Haven't seen this anywhere else.
It looks like the Downing Street Minutes include documents re: the increased bombing in 2002 in Iraq in order to 'Goad' Saddam into war:
Quote:May 31, 2005
Hon. Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
The Pentagon
Arlington, VA
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:
I write with an urgent and important request that you respond to a report in the London Times on Sunday, May 29, indicating that British and U.S. aircraft increased their rates of bombing in 2002 in order to provoke an excuse for war in Iraq. Much of this information is provided by the British Ministry of Defense in response to questions posed by Liberal Democrat Sir Menzies Campbell.
As you may know, on May 6, I wrote to President Bush, along with 88 of my colleagues in the House of Representatives, asking him to respond to allegations first revealed in the London Times on May 1, that the U.S. and British government had a secret plan to invade Iraq by the summer of 2002, well before the Bush Administration requested authorization for military action, from the U.S. Congress. A response is still pending on that request.
The allegations and factual assertions made in the May 29 London Times are in many respects just as serious as those made in the earlier article. They include the following:
* "The RAF and U.S. aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs in 2002 .... The attacks were intensified from May .... By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive." Then British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon reportedly told a British Cabinet Meeting in July, 2002, that by this time "the U.S. had already begun `spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." The newly released information also appears to show that "the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001."
* According to the article, this increase at the rate of bombing was "an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war." As I am sure you are aware, allied commander Tommy Franks has previously acknowledged the existence of increased military operations which he asserted were needed "to `degrade' Iraqi air defenses in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf War."
* The new information goes on to indicate that our military decided "on August 5, 2005, for a `hybrid plan" in which a continuous air offensive and special forces would begin while the main ground force built up in Kuwait for a full-scale invasion." According to the article, "despite the lack of an Iraqi reaction, the air war began anyway in September with a 100-plane raid."
The allegations and factual assertions made in the May 29 London Times are in many respects just as serious as those made in the earlier article. If true, these assertions indicate that not only had our nation secretly and perhaps illegally agreed to go to war by the summer of 2002, but that we had gone on to take specific and tangible military actions before asking Congress or the United Nations for authority.
Thus, while there is considerable doubt as to whether the U.S. had authority to invade Iraq, given, among other things, the failure of the U.N. to issue a follow-up resolution to the November 8, 2002 Resolution 1441, it would seem that the act of engaging in military action via stepped up bombing raids that were not in response to an actual or imminent threat before our government asked for military authority would be even more problematic from a legal as well as a moral perspective.
As a result of these new disclosures, I would ask that you respond as promptly as possible to the following questions:
1) Did the RAF and the United States military increase the rate that they were dropping bombs in Iraq in 2002? If so, what was the extent and timing of the increase?
2) What was the justification for any such increase in the rate of bombing in Iraq at this time? Was this justification reviewed by legal authorities in the U.S.?
3) To the best of your knowledge, was there any agreement with any representative of the British government to engage in military action in Iraq before authority was sought from the Congress or the U.N.? If so, what was the nature of the agreement?
In connection with all of the above questions, please provide me with any memorandum, notes, minutes, documents, phone and other records, e-mails, computer files (including back-up records) or other material of any kind or nature concerning or relating thereto in the possession or accessible by the Department of Defense.
I would encourage you to provide responses to these questions as promptly as possible, as they raise extremely grave and serious questions involving the credibility of our Administration and its constitutional responsibilities. In the interest of time, please feel free to forward me partial responses as they become available.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
Ranking Member
Cycloptichorn
McTag wrote:Ticomaya wrote:McTag wrote:You are disingenuous with your nitpicking silliness.
I'm only being accurate. My "nitpicking" would not be necessary if you would not state things that require my correction.
Let's deal with the annoyingly silly part.
You write, I paraphrase, "This prisoner (who is being criminally abused) at least still has his head attached"
I reply- "So you are saying that their criminals are worse than our criminals?"
You reply- "These are your words, not mine"
I reply "Not my words, your comparison", and you go off on a silly routine about the actual words used rather that the meaning of the argument.
You avoided the point, and that's why I used the word disingenuous the describe that.
Somebody used the phrase "a few bad soldiers"- was it George? It seems to me only the goons stupid enough to let themselves be photographed suffered much in the enquiries. Who procured the dog collars and leads, the electrical wires, and other apparatus of abuse? Who trained the interrogation techniques? Who connived at the beatings and murders? Not a few soldiers. Not a few commanders. It was and is endemic.
You used the term "criminals" with a specific purpose and intent. I did not use that term, and pointed out that it was your word. You are being silly if you think you can try and put words in my mouth and not expect me to point out your attempt.
And I don't believe I avoided your point; I believe I attempted to address it right after I corrected your obvious attempt to put words in my mouth. You might have forgotten this because you have been so focused on your erroneous belief that I was being silly with my "nitpicking."
Gelisgesti wrote:All that believe that the dog collars, leashes, hoods and other tools of the trade up to and including 'the abcs'of toture' were purchased at the local Iraqi Walmart raise your hand.
Raise your hand if you think they didn't have dogs at Abu Ghraib. Raise your hand if you think they didn't have hoods and other assorted items of clothing.
I don't think there is an evidentiary or even factual basis on which to conclude there is a significant "cultural defect in the military" behind the incidents that have occurred, that would be the foundation for the accountability for Rumsfeld and others that Setanta proposes. We have a lot more detailed information about these issues in this war than we have seen in others fought by this or other countries. Few of the critics here have any experience of war and what it usually entails.
Moreover we are not fighting the armies of another country. Rather a well-armed insurgency fought largely by people who have been aroused to a quite irrational cultural antipathy for us and what we represent. I suggest that the suppression of the IRA insurgency in Northern Ireland after 1970 is probably a better model. Considering the very different scale of operations, we have behaved with admirable restraint, even compared with the British Army. No comparison with the French suppression of the Algerian insurgency is possible - we aren't even in the same league with the French.
I spent many years observing the behavior and performance of Petty Officers and sailors under my command. Initiative and creativity were common traits among them - the Navy runs on it.
So, Tico, you think a hood of the type seen in those photographs, unattached to any other piece of clothing--you think that's military standard issue?
What about white sheets with hoods, and eyeholes . . . you suppose those are quartermaster issue, too? 'Twould be appropriate, though . . .
georgeob1 wrote:McTag often gives me the impression that he knows nothing of the world or his own country before (say) 2003. There is a lack of proportion here and an absence of acknowledgment of the reality of historical norms in such situations that I find stunning.
In the light of that remark, it may be necessary for me to confess, even though I am not a historian.
I am aware of shortcomings in my nation's conduct. The actions of the Black and Tans and before that, Cromwell's troops in Ireland. And before that, the Elizabethans there. British army in China, India, South Africa, Egypt, almost everywhere. Sir Francis Drake probably should not have attacked Spanish shipping the way he did, either. (Illegal even by the standards of the day, but condoned by the Queen for political reasons.)
I do however, baulk at the idea that because we have done these things in the past, what is happening in our name now should pass without comment.
A "Department of Defense" (shades of 1984) has launched an unprovoked and premeditated attack on an enfeebled country which happens to be rich in oil. To justify that all manner of lies were told, and are still being told. Tens of thousands of innocents are dead as a result.
I don't think you should try to cover that up with "worse things have happened in history." That's not the point, is it.
georgeob1 wrote: I suggest that the suppression of the IRA insurgency in Northern Ireland after 1970 is probably a better model. Considering the very different scale of operations, we have behaved with admirable restraint, even compared with the British Army. No comparison with the French suppression of the Algerian insurgency is possible - we aren't even in the same league with the French.
I'm glad, you went only back to events of last century and not e.g. the Middle Ages.
georgeob1 wrote:Few of the critics here have any experience of war and what it usually entails.
Yes, I know. And I shouldn't critisise your president or my chancellor since I've never been in that position.
I do know, however, of some members here, who have not only been in wars but even got wounded there, several times, serving your country.
I frankly see no appreciable difference between Abu Graib and Long Kesh . . .
georgeob1 wrote:
Moreover we are not fighting the armies of another country. Rather a well-armed insurgency fought largely by people who have been aroused to a quite irrational cultural antipathy for us and what we represent.
Irrational? Arab antipathy towards the west is irrational?
Maybe you're right. Why, all we've done for the last hundred years is to carve up the territory, rule by puppet dictators, suppress the people, remove wealth, starve and kill children.... (trying to keep Israel out of this thread) .. and suchlike stuff. Nothing at all, really.
McTag wrote:
I don't think you should try to cover that up with "worse things have happened in history." That's not the point, is it.
You make a valid point here. However it is also useful to consider just what is practically attainable under such circumstances. For that one must look for historical precedent and norms.
I was brought up on stories of English perfidy and cruelty, Elizabeth I, Cromwell at Drogheda, 1801 and all the rest. However, I don't refer to that. I purposefully cited the British suppression of the IRA insurgency in Northern Ireland after 1970 precisely because I believe the British Army behaved with admirable restraint, in the face of many dangers and provocations, in that one. There were, of course, many excess both by accident and a few by design, but overall the policy and conduct of the British was a good deal better than the historical average.
I believe the same statement can be made with respect to the policy and behavior of U.S. forces in Iraq.
George
Quote:Moreover we are not fighting the armies of another country. Rather a well-armed insurgency fought largely by people who have been aroused to a quite irrational cultural antipathy for us and what we represent.
What evidence do you have that there antipathy for our culture is
irrational? I am quite sure they could list many rational reasons to oppose US cultural invasion of their country; if you bothered to think for a minute, I'm sure you could as well.
Cycloptichorn
Because I believe they advocate and represent retrograde political and social ideas that, if implemented, will bring continued oppression and poverty to their people. They need to address their own problems constructively, and stop their search for scapegoats.
I understand that this is your opinion; but they disagree with you and I'm sure could provide very convincing arguments as to why their system of life is superior to ours.
I agree with you that they need to stop searching for scapegoats; so why should we so convienently provide them with one?
Cycloptichorn
If you know the history of that place, you will know we were asked there--we helped them-- they could not live without us--and, of course, we have need of their oil-- it has been very mutually beneficial until recently.
The deal struck between the Sauds and the Wahhabis is the fault here.
The Sauds betrayed the Wahhabis by bringing us in to help find, extract and refine the oil--when they should have thrown them out.
They piddle-pussy foot between us and the Wahhabis.
We are there because we were ASKED to be there.
We are infinitely superior to them re way of life, tolerance, education (as bad as we are)--and everything else, except value as a human.
Read all about it.
The oil companies can make deals with the ruling families, and equip their militia: but that does not equate to "we were asked there", and that is why democracy is not evident in much of the ME.
We were not "asked there." We preemptively attacked Iraq without provocation, because we had the big guns. We forced our way into Iraq; nobody asked us to come.
We were asked there in 1930.
That's waht OBL despises. The first Saud struck a promise with the Wahhabi brotherhood in 1903 that no non-Muslim would set foot in Saudi Arabia.
When oil beckoned, they sold out their promise and brought us in because they hated the British more than they hated us.
That is why Aramco employees are called "guest workers", rather than citizens of Saudi. This was the compromise the Sauds made that never really satisfied the Wahhabis.
But, to make up for Americans on Saudi soil, the Sauds gave over all aspects of religion and education to the Wahhabis.
They put us in the position that led to the current disaster.
The Saudis did ask us there.
From the NYT:
May 29, 2005
First Day of Iraqi Push Against Insurgents Leaves 20 Dead
By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 29 - The largest Iraqi-led counterinsurgency operation since the downfall of Saddam Hussein triggered a violent backlash across Baghdad today. At least 20 people were killed in the capital, 14 of them in a battle lasting several hours when insurgents launched sustained attacks on several police stations and an army barracks.
The violence, including at least four suicide car bombs, was a bloody start to an operation that Iraq's new Shiite majority government had presented as a new get-tough policy toward Sunni Arab insurgents, first in Baghdad and then countrywide. The government has said it will commit 40,000 Iraqi troops to the Baghdad operation in an effort to crush insurgents who reacted to the government's swearing-in four weeks ago with one of the war's biggest rebel upsurges.
The Baghdad toll was part of another day of bloodshed across Iraq. In total, at least 34 people were killed, including a British soldier caught by a roadside bombing near the town of Kahla in southern Iraq that broke a protracted period of calm in the Shiite-dominated south. A statement from the Second Marine Expeditionary Force said a marine had been killed Saturday when a roadside bomb hit his vehicle near Haqlaniya, about 90 miles northwest of Baghdad.
At least initially, the crackdown in Baghdad appeared to have met with a stiff, coordinated response by the insurgents that brought the toll to about 700 from the intensified rebel attacks this month. In particular, the day's heaviest battle, which raged across the districts of Abu Ghraib, Amariya and Khudra in western Baghdad, suggested that Iraq could be in for a summer of violence as Shiite religious leaders heading the new government seek to impose their authority on insurgents who find refuge and support among the dispossessed Sunni Arab minority.
In the space of 30 minutes in midafternoon, the insurgents responded to attempts by government forces to cordon off the capital's western districts with a sequence of attacks. They appeared to catch Iraqi forces by surprise, and prompted commanders to call for back-up from American troops garrisoned nearby. Iraqi witnesses said Apache attack helicopters with loaded missile racks swooped overhead as the insurgent attacks flared into protracted gun battles below. Some witnesses said they had seen the helicopters firing, but no confirmation of those accounts were available from the United States military.
The rebel attacks included a suicide car bomb attack on an Iraqi military checkpoint in Abu Ghraib, the district best known for the prison that holds many of the 14,000 insurgency suspects held in American custody across Iraq. Another suicide car bomber attacked an Iraqi paramilitary police patrol in a residential district of Amariya, northeast of the sprawling Camp Victory complex that serves as the American military headquarters in Iraq. Gunmen also attacked a police station in Khudra, a neighborhood adjoining Amariya, according to Interior Ministry officials.
The most daring assault appeared to have been a sustained attack on the detention center run by the Interior Ministry's major crimes unit in Amariya, used as a holding center for insurgents who move on to Abu Ghraib. The ministry said the assault there involved at least 50 insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns. According to an unconfirmed account by an Amariya resident who was reached by telephone, insurgent bands roaming the district after the battle claimed to have captured weapons from the detention center's armory.
An official at the Interior Ministry's operations center said 14 people had been killed in the Amariya fighting alone, including three insurgents, four police officers and seven civilians. Other victims of insurgent attacks in the capital today included two security guards killed when a suicide bomber attempted to ram a Volkswagen sedan through the gates of the heavily fortified Oil Ministry in eastern Baghdad, and two police officers killed in a drive-by shooting in the Dora district in the capital's southwestern district, a notorious insurgent stronghold. Two more police officers died in a suicide bombing at dusk in the Zeiouniya district of eastern Baghdad.
Elsewhere, nine police officers were killed in an insurgent ambush near the town of Yusufiya in the restive Sunni Arab area about 10 miles south of Baghdad, according to an Iraqi doctor at a hospital nearby. A car bombing at Madaen, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, killed two police commandos, according to a police commander in the town. A police commander at the northern city of Tuz Khormatu, about 60 miles south of Kirkuk, said a suicide car bomber there killed two civilians after detonating his vehicle near the local headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a partner in the new government in Baghdad.
Quote, "We were asked there in 1930." Are you some kind of comedian or somet'n? Trust me; Bush knows nothing about that invitation.
