Kurt Eichenwald’s "500 Days" And the 9/11 Neocon Disaster

I can't even begin to parse this twenty minute Democracy Now interview with author Kurt Eichenwald, I would be typing forever. Suffice to say, it's just one jaw dropping revelation after the other.

As I said in a tweet yesterday: Essential viewing, a must watch.

Enough said, drive on!

"500 Days": Author Kurt Eichenwald’s New Account of How Bush Admin Ignored Warnings Before 9/11

Newly disclosed documents provide further evidence the administration of George W. Bush ignored repeated warnings about Osama bin Laden’s plans to attack the United States. In "500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars,” author and journalist Kurt Eichenwald fleshes out how the Bush administration dismissed a number of warnings of an al-Qaeda attack against the United States beginning in the spring of 2001, instead focusing on alleged threats from Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Transcript

This from No More Mister Nice Blog:

Why did the administration do nothing? It sure looks as if it's because a key faction in the administration had a theory and didn't want anyone confused by the facts:

An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.

And we know, of course, these folks didn't change their minds even after it was clear that Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11. They still thought Saddam was the main threat. They just couldn't let that idea go. more

"Curveball" to Appear BBC2 Monday April 2

Nothing to get excited about really, the Bush administration knew it was bullshit, and if yer man hadn't existed, they would have had to invent him.

As for his former boss: "I don't see any way on this earth that Secretary Powell doesn't feel almost a rage about Curveball and the way he was used in regards to that intelligence."

Oh stop FFS!

Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all

Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion
By Jonathan Owen
April 01, 2012

A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow.

"Curveball", the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up. It was a confidence trick that changed the course of history, with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi's lies used to justify the Iraq war.

He tries to defend his actions: "My main purpose was to topple the tyrant in Iraq because the longer this dictator remains in power, the more the Iraqi people will suffer from this regime's oppression."

The chemical engineer claimed to have overseen the building of a mobile biological laboratory when he sought political asylum in Germany in 1999. His lies were presented as "facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" by Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, when making the case for war at the UN Security Council in February 2003.

But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true. When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."

US officials "sexed up" Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, admits Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff. "I brought the White House team in to do the graphics," he says, adding how "intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy".

As for his former boss: "I don't see any way on this earth that Secretary Powell doesn't feel almost a rage about Curveball and the way he was used in regards to that intelligence."




Another revelation in the series is the real reason why the FBI swooped on Russian spy Anna Chapman in 2010. Top officials feared the glamorous Russian agent wanted to seduce one of US President Barack Obama's inner circle. Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's head of counterintelligence, reveals how she got "closer and closer to higher and higher ranking leadership... she got close enough to disturb us".

The fear that Chapman would compromise a senior US official in a "honey trap" was a key reason for the arrest and deportation of the Russian spy ring of 10 people, of which she was a part, in 2010. "We were becoming very concerned," he says. "They were getting close enough to a sitting US cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue." Mr Figliuzzi refuses to name the individual who was being targeted.

Several British spies also feature in the programme, in the first time that serving intelligence officers have been interviewed on television. In contrast to the US intelligence figures, the British spies are cloaked in darkness, their voices dubbed by actors. BBC veteran reporter Peter Taylor, who worked for a year putting the documentary together, describes them as "ordinary people who are committed to what they do" and "a million miles" from the spies depicted in film. He adds: "What surprised me was the extent to which they work within a civil service bureaucracy. Everything has to be signed off... you've got to have authorisation signed in triplicate."

Would-be agents should abandon any Hollywood fantasies they may have, says Sonya Holt at the CIA recruitment centre. "They think it's more like the movies, that they are going to be jumping out of cars and that everyone carries a weapon... Yes we're collecting intelligence but we don't all drive fast cars. You're going to be writing reports; you're in meetings so it's not always that glamorous image of what you see in the movies." Independent

US Arrogance Writ Large

Should I have mentioned in the header that the story is centred around US rice farmers? I don't think so. arrogance is after all, a defining and quintessential characteristic of the American psyche. Just as equally, is the, it's all and only about us attitude, that permeates throughout the US.

Whereas the link will take you to an essay by Arthur Silber, an essay, that in part focuses on the 'American exceptionalism' attitude of John Kerry; we need to go no further than the side bar in this blog, to have that exceptionalist attitude displayed.

But perhaps exceptionalism is not the correct choice of term to employ here, perhaps delusional might be nearer the mark, but however we describe it, it is the same staggering arrogance, no, make that delusional arrogance, displayed by the whinging farmer as that displayed by his one time Commander-in-Chief, George W Bush.

“I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.” Bush interview '60 Minutes' 1/14/07

Yes, kind of takes your breath away doesn't it?

Farmers furious after Iraq stops buying US rice
The Associated Press
Feb 23, 2012

The talk of the day among Ray Stoesser and other rice farmers is Iraq's decision not to buy U.S. rice, a stinging move that adds to a stressful year punctuated by everything from drought to unusual heat.

Stoesser and other farmers know Iraqis struggled during the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation. They know most countries _ and people _ buy based on price. (Sic When did underscore enter the language?)

But at the moment, with production costs rising, export markets shrinking and rice prices dropping, it's difficult to be rational and suppress emotions so intimately intertwined with their land and livelihood.

"That's just not right," the 63-year-old Stoesser fumed. "If we've got some rice to sell, they ought to pay a premium for it just because this is the country that freed them."

Iraq imports most of its rice, about 1 million metric tons per year, making it a significant player in the global market. In the past decade, about 10 percent to 15 percent of that total came from the United States. But Iraq hasn't bought any U.S. rice since late 2010.

"You would think with all that we've done over there, there would be a way to get them to do business with us," said Ronald Gertson, who grows rice in Lissie, Texas.

Iraq has been buying instead from Asia and South America, and it recently lowered its quality standards so it would be able to buy rice from India, something that was impossible under the Iraqi Grain Board's old rules, said Andy Aaronson, chairman of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rice Interagency Commodity Estimate Committee. It also recently bought rice from Uruguay, which grows a variety similar to the American one but sold for less.

"Iraq seems to be buying on price, and the lowest offered price is coming now from India," Aaronson said.

In Iraq, officials said the decision to forego American rice largely came down to a matter of taste. A Trade Ministry official said Iraq has decided to import only long-grain basmati rice from India due to its wide acceptance nationwide and cheap price.

"We have no problem with the U.S. rice specifically, which was widely acceptable by Iraqis, but we are seeing a demand for the Indian rice rather than others, which is also bought in good prices," he added.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to make a statement on government policies. He would not comment on U.S. farmers' anger or their argument that Iraq should buy U.S. rice because thousands of Americans died in the war there.




Iraq had accounted for about 2 percent to 5 percent of U.S. sales each year. It stopped buying American rice during the Gulf War in the early 1990s and in 2003, when the most recent war started, Aaronson said. Every other year, though, during the war, insurgency and U.S. occupation, the Iraqi Grain Board bought American rice.

Iraq's abandonment of U.S. rice comes as Haiti, once an exclusively American market, and Central America, another major buyer, also seek cheaper options elsewhere.

The lost sales sting because the U.S., unlike China and other major rice-growing nations, exports nearly half of its crop. With less demand from overseas, prices have dropped while production costs, including for fuel, have risen. The combination is squeezing farmers, Aaronson said. Rice acres in the United States decreased last year and will likely drop again as farmers switch to crops that will make them more money.

About half of the 3 million acres of rice typically planted in the U.S. each year are in Arkansas. The remainder comes from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and California.

When Iraq sought bids on rice a few months ago, word on the street was the U.S. would have a piece of the action, said Mike Wagner, who grew up on a rice farm in Sumner, Miss. When that didn't happen, Wagner and other rice farmers say they were shocked.

"We invested so much in that country, and we feel like it's something of a slap in the face," said Wagner, who's considering planting more soybeans or a new crop on his 4,000-acre Mississippi Delta farm.

John Alter, 64, also is considering alternatives. Usually, about one-third of his 1,500-acre farm in DeWitt, Ark., is devoted to rice. This year, it would be risky to dedicate too much land to the crop, he said. The loss of imports is disappointing, Alter said, noting the price difference between U.S. rice and Uruguayan grain was small.

"We spent billions and billions, if not trillions over there, and lots of people died," Alter said. "There should be some reciprocation ... Last time I checked, there wasn't any Uruguayan soldiers that lost their lives in Iraq." lasvegassun

It Was Never a War. It Was an Invasion and We Are the Empire.

It Was Never a War. It Was an Invasion and We Are the Empire.
By Jeff Gibbs
December 18th, 2011

“War” is not over.

There never was a war.

There was an invasion.

An unleashing of mega-violence by an Empire upon a people who were no threat to them. Zero.

A unilateral assault by the United State of America on a small nation that had nothing to do with 9/11, that in fact despised and were threatened by the Saudi fundamentalists that perpetrated 9/11 just as much as us.

No, what happened in Iraq was no war.

It was a crime.



And if the United States weren’t the armed to the teeth and the economic bully of the world, we would be held accountable.

If you had any doubts whether this was a “war” or something else, all you had to do was watch the sad spectacle of the new leader of our Empire standing up there ALONE declaring “war is over.”

News flash: it takes two side to have a war. Where was the “enemy?”

No surrender, no peace treaty or armistice, no enemy bowing before us — or alternately if they had won preening and primping in victory.

The second clue this was not a war is that you cannot end a war by unilaterally stopping. That's how you end an invasion or attack, not a war.

A war ends when someone wins or loses. If we won, what did we win? Who did we defeat? Where are they?

In fact trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of dead later we lost by creating a nation where none before existed now open for business for violence, tribalism, lawlessness, fundamentalist extremists, and now full of people who hate us to the core and would most certainly harm us if they could.

A war ends when two sides make moves or come to terms.

An attack ends when the rapist stops raping, the murderer stops murdering, the bully stops bullying, or in this case when an Empire who cannot even admit it is an Empire tires of beating a tiny nation to a pulp.

The third clue that this was an invasion, an attack by an Empire, not a war, is the decision of the Emperor that the other side “doesn’t count.”

Evil genius!

No more guilt over innocent people’s brains blow out, arms and legs flying across the street into someone’s yard, children incinerated as they slept, babies dead in a dead mother’s arms. Simply decide they “don’t count.” By not counting them.

Our “war president” a guy who will go down in the annals of history with other stupid, violent, rulers of empires as a tragic character, who decided in his insanity that the way to deal with our slaughter was to pretend it doesn’t exist.

And we, the people of Empire, went along with it.

They do not count. But our people do.

We know the names and numbers of the 9/11 victims 2,997.

We know the names and number of our own troops killed: 4,484 in Iraq.

We know the names of number of those killed in the chaotic carnage of Vietnam, of World War II, and World War I, the Korean War, the Spanish-American conflict, the Civil War, and even the Revolutionary War.

We know how many were killed in the Titanic, roughly how many Jews were lost, how many people were gassed by Saddam, how many have been slaughtered in Syria.

Those people count, so we try to count them.

But in Iraq the most technologically-advanced, wealthiest Empire there ever was claims we have no clue or estimate as to the number of Iraqis killed. Umm, killed by us.

The lowest estimate I could find for civilians alone was 100,000, the highest, 1,000,000.

Killed for our benefit, or more accurately our collective delusion we are in a “war.”

And do the good People of Empire clamor for this accounting, to make sure that Iraqis “count” as much as people from Brooklyn or Oakland or Chapel Hill?

No.

It’s not too late. More Michael Moore.com

Iraq: Two Short Clips Democracy Now

As Biden Visits Iraq Ahead of U.S. Withdrawal, Critics See Last Ditch-Effort to Preserve Occupation

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has arrived in Iraq for an unannounced visit to mark the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of the year. Shi’ites supporting Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr held an anti-U.S. protest in Basra to oppose Biden’s visit. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that numerous investment bankers are arriving in Iraq to secure potentially lucrative reconstruction and oil deals even though security remains a concern. We’re joined by Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger and political analyst who just returned from Iraq two weeks ago. "Biden’s visit is widely seen in Iraq as the last attempt by the U.S. government to keep U.S. troops beyond the deadline and rename them as military trainers," Jarrar says. "Most Iraqis are worried [that] the Pentagon has not let go of its plan to leave behind 3,000-4,000 troops under the title of 'trainers', and that there will be one last showdown in the Iraqi parliament within the next few days." Transcript

- - -

State Dept. Veteran Peter Van Buren Defies U.S. Censors to Recount Failed Reconstruction in Iraq

In "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People," State Department official Peter Van Buren provides a first-hand account of the faltering and often misguided attempts at reconstruction in Iraq undertaken by the U.S. government. Van Buren published the book after rebuffing heavy State Department pressure to redact a number of passages. Van Buren joins us to discuss the failed efforts he witnessed in Iraq and his struggle to tell his story to the world. "The State department is very much like the Mafia," Van Buren says. Transcript

Fallujah Veteran The Road To Damascus

No stranger to bucking the trend and often being the lone voice on an issue, something quite easy to do when one is perfect and always right must be said. Nevertheless it is nice on occasion to have it confirmed by someone who, by virtue of personal involvement in an issue, is far better qualified than I to speak on that issue.

Quite recently, when all around were a cheering and a hollering and a hooting for Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas when he put a flea in the ear of New York's finest. Seemingly, as far as I know, I was the only bloke to make objection to his use of the word honour, whilst shouting his diatribe at the NYPD. And I did so, not just in this short post, (includes video) but tweeted on more than one occasion.

But the lone voice no more, I'm joined by an Iraqi vet who seems to have undergone a Road to Damascus moment, the scales falling from his eyes so to speak, seeing things far clearer after witnessing, and being a part of, America's near genocidal invasion of Iraq.

Although the writer doesn't use the word honour directly, it's as near as damn is to swearing as he covers a surprising number of points that are fundamental to the philosophy of this blog, ergo myself. Including I must add, the aforementioned Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas.

There is another issue on which I am a lone voice, and though I say it myself, I'm just as right on that one as I am on this. But here and now is not the time to reiterate, my feelings on that particular subject are well enough known.

Wall Street's Wars
Fallujah Veteran: 'I Served The 1%'
Thoughts on the role of veterans in the Occupy movement
By Ross Caputi
November 08, 2011

I did not serve my country in Iraq; I served the 1%. It was on their behalf that I helped lay siege to Fallujah, helped kill thousands of civilians, helped displace hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and helped destroy an entire city. My "service" served Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, and other multinational corporations in Iraq.

My family in Massachusetts is not safer because of my service, and Iraqis are not freer. I helped oppress Iraqis in a manner far more brutal than what has been experienced by the Occupy movement at the hands of the New York and Oakland police departments.

I was an occupier and am now an #occupier. I once served the 1%, but now try to serve the 99%. That is why I must speak up when I see the Occupy movement being led astray by the same nationalism and “Ameri-centrism,” the same thoughtless praises for U.S. troops and veterans, and the same hypocrisy that led us into the so-called “War On Terror” and the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many of us have joined the Occupy movement, because we identify as members of the 99%, but the media only began to highlight our participation after Cpl. Scott Olsen was shot in the head by the Oakland police with a projectile on Oct. 25. Olsen was immediately rushed to the emergency room, and his name soon became a rallying cry. A nationwide call was put out for vigils in solidarity with Olsen.

Going to war is not "serving our country"

The Occupy movement was quick to highlight Olsen's "service" and his two deployments to Iraq. The New York Times noted that "his injury—and the oddity of a Marine who faced enemy fire only to be attacked at home—has prompted an outpouring of sympathy, as well as calls for solidarity."

Although Olsen appears to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—he is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace,—the Occupy movement's response to his attack has revealed ambivalence on these issues.

The Occupy movement has glossed over the irony that Olsen was put in the hospital by some of the same tactics that his Marine Corps has used against Iraqis. It has not drawn a connection between what happened to Olsen and what happened to Iraqis who peacefully protested against the U.S. occupation of their country—like in Fallujah on April 28, 2003, when the U.S. fired into a crowd of protesters and killed 13 civilians. Countless other identical incidents have taken place, even today as Iraqis also protest unemployment, corruption and lack of services.

When the Occupy movement mentions Olsen's "service" without clarifying who he served, they hide the lies of the 1% and ignore the more than 1 million dead Iraqis, the millions of refugees and orphans, and the dramatic rise in cancers and birth defects in Iraq.

We must stand for the most affected victims of Wall Street

I watched a Youtube video the other day of U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Shamar Thomas shouting at the NYPD: "If you want to go kill or hurt people, go to Iraq. Why are you hurting U.S. citizens?" as a crowd of Occupy Wall Street protesters cheered him on.

Over 2.5 million people have watched this video, and Thomas appeared on Rosie O'Donnell's television show and made several appearances on Keith Olbermann. Everyone championed his "service" and decried police brutality against U.S. citizens. Nobody questioned the dismissal of the value of Iraqi lives.

We should all decry police brutality wherever it rears its ugly head. Yet police brutality and the murder of innocent civilians in foreign countries in service of the 1% are both moral issues, and to decry one without decrying the other suggests a serious disconnect.

These attitudes in our movement are deeply troubling to me. We decry economic injustice at home, but stay silent about the unjust occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We decry police brutality at home, while the U.S. war machine brutalizes innocent people abroad. We need to understand that Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Libyans and everyone else who has fallen victim to the 1% and its war machine are part of the 99%, too.

We can love our country, but we should not value American lives more than any other. We can set up a Scott Olsen Support Fund, but we should not ignore the rise in cancers and birth defects that U.S. weapons have caused in Iraq.

Veterans have an important role to play in this movement, but we are not heroes because of our participation in the wars, and it is shameful for anyone to use us to appeal to patriotism; that only serves the 1%. What we have to offer this movement is a first-hand account of what the 1% has done all over the world at the expense of the 99%. We as veterans are in a better position than anyone else to fight against the dangerous beliefs that put veterans on a pedestal. It is our responsibility to speak out against injustice, no matter where it occurs in this world. ICH

The author is a Marine Corps veteran of the second siege of Fallujah and a member of March Forward!. He is the founder of the 'Justice for Fallujah Project' which will host various events during the second annual 'Remember Fallujah Week,' Nov. 16-19. Click here for more information.

This item was first published at www.answercoalition.org

Least We Forget

Clusterfuck Accomplished The Yanks Are Going Home

Next success story, Libya.

The Iraq war is finally over. And it marks a complete neocon defeat

Thanks to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iran's greatest enemy, Tehran's influence in Iraq is stronger than America's

The Iraq war is over. Buried by the news from Libya, Barack Obama announced late on Friday that all US troops will leave Iraq by 31 December.

The president put a brave face on it, claiming he was fulfilling an election promise to end the war, though he had actually been supporting the Pentagon's effort to make a deal with Iraq's prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to keep US bases and several thousand troops there indefinitely.

The talks broke down because Moqtada al-Sadr's members of parliament and other Iraqi nationalists insisted that US troops be subject to Iraqi law. In every country where they are based the US insists on legal immunity and refuses to let troops be tried by foreigners. In Iraq the issue is especially sensitive after numerous US murders of civilians and the Abu Ghraib scandal in which Iraqi prisoners were sexually humiliated. In almost every case where US courts tried US troops, soldiers were acquitted or received relatively brief prison sentences.

The final troop withdrawal marks a complete defeat for Bush's Iraq project. The neocons' grand plan to use the 2003 invasion to turn the country into a secure pro-western democracy and a garrison for US bases that could put pressure on Syria and Iran lies in tatters.

Their hopes of making Iraq a democratic model for the Middle East have been tipped on their head. The instability and bloodshed which the US unleashed in Iraq were the example that Arabs sought to avoid, not emulate. This year's autonomous surge for democracy in Egypt and Tunisia has done far more to galvanise the region and undermine its dictatorships than anything the US did in Iraq. And when the Arab spring dawned, the Iraqi government found itself on the defensive as demonstrators took to the streets of Baghdad and Basra to protest against Maliki's authoritarianism and his government's US-supported clampdown on trade union activity. Maliki hosted two Syrian government delegations this summer and has refused to criticise Bashar al-Assad's shooting of protesters.

But the neocons' biggest defeat is that, thanks to Bush's toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iran's greatest enemy, Tehran's influence in Iraq is much stronger today than is America's. Iran does not control Iraq but Tehran no longer has anything to fear from its western neighbour now that a Shia-dominated government sits in Baghdad, made up of parties whose leaders spent long years of exile in Iran under Saddam or, like Sadr, have lived there more recently.

The US Republicans are accusing Obama of giving in to Iran by pulling all US troops out. Their knee-jerk reaction is rich and only shows the bankruptcy of their slogans, since it was Bush who gave Tehran its strategic opening by invading Iraq, just as it was Bush in the dying weeks of his presidency who signed the agreement to withdraw all US troops by the end of 2011, which Obama was hoping to amend. But Senator John McCain was right when he said Obama's announcement would be viewed "as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of US troops from Iraq". A pity that he did not pin the blame on Bush (and Tony Blair) who made it all possible.

The two former leaders' memoirs show they have learnt no lessons, even though their reputations in history will never be able to shake the disaster off.

Whether the lessons have been taken on board by the current US and British leaders is more important. Nato's relative success in the Libyan campaign is already being used to draw a veil over the past. Indeed, the fortuitous timing of Gaddafi's death has knocked the news of the US withdrawal from Iraq almost entirely off the media's agenda.

But the past is still with us. A key lesson from Iraq is that putting western boots on the ground in a foreign war, particularly in a Muslim country, is madness. That point seemed to have been learnt when US, British and French officials asked the UN security council in March to authorise its campaign in Libya. They promised there would be no ground troops or occupation.

This should also apply to Afghanistan where Obama claims to be fighting a war of necessity, unlike the war in Iraq which he calls one of choice. The distinction is false, and the question now is whether he will pull all US troops out by 2014.

On the pattern of the aborted deal with Iraq, his officials are trying to negotiate an arrangement with the Karzai government which will authorise the indefinite basing of thousands of US troops, to be described as trainers and advisers, after combat forces leave. This would continue the folly of fuelling the country's long-running civil war. Now that al-Qaida has been driven from Afghanistan, Washington should support negotiations for a government of national unity that includes the Taliban and ends the fighting among Afghans. Iraq is no haven of guaranteed stability but, without the presence of US combat troops for the last 15 months, it has achieved an uneasy peace. If talks in Afghanistan are seriously encouraged, it could go the same way once foreign troops at last withdraw. Guardian

Rumsfeld is a Torturer and Boris Johnson is a Cunt

I didn't dislike Boris Johnson as a personality, until now that is, until I read this small piece in the Rumsfeld torture article.

And the Mayor of London threatened Bush with arrest for war crimes earlier this year should he ever set foot in his city, saying that were he to land in London to "flog his memoirs," that "the real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again."

No prizes then for guessing my sudden change of heart, is there Tony?

Boris Johnson is a cunt.

This is the offending article in full.

George W. Bush can’t fight for freedom and authorise torture
By Boris Johnson
15 Nov 2010

It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us his memoirs, but if I were his PR people I would urge caution. As book tours go, this one would be an absolute corker. It is not just that every European capital would be brought to a standstill, as book-signings turned into anti-war riots. The real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.

One moment he might be holding forth to a great perspiring tent at Hay-on-Wye. The next moment, click, some embarrassed member of the Welsh constabulary could walk on stage, place some handcuffs on the former leader of the Free World, and take him away to be charged. Of course, we are told this scenario is unlikely. Dubya is the former leader of a friendly power, with whom this country is determined to have good relations. But that is what torture-authorising Augusto Pinochet thought. And unlike Pinochet, Mr Bush is making no bones about what he has done.

Unless the 43rd president of the United States has been grievously misrepresented, he has admitted to authorising and sponsoring the use of torture. Asked whether he approved of “waterboarding” in three specific cases, he told his interviewer that “damn right” he did, and that this practice had saved lives in America and Britain. It is hard to overstate the enormity of this admission.

“Waterboarding” is a disgusting practice by which the victim is deliberately made to think that he is drowning. It is not some cunning new psych-ops technique conceived by the CIA. It has been used in the dungeons of dictators for centuries. It is not compatible either with the US constitution or the UN convention against torture. It is deemed to be torture in this country, and above all there is no evidence whatever that it has ever succeeded in doing what Mr Bush claimed. It does not work.

It does not produce much valuable information — and therefore it does not save lives. Of course we are all tempted, from time to time, by the utilitarian argument. We might become reluctant supporters of “extreme interrogation techniques” if we could really persuade ourselves that half an hour of waterboarding could really save a hundred lives — or indeed a single life. In reality, no such calculus is possible. When people are tortured, they will generally say anything to bring the agony to an end — which is why any such evidence is inadmissible in court. Telegraph

Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office. The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company. The company was under contract to the Department of Defense. The company was assisting Iraqi insurgent groups in the "mass acquisition" of American weapons. The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Wednesday, September 21, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet. Awareness is growing that Bush-era crimes went far beyond mere waterboarding.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters in 2004 of photos withheld by the Defense Department from Abu Ghraib, “The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here...We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.” And journalist Seymour Hersh says: "boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has."

Rumsfeld resigned days before a criminal complaint was filed in Germany in which the American general who commanded the military police battalion at Abu Ghraib had promised to testify. General Janis Karpinski in an interview with Salon.com was asked: "Do you feel like Rumsfeld is at the heart of all of this and should be held completely accountable for what happened [at Abu Ghraib]?"

Karpinski answered: "Yes, absolutely." In the criminal complaint filed in Germany against Rumsfeld, Karpinski submitted 17 pages of testimony and offered to appear before the German prosecutor as a witness. Congressman Kendrick Meek of Florida, who participated in the hearings on Abu Ghraib, said of Rumsfeld: "There was no way Rumsfeld didn’t know what was going on. He’s a guy who wants to know everything."




And Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the official Army investigation into Abu Ghraib,said in his report:

"there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Amazingly, the two American contractors in the 7th Circuit decision were known by the military to be working undercover for the FBI, to whom they had reported witnessing the sale of U.S government munitions to Iraqi rebel groups. The FBI in Iraq had vouched for Vance and Ertel numerous times before they nevertheless disappeared into military custody. They were held at Camp Cropper in Iraq where the two were tortured, one for 97 days, and the other for six weeks.

In a puzzling and incriminating move, Camp Cropper base commander General John Gardner ordered Nathan Ertel released on May 17, 2006, while keeping Donald Vance in detention for another two months of torture. By ordering the release of one man but not the other, Gardner revealed awareness of the situation but prolonged it at the same time.

It is unlikely that Gardner could act alone in a situation as sensitive as the illegal detention and torture of two Americans confirmed by the FBI to be working undercover in the national interest, to prevent American weapons and munitions from reaching the hands of insurgents, for the sole purpose of using them to kill American troops. Vance and Ertel suggest he was acting on orders from the highest political level.

The forms of torture employed against the Americans included "techniques" which crop up frequently in descriptions of Iraqi and Afghan prisoner abuse at Bagram, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. They included "walling," where the head is slammed repeatedly into a concrete wall, sleep deprivation to the point of psychosis by use of round-the-clock bright lights and harsh music at ear-splitting volume, in total isolation, for days, weeks or months at a time, and intolerable cold.

The 7th Circuit ruling is the latest in a growing number of legal actions involving hundreds of former prisoners and torture victims filed in courts around the world. Criminal complaints have been filed against Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials inGermany, France, and Spain. Former President Bush recently curbed travel to Switzerland due to fear of arrest following criminal complaints lodged in Geneva. "He's avoiding the handcuffs," Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.




And the Mayor of London threatened Bush with arrest for war crimes earlier this year should he ever set foot in his city, saying that were he to land in London to "flog his memoirs," that "the real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again."

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief-of-Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson surmised on MSNBC earlier this year that soon, Saudi Arabia and Israel will be "the only two countries Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest will travel too." more and photo's

Cameron, Hero For a Day - Spiegel

Are The Good Times Really Over?

Only until the second coming.

This was to be a post on Iraq's missing $6 billion, which has every chance of turning out to be a missing $18 billion. Story and video Al Jazeera. Which in turn got me to thinking, just how large physically is a billion dollars?

Well, judging by the photo below, (12 pallets) depicting one billion dollars in hundred dollar bills, it's not something you would want dropping on your toe. And if the report is to be believed and the figure is accurate, multiply that lot by eighteen.

So with my interest piqued, I started looking at other figures, specifically a trillion, and what that figure means in relation to the US national debt, now running at over fifteen trillion dollars.

Time is of the essence this evening, so I have taken advantage of the the work done by others, which is duly posted below.





One billion dollars in hundred dollar bills, and if you that's an eye opener, just wait until you get to the trillion dollar related data. But first, a short musical interlude.





From the man himself, Merle Haggard.




Or a studio produced Wynonna Judd cover.

How much is a million, billion, trillion?
Wise Young PhD MD
The W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8087

We often speak casually of millions, billions, or even trillions. We are accustomed to thinking of cities with millions of inhabitants, government agency budgets that add up to billions, and even the United States debt that that is now close to $9 trillion. Most people don't appreciate these numbers.

Let's start with a million.

• A million minutes is nearly two years (1 year, 329 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes). Put in another way, it will take you nearly two years to spend a million dollars if you paid a dollar a minute.

• A book called "How much is a million?" tried to explain the concept of a million to children, pointing out that it would take a person 23 days of non-stop counting to count a million anything, including dollars (Source).

• If you walked a million steps, you can walk to Boston from New York (approximately 200 miles), assuming that each of your steps is a bit longer than a foot (a million feet is 189 miles).

• Since each dollar bill weighs about a gram and each pound has about 454 grams, a million dollars in one dollar bills weighs about 2202.6 pounds (Source). In 20 dollar bills, a million dollars would still weigh 110 pounds. In 100 dollar bills, it would weigh 22.0 pounds.

• A stack of 1000 bills is about a foot tall. Therefore, a million dollar stacked on top of each other would be 1000 feet tall. The Empire State Building is 1250 feet tall. A dollar bill is about 6 inches by 2.5 inches (15.7 cm by 6.6 cm) or about 0.10 square foot. So one cubic feet of $1 bills has about $10,000. A million dollars would take up about 100 cubic feet.

A billion is of course 1000 million. You can multiply every thing above by 1000 but using $100 bills is a bit more practical.

• A billion minutes ago is about the time of the birth of Christ.

• A billion steps is more than 200,000 miles. The circumference of the earth is only 25,000 miles. Therefore, one can walk around the earth at least 9 times and possibly 10 times.

• A billion dollars in $100 bills would weigh 22,000 pounds, over 1,100 cubic feet of bills.

• A stack of $100 bills for a billion dollars would be 10,000 feet tall, taller than the tallest building in the United States and taller than any mountain east of the Rockies, including Mt. Washington (6288 ft, the tallest mountain in Northeast United States).

• It would take 230 days to count the 10 million $100 bills. That is to count $1 billion.

• On September 7, 2003, President Bush asked Congress to grant an additional $87 billion to continue the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The $87 billion would cover a whole football field with $100 bills to the depth of 6 inches. By September 2007, the United States will have spent $315 billion on the war (Source). The Senate is working on adding another $50 billion. The $365 billion would fill a football field to a depth of 2 feet with $100 bills.

• Filling a football field with $100 bills may seem sort of silly but it is not far from what the Bush Administration did. During Paul Bremer's tenure as administrator of Iraq, the United States shipped bales of cash to Iraq. The total amount cash sent was over $12 billion, requiring a football field size warehouse to store the cash. A special inspector general for the Iraqi reconstruction said that $8.8 billion is unaccounted for after being given to the Iraqi ministries. But more interesting, illustrating the physical dimensions of the cash shipped, $4 billion of the cash is missing, some 363 tons of it.


"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and sixpence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and sixpence, result misery." Mr Micawber


A trillion is an mind-boggling number, well beyond the capability of most of us to imagine. The following will illustrate.

• A trillion minutes ago is 31,688 years ago, close to the beginning of human history. In other words, if you spent a dollar per minute, you could barely spend a trillion dollars during all of known human history. Even if you spent $100 per minute, you would not be able to spend $1 trillion in 300 years, virtually the entire history of the United States.

• Packed in bales of $100 bills (each weighing a gram), a trillion dollars would be 10 billion $100 bills, or about 10 million kilograms, 22 million pounds, or over 10,000 tons of cash (at 2000 pounds per ton). A trillion dollars in $100 bills would occupy a million cubic feet of space. It would fill a football field 6 feet deep. Before the end of 2008, the United States is likely to have spent over a trillion dollars on Iraq. conclusion

H/T and thanks for effort, Wise Young.

$6.6 Billion ''May Have Been Stolen''

And if you think this falls into the ''you couldn't make it up'' category, just to add insult to injury, the Iraqis are considering suing the US to have the money replaced.

Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say

U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war.
By Paul Richter
June 13, 2011

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born.

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.

This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash — enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.

For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be "the largest theft of funds in national history."

The mystery is a growing embarrassment to the Pentagon, and an irritant to Washington's relations with Baghdad. Iraqi officials are threatening to go to court to reclaim the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, seized Iraqi assets and surplus funds from the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

It's fair to say that Congress, which has already shelled out $61 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for similar reconstruction and development projects in Iraq, is none too thrilled either.

"Congress is not looking forward to having to spend billions of our money to make up for billions of their money that we can't account for, and can't seem to find," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), who presided over hearings on waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq six years ago when he headed the House Government Reform Committee. more LA Times

Baghdad - Rohrabacher. Bugger Orf

Seems I'm not the only one that found Dana Rohrabacher's remarks, what shall we say, a tad unconventional? Sling your hook, the message coming out off Baghdad.

Iraq asks US congressman to leave over 'repay' remark

Rohrabacher calls for Baghdad to repay part of the money spent by Washington since 2003 invasion.
June 12 2011


BAGHDAD - Iraqi authorities asked for a US congressman to leave the country after he called for Baghdad to repay part of the money spent by Washington since the 2003 invasion, a spokesman said on Saturday.

Republican representative Dana Rohrabacher's remarks at a news conference in Baghdad stood in stark contrast to those by senior American officials, who have pressed Iraqi officials to decide soon whether they want US troops to stay beyond a year-end withdrawal deadline.

"We called the US embassy yesterday and we told them to ask the congressmen to leave Iraq," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. "We don't want them here. What they said was inappropriate."

Dabbagh said Rohrabacher and his congressional delegation had not raised the issue in a meeting with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, contradicting the US politician's comments that he had spoken about potential repayments with the Iraqi leader.

It was not immediately clear if Rohrabacher and the delegation were still in the country when the request was made.

"Once Iraq becomes a very rich and prosperous country... we would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the mega-dollars that we have spent here in the last eight years," Rohrabacher told journalists at the US embassy on Monday.

Rohrabacher, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives, declined to give specifics on how much should be repaid, or over how long.

US embassy spokesman David Ranz said that while the mission "has a responsibility to host congressional visitors," the views of the politicians "do not necessarily express the views of the US administration or even a majority of the Congress."

He declined to comment on Dabbagh's remarks.

Around 45,000 American troops are still in Iraq, mostly tasked with training and equipping their Iraqi counterparts.

All US troops must withdraw from the country by the end of the year, under the terms of a security pact, but US officials have been pressing Baghdad to decide quickly whether or not it wants an extension.

Dabbagh said Iraqi President Jalal Talabani would lead a meeting of the country's political leaders "very soon" to deal with "issues related to the American withdrawal from Iraq."

Rohrabacher was leading a bipartisan US congressional delegation on a visit to Iraq, primarily to look into a raid by Iraqi security forces in April on the Ashraf camp housing thousands of exiled Iranians in which at least 35 camp residents died.

Previous: US Rep Dana Rohrabacher. Do They Have Seasons on Your Planet?


Dissident Voice expands the thing.

Bizzaro Capitalism

Imagine an unbidden exterminator comes by your house and begins to disinfect and kill pests around your house. You arrive home later to find your cat is dead, and your baby is turning green and a green slime is oozing from the corner of her mouth. You rush her to the hospital which is overrun with patients whose properties have received unrequested extermination treatments. While waiting in queue your daughter dies from a severe allergic reaction to the chemicals used by the exterminators.

There are other deaths, but some victims manage to recover from the harm caused by the exterminators.

Weeks later, the exterminator bills you and the others since, they claim, the pests were eradicated. How would you react?

Now take the above scenario and apply an analogy a thousand fold more bizarre and outrageous. Recently, a United States congressman had the chutzpah to ask Iraq to repay the United States for aggressing and occupying (still ongoing) it. As if the Iraqi resistance needed more reasons to continue than the over one million lives snuffed out, the 4 million or so Iraqis made refugees, the outbreak of disease and infant malformations, a destroyed infrastructure, a destroyed economy, etc… more

US Rep Dana Rohrabacher. Do They Have Seasons on Your Planet?

Two in one week! I have only previously accrued four in five years. Worthies I'm talking about, those absolute jaw dropping statements that are worthy of a place in the hall of fame, or should that be the hall of unreality? whatever! it can be found in the right hand sidebar.

We have, already this week, been treated to this:

The effects of radiation do not come to people that are happy and laughing. They come to people that are weak-spirited, that brood and fret.

Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, radiological health safety risk management adviser for the Fukushima prefecture. Link

And know for your utter amazement, words on Iraq, so totally arrogant and so incredibly unbelievable that they defy description. Suffice to say that the words of both Dr. Shunichi Yamashita and those of Republican congresscritter, Dana Rohrabacher, now abide in the Gor Blimey Hall of Fame.

Once Iraq becomes a very rich and prosperous country... we would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the mega-dollars that we have spent here in the last eight years.

We were hoping that there would be a consideration of a payback because the United States right now is in close to a very serious economic crisis and we could certainly use some people to care about our situation as we have cared about theirs.

Dana Rohrabacher (R) June 2011

US congressman says Iraq should repay war costs
June 10, 2011

BAGHDAD (AFP) – A US congressman called on Friday for Iraq to repay a portion of the "mega-dollars" that Washington has spent since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, at a news conference in Baghdad.

Republican representative Dana Rohrabacher's remarks stand in stark contrast to those by senior American officials, including most recently CIA chief Leon Panetta, who has said the United States should seriously consider any Iraqi request for US troops to stay beyond a year-end deadline for their departure.

"Once Iraq becomes a very rich and prosperous country... we would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the mega-dollars that we have spent here in the last eight years," Rohrabacher told journalists at the US embassy in Baghdad.

"We were hoping that there would be a consideration of a payback because the United States right now is in close to a very serious economic crisis and we could certainly use some people to care about our situation as we have cared about theirs."

He said he raised the issue in a meeting with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Rohrabacher, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the US House of Representatives, declined to give specifics on how much should be paid back, or over what timeframe.

Rohrabacher added that the same principle held for Libya, saying: "If the Libyans for example are willing to help pay, compensate the United States, for what we would spend in helping them through this rough period, that's one way to do it."

"And once Iraq is prosperous... paying back some of the expenditures that we've had helping them establish democracy would be much appreciated," he said.

Around 45,000 American troops are still stationed in Iraq, mostly tasked with training and equipping their Iraqi counterparts.

All US troops must withdraw from the country by the end of the year, according to the terms of a security pact, but US officials have been pressing Baghdad to decide quickly whether or not it wants an extension.

Rohrabacher was leading a bipartisan US congressional delegation on a visit to Iraq, primarily to look into a raid by Iraqi security forces in April on the Ashraf camp housing thousands of exiled Iranians in which at least 35 camp residents died. Yahoo

Update: Iraqi response here.

US To Remain In Iraq by Proxy (Or Otherwise)

That's the trouble when you're stuck between a clusterfuck and a hard place. One hardly needs a crystal ball to foresee the whole country going to hell in a hand basket the moment the US withdraws.

Assuming of course, the US is not ''invited'' by Maliki to maintain a presence there. Something which, as you can well imagine, ain't going to go down too well with al-Sadr and his Mehdi army.

U.S. Plans Private Guard Force for Iraq
State Department Prepares to Hire 5,100-Strong Security Detail and Take Over Military Hardware for After Army Leaves

WASHINGTON—The State Department is preparing to spend close to $3 billion to hire a security force to protect diplomats in Iraq after the U.S. pulls its last troops out of the country by year's end.

In testimony Monday before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, said the department plans to hire a 5,100-strong force to protect diplomatic personnel, guard embassy buildings and operate a fleet of aircraft and armored vehicles.

Underscoring the security risks in Iraq, five American troops were killed Monday in an attack in Baghdad, the largest single loss of life for the U.S. military there since April 2009.

Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. Under a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, all U.S. troops are supposed to leave the country by the end of the year, leaving behind only a small military office to oversee arms sales.

While U.S. officials have expressed a willingness to station a small residual force in the country, it is unclear if the Iraqi government will make the request, which faces strong opposition in Iraq.

A large U.S. diplomatic presence will remain, however, and the departments of state and defense are wrestling with how to provide security for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad—which is a target of rocket attacks—and diplomatic outposts in the provinces.

As the military withdraws, Mr. Kennedy said, the State Department will rely on contractors to carry out a range of military-style missions that he said were "not inherently governmental," including providing emergency medical evacuation, operating systems to detect and warn against incoming rocket or artillery fire, or rescue diplomatic personnel under attack. more WSJ

Related

How Not to Withdraw from Iraq
by Peter Van Buren
June 7, 2011.

Iraq? Where’s that? Most Americans no longer seem to know and evidently could care less, but don’t tell that to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, various key military figures and Washington officials, or some of the neocons, warrior-pundits, and liberal war-fighters circling them. They continue to relentlessly promote Iraq as a mission-never-accomplished-but-never-to-be-ended experience. Somehow, two decades after our Iraq wars began, they still can’t get enough of them. Learning curve? Don't even think about it. It’s as if they’re trapped in that old Thomas Wolfe novel, You Can’t Go Home Again.

For more than a year now, a crew of lobbyists eager to abrogate the withdrawal agreement the Bush administration negotiated with the Iraqis have been dropping the broadest of hints. Should the Iraqis ask, they say, the U.S. military must stay in that country (whatever war-ending pledges President Obama might once have made). General Martin Dempsey, the newly appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is typical. Only weeks before the president picked him, he reaffirmed his support for “keeping American troops in Iraq beyond December if requested by Iraqi leaders.” And when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki nonetheless continued to insist on sticking to an end of 2011 withdrawal date for all U.S. troops (and assumedly for emptying those monster military bases the Pentagon sank billions of dollars into), top Washington officials began pleading, wheedling, and undoubtedly pressuring him in all sorts of ways to change his mind. Now, he’s provisionally done so. more tomdispatch

UK Plans to Exploit Iraq's Oil Reserves Were Discussed a Year Before Invasion

How's the humanitarian mission going in Libya?

Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq
By Paul Bignell
19 April 2011

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."

The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq."

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time".

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil.

Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on Fire is published next week, said: "Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq's oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims.

"We see that oil was in fact one of the Government's most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize."

Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya's National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment.

Not about oil? what they said before the invasion

* Foreign Office memorandum, 13 November 2002, following meeting with BP: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity to compete. The long-term potential is enormous..."

* Tony Blair, 6 February 2003: "Let me just deal with the oil thing because... the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It's not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons..."

* BP, 12 March 2003: "We have no strategic interest in Iraq. If whoever comes to power wants Western involvement post the war, if there is a war, all we have ever said is that it should be on a level playing field. We are certainly not pushing for involvement."

* Lord Browne, the then-BP chief executive, 12 March 2003: "It is not in my or BP's opinion, a war about oil. Iraq is an important producer, but it must decide what to do with its patrimony and oil."

* Shell, 12 March 2003, said reports that it had discussed oil opportunities with Downing Street were 'highly inaccurate', adding: "We have neither sought nor attended meetings with officials in the UK Government on the subject of Iraq. The subject has only come up during conversations during normal meetings we attend from time to time with officials... We have never asked for 'contracts'." Independent

They Died in Vain.

I quite recently brought you a post that included among other things a few thoughts of my own on the most expensive hard-on in history, George W Bush's invasion of Iraq. Pardon me, Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Shame and decency are not to be found.

Yet they offer the parents of the dead a free headstone if it bears the inscription "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

Shameless, and overflowing with abject hypocrisy. Bush knows all too well why the troops died, I hope the spirit of the countless thousands, the spirit of every dead man woman or child haunts the son of a bitch to the grave and beyond.

But he cannot see the irony of this “magnanimous” gesture, forever and a day will that inscription, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” etched in stone, mock the man and his presidency for what they truly are.

But the bitterest of ironies is lost on this fool, because forever and a day those words will be synonymous with: More

“They died for nothing.”

Words that preceded an article by Laurence M. Vance, Thank a Vet? A good enough article at the time to accompany my own little offering, but that original choice now superseded by another, and much more apt, Vance offerings, They Died in Vain.

When the number of Americans killed in Iraq surpassed the 1,000 mark in September of 2004, President Bush said of the families of the dead during a campaign rally: "My promise to them is that we will complete the mission so that their child or their husband or wife has not died in vain." Well, the death count of U.S. soldiers has now reached 4,000, and the completion of the mission is nowhere in sight........

.......Now, if Bush's mission were to destroy civil liberties, shred the Constitution, enrich defense and security contractors, construct permanent bases in Iraq, establish an imperial presidency, confirm him as a war president, build his legacy, expand the national debt, wreck the economy, and further increase the power of the warfare state then I would certainly say that the mission has been completed.

But at what cost?

The terrible cost of Bush's mission is the lives of 4,000 American soldiers. None of these soldiers had to die. They didn't die for their country. They didn't die for our freedoms. They didn't die for a noble cause. Every one of them died for George W. Bush's bogus mission. They all died in vain. Their lives were wasted. They Died in Vain.

It wasn't my intention to put before you this article, quite the contrary, but it was another article by Vance, one that I had kept as a draft, but only just rediscovered. Given that we purchased our soapboxes at the same, anti war, anti religion, don't give me that hypocrisy shite, store, it's little wonder that I am availing myself of, and thoroughly recommending, that you have a trawl through the not insignificant archives of Laurence M Vance.
Coming next, Pro-Lifers for Mass Murder.

An Empire of Lies: The CIA and the Western Media

An Empire of Lies: The CIA and the Western Media

......But even the Guardian, often regarded as fearless in taking on powerful interests, packaged its report in such a way as to deprive Curveball’s confession of its true value. The facts were bled of their real significance. The presentation ensured that only the most aware readers would have understood that the US had not been duped by Curveball, but rather that the White House had exploited a “fantasist” — or desperate exile from a brutal regime, depending on how one looks at it — for its own illegal and immoral ends.

Why did the Guardian miss the main point in its own exclusive? The reason is that all our mainstream media, however liberal, take as their starting point the idea both that the West’s political culture is inherently benevolent and that it is morally superior to all existing, or conceivable, alternative systems.

In reporting and commentary, this is demonstrated most clearly in the idea that “our” leaders always act in good faith, whereas “their” leaders — those opposed to empire or its interests — are driven by base or evil motives.

It is in this way that official enemies, such as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, can be singled out as personifying the crazed or evil dictator — while other equally rogue regimes such as Saudi Arabia’s are described as “moderate” — opening the way for their countries to become targets of our own imperial strategies.

States selected for the “embrace” of empire are left with a stark choice: accept our terms of surrender and become an ally or defy empire and face our wrath.

When the corporate elites trample on other peoples and states to advance their own selfish interests, such as in the invasion of Iraq to control its resources, our dominant media cannot allow its reporting to frame the events honestly. The continuing assumption in liberal commentary about the US attack on Iraq, for example, is that, once no WMD were found, the Bush administration remained to pursue a misguided effort to root out the terrorists, restore law and order, and spread democracy.

For the western media, our leaders make mistakes, they are naïve or even stupid, but they are never bad or evil. Our media do not call for Bush or Blair to be tried at the Hague as war criminals. more

‘Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet Regime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.’ As I Please