted). In addition, Reuters notes a Mosul roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 child (five women were injured) and 1 man was shot dead in Mosul (with another man, his brother, left injured).

As the violence continues, so does the political crisis. Raheem Salman and Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) quote Iraqi political analyst Dhiya Shikerchi stating, "Definitely . . . there is a relationship between these explosions and the political crisis, but it doesn't mean necessarily that one of the sides in the crisis is directly responsible. Maybe there is a third side that is exploiting this crisis to fulfill its agenda to return Iraq to sectarian strife." Ibrahim Kalin (Today's Zayman via Ikhwanweb) reminds:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Shiites of Iraq and the Kurds saw a historic opportunity to have equal representation. This is fair enough. But it is a grave mistake to depict the Saddam era as "Sunni" and to seek the building o a new Shiite identity based on animosity towards the Sunnis. Luckily, this is not the position of the vast majority of Shiites of Iraq. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for instance, has resisted such temptations and played a key role in lowering tensions between Shiite and Sunni Iraqis.

Reporting from Baghdad, Dahr Jamail (Al Jazeera -- link is video) declared, "These latest attacks highlight just how serious the political deadlock in Iraq has become and only days after the last US forces left the country. Once again, it's the Iraqis who have been killed and injured. The victims of a dispute that only Iraq's politicians, whether Sunni or Shia, can resolve." It wasn't supposed to be this way. It was only December 12th that Nouri al-Maliki and US President Barack Obama were at the White House and Barack was singing the praises of the US-backed thug.

US President Barack Obama: Today, I'm proud to welcome Prime Minister Maliki -- the elected leader of a sovereign, self-reliant and democratic Iraq. We're here to mark the end of this war; to honor the sacrifices of all those who made this day possible; and to turn the page -- begin a new chapter in the history between our countries -- a normal relationship between sovereign nations, an equal partnership based on mutual interests and mutual respect. Iraq faces great challenges, but today reflects the impressive progress that Iraqis have made. Millions have cast their ballots -- some risking or giving their lives -- to vote in free elections. The Prime Minister leads Iraq's most inclusive government yet. Iraqis are working to build institutions that are efficient and independent and transparent.

Except for "today," pretty much everything Barack said was a lie. Now yesterday Barack found a way to appoint yet another man to a position. When the left wanted Elizabeth Warren in that position, Barack didn't know how to appoint her. But then he really doesn't appoint many women to positions of power. Which is how he could lie that, "The Prime Minister leads Iraq's most inclusive government yet." Barack's overweight flunky Jay Carney mentioned Warren in the White House press briefing today, "Richard Cordray is, as she herself has said, the right man for the job -- the right person for the job -- and enormously qualified." No, Warren never called him "the right man for the job." But how telling of this White House, so known for its sexism (see Ron Suskind's Confidence Men), that their spokesperson would have to correct himself in front of the press corps and how telling on the press corps that most will never report his telling (Freudian?) slip.

So it's no surprise that Barack would be praising the "diversity" when even women in President Jalal Talabani's family are publicly calling out Nouri's Cabinet (which, when originally named, didn't have one woman in it).

A "democratic" Iraq? If "democratic" means following the rule of law or the Constitution, forget it. (See yesterday's snapshot on Nouri's latest efforts to break the Constitution.) If "democratic" means a country that values free speech, forget it. Nouri's attacked activists, had then kidnapped and tortured throughout 2011 and the same for journalists. How sad that Barack cheapened the White House by inviting that thug into it.

"Millions have cast their ballots," declared Barack, "some risking or giving their lives -- to vote in free elections."

Yes, they did. And in those March 2010 elections they clearly made Iraqiya their first choice. Ayad Allawi's slate came in first. Not a "Sunni" slate or a "Shia" slate, a mixed slate that was not about sectarianism. Some, like Allawi, were Shia. Some, like Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi, were Sunni. And in choosing Iraqiya, Iraqis were saying they wanted a national identity, they were done with sectarianism. Which is why Nouri al-Maliki's political slate came in second. But the White House wouldn't abide by the will of the Iraqi people or by the Iraqi constitution. Instead the White House demanded that Nouri stay on as prime minister. So maybe Barack Obama should quit lying about "free elections"?

Now, he wants you to know, Iraq's working on being efificent, independent and transparent. It shouldn't be too hard for them to improve on that last one. In December Transparency International their latest rankings of 182 nation-states. Number one would be most transparent, number 182 would be least. Where did Iraq come in? Number 175. There aren't a lot of spots it can drop down too. This was at the start of December (December 3rd) and yet there was Barack on December 12th, lying yet again.

Upon returning to Iraq from DC, Nouri promptly ordered the homes of political rivals to be circled with tanks. Then he had Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and their bodyguards pulled off an airplane to the KRG on December 18th. All but three bodyguards were released and the plane was allowed to take off. December 19th, with al-Hashemi in the KRG for meetings, Nouri had a warrant sworn out on him for terrorism. December 21st, Nouri held a press conference. Journalist Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor and Al Jazeera) Tweeted it.

janearraf jane arraf

#Iraq's. #Maliki says judiciary to decide whether confessions were coerced - now trying to explain why they were televised first then.

21 Dec

janearraf jane arraf

#Iraq's #Maliki rejects VP Hashemi's call for Arab observers in terrorism investigation - says won't tolerate outside interference

21 Dec

janearraf jane arraf

#Iraq's #Maliki on defensive in increasingly baffling statements on #Hashemi - 'does any high-ranking official ever say he's innocent?'

21 Dec

The the Fifth Clause of Article 19 from the Iraqi Constitution:

The accused is innocent until proven guilty in a fair legal trial. The accused may not be tried on the same crime for a second time after acquittal unless new evidence is produced.

It's a point Nouri fails to grasp. Repeatedly. Nouri is also calling for al-Mutlaq to be stripped of his position. al-Hashemi and al-Mutlaq are both Sunnis as well as members of Iraqiya. Iraqiya is the political slate, led by Ayad Allawi, which came in first in the 2010 parliamentary elections. (Nouri's own State of Law came in second. They are political rivals.) Al Rafidayn notes the Kurdistan Alliance has declared that they will not support firing al-Mutlaq. (To strip al-Mutlaq of his position would require Parliament to agree with Nouri's proposal.) al-Hashemi is currently a house guest of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. This has so enraged State of Law that they've taken to calling Talabani a "terrorist" (which led to the Kurdish Alliance walking out on a session of Parliament Tuesday). Al Mada reports that State of Law is admitting that, despite rumors (mainly started and circulated by State of Law), Nouri has no terrorism files on either al-Mutlaq or Ayad Allawi.

Jalal Talabani has been calling for a national conference to address the political crisis. State of Law is stating it should happen mid-month. For months, Iraqiya, the Kurds and the National Alliance have called on Nouri to reinstate the US-brokered Erbil Agreement that ended Political Stalemate I. The parties came together in Erbil and agreed to a variety of concessions. It was agreed Nouri would continue as prime minister (despite his slate's second place showing). That's the only element Nouri honored. As soon as he was named prime minister-designate, he trashed the agreement. Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) notes:

Iraqiya, a cross-sectarian as well as Sunni-backed bloc, castigated the al-Maliki government, saying it had shunned cooperation despite the power-sharing arrangement.

It said it is considering sending a request to parliamentary leaders to withdraw support for al-Maliki and come up with a new prime minister to form a post-occupation government.

There have also been mounting calls for federalism from at least three predominantly Sunni provinces. Al-Maliki has called federalism a recipe for the partitioning of Iraq.

The bloc loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a key ally to al-Maliki, has called for the dissolution of parliament and early elections.

Tuesday KRG President Massoud Barzani met with US Senator Joe Lieberman . Wednesday Barzani met with the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler. Al Rafidayn reports that Barzani has joined the call for a national conference to address the political crisis. Jalal Talabani has been calling for a national conference to address the political crisis. State of Law is stating it should happen mid-month. For months, Iraqiya, the Kurds and the National Alliance have called on Nouri to reinstate the US-brokered Erbil Agreement that ended Political Stalemate I. The parties came together in Erbil and agreed to a variety of concessions. It was agreed Nouri would continue as prime minister (despite his slate's second place showing). That's the only element Nouri honored. As soon as he was named prime minister-designate, he trashed the agreement.

At the US State Dept today, spokesperson Victoria Nuland declared, "With regard to your larger question about our involvement in trying to support the Iraqis in settling their disputes peacefully through political means, as we've said for a number of days now, Ambassador Jeffrey's been very active, Vice President Biden's been active, in encouraging Iraqi politicians to talk to each other, to meet. And as I've said, we are quite encouraged that a number of Iraqi politicians are also calling for such a meeting which we hope takes place soon." Leaving aside the intelligence in the statement or not in the statement, if the remark seems unremarkable, it's because Nuland and Mark C. Toner have been offering variations on it for weeks now. And the State Dept thinking is that reporters will grow bored and stop asking. That would work at the White House. It may not at the State Dept because the State Dept press corps is a bit more mature and doesn't require training wheels on their Blackberries.

More on the topic of terrorists only let's jump to real ones and then we'll come back to the ones Nouri just 'knows' exist. This is a story of dead Americans and dead Brits. We need to provide backstory because, sadly, US press outlets don't know how many Americans were killed by the terrorist group. So we'll flashback and, in the midst of the flashback, we'll flashback again. This "****" will designate the start of the excerpt and this "****" will also designate the end of it. (The snapshot is reposted and it can be confusing on other community sites where they sometimes put the whole thing in bold.) So dropping back to July 9, 2011:

*************

Earlier we were mentioning the little scamp Ali al-Lami who was killed a few weeks back. A terrorist, in fact. The US military held him for awhile. They held others with the Shi'ite thug group the League of Righteous. They're responsible for the deaths of 5 American service members. Maybe more. But 5 they are known to have killed.

And Barack let their leader and some of his followers go in a deal in the summer of 2009 -- a deal that the families of the 5 fallen soldiers were not consulted on or even given a heads up to -- because Barack didn't want to be president of the United States. That was too small for Barry. He needed -- his ego needed -- a world stage. So when the British needed something to get their 5 citizens kidnapped by the League freed, Barry said, "Screw dead Americans who were killed doing a job their government ordered them to do, I'm going to free the League -- this rag-tag group of killers -- because I don't give a damn about the safety of Iraqis and because I want to get in good with England."

So Barry released them and, as usual from Princess Tiny Meat, his 'grand gesture' fell quickly. Because the addiction to the Kool-Aid was still so high in 2009, let's drop back we'll drop back to the June 9, 2009 snapshot with the realization that some who looked the other way in real time will now be outraged:

***********This morning the New York Times' Alissa J. Rubin and Michael Gordon offered "U.S. Frees Suspect in Killing of 5 G.I.'s." Martin Chulov (Guardian) covered the same story, Kim Gamel (AP) reported on it, BBC offered "Kidnap hope after Shia's handover" and Deborah Haynes contributed "Hope for British hostages in Iraq after release of Shia militant" (Times of London). The basics of the story are this. 5 British citizens have been hostages since May 29, 2007. The US military had in their custody Laith al-Khazali. He is a member of Asa'ib al-Haq. He is also accused of murdering five US troops. The US military released him and allegedly did so because his organization was not going to release any of the five British hostages until he was released. This is a big story and the US military is attempting to state this is just diplomacy, has nothing to do with the British hostages and, besides, they just released him to Iraq. Sami al-askari told the New York Times, "This is a very sensitive topic because you know the position that the Iraqi government, the U.S. and British governments, and all the governments do not accept the idea of exchanging hostages for prisoners. So we put it in another format, and we told them that if they want to participate in the political process they cannot do so while they are holding hostages. And we mentioned to the American side that they cannot join the political process and release their hostages while their leaders are behind bars or imprisoned." In other words, a prisoner was traded for hostages and they attempted to not only make the trade but to lie to people about it. At the US State Dept, the tired and bored reporters were unable to even broach the subject. Poor declawed tabbies. Pentagon reporters did press the issue and got the standard line from the department's spokesperson, Bryan Whitman, that the US handed the prisoner to Iraq, the US didn't hand him over to any organization -- terrorist or otherwise. What Iraq did, Whitman wanted the press to know, was what Iraq did. A complete lie that really insults the intelligence of the American people. CNN reminds the five US soldiers killed "were: Capt. Brian S. Freeman, 31, of Temecula, California; 1st Lt. Jacob N. Fritz, 25, of Verdon, Nebraska; Spc. Johnathan B. Chism, 22, of Gonzales, Louisiana; Pfc. Shawn P. Falter, 25, of Cortland, New York; and Pfc. Johnathon M. Millican, 20, of Trafford, Alabama." Those are the five from January 2007 that al-Khazali and his brother Qais al-Khazali are supposed to be responsible for the deaths of. Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Robert H. Reid (AP) states that Jonathan B. Chism's father Danny Chism is outraged over the release and has declared, "They freed them? The American military did? Somebody needs to answer for it." ******

Agreed. Not only did Barry betray the fallen, he demonstrated yet again no one should trust him at the adult table by himself. His 'big' deal resulted in only one living British citizen released. Three corpses were released.

The fifth kidnapped victim?

Though Barry's 'big' deal was supposed to free all five, the League, years later, is now insisting they want a new deal (and figure Barry's just the pushover to give it to them?). Al Mada reports they have issued a statement where they savage the US government for not honoring -- and quickly honoring -- the agreement made with them. As a result, they say Alan McMenemy will not be released.

Peter Moore, the only one released alive, was a computer tech working in Iraq. Four British bodyguards were protecting him. The bodyguards were McMenemy, Jason Swindlehurst, Alec MacLachlan and Jason Cresswell. The families of the four have continued to publicly request that Alan McMenemy be released.

They condemn the "procrastionation" of the US government after the deal was made and state that a promise was also broken when "US forces did not stop attacks" -- apparently Barack made very grand promises -- so now Alan McMenemy will not be released. The statement is credited to Akram al-Ka'bi.

What the statement really does is demonstrate what many condemned in 2009: The US government, the administration, entered into an agreement that did not benefit the US or Iraq. They freed known killers from prison. Killers of Iraqis, killers of American citizens. There was nothing to be gained by that act for Iraq or the US. At some point, history will ask how Barack Obama thought he was fulfilling his duties of commander in chief by making such an ignorant move?

************

We're out of flashback and back in the present. To briefly recap, the group killed 5 Americans. Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, not of the United Kingdom. But instead of pursuing justice for the five Americans killed in Iraq -- killed in a country their government sent them to -- he decided to do a solid for England and release the terrorists. He didn't even have the decency to see that the families of the five fallen Americans got a heads up.

Now we're going to December 17th, last month, when Charlie Savage (New York Times) reported on what was termed "a move likely to unleash a political backlash inside the United States." What was he reporting on? The White House's decision to release Ali Musa Daqduq to the Iraqi government, the man "accused of helping to orchestrate a January 2007 raid by Shiite militants who wore U.S.-style uniforms and carried forged identity cards. They killed five U.S. soldiers -- one immediately and four others who were kidnapped and later shot and dumped beside a road." Reporting on it the same day, Matt Apuzzo (AP) noted the reactions of two US senators.

Senator Mark Kirk (in a letter before the release): "Daqduq's Iranian paymasters would like nothing more than to see him transferred to Iraqi custody, where they could effectively pressure for his escape or release. We truly hope you will not let that happen."

Senator Saxby Chambliss (after news broke of the release): "Rather than ensure justice for five American soldiers killed by Hezbollah terrorist Ali Musa Daqduq, the administration turned him over to Iraq, once again completely abdicating its responsibility to hold on to deadly terrorists. Given Iraq's history of releasing detainees, I expect it is only a matter of time before this terrorist will be back on the battlefield."

The League is back in the news cycle today. Duncan Gardham (Telegraph of London) reports that they're offering to finally return the body of Alan McMenemy who the UK government has assumed was dead. Richard Norton-Taylor (Guardian -- link is text and video) quotes, ringleader Qais al-Khazali declaring, "The brothers told me that those four bodyguards tried to escape … they took advantage of a negligent moment and took the weapon of one of their guards and the clash ensued and led to this result. We honestly are sorry for that incident,"

Oh, are you honestly sorry? Really? For months, for years, you've let the loved ones of Alan McMenemy continue to hope he might turn up alive. While others found out the truth about their loved ones, you left them hanging even though they went on TV and publicly pleaded for an answer. For those who may have forgotten, in May 2010, Frank Gardner (BBC News) reported:

The wife of the only British hostage still missing in Iraq has appealed to his kidnappers to end her ordeal on the anniversary of his abduction.
Gunmen abducted five men including security guard Alan McMenemy, from Glasgow, exactly three years ago.
Rosaleen McMenemy has urged those holding him to show "mercy and compassion".
Only one of the men has been released alive, while the bodies of three others have been returned to Britain.

The Telegraph of London quoted Rosaleen McMenemy stating, ""It's now been three years since he's been held captive, which is 1,096 days. This is far too long for myself and our two children and I would ask those holding him to please show mercy and compassion and return him to us immediately and unconditionally. You've showed compassion by releasing his four colleagues and I would ask you to do the same for my family to bring closure to this."

20 months after she makes that public plea, they think they can show up and claim to be "honestly sorry"?

They're "honestly sorry" today, they claim. They say the four body guards all died in the same attack? That would have been years ago. And yet just last July, what did they do? Al Mada reported on it, the headline said it all "League of Righteous: Fifth Hostage Alive, We Want Our Prisoners." They declared Alan McMenemy was alive and that they were not going to release him because they were icked off with the US holding some of their members.

Having tortured Alan McMenemy's loved ones repeatedly over the years by leaving them in the dark, the League of Righteous declared in October that he was still alive and now the family of Alan McMenemy learns that he's been dead for at least three years. And the terrorist want to claim to be "honestly sorry"? (AFP's Hassan Abdul Zahra, "The group said in July that it would not hand over McMenemy's body, in a statement worded to suggest he was still alive. Britain believes he has been killed.")

For those who missed it, radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has been on a recent tear denouncing the League repeatedly. Sunday, Alarab Online reported, "Anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr sharply criticised an offshoot of his movement on Sunday, accusing them of killing Iraqi soldiers and policemen and being beholden to neighbouring Iran. It is the first time Sadr, who is himself judged by critics as close to Tehran, has publicly stated that Asaib Ahel al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous, is supported by the Islamic Republic." Three days prior, Yusuf al-Murtada (AK News) reported:

The cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched an attack on the participation of the League of the Righteous (Ahl al-Haq) in the political process, describing it as a group of "murderers" that "follows no religion".
[. . .]

The League of the Righteous announced about its participation in the ongoing political process in the country and its leader Qais al-Khazali in Najaf alluded to the organization not disarming after 2011.
Sadr said: "Didn't I tell you that they are the Chair's lovers? They are a group of murders that follows no religion."

Moqtada denounced them on one of his trips to Iraq last year noting that they were out of control. That was not the start of the split which is thought to have taken place around 2007. Despite the split, their "negotiator" (Salam al-Maliki)insisted to Niqash last October that the rupture had been healed. That does not appear to be the case. Their 2007 split, supposedly, had to do with actions Moqtada disapproved of. (Remember, they start under him. One of the umbrella groups he was denouncing last year.) His claims have been that they were targeting Iraqi civilians and that his movement did not support that. He further insists that they refused to stop attacking Iraqi civilians and, at that point, the break began. There are some Moqtada supporters who insist it was the League's actions that caused Nouri to attack Sadr strong holds in Basra and the Sadr City section of Baghdad in early 2008. Those defending the League tend to stress that they are among many Sadrist groups who have had to fend for themselves while their leader (Moqtada) was in Iran and that his fly-over visits to Iraq to criticize them underscores how out of touch with Iraqi life he is. They are among the groups who have hoped to replace Moqtada as a leader of Iraqi resistance.

From the real terrorists of the League of Righteous to the 'terrorists' that only Nouri can see. It was with great drama (and melodrama) that Nouri repeatedly commented on the "terrorists" and "Ba'athists" that he was 'forced' to arrest because they were plotting an overthrow of the government. His spokesperson insisted the information was solid and had come from the newly installed Libyan government. Dropping back to the October 27th snapshot:

But back to those eyes and ears al-Asadi was claiming, Al Mada reveals that the government is stating their source for the 'tips' about the alleged Ba'athist plot to take over Iraq came from the Transitional Government of Libya. The so-called rebels. A number of whom were in Iraq killing both Iraqis and US troops and British troops, several years ago. And supposedly prepping to rule Libya currently so you'd assume they had their hands full.

Tim Arango (New York Times) maintains that "secret intelligence documents" were discovered by the so-called 'rebels' that provided a link between Libya's late president Muammar Gaddafi and Ba'ath Party members and that Mahmoud Jibril made a trip to Baghdad to turn over the info. Jibril was acting prime minister who stepped down October 23rd. (We're back to when puppet regimes meet!) One would have assumed he had other things to focus on. It's also curious that this 'rebel' would have 'learned' after the fall of Tripoli of a plot. Curious because, unlike a number of 'rebel' leaders in Libya, Langley didn't ship Jibril in from Virginia, he was Gaddafi's hand picked head of the National Economic Development Board (2007 to 2011). One would assume he would have been aware of any big plot long before the so-called rebels began the US war on Libya.

So it says a great deal about the leadership (or lack of) Nouri offers when Al Mada reports that hundreds of those arrested are now being released. And that officials say the government is expected to release every one arrested. When the arrests started taking place weeks ago, the press estimate was over 500, with some noting over 700 but most going with the lower figure. Dar Addustour informs 820 Iraqis were arrested.

Critics of the arrests noted that it appeared Nouri was targeting Sunnis. And the arrests touched off a wave of anger and a desire for independence from Nouri. Thursday, October 27th, Salahuddin Province's council voted to go semi-autonomous. Monday, December 13th, Diyala Province's council passed a decision for the province to become semi-autonomous. Semi-autonomous would make them like the three provinces that compose the Kurdistan Regional Government (Erbil, Dahuk and Sulaymaniyah) and take them out of Baghdad's control (meaning Nouri's control). If Nouri's goal (longterm) was to keep Iraq cohesive, the arrests were a huge error.

Finally, like Mike, we'll note the Center for Constitutional Rights statement on the NDAA:

January 4, 2012, New York -- In response to President Obama's New Year's Eve signing of the controversial National Defense Authorization Act, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:

"The Center for Constitutional Rights strongly condemns the U.S. Congress for passing, and President Obama for signing, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which effectively endorses war without end and makes indefinite military detention without charge or trial a permanent feature of the American legal system. This is the first time since the McCarthy Era that Congress has written indefinite detention into law. We had hoped that President Obama -- a constitutional law professor and believer in the aspirational course of American justice -- would uphold his promise to veto this radical law that threatens to roll back both decades-old legislation enacted to combat McCarthy-era excesses and 19th-century limitations on domestic military policing. At the same time that heroic activists in the Arab world are risking their lives to rid themselves of the remnants of their authoritarian and militaristic regimes, the United States is embracing practices contrary to the basic aspirations of any constitutional democracy.

The NDAA reauthorizes and extends the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has been used to justify the detention of men at Guantanamo without charge or trial for the past ten years. The NDAA also goes further and broadens the range of activities that warrant indefinite detention to include undefined 'substantial support' for terrorism. In addition, the NDAA contains no geographic limitation and allows the president to indefinitely detain even American citizens. President Obama did pledge in a signing statement not to use this law to detain American citizens but this provides little comfort, as signing statements have no legal force and he has repeatedly failed to uphold similar promises in the face of political pressure -- including his pledge to close Guantanamo within his first year in office. More important, even if President Obama were to keep this promise, the law authorizes a future President, such as a President Romney, President Bachman, or President Perry, to use this authorization in the most aggressive manner available.

Whatever ambiguity the legislation creates regarding the detention of American citizens, it clearly requires the military detention of non-citizens suspected of an association with al Qaeda or suspected of having committed terrorist acts, even within the territorial United States. The U.S. Army, rather than civilian law enforcement, will be required to make arrests on U.S. soil; and military detention, not the basic constitutional guarantees of our civilian justice system must be deployed. No one should be held indefinitely without the opportunity to challenge their detention. Human rights are not limited by citizenship.

The NDAA continues to place utterly unnecessary and onerous obstacles to closing Guantanamo. The law prohibits the president from transferring anyone to the U.S. for trial, and also prohibits the transfer of innocent detainees to their home countries or to third countries willing to resettle them unless the Defense Department effectively guarantees the detainee will never again commit wrongdoing. According to the Defense Department, these conditions are nearly impossible to satisfy, which effectively prevents the transfer and resettlement of 89 men -- over half of the 171 currently detained in Guantanamo -- who have been unanimously cleared for release by the CIA, FBI, NSC, and Defense Department. Even as we are contemplating a peace deal with the Taliban and have, according to the Defense Department, largely vanquished al Qaeda, the NDAA guarantees that the U.S. carry on a dangerous war paradigm into a second decade."

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

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The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing

2011-12-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

From June 18, 2008, that's "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing." If you've forgotten it, don't worry, 2012 is when he reminds you all over again. When it comes to campaigning, there's no one bitchier than Barack.

He will attack every thing and do so in a personal manner while insisting that he, his wife and his kids are off-limits.

He will be bitchy and catty and his collective will cheer him on while the media will pretend not to ever notice. That's how 2008 played out.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, December 29, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri wants the US to fork over weapons to him quickly, an anonymous State Dept worker ridiculously claims they can protect human rights in Iraq, the State Dept looks like a national idiot in a press briefing today, the Turkish military bombs the border and kills 35, and more.

Well start with Paul Bremer who ran the immediate post-invasion phase of the occupation of Iraq. It was during this phase that Iraq's military was disbanded. This was his move and, contrary Colin Powell's attempts to spin (and the attempt of Collie's little media helpers to lie), he did with the approval of the Bush administration. It is seen by a number of vocal critics as one of the worst decisions of the occupation (British officials repeatedly cited it as a mistake during the Iraq Inquiry's public hearings in London). The argument goes that by disbanding the military, Bremer left all those people without jobs and income and they were easy pickings for opponents to the occupation who wanted to recruit people for violence. Guy Raz raised the issue earlier this month on All Things Considered (link is audio and text):

RAZ: As you know, many critics of you and of the war point to the decision to disband the Iraqi military in 2003 as a turning point and something that was directly linked to the rise of the insurgency. What do you make of that? I mean, do you think that was the right decision?

BREMER: Absolutely. And I think it's an incorrect analysis. I've never seen any persuasive evidence that suggests otherwise. The fact of the matter was there was no Iraqi military anywhere in place when I arrived in May about three weeks after the fall of Baghdad. So reconstituting the army would've meant several things. First of all, we would've had to take American troops of whom we already had too few and send them into villages and farms to force Shia conscripts back into an army they hated under Sunni officers who basically brutalized them. So the concept of reconstituting the army had virtually no political (unintelligible).

RAZ: But there was a salary for many people.

BREMER: We paid every single conscript a separation fee. We paid every single officer a pension. It's a little known and little reported fact. We paid those pensions all the way through our time in Iraq and they were continued by the subsequent two Iraqi governments. So the idea that suddenly, there were a bunch of people on the streets with no money is simply flat wrong.

People can make their own decisions on the above and whether or not a one-time pay off replaces a sense of purpose but money wasn't the only issue. In the Iraq Inquiry, British officials also raised the issue of the ongoing (this was at the end of 2009 and throughout 2010) attacks and demonization of Iraqis as "Ba'athists" and how Bremer set that in motion. That's not addressed in his remarks to Guy Raz. Nor did Raz raise that issue -- probably too complex of an issue for an NPR soundbyte. And the Bremer order? Raz ignored that it wasn't just the military. Technocrats, government workers, they were all Ba'athists and that's who the order went after. Whether they were guilty of anything or not. It's how Nouri is still able to hiss "Ba'athist" to this day and demonize someone.

In the Wall St. Journal this week, Bremer contributes a piece largely arguing that the US should have kept a military presence in Iraq and he insists:

But the most important reasons for a continued American military presence were always political. Such a presence would demonstrate to Iraq's neighbors -- and especially to Iran -- that America had a lasting interest in containing the Iranian quest for regional hegemony. It would also be a clear sign of American intent to stick with the Iraqis as they work to develop durable political institutions.

The benefits of a continued military presence were illustrated by the political conflagration that flared within 24 hours of our departure. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, issued an arrest warrant for the country's vice president, a Sunni, who then fled to the northern Kurdish area.

We'll come back to the US military issue in a moment, but Brememer seems incapable of taking responsibility for his actions. We call him out here for what he's done, we do not call him out for the actions of others. In other words, I was never one of Colin Powell's lowly assistants secretly drooling over the boss and now spending my entire life on MSNBC chat shows explaining how groovy and cool Collie is. We don't rewrite history here to give Colin Powell a clean slate by making Bremer the sole fall guy. Part of what Brememer needs to take accountability for is creating the problems

December 15, 2009, the British Ambassador to the US, Jeremy Greenstock, testified to the Iraq Inquiry that not only did Bremer ban all the Ba'athists (the dominant political party prior to the US invasion of Iraq) but he put Ahmed Chalibi in charge of the program which was also seen as a huge mistake. These actions were not minor. In 2010, the Justice and Accountability Commission would ban over 500 candidates and do so on the pretext that they were dangerous Ba'athists.

Chair John Chilcot: On the contrary, I was planning to offer you the opportunity

to make your final reflections on this very theme, and you have and thank you,

but are there other comments or observations you would like to offer before

we close?

General Michael Walker: Only ones that I -- to try and be helpful really. I think

the poor old Americans have come in for a lot of criticism, and my personal

belief was that the biggest mistake that was made over Iraq, notwithstanding

the decision that you may have made your own minds up about, but it was the

vice-regal nature of [Paul] Bremer's reign, and I think -- I mean, I don't want to

be personal about this but that particular six months, I think, set the scene for

Iraq in a way that we were never going to recover from.

The Inquiry has repeatedly heard from military and diplomatic witnesses that Paul

Bremer's decision to disband the Ba'ath Party and being de-Ba'athification was harmful

and too sweeping. were no longer allowed to work for the government. While some witnesses may (or may not have) been offering statements that benefitted from hindsight, certainly those who warned Bremer before the policy was implemented were able to foresee what eventually happened. John Sawers now heads England's MI6. In 2003, he was the UK's Special Representative in Baghdad. He shared his observations to the Iraq Inquiry in testimony given on December 10th:

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: You arrived on 8 May, [head of CPA, the US' L. Paul] Bremer on the 12th, and within Bremer's first two weeks he had promulgated two extremely important decisions on de-Ba'athification and on dissolving the former Iraqi army. Can we look at those two decisions? To what extent were they Bremer's decisions or -- how had they been pre-cooked in Washington? I see you have got the Rand Report there, and the Rand Report suggests there had been a certain interagnecy process in Washington leading to these decisions, albeit Rand is quite critical of that process. And, very importantly for us, was the United Kingdom consulted about these crucial decisions? Was the Prime Minister consulted? Were you consulted? It is pretty late in the day be then for you to have changed them. Can you take us through that story.

John Sawers: Can I separate them and deal with de-Ba'athification first.

Committee Member Roderic Lyne: Yes.

John Sawers: When I arrived in Baghdad on 8 May, one of the problems that ORHA were facing was that they had been undiscriminating in their Iraqi partners. They had taken, as their partners, the most senior figures in the military, in -- not in the military, sorry, in the ministries, in the police, in institutions like Baghdad University, who happened to be there. And in several of these instances, Baghdad University was one, the trade ministry was another, the health ministry, the foreign ministry, the Baghdad police -- the working level were in uproar because they were being obliged to work for the same Ba'athist masters who had tyrannised them under the Saddam regime, and they were refusing to cooperate on that basis. So I said, in my first significant report back to London, which I sent on the Sunday night, the day before Bremer came back, that there were a number of big issues that needed to be addressed. I listed five and one of those five was we needed a policy on which Ba'athists should be allowed to stay in their jobs and which should not. And there was already a debate going on among Iraqi political leaders about where the line should be drawn. So I flagged it up on the Sunday evening in my first report, which arrived on desks on Monday morning, on 11 May. When Bremer arrived late that evening, he and I had a first discussion, and one of the first things he said to me was that he needed to give clarity on de-Ba'athification. And he had some clear ideas on this and he would want to discuss it. So I reported again early the following monring that this was high on the Bremer's mind and I needed a steer as to what our policy was. I felt that there was, indeed, an important need for a policy on de-Ba'athifciation and that, of the various options that were being considered, some I felt, were more far-reaching than was necessary but I wasn't an expert on the Iraqi Ba'ath Party and I needed some guidance on this. I received some guidance the following day, which was helpful, and I used that as the basis for my discussion with Bremer -- I can't remember if it was the Wednesday or the Thursday that week but we had a meeting of -- Bremer and myself and our political teams, where this was discussed, and there was very strong support among the Iraqi political parties for quite a far-reaching de-Ba'athification policy. At the meeting itself, I had concerted beforehand with Ryan Crocker, who was the senior American political adviser, and I said to him that my guidance was that we should limit the scope of de-Ba'athification to the top three levels of the Ba'ath Party, which included about 5,000 people, and that we thought going to the fourth level was a step too far, and it would involve another 25,000 or so Iraqis, which wasn't necessary. And I thought Crocker was broadly sympathetic to that approach but at the meeting itself Bremer set out a strong case for including all four levels, ie the top 30,000 Ba'athists should be removed from their jobs, but there should be a policy in place for exemptions. I argued the alternative. Actually, unhelpfully, from my point of view, Ryan Crocker came in in strong support of the Bremer proposal, and I think he probably smelled the coffee and realised that this was a policy that had actually already been decided in Washington and there was no point getting on the wrong side of it. I was not aware of that at that stage and, in fact, it was only when I subsequently read the very thorough account by the Rand Corporation of these issues that I realised there had been an extensive exchange in -- between agencies in Washington.

The US government put exiles in charge and gave them the means to attack for every real and perceived injustice in the last decades. Of course, any real injustice would have been done in the early 80s since most of the exiles -- Nouri al-Malik among them -- fled to other countries then. And lived in hate and anger year after year, letting it fester and feed. Not everyone. Some people got on with their lives. But Nouri and Chalabi and so many others had nothing to offer modern day Iraq but hate. As soon as the US invaded, that's what those exiles brought back to Iraq and what they've been working since the US installed them into power.

And that's what the US government -- under Bush, under Barack -- allowed, encouraged and tried to work to their advantage. It's there in Bremer's column, it's in Barack's policies as well.

'If only the US military was still present,' Bremer is arguing, 'what we set in motion and fostered could be handled.' Handled, managed, not ended.

The US Congress became highly critical of he Iraq War during the Bush administration. As the American people made calls for the war to be de-funded, Congress began pressing the White House on where the 'progess' was? Other than spin, where were the claims of progress? So the White House devised a set of Benchmarks that the Congress and Nouri al-Maliki all signed off on in early 2007. The only one the government cared about was the one about an oil and gas law. It's the only one the press cared about as well, the US press, if we're going to be honest. It's not like the press did editorial afte editorial lamenting the failure to bring Ba'athists back into the political process. (One of the benchmarks was to revert Bremer's de-Ba'athification policy, call it de-de-Ba'athifcation.) So when a weak measure was proposed but never implemented, the press just focused on the proposal and refused to cover the lack of follow up.

Senator John McCain argues that Barack's administration purposely tanked the SOFA extension talks. That's his opinion and he can detail why he feels that way. That doesn't mean he's correct, only that he's thought it out. What the record indicates is that Barack's efforts failed. I don't see why you would jump to the conclusion that this failure was intentional (especially not when the administration continues negotiations). The pattern is over confidence and hubris on the part of the administration, and as Greek drama and folklore have long demonstrated, hubris is followed by a fall. Such as in the fall of 2009 when Barack thought a toothy smile and some oily Chicago charm mixed with his second-rate celebrity would wow them in Denmark and bring the Olympics to Chicago in 2016. That didn't happen, did it? There are many other failed negotiations on record to indicate that the most recent failure by the administration was only the latest in a series of failures.

And the US government never believed that the US military would leave any time soon which is why, for example, Chris Hill wasted forever on an oil and draft law at the expense of elections -- Iraq needed help the elections. The March 2010 elections were supposed to take place in 2009. Chris Hill was of no use there. And when oever 500 candidates were banned in 2010, Hill wasn't leading on addressing that issue nor was the US government.

What the US created in Iraq was the appearance of a new government and the US military propped it up. As long as there was a strong US military force on the ground in Iraq, the US had a chance of managing it.

If the US military were to stay nine more years would Iraq be better off? That's not what the record indicates. The record indicates that the US government would continue to focus on the oil and gas issue (theft of Iraq's resources) and undermine democracy, prevent it from taking root.

Look at the State Dept's embarrassing plans. They're not trained for what they're actually doing. And they're not doing what they're trained in. But they're going to focus on the police and training the Iraq police. And they're not qualified. That has nothing to do with the tools of democracy that the State Dept supposedly has in their tool kit. The priority has never been the citizenry. It's never been about anything except the tools of a despot.

Nouri cannot be trusted. Take the issue of Camp Ashraf. Not only did he twice order attacks on the Camp after giving his word to the US government that he would protect it, he made a deal with the United Nations last week. The refugees were supposed to be moved to a new location. Yet even with that in place, there have been non-stop mortar attacks on the Camp. The Camp Nouri is supposed to protect and that is watched non-stop by Nouri's forces. Today Reuters reports that the United Nations is trumpeting the fact that the UN Special Envoy to Iraq, Martin Kobler, spoke to Nouri today and got a promise that the mortar attacks would cease. Another promise. From Nouri. Oh, and Iran's Fars News Agency? They're quoting Nouri's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbaq is stating that there's been no change in the deadline for the MEK refugees to leave Iraq. That's very interesting. Not just because the deal with the United Nations was supposed to have changed that deadline but also because the original deadline -- the one the Iraqi goverment now says has not changed -- is this Saturday.

In that context, UPI's report, is all the more troubling: "The United States plans to go ahead with a nearly $11 billion sale of arms and training to Iraq despite concerns about the country's future, officials said." The Council on Foreign Relations' Bernard Gwertzman interviewed Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) about Iraq yesterday and we'll again note this section:

[Bernard Gwertzman]: You've been living in Iraq on and off since the war began in 2003. What's the United States' influence there since the departure of the troops?

[Ned Parker]: America has influence. Evidently, it's less, given that [the] troops have left, but America still has much soft power from the sales of weapons to Iraq, the need of Iraqi counterterrorism forces to work with U.S. Special Forces. Then there's the issue of America helping Iraq with investment, getting foreign companies in, and the issue of ending Iraq's Chapter Seven status at the UN, which prevents Iraq from having its full sovereignty because Iraq continues to pay reparations to Kuwait. So there are many ways that the United States can help Iraq. In terms of influence, it's a question of how America uses it and how it leverages it. Even when America had U.S. forces in Iraq, particularly in the last three years, America has been very reluctant to use its influence or clout to the maximum.

Despite all the turmoil Nouri is creating, the US immediately rushes forward to insist that the arms deal is still on. Even though it is one of the few levers they currently have over Nouri al-Maliki. Over the weekend, Nouri began insisting that the deal go through more quickly. What's changed since his trip to DC earlier this month? The political crisis he's created for one. He's charged Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with terrorism, he's asked that Saleh al-Mutlaq be stripped of his office (Deputy Prime Minister) and this follows hundreds of arrests in recent weeks of various Sunni figures. al-Hashemi and al-Mutlaq are both Sunni. They are also members of Iraqiya, the political slate that came in first in the elections. Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt (New York Times) report that the weapons are alarming to some people:

[. . .] Iraqi politicians and analysts, while acknowledging that the American military withdrawal had left Iraq's borders, and airspace, vulnerable, said there were many reasons for concern.

Despite pronouncements from American and Iraqi officials that the Iraqi military is a nonsectarian force, they said, it had evolved into a hodgepodge of Shiite militias more interested in marginalizing the Sunnis than in protecting the country's sovereignty. Across the country, they said, Shiite flags -- not Iraq's national flag -- fluttered from tanks and military vehicles, evidence, many said, of the troops' sectarian allegiances.

Instead of using a tool for negotiations, the administration immediately rushes to assure, "Yes, despot, we will be granting you all the weapon power you need for a full-scale blood bath." In addition, there's the issue of why in the world would the US arm a questionable leader who appears to be demonizing and attacking 20% of his country's population or when three political blocs (Iraqiya, the Sadr bloc and the Kurdish bloc) are all calling for new elections and a withdrawal of confidence in the government.

Just understand my frustration. We want to normalize a government that really doesn't exist.

That's not me, that's Joe Biden, before he was vice president, back when he was in the Senate and chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, from an April 10, 2008 hearing on Iraq.

What else did he say in that hearing?

That the US was being asked "to take sides in Iraq's civil war" and that "there is no Iraqi government that we know of that will be in place a year from now -- half the government has walked out." And currently? Iraqiya is not attending Parliament meetings as a result of the abuses of Nouri al-Maliki.

Now the US government already made a huge mistake, the administration of Barack Obama, by refusing to honor the will of the Iraqi people as well as the Iraqi Constitution. March 2010, Iraqis showed up at the polls and voted. This followed Nouri demonizing Iraqiya and using the Justice and Accountability Commission to disqualify Iraqiya candidates, Nouri using his control of state media to ensure that no one received better coverage (soft and glossy) than did he himself and his political slate (State of Law).

Despite that and despite predictions that State of Law would win by a landslide, that didn't happen. The Iraqi people voted and their first choice was Iraqiya. That was true even after Nouri stamped his feet and demanded recounts. This was true even after the electoral commission tried to humor him by taking some votes away from Iraqiya.

Iraqiya was the winner. This was not in question, this was not in dispute.

Per the people and per the Constitution, April 2010 should have seen Iraqiya attempting to form a government, one most likely led by the head of Iraqiya, Ayad Allawi.

Instead, Nouri dug his heels in and for 8 months refused to budge. His term was over and the people had spoken. They were then choosing a national identity and rejecting sectarianism. It was a great moment for Iraqis. But the US refused to celebrate that moment, instead they worked to sabotage it by backing Nouri.

And this despite all they knew about the secret prisons he'd be running since 2006 -- plural, secret prisons, plural -- and they backed him despite knowing he was ordering torture. They backed him despite the February 2009 State Dept cable written by then-US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker which noted he was being seen as the "new Saddam" that he "tends to view everyone and everything with instinctive suspicion." Crocker noted, "The concentration of authority in Maliki's Office of the Commander in Chief (OCINC), the establishment of an elite security force - with its own judges and detention facilities - that reports directly to the PM, the creation of a security force command that short-circuits provincial authority, a willingness in some cases to use strong-arm tactics against political adversaries, and patronage networks to co-opt others all follow a very familiar pattern of Arab world leadership." Here's some foreshadowing from Crocker, "While responsibility for the lack of political consensus is broadly shared among Iraq's leaders from all groups, the PM needs to set the tone. Here, Maliki has shown
that he is either unwilling or unable to take the lead in the give-and-take needed to build broad consensus for the Government's policies among competing power blocs." And to demonstrate just how much the US government actively refuses to grasp what's at stake, we'll note this from Anna Mulrine (Christian Science Monitor):

A top US military official still on the ground in Iraq, under the auspices of the State Department, discounts such concerns, saying safeguards are in place to prevent such an outcome – and that all military sales include monitoring "to make sure the [Iraqi] government isn't in violation of human rights."

That is laughable. As reporters have been tortured in Iraq this year, that is laughable. It also, pay attention, calls into question Iraq's supposed 'independence' if the US has that 'power.' But it was topped in today's State Dept press briefing by Victoria Nuland.

QUESTION: To Iraq -- weapons sales? Has there been discussion in this building with any Iraqi officials about whether or not they're meeting the conditions for these armed sales to go ahead?

MS. NULAND: I can't speak to that. As you know, our main focus has been in trying to encourage the Iraqi political groups to talk to each other and to create a broad national dialogue about the way forward. With regard to the arms sales, these, as you know, are long planned and they're part of the transition process for the Iraqis to manage their own security within their own resources.

QUESTION: Iran?

QUESTION: Just -- wait. How are those efforts going to promote dialogue? It's been a few days that that's been the same message, yet there hasn't seemed to be a palpable effect yet in Iraq. Can you shed some light on how you're going about this and what tangible results that's producing?

MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, the Vice President has been active in his personal diplomacy with individual Iraqi leaders. Our Ambassador Jim Jeffrey has seen and talked to all of the major figures in Iraq. We're encouraging a process that a number of them have begun talking about, which is to have a sit down, to have a dialogue among themselves soon after the new year. And we have seen some encouraging public statements by a few of them over the last couple of days indicating they also believe that a national dialogue needs to take place soon after the new year.

QUESTION: Do you think -- okay. Do you think certain actions need to be taken before this -- to really kick-start this dialogue, such as withdrawing charges against rival politicians, things of this nature?

MS. NULAND: I think we're not going to get into the middle of this and dictate one way or the other. It -- clearly the Iraqi political groups need to sit down together and work this through in a manner that is consistent with Iraq's constitution and their commitments to each other.

QUESTION: I understand, but can certain -- for example, just logistically, can politicians -- certain leaders sit down when they're essentially wanted individuals? How does that work?

MS. NULAND: Well, I assume you're talking about one individual who's now the subject of charges. Again, we've said all along that we want to see any judicial process take place within the contest of the Iraqi constitution and meet international judicial standards. We need to get the main groups in Iraq talking to each other again about how they can move forward.

QUESTION: But in this case, you agree with the need for a judicial process to take place? You don't think that is not necessary?

MS. NULAND: Again, we're not the judge and jury here. This is an issue that needs to be settled by Iraqis within Iraqi constitutional processes.

QUESTION: You said you've seen encouraging signs. What are those signs?

MS. NULAND: We've had -- we've seen some Iraqis speak publicly about their desire for national dialogue, and a number of them are also expressing the same hope to us privately that soon after the New Year, they'll be able to sit down and settle this properly.

Comical and so sad. The US State Dept whoring for a despot. And pretending that those victimized by the despot calling for talks is a sign of progress. Nouri, the one who started the crisis, hasn't called for talks. But pretend not to notice anything that the US government doesn't want you to see, apparently.

Aswat al-Iraq quotes Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani stating that the political crisis is "the most dangerous among other crisis that took place in Iraq since 2003" and expressing his fear that civil war could break out. James Zogby (Middle East Online) notes a Zogby poll of Iraqis on their various political leaders:

We asked Iraqis to evaluate their leaders and found that most are polarizing figures. Iraqi List coalition Iyad Allawi has the best overall rating of any Iraqi political figure receiving strong support from Sunni Arabs and Kurds. He, however, is not viewed favorably by Shia Arabs. The current Prime Minister, Nuri al Maliki, is more polarizing with quite limited support from Sunni Iraqis and Kurds. In fact his numbers across the board are strikingly similar to those received by cleric, Moqtada al Sadr, except that al Sadr does better among Shia, and receives approximately the same ratings as al Maliki among Sunni Arabs and only slightly worse among Kurds.

Pinar Aydinli (Reuters) reports that Huseyin Celik, spokesperson for Turkey's ruling political party, has declared, "It has been determined from initial reports that these people were smugglers, not terrorists. [. . .] If mistakes were made, if there were flaws and if there were shortcomings in the incident that took place, by no means will these be covered up." That incident? A bombing that took place near the border Turkey shares with Iraq. BBC News (link has text and video) reports on last night's bombing, "An air strike by Turkish warplanes near a Kurdish village close to the border with Iraq has left 35 people dead, officials say. One report said that smugglers had been spotted by unmanned drones and were mistaken for Kurdish rebels." Reuters quotes Uludere Mayor Fehmi Yaman explaining that they have recovered 30 corpses, all smugglers, not PKK, and he declares, "This kind of incident is unacceptable. They were hit from the air." AFP adds, "Local security sources said the dead were among a group smuggling gas and sugar into Turkey from northern Iraq and may have been mistaken for Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels." Uludere is in the Turkish province of Sirnak which borders Iraq. CNN notes, "The [Turkish] military statement claimed the the strike was in the Sinat-Haftanin area of northern Iraq, where many militant training camps are situated and there are no civilian settlements." Peter Beaumont (Guardian) reports, "The donkeys had been sent across Turkey's south-eastern border with Iraq to ferry vats of smuggled diesel and cigarettes. On Thursday when they came back it was with bodies wrapped in carpets lashed to their sides: the victims of a Turkish air raid that killed up to 35 villagers from this remote region."

The attack demonstrates yet again how drones are not answers and how futile the Turkish government's response to the PKK has been. 35 people are dead, not one of them PKK. All were killed by the Turkish government in what the government insists (and believes) was a worthwhile action.

The PKK is one of many Kurdish groups which supports and fights for a Kurdish homeland. Aaron Hess (International Socialist Review) described them in 2008, "The PKK emerged in 1984 as a major force in response to Turkey's oppression of its Kurdish population. Since the late 1970s, Turkey has waged a relentless war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of Kurds and driven millions from their homes. The Kurds are the world's largest stateless population -- whose main population concentration straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- and have been the victims of imperialist wars and manipulation since the colonial period. While Turkey has granted limited rights to the Kurds in recent years in order to accommodate the European Union, which it seeks to join, even these are now at risk." The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq has been a concern to Turkey because they fear that if it ever moves from semi-autonomous to fully independent -- such as if Iraq was to break up into three regions -- then that would encourage the Kurdish population in Turkey. For that reason, Turkey is overly interested in all things Iraq. So much so that they signed an agreement with the US government in 2007 to share intelligence which the Turkish military has been using when launching bomb raids. However, this has not prevented the loss of civilian life in northern Iraq. Aaron Hess noted, "The Turkish establishment sees growing Kurdish power in Iraq as one step down the road to a mass separatist movement of Kurds within Turkey itself, fighting to unify a greater Kurdistan. In late October 2007, Turkey's daily newspaper Hurriyet accused the prime minister of the KRG, Massoud Barzani, of turning the 'Kurdish dream' into a 'Turkish nightmare'."

27 years of the Turkish government doing the same thing and getting no change in results. You really think the answer is better hardware? By refusing to grant Kurds full inclusion in Turkey, the government created the PKK. All the bullets and bombs in the world won't kill it. The only way you do away with the PKK is take away the reason they were created by bringing the Kurds in Turkey into the political process and making them citizens with full equality.

iraq
npr
all things considered
guy raz
upi
the council on foreign relations
bernard gwertzman
the los angeles times
ned parker
the new york times
michael s. schmidt
eric schmitt
bbc news
afp
reuters
the christian science monitor
anna mulrine

Queen Nancy Pelosi

2011-12-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

That's "Queen Nancy Pelosi" from June 1, 2008. And why so many Democrats no longer give a damn about her tired ass. She was not about fairness, she was not about who got the most votes, she was about lying and deceit and she would prove that even more a month later at the DNC convention.

She'd call for a vote of the delegates and then stop the vote because it was never about voting, it was always about the backroom deals that forced Barack off on the party.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, December 22, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, Baghdad is slammed with bombings, the White House talks Iraq 'progress,' and more.

Bagdad is slammed with bombings and Jay Carney has achieved a rare feat -- making people miss the White House spokesperson stylings of Robert Gibbs. "Attempts such as this," Carney said at the White House today of the bombings, "to derail Iraq's continued progress will fail."

Earlier this month, December 6th, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Iraq Martin Kobler appeared before the UN Security Council discussed the situation in Iraq (link is streaming). Among his remarks?

SRSG Martin Kobler: Iraqi leaders should overcome the current standstill in the appointment of the security ministries and resolve other issues involving the government formation process. Some of the pressing details of yesterday remain the same today. They are covered in greater detail in the report of the Secretary-General and include wealth distribution and power sharing, delivery and access to basic services, strained relations between communities that have lived together in Iraq for centuries as well as unresolved issues between Iraq and Kuwait.

Someone needs to ask Jay Carney: What progress?

AFP explores women's status in Iraq and notes how it has fallen from a high for the region to a nightmare (my term) today. Excerpt:

Safia al-Souhail, an MP who ran in March 2010 elections on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law slate but has since defected and is now an independent, said US forces made some progress, but did not do enough in the immediate aftermath of the invasion.
"They were always giving excuses that our society would not accept it," she said. "Our society is still wondering why the Americans did not support women leaders who were recognised by the Iraqi people."
She lamented that Maliki had completed a recent official visit to Washington without a single woman in his delegation, describing it as a "shame on Iraq". Indeed, only one woman sits in Maliki's national unity cabinet, Ibtihal al-Zaidi, the minister of state for women's affairs.

But no one in the press wanted to note that, did they? No one in the US press, all giddy like school girls in the audience of The Ed Sullivan Show as the Beatles take the stage, wanted to point out that reality or how it signified the decling status of women in Iraq. With very few exceptions, they wanted to treat thug Nouri as if he were Nelson Mandela instead of Augusto Pinochet reborn.

Want a big laugh? Appearing at the November 30th hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, the State Dept's Brooke Darby insisted that the State Dept needs billions of dollars -- and maybe for 8 years or more (she refused to answer US House Rep Gary Ackerman's question) -- because training the police was important . . . to women's rights.

That's laughable. It's especially laughable that the State Dept finally wants to weigh in on women's rights nearly nine years after the Iraq War started. And the key to women's rights, the State Dept appears to believe, is in how the Iraqi police are trained. Couldn't care about women's rights when the Iraqi Constitution was being written or when Iraqi women were in the streets protesting the attempts to strip them of their legal rights. But now, when they want to spend billions and billions of US tax payer dollars for years and years to train the Iraqi police, the US State Dept insists that this program is needed and it's needed to advance the rights of women.

Christians around the world prepare to celebrate one of their holy days but in Iraq, Catholic News Service reports, "Chaldean Catholic officials have canceled traditional Christmas Eve midnight Masses because of security risks. Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk in northern Iraq told the agency Aid to the Church in Need that Christians will spend Christmas in 'great fear' because of the risk of new attacks."

What progress?

Robert Koehler (Newsday) observes, "The war is over, sort of, but the Big Lie marches on: that democracy is flowering in Iraq, that America is stronger and more secure than ever, that doing what's right is the prime motivator of all our military action."

Baghdad is slammed with bombings today leaving many dead and injured?

What progress?

Early today Ziad Tarek, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, was telling Alsumaria TV, "Baghdad hospitals received this morning bodies of 49 dead and 167 wounded, following explosions that occurred in different regions of Baghdad." Prashant Rao (AFP)explains in this France 24 video, "All over the city, both majority Sunni and majority Shia areas have been targeted in mostly bomb attacks [. . .] basically all over Baghdad, we've seen multiple attacks." Charlie D'Agata (The Early Show, CBS News) reports, "The first explosion rang out just after dawn. Then came another. And another. Iraqi officials counted at least 14 blasts throughout Baghdad during the morning rush hour. The targets were indiscriminate. Roadside bombs and car bombs struck everything from neighborhood markets to police stations. A suicide bomber in an ambulance killed 18 people alone."

Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) notes, "The worst single incident this morning was a suicide attack near a government office in which a stolen ambulance packed with explosives was detonated by its driver, sending debris into the air and into the grounds of a nearby kindergarten. Police said at least 18 people were killed in that bombing alone." Al Rafidayn reports that one Ali Abu Nailah, Iraqi Central Bank Consultant, is thought to have been targeted with a bombing on his convoy just outside of Baghdad (Nailah survived without injury but one of his bodyguards was injured). Sam Dagher and Ali Nabhan (Wall St. Journal) note, "The latest spasm of violence came one day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned his coalition partners that any moves to bring down the government would unravel the political system and lead to a situation where the majority Shiites decide the shape of the government on their own." Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) offers, "The bombings may be linked more to the U.S. withdrawal than the political crisis, but all together the developments heighten fears of a new round of sectarian bloodshed like the one a few years ago that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war." Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "The explosions occurred in a variety of locations around the Iraqi capital, some Shiite and others Sunni, giving no clear indication who was behind it. The casualties were believed to be almost entirely civilians." Dan Morse and Aziz Alwan (Washington Post) count 17 bombings, 65 dead and 207 injured while Kareem Raheem (Reuters) notes the death toll has risen to 72.

In other violence, Reuters notes 1 bodyguard shot dead in Baquba, 1 corpse discovered in Mosul, a Mosul sticky bombing injured one police officer, a Mosul roadside bombing injured one woman, an attack on a Mosul checkpoint left a police officer injured, a Baquba home invasion resulted in 5 deaths (parents and three children), 1 corpse discovered in Kirkuk, a Jurf al-Sakhar roadside bombing left three people injured and an attack on a Mussayab checkpoint left two Sahwa dead.

The dead in Baghdad were still being counted when Nouri al-Maliki attempted to make political hay out of the tragedy. Xiong Tong (Xinhua) reports, "Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that Thursday's series of bomb attacks in Baghdad were politically motivated, pledging that the attacks will not pass without punishment." US Senator John McCain was already booked on The Early Show (CBS News) to talk about the payroll tax and the GOP's presidential nominee race. We'll note this from the opening of the segment.

Senator John McCain: Thank you, good to be with you and before we go on we are paying a very heavy price in Baghdad because of our failure to have a residual force there. It's unraveling. I'm deeply disturbed about events but not surprised.

Chris Wragge: Well that's what I wanted to ask you about -- we'll talk about the payroll tax in just a second but that was the first question I was going to pose to you this morning. When you heard about these cooridnated attacks in and around Baghdad was this a kind of I-told-you-so moment, did you feel in your estimation?

Senator John McCain: I'm afraid so. I'd hoped not. But it was pretty obvious that if we did not have a residual force there that things could unravel very quickly. All of us knew that. The president campaigned saying he would bring around the end of the war. They've already got propaganda out there called "Promises Kept." And he made some very interesting comments about we're leaving behind a stable Iraq which we know is obviously not true. We needed the residual force there. It's not there. Now things are unraveling tragically.

Chris Wragge: How big a mistake do you see this for the president?

Senator John McCain: Well I don't know about the president but I know the Iraqi people may be subject to the news reports that you just quoted this morning and it's tragic for them. And of course, as you mentioned on the lead-in, we did 4,474 young Americans died there. It's really sad the way that they have -- As General [John] Keane said, "We won the war and we're losing the peace."

I know McCain and I know and like Senator Lindsey Graham. The two of them issued a joint-statement on Iraq yesterday:

We are alarmed by recent developments in Iraq, most recently the warrant issued today by the Maliki government for the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tariq al Hashimi. This is a clear sign that the fragile political accommodation made possible by the surge of 2007, which ended large-scale sectarian violence in Iraq, is now unraveling. This crisis has been precipitated in large measure by the failure and unwillingness of the Obama Administration to reach an agreement with the Iraqi government for a residual presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, thereby depriving Iraq of the stabilizing influence of the U.S. military and diminishing the ability of the United States to support Iraq.

If Iraq slides back into sectarian violence, the consequences will be catastrophic for the Iraqi people and U.S. interests in the Middle East, and a clear victory for al Qaeda and Iran. A deterioration of the kind we are now witnessing in Iraq was not unforseen, and now the U.S. government must do whatever it can to help Iraq stabilize the situation. We call upon the Obama Administration and the Iraqi government to reopen negotiations with the goal of maintaining an effective residual U.S. military presence in Iraq before the situation deteriorates further.

I was asked if we could include that and I said yes because I had no idea the two had issued a statement and issued it yesterday. I would have thought it would have received some serious press attention. It didn't and I'm comfortable including it here. That is not my opinion, it is not this community's opinion. We believe the illegal war was wrong from the start and nothing good was ever going to come from it. And we've backed that up repeatedly over the years so it's not a threat to us to include a differening opinion. I do agree with Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham that the administration blew it.

I say they blew it by refusing to immediately end the Iraq War. Had they done that, it wouldn't be Barack's war. He could say, "I campaigned on ending the war and I was elected so that's what the American people wanted. As a result, as I promised on the campaign trail, all US troops will be out of Iraq within ten months." He could and should have said that after he was sworn in. (And the withdrawal could have been done in less than 10 months but 10 months was the least amount of time he gave on the campaign trail.) Had he done that, it was Bush's war.

But he didn't do that. He continued the war. (And unlike McCain and Graham, I believe the Iraq War continues.) And he made promises. To Nouri al-Maliki. He made sure Nouri got what he wanted. Iraq's LGBT community was being targeted, tortured and murdered and the White House never said a word. Iraqi Christians and other religious minorities were forgotten by the White House. Resolving the Kirkuk issue was forgotten by the White House. When Nouri al-Maliki wanted something, he got it and that continues to this day. Let's again note Trudy Rubin (Philadelphia Inquirer via San Jose Mercury News) on the multitude of mistakes by the Bush and Barack administrations in her latest column but we'll zoom in on her commentary about 2010:

The White House followed a hands-off policy on Iraqi politics, allowing Maliki to slip back into sectarianism and the eager embrace of Iran's ayatollahs.

When Maliki cracked down on Sunni candidates before March 2010 elections, a visiting Vice President Joe Biden gave him a pass. When a Sunni coalition called Iraqiya edged out Maliki's party and he used Iraq's politicized courts to nullify some Sunni seats, U.S. officials didn't push back.

When Maliki failed to honor a power-sharing deal the United States had brokered between his party and Iraqiya, we failed to press him.

That was a huge mistake. There was never a reason to back Nouri. The White House disgraced the country by backing Nouri whom they knew ran secret prisons, whom they knew used torture.

McCain and Graham may be right and I may be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. But I have thought out my position (as they have their position) and I can defend what I'm saying (as they can defend what they're saying). I'm comfortable including their take on this and I'm bothered that their take wasn't included by the press yesterday. I'm bothered that the same servile press that bowed to the will of one White House occupant (Bush) now goes out of their way to scrape and bow and carry water for President Barack Obama. (If you're late to the party, that's worded that way because I don't use the P-word with Bush. A direct quote from someone else? We don't alter it. But I made it through eight years never calling the Supreme Court appointed Bush the p-word and intend to make it to my grave. He was an occupant of the White House nothing more.)

I see a press that refuses to explore what's taking place in Iraq and who benefits?

An Oval Office occupant (President Obama, in this case) just like an Oval Office occupant (Bully Boy Bush) did at an earlier time. But not the public in the US or in Iraq.

As somone against the Iraq War before it started, I did not appreciate the press shutting out voices raising objections because they only cared about toeing the White House line. I don't have the need to shut anyone else out of the public debate. My position is the popular one now and that's because of a number of things including time has provided the evidence needed to call the war a disaster. But nothing's going to change public opinion more (turn back towards support for the war) than shutting out opposition views. John McCain and Lindsey Graham know what they're talking about.

They come to different conclusions than I do (and, again, they may be right and I may be wrong). And as long as these issues can be publicly debated, the American people can have a strong sense of where they stand. But when one side gets shut out of the conversation, you're creating a future backlash.

Now maybe that's what the press (owners) want because what's the United States without perpetual war? But it's not what I want (more wars is not what I want) and I also don't want to think of John McCain as a stronger supporter of free speech than those of us on the left. Meaning? He is pro-war and pro-Iraq War but he still called out Clear Channel's decision to ban the Dixie Chicks over statements against the war and he wondered where you draw the line the next time you decide to censor? Today, it appears you draw the line to prevent those with views different than the White House from being heard. Again, it feels lot like 2003 press wise and that is not a good thing.

Again, Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister and thug of the continued occupation, took to the TV airwaves to proclaim the bombings political and to promise punishment. Little Saddam never misses a photo op in which he can expose his iron fist. Dar Addustour notes that Parliament's Finance Committee states the political crisis is negatively impacting the exchange rate of Iraq's currency. Apparently that doesn't worry Nouri even though Iraq's seen record inflation. For recap we'll note this from yesterday's NewsHour (PBS -- link is video, text and audio) so we're all on the same page (and to note that one network newscast is covering the crisis):

HARI SREENIVASAN: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki demanded that Kurdish authorities hand over Iraq's vice president today. Tariq al-Hashemi is the highest-ranking Sunni figure in Iraq. He fled to the Kurdish north this week to escape an arrest warrant. The Shiite-dominated government charges he ran terror squads that targeted government officials. At a news conference in Baghdad today, Maliki rejected Hashemi's claim that the charges are politically motivated.

NOURI AL-MALIKI, Iraqi prime minister (through translator): I will not permit myself, others, or the relatives of martyrs to politicize this issue. There is only one path that will lead to the objective, and that is the path of the judiciary, nothing else. He should appear before court, either to be exonerated or to be convicted. The cause of al-Hashemi should not enter into political bargaining.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Later, a spokesman for the president of the Kurdish region rejected the demand. The political fight came as U.S. troops have finished their withdrawal from Iraq. Last night, Vice President Biden called Maliki and urged him to resolve the crisis.

Tony Karon (Time magazin) adds, "Vice President Joe Biden has been on the phone to Baghdad and Erbil this week, frantically trying to coax Iraq's main political players back from the brink of a new sectarian confrontation less than a week after the last U.S. troops departed. But Iraq's political leaders paid little heed to Washington's advice and entreaties when the U.S. had 140,000 troops there; they're even less likely to comply now. Biden reportedly sought to persuade Maliki to back away from a warrant issued by his government for the arrest of Iraq's most senior Sunni politician, Vice President Tareq al-Hashimi, on allegations that he was involved in a bomb plot for which members of his security detail have been detained. But Iraq's Sunni leadership sees the warrant as part of Maliki's authoritarian crackdown against his opponents, with senior Sunni leaders systematically targeted for arrest by the Shi'ite-led government in recent months." Al Rafidayn quotes State of Law MP Omaima Younis stating that they welcome all input, including the US input, as long as it does not have to do with the charges Nouri has brought because that will be seen as an attempt to interfere with Iraq's judiciary.

It's not just Joe Biden that's been engaging in dialogue on behalf of the US. CIA Director David Petraeus has already made a trip to Iraq this week and now it's the man who followed Petraeus as top US commander in Iraq. AFP's Prashant Rao Tweets:

prashantrao Prashant Rao

#Iraq PM's statement on meeting with #US Gen. Odierno: http://bit.ly/tVDzIw (Ar)

11 hours ago

prashantrao Prashant Rao

#US Gen. Odierno's meeting with #Iraq PM comes shortly after CIA Director Petraeus visit to Baghdad

11 hours ago

prashantrao Prashant Rao

#Iraq PM's office says Maliki met with #US army chief of staff Gen. Ray Odierno today

11 hours ago

Why the concern? As Dan Murphy (Christian Science Monitor) reminds today, "As this paper wrote a few days ago, all of this strongly increases the odds that Iraq could plunge back into a sectarian civil war."

State of Law is Nouri's political slate. It came in second in the March 7, 2010 parliamentary elections, Iraqiya came in first and is headed by Ayad Allawi. Al Mada reports that Allawi declares that they are not Nouri's employees and that just because Nouri calls a meeting does not mean they have to attend. (Just as Moqtada al-Sadr calling in November for Nouri to appear before Parliament and answer questions about US forces has not meant that Nouri has appeared.) Allawi states that several polical bloc leaders -- including Allawi -- attended a meeting called by KRG President Massoud Barzani. In that meeting, it was called for the Erbil Agreement to be implemented and for the government go be the partnership it is supposed to be. But Nouri cannot call Parliament for this meeting or that because MPs are not employees of the authoritarian Nouri al-Maliki.

The bombings and the political situation were raised in today's US State Dept press briefing. Mark Toner took questions.

QUESTION: The Iraq bombing?

MR. TONER: Iraq bombing. Sorry. Well, we did see the -- as you saw, the attacks across Baghdad this morning -- desperate attempts by terrorist groups to undermine Iraq at this vulnerable juncture in the Iraqi political process. And these events, we believe, highlight just how critical it is that Iraq's leaders act quickly to resolve their differences and move forward as a united and inclusive government in accordance with the Iraqi constitutions and laws. So --

QUESTION: Do you regard this violence as linked in any way to the sectarian strife, or at least political discord that has erupted since the government issued the arrest warrant for Mr. Hashimi?

MR. TONER: I think we see it as linked clearly to this vulnerable period after U.S. forces have withdrawn, and the government is finding its feet and moving forward.

It's impossible to say in terms of coordination and planning -- and this appeared to have been a coordinated attack -- how many weeks or months this may have been planned in advance. But clearly it was timed for this point in time.

QUESTION: What I'm trying to get at --

MR. TONER: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- and forgive me if I wasn't clear, but I think that what is interesting is to try to understand if you think that some faction within the Iraqi polity is trying to use violence now because they are angry at what has happened in the last week, particularly the targeting of Mr. Hashimi.

MR. TONER: Right. And I don't -- again, just -- forgive me if I wasn't being clear. The coordinated nature of this attack appears, to us at least at first blush, to have been something that was coordinated over a period of time and not necessarily tied to the events of the past week.

QUESTION: This week. Got it.

MR. TONER: That said, this is a vulnerable point or juncture in Iraq's history, so there's going to be groups that are trying to take advantage of it. But we don't know; there's been no claim of responsibility that I'm aware of, so we don't know at this point.

QUESTION: Vice President Hashimi, today, told Washington Times, that, quote, Iran definitely involved in move to arrest him. Do you have any evidence to support that?

MR. TONER: We do not. We continue to call on any legal or judicial process that goes forward with respects to Vice President Hashimi to be done in full accordance with the rule of law and full transparency. And we do note that Prime Minister Maliki did speak about the need to observe rule of law in judicial proceedings, and also that he's called for a meeting of the various political blocs. That's exactly what we want to see happen. We want to see all of the political blocs get together in an effort to -- through dialogue to resolve their difference.

And we'll close with this from the Washington Times interview (Ben Birnbaum is the reporter of the piece) referred to in the State Dept briefing:

Mr. al-Hashemi, who is staying in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, has vehemently denied the charges, but he told The Times that he believes he could never receive a fair trial from the Iraqi judiciary.

"All Iraqis are very much aware about the nature of our judicial system," he said. "It is not transparent, it is not neutral, it is not independent. It's become a puppet of the government and certainly al-Maliki."

Mr. al-Hashemi said he is willing to face trial before "a neutral and more transparent and more professional, independent court, which I think is available here" in the Kurdish region.

The charges against him have threatened the fragile unity government that Mr. al-Maliki formed after the 2009 elections, which gave his State of Law bloc two fewer seats than the Sunni-dominated Iraqiya bloc to which Mr. al-Hashemi belongs.

iraq
alsumaria tv
afp
prashant rao
xiong tong
xinhua
the telegraph of london
richard spencer
qassim abdul-zahra
the associated press
al rafidayn
cbs news
the early show
chris wragge
charlie dagata
the wall st. journal
sam dagher
ali nabhan
mcclatchy newspapers
sahar issa
pbs
the newshour
hari sreenivasan
time magazine
tony karon
the telegraph of london
david blair
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helen thomas
falls church news-press

The Endorsement

2011-12-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

May 18, 2008, "The Endorsement."

Remember when John Edwards had enough press love to be considered respectable? And how the press raved over Johnny's endorsement? And used it to ignore Hillary's primary wins?

John Edwards is sleaze.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, December 15, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, Morning Joe brews a new form of sexism: Erasing all US women who served in the Iraq War, a mayor is kidnapped in Iraq (and killed), Senator Patty Murray calls for a new outpatient care center for veterans and more.

Today on The Takeaway (PRI), the issue of Iraq was addressed. Excerpt:

Celeste Headlee: Ned Parker has covered the war since the beginning as the former Baghdad bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times now at the Council on Foreign Relations. So let me ask you about the future of Iraq. Obviously, we've gotten comments from American generals who are worried that this country will descend into chaos. You heard an Iraqi woman just a moment ago talking about how she's optimistic although the government is weak. What -- what do you think? Is this a country that will remain united? Where the path to diplomacy is shaky but-but sure?

Ned Parker: In terms of the country's internal politics?

Celeste Headlee: Yeah.

Ned Parker: Well -- I -- That's what struck me so much my recent trip to Iraq. I was in Iraq this summer from May 'till early August. And at that time I saw many worrying trends in Iraq. The politics of the country were becoming very polarized again and very sectarian -- reminiscent of 2003, 2004 and '05 and the build up to civil war. And also saw a lot of alarming trends from the government by -- from the prime minister's office of security forces being used in questionable raids where people were detained and would disappear into special jails where their families and lawyers could not talk to them. Pro-democracy protesters who were trying to have their own equivalent of an Arab Spring to criticize the corruption among the elite government officials and the lack of transparency started to be attacked in May and June by plain clothes government agents and pro-Maliki supporters. While army looked on, these men would go around and beat people on one occasion. And I had been in Egypt in Tahrir Square in February and had some mobs there attacking pro-democracy protesters. And it was the same thing. So I saw all of that this summer and when I came back it was the same if not worse. And Iraqis are in charge of their destiny and America I don't think in recent years has effectively used its clout and leverage to try to help promote this process of national reconciliation or the respect of civil liberties and freedom of speech.. Particularly I think since 2010 there was an effort of getting a government in place because there had been [crosstalk] Yeah and with the deadline on troops leaving, there was an emphasis on just having a stable figure in power that America could deal with at the expense of these important things: rule of law, freedom of speech. So all of these seems to be going and that was the case when I went back.

Celeste Headlee: Well we've got like a minute-and-a-half left so let me ask you this very complicated question which is Iraq five years from now, ten years from now, stable? Peaceful?

Ned Parker: It's uh -- I mean, I wish I had a crystal ball. I sure hope so. You know I very much respect Iraqis, I have spent a lot of time there and I think everyone wants to see Iraq work out for the best but we really don't know there are so many worrying and different trends there. As I said, the politics have become far more sectarian, in the political class there's very little trust between kind of the Shi'ite elite and Sunnis. There's talk within different provinces of creating their own regions because --

Celeste Headlee: Separating off.

Ned Parker: Right Sunni provinces no longer trust Baghdad so they want to declare their own region. With what's happening in Syria that could also polarize things So it's so complicated. That could lead to more unrest and an authoritarian regime. Or perhaps Iraq will have their own Arab Spring that will lead to responsible government and a process of reconciliation.

From radio we'll switch to TV but before noting something worth noting will first note PIG BOY Willie Geist. Willie is part of the sewer of MSNBC -- the non-news shows, the yackety-yack where buffoons pass themselves off as informed -- and today on Morning Joe he felt the need to weigh in on those US service members who had lost their lives serving in Iraq. It's a serious issue and it's insulting to here people say "4500" -- try getting the actual number you lazy ass fools (and, yes, I'm aware that would include Barack). But Willie did all of them one better, he wanted to talk about the "brothers" who were left behind because they died there. The "brothers." And no one corrected him, not one damn person -- guest or the huge cast of Morning Joe -- stopped the frat boy Bob Somerby has so rightly and so often criticized to inform him that US service members who died in the Iraq War were not just men, women died as well. In July of 2008, CNN would note that the number of female US service members who have died in the Iraq War had already reached 100. As of September 23, 2011, 111 female US service members had died in the Iraq War according to Noonie Fortin -- and 13 US civilian women died in the Iraq War as well. Fortin provides a write up on each one of the dead (including the civilians like DynCorp contractor Deborah Klecker who died at age 51 in June 2005). The first US female service member to die in Iraq was PFC Lori Ann Piestewa (also the first Native American to die in the Iraq War) on March 23, 2003. And the last so far was August 7, 2010, SPC Faith R. Hinkley of Colorado. Here's the link to trash (only because Ava and I will be commenting further at Third on Sunday unless Bob Somerby grabs it Friday).

Twelve minutes and 17 seconds into the clip, Willie Boy asks, ". . . what is the bitter-sweet feeling if that's the way to put it for some of these guys who are happy to be going home but remembering the brothers left behind?"

111 women dead. And no guest or cast member of Morning Joe (it's not a news show) could bother to object when "Tucker Carlson's boy toy" bothered to render women who have served in the Iraq War invisible, including those who died while serving. Maybe Morning Joe can spend tomorrow apologizing to the loved ones of the 111 women who died serving in Iraq as well as to the women who served in Iraq and made it home? (And the total number of US military personnel killed in the Iraq War? The Pentagon's official count currently stands at 4487 -- one up from last week. If you're going to note the deaths and if you think they matter, you bother to get the number right and not go with an estimate.)

Yesterday on Nightly News with Brian Williams, correspondent Richard Engel returned to Iraq to see how things were on the ground.

Richard Engel: But the biggest change for Iraq may be closer ties with it's Shi'ite neighbor Iran. These days Alkadhimiya is full of Iranian tour groups who come with their own guides with signs in Farsi. Under Saddam, no Iranians came to Iraq, Saddam was Iran's enemy. Today, more than 2 million Iranians visit Iraq every year. Iraq's new dynamic is on display here every day. After nearly nine years, it's Iraq Shi'ites who have benefited the most, they have won this country. The United States toppled a dictator who's been replaced by a Shi'ite government with close ties to Iran. It's hard to imagine how that was ever part of the plan. Across town at Baghdad's famous book market, Kareem Hanash, himself a Shi'ite, doesn't want US troops to leave. He says Iran has calculated all of this very well; they want a Shi'ite Iraq so they can control the assets, economy and politics. Fear of Iran's growing power is sharper still in the Sunni-stronghold of Falljua. Once Iraq's deadliest war zone, Falluja remains violent. A bomb killed 3 policemen here just after we arrived. Police say Sunni radicals killed them because they work for the Shi'ite government. Compared to other parts of Iraq, there's been little development in Sunni towns like Falluja. This building was destroyed by US forces seven years ago and still looks like this. People here accuse the government of persecuting them, ignoring them, trying to cut Sunnis out of the new Iraq. A cloth merchant told me, "You crossed a thousand miles from America. Why? If you want the oil, take the oil. If you want our money, take it. But you have destroyed life, the whole system."

Staying on Falluja, Fadhil al-Badrani, Patrick Markey and Giles Elgood (Reuters) note the US military's two major assaults on Falluja, the first in March 2004, "Hundreds of Iraqis and dozens of U.S. troops were killed but the insurgency was not quelled. Six months later, the U.S. Marines went back in. A month-long assault destroyed much of the city, killed an estimated 1,300 Iraqi fighters and civilians, and wounded thousands more. More than 100 U.S. troops also died."

Turning to today's violence, Reuters notes the corpses of 3 government workers were found in Dhuluiya (all were shot dead, all had their hands bound), the mayor of Jurf al-Sakhar and his son were kidnapped (the mayor was then killed) and 2 Ramadi bicycle bombings claimed 2 lives and left three people injured.

Verbal violence took place at Fort Bragg yesterday when Barack Obama spoke. Bill Van Auken (WSWS) analyzes the speech:

Obama won the 2008 election in large measure due to the deep-going hostility among the American electorate to the wars begun under the Bush administration. He pledged to end the war in Iraq within 16 months of coming to office. Once in the White House, however, he retained Bush's secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and largely ceded policy decisions to the Pentagon brass.

The December 31, 2011 deadline for completing troop withdrawals was set not by Obama, but was rather part of the Status of Forces Agreement reached between Bush and the Iraqi regime in 2008. Bush, like Obama, had fully intended to renegotiate this pact to allow permanent stationing of US troops in the country.

As it is, Washington is doing its best to maintain its grip on Iraq, replacing uniformed troops with an army of up to 17,000 under the nominal direction of the US State Department. It is to include a force of 5,500 private mercenary security contractors, a massive CIA station, and Special Operations troops operating covertly out of uniform. Tens of thousands of US troops are being kept in place across Iraq's border in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, while the US Navy and the US Air Force remain in control of the country's coastlines and airspace.

And Nouri remains in control of Iraq because the US government installed the puppet during the Bush administration and because the Barack administration wasn't going to allow anyone else to be prime minister, the will of the voters (expressed in the 2010 elections) be damned. Dar Addustour reports that the only hope for Iraq's government is for the blocs to meet and iron out their differences. Al Sabaah notes Parliament wants Nouri to appear before them next week to answer questions regarding the status of Iraqi security forces, the withdrawal and the absence of heads for the three security ministries (Defense, Interior and National Security). (This would be the questioning that Moqtada al-Sadr called for weeks ago.) Yes, Iraq remains in Political Stalemate II -- a fact that so much Iraq coverage this week has ignored repeatedly. Noting Barack's false claim that the Iraqi government is inclusive, Warren Olney (To the Point) launched into a discussion Tuesday about the realities. A journalist wasn't up to reality (your first clue was the assertion that "the Americans are leaving" -- which the journalist stated she told to Iraqis who complained about the ongoing occupation. No, 17,000 State Dept employees aren't leaving. Not even all US troops are leaving. There's no reason not to know these things or to not know that violence has increased over the last 17 months.) So instead of wasting our time on that nonsense, We'll note the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Anthony Cordesman from the same broadcast:

Anthony Cordesman: Well I think we need to be concerned more broadly. The structure that we created around the Constitution really never properly defined the role of the Council to the Republic, the legislature. It attempted to limit the power of the president [prime minister[, but it gave him authority in ways where whoever drafted it was less concerned with money and military appointments than theoretical lines of authority. They've never really resolved how to manage the provincial and local government structures -- although that has improved over time. And here we are, nearly two years after the last election [March 7, 2010], you really don't have a functioning Cabinet. You don't have a Minister of Interior who is in charge of the internal security forces. And the Prime Minister is acting as Minister of Defense in part because a body which also is not part of the Constitution but was supposed to be a mix of Sunni and Shi'ite parties with the head or the leading opposition figure [Ayad] Allawi has never been able to work. We really need to be extremely cautious about what is happening there and certainly Maliki has attempted to centralize power but the problem goes far deeper than Maliki.

Warren Olney: Thank you for calling him "prime minister." I called him "president" earlier and that is not the office that he holds. How concerned are you, Anthony Cordesman, about the sectarian issues?

Anthony Cordseman: Well I think again we need to be very concerned. The reason that the US tried to keep troops was the risk of bringing back Sunni and Shi'ite tension and an insurgency. But, more than that, the real fear that clashes in the north between the Kurds and the Arabs could turn into a significant new form of fighting and that, at best, it needed a buffer so that it could be resolved peacefully. We look at the levels of violence and the way that the US tends to count violence in terms of signficant acts still shows a relatively high count. But if you look at other ways of counting which are sort of terrorist and lower levels of violence -- the counts that are used, for example, by the counter-terrorism center, still show a very high level of violence inside Iraq. And reports by another US figure indicated that the pattern of violence was rising as US forces went down.

While so many in the press rush to lie and pretty up things with yet another wave of Operation Happy Talk, not everyone went surfing. Jack Healy (New York Times) did participate in one of the few honest looks at Nouri al-Maliki this week (click here for Healy, Tim Arango and Michael D. Schmidt's article on Nouri) and today he writes about the rally denouncing the US in Falluja yesterday:

Once an inner ring of Iraq's wartime inferno, Falluja is only too eager to say goodbye to nearly nine shattering years of raids, bombings and house-to-house urban combat. At least 200 American troops were killed in this city. Untold thousands of Iraqis died, civilians and insurgents who are mourned equally as martyrs.

We noted the rally in yesterday's snapshot. Strangely, Healy was the only one with an article published this morning (in print, last night online) who could explore the rally. Equally strange, the Operation Happy Talk-ers had no time to mention what Ann noted last night, Press TV reported:

Unknown gunmen have attacked a US military base in the southern Iraq city of Basra with several mortar shells, military sources say.
Possible casualties or damages are yet to be reported.
The outpost is located in Basra International Airport, the second largest international airport in Iraq.

A lot of waves of Operation Happy Talk crashing up against reality as they had time to file on Leon Panetta, US Secretary of Defense, taking part in a "white flag" ceremony in Baghdad today.

Meanwhile Dar Addustour speaks with officials in Moqtada al-Sadr's political bloc who explain that Iraq has put special forces on the ground in civilian clothing and, in addition, they note that there are "foreign" intelligence agents in Iraq (US). And in another article they note Moqtada's words about resisting the continuation of US occupation in any manner are again being noted.

Al Mannarah reports that Saleh al-Mutlaq, Deputy Prime Minister for Service Affairs, declared on Tuesday that the Diyala provincial council's decision to move towards semi-autonomy for the province was "rushed" and would harm Iraq because, with so many US forces leaving, everyone must work together on security and stability. Dar Addustour notes that a delegation from Parliament went to Diyala to discuss the latest issue (the move towards semi-autonomy). They're also exploring the protests against the move (protests by residents in Diyala Province) and hearing from Mohammed Hassan, provincial council chief, that he had nothing to do with it, he didn't know that this was going to happen, he didn't even know that there was going to be a request forwarded for semi-autonomy. If he thinks that makes him look good, I'm at a loss as to how. He's the chief of the council. He should have had some inkling towards the feelings of the council members on this issue.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta will leave Iraq to go to Turkey (Friday) where he will discuss, Dar Addustour notes, $111 million of drone equipment the US will be providing Turkey.

In the US, veterans care is already overwhelming the VA health care system and that's only going to get worse. Senator Patty Muarry is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and she's calling for a new outpatient clinic in the state of Washington:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Murray Press Office
Thursday, December 15, 2011 (202) 224-2834

Chairman Murray Urges VA to Establish New, Full-Time CBOC on North Olympic Peninsula

(Washington, D.C.) -- Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Patty Murray has sent a letter to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Eric Shinseki about the critical need to establish a new, full-time Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) on the North Olympic Peninsula. In her letter, which urges the VA to include funding for a new clinic in the Department's Fiscal Year 2013 budget, Murray cites the growing need for veterans care in the Northern Peninsula region and rising enrollment at the current Port Angeles facility. In addition to sending the letter to Secretary Shinseki, Murray also hand delivered the letter and discussed this issue with Dr. Robert A. Petzel, the VA's top health official, yesterday in a meeting in her office.

"For too long, the needs in the North Olympic Peninsula have outpaced VA's ability to provide veterans in the region with adequate health care services," said Chairman Murray. "While the current lease has been extended until the end of fiscal year 2012, I believe that veterans in the North Olympic Peninsula cannot wait any longer for a new clinic that has sufficient staff, space and hours to meet the needs of veterans living in this rural region of Washington state."

Since its establishment in 2008, the Port Angeles outreach clinic has served more than 14,000 veterans living on the North Olympic Peninsula. As a result of the strong growth in this rural area, the Port Angeles outreach clinic has already exceeded maximum physical capacity and can neither expand services nor accommodate additional personnel. The need for care is expected to grow, with a 20 percent increase in enrollment projected over the next 10 years. Currently, the clinic occupies approximately 1,500 net usable square feet in a building owned by the Olympic Medical Center. A new CBOC would provide primary care and mental health services in a much larger space five days a week.

The full text of Chairman Murray's letter is below:

The Honorable Eric K. Shinseki
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20420

Dear Secretary Shinseki:

As you continue to work toward our shared goal of increasing veterans' access to VA services and benefits, I write to urge your support for the establishment of a new, full-time Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) on the North Olympic Peninsula.

Since its establishment in 2008, the Port Angeles outreach clinic has served a critical and growing need for the more than 14,000 veterans living on the North Olympic Peninsula. In FY 2010, the clinic delivered primary care and mental health services to 1,200 veterans (a 6.5 percent increase over FY 2009), and accommodated 4,876 patient visits (a 5 percent increase over FY 2009). As a result of the strong growth in this rural area, the Port Angeles outreach clinic has already exceeded maximum physical capacity and can neither expand services nor accommodate additional personnel. The need for care is expected to grow, with a 20 percent increase in enrollment projected over the next 10 years.

When I wrote to you in August 2010 requesting that the Department examine in earnest a full service CBOC to serve veterans in the North Olympic Peninsula, you let me know that the VA Puget Sound Health Care System (VAPSHCS) was working on a lease expansion proposal to develop a larger outreach clinic when the current lease with Olympic Medical Center expires at the end of fiscal year 2011 and that VAPSHCS will request that the outreach clinic be upgraded to a full-time CBOC "as space, staff and hours of operations are expanded." I believe the time has come for veterans living on the North Olympic Peninsula to have access to the level of care and services afforded by a full-time CBOC.

For too long, the needs in the North Olympic Peninsula have outpaced VA's ability to provide veterans in the region with adequate health care services. While the current lease has been extended until the end of fiscal year 2012, I believe that veterans in the North Olympic Peninsula cannot wait any longer for a new clinic that has sufficient staff, space and hours to meet the needs of veterans living in this rural region of Washington state.

As you finalize the Department's Fiscal Year 2013 budget, I urge you to include in your request sufficient funding to establish a new, full-time CBOC on the North Olympic Peninsula.

I thank you for your enduring commitment to our nation's veterans and look forward to learning of your plans.

Sincerely,

Patty Murray
Chairman

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Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray

@PattyMurray

202-224-2834

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Electable?

2011-12-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

From May 11, 2008, that's "Electable?" and what it drives home today is that three months before Sarah Palin's intelligence was repeatedly mocked, we already had an idiot on the national landscape -- but the press worked overtime to protect him.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, December 8, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, gridlock continues in Iraq, more remains of the fallen have been dumped in a landfill, and more.

Laura Meckler (Wall St. Journal) reports the White House has scheduled a speech Wednesday at Fort Bragg for US President Barack Obama. Because surely what America needs from Barack now is yet another speech? Because at Fort Bragg there's little chance of his being put on the spot about the continued high unemployment? Margaret Talev and Viola Gienger (Bloomberg News) explain the speech will take place two days after Barack meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at the White House and, "President Barack Obamais focusing on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by year's end, even as his administration continues talks behind the scenes about the future American role there."

If he's attempting to spin it, not only has he already given that speech two months back, but he'll also be going up against what Lt Gen Frank Helmick declared yesterday as reported by Luis Martinez (ABC News) and Courtney Kube (NBC News):

"We really don't know what's going to happen. But we do know this: We do know that we have done everything we can in the time that we -- that we have been here for the Iraqi security forces to make sure that they have a credible security forces to provide for the security, the internal security of their country."

Hossam Acommok (Al Mada) reports that Aziz Ugaili, National Alliance MP, is noting that over 26 security companies will remain in Iraq after December 31st and questioning the claim of US withdrawal while also expressing his fear that, in DC later this month, Nouri al-Maliki will sign an agreement with the US involving 'trainers.' Meanwhile Al Mada also reports that the Sadrist movement is declaring that the US remnants after December 31st will be fair targets and that the US is not planning to keep a small number of staff for the embassy the way other countries do. In addition, Al Mada reports that the UAE has offered their services in training Iraqi forces.

Iraq has a prominent visitor today. Bi Mingxin (Xinhua) reports, "Arab League (AL) chief Nabil al- Arabi arrived in Baghdad on an official visit to hold talks with Iraqi leaders over sanctions against Syria, an official at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said Thursday." He's already met with Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. While the media is placing the emphasis of the meeting on a potential March Arab summit, that's a smokescreen. Regardless of whether the summit takes place in March (it was repeatedly postponed in 2010), the reality is that al-Arabi is visiting due to concern over Iraq's position regarding Syria. Dar Addustour noted al-Arabi is also scheduled to meet with President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi today while in Iraq. In addition, Al Sabaah adds that he's supposed to meet with unnamed Iraqi officials.

Sabrina M. Peterson (International Affairs Review) explores the decision of the Iraqi government to stand with the Syrian government:

Today, while other Arab states have condemned Syria and called for the regime to step down, Iraq has demonstrated its support. Iraq has not called for Assad to relinquish power, but instead has advocated gradual reform. The Maliki government has made moves to strengthen its economic ties with Syria since before the violence broke out this year and has been strengthening those ties since. This past summer, Iraq hosted a tour of Syria's top government and business leaders, a visit that led to a new pact to increase bilateral trade. Iraq is now Syria's biggest trading partner.

The Iraqi government also supports Syria because it fears that if the Assad regime collapses, violence could spill over into Iraq and cause further instability. Sectarianism is another important reason: Maliki is a Shia Muslim who spent years in exile in Syria before returning to post-Saddam Iraq. Quite probably Maliki feels a sectarian affinity for Assad, a member of the Alawite sect of Shia Islam. Maliki and the Assad family both share a common fear of Sunni-led insurgencies.

Al-Masry Al-Youm reports, "Dozens of Syrian citizens in Cairo staged a protest outside the Iraqi Embassy on Thursday to condemn what they labeled Iraq's pro-Assad stance. The protesters chanted against the Iraqi authorities after Iraq refused to approve economic sanctions imposed by the Arab League against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime." For ABC News, Barbara Walters interviewed President Bashar al-Assadi (link is video and text):

Walters: But you have people who are against you who are protesting every day. It started with people marching with olive branches and with their children asking for more freedom, for freedom of press, for freedom of expression, and much of the country now, sir, is not supporting you, that's what these, that's what your crisis is about.

Assad: Yeah. That's why we had the reform started quickly, after the very beginning that you described as simple, so we didn't take the role, we didn't play the role of stubborn government, they say they need more freedom. We right away had new party laws, new media law, new election law, new local administration law, and we are revising our constitution now. Showing your opinion, whether you like somebody or doesn't like government or president or whoever, should be through the election, the ballot box, this is the only way.

Walters: If you have elections, will they be elections for president?

Assad: No, no, we are going to have first of all the local administration election this month...

Walters: Local administration, but what about the president?

Assad: Yeah, after that, we are going to have the parliamentarian election, which is the most important. Talking about presidential election, it's going to be in 2014, this is the...

Walters: People don't want to wait that long, till 2014.

Assad: Which people?

Walters: The people who are protesting.

Assad: How, how, how much, how many, are they majority or not, that's why you need, you need to wait first of all for the parliamentarian election, these election will tell you are you going to have majority or minority, then when you can think about presidential election, but not before, before that you don't have any indication, any clear indication.

Walters: In 2014, when there are presidential elections, will you allow opposition parties?

Assad: That's why we are changing the constitution.

Walters: OK. And if somebody else wins, will you step down in 2014?

Assad: If he wins he's going to be in my position, I don't have to step down, he's going to be president. So you don't step down. He will win the election, he will be president. So step down means you leave, while if you win the election, he's going normally, he's going to be in that position instead of me.

Speaking with Bill Weir on Nightline last night, Barbara Walters declared that there appears to be a disconnect and that Assad has trouble reconciling what's taking place in parts of Syria. Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports, "Iraq said Thursday it would initiate contacts with the Syrian government in an effort to persuade it to accept an Arab League plan to end months of violence in the country." Ammar Karim (AFP) quotes Nabil al-Arabi stating, "Our conversation (with Iraq) . . . was to explore whether the Iraqi government is willing to exert its influence with Syria. The Iraqi government told us that it will carry out contacts with the Syrian government to resolve this issue." Al Arabiya notes the Arab League has called for international monitors; however, "in an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters on Wednesday the embattled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said he will not allow Arab League observers unfettered access to monitor the crackdown."

Conflicts continue between the Baghdad-based central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government over issues of oil especially with regards to the KRG's deal with ExxonMobil. UPI notes, 'Nouri al-Maliki is stepping up the pressure on ExxonMobil to back off ab reakaway oil exploration deal with the Kurds' semi-autonomous enclave and the betting is the world's largest oil company will fold." CNN quotes KRG Prime Minister Barham Salih stating, "There is no way that we will be dissuaded from our constitutional right to developing our resources and allow ourselves to ever again become hostages to the whims of some bureaucrats in Baghdad. We've been there before. Oil was used to strangle our people, to commit genoicde." J. Jay Park (Financial Times of London) attempts to make sense of the legal issues but keeps coming back to a 2007 draft or a more recent draft or -- Those are bills. They aren't laws. Though many drafts have been written, the oil and gas issue was never resolved by law.

A lot of things remain unresolved in Iraq. In fact, "unresolved" would be the government's Facebook status. Political Stalemate I was a period in Iraq following the March 7, 2010 elections. It ended in November of 2010 only as a result of a meet-up in Erbil and the political parties signing off on an agreement in which all but State of Law made political concessions. The results of the March 7th elections, even after Nouri al-Maliki bitterly contested them and stamped his feet until a few post-election votes were tossed his way, were that Iraqiya came in first and Nouri's political slate State of Law came in second. Iraqis do not elect their prime minister, the Parliament does. Per the Constitution, Ayad Allawi, the leader of Iraqiya, should have had first crack at forming a government. First crack? You become prime minister-designate and then have thirty days to name a Cabinet (nominate people for positions and have Parliament vote in favor of them). If you can't accomplish that in 30 days, per the Constitution, a new prime minister-designate is supposed to be named.

Nouri al-Maliki refused to surrender the post of prime minister. So the March 7th elections were followed by over 8 months of gridlock, Political Stalemate I. The Erbil Agreement found all but State of Law making major concessions so that the country could pull together. (During that eight month period, Parliament had one session which was little more than roll call.) Iraqiya, the winner in the elections, was supposed to see their leader (Allawi) head an independent security commission, the KRG was promised Article 140 would finally be followed (Article 140 of the Constitution addresses disputed territories such as Kirkuk -- it calls for a census and referendum to be held in Kirkuk by the end of 2007. Nouri was prime minister then and refused to implement Article 140.) Many promises were made but the only one that concerned Nouri was that he would remain prime minister.

With all sides signing off on the Erbil Agreement, it appeared that Iraq would be moving forward on a national level. Nouri was named prime minister-designate (unofficially named, Jalal Talabani would wait two weeks before making it official to give Nouri 30 days plus two weeks to form a Cabinet). Before November drew to a close, Nouri would announce the planned census to take place in December was off. He would claim that the national security commission had to be put on hold but would be created earlier. By the time he was illegally moved from prime minister-designate to prime minister, Iraq was in Political Stalemate II. And that's where it has remained. Illegally moved from prime minister-designate to prime minister? The Constitution says 30 days to name Cabinet. That's not 'partial' cabinet, that's the full Cabinet. Nouri did not name a full Cabinet. Most importantly he said he would 'temporarily' fill the security ministries -- Defense, National Security and Interior. Salam Saadi (Rudaw) offers this today on the Erbil Agreement:

After the 2010 elections in Iraq, the Kurdistani bloc set 18 conditions before agreeing to join the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet. Among those conditions was the full implementation of Article 140, which was designed to solve the issue of the disputed territories.

In Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Region, Maliki agreed to all the conditions set forth by the Kurdish leaders. Two years on, however, the Kurds complain that the Iraqi prime minister hasn't met any of the pledges he made in what is known the Erbil agreement.

The Erbil agreement reads. "The Iraqi coalition government will be considered void if the Kurdish alliance withdraws from it, if the Iraqi government fails to meet the agreed upon articles of the Iraqi constitution.

Meanwhile Nouri's announcement in February of this year that he would not seek a third term was a means to appease an angry public. More recently, his legal advisor has been telling the press that no law prevents Nouri from seeking a third term. Dar Addustour reports that MP Aziz Ugaili (National Alliance) is not proposing just such a law. If passed, it would forbid anyone from holding a third term, limit all prime ministers to two terms and the two terms would not have to be consecutive. Would it be retroactive for Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Ayad Allawi? (Both have served one term as prime minister since the US invasion of Iraq.) It would have to be retroactive or it wouldn't limit Nouri to two terms. If it wasn't retroactive, that would mean Nouri could claim, "Okay, under this law, I will only serve two terms -- from the minute it passes." Thereby allowing himself four terms as prime minister.

On the issue of broken promises, Nouri promised a reduction in pay for various officials back in February 2012. Iraq just passed their 2012 budget. Dar Addustour notes that the Sadr bloc in Parliament is stating that 40% of that budget goes to the three presidencies.

Nouri's chief rival is Ayad Allawi who bested Nouri in the March 2010 elections and should be prime minister had the Constitution been followed. Rumors have been swirling that Allawi would have an announcement this week and many assumed it would be a creation of a shadow government that would be poised to take over. He has made an announcement but that wasn't it. Alsumaria TV reports:

Head of Iraqiya List Iyad Allawi announced, on Tuesday, that he is ready to reconcile with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki if he is willing to renounce his opposing stands. This is the perfect time for real reconciliation, Allawi said warning against endless tensions.
"I have no problem in shaking hands with Maliki if he renounces his opposing stands against us and others. I am not embarrassed by any cause that serves Iraqis and the region," Allawi told Alsumaria TV on Tuesday in a special interview with Jadal Iraqi talk show. "This is the perfect time for a real, honorable, realistic and healthy reconciliation," he added.

Aswat al-Iraq adds, "Al-Iraqiya Bloc called on Premier Nouri al-Maliki to respond to Dr. Iyad Allawi's reconcilliation plan for the sake of Iraq, and to lay down a road map for the future of the country."

Turning to veterans issues, Barbara Leader (News Star) reports that 24-year-old Iraq War veteran Spc Marcus Delon White "jumped to his death from the U.S. 165 bridge in Columbia" on Tuesday despite please from his fiancee and attempts by others to prevent him from jumping. Meanwhile AP notes that Iraq War veteran Martin Poynter apparently killed Deputy Richard Rhyne who was attempting to arrest him "for not paying child support" and that Poynter apparently then took his own life.

The inability of the VA to treat the mental needs of veterans from the current wars is a scandal. The VA has lots of scandals these days. Last month, David Martin (CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley -- link has text and video) reported on the Air Force's landfill scandal. Here's a transcript of the first minute of the report.

Scott Pelley: Just when you thought the scandal over mishandled remains of fallen American troops at Dover Air Force Base couldn't get any worse. It did today. David Martin has been reporting on the investigation that led to a career ending letter of reprimand for the commander of the mortuary and tonight David is at the Pentagon with new developments.

David Martin: A landfill is no one's idea of a fitting resting place for a soldier fallen in battle.

Gari-Lynn Smith: No service member, no human being at all, should be placed into a landfill -- no matter if it's a finger nail, a foot or an entire body

David Martin: Yet that is what happened to Gari-Lynn Smith's husband, Sgt 1st Class Scott Smith, who was blown apart by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006. Without her knowing part of his body was incinerated and disposed of as medical waste in this Virginia landfill. She found out two years after his funeral.

Gari-Lynn Smith: I have honestly no idea what we buried of him because they forbid me to see him in the casket.

Today Craig Whitlock and Mary Pat Flaherty (Washington Post) report that the number of troops whose remains have been dumped is much greater than the Defense Dept has acknowledged, that the "partial remains of at least 274 American troops" have been dumped "in a Virginia landfill." Whitlock spoke with Steve Inskeep about the report on today's Morning Edition (NPR -- link is text and audio):

INSKEEP: Well, what is the Air Force saying about it now?

WHITLOCK: They're saying they still don't know how far back this went. Their first records of it occurring were in 2004, but we also have emails and other correspondence from mortuary officials that indicate this was the practice going back to the '90s. At the same time, there are committees in Congress that are conducting investigations into this practice, as well as other problems at Dover. And Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has appointed a commission of independent public health experts to take a look at operations at Dover. And this is something he has said he wants them to look at as well.

INSKEEP: So 274 may not be the final number.

WHITLOCK: I don't think so, Steve.

This issue was raised on the Senate Armed Services Committee during a November 10th hearing in which the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen Norton Schwartz appeared.

Senator Kelly Ayotte: General Schwartz, on a different topic and I just feel the need to ask -- ask about this. Uhm, I'm deeply troubled by the reports about what happened at the mortuary at the Dover Air Force Base. And I'm sure you would agree with me this is outrageous that remains of our soldiers would be put in a landfill and not treated with the appropriate dignity and honor which they deserve. Can you tell me, uh, where we are with this? And how we're going to ensure that this never happens again? And, most importantly, that those who have participated in this outrage are going to be held accountable?

Gen Norton Schwartz: Senator Ayotte, first of all, let me clarify the allegation about putting remains in a landfill. These were portions, prior to 2008, which were sent away from the Dover mortuary to a funeral home for cremation -- which is an authorized method of dealing with remains, particularly those that are separated from the larger portions of remains returned to the family. After that, the results of the cremation came back to the mortuary were sent to a medical support company for incineration. So you had cremation, then incineration and it was at that point that this medical support organizations placed the residuals from that effort to a landfill. In 19 -- In 2008, the Air Force came to the conclusion that that was not the best way to deal with those remains and so it is now done in a traditional fashion of burial at sea. It has been that way since 2008. It will continue to be that way in the future and let me just conclude by saying the Secretary of the Air Force, Mike Donley [Secretary of the US Air Force] and I take personal responsibility for this. Our obligation is to treat our fallen with reverence and dignity and respect and to provide the best possible support and care for their families. That is our mission. The people who did not fulfill our expectations were disciplined and there's no doubt what our expectations are today.

Senator Kelly Ayotte: Well I -- General Schwartz, I appreciate your updating on that and, uh, when I think about the fact that we have Veterans Day tomorrow, this is so important, obviously, that we treat the remains of our fallen with dignity and respect and I know that you share that concern as well. And please know that members of this Committee will be there to support you in any way to make sure that the families know that we certainly won't allow this to happen again.

and:

Senator Claire McCaskill: I want to specifically, for a minute, General Schwartz, go to the situation at Dover and I don't want to dwell on how hard this has to be for you and the leadership at the Air Force. No one needs to convince me that you want to get this right at Dover. I'll tell you what I do want to bring to your attention and I've did so with a letter today and that is with the finding of the Office of Special Counsel. And so people understand what the Office of Special Counsel is. It's an investigatory and prosecution oriented agency whose primary responsibility under our law is to be independent of all of the agencies and protect whistle blowers. And what I am concerned about is their investigation into what the Air Force did in response to the whistle blowers. And specifically the fact that the IG of the Air Force, they failed to admit wrong doing in their report. And while I understand people have been moved around as a result of the problems that have occured because of mishandling of the sacred remains of the fallen, I'm not sure that they have been held as accountable as what we saw happen at Arlington in connection with that heart breaking incompetence. And what I want to make sure is that there is an independent investigation as to whether or not the IG shaded it a little bit [Chair Carl Levin began nodding his head in vigrous agreement with what McCaskill was saying] because everyone was feeling a little bit protective of the institution for all the right reasons. The vast majority of the people who serve at Dover and who do this work, I'm sure, do it with a heavy heart but with a passion for getting it right. But when we have a circumstance like this arise, I want to make sure the Inspector Generals are not so busy looking after the institution that they fail to point out wrong doing -- which was not ever acknowledged -- and that there is accountability for the people involved. And so, I want you to address the Special Counsel's report as it relates to the Air Force investigation.

Gen Norton Schwartz: Senator McCaskill, there was -- There were -- Clearly were unacceptable mistakes made. Whether they constitute wrong doing is another matter entirely. And when you look at a situation like this, you look at the facts of a case, as an attorney might say. You look at the context in which the event or the mistakes occurred. And you also consider the demands that are -- are placed on individuals and-and organizations. With respect to accountability, we also had an obligation to ensure that the statutory requirements for Due Process were followed. We did that precisely. I can only speak for the case of the uniformed officer. But the uniformed officer received a letter of reprimand. We established an unfavorable information file. We removed him from the command list and his anticipated job as a group commander at Shaw Air Force Base was red-lined. This is not a trivial sanction.

Senator Claire McCaskill: Well I - I understand that's not a trivial sanction but I-I-I'm worried that there was a conclusion that there was not an obligation to notify the families in these instances and obviously this deals with more than uniform personnel and obviously the Secretary of the Air Force is also copied on the letter that I sent today calling for this independent investigation. What happened at Arlington, nobody was intentionally mismarking graves. They were mistakes too. And I just want to make sure that we have really clear eyes while we have full hearts about the right aggressive need for investigations by Inspector Generals in circumstances like this. And thank you very much and thank all of you for being here today.

The issue is still not being addressed, not when the Air Force is announcing today that they don't plan to notify the families of the fallen involved. Still on veterans issues, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee is holding two field hearings next week. What's a Senate field hearing? It's a hearing outside of DC. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee will be holding two this month, both on December 12th, in Quincy, Massachusetts and in Columbus, Ohio. Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and her office notes:

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

United States Senate

112th Congress, First Session

Hearing Schedule

Updated: December 6, 2011

Monday, December 12, 2011 9:15am Quincy, MA

Field Hearing will address concerns over delays in veterans' services related to the claims backlog and the Department of Veterans Affairs' plans to reduce the backlog. The location of the hearing is Quincy City Hall 1305 Hancock Street, Quincy, Massachusetts.

Monday, December 12, 2011 9:30am Columbus, OH

Field Hearing will focus on employment challenges facing veterans. The location of the hearing is the Center For Workforce Development 315 Cleveland Ave, Columbus, OH.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 10:00 a.m. SR-418

POSTPONED to a date yet to be determined. Hearing on the nomination of Margaret Bartley to be Judge of United States Court of Veterans Appeals for Veterans Claims, Coral Wong Pietsch to be Judge of United States Court of Veterans Appeals for Veterans Claims, and Gloria Wilson to be Judge of United States Court of Veterans Appeals for Veterans Claims.

Matthew T. Lawrence

Chief Clerk / System Administrator

Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs

202-224-9126

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Sunset Campaign

2011-12-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

That's the "Sunset Campaign" from May 5, 2008. The primaries were over, Team Obama was insisting.

And he'd be gifted with the nomination shortly, despite the fact that Hillary won it.

And the nation would suffer greatly as a result.

Now here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, December 1, 2011. Chaos and violence continue, the US military calls what's taking place in Iraq "reposturing," Biden tries to put a happy face on the war (despite today's violence), Jalal Talabani leads a cry that politics should take place out of the sight of the Iraqi people, a US Congress member admits publicly they were wrong about the Iraq War and thanks a colleague for being right, the Bradley Manning Support Network and Michael Moore work overtime to get Bradley convicted, and more.

Liz Sly (Washington Post) has covered the Iraq War for many, many years now. She's a strong reporter so I'll leave it to FAIR or someone else to jump on her word choice (who's in charge of the message of the Iraq War?) in her latest report and instead just note my disagreement with her over the military's choice of terms. The US military press office in Iraq sent out a farewell message, she reports, and in it they explain that the military calls what's taking place in Iraq a "reposturing" and not a "withdrawal." She quotes US Col Barry Johsnon explaining, "The reposture is how we refer to moving our troops to other locations outside the country. The decision was made last year to talk about this as reposturing." Sly has had many dealings with the office and she interprets this as a mistake or a 'head-scratcher.' I actually believe the term is far more precise than "withdrawal" and side with the US military press office on this one. The Post's Emily Hell -- apparently trying to be amusing -- bungles her summary of what took place in Sly's report and demonstrates no understanding that other countries are going to be used as a staging platform. We're dropping back to the the November 15th Senate Armed Services Committee hearing [see the November 15th "Iraq snapshot," the November 16th "Iraq snapshot" -- excerpt below from the November 16th snapshot -- and the November 17th "Iraq snapshot" and Ava's "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," Wally's "The costs (Wally)" and Kat's "Who wanted what?" ].

Senator Joe Lieberman: My question, Mr. Secretary, is if you could just develop the statement that you made a little earlier, that we will have 40,000 troops in the region, does that include the 24,000 now in Iraq? Or have we made a decision to increase the number based on the failure to have more troops in Iraq after January of next year, have we made a decision to increase the number of the troops in the region outside of Iraq for some of those what-ifs I just talked about?

Secretary Leon Panetta: No, Senator, that did not include Iraq. What we have now is in Kuwait we have almost 29,000; Saudi Arabi we've got 258; Bahrain over 6,000 -- close to 7,000 --

Senator Joe Lieberman: Right.

Secretary Leon Panetta: UAE about 3,000, Qatar 7,000 if you go through the region and add up all those numbers, that's the 40,000.

Senator Joe Lieberman: So has there been a decision made to increase that number at all because we were unable to reach an agreement about continuing presence of American troops in Iraq? In other words, keeping them in the region?

General Martin Dempsey: Yeah, I wouldn't describe it as cause-and-effect relationship based on what happened in Iraq but rather our continuing concern with a more assertive Iran and, uh --

Senator Joe Lieberman: Right.

General Martin Dempsey: -- we are looking at our central command footprint. You know, Senator, that prior to 2001, we had -- we routinely rotated brigades in and out of Kuwait for training --

Senator Joe Lieberman: Right.

General Martin Dempsey: But also as part of deterrance. And I think, we haven't negotiated this with Kuwait yet, but it would be my view that we should have some sort of rotational presence -- ground, air, and naval.

Senator Joe Lieberman: Some of those would be combat troops?

General Martin Dempsey: Absolutely.

Reading the above, you should grasp why the US military is calling it "reposturing" and not "withdrawal."

Luis Martinez (ABC News) reports on a "commemoration event" today at Camp Victory in which Iraqi officials -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani among them -- joined with US Vice President Joe Biden "to pay tribute to the sacrifices of American and Iraqi soldiers in the eight-year-long war." Biden is on a multi-day visit

which Al Mada reports has been controversial, evoking deep reactions from the Sadr bloc and others. Sadrists are denouncing the visit as illegal, insisting the political blocs have spoken (in the October meeting at Jalal Talabani's home) and that negotiations were long ago ended on the issue of 'trainers.' That's an interesting case for the Sadr bloc to be making when (a) they've been one of the biggest leaks in the Iraqi press that negotiations continue and (b) it's Moqtada al-Sadr who has tried to force the issue in Parliament, demanding a hearing on Iraq and that Nouri answer questions. Though the hearing was promised, it was quickly dropped. An excuse was given that Nouri was in Japan so it couldn't be held. Nouri was back in Iraq and they didn't hold it. He'll now be out of the country for a series of visits (including the US) so apparently the hearing Moqtada demanded and Parliament agreed to will never be held. State of Law notes they were aware of the visit before hand. Al Rafidayn focuses on the remarks Biden and Nouri al-Maliki made following the meeting (for an English language report on that, see Mark Landler's report for the New York Times). Biden's quoted stating that the partnership is strong, that there's a strong securirty relationship and that this will depend upon what the Iraqis want. He is quoted stating that talks [negotiations] will continue about the security arrangements "including training, intelligence and counter-terrorism." These negotiations will take place amongst whom? Biden's quoted stating the Iraq Higher Coordinating Committee is going to be "the center of all these efforts." The High Commission has two chairs: Joe Biden and Nouri al-Maliki. Dar Addustour notes that Biden's visit has been planned for over a month and postponed at least once. Biden is meeting with others on his visit. Dar Addustour notes he and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi discussed "political issues." Al Mada reports on his meeting with President Jalal Talabani The article falls back to the joint-statements Nouri and Joe made after their meeting and quotes Biden stating that talks continue between the US and Iraq about training, intelligence and counter-terrorism. And, yes, for any wondering, Iraqi reports do back up Mark Landler's reporting yesterday. We noted his report in yesterday's snapshot. I addressed it this morning here. Landler's reporting stands up and he deserves applause.

Landler also has a strong report on the Camp Victory ceremony today and his best moment is capturing it as "a day of hopeful statements that tried to cast the war in its most positive light."

US House Rep Dana Rohrabacher: This whole episode in American history is a very disturbing thing to look at. And I think when people look back, they're going to wonder why the hell did we ever go into Iraq? And there will be no question, even in our minds today, whether or not the money that was expended and the lives and the blood that was expended there was worth it? It was not. And whatever we are spending now should be terminated and as soon as we can get those troops out, the better. When you find yourself in a bad situation, you don't try to mess around to make it a little bit less bad, you just step over and try to get in a good situation somewhere else where you can accomplish things.

Yeah, some can speak the truth and not shy from it. Rohrabacher was speaking at a hearing yesterday, one about the State Dept's plan to spend or waste billions training the Iraqi police or supposedly training since DoD contracts set the pattern for a lack of accountability that it has now handed off to State.

"Number one, does the government of Iraq -- whose personnel we intend to train -- support the program?" asked US House Rep Gary Ackerman yesterday. "Interviews with senior Iraqi officials by the Special Inspector General show utter disdain for the program. When the Iraqis suggest that we take our money and do things instead that are good for the United States, I think that might be a clue."

That was Ackerman's important question yesterday afternoon at the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia hearing on Iraq. US House Rep Steve Chabot is the Chair of the Subcommittee, US House Rep Gary Ackerman is the Ranking Member. The first panel was the State Dept's Brooke Darby. The second panel was the Inspector General for the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart W. Bowen and SIGIR's Assistant Inspector General for Iraq Glenn D. Furbish. Chabot had a few comments to make at the start of the hearing. They often echoed comments made in the November 15th Senate Armed Services Committee hearing [see the November 15th "Iraq snapshot," the November 16th "Iraq snapshot" and the November 17th "Iraq snapshot" and other community reporting on the hearing included Ava's "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," Wally's "The costs (Wally)" and Kat's "Who wanted what?" ]. But while Senators Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham made their comments during rounds of questions, Chabot made his as the start of the hearing in his opening remarks.

Chair Steve Chabot: Unfortunately, these negotiations failed due to, in my opinion, mismanagement by this White House. Amazingly, the White House is now trying to tout the breakdown and lack of agreement as a success in as much as it has met a promise President Obama made as a candidate. This blatant politicization calls into question the White House's effort to secure an extension. Fulfilling a campaign promise at the expense of American national security is at best strategic neglect and at worse downright irresponsible. And the White House tacitly admits this in negotiating an extension in the first place. I fear, however, that our objective is no longer to ensure that Iraq is stable but merely to withdraw our forces by the end of this year in order to meet a political time line. Saying that Iraq is secure, stable and self-reliant -- as Deputy National Security Advisor Dennis McDonough recently did -- does not make it so. And to borrow a quote from then-Senator Hillary Clinton , It requires "the willing suspension of disbelief" to believe that withdrawing our forces from Iraq at a time when Iranian agents seek to harm at every turn our country and its allies advances our strategic interests. Although I understand that Iraq is a sovereign country, I believe there is much more we could have done to secure a reasonable troop presence beyond the end of this year.

McCain was wrongly criticized for not grasping Iraq was a sovereign nation in some press accounts. Wrongly. McCain grasped that fact and acknowledged it repeatedly in the hearing. Chabot may have wanted all of that at the start of the hearing to ensure that he was not misunderstood. In addition, Chabot noted the "reports of obstruction and noncooperation on the part of the Department of State during SIGIR's audit. This is extremely distressing and, to echo the sentiments of several of my colleagues in the other body which they recently expressed in a letter to Secretary of State Clinton, the Department of State is legally obliged to cooperate fully with SIGIR in the execution of its mission; jurisdictional games are unacceptable." In his opening remarks, the Ranking Member weighed in on that topic as well.

Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: He [Bowen] has testified before other bodies of Congress, he has released written quarterly reports, as well as specific audits and the message is the same: The program for which the Department of State officially took responsibility on October 1st is nearly a text book case of government procurement -- in this case, foreign assistance -- doesn't buy what we think we're paying for, what we want and why more money will only make the problem worse. Failed procurement is not a problem unique to the State Department. And when it comes to frittering away millions, Foggy Bottom is a rank amateur compared to the Department of Defense. As our colleagues on the Armed Services committees have learned, the best of projects with the most desirable of purposes can go horribly, horribly off-track; and the hardest thing it seems that any bureaucracy can do is pull the plug on a failed initiative. How do we know the Police Development Program is going off-track? Very simple things demonstrate a strong likelihood of waste and mismanagement. Number one, does the government of Iraq -- whose personnel we intend to train -- support the program? Interviews with senior Iraqi officials by the Special Inspector General show utter disdain for the program. When the Iraqis suggest that we take our money and do things instead that are good for the United States, I think that might be a clue.

Ackerman went on to note how "the program's objectives remain a mushy bowl of vague platitudes" and how it had "no comprehensive and detailed plan for execution, there is no current assessment of Iraqi police force capability and, perhaps most tellingly, there are no outcome-based metrics. This is a flashing-red warning light."

Before we go further, let's jump back to Rohrabacher's statements quoted earlier. Some may rush to condemn him for them -- some on the right, some on the left, some on the center, some from the apathetic aisles -- by noting that he supported the Iraq War. True. And he didn't deny that. Later in the hearing, he noted Ranking Member Ackerman's questioning of Brooke Darby with praise and then added, "Mr. Ackerman and I weren't always on good terms. I argued the case for supporting President Bush with his efforts in Iraq with Mr. Ackerman numerous times and I was wrong. Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. This [the Iraq War] has been a waste of our lives and our money." He also stated during another section of the hearing, "I hope that someone's listening because I wasn't listening years ago when I berated Mr. Ackerman." As US House Rep Brian Higgins would point out, that was a significant moment in Congress where few ever admit they got anything wrong.

Brooke Darby was sent before the Committee to spin. I'm not going to waste much time or space on her testimony and I do feel sorry for her that she was farmed out on this assignment. "I can't answer that question," she said when asked anything that hadn't been covered in at least three other hearings or "I'm not prepared to put a time limit on it." (The last one to Gary Ackerman's question of if will take the State Dept 8 years to train the Iraqi police?) I think she did a strong effort trying to sell the plan but I've heard it all the talking points before over and over -- and so had the Subcommittee, as was evident by their reactions -- and there's no point in including too much of it here.

She referenced her conversation recently with Adnan al-Asadi, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Interior. It was apparently a good conversation and he believes trainers and training are both needed. Chair Chalbot asked if he denied the comments? (He is among those dismissive of training in the SIGIR reports that Ranking Member Ackerman referred to.) Darby testified that he didn't.

Another good question would have been, who is al-Asadi's boss?

He's the Deputy Minister at the Ministry of the Interior. Who is his boss? He has none. That is one of the three ministries Nouri al-Maliki was supposed to have named a head of back in November 2010 -- November 2010 -- to move from prime minister-designate to prime minister. Those opposed -- as many members of the Subcommittee were -- funding police training should have probably raised that issue. Grasp that the headless Ministry of the Interior is who State is coordinating the training with, that there is no Minister of the Interior and they want to throw away a billion US tax payer dollars.

From that first panel, we'll note this exchange.

Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: When will they be willing to stand up without us?

Brooke Darby: I wish I could answer that question.

Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: Then why are we spending money if we don't have the answer?

[long pause]

Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: You know, this is turning into what happens after a bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding. It's called "a Jewish goodbye." Everybody keeps saying goodbye but nobody leaves.

Another exchange that also captured the inability of State to answer any questions took place shortly afterwards.

US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Madame Deputy Assistant Secretary, welcome. Is it your testimony here today that the State Dept is fully committed to transparency and accountability with respect to any and all programs it has oversight and responsibility for in Iraq?

Brooke Darby: We take our responsibility for accountability and cooperation with all of the audit entities, with Congress very, very seriously.

US House Rep Gerald Connolly: No, ma'am, that was not my question. Is it your testimony that you're fully committed to transparency and accountability with respect to those responsibilities?

Brooke Darby: We are absolutely committed to accountability.

US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Full accountability? Full transparency and accountability?

Brooke Darby: I'm not sure -- I'm not sure how you define that so . . .

US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Well I guess I'm not sure why you avoid the word. That was my question and you've ducked it three times. Are we or are we not, is the State Dept committed to full transparency and accountability to the tax payers in the United States and the people who served in Iraq or not?

Brooke Darby: We absolutely are accountable to the tax payers, to our Congress and to all of the oversight bodies who are looking into how we are spending our dollars, whether our programs are achieving success. We are absolutely --

US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Alright. I'll sort of take that as a commitment.

Those two exchanges capture State's responses during the first panel (which took up the bulk of the hearing). During the second panel, Bowen would reference the exchange between Connolly and Darby that took place. Excerpt.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: Mr. Bowen, you have indicated you've been in Iraq 33 times?

Stuart Bowen: 31.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: 31. Dating back to?

Stuart Bowen: February 2004.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: February 2004 and your last trip was?

Stuart Bowen: Two weeks ago.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: Okay. The effort starting in 2003 was to commit 8 billion dollars.to train the Iraqi police force, some 450,000 something Iraqis. Since there are no baseline assessments, again, I would ask you as I asked the previous witness, anecdotally what is your sense of the security system, the internal security system with respect to Iraq? Where the holes are? Are there any places, like in Baghdad, for example, Ramadi, that provide a good example of a successful result from this financial effort?

Stuart Bowen: I think there have been examples of success across the country. Anbar Province is much safer than it was six years ago. Uh, Kurdistan, the three northern provinces are largely very well in order.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: But they were pretty calm to begin with?

Stuart Bowen: You're right, there are two Iraqs. There are Kurdistan and the southern 15 [provinces]. But really what you are addressing is the current state of the Iraqi rule of law system as a whole. And that embraces corrections, the judiciary and the police. And I think that there continue to be serious problems on all fronts not just police training. The judiciary -- over 45 judges have been killed in the last 7 years. And I met with Judge Mehat [al-Mahmood] during my trip and another judge had just been killed and he was bemoaning again the lack of weapons guards for his judges' security members. And on the prison front -- we've-we've -- Frankly, we invested a lot of money building prisons and we wasted a lot of money.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: Sadr City. About a five million population center of Baghdad. How does the Iraqi government deal with Sadr City? Just stay out of there altogether?

Stuart Bowen: I think it's a truce of sorts between the Sadrists who control that area and the rest of Baghdad. And I think that is why, frankly, Prime Minister Maliki's senior deputy minister al-Asadi and others are concerned that the primary location for the police development program in Iraq is right on the edge of Sadr City. It's directly next to the Baghdad police college -- another place where we wasted a lot of money -- right across the street from the Ministry of the Interior and adjacent to Sadr City and thus a magnet for indirect fire.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: Clearly there's a lack of oversight and transparency. And that problem is seemingly pervasive and growing or least since we've initiated this back in 2003. Why is it that the State Dept would deliberately make efforts to obstruct, efforts to blame greater oversight and transparency? Why is there that adversarial relationship? It would seem to me that your efforts would be to benefit the effective use, efficient use, of American resources in that region because we all have a strategic interest in seeing that region evolve. Why is it that you suspect that the State Dept is seemingly obstructing those efforts?

Stuart Bowen: Well it was obstructing. I think we heard today that they are supportive -- almost "fully" supportive -- of our oversight at this stage. And it took an obstruction letter though, Mr. Higgins, as you were pointing to, to break that log-jam. Why? You know I can't read into the exact motives but I think to a certain extent it was a -- it was a legalistic argument about jurisdiction.

US House Rep Brian Higgins: Yeah. Okay. I just, a final thought on this, someone once said, I think it was [New York Times columnist Thomas] Tom Friedman, he posed the question: Is Iraq the way it is because Saddam was the way he is or is Saddam is the way he is because Iraq is the way it is? And I just think when you look at this long, expensive effort -- and I don't just mean financial expense, expense in human capitol -- and the surge experience -- again, which was to tamp down the violence, provide a breathing space within which all the political factions in Iraq could reconcile their difference and evolve; it seems that the surge succeeded militarily but politically the situation doesn't seem to evolve. And obviously the policing issue, as I mentioned previously, in Northern Ireland, is fundamental to the success of any power sharing agreement and without meaningful progress over the past 8 years and this renewed effort given this horrible past of wasted money and great expectations and lofty goals but very, very little to show for it , it seems as though a billion dollar expenditure over the next five years moving forward is not a good use of American resources in a region that I think we've done everything that we can do in order to help them achieve their objectives, whatever they are, be they consistent with our objectives or not.

Yesterday we attended a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing took place as well. There's just not going to be room for that this snapshot. It will be covered tomorrow. I thought we'd do far less on the Subcommittee hearing above; however, when talking to people about coverage today, I kept asking if Rohrabacher's statements were covered and was repeatedly told no. I agree with US House Rep Brian Higgins that it took character to do what so often never happens, admit that you got something wrong and give credit to someone who got it right as Rohrabacher did in the hearing to Ranking Member Gary Ackerman.

I think the American people are right to be frustrated with the Congress (and the White House) as polls demonstrate they are and I'm not one to believe in the need for 'happy talk' news meaning I don't think the press "owes" Congress sunny reporting. But I do think Rohrabacher's statements on the Iraq War were significant in themselves. I think they became more significant when he didn't attempt to pretend like that had been his opinion all along but instead stated he was wrong. And I agree with Higgins that you rarely get that in Congress let alone someone saying they were wrong and noting that an opponent on the issue was actually right. That moment demonstrated a maturity that the low results in polling indicate Congress could use a great deal more of.

I've not had time to read any reports on the hearing -- I barely had time to read over my notes from the hearing today -- but a friend at ABC News swears Charley Keys (CNN) had the strongest report on the hearing, click here to see what won praise from someone at a competing network.

Back to Iraq where, as Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) points out, "A car bomb and a separate attack by gunmen in Iraq killed at least 20 people". Reuters notes 2 corpses ("handcuffed, burned and shot") were discovered in Hashimiya, a HIlla roadside bombing claimed 1 life, the corpse of Sheikh Thalaj Zaalan was discovered in Hilla (beheaded) who was kidnapped yesterday, three Taji roadside bombings left seven police officers injured, another Taji roadside bombing targeted the Minster of Environment and left four people injured, 3 home invasions in Buhriz left 8 Sahwa family members dead and five more injured and a Khalis car bombing claimed 10 lives and left twenty-five injured.

That's a lot while Joe's insisting progress. He gets lucky today not because I like him (although I do know and like Joe) but because we don't have the room to go into that. And lack of space in this snapshot is also why we're not doing a rundown of November's violence today. The plan is to do it tomorrow. But please note, I'm saying why. As opposed to all the outlets that run with the low-balled numbers on the last day of the month and the morning of the first day of the month. Did you see those stories? No, you didn't. The press is being very sweet to Joe and staying "on message." Reporting November's violence would dispute his claims that Iraq is so much more peaceful now.

And on that, maybe it's time, since the White House wants to pretend the war is over, to stop comparing violence to the ethnic cleansing of 2006 and 2007?

If things, as Joe Biden insists, are better now then wouldn't the true measure be to compare the violence in Iraq today to the violence in 2002 before the war started? Funny, how they never want to make that argument -- that argument that they know they'd lose.

In Iraqi politics, Al Rafidayn reports Jalal's having a fit elsewhere over what he's calling "politicking" among political parties. He thinks they're taking cases to the media and that this needs to stop.He and his two vice presidents (Shi'ite Khudair Khuzai and Sunni Tareq al-Hashemi) issued a statement decrying political parties using the media for campaigns and insisting that all must get along in a "contructive, brotherly" fashion.

Jalal needs to use better terms. Unless he's trying to drag the KRG down. His own niece helped lead the charge last January against Nouri's refusal to appoint women as Cabinet ministers. So he needs to stop using sexist language. Or does he think women can behave "brotherly"? If it came from Nouri, I wouldn't bat an eye but Nouri's not part of the 'other' Iraq or the 'peaceful' Iraq or 'modern' Iraq or however the media (and the KRG) is attempting to sell the KRG. (Talabani is the president of Iraq. He is also a Kurd and from the KRG.)

Second, yes, Iraqi politicians should air their issues in the media. It's not for the politicians to operate out of the eyes of the public. They need to air these issues and the public needs to decide what best represents Iraq.

Third, Jalal needs to get off his fat ass and figure out if they're going to have a third vice president or not. If you've forgotten, back in July, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the third vice president, resigned due to the ongoing political stalemate, there were three.

This issue hasn't been resolved. It's just been ignored. At one point (end of 2010), there was an uproar over the notion that there would be three vice presidents. Then it went away. And there was no uproar when Khudair Khuzai was named. So apparently, the uproar was not over a third person (as was insisted at the time) but either over the fact that the nominee then was a Turkman woman -- objecting due to her ethnicity or her gender or both.

Al Rafidayn notes that the White List is led by a woman, Zuhair Araji. The White List is a bloc of 13 deputies from Iraqiya that have split off. On Iraqiya, Jalal's website notes he met with Ayad Allawi, head of Iraqiya.

Turning to the US and the topic of Bradley Manning who is finally headed for a military courtroom and an Article 32 hearing on December 16th at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Monday April 5th, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7, 2010, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." Manning has been convicted in the public square despite the fact that he's been convicted in no state and has made no public statements -- despite any claims otherwise, he has made no public statements. Manning has been at Quantico in Virginia, under military lock and key, for months. In March, David S. Cloud (Los Angeles Times) reported that the military has added 22 additional counts to the charges including one that could be seen as "aiding the enemy" which could result in the death penalty if convicted. David E. Coombs is Bradley's attorney and he provided a walk through on Article 104.

The so-called Bradley Manning Support Network is at it again -- "it" being trying to convict Bradley. How stupid are these people? You know Bradley's father is enraged every time this crap happens. The latest post is unsigned. Here's the link because otherwise no one will believe 'helpers' could be so damn stupid. They link to a "Nation magazine" roundtable that Michael Moore (most infamous for saying Mumia was guilty, remember?) participated in and they quote Moore declaring Bradley's responsible for the Occupy Wall Street movement or 'movement':

"If you really want to pin it down to somebody, I would thank Bradley Manning. And here's why. A young man with a fruit stand in Tunis became very upset because he couldn't figure out why he was just getting screwed and why he couldn't make it. And he read a story, put out by WikiLeaks that exposed how corrupt his government was. And he just couldn't take it anymore, and he set himself on fire. That event, by giving his life to this, created the Arab Spring movement that went across the Middle East and then boomeranged back here to what has been going on in the fall here in North America."

You know what? Back in the day, I gave money to and helped with the campaign for Angela Davis. And, pay attention here, we never once went around saying she was guilty. We didn't fight the charges by saying she was guilty.

It's a concept that the Bradley Manning Support Group -- so busy whoring for Occupy Wall Street -- can't grasp. The stupid f**king idiots just quoted today a comment that says Bradley is guilty.

I don't know if the dumb asses are aware of it or not but the prosecution -- that would be the government -- can use these testimonials, can refer to them at trial.

Do they not give a damn about the damage they're doing?

Bradley has not entered a plea at this point. He is innocent until proven guilty. We went over all of this a year ago when we repeatedly had to slap down these idiots over and over because it's not their place to proclaim his guilt.

He may be guilty. At present, like anyone else in the American judicial system, he is presumed guilty and it is up to the government to make a case against him. But how lucky the prosecution is to have the Bradley Manning Support Network make their case for them.

Michael Moore is a stupid, stupid man. His remarks about Mumia should have resulted in no one taking him seriously on the left. (He tried to defend it later as a 'joke.' It's not a joke to be on death row.) He never should have been quoted at the site to begin with. But to quote him convicting Bradley?

The always disappointing Kevin Zeese is with the Bradley Manning Support Network. And all over the net in April he was screaming (click here for Firedoglake) that Barack was wrong to say Bradley was guilty. Barack was wrong. But how the hell do you call Barack wrong for doing the same thing that you were doing and for doing the same thing that you are still doing. Barack made a huge mistake (we've called it out here repeatedly) but at least he only made it once so far.

What is the message to America -- including people serving in the military who may end up jurors in Bradley's trial -- when the Bradley Manning Support Network can't stop convicting the man they claim to support?

Get your act together or close shop. You're not helping him and you need to quit trying to piggy back you pet causes on his back. He's facing serious charges and he needs support. If you can't focus on him, find something else to do and stop lying that you're supporting him.

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abc news
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cnn
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