Phil Donahue talks about his experience as a talk show host on MSNBC during the build up to the invasion of Iraq

Dan Froomkin | WashingtonPost.com

The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability.

In his 2004 report on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.” He called the abuse “systemic and illegal.” And, as Seymour M. Hersh reported in the New Yorker, he was rewarded for his honesty by being forced into retirement.

Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation.

The new report, he writes, “tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual’s lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.

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Andrew Kramer | NewYorkTimes.com 

BAGHDAD — Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production.

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Paul Craig Roberts | GlobalResearch.ca

How to explain the oil price? Why is it so high? Are we running out? Are supplies disrupted, or is the high price a reflection of oil company greed or OPEC greed. Are Chavez and the Saudis conspiring against us?

In my opinion, the two biggest factors in oil’s high price are the weakness in the US dollar’s exchange value and the liquidity that the Federal Reserve is pumping out.

The dollar is weak because of large trade and budget deficits, the closing of which is beyond American political will. As abuse wears out the US dollar’s reserve currency role, sellers demand more dollars as a hedge against its declining exchange value and ultimate loss of reserve currency status.

In an effort to forestall a serious recession and further crises in derivative instruments, the Federal Reserve is pouring out liquidity that is financing speculation in oil futures contracts. Hedge funds and investment banks are restoring their impaired capital structures with profits made by speculating in highly leveraged oil future contracts, just as real estate speculators flipping contracts pushed up home prices. The oil futures bubble, too, will pop, hopefully before new derivatives are created on the basis of high oil prices.
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LEILA FADEL | Houston Chronicle

BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers say the U.S. is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed “status of forces” agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely.

Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews that the Iraqi government rejected this proposal, along with another U.S. demand that would effectively hand over the power to determine whether a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the U.S. and Iran.

“The points that were put forth by the Americans were more abominable than the occupation,” said Jalal al Din al-Saghir, a leading lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. “We were occupied by order of the Security Council,” he said, referring to the 2004 resolution mandating a U.S. military occupation in Iraq at the head of an international coalition. “But now we are being asked to sign for our own occupation. That is why we have absolutely refused all that we have seen so far,” he said.

Other conditions sought by the U.S. include control over Iraqi airspace up to 30,000 feet and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private military contractors. The agreement would run indefinitely but be subject to cancellation upon two years of notice from either side, lawmakers said.

“It would impair Iraqi sovereignty,” said Ali al-Adeeb, a leading member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party. “The Americans insist so far that it is they who define what is an aggression on Iraq and what is democracy inside Iraq … if we come under aggression we should define it, and we ask for help,” al-Adeeb said.

Both al-Saghir and al-Adeeb said the Iraqi government rejected the terms as unacceptable.

They said the government wants an American presence and a U.S. security guarantee but wants to control security within the country, stop indefinite detentions of Iraqis by U.S. forces and have a say in U.S. forces’ conduct in Iraq.

At present, the U.S. operates out of about 30 major bases, not including smaller facilities such as combat outposts, according to a U.S. military map.
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BBC 

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC’s Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

War profiteering

While George Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

The President’s Democrat opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said: “The money that’s gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, its egregious.

“It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history.”
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at 911blogger.com
Ever wonder what our sons and daughters in the military think?
I’ve never seen any major media interviews with our troops. This is a must see video. How’s it related to 9/11? Watch it and find out. Also while you’re at it pass it on.

The Financier Has Been Indicted For His Alleged Role in a Scandal Costing US Taxpayers $1.7 billion

GRETCHEN PETERS | ABCNews.com

The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.

The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to informal money transfer networks called hawala, known to be used by traders and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.

Interestingly, Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush’s first business venture, Arbusto Energy.
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Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors

Patrick Cockburn | TheIndependent.co.uk

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.
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L.A.Times.com WASHINGTON — In a long-delayed report, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday rebuked President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for making prewar claims — particularly that Iraq had close ties to Al Qaeda — that were not supported by available intelligence.The report, which was opposed by most Republicans on the panel, says the president and other members of his administration repeatedly exaggerated evidence of an Al Qaeda connection to take advantage of the charged climate after Sept. 11. It is the most pointed reproach to date of the Bush administration’s use of intelligence to build the case for the Iraq war. But the document stops short of calling for any follow-up investigation or sanction.”In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when, in reality, it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent,” said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the intelligence panel. “Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.” Read the rest of this entry »

Pain compliance device used to disperse crowd as military-industrial complex tools up to deal with dissenters

Paul Joseph Watson | PrisonPlanet.com 

The Pentagon proudly displayed what it has in store for anti-war protesters last night during a CBS 60 minutes feature which depicted the use of the army’s “Active Denial System” against peace demonstrators at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.

The Active Denial System is a giant raygun that directs a sizzling hot beam at its target, causing instant pain and forcing the subject(s) to disperse.

Similar to the Taser, the machine acts as a form of pain compliance or torture. It was designed in secret for 10 years before being unveiled in 2001.

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(This is an excerpt from the film: Why We Fight.)

9/11 Truth: How Think Tanks Took Control of U.S. Government

Former White House Aide’s Revelations Make Out Case for Obstruction of Justice by Rove and Libby in Valerie Plame Case

Demand accountability, email your reps today:
House Reps

Senators
Wexler.House.gov
(Washington, DC) Today Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) called for former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan to appear before the House Judiciary Committee to testify under oath regarding the devastating revelations made in his new book on the Bush Administration’s deliberate efforts to mislead the American people into the Iraq War.

“The admissions made by Scott McClellan in his new book are earth-shattering and allege facts to establish that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby – and possibly Vice President Cheney - conspired to obstruct justice by lying about their role in the Plame Wilson matter and that the Bush Administration deliberately lied to the American people in order to take us to war in Iraq. Scott McClellan must now appear before the House Judiciary Committee under oath to tell Congress and the American people how President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and White House officials deliberately orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people.”
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International Herald Tribune.com

A Pentagon audit of $8.2 billion in American taxpayer money spent by the U.S. Army on contractors in Iraq has found that almost none of the payments followed federal rules and that in some cases, contracts worth millions of dollars were paid despite little or no record of what, if anything, was received.

The audit also found a sometimes stunning lack of accountability in the way the U.S. military spent about $1.8 billion in seized or frozen Iraqi assets, which in the early phases of the conflict were often doled out in stacks or pallets of cash. The audit was released Thursday in tandem with a congressional hearing on the payments.

In one case, according to documents displayed by Pentagon auditors at the hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a cash payment of $320.8 million in Iraqi money was authorized on the basis of a single signature and the words “Iraqi Salary Payment” on an invoice. In another case, $11.1 million was paid to IAP, an American contractor, on the basis of a voucher with no indication of what was delivered.

Mary Ugone, the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general for auditing, told the committee that the absence of anything beyond a voucher meant that “we were giving or providing a payment without any basis for the payment.”
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Shocking excerpts of confidential recordings recently released under the Freedom of Information Act feature former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talking with top military analysts about how a flagging Neo-Con political agenda could be successfully restored with the aid of another terrorist attack on America.

The tape also includes a conversation where Rumsfeld and the military analysts agree on the possible necessity of installing a brutal dictator in Iraq to oversee U.S. interests.

The tapes were released as part of the investigation into the Pentagon’s “message force multipliers” program in which top military analysts were hired to propagandize for the Iraq war in the corporate media.

In attendance at the valedictory luncheon Rumsfeld hosted on December 12, 2006 were David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, and Robert H. Scales, Jr. among others.

The most extraordinary exchange takes place when Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans shrinking political support for Neo-Con war plans on Capitol Hill and suggests that sympathy for the Bush administration’s agenda will only be achieved after a new terror attack.

Rumsfeld agrees that the psychological impact of 9/11 is wearing off and the “behavior pattern” of citizens in both the U.S. and Europe suggests that they are unconcerned about the threat of terror.

DELONG: Politically, what are the challenges because you’re not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there until it [a terror attack] happens.

RUMSFELD: That’s what I was just going to say. This President’s pretty much a victim of success. We haven’t had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it’s not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing’s in Europe, there’s a low threat perception.The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it’s a shame we don’t have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats…the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you’d think we’d be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less…the less…

Click here for the audio clip.

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WeAreChange.org
He can’t help himself. Because he is a pathological liar. He lied about weapons of mass destruction, so why not lie about golf? Kudos to Keith Olbermann, who dug up the video at the left. On May 13, Politico reported:

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families: He has given up golf.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.

MediaMatters.org

Summary: A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that “the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform” media military analysts “into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.” A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article — many identified as having ties to the defense industry — collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR.

On April 20, The New York Times published an article by investigative reporter David Barstow that detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries. Barstow reported that “the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform” media military analysts, many of whom have clients or work for companies with an interest in obtaining Pentagon contracts, “into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.” A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in Barstow’s article — many identified as having ties to the defense industry — collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR in segments covering the Iraq war both before and after the invasion, as well as numerous other national security or government policy issues.

A spreadsheet listing each of the analysts’ appearances documented by Media Matters is available here.

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GeorgeWashington’sBlog

Key war on terror architect Douglas Feith has now confirmed Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Wesley Clark in admitting that the so-called War on Terror is a hoax.

In fact, starting right after 9/11 — at the latest — the goal has always been to create “regime change” and instability in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon so as to protect Israel. And the goal was never really to destroy Al Qaeda.

As reported in a new article in Asia Times:

Three weeks after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then-under secretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith’s recently published account of the Iraq war decisions. Feith’s account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country’s top military leaders.

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John Stauber | Center For Media and Democracy   

This Sunday’s stunning, front-page New York Times revelations of the Pentagon military analyst program have been met with a wall of silence and cover-up on network television news. America’s TV networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN and FOX — are where most Americans get most of their news, and they are the main culprits in allowing Donald Rumsfeld and Torie Clark to turn them into the primary propaganda tool for selling the Iraq war to the public.PBS NewsHour covered this issue in a televised debate April 24 pitting me against Robert Zelnick, former ABC Pentagon correspondent and now chair of the Boston University journalism department. (Zelnick is also affiliated with the Hoover Institute, a conservative think tank.) No one from the Pentagon would agree to appear on the PBS show, nor would anyone appear from any of the guilty TV networks. Read the rest of this entry »

The number of United States military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion five years ago has passed the 4,000 mark.

The latest to die were four soldiers whose patrol vehicle was blown up by a bomb in southern Baghdad on Sunday.
President George W Bush offered his “deepest sympathies” to the families of US military personnel killed in Iraq.
Separately, the bodies of two US security contractors kidnapped in Iraq more than a year ago have been found.
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