US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

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And I certainly don't recognise what he says about the de-professionalisation of the US Army.

"But sometimes good articles do make you angry. We should publish articles like this. We are in a war and we must always be thinking of how we can improve the way we operate.

McTag wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Anonymouse wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

(3) I think that private foreign as well as private domestic companies should be required to competitively bid for inividual segments of the Iraq oil business;

Required? By what? Executive fiat?
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I hope this restatement will make it clearer to you what I actually think:

I think that private foreign as well as private domestic companies, who desire to invest in and participate in Iraq oil production and distribution , should be required to competitively bid for inividual segments of the Iraq oil business, in order to obtain one or more such segments they want.

So I suppose you would have no objection to foreign companies coming into the USA, slicing it up and competing among themselves for the rights to exploit it- oil, lumber, fisheries, seed bank, antiquities? For their own gain? American companies could bid too, of course.

No objection whatsoever!
This has in fact been going on in the USA for the last two centuries. Foreign companies and domestic companies have regularly competed to buy American businesses and patents. Sometimes a foreign company is high bidder and sometimes not.

Big Deal! For example: Who owns Chrysler now?

Oh dear. You don't have to prove to me how detached from reality you are.

McTag wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Anonymouse wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

(3) I think that private foreign as well as private domestic companies should be required to competitively bid for inividual segments of the Iraq oil business;

Required? By what? Executive fiat?
...

I hope this restatement will make it clearer to you what I actually think:

I think that private foreign as well as private domestic companies, who desire to invest in and participate in Iraq oil production and distribution , should be required to competitively bid for inividual segments of the Iraq oil business, in order to obtain one or more such segments they want.

So I suppose you would have no objection to foreign companies coming into the USA, slicing it up and competing among themselves for the rights to exploit it- oil, lumber, fisheries, seed bank, antiquities? For their own gain? American companies could bid too, of course.

No objection whatsoever!
This has in fact been going on in the USA for the last two centuries. Foreign companies and domestic companies have regularly competed to buy American businesses and patents. Sometimes a foreign company is high bidder and sometimes not.

Big Deal! For example: Who owns Chrysler now?

I'm curious...since all the official justifications for the Iraq war have been proven to be lies, how do the supporters of this war and Bush feel after having been duped?

Public Law 107-243 107th Congress Joint Resolution Oct. 16, 2002 (H.J. Res. 114)
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq
(1) Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;

(2) Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

(3) Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

(4) Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

(5) Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';

(6) Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;

(7) Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;

(8) Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;

(9) Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;

(10) Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

(11) Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;[/b]

(12) Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

(13) Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;

(14) Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);

(15) Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677;

(16) Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';

(17) Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;

(18) Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable';

(19)Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;

(20) Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

(21) Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;

(22) Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and,

(23) Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region:

Now therefore be it, Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. 50 USC 1541 note.

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Is that why the China National Offshore Oil Corporation's bid for Unocal was greeted with protectionism?

I'm curious...since all the official justifications for the Iraq war have been proven to be lies, how do the supporters of this war and Bush feel after having been duped?

'U.S. Torture Camps' in Europe: 'The Proof!'

'Now there is evidence: the Americans are running secret torture prisons in Europe.' That much emerges from a fax sent by the Egyptian Ambassador in London to his Foreign Minister in Cairo. According to this article from Switzerland's Sonntags Blick, the newspaper has a copy of the fax, which was intercepted by Swiss intelligence.


By Sandro Brotz and Beat Jost

Translated By Carl Bergquist

January 10, 2005

THE SURVEILLANCE MISSION: How Swiss agents netted the Egyptian fax out of the air waves.

It is the middle of the night when the first ounce of light is shed on a dark tale, nearly one thirty in the morning on November 15, 2005. The electronic surveillance command of the Swiss Defense Ministry (VBS), located in Zimmerwald, a mile south of the capital Bern, is eavesdropping as usual, and naturally, strictly according to procedure. This night, like all others, the satellite-based intercept system Onyx is listening with a million ears. The intelligence officer with the codename "wbm" is polishing up "Report COMINT SAT" file number S160018TER00000115.

Does "wbm" know just how explosive this communication - which he is translating into French for his superior in the Army's electronic warfare department - really is?

It was intercepted from outer space, secretly transmitted from a satellite down to earth five days earlier on the 10th of November at 8:24 pm. It is a fax exchanged between Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and his ambassador in London. The Swiss agent uses the following headline for the communication: "The Egyptians have sources who confirm the existence of secret American prisons." According to the Swiss intelligence report, the fax stated: "The embassy has via its own sources ascertained that 23 Iraqi and Afghani nationals have indeed been interrogated at the Mihail Kogalniceanu base near Constanţa, Romania, just by the Black Sea. There are similar interrogation facilities in Ukraine, Kosovo, in Macedonia and in Bulgaria." Furthermore, the fax says that the NGO Human Rights Watch, according to a newspaper article, has evidence that "on the 21st and the 22nd of September 2005, prisoners were transported in U.S. military planes from the Salt Pit base in Kabul, Afghanistan to both the aforementioned Romanian base and the Szymany base in Poland." The Egyptians also pointedly note: "Despite these facts, the Romanian authorities deny the existence of secret prisons where American intelligence agents interrogate al-Qaeda members. These denials by the Romanians have been accepted by the spokespersons of the European Union."

A SENSATION: For the first time a country confirms that it has knowledge regarding the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe

The political explosiveness of the Egyptian Foreign Minister's fax is hard to top, proving a country is actually aware of secret CIA prisons on European soil. Here, the basis is not a public source like the media or reports by organizations like Human Rights Watch. Instead, the fax refers to [Egypt's] "own sources." The work of the Egyptian intelligence services is, according to experts, who themselves wish to remain anonymous, considered "highly professional." In spy circles, intelligence information out of Cairo is generally seen as "totally reliable and trustworthy." The Egyptian ambassador to Bern declined to answer SonntagsBlick's queries about the fax transmission. The editors did not comply with his request to hand over the document. Further questioning about whether he disputed the authenticity of the fax was met with silence.

Thus, what the whole world has so far only assumed can now be confirmed, thanks to the Egyptian sources. That is: that the U.S. systematically abducts, hides and interrogates its prisoners in the War on Terror. "We have not used airports or airspace for the purpose of transferring people or detainees to places where we believe that they are going to be tortured," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Brussels in early December. But what she did not say is: that there are no prisons or transports.

THE SILENT ONE: Armed Forces Chief Christophe Keckeis needs 48 hours to react

There is now also an overwhelming need for an explanation from the Federal Palace [which houses both the Swiss Parliament and the Federal Executive Council]. SonntagsBlick confronted the top brass last Wednesday with questions about its eavesdropping. How did Army Intelligence wind up spying on a friendly state? Were Defense Minister Samuel Schmid (age 59), Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey (age 60) and Justice Minister Christoph Blocher (age 65) informed about the significant content of the communication? Did someone inform the GPDel, the supervisory body responsible for intelligence? Was the document shared with American intelligence or with other countries, as is normally the case with Onyx intercepts?

48 hours elapsed before the head of the Armed Forces Christophe Keckeis reacted. SonntagsBlick's questions will not be answered, Corps Commander Keckeis stated categorically on Friday. The GPdel supervisory authority was, however, fully informed. Its chairman Hans Hofmann stated on Friday that he had no knowledge of this political tinderbox. Nevertheless, Hofmann spontaneously referred to the revelations as "unparalleled indiscretions."

A deafening silence is also coming from the independent control body UKI. Its three members - all high-ranking civil servants from the Defense, Justice and Transport Ministries - are obliged by the electronic warfare law to oversee all intercepted assignments. If the legality is in doubt, UKI can ask the relevant intelligence service at either the Defense or Justice and Police Ministry to freeze the surveillance. Was the Egypt assignment approved, and was it perhaps even requested? UKI Chairman, Professor Luzius Mader of the Justice Ministry did not really wish to answer any questions, "all public information regarding the activities of UKI is the responsibility of the Defense Ministry." But there as well, it is "no comment." Jean-Blaise Defago, spokesman for Defense Minister Schmid, relayed that "the Ministry has nothing to say regarding this issue."

THE CONSEQUENCES: Defense Minister Samuel Schmid opens an administrative investigation

Commotion, nervousness and silence: the furor in Bern is understandable. At most, three or four people read the intercepts in their raw, original form. Important communications are then classified, with the sources blotted out and veiled.

"It's a disaster that the dealings regarding the Egyptian fax have become public knowledge," said one high-ranking intelligence insider. "I would have gone to Schmid straight-away since as Defense Minister, he is chair of the Federal Council's security committee."

The question of if and when Schmid told his two Federal Council colleagues on the security committee is being treated as a State secret. The Defense Ministry is mum, Calmy-Rey's Foreign Ministry is saying nothing and the Justice Ministry under Christophe Blocker is stonewalling. Sascha Hardegger, spokesperson for the Justice Minstry said "we are not taking a position on this."

The only thing for certain, according to Defago at the Defense Ministry, is that Minister Schmid has opened an administrative investigation into how the classified document could come into public spotlight.

THE INVESTIGATOR: What are international experts saying about the revelations?

Is a newspaper allowed to publish classified files on possible secret CIA prisons? In response to this question, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Viennese law professor, Manfred Nowak (age 55) said "Of course. Absolutely. It is in the public interest."

"This is quite a scoop" proclaimed Dick Marty (age 61), who is a Swiss Senator and the Council of Europe's special rapporteur on the CIA prison affair. With the caveat that it's not possible for him to certify the authenticity of the document, he still doesn't mince words: "This is more evidence of something we already suspected". The truth is now "coming out bit by bit."

Marty, formerly also a thorn in the Mafia's side and who has been investigating the CIA affair from two months, challenges the government to "finally tell the truth on this matter."

Some might find this site helpful and informative: an Iraq casualties map that generates all casualties back to start of the war. (Sorts casualties by country's military or by location in Iraq.)

German spies deny guiding U.S. bomb raids in Iraq

Source: Reuters

(Adds political reaction paras 2-4, edits)

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent

BERLIN, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Germany's foreign intelligence agency denied on Thursday reports its spies in Baghdad had helped U.S. warplanes select bombing targets during the invasion of Iraq, which the Berlin government had strongly opposed.

Opposition politicians seized on the report as evidence the then government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had secretly backed the U.S.-led war while making political capital from condemning it in public.

Some demanded an investigation of the security services' role, both in Iraq and in the wider U.S.-led war on terrorism.

"If the reports are confirmed, the previous government can no longer state that it didn't take part in the Iraq war," said Juergen Koppelin, a liberal Free Democrat member of parliament.

German agents in Baghdad at the start of the Iraq war "gave us direct support. They gave us information for targeting," NDR television quoted a former U.S. military official as saying.

He said that on April 7, 2003 -- 18 days after the U.S. bombing began -- the Americans had received a report that a convoy of Mercedes cars, one of them possibly carrying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, had been sighted in a Baghdad suburb.

The ex-Pentagon official said the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency asked the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign spy service, to send one of its Baghdad agents to the suburb of Mansur to check the tip.

After he confirmed the presence of the convoy, the report said, a U.S. plane dropped four bombs on the target area, killing at least 12 civilians, according to the report.

A BND spokesman confirmed the presence of two German intelligence agents in Iraq before and during the U.S.-led invasion. But he said the report, also published in the newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, was "false and distorted".

"Contrary to allegations ... we have to record for our part that no target data or bombing coordinates were made available to the parties conducting the war," the spokesman said.

FOREIGN MINISTER UNDER PRESSURE

The report threatened to embarrass Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who as chief of staff to Schroeder had oversight of the security services at the time.

Asked if the Schroeder government knew of any BND support for the U.S.-led war, Steinmeier told reporters simply: "No".

Schroeder was elected to a second term in 2002 on a platform of strong opposition to the looming war in Iraq, declaring that Germany would not take part in any military "adventure" there.

The new report surfaced on the day his successor Angela Merkel, was heading to Washington to meet President George W. Bush for the first time since taking office last November. Her conservatives were in opposition at the time of the war and Merkel now heads a coalition with Schroeder's Social Democrats.

A German security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the BND had shared information with the United States during the bombing phase of the war, but only to identify "non-targets" such as embassies, schools and hospitals in order to spare them from being hit.

He said other countries' agents had done the same, mindful of the mistaken targeting of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999.

Opposition Greens parliamentary leader Renate Kuenast said German help in U.S. bombing raids would be a "monstrous action".

The report fuelled pressure which has been building on the government for weeks to allow an inquiry into the role of Germany's security services in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

The government confirmed for the first time last month that German security officials had questioned detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and had also interviewed a a German-Syrian terrorist suspect in a Syrian prison in 2002.

The latter meeting took place at a time when the government had told the man's lawyer it had no idea of his whereabouts and had no access to him.

Steinmeier was also forced last month to defend the Schroeder government's handling of the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen who was held by the United States for five months in an Afghan prison before being released in May 2004.

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They've convinced themselves that they in fact were not duped. It's interesting to watch, and kind of sad.
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THE COST OF THE IRAQ WAR

Among the mistakes and misrepresentations that led to the U.S. war in
Iraq, one of the most shocking is the failure to correctly assess the
financial costs of the war.

Never mind the low comedy of AID Administrator Andrew Natsios, who
told Americans in 2003 that Iraqi reconstruction would cost taxpayers
no more than $1.7 billion.

Now it appears that even estimates in the hundreds of billions of
dollars may "underestimate the War's true costs to America by a wide
margin," according to a new study by economists Linda Bilmes and
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate.

The authors survey the direct and indirect costs of the Iraq war and
its aftermath, acknowledging the methodological difficulties
involved.

"Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how
large [the costs] are. We can state, with some degree of confidence,
that they exceed a trillion dollars," Bilmes and Stiglitz write.

"Would the American people have had a different attitude towards going
to war had they known the total cost? Would they have thought that
there might be better ways of advancing the cause of democracy or
even protecting themselves against an attack, that would cost but a
fraction of these amounts?"

"In the end, we may have decided that a trillion dollars spent on the
War in Iraq was better than all of these alternatives. But at least
it would have been a more informed decision than the one that was
made. And recognizing the risks, we might have conducted the War in
a manner different from the way we did," the authors conclude.

Their paper was reported in the Boston Globe on January 8.

Odd, that in a world where people are screaming about the incredible dangers of terrorism, and how we should give up our civil liberties in order to fight it, I am the paranoid one....

I think fear-mongering has long been a tool of the Bush admin, though you don't like to admit it. Cycloptichorn

Quote:

THE COST OF THE IRAQ WAR

Among the mistakes and misrepresentations that led to the U.S. war in
Iraq, one of the most shocking is the failure to correctly assess the
financial costs of the war.
...

Oh my God!

Come on Walter, why do you post this kind of stuff?

"one of the most shocking"

When has anyone ever adequately estimated the cost of a war?

Ican silly.

Anyone like my joke link?