Max Forte's List: Iraq: The Aftermath of Continuing Conflict

• Roger Bacon, whose son Major Matthew Bacon was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra in 2005, said: "This was an illegal war, and there is still a great deal of anger. It showed today.

  "The anger was directed at Tony Blair for taking us into this mess."

• His sentiments were echoed by Deirdre Gover, the mother of 30-year-old Kristian, who died in a helicopter accident in 2004.

  She said: "Tony Blair deceived us on weapons of mass destruction. He should be held responsible for the conflict. He lied to his cabinet, to his government, to parliament and to us".

• Striking a Balance: A New American Security
• Date:
    June 11, 2009 - 7:45am - 7:00pm
   

  
    Location:
    Willard InterContinental Hotel
  1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW
  Grand Ballroom
  Washington, DC 20004
   

  
       

   

  Striking a Balance: A New American Security was an all-day CNAS conference highlighting the major foreign policy and national security challenges facing our nation in the critical time ahead.

• INTRODUCTION AND OPENING REMARKS

   

  The Honorable Dr. Richard Danzig
  Chairman of the Board, Center for a New American Security

   

  Video | Audio

   

  Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns
  Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
  Board of Directors, CNAS

   

  Video | Audio

• MORNING KEYNOTE ADDRESS

   

  Dr. John A. Nagl (INTRODUCTION)
  President, Center for a New American Security

   

  General David H. Petraeus, USA
  Commander, U.S. Central Command

   

  Video | Audio | Transcript | PowerPoint Slides

• SESSION 1:
  AFTER THE FIRE: SHAPING THE U.S. RELATIONSHIP WITH IRAQ

   Thomas E. Ricks (PANEL CHAIR)
  Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security

   

  Dr. John A. Nagl (PRESENTER)
  President, Center for a New American Security
  

   

  General John (Jack) Keane, USA (Ret.)
  Senior Managing Director and Co-founder, Keane Advisors, LLC
  
  George Packer
  Staff Writer, The New Yorker
  

   

  Nazar Janabi
  Next Generation Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
  
  Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie
  Ambassador of Iraq to the United States of America

   

  Video | Audio | Related Report | Transcript

• SESSION 2:
  TRIAGE: THE NEXT 12 MONTHS IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN
  
  Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.) (PANEL CHAIR)
  Director, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University

   

  Andrew Exum (PRESENTER)
  Fellow, Center for a New American Security

   

  Nathaniel C. Fick (PRESENTER)
  Chief Operating Officer, Center for a New American Security
  
  Dr. Andrew J. Bacevich
  Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University
  
  Colonel Christopher G. Cavoli, USA
  Military Professor of Security Studies, George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies

   

  Video | Audio | Transcript | Related Report

• LUNCHEON KEYNOTE ADDRESS:
  PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: A NATIONAL SECURITY IMPERATIVE

   

  Dr. Kristin M. Lord (INTRODUCTION)
  Vice President and Director of Studies, Center for a New American Security

   

  The Honorable Judith A. McHale
  Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs 

   

  Video | Audio | Transcript

• Event Sponsors:

   
   
  • General Dynamics
   
  • Lockheed Martin Corporation
   
  • BAE Systems
   
  • Aegis LLC
   
  • General Electric
   
  • IBM
   
  • SAIC
   
  • New Signature
   
  • Crabtree + Company
   
  • PSAV Presentation Services
   
  • Quang X. Pham Foundation
   
  • Harris LithoGraphics

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• BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber driving a dynamite-laden truck destroyed a key bridge Saturday on a highway used by the departing U.S. military, while separate attacks killed nine Iraqis, most of them security force members, police said.
• There were no casualties in the blast that destroyed the bridge outside the city of Ramadi, which is about 70 miles (125 kilometers) west of Baghdad, said a local police officer. The highway is used heavily by the U.S. military to transport equipment out of the country, and is also a major roadway for civilian traffic.
• Also Saturday, an attack on an Iraqi army convoy just outside of the city of Fallujah killed four Iraqi soldiers and wounded 14, said a police officer in the city, which is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad.
• Attacks have not been halted entirely. Last Sunday, 19 people were killed in a spate of coordinated car bombings across Ramadi, Anbar's provincial capital, sparking fears of a reinvigorated insurgency that could destabilize Iraq before January's crucial parliamentary elections.
• On Saturday, attackers threw hand grenades at an Iraqi army patrol near Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding two others, a police official in the oil-rich city said.
• In Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, 2 policemen and one civilian were killed in three unrelated incidents, police said.

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• By Uthman al-Mokhtar

   Washington Post Foreign Service 
   Sunday, October 18, 2009
• RAMADI, Iraq, Oct. 17 -- Insurgents detonated a truck loaded with five tons of explosives Saturday on a bridge here that links western Iraq to Jordan and Syria, pulverizing part of the overpass and paralyzing traffic for hours.
• Another, smaller bridge was also destroyed in Fallujah, where a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi military patrol on the highway, killing four soldiers and wounding 14 others, said Sulaiman al-Dulaimi, a spokesman for the Fallujah General Hospital.
• The attacks underlined the potency that insurgents still wield in a long-restive Anbar province that the U.S. military and Iraqi government tout as a showcase of their success in defeating the insurgency.
• "If insurgents can possess five tons of explosives and use them freely to destroy bridges, then it would be a shame to claim that we have achieved security," he said.

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• "My soldiers asked me whether we have succeeded in our mission and I told them flat out 'Yes, we did'," said Williams recalling a Sept. 16 meeting attended by the company's 135 soldiers just days before the first of its platoons left Iraq for home. 

   "We provided an umbrella of security for Hurriyah's 400,000 people, refurbished 10 schools, two clinics and built three soccer fields and a service station for municipality trucks," said Williams. 

   "But the most important thing is that we are taking everyone home alive and well." 

• A pair of suicide car bombings Sunday devastated the heart of Iraq's capital, killing at least 147 people in the country's deadliest attack in more than two years. The bombs targeted two government buildings and called into question Iraq's ability to protect its people as U.S. forces withdraw.
• The bombings show that insurgents still have the ability to launch horrific attacks even as violence has dropped dramatically in Iraq. Many fear such attacks will only increase as Iraq prepares for crucial January elections.
• The dead included 35 employees at the Ministry of Justice and at least 25 staff members of the Baghdad Provincial Council
• At least 721 people were wounded, including three American contractors.
• There have been no claims of responsibility so far, but massive car bombs have been the hallmark of the Sunni insurgents seeking to overthrow the country's Shiite-dominated government. Iraq has accused members of the outlawed Baath Party living in neighboring Syria of being behind another series of deadly bombings in August that also targeted government buildings. Al-Maliki blamed the attacks on Baathist and Al-Qaida.
• U.S. troops were also called in at the request of the Iraqi government to help secure the area, deal with any explosive material and offer forensics personnel to assist in the investigation, said a military spokesman, Maj. Dave Shoupe.
• The coordinated bombings were the deadliest since a series of massive truck bombs in northern Iraq killed nearly 500 villagers from the minority Yazidi sect in August 2007. In Baghdad itself, it was the worst attack since a series of suicide bombings against Shiite neighborhoods in April 2007 killed 183.

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• Former top executives at Blackwater Worldwide say the U.S. security contractor sent about $1 million to its Iraq office with the intention of paying off officials in the country who were angry about the fatal shootings of 17 civilians by Blackwater employees, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
• Then the shooting by Blackwater guards in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in September 2007 left 17 civilians dead, further strained relations between Baghdad and Washington and led U.S. prosecutors to bring charges against the Blackwater contractors involved.
• But Xe continues to provide security for diplomats in other nations, most notably in Afghanistan.
• The former executives told the Times that the payments were approved by the company's then-president, Gary Jackson. They did not know if he came up with the idea.
• Any payments would have been illegal under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans bribes to foreign officials. The company has paid legitimate compensation to several victims of the shootings, the Times reported.
• Five Blackwater guards involved in the Nisoor Square shooting are scheduled to face trial on federal manslaughter charges in February in Washington. A sixth guard pleaded guilty in December. Iraqi victims are also suing the company and its founder, Erik Prince.
• The Iraqi government suspended the firm's license after the shooting and demanded that Blackwater be expelled from the country within six months. Iraqi authorities denied Xe an operating license in early 2009, but the company has continued to have some presence in the country. In September, the State Department announced it had extended a contract with a Xe subsidiary to provide air support for protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.

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• The awarding of development rights over the huge West Qurna oilfield in southern Iraq to Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell last Thursday once again underscores the criminal character of the continuing US-led occupation. As the direct result of the Iraq war, major American and other transnational energy conglomerates are now gaining control over some the largest oilfields in the world.
• Before the US invasion in 2003, rights over West Qurna had been awarded by the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein to the Russian oil firm, Lukoil. The pro-US puppet regime in Baghdad has torn up all pre-war contracts.
• Exxon-Mobil is the first US-based oil giant to benefit. Under the terms of a 20-year contract, Exxon-Mobil and Shell plan to boost daily production at West Qurna from less than 300,000 barrels to 2.3 million barrels per day over the next six years. As well as the Iraqi government compensating the companies for the cost of upgrading the field - which may run as high as $50 billion - they will be paid $1.90 for each barrel extracted, or some $1.5 billion per year. Exxon-Mobil holds an 80 percent stake and Shell the remaining 20 percent.
• Last Tuesday, the Iraqi government concluded a deal with British Petroleum (BP) and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), giving them development rights to the massive Rumaila field and its reserves of 17 billion barrels. BP holds a 38 percent stake and CNPC, a 37 percent share. The plan is to boost production from around 1 million barrels per day to 2.85 million barrels, generating profits of over $2 billion per year.
• the deals are classified as "service" agreements. This has enabled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, to ignore parliament and the lack of a hydrocarbons law to govern the energy industry.
• A consortium made up of the Italian company Eni, US-based Occidental and South Korea's Kogas has signed a tentative agreement for the Zubair oilfield with reserves of 4 billion barrels. Eni, Japanese giant Nippon Oil and Spanish firm Repsol are bidding for a field in Nasiriyah which has similar-sized reserves. In northern Iraq, Royal Dutch Shell is negotiating a contract to develop untapped areas of the major Kirkuk oilfield, which is thought to have as much as 10 billion barrels in reserves despite being in production since 1934.
• The first step has been taken in opening up the Iraqi oil industry, which was nationalised in 1975, to foreign investors.
• Highlighting the neo-colonial nature of this operation, two former top American officials under the Bush administration are now facilitating corporate deals in Iraq. Jay Garner, the first head of the US occupation administration in Iraq following the invasion, is an advisor to the Canadian energy company Vast Exploration, which has a 37 percent stake in an oilfield in the Kurdish north. Zalmay Khalilzad, former ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN, has established his own corporate consultancy firm in the Kurdish city of Irbil.
• From the late 1990s on, Russia and the European powers were pressing for the lifting of sanctions to allow these companies to reap the benefits. War became the only means of preventing US corporate interests from being cut out.
• American energy conglomerates were not passive bystanders. High-level representatives of Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP America and Shell took part in talks in early 2001 with the Bush administration's "Energy Task Force" headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. One document prepared for the discussions included a detailed map of Iraq's oil fields, terminals and pipelines and a list of the non-US foreign companies that were preparing to move in. A May 2001 report by the task force bluntly stated the US aim: "The Gulf will be the primary focus of US international energy policy."
• As the Wall Street Journal commented on January 16, 2003: "US oil companies are starting to prepare for the day when they may get a chance to work in one of the world's most oil-rich countries."
• With huge military bases in the country and a Baghdad regime tied to Washington, the US is positioned to dictate terms to its European and Asian rivals and, amid rising great powers tensions, to wield the threat of cutting off oil supplies - a longstanding tenet of American strategic policy.

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• Graphic torture allegations emerge as lawyer warns of hundreds of legal cases

• By Robert Verkaik
   

    

   

  Sunday, 15 November 2009
• Disturbing graphic allegations of sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers are among 33 new torture cases being investigated by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
• The fresh claims include allegations that female and male soldiers sexually abused and humiliated detainees in camps in southern Iraq, prompting comparisons with the torture practices employed by US soldiers at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
• In one case, British soldiers are accused of piling Iraqi prisoners on top of each other and subjecting them to electric shocks, an echo of the abuse at the notorious US detention centre that came to light in 2004.
• Phil Shiner, the lawyer representing all the former detainees, is asking for a judicial review of the cases and a wider public inquiry. "I have it on good authority that there are hundreds of cases that are going uninvestigated. My guess is that many of them will remain buried."
• The former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, a member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: "This is yet another element of the long, toxic legacy of Iraq. Only the fullest investigation will suffice."
• Pressure on the MoD is expected to intensify tomorrow at the Baha Mousa inquiry, which is hearing evidence into the death of an Iraqi father beaten to death by British troops in 2003. Former corporal Donald Payne, the only soldier convicted for the death, will give evidence. The inquiry has already been told Payne was a scapegoat and that others had been involved.
• "It started with tearing of our copies of the Koran in front of us. Beating, kicking and punching accompanied us all the way."

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• By David Randall
   

    

   

  Sunday, 15 November 2009
• Evidence was growing this weekend that babies born in the Iraqi city of Fallujah – scene in 2004 of one of the few set-piece battles of the invasion – are exhibiting high rates of mortality and birth defects.
• In September this year, say campaigners, 170 children were born at Fallujah General Hospital, 24 per cent of whom died within seven days. Three-quarters of these exhibited deformities, including "children born with two heads, no heads, a single eye in their foreheads, or missing limbs". The comparable data for August 2002 – before the invasion – records 530 births, of whom six died and only one of whom was deformed.
• The paper quoted Fallujah General's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais, as saying: "We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies... There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of brain tumours." Earlier this year Sky News reported a Fallujah grave-digger saying that, of the four or five new-born babies he buries every day, most have deformities.
• The campaigners' letter to the UN calls for an independent investigation to be set up, "the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces, including depleted uranium and white phosphorus", and an inquiry launched to discover if any war crimes have been committed.

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• BAGHDAD – A stepped-up campaign by Iraq's prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.
• n its latest anti-Baathist attack, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government put three men on state television Sunday to confess their alleged role in planning suicide attacks in Baghdad last month. The three, all in detention and dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, said the bombings were ordered by Saddam's Baath Party.
• Reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites has been an elusive goal, seen as critical for Iraqi's stability — and it takes on added urgency with American forces now scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.
• Al-Maliki and his fellow Shiite politicians have repeatedly warned in recent weeks against what they contend is a plot by members of the Baath Party to return to power, with what some suggest is the help of Sunni-ruled Arab nations.
• He has vowed to do everything in his power to stop Baath Party loyalists from running in the upcoming parliamentary election. He has also insisted that Baathists, a term widely taken to mean Sunni Arabs, worked with al-Qaida to carry out massive suicide bombings targeting government buildings in Baghdad that killed at least 255 people in August and October.
• But such rifts also make useful political tools in an election campaign, and al-Maliki may be pressing on Baathists in an attempt to shore up his Shiite base.
• Al-Maliki has become more vulnerable since he was dumped by some of his Shiite allies, who formed a separate coalition to run in the election. He has failed to persuade significant Sunni groups to join his "State of Law" alliance, losing much of his claim to cross-sectarian leadership.
• The recent bombings also hurt his credentials as the leader who oversaw a vast improvement in security over the past two years. Al-Maliki is also trying to counter charges by his Shiite rivals that his three-year-old administration allowed hard-core Saddam loyalists to "infiltrate" security services, the armed forces and the civil service, said Dhafer al-Ani, a prominent Sunni Arab lawmaker.

• Mustapha al-Ani, a Dubai-based Iraq analyst, said fears of a return to power by the Baath are groundless.

   

  "This is a carefully planned campaign to scare Shiites away from voting for anyone but traditional religious Shiite parties," he said.
• But also, millions of Iraqis, including many Shiites, joined the party during its rule because it was the only way to get ahead.
• The Baath party's ideology is steeped in Arab nationalism and secularism. Party loyalists argue that Baathist thought is progressive and bemoan what they see as the bad name given to the party by Saddam's policies.
• A "de-Baathification" policy set up under direct U.S. rule in 2003 and 2004 stripped senior Baathists with professional experience of their jobs, plunging much of the state machinery into disarray that's still felt today.
• Sanctions against Baathists were relaxed last year, opening the door for thousands who are not involved in past crimes to fill posts in the Shiite-dominated government, civil service and security forces. But that conciliatory climate has vanished in recent months. Some Sunni politicians have fueled Shiite fears by speculating that a large number of Baathists will win seats in the new legislature.

• "The problem with some, especially in the Shiite Islamic parties, is that they accuse every rival of being a Baathist," Hamid al-Kafaai, an Iraqi analyst, himself a Shiite, wrote in the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on Friday. 

   "I cannot see where the problem is in belonging to the Baath. ... The Baathists are normal people, loyal and patriotic," he wrote. 
• Al-Maliki has accused Baathists and al-Qaida of being jointly behind the bombings on Aug. 19 and Oct. 25 that targeted government offices in the heavily guarded central part of Baghdad. He, however, has not produced evidence of the Baathist involvement except for Sunday's televised confessions, which are impossible to verify.

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• DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press
• LONDON – Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the issue of Iraq with the U.K. hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, Britain's former ambassador told an inquiry into the Iraq war Thursday.
• Christopher Meyer, who served as then-Prime Minister Tony Blair's envoy to Washington between 1997 and 2003, said he spoke with Rice on Sept. 11, 2001.
• "She said there's no doubt this was an Al-Qaida operation, we are just looking to see if there could possibly be any connection with Saddam Hussein," he told the panel.
• The comments are important because they suggest that the United States quickly tied the attacks with Saddam's regime. Years later, President George W. Bush's administration was forced to acknowledge that they could find no connection between Saddam and the attacks.

• But until December 2002, regime change by force was not the only option. Meyer said Rice had hoped "the pressure of coercive diplomacy" would force Saddam into exile, or prompt an internal coup.

   

  He said Britain argued that attempts to increase pressure on Iraq through the United Nations was not "limp-wristed, pitiful, European lack of will," but rather a "cunning plan to get the guy."

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• BAGHDAD – Turning on their TVs during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis were greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: Saddam Hussein.

   

  The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution.
• No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel
• The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman.
• The Saddam channel, he said, "didn't receive a penny from the Baathists" and is for Iraqis and other Arabs who "long for his rule."
• Jarboua has clearly made considerable efforts to hide where it's aired from and refuses to say who is funding it besides "people who love us."

• Others said they felt a nostalgic sorrow at the sight of their late leader, a Sunni Arab.

   

  "All my family felt sad," said Samar Majid, a Sunni high school teacher in western Baghdad, mentioning images shown from Saddam's execution, and pictures of his two sons and grandson.
• The channel, which is broadcast across the Arab world, dredges up the sectarian divisions that Saddam inspired among Shiites and Sunnis at a time when Iraq is gearing up for crucial national elections. Iraqi politicians have been arguing over parliamentary seat distribution in a dispute that has inflamed the splits. The wrangling will likely delay the vote beyond its constitutionally required Jan. 30 deadline.
• Saddam's hanging three years ago was on the first day of Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar. His execution — and the day it was done — remains a sore point for Saddam sympathizers still smarting over images of the defiant leader in his final moments as Shiites in the death chamber shouted curses.
• The station's official name alternates between "Al-Lafeta" ("the banner") and "Al-Arabi" ("the Arab").

• It is mostly a montage of flattering, still images of Saddam — some of him dressed in military uniform, others in a suit, even one astride a white horse. One image shows his sons Odai and Qusai smiling with their father, and another their bodies after they and Saddam's grandson, Mustafa, were killed in a July 2003 gunfight with U.S. troops.

   

  One prominently displayed image is that of a man burning an American flag. Another shows graves covered with Iraqi flags.
• All the pictures are set against audio recordings of Saddam making speeches and reciting poetry. Patriotic songs urge listeners to "liberate our country." None of the pictures appear to be recent, and no announcers or commentators appear or speak.
• A media adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, brushed off the station and its message, and refused to comment on whether the government will seek to shut down the channel.
• Since Saddam's fall, Baathists have spread out around the region, mainly to Syria and Jordan but also to Gulf countries and Yemen.
• Jarboua said he is Algerian and that the Saddam Channel is based in Europe but refused to say where, citing safety concerns for its employees.
• "There are threats that the Iraqi government will shut it down, kill its employees, that they will liquidate it," Jarboua said.
• He said he started al-Lafeta nine months ago in Lebanon, and has employees in Syria, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
• Ziad Khassawneh, a Jordanian Baathist who once headed Saddam's defense team, said wealthy Iraqis living in Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries are funding the channel. He declined to give names.
• Saddam's oldest daughter, Raghad Saddam Hussein, who lives in Jordan, has denied any connection to the channel.
• One Jordan-based Iraqi Baathist said the station broadcasts from Libya and is run by followers of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's No. 2 and a top leader of the outlawed Baath party. Douri's whereabouts is unknown.
• Another former Baathist official said the Saddam Channel broadcasts out of Damascus. Both men spoke on condition of anonymity because they said they needed to protect the security of the channel's employees.
• A Mideast satellite expert said al-Lafeta's operators tried to hide any clues to their identities and broadcast sites by using a variety of satellite services and frequencies. The channel airs via Noorsat, a Bahrain-based satellite service. It also has purchased a frequency on Egypt-owned NileSat, which is run by Eutelsat, a European consortium.

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• SINAN SALAHEDDIN and TAREK EL-TABLAWY, Associated Press
• BAGHDAD – Iraqi officials cheered and clapped as the first oil field up for bid went to a major international consortium at the opening of the country's biggest postwar auction Friday. But from there, the chill set in.
• Oil executives from around the world made deals on only two fields, both in Iraq's relatively stable south, while shunning six others in regions with sporadic violence — and where the risk outweighs the profits that the Iraqi government is offering.

• One big reason oil majors haven't rushed back into Iraq are the terms that the government is offering.

   

  Companies must accept 20-year service contracts and receive a flat fee per barrel produced for their services instead of production-sharing contracts, which are much more lucrative.

   

  Iraq's first postwar international oil auction in June — billed as oil companies' first chance in over three decades to grab a share of Iraq's oil wealth — was an embarrassment.

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• October 7, 2002
• President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat  
   Remarks by the President on Iraq
   Cincinnati Museum Center - Cincinnati Union Terminal
   Cincinnati, Ohio
• 8:02 P.M. EDT
• I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.
• The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions -- its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq's eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.
• We also must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On September the 11th, 2001, America felt its vulnerability -- even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.
• We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.
• America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis and others will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin.
• We did not ask for this present challenge, but we accept it. Like other generations of Americans, we will meet the responsibility of defending human liberty against violence and aggression. By our resolve, we will give strength to others. By our courage, we will give hope to others. And by our actions, we will secure the peace, and lead the world to a better day.

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• By Naomi Klein
• December 22, 2004
• So it turns out Pottery Barn doesn't even have a rule that says, "You break it, you own it." According to a company spokesperson, "in the rare instance that something is broken in the store, it's written off as a loss." Yet the nonexistent policy of a store selling $80 corkscrews continues to wield more influence in the United States than the Geneva Conventions and the US Army's Law of Land Warfare combined. As Bob Woodward has noted, Colin Powell invoked "the Pottery Barn rule" before the invasion, while John Kerry pledged his allegiance to it during the first presidential debate.
• And the imaginary rule is still the favored blunt instrument with which to whack anyone who dares to suggest that the time has come to withdraw troops from Iraq: Sure the war is a disaster, the argument goes, but we can't stop now--you break it, you own it.
• Nicholas Kristof laid out this argument in a recent New York Times column. "Our mistaken invasion has left millions of Iraqis desperately vulnerable, and it would be inhumane to abandon them now. If we stay in Iraq, there is still some hope that Iraqis will come to enjoy security and better lives, but if we pull out we will be condemning Iraqis to anarchy, terrorism and starvation, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of children over the next decade."
• Let's start with the idea that the United States is helping to provide security. On the contrary, the presence of US troops is provoking violence on a daily basis.
• As for preventing "anarchy," the US plan to bring elections to Iraq seems designed to spark a civil war--the civil war needed to justify an ongoing presence for US troops no matter who wins the elections.
• When Kristof asserts that US forces should stay in Iraq to save "hundreds of thousands of children" from starvation, it's hard to imagine what he has in mind. Hunger in Iraq is not merely the humanitarian fallout of a war--it is the direct result of the US decision to impose brutal "shock therapy" policies on a country that was already sickened and weakened by twelve years of sanctions. Paul Bremer's first act on the job was to lay off close to 500,000 Iraqis, and his primary accomplishment--for which he was just awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom--was to oversee a "reconstruction" process that systematically stole jobs from needy Iraqis and handed them to foreign firms, sending the unemployment rate soaring to 67 percent.
• On November 21, the group of industrialized countries known as the Paris Club finally unveiled its plan for Iraq's unpayable debt. Rather than forgiving it outright, the Paris Club laid out a three-year plan to write off 80 percent, contingent on Iraq's future governments adhering to a strict International Monetary Fund austerity program. According to early drafts, that program includes "restructuring of state-owned enterprises" (read: privatization), a plan that Iraq's Ministry of Industry predicts will require laying off an additional 145,000 workers. In the name of "free-market reforms," the IMF also wants to eliminate the program that provides each Iraqi family with a basket of food--the only barrier to starvation for millions of citizens.
• So let's be absolutely clear: The United States, having broken Iraq, is not in the process of fixing it. It is merely continuing to break the country and its people by other means, using not only F-16s and Bradleys, but now the less flashy weaponry of WTO and IMF conditions, followed by elections designed to transfer as little power to Iraqis as possible. This is what famed Argentine writer Rodolfo Walsh, writing before his 1977 assassination by the military junta, described as "planned misery." And the longer the United States stays in Iraq, the more misery it will plan.
• Yes, the troops must leave, but that can be only one plank of a credible and moral antiwar platform. What of the schools and hospitals in Iraq--the ones that were supposed to be fixed by Bechtel but never were? Too often, antiwar forces have shied away from speaking about what Americans owe Iraq. Rarely is the word "compensation" spoken, let alone the more loaded "reparations."
• Owning the broken country should not be one of them, but how about paying for the repairs?

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• REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press
• BAGHDAD – Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge's decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.
• The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge's decision as proof of what they'd long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.
• "There is no justice," said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. "I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square."
• What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution.
• The guards said they were ambushed at a busy intersection in western Baghdad, but U.S. prosecutors and many Iraqis said the Blackwater guards let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.
• "Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement Friday.
• The shootings led the Iraqi government to strip the North Carolina-based company of its license to work in the country, and Blackwater replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.
• Five guards from the company were charged in the case with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried mandatory 30-year prison terms, but a federal judge Friday dismissed all the charges.
• U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina cited repeated government missteps in the investigation, saying that prosecutors built their case on sworn statements that the guards had given with the idea that they would be immune from prosecution.
• Iraqis have followed the case closely and said the judge's decision demonstrated that the Americans were considered above the law.
• "I was not astonished by the verdict because the trial was unreal. They are using double standards and talking about human rights, but they are the first to violate these rights. They are killing innocents deliberately," said Ahmed Jassim, a civil engineer in the southern city of Najaf.
• Dozens of Iraqis have filed a separate lawsuit alleging that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings and beatings. That civil case was not affected by Urbina's decision and is still before a Virginia court.

• Gen. Ray Odierno, the commanding general in Iraq, said he understood that people would be upset with the decision. 

   "Of course people are not going to like it, because they believe that these individuals conducted some violence and should be punished for it, but the bottom line is, using the rule of law, the evidence is not there," he said. "I worry about it because clearly there were innocent people killed in this attack." 

• Their employees were at the center of what is considered one of the key moments of the war. A vehicle with four Blackwater employees driving through the western city of Fallujah, a center of the Sunni insurgency, was hit by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in March 2004. Their charred, mutilated bodies were dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates river. 

   The bloody incident was one of the key reasons the U.S. military attacked Fallujah in April 2004. 
• An October 2007 report by a House of Representatives committee called Blackwater an out-of-control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties. Blackwater chairman Erik Prince told the committee that the company acted appropriately at all times.
• Were the incident to happen again today, the legal outcome might be much different. The U.S.-Iraqi security pact that took effect Jan. 1, 2009, lifted the immunity that foreign contractors had in Iraq. A British security contractor accused of shooting two colleagues is currently being held in Iraq and could be the first Westerner to face an Iraqi court since the immunity was lifted.

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