The UN, US and Iraq IV

A possible negotiated peace deal was laid out in a heavily guarded compound in Baghdad in the days before the war, but a top former Pentagon adviser says he was ordered not to pursue the deal, ABCNEWS has learned.

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A week later, according to Hage, he and an associate were asked to come to Baghdad, when Hage says he met with Saddam Hussein's chief of intelligence, Gen. Tahir Habbush, later labeled the Jack of Diamonds in the deck of cards depicting the most-wanted members of Saddam Hussein's regime. Habbush is still at large.

"He was conveying a message," said Hage. "He was conveying an offer." Hage said Habbush laid out terms of a negotiated peace during a four-hour session beginning at midnight at a compound in Baghdad.

Hage said Habbush repeated public denials by the regime that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction but offered to allow several thousand U.S. agents or scientists free rein in the country to carry out inspections. "Based on my meeting with his man," said Hage, "I think an effort was there to avert war. They were prepared to meet with high-ranking U.S. officials."

Hage said Habbush also offered U.N.-supervised free elections, oil concessions to U.S. companies and was prepared to turn over a top al Qaeda terrorist, Abdul Rahman Yasin, who Haboush said had been in Iraqi custody since 1994.

(Yasin is one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, indicted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Hage says Habbush claimed the United States had refused earlier offers to turn him over. Yasin remains at large and is now thought to be one of the people behind the recent wave of attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq.)

Throughout the period of the negotiations claimed by Hage, the Bush administration publicly maintained it would not conduct negotiations with Baghdad to avoid a war that did not first involve the unconditional departure of Saddam Hussein from Iraq or his surrender.

But Richard Perle, then chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Board, said in the weeks leading up to war he told the CIA, but they refused the plan to meet with Iraqi officials to discuss a possible peace deal along the lines of the plan outlined by Hage to ABCNEWS.

"Although I was not enthusiastic about the offer, I was willing to meet with the Iraqis," Perle told ABCNEWS. "The United States government told me not to." Perle would not disclose which official or arm of the government rejected the talks.

According to Pentagon e-mails obtained by ABCNEWS, Hage's report of the Iraqi offer was forwarded to Defense Department officials on Feb. 20, including Jaymie Durnan, who at the time was the top aide to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. However, Pentagon officials said Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were not aware of the talks.

November 5, 2003

Death by Optimism

If defeat is an orphan, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, for which the Senate appropriated $87 billion by a voice vote on Monday, should already go down in the loss column.

By rejecting the normal option of a recorded vote, America's senators decided that they did not want to be held individually accountable for our continuing presence in Iraq. That decision speaks far louder than their decision to actually fund our forces there and the Iraqi reconstruction.

I cite these events because I think they underline two very disturbing phenomena -- the loss of U.S. international credibility, the growing U.S. international isolation.

Both together can be summed up in a troubling paradox regarding the American position and role in the world today. American power worldwide is at its historic zenith. American global political standing is at its nadir. Why? What is the cause of this? These are facts. They're measurable facts. They're also felt facts when one talks to one's friends abroad who like America, who value what we treasure but do not understand our policies, are troubled by our actions and are perplexed by what they perceive to be either demagogy or mendacity.

Government ministers, including Tony Blair, could potentially face international prosecution for war crimes over the conduct of the war in Iraq, the organiser of a legal debate into the conflict, said today.

International law experts will be picking over the government's legal case for going to war in Iraq and the way the occupation is being conducted at an all-day public debate on Saturday.

A panel of eight leading lawyers from the UK, Canada, France and Ireland will debate the question: "Was it legal to go to war?" and are expected to cover topics such as the use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium, the targeting of civilian buildings and the military occupation. The debate at the London School of Economics is open to the public.

Dr Andrew Williams, of Warwick University's law department, who is organising the event, said: "We don't know if war crimes have been committed or if global laws have been violated but there are troublesome aspects that deserve examination and inquiry."

Halliburton Contract Extension Cancelled Amid Allegations of Overcharging TaxpayersThe Army Corps of Engineers is "likely" to cancel the no-bid contract extension granted a week ago to Halliburton for delivery of oil-related services amid allegations that Halliburton is overcharging the federal government to import oil into Iraq. The decision to revisit the contract extension comes in part due to the assertions from inside the Pentagon that Halliburton's price for imported gasoline was "at least double what it should be."1

Jeffrey Jones, the Director of the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), told minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee that it costs the DESC $1.08 to $1.19 to buy and import fuel via truck into Iraq - a price that's less than half the $2.65 Halliburton is charging the US government.2 ....
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df11062003.html

For those who haven't yet seen this, an excerpt:

Quote:

Halliburton Contract Extension Cancelled Amid Allegations of Overcharging TaxpayersThe Army Corps of Engineers is "likely" to cancel the no-bid contract extension granted a week ago to Halliburton for delivery of oil-related services amid allegations that Halliburton is overcharging the federal government to import oil into Iraq. The decision to revisit the contract extension comes in part due to the assertions from inside the Pentagon that Halliburton's price for imported gasoline was "at least double what it should be."1

Jeffrey Jones, the Director of the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), told minority staff of the House Government Reform Committee that it costs the DESC $1.08 to $1.19 to buy and import fuel via truck into Iraq - a price that's less than half the $2.65 Halliburton is charging the US government.2 ....
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df11062003.html