THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

It's called Legal (advice) privilege in English (and, I think, Scottish as well) law.

Does this not apply to the Prime Minister? It does apply to the U.S. President. A statement of "on advice of attorney" can be blown off as 'convenient for the speaker' but I don't think it can be legally challenged.

Well, the Lord Goldsmith gave this device in his function as a cabinet member and not as Blair's lawyer

So if that is known, it must be known what Lord Goldsmith's opinion was. So what would be the problem? For that matter, we don't expect the president or his cabinet to divulge all of their private conversations either.

See some of the previous press releases here

Oh lordy, Walter, I've read the press releases from both sides of the pond ad nauseum. The anti-war writers cite questions of illegality and impropriety and malfeasance. The pro-war writers don't. It's as simple as that. (Remember, I don't trust a lot of what I read in the newspapers any more.)

Addendum to previous post: I acknowledge that some writers are only citing what enemies of heads of state are saying. That's why I asked the previous questions. Will Blair be guilty of illegality, impropriety, or malfeasance if he doesn't reveal private conversations that brought him to a particular decision? Or is this just a smoke screen for his enemies to damage him?

Well, today 32 Labour MPs voted against Tony, and within the Labor Party the opposition is even greater.

I really don't think these are his enemies, who want to damage him - they only think, he wasn't right to act as he did.

Transcript from the mentioned Press Conference:

Well going on nothing other than gut instinct in what was happening in that exchange, I'm going to take Blair's side. He answered the question.

Source

So what does that mean in your opinion, Walter?

I'm not sure, but I do have an unpleasant feeling.

February 25, 2005, 7:46 a.m.
Merchants of Despairwill quietly come to a consensus that what we are witnessing from Afghanistan and the West Bank to Iraq and beyond, with its growing tremors in Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, and the Gulf, is a moral awakening, a radical break with an ugly past that threatens a corrupt, entrenched, and autocratic elite

This is a bit off the subject but is food for thought and discussion among lovers of democracy and freedom.

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February 25, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Thrown to the Wolves
By BOB HERBERT

OTTAWA

If John Ashcroft was right, then I was staring into the malevolent, duplicitous eyes of pure evil, the eyes of a man with the mass murder of Americans on his mind. But all I could really see was a polite, unassuming, neatly dressed guy who looked like a suburban Little League coach.

If Mr. Ashcroft was right, then Maher Arar should have been in a U.S. prison, not talking to me in an office in downtown Ottawa. But there he was, a 34-year-old man who now wears a perpetually sad expression, talking about his recent experiences - a real-life story with the hideous aura of a hallucination. Mr. Arar's 3-year-old son, Houd, loudly crunched potato chips while his father was being interviewed.

"I still have nightmares about being in Syria, being beaten, being in jail," said Mr. Arar. "They feel very real. When I wake up, I feel very relieved to find myself in my room."

In the fall of 2002 Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, suddenly found himself caught up in the cruel mockery of justice that the Bush administration has substituted for the rule of law in the post-Sept. 11 world. While attempting to change planes at Kennedy Airport on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities, interrogated and thrown into jail. He was not charged with anything, and he never would be charged with anything, but his life would be ruined.

Mr. Arar was surreptitiously flown out of the United States to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he was kept like a nocturnal animal in an unlit, underground, rat-infested cell that was the size of a grave. From time to time he was tortured.

He wept. He begged not to be beaten anymore. He signed whatever confessions he was told to sign. He prayed.

Among the worst moments, he said, were the times he could hear babies crying in a nearby cell where women were imprisoned. He recalled hearing one woman pleading with a guard for several days for milk for her child.

He could hear other prisoners screaming as they were tortured.

"I used to ask God to help them," he said.

The Justice Department has alleged, without disclosing any evidence whatsoever, that Mr. Arar is a member of, or somehow linked to, Al Qaeda. If that's so, how can the administration possibly allow him to roam free? The Syrians, who tortured him, have concluded that Mr. Arar is not linked in any way to terrorism.

And the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a sometimes-clownish outfit that seems to have helped set this entire fiasco in motion by forwarding bad information to American authorities, is being criticized heavily in Canada for failing to follow its own rules on the handling and dissemination of raw classified information.

Official documents in Canada suggest that Mr. Arar was never the target of a terror investigation there. One former Canadian official, commenting on the Arar case, was quoted in a local newspaper as saying "accidents will happen" in the war on terror.

Whatever may have happened in Canada, nothing can excuse the behavior of the United States in this episode. Mr. Arar was deliberately dispatched by U.S. officials to Syria, a country that - as they knew - practices torture. And if Canadian officials hadn't intervened, he most likely would not have been heard from again.

Mr. Arar is the most visible victim of the reprehensible U.S. policy known as extraordinary rendition, in which individuals are abducted by American authorities and transferred, without any legal rights whatever, to a regime skilled in the art of torture. The fact that some of the people swallowed up by this policy may in fact have been hard-core terrorists does not make it any less repugnant.

Mr. Arar, who is married and also has an 8-year-old daughter, said the pain from some of the beatings he endured lasted for six months.

"It was so scary," he said. "After a while I became like an animal."

A lawsuit on Mr. Arar's behalf has been filed against the United States by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer with the center, noted yesterday that the government is arguing that none of Mr. Arar's claims can even be adjudicated because they "would involve the revelation of state secrets."

This is a government that feels it is answerable to no one.

YES, WE'RE A FLAWED PEOPLE, BUT .............

These are the facts of Iraq:

1. The Iraqi people risked their lives to establish a democracy of their own design;

2. The Iraqi people want the US to help end Iraqi dependence on US troops for securing Iraqi democracy;

3. The US is eager for the Iraqi government to ask the US to remove its troops from Iraq;

4. When the Iraqi government tells the US to remove its troops from Iraq, the US will remove its troops from Iraq.

The Iraqi people will establish a democratic government that:

1. Is the Iraqis' own design;

2. Doesn't murder civilians in Iraq;

3. Prevents murderers of civilians in other countries from locating in Iraq.

Operation River Blitz continues with help from Iraqi citizens

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, Iraq

Iraqi and U.S. forces continued increased security operations by raiding a mosque, detaining 17 suspected insurgents and seizing several weapons caches throughout the Al Anbar province as Operation River Blitz rolled on for a fifth day.

Those detained Feb. 24 bring to 104 the number of suspected insurgents detained since Operation River Blitz began Sunday.

In Haqlaniyah, Iraqi soldiers from the Freedom Guard Battalion, Iraqi National Guard, and U.S. Marines from Regimental Combat Team-7, 1st Marine Division, conducted a joint raid on a mosque that produced six detainees and insurgent propaganda at approximately 12:30 p.m. The Freedom Guards cleared the mosque as U.S. Marines provided security outside.

North of Ar Ramadi, a local civilian directed a U.S. Marine combat patrol to an improvised-explosive device, which consisted of four 105 mm artillery rounds that were daisy-chained together in a brown bag hidden underneath a pile of leaves at approximately 10:00 a.m.

At approximately 11:15 a.m. in the central portion of the city, insurgents shot an Iraqi citizen in the abdomen when they fired a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire at U.S. Marines. The Marines provided medical treatment to the injured civilian after immediately returning fire at the insurgents, who fled the area.

In southern Fallujah, an Iraqi civilian guided a U.S. Marine patrol to a weapons cache, which consisted of one 82 mm mortar round, seven 57 mm rounds, three 23 mm rounds and one 30 mm round at approximately 1 p.m. Earlier in the day, another Iraqi civilian guided another U.S. Marine patrol to a weapons cache in the southeastern portion of the city that consisted of one missile warhead, 100 pounds of TNT and one 120 mm mortar round.

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/news_release.asp?NewsRelease=20050217.txt

JW, It will require the involvement of Iraqi's to get their control under security for their own citizens. That's the only way it will work, because any other way will be seen as an occupation by all Arabs/Muslims.

c.i. - Yes, it's encouraging to read reports such as this, isn't it?

NO, actually it's not. You see I'm a liberal and there just seems to something in me that desires chaos, mayhem and rioting in the streets, so you see I'm very disappointed when I see things going well anywhere. It's to the point where I won't even read anything with a postive slant, it just ruins the day for me. Well, here's wishing and hoping that every damn arab dies a violent death, the children starve the women are stoned to death and all the young men and women engage in homosexual marriage eliminating the possibility of further progeny. I can't help myself I'm sure it's genetic.