Iraq under US Occupation

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq (IAMB), an independent agency formed to oversee the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) and Iraq’s oil exports, notes in briefings to the CPA that the production of crude oil is going unmetered. It will later say in a report that such practices could result in the diversion of Iraq’s oil resources. It recommends that the CPA properly install metering equipment as soon as possible. [International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq, 12/2004, pp. 2, 4 ]

After weapons inspector David Kay’s resignation (see January 23, 2004), the call to investigate the failure of intelligence surrounding the Iraq invasion reaches a fever pitch. White House press secretary Scott McClellan will later write: “[President] Bush and his advisers feared outside investigators. However, as momentum built for yet another independent probe, we saw the benefit of acting quickly and on our terms. Bush soon announced the creation of a bipartisan, independent commission to look into our intelligence on WMD, including Iraq (see March 8, 2005). Its members were appointed by the president, and its scope set by his team. It would not include looking at how the intelligence had been used to make the case for war. That was something Bush and his top advisers sought to avoid, concerned at a minimum—particularly in an election year—that it would prove politically fatal. They were willing to allow things to become more politicized, some considering it a battle that could be fought to a draw or even used to motivate the base, and believed that the short-term political cost could be minimized. In Bush’s mind, how the case for had been made scarcely mattered. What mattered now was the policy and showing success. The public tends to be more forgiving when the results are promising. If the policy was right and the selling of the policy could be justified at the time, then any difference between the two mattered little. In this view, governing successfully in Washington is about winning public opinion and getting positive results. To this day, the president seems unbothered by the disconnect between the chief rationale for war and the driving motivation behind it, and unconcerned about how the case was packaged.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 202]

CIA Director George Tenet says in a speech that while there is “no consensus” among intelligence officials that the two trailers found in Iraq (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) were mobile biological weapons factories, the trailers “could be made to work” as weapons labs. [Central Intelligence Agency, 2/5/2004; Washington Post, 4/12/2006]

A CIA officer in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) instructs Rod Barton, a former UN weapons inspector who is contributing to an upcoming ISG report, not to mention the two trailers (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) that the administration previously claimed were biological weapons factories. Since the trailers were discovered in April and May of 2003, experts have concluded that they were actually designed to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. Barton later recalls the officer telling him, “You don’t understand how difficult it is to say anything different.… I don’t care that they are not biological trailers. It’s politically not possible.” [Associated Press, 5/13/2006]

Mike Stinson of ConocoPhillips and Bob Morgan of BP replace Rob McKee and Terry Adams as advisers to Iraq’s oil ministry. The British government pays them £147,700 for their work. [Muttitt, 2005]

Hamish Killip, a British army officer and biological weapons expert, resigns from the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, in protest of the CIA’s refusal to acknowledge that the alleged mobile biological weapons labs found by US forces in April (see May 9, 2003) and May (see April 19, 2003) of 2003 were in fact designed to produce hydrogen, not biological weapon agents. Two other members of the Iraq Survey Group—Rod Barton, an Australian intelligence officer and another bio-weapons expert—also quit this month for similar reasons. [Age (Melbourne), 3/26/2005; Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005]

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank, warns in an op-ed piece that US plans to submit Iraq’s economy to shock therapy—i.e., the rapid implementation of market reforms such as privatization and deregulation—will fail in Iraq. He advises the international community to “direct its money to humanitarian causes, such as hospitals and schools, rather than backing American designs.” He writes: “When the Berlin Wall fell, the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union began transitions to a market economy, with heated debates over how this should be accomplished. One choice was shock therapy… while the other was gradual market liberalization to allow for the rule of law to be established at the same time. Today, there is a broad consensus that shock therapy, at least at the level of microeconomic reforms, failed, and that countries (Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia) that took the gradualist approach to privatization and the reconstruction of institutional infrastructure managed their transitions far better than those that tried to leapfrog into a laissez-faire economy…. But the Bush administration, backed by a few handpicked Iraqis, is pushing Iraq towards an even more radical form of shock therapy than was pursued in the former Soviet world. Indeed, shock therapy’s advocates argue that its failures were due not to excessive speed—too much shock and not enough therapy—but to insufficient shock.” But it won’t work, he says, because instability will deter investment and those who do purchase state assets “may then be reluctant to invest in them; instead, as happened elsewhere, their efforts may be directed more at asset stripping than at wealth creation.” He adds that providing Iraq with loans will only exacerbate the country’s difficulties. He concludes: “America’s economic program for reconstructing Iraq is laying the foundations for poverty and chaos.” [ZNet, 3/17/2004]

Jay Garner. [Source: Representational Pictures]The US’s first administrator of post-invasion Iraq, Jay Garner, tells BBC reporter Greg Palast that he was replaced by Paul Bremer because of his insistence on early elections and resistance to the Bush administration’s plan to impose a free market system on Iraq. Garner says he felt it would have been wrong to impose a new economic system on the Iraqi people before they could elect a representative government. [Guardian, 3/18/2003]

A video still of Nick Berg being tormented by his captors in Iraq. [Source: Reuters]A video of US citizen Nick Berg being beheaded in Iraq is made public and causes widespread horror and outrage around the world. Berg had been working in Iraq with private companies installing communications towers. On March 24, 2004, he is taken into custody. Berg’s family is sent e-mails confirming that he is in US custody (however, US officials will later claim they were erroneously notified and he was in Iraqi government custody instead). The official reasons for his arrest are “lack of documentation” and “suspicious activities.” Regardless of who is holding him, it is not disputed that he is visited three times by the FBI while being held. On April 5, the Berg family launches an action against the US military for false imprisonment, and the next day Berg is released. Berg stays in a hotel in Baghdad for the next few days, and tells a hotel guest that he had been held in a jail with US soldiers as guards. His family last hears of him on April 9, when he tells them he is going to try to leave Iraq. Then, nearly a month later on May 8, his headless body is found dumped on a Baghdad roadside. Three days after that, on May 11, the video of his beheading is broadcast. [Sydney Morning Herald, 5/29/2004; National Public Radio, 8/14/2004] The video shows five masked men taunting and then beheading Berg, and one of them claims to be Islamist militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Two days later, a CIA official says, “After the intelligence community conducted a technical analysis of the… video, the CIA assesses with high probability that the speaker on the tape is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and that person is shown decapitating American citizen Nicholas Berg.” [BBC, 5/13/2004] However, many doubts about the video and the identity of al-Zarqawi surface:
Berg is seen wearing an orange jumpsuit typically worn by detainees in US custody. At the start of the video, he speaks directly to the camera in a relaxed way. The Sydney Morning Herald will later comment, “It is highly likely that this segment is edited from the interrogation of Berg during his 13 days of custody.”
Then the video cuts to scenes including the five masked men. But their Arabic is heavily accented in Russian, Jordanian, and Egyptian. One says “do it quickly” in Russian. A voice also seems to ask in English, “How will it be done?” Glimpses of their skin look white. [Sydney Morning Herald, 5/29/2004]
The masked man identified as al-Zarqawi does not speak with a Jordanian accent even though al-Zarqawi is Jordanian. CNN staff familiar with al-Zarqawi’s voice claim the voice does not sound like his. [CNN, 5/12/2004; Sydney Morning Herald, 5/29/2004]
Berg is then decapitated, but there is very little blood. Dr John Simpson, executive director for surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, says, “I would have thought that all the people in the vicinity would have been covered in blood, in a matter of seconds… if it [the video] was genuine.” Forensic death expert Jon Nordby of the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators suggests that the beheading was staged and Berg was already dead. He also suggests that Berg appears to be heavily drugged in earlier parts of the video. [Asia Times, 5/22/2004] The Herald comments, “The scream is wildly out of sync, sounds female, and is obviously dubbed.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 5/29/2004]
Al-Zarqawi is the one shown cutting Berg’s throat with a knife, and uses his right hand to do so. But people who spent time in prison with al-Zarqawi and knew him well claim that he was left handed. [New York Times, 7/13/2004]
The timing of the video also raises suspicions, as it is broadcast just two weeks after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal is exposed, and the shock of the beheadings cause some to claim a moral relativism to justify the US military’s abusive behavior towards detainees. [Sydney Morning Herald, 5/29/2004]
Strangely, Al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui somehow used Berg’s e-mail account years before in Oklahoma (see Autumn 1999). US officials call this “a total coincidence.”
The London Times comments that “The CIA’s insistence that al-Zarqawi was responsible appears based on the scantiest of evidence.… Sound experts have speculated that the voice might have been dubbed on.” Further, “There are discrepancies in the times on the video frames.” [London Times, 5/23/2004]
No autopsy is performed on Berg’s body, nor is there any determination of the time of his death. [Sydney Morning Herald, 5/29/2004]
No proper investigation of the circumstances surrounding his death is ever conducted. For instance, the US military will tell Berg’s family that they could find no evidence of Berg’s last days in a Baghdad hotel and that no Westerner stayed in that hotel for weeks. But the Washington Post was able to get a copy of the hotel register with Berg’s name on it, along with the date of his checkout, a list of the things he left in his room, and the exact words he said as he left the hotel. [National Public Radio, 8/14/2004]
It will later be reported that the US military was conducting a propaganda campaign to inflate the importance of al-Zarqawi (see April 10, 2006), but it is unknown if Berg’s death was somehow related to this campaign.

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)‘s Private Security Company Working Group, an internal agency within the CPA that handles the hiring and deployment of private security firms in Iraq, notes: “We are creating a private army on an unpricidented [sic] scale. This will be the largest private security force ever assembled. It will be larger than Coalition Forces and will represent a force for good or harm depending on our insistance [sic] on the rule of law.” [Roberts, 2008, pp. 128]

Ahmed Chalabi, a member of Iraq’s governing council, meets with the Baghdad station chief for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and informs him that the US has broken the code used to encrypt Iran’s intelligence communications. Chalabi says that he learned about the code-break from a drunken American official. A frantic exchange of communications takes place between the Iranian agent and Tehran concerning Chalabi’s claim. The US intercepts and decodes all of them, revealing Chalabi’s role. When the story is broken in the press, Chalabi denies having passed classified information to the Iranians. [Newsweek, 5/10/2004; New York Times, 6/2/2004; CBS News, 6/3/2004; News Insight, 6/9/2004]

Paul Bremer, the US administrator for Iraq, issues Order 81 rewriting Iraq’s 1970 patent law. The order extends intellectual property right protections to plants, making it illegal for Iraqi farmers to save, share, or replant seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the law. The order was written with the help of Linda Lourie, an attorney-advisor in the US Patent Office’s Office of External Affairs. She was invited to Iraq to help draft laws that would ensure Iraq’s eligibility into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Bremer’s order, however, makes Iraq’s patent law stricter even than the WTO-compliant 1991 International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (see March 19, 1991), which allows its member-states to exempt farmers from the prohibition against seed saving. Lourie claims these changes were sanctioned by the Iraqi governing council, which she says wants Iraq to have the strongest intellectual property rules in the region in order to attract private investment. [Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq, 4/4/2004 ; GRAIN, 10/2004; National Public Radio, 11/24/2004]

Darrin Mortenson, a reporter for a local San Diego newspaper who is embedded with an artillery unit during Operation Vigilant Resolve in Fallujah, reports that white phosphorus is being used against human targets. Mortenson describes how mortar team leader Corporal Nicholas Bogert, after receiving a fire mission over the radio, “directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday [April 9 and 10], never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused.” The shells were fired “into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week,” the reporter writes, adding that “[e]very day since they started firing rounds into the city, other Marines have stopped by the mortar pit to take a turn dropping mortars into the tube and firing at some unseen target.” [North County Times, 4/10/2004] In a November 2004 email to the Independent, the reporter writes: “During the fight I was describing in my article, WP mortar rounds were used to create a fire in a palm grove and a cluster of concrete buildings that were used as cover by Iraqi snipers and teams that fired heavy machine guns at US choppers.” [Independent, 11/15/2005]

CBS graphic illustrating interview with General Anthony Zinni. [Source: CBS News]Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni was the chief of the US Central Command until 2000, and, until just before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration’s special envoy to the Middle East. Now he has become an outspoken critic of the administration’s war efforts in Iraq. Zinni gives an interview to CBS’s 60 Minutes, in part to promote his new biography, Battle Ready, co-authored by famed war novelist Tom Clancy.
'Dereliction of Duty' among Senior Pentagon Officials - Zinni says that senior officials at the Pentagon, from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on down, are guilty of what he calls dereliction of duty, and he believes it is time for “heads to roll.” Zinni tells correspondent Steve Kroft: “There has been poor strategic thinking in this. There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to ‘stay the course,’ the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it’s time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it’s been a failure.” In his book, Zinni writes: “In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence, and corruption.… I think there was dereliction in insufficient forces being put on the ground and fully understanding the military dimensions of the plan. I think there was dereliction in lack of planning.”
'The Wrong War at the Wrong Time' - Zinni calls Iraq “the wrong war at the wrong time,” and with the wrong strategy. Before the invasion, Zinni told Congress (see October 31, 2002): “This is, in my view, the worst time to take this on. And I don’t feel it needs to be done now.” The generals never wanted this war, Zinni says, but the civilians in the Pentagon and the White House did. “I can’t speak for all generals, certainly,” he says. “But I know we felt that this situation was contained (see Summer 2002-2003). Saddam was effectively contained.… And I think most of the generals felt, let’s deal with this one at a time. Let’s deal with this threat from terrorism, from al-Qaeda.”
Much Larger Force Required - Zinni was heavily involved in planning for any invasion of Iraq, going back to at least 1999 (see April-July 1999). Zinni always envisioned any such invasion as being implemented with enough ground forces to get the job done quickly and cleanly. Rumsfeld had different ideas—the invasion could be carried off with fewer troops and more high-tech weaponry. Zinni wanted around 300,000 troops: “We were much in line with General Shinseki’s view. We were talking about, you know, 300,000, in that neighborhood.” Would a larger force have made a difference? Kroft asks. Zinni replies, “I think it’s critical in the aftermath, if you’re gonna go to resolve a conflict through the use of force, and then to rebuild the country.” Rumsfeld should have anticipated the level and ferocity of violence that erupted in the aftermath of the toppling of the Hussein government, but, Zinni says, he did not, and worse, he ignored or belittled those such as Shinseki and a number of foreign allies who warned him of the possible consequences. Instead, Zinni notes, Rumsfeld relied on, among other sources, fabricated intelligence from Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress (see September 19-20, 2001).
'Seat of the Pants Operation' - The entire reconstruction effort was, in Zinni’s mind, a seat-of-the-pants affair. “As best I could see, I saw a pickup team, very small, insufficient in the Pentagon with no detailed plans that walked onto the battlefield after the major fighting stopped and tried to work it out in the huddle,” he says, “in effect to create a seat-of-the-pants operation on reconstructing a country.” Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer is “a great American who’s serving his country, I think, with all the kind of sacrifice and spirit you could expect. But he has made mistake after mistake after mistake.” Bremer’s mistakes include “Disbanding the army (see May 23, 2003). De-Baathifying (see May 16, 2003), down to a level where we removed people that were competent and didn’t have blood on their hands that you needed in the aftermath of reconstruction—alienating certain elements of that society.” Zinni reserves most of the blame for the Pentagon: “I blame the civilian leadership of the Pentagon directly.”
Heads Should Roll, Beginning with Rumsfeld's - Zinni continues: “But regardless of whose responsibility I think it is, somebody has screwed up. And at this level and at this stage, it should be evident to everybody that they’ve screwed up. And whose heads are rolling on this? That’s what bothers me most.” The first one to go, Zinni says, is Rumsfeld: “Well, it starts with at the top. If you’re the secretary of defense and you’re responsible for that.”
Neoconservatives at Fault - Next up are Rumsfeld’s advisers, whom Kroft identifies as the cadre of neoconservatives “who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel.” Zinni says: “Certainly those in your ranks that foisted this strategy on us that is flawed. Certainly they ought to be gone and replaced.” Kroft identifies that group as including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Elliott Abrams; and Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Zinni calls them political ideologues who have hijacked US policy in Iraq: “I think it’s the worst-kept secret in Washington. That everybody—everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do.” Like so many others who criticized them, Zinni recalls, he was targeted for personal counterattacks. After publishing one article, he says: “I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, unbelievable that that’s the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it.”
Fundamental Conceptual Flaws - Zinni says the neoconservatives believed they could remake the Middle East through the use of American military might, beginning with Iraq. Instead, the US is viewed in the region as “the modern crusaders, as the modern colonial power in this part of the world.”
Changing Course - Zinni has a number of recommendations. He advises President Bush and his senior officials to reach out much more strongly to the United Nations, and to US allies, and secure the UN’s backing. Do these other countries “want a say in political reconstruction? Do they want a piece of the pie economically? If that’s the cost, fine. What they’re gonna pay for up front is boots on the ground and involvement in sharing the burden.” Many more troops are needed on the ground, and not just American troops, he says, enough to seal off the borders, protect the road networks.
Exit Strategy - Zinni says that planning for an exit is necessary because it is inevitable that the US will want to withdraw, and that time will come sooner rather than later. “There is a limit,” he says. “I think it’s important to understand what the limit is. Now do I think we are there yet?”
Speaking Out - He is speaking out, he says, because it is his duty to do so: “It is part of your duty. Look, there is one statement that bothers me more than anything else. And that’s the idea that when the troops are in combat, everybody has to shut up. Imagine if we put troops in combat with a faulty rifle, and that rifle was malfunctioning, and troops were dying as a result. I can’t think anyone would allow that to happen, that would not speak up. Well, what’s the difference between a faulty plan and strategy that’s getting just as many troops killed?” [CBS News, 5/21/2004]

Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office issues a “code of practice” arguing that Iraq will need to work with foreign oil companies to increase the daily production level of the oil industry. “It has been estimated that a minimum of US$ 4 billion would be needed to restore production to its 1990 levels of 3.5 million barrels per day (mbd), and perhaps US$ 25 billion to achieve 5 mbd,” the statement says. “… Given Iraq’s needs, it is not realistic to cut government spending in other areas, and Iraq would need to engage with the International Oil Companies (IOCs) to provide appropriate levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to do this.” [Muttitt, 2005]

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq (IAMB) learns during one of its meetings that the CPA has not yet installed metering equipment due to “security and technical” issues despite the fact that money has already been allocated for that purpose. This comes four months after the IAMB informed the CPA of the importance of metering Iraq’s oil production (see February 2004). [International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq, 12/2004, pp. 4 ]

Thamir al-Ghadban is appointed as Iraq’s minister of oil. Al-Ghadban is a British-trained petroleum engineer and former senior adviser to Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, Iraq’s previous oil minister under the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. [Muttitt, 2005]

The US Army announces the extension of its “stop-loss” program which means that thousands of soldiers scheduled to retire or otherwise leave the military will be required to stay in Iraq for the remainder of their unit’s deployment. [Associated Press, 6/2/2004] Critics call the policy a “backdoor draft.” [CBS News, 10/7/2004; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/18/2004]

Citing personal reasons, CIA Director George Tenet announces he will be stepping down in the next month. President Bush praises Tenet’s service, but there is widespread agreement that significant intelligence failures occurred during his tenure, most strikingly 9/11 itself. Sources also suggest that Tenet, originally a Clinton appointee, has been made a convenient scapegoat for Bush administration intelligence failures in Iraq and elsewhere. [CNN, 6/4/2004; Independent, 6/4/2004] Tenet and the Bush administration are expecting harsh criticism from several reports expected to find serious failures in intelligence gathering and analysis related to the 9/11 attacks. Most damaging is an upcoming Senate Intelligence Committee report expected to single out the CIA for errors in its judgments before the Iraq war (see June-November 2004). Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) has warned the administration that the report will be so harsh that questions will be raised as to whether senior CIA officials should be held accountable. Tenet will be replaced by Deputy Director John McLaughlin until a replacement is named, and will eventually be replaced by Porter Goss (see September 24, 2004). A friend of Tenet’s, former Deputy Director Richard Kerr, says that Tenet “may have believed that he was hurting the president. He’s an honorable person, and he may have had that as a consideration.” Former Democratic senator David Boren, a close friend and mentor of Tenet’s, says Tenet is not leaving because of criticisms likely to be leveled at either him or the agency: “If criticism either actual or anticipated was a factor, he would have left a long time ago. It’s been months of his desiring to leave.” Bush has asked Tenet to remain in the job several times over the past few months. When Tenet told Bush of his intentions to leave on June 2, Bush asked him to stay through the end of the year. Tenet replied that summer is a natural break point and a good time for him to depart. All the camaraderie and mutual praise between the two men aside, many believe that Tenet is departing in part because he is seen as a possible political liability for Bush. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) says, “I don’t think there are any tears over there” in the White House over Tenet’s departure. Former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) believes that Tenet was in some way pushed to leave. “This president has been enamored of George Tenet, and has been reluctant to hold him or anyone else accountable, and that failure was becoming a bigger and bigger liability,” he says. According to Graham, Bush announces Tenet’s resignation for his own political well-being, “under circumstances where he is at the crime scene as short as possible.” Apparently, senior White House officials such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell learn of Tenet’s resignation just a few moments before it is announced to the press. Two Congressmen who knew last night of the resignation were Goss (R-FL) and John Warner (R-VA), the chairmen of the House Intelligence and Senate Armed Services Committees, respectively. [New York Times, 6/4/2004]

The United Nations Security Council unanimously passes Resolution 1546, formally transferring control of Iraq’s political and economic affairs to an interim government. While the resolution states that Iraq’s government has “full sovereignty,” the Iraqis will not have authority over the activities of the 160,000-strong US-led multinational force. Rather the resolution only states that the coalition forces have the right to “take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq,” albeit in a “security partnership” with the government. If the Iraqi government objects to a military operation in the country, its only option is to veto the participation of Iraqi personnel. This means, for example, that US and British forces retain the right to detain Iraqis, search homes, and respond to perceived threats employing whatever force they deem necessary, without approval from Iraq’s government. The French and Germans had proposed a provision that would have given the Iraqi government veto power over any military operations it objects to, but the US would not agree to it. The resolution does allow the Iraqi government to order the withdrawal of all international troops, however as observers have noted, given the current security situation, that is an unlikely scenario. [United Nations, 6/8/2004; New York Times, 6/9/2004] In spite of Kurdish demands, the resolution makes no references to Iraq’s interim constitution (see March 8, 2004), which Ayatollah Sistani has said is “counter to the will of the Iraqi people” (see June 8, 2004). The Kurds wanted the UN to affirm the validity of the interim constitution because it includes a clause that would give the Kurdish minority more leverage in crafting the country’s permanent constitution. Another provision in the constitution asserts that the interim government is bound by the laws passed under the authority of the Coalition Provisional Authority. However many Iraqis oppose the laws that were passed by the CPA because those laws made drastic changes to Iraq’s economic policy, opening it up to unrestricted foreign investment. The absence of any reference to the interim constitution in the resolution undermines the validity of the constitution and Bremer’s laws, according to some experts and officials. [New York Times, 6/9/2004] Main points of the resolution include:
A national conference of political, religious, and tribal representatives shall convene in July to choose consultative counsels that will advise the interim government.
Elections will be held for a transitional national assembly no later than January 31, 2005. The assembly will form a transitional government, which will draft a permanent constitution. Iraqis will then have elections for a full-term government no later than December 31, 2005.
The multinational force in Iraq will help the Iraqi government recruit, train, and equip Iraqi security forces.
The Iraqi government has sole authority for the disbursement of oil and gas revenues.
The interim government must refrain “from taking any actions affecting Iraq’s destiny.”
The UN mandate for the multinational force will expire after elections are held under a new constitution; however the council “will terminate this mandate earlier if requested by the government of Iraq.”
The resolution is the product of two weeks of negotiation, undergoing five revisions. The original draft was submitted on May 24. [Associated Press, 6/8/2003] On at least one occasion during this process, the Iraqi Governing Council had complained that its views were not being adequately represented in the Security Council. In one statement, the governing council said they wanted to discuss full Iraqi control of “the activities of the Iraqi armed forces and security forces.” The council also objected to any moves to grant foreign soldiers immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law. [Associated Press, 5/25/2003] Though the resolution’s final context contains no such provision, Paul Bremer will sign an extension (see June 27, 2004) to Order 17, which granted US personnel and contractors immunity from prosecution by the Iraq government.

Televangelist Pat Robertson says the US should have merely assassinated Saddam Hussein instead of relying on a large and costly invasion to take out the Iraqi dictator. On CNN, Robertson answers a question about his previous warning that God thought the war could be a disaster. Robertson says: “Well, I don’t think God’s opposed to the war, necessarily, but it was a danger sign. I felt very uneasy about it from the very get-go. Whenever I heard about it, I knew it was going to be trouble. I warned the president.… I said, ‘You better prepare the American people for some serious casualties.’ And he said, ‘Oh, no, our troops are, you know, so well protected, we don’t have to worry about that.’ But it has been messy. And I think we’re going to come out of it, though. I think we’ll have a free Iraq. But it certainly has been a mess so far.… Our forces are going to war, and we support them. But if I had been doing it, I think I would have much preferred the assassination route. I think we could have gotten Saddam Hussein a lot easier than this.” [MSNBC, 6/22/2004] In 1999, Robertson advocated the assassination of the leaders of countries such as Serbia, Iraq, and North Korea, as well as Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden (see August 9, 1999).

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA - see April 17, 2003 and After and January 2003) notes in an internal report that while it lacks an accurate personnel count, it “believe[s] it had a total of 1,196 workers” in Baghdad, about half the authorized number. The Pentagon made up the shortfall by turning to the White House Liaison Office to recruit workers. The Liaison Office normally vets political appointees, and is staffed by right-wing ideologues with little practical experience outside Washington. As a result, the Liaison Office has sent hundreds of recruits to Baghdad who, in the phrasing of the CPA Inspector General, have “inconsistent skill sets.” Author and public policy professor Alasdair Roberts later notes that what the recruits lack in experience, ability, and qualifications, they make up in dogmatic adherence to right-wing ideology. One telling example is the group of CPA workers who manage the multi-billion dollar budget for the Iraqi government. Few, if any, have ever been to the Middle East, nor do any of them speak any of the region’s languages. None have any experience handling budgets of any real size. They are a group of recent college graduates, all in their twenties, who had submitted resumes for unrelated, lower-level jobs through the conservative Heritage Foundation. Roberts later writes, “The inexperience and partisanship of many CPA workers encouraged them to seize the moment and pursue reforms that were unneeded or impractical,” implementing what Roberts calls a “radical reconstruction of Iraqi society” based on neoconservative and fundamentalist dogma, with no understanding of, or concern for, Iraqi society. Many of the proposed reforms are later shelved as unworkable and dangerously provocative; one plan, to privatize Iraq’s state-run enterprises, is set aside for fear that it would lead to “popular unrest.” Most of the staff spend little time in Iraq before returning home; one CPA adviser calls them “90-day wonders getting their tickets punched that said, ‘I’ve been in Baghdad.’” [Roberts, 2008, pp. 127-128]

Norwegian petroleum firm Det Norske Oljeselskap (DNO) signs a production-sharing agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) before a legal framework has been drawn up in Iraq to govern such actions. [Petroleum Economist, 2/8/2006]

The Defense Department secretly contracts Taos Industries, Inc. to coordinate a shipment of 99,000kg of AK-47 type assault rifles from Bosnia to Iraq using a complicated labyrinth of private contractors. The company that is hired to do the actual shipping is a Moldovan air firm by the name of Aerocom. The company, which operates from a US base in Bosnia, just recently had its Air Operating Certificate revoked because of concerns expressed by EU member states about the company’s “safety and security record.” (The company has a shady history—in 2003, the company was implicated in the “diamonds-for-guns trade” in Liberia and Sierra Leone.) In 2006, an investigation by Amnesty International will be unable to locate any evidence that the rifles actually reached the Iraqi security forces, the intended recipient. A commanding general in charge of training Iraqi security forces tells the organization that no weapons ever arrived from Bosnia. Even Taos is unable to produce any evidence that the shipment made it to Iraq. [Amnesty International, 5/10/2006, pp. 104-121 ; Guardian, 5/12/2006]

A lawsuit, Doe v. Rumsfeld, is filed on behalf of an Army recruit who is being forcibly redeployed to Iraq after nine years of active duty under the Army’s “stop-loss” program (see November 2002). The plaintiff, a reservist in the California National Guard who uses the pseudonym “John Doe” in the lawsuit, claims that since he signed up for only one year of duty, the stop-loss deployment could force him “to return to Iraq for up to two years, and possible continued military service beyond that time.” [PBS, 9/17/2004] Doe is a married father of two and an eight-year Army veteran who served in combat during the 1991 Gulf War (see January 16, 1991 and After). Doe enlisted in the National Guard in May 2003 under the so-called “Try One” program, which allows active-duty veterans to sign up for a year before deciding to make a longer commitment. Doe renewed in February 2004, making his new expiration date May 2, 2005. In July 2004, Doe’s unit was deployed for a 545-day tour of duty, which extended Doe’s time in service by about a year. He says he was told that if he did not re-enlist voluntarily for the extra time, he would be retained under the Army’s stop-loss policy. [Oakland Tribune, 1/14/2006] In January 2006, Doe will lose the case on appeal (see January 14, 2006).

The International Tax & Investment Centre (ITIC), a corporate lobby group that advocates for pro-business investment and tax reform, issues a major report titled Petroleum and Iraq’s Future: Fiscal Options and Challenges, expressing the view that Iraq’s relationships with oil companies should be managed through the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs). The paper calls PSAs the “simplest and most attractive regulatory… framework.” It says this view is supported by “international experience and regional preferences,” though critics of PSAs will note that PSAs are not in fact popular among the major oil producing countries of the Middle East. “It is difficult to overstate how radical a departure PSAs would be from normal practice, both in Iraq and in other comparable countries of the region,” says Greg Muttitt of PLATFORM, a British oil industry watchdog group. “Iraq’s oil industry has been in public hands since 1972; prior to that the rights to develop oil in 99.5 percent of the country had also been publicly held since 1961. In Iraq’s neighbors Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, foreign control over oil development is ruled out by constitution or by national law. These countries together with Iraq are the world’s top four countries in terms of oil reserves, with 51 percent of the world total between them.” The ITIC report also argues that foreign investment in Iraq’s oil sector will help “kick start” Iraq’s economy and free up funds for other programs. [Muttitt, 2005]

The auditors sent to Iraq by the Department of Defense’s Inspector General are withdrawn. The auditors were in charge of investigating waste and fraud by the US military and its contractors in Iraq. The criminal investigative arm of the Inspector General also officially ends its assignment in Iraq in October of 2004. The official explanation given is that there are other agencies that conduct oversight of the Pentagon’s spending. Experts respond by saying that only the Inspector General has the capability and mandate to properly oversee the military’s handling of tax dollars. The withdrawal leaves a gap in oversight of over $140 billion in spending by the military. [Knight Ridder, 10/17/2005]

Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office sends advisers to Iraq to work with the country’s oil ministry on “fiscal and regulatory” issues. [Muttitt, 2005] Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, describing the ministry’s role, will tell Parliament in July 2005, “We discuss with the Iraqi ministries their priorities on a regular basis.” [UK Parliament, 7/12/2005] But the office will never publish a formal policy statement and will refuse to comply with Freedom of Information requests for related documents. One of the exemptions the office will use to refuse a request is that its advice to the Iraqis is “voluminous.” [Muttitt, 2005]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues a report on the Pentagon’s “stop-loss” program (see November 2002). The GAO report says that the Pentagon’s “implementation of a key mobilization authority to involuntarily call up reserve component members and personnel policies greatly affects the numbers of reserve members available to fill requirements.” [PBS, 9/17/2004] Over 335,000 Guardsmen and Army reservists have been “involuntarily called to active duty since September 11, 2001,” the report finds, with no sign that such involuntary deployments will decrease any time soon. The GAO finds that such widespread forcible deployments were done with little consideration of the costs to the reservists and Guard personnel in their private lives—damage to jobs, families, and other aspects—as well as the negative impact such involuntary deployments are having on the military’s ability to recruit new personnel for Guard and reserve berths. [Government Accountability Office, 9/15/2004]

Responding to the leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) warning of a possible civil war in Iraq (see September 16, 2004), President Bush dismisses the report, saying the CIA in particular is “just guessing” about conditions in that country. Bush says that the report provides “several scenarios that said, life could be lousy, life could be okay, or life could be better, and they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like.” Two days later, after senior CIA official Paul Pillar and others lambast Bush for his cavalier dismissal of the report, Bush backs away from his original description, calling it “unfortunate” and saying he should have used the word “estimate” rather than “guess.” The entire imbroglio prompts conservative columnist Robert Novak to write that the White House and the CIA “are at war with each other.” [New York Times, 9/28/2004; Roberts, 2008, pp. 153] Novak also blasts Pillar and other intelligence officials for daring to criticize the Bush administration. [New York Times, 9/28/2004]

The UN World Food Programme announces the results of a survey in Iraq that found that some 6.5 million people—25 percent of the total population—remain highly dependent on the country’s food rationing system. If that system were to be dismantled, “many lower-income households, particularly women and children, would not be able to meet their food requirements,” the report says. “Although food is generally available, the poorest households cannot afford to buy from the markets.” According to the study, 2.6 million Iraqis are so poor they resell a portion of their food rations so they can buy basic necessities like medicines and clothing. [UN World Food Programme, 9/28/2004; Environment News Service, 4/3/2006] A day after the results of this study are released, the IMF will announce that Iraq has agreed to implement a number of economic reforms. One of those reforms would be a scaling back of food subsidies (see September 29, 2004).

The Iraqi government agrees to meet conditions set by the IMF for an “enhanced post-conflict facility” program. The IMF program will include $436.3 million in Emergency Post-Conflict Assistance loans to the Iraqi government. The amount will be upped if Iraq meets more demanding conditions. A press release issued by the organization states that it intends to develop “a reform program in areas in which progress must be made in 2005 to set the economy on a sustainable path, including tax reform, financial sector reform, restructuring of state-owned enterprises, and enhancing the governance and transparency of the oil sector, all of which will be key in promoting the recovery and growth of the private sector.” [International Monetary Fund, 9/29/2004; Inter Press Service, 10/1/2004] One of the reforms the new Iraqi government agrees to implement is the rolling back of Iraq’s huge subsidies system. But as Inter Press Service notes, Iraq’s food subsidies system “kept millions of Iraqis from starvation under US and UK-pressed sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the 1991 Gulf War.… It is believed that many more Iraqis would have died if not for Hussein’s strong subsidies system that gave food to Iraqi families.” [US Department of State, 12/21/2004; Inter Press Service, 12/24/2004]

The fractious and contentious relationship between the White House and the CIA, never good since planning began for the Iraq war (see January 2003), has boiled over into the public eye in recent days, according to a New York Times report. James Pavitt, the former head of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, says he has never seen anything approaching “the viciousness and vindictiveness” of the relationship between the White House and the CIA. In recent days, numerous classified assessments have been leaked to the press by people sympathetic to the CIA (see September 16, 2004, September 28, 2004, and October 4, 2004), “to the considerable embarrassment of the White House.” The White House, in turn, has called the authors of the assessments “pessimists and naysayers,” and dismissed a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq as based on guesswork (see September 21-23, 2004). Some Republican partisans claim that the CIA is waging an “insurgency” or “vendetta” against the White House, an idea that both White House and CIA officials officially reject. “Wars bring things out in people that sometimes other disputes don’t,” says James Woolsey, a neoconservative and former CIA director who is a strong supporter of the administration’s Iraq and terrorism policies. “But even with the passions of war, I think you ought to keep it within channels.” Another former intelligence official is more critical of the agency: “The agency’s role is to tell the administration what it thinks, not to criticize its policies.” CIA defenders say it is important to set the record straight by revealing the agency’s warnings about the possible dire consequences of an Iraq occupation, warnings which the White House either ignored or mocked. “There was nothing in the intelligence that was a casus belli for war,” Pavitt says, noting that while the CIA might have been wrong about Iraq and WMD, it was much closer to the mark in its prewar warnings about the obstacles that an American occupying force would face in postwar Iraq. But, Pavitt, notes, “[t]he agency is not out to undermine this president.” [New York Times, 10/2/2004] Conservative defenders of the administration angrily attack the CIA for “insubordination” and betrayal, leaving liberals and progressives in the unusual position of defending the agency. [Roberts, 2008, pp. 153]

Knight Ridder Newspapers reports on a leaked CIA assessment that undercuts the White House claim of links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The assessment, requested some months ago by Vice President Cheney, finds no evidence to show that Saddam’s regime ever harbored Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an independent colleague of Osama bin Laden (see April 2002), and finds no evidence of any “collaborative relationship” between the former Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda (see October 2, 2002). In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council that al-Zarqawi went to Baghdad for medical treatment and, while there, helped establish a terrorist base in Baghdad (see February 5, 2003). The assessment now shows that claim was incorrect. So was the administration’s claim that al-Zarqawi received safe haven from Hussein. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who in September 2002 called the evidence of links between Hussein and al-Qaeda “bulletproof” (see September 26, 2002), now says, “To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.” Rumsfeld continues, “I just read an intelligence report recently about one person [al-Zarqawi] who’s connected to al-Qaeda who was in and out of Iraq and there’s the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship.” In June 2003, President Bush called al-Zarqawi “the best evidence of connection” between Iraq and al-Qaeda; after the assessments are leaked, Bush insists that al-Zarqawi “was in and out of Baghdad,” apparently continuing to press the idea that Saddam and al-Qaeda were connected. Al-Zarqawi did spend a lot of time in Iraq, but almost always in the northern sections of Iraq where Saddam’s control did not reach. [Knight Ridder, 10/4/2004] The day after the Knight Ridder report, Vice President Cheney will say during a debate with vice-presidential opponent John Edwards (D-NC) that al-Zarqawi was based in Baghdad both before and after the March 2003 invasion, a claim that is demonstrably false (see October 5, 2004).

A 1996 photograph of one of the Al Qaqaa storage bunkers. [Source: New York Times]The US media learns that Iraq’s interim government reports that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives, used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads, and detonate nuclear weapons, are missing from a former military installation (see October 10, 2004). The facility, Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under US control but in reality is “a no-man’s land,” in the words of the New York Times, “picked over by looters as recently as” October 24. UN inspectors and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had monitored the huge cache of explosives for years. The IAEA says that machine tools usable for either nuclear or non-nuclear purposes are also missing. White House and Pentagon inspectors admit that the explosives disappeared some time after the US-led invasion of Iraq. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was informed of the missing explosives within the last month; according to the Times, “[i]t is unclear whether President Bush was informed.” US officials began answering questions about the missing explosives after reporters from the Times and CBS’s “60 Minutes” began asking questions. The CIA’s Iraq Survey Group has been asked to investigate the disappearance.
Similar Explosives Used in Other Terrorist Attacks - The immediate concern, according to US officials, is the explosives’ possible use in major bombing attacks against American and/or Iraqi forces. The explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, can be used in bombs strong enough to destroy airplanes or large buildings. The Times notes that the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland (see After December 21, 1988) used less than a pound of such explosive. Larger amounts of the same kinds of explosives were used in the November 2003 Riyadh bombings (see May 12, 2003) and a September 1999 bombing of a Moscow apartment complex (see September 9, 1999 and September 13, 1999). The explosives can also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, the primary reason why it had been, until the invasion, monitored by UN inspectors from the IAEA.
Repeated IAEA Warnings - The IAEA had publicly warned about the danger of the Al Qaqaa explosives before the invasion, and after the overthrow of the Iraqi government, IAEA officials specifically told US officials that they needed to keep the facility locked down (see May 2003). Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita says that the missing explosives need to be kept in perspective, as US and allied forces “have discovered and destroyed perhaps thousands of tons of ordnance of all types.” Iraq’s Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Rashad Omar, tells Times and CBS reporters: “Yes, they [the 380 tons of explosives] are missing. We don’t know what happened.” Omar says that after the invasion, Al Qaqaa was the responsibility of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which served as Iraq’s de facto government until June 2004 (see June 28, 2004). “After the collapse of the regime, our liberation, everything was under the coalition forces, under their control,” he says. “So probably they can answer this question, what happened to the materials.” The CPA is defunct; Bush administration officials say they don’t know where the explosives could be. One senior official says that the Qaqaa complex was listed as a “medium priority” site on the CIA’s list of more than 500 sites that needed to be searched and secured during the invasion. “Should we have gone there? Definitely,” says one senior official. Another senior official says that US soldiers gave the Qaqaa facility a cursory inspection during the push towards Baghdad in early April, but “saw no bunkers bearing the IAEA seal.”
Refusal to Allow IAEA Inspections after Occupation - Satellite photos taken in late 2003 showed that two of the ten bunkers containing HMX had exploded, presumably from bombing during the US offensive, but eight remained relatively intact. The Bush administration refused to let the IAEA back into Iraq to inspect and verify the Qaqaa facility or any of the other stockpiles formerly monitored by IAEA officials. By May 2004, the IAEA was warning CPA officials that the facility had probably been looted (see May 2004).
More Unguarded Stockpiles - Iraq is dotted with unguarded stockpiles of explosives, say US military and administration officials. One senior administration official notes, “The only reason this stockpile was under seal is because it was located at Al Qaqaa,” where nuclear work had gone on years ago. [New York Times, 10/25/2004]

A Marine walks past several corpses strewn in a Fallujah street. [Source: Al Jazeera]The US military undertakes Operation Phantom Fury in an effort to retake the city of Fallujah from Sunni insurgents. During the more than two-week long offensive, Iraqi NGOs are prohibited from delivering humanitarian aid to residents of the besieged city. A representative for the Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS), Muhammad al-Nuri, will estimate that at least 6,000 Iraqis are killed in the offensive. The Iraqi government’s own studies will suggest that 70 percent of Fallujah’s buildings are destroyed by the fighting. [IRIN, 4/4/2004; Washington Post, 11/9/2004; IRIN, 11/26/2004] In the ensuing battle, the city’s water, power, and food supplies are completely cut, actions later condemned as violations of the Geneva Conventions by a UN special rapporteur, who accuses the US of “using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population.” At least 200,000 civilians flee Fallujah, many ending up in squatters’ camps with no basic facilities. “My kids are hysterical with fear,” says one Iraqi father. “They are traumatized by the sound [of fighting] but there is nowhere to take them.” The US military bars the Red Cross, Red Crescent, and journalists from the area. All males between the ages of 15 and 55 are forced to stay in the city (see November 10, 2004). Over 100,000 civilians are trapped in the city during the US siege, forced to endure a pitched battle between US forces and between 600 and 6,000 insurgents.
US Targets Civilians - The city’s main hospital is the first target (see November 9, 2004), picked because, as the New York Times reports, “the US military believed it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties.” An AP photographer documents US helicopters killing a family of five trying to ford a river to safety. A Lebanese photographer will say, “There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone.” The photographer, Burhan Fasa’am, adds: “With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans.” Another Fallujah citizen will later recall: “I watched them roll over wounded people in the streets with tanks. This happened so many times.” A third citizen will later recall: “They shot women and old men in the streets. Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies.” US forces use incendiary weapons, including white phosphorus (see Mid-November 2004). When asked about the use of such controversial weaponry, Captain Erik Krivda explains, “Usually we keep the gloves on, [but] for this operation, we took the gloves off.” Just before the operation commences, a Marine commander tells his troops: “You will be held accountable for the facts not as they are in hindsight but as they appeared to you at the time. If, in your mind, you fire to protect yourself or your men, you are doing the right thing. It doesn’t matter if later on we find out you wiped out a family of unarmed civilians.” [Weinberger, 2005, pp. 63-64; Guardian, 11/10/2005]
Marine Casualties - The suffering and death are not one-sided. Lieutenant Commander Richard Jadick, a Navy doctor who volunteered to go to Iraq to help ease the shortage of doctors there, finds himself in the middle of pitched battles, doing his best to save Marines wounded in battle, many with horrific injuries. Lieutenant Colonel Mark Winn will estimate that without Jadick, his unit would have lost at least 30 more troops. Jadick will receive the Bronze Star with a Combat V for valor for his efforts. “I have never seen a doctor display the kind of courage and bravery that [Jadick] did during Fallujah,” Winn later recalls. [Newsweek, 3/20/2006]
Widespread Destruction - By the end of operations, around 36,000 of the city’s 50,000 homes are destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines. US casualty figures claim that about 2,000 Iraqis die in the fighting (Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi will claim that no civilians died in Fallujah), but Iraqi human rights organizations and medical workers claim the number is somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000. A Fallujah housewife will finally return to her home to find a message written in lipstick on her living room mirror: “F_ck Iraq and every Iraqi in it.” Mike Marquesee of the human rights organization Iraq Occupation Focus, will later write that the US and British media offers a “sanitized” version of events. “[C]ivilian suffering was minimized and the ethics and strategic logic of the attack largely unscrutinized,” Marquesee will observe. The siege is inconclusive at best: for the next year, Fallujah will remain essentially under lockdown, and heavy resistance and violence will spread to other cities, including Tal-Afar, Haditha, and Husaybah. [Weinberger, 2005, pp. 63-64; Guardian, 11/10/2005] Reporter Hala Jaber, the last reporter to leave Fallujah before the military assault begins and the first to return to that devastated city months later, will write over a year after Operation Phantom Fury: “The bitter truth is that the actions of US and Iraqi forces have reignited the insurgency. Anger, hate, and mistrust of America are deeper than ever.” [London Times, 12/18/2005]

Multiple sources claim that at 5:30 am on this day US warplanes drop three bombs on the Central Health Center in Fallujah, killing 35 patients and 15 health workers. The attack further incapacitates Fallujah’s medical infrastructure which is already degraded because of the US military’s takeover of the city’s main hospital and because the city’s water supply was cut off before the siege. [Nation, 11/24/2004]

A group of 225 Iraqis attempting to flee the US siege of Fallujah are stopped at the southern edge of the city by the US Marines’ 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion. The Marines permit 25 women and children to pass through, but send the remaining 200 men of military age back into the city. Fallujah has been under aerial and artillery bombardment since November 8. An officer explains to an Associated Press reporter, “There is nothing that distinguishes an insurgent from a civilian.” The US military wants to kill or capture as many insurgents as possible, and therefore does not want any escaping the city. “We assume they’ll go home and just wait out the storm or find a place that’s safe,” the officer says. The battalion has been ordered to tell Iraqi men, “Stay in your houses, stay away from windows and stay off the roof and you’ll live through Fallujah.” The US military also sinks boats that were being used to ferry people across the Euphrates River to safety. According to the US military, the boats were also used to transport weapons into the city. [Associated Press, 9/13/2004]

US forces use white phosphorus (WP) gas munitions as incendiary weapons against human targets during their seige of Fallujah, Iraq (see November 8, 2004). [Inter Press Service, 11/26/2003; Daily Telegraph, 11/9/2004; San Francisco Chronicle, 11/10/2004; Rainews24 (Italy), 11/2005] White phosphorus—also known as Willy Pete or Whiskey Pete—is used by the military for signaling, screening, and incendiary purposes. White phosphorus munitions, upon explosion, distribute particles over a wide swath of area. They burn spontaneously in the air and will continue to burn until all white phosphorus particles have disappeared. The smoke easily penetrates clothing and protective gear and can burn a person’s flesh to the bone. [Democracy Now!, 11/8/2005; GlobalSecurity (.org), 11/9/2005] According to Jeff Englehart, a US soldier involved in the seige of Fallujah, “Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone.… Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 meters is done for.” [Independent, 11/8/2004]
Iraqi Witnesses Allege Use of Incendiary Weapons - “Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad tells reporter Dahr Jamail. “They used everything—tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.” Another resident, Abu Sabah, from the Julan area, explains: “They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.” He says the pieces then explode into large fires that burn the skin even when water is applied. “People suffered so much from these,” he adds. [Inter Press Service, 11/26/2003] Corroborating their accounts, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that some “Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.” Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, tells the newspaper, “The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/10/2004]
Alternate Explanation - Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, in November 2005, will deny that US troops used white phosphorus gas against people in Fallujah. “I know of no cases where people were deliberately targeted by the use of white phosphorus,” he tells Democracy Now. “White phosphorus is used for obscuration, which white phosphorus produces a heavy thick smoke to shield us or them from view so that they cannot see what we are doing. It is used to destroy equipment, to destroy buildings. That is what white phosphorus shells are used for.” He insists that the pictures showing melted corpses with clothing still intact is not proof of white phosphorus attacks. “That can happen from numerous ways and not just from white phosphorus attacks. That can happen from massive explosions. If you look at the car bombs that the terrorists use today, you have the same effects from car bombs from suicide vests. I have personally witnessed these things here in Baghdad.” [Democracy Now!, 11/8/2005]
Pentagon Confirms Use of White Phosphorus against 'Enemy Combatants' - The Pentagon, however, does not deny that the weapon was used against human targets. On November 14, 2005, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venables says that white phosphorus was used to “fire at the enemy.” He adds: “It burns.… It’s an incendiary weapon. That is what it does.” [Independent, 11/15/2005] “It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants.” [BBC, 11/16/2005]
Against US Army Policy - In 1980, the Convention on Conventional Weapons banned the use of incendiary devices, like white phosphorous, in heavily populated areas. The United States was one of the few countries that refused to sign the agreement (see October 10, 1980-December 2, 1983). Even so, an instruction manual used by the US Army Command and General Staff School (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas states that “it is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.” [Independent, 11/19/2005]
First-Hand Accounts - There are a number of first-hand accounts of the battle, as well as video footage and photographs, suggesting the use of white phosphorus against human targets.
Jeff Englehart, who is in a tactical attack center about 200 meters from where a lot of the explosions that are happening [Democracy Now!, 11/8/2005] , later recalls: “I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it’s known as Willy Pete.… I saw the burned bodies of women and children.” [Rainews24 (Italy), 11/2005]
Photographs provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah [Rainews24 (Italy), 11/2005] include numerous high-quality, color close-ups of bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelized by the shells. [Independent, 11/8/2004]
A documentary, titled Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre, broadcast on Italian news channel RAI a year after the assault shows helicopters launching white phosphorus munitions directly into the city. [Rainews24 (Italy), 11/2005] According to the RAI film, the US has attempted to destroy filmed evidence of the alleged use of white phosphorus on civilians in Falluja. [Rainews24 (Italy), 11/2005; BBC, 11/8/2005]
A March 2005 US Army report written by three US artillery men who participated in the siege will confirm that white phosphorus was used against human targets during the siege. “WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE [High Explosive weapons]. We fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.” [Field Artillery, 3/2005 ; Independent, 11/15/2005]

Rich creditor nations in the Paris Club announce they have reached a deal with the US on the proposed forgiveness of the $38.9 billion owed to those countries. The US wanted 95 percent of the debt canceled while the Paris Club was initially only willing to forgive 50 percent. Under the agreement, the Paris Club agrees to forgive 80 percent. Thirty percent of this will be forgiven immediately, followed by another 30 percent when Iraq agrees on a reform program with the International Monetary Fund, which it is expected to do in 2005. The remaining 20 percent will be canceled in 2008, after Iraq has implemented the reforms. The creditor countries owed the largest sums of money are Japan (4.1 billion dollars), France (2.9 billion), Germany (2.4 billion), the United States (2.2 billion), Britain (900 million), and Russia (9 billion). [St. Petersburg Times, 11/22/2004; Inter Press Service, 11/23/2004] The deal is denounced in a resolution passed by the Iraqi National Assembly on November 30. The resolution states that “the Paris Club has no right to make decisions and impose IMF conditions on Iraq.” It also says that nearly all of the debt is odious and should be canceled. [Inter Press Service, 11/23/2004; Iraqi National Assembly, 11/30/2004]

The chief of the CIA’s station in Baghdad, Iraq, leaves his post after the end of his one-year tour (see (January 2004)). According to Harper’s magazine, by the end of his tour he is a “pariah within the system” because he has filed a series of six pessimistic Aardwolf priority reports about the deteriorating situation in Iraq. One anonymous former intelligence official will say that the station chief is “treated like shit” and “farmed out,” although he is not fired. In addition, White House officials allegedly ask for “dirt” on him, including his political affiliation. [Harper's, 5/18/2006] After one of the pessimistic reports in late 2004, an official at the National Security Council even called US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte to ask whether the chief is a Democrat or Republican. [Risen, 2006] The station chief will also be investigated over allegations of detainee abuse (see (After January 2005)).

President Bush awards Tenet the Medal of Freedom. [Source: Associated Press]President Bush gives the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former CIA Director George Tenet, former Iraq war leader General Tommy Franks, and former Iraq functionary Paul Bremer. The Medal of Freedom is the highest honor the president can bestow. Bush comments, “This honor goes to three men who have played pivotal roles in great events and whose efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty.” [Associated Press, 12/14/2001; Washington Post, 12/14/2004] However, the awards will come in for some criticism, as Tenet, CIA director on 9/11, wrongly believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (see December 21, 2002), Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army (see May 23, 2003), and Franks, responsible for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, failed to assign enough troops to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, thereby enabling him to escape (see Late October-Early December 2001). [Washington Post, 12/14/2001] John McLaughlin, Tenet’s deputy director, will later say that Tenet “wishes he could give that damn medal back.” [New York Times, 10/2/2006] White House press secretary Scott McClellan will later write that this “well-intentioned gesture designed to create positive impressions of the war seemed to backfire.” Instead of holding these three accountable for their role in the deepening Iraq crisis, Bush hails them as heroes. McClellan will observe: “Wasn’t this supposed to be an administration that prided itself on results and believed in responsibility and accountability? If so, why the rush to hand out medals to people who had helped organize what was now looking like a badly botched, ill-conceived war?” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 250-251] David Wade, a spokesman for Senator John Kerry (D-MA), says, “My hunch is that George Bush wasn’t using the same standard when honoring Tenet and Bremer that was applied to previous honorees.” Previous recipients include human rights advocate Mother Teresa, civil rights icon Rosa Parks, and Pope John Paul II. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) says he “would have reached a different conclusion” on Tenet. “I don’t think [he] served the president or the nation well.” [Associated Press, 12/14/2001] Reporter Steve Coll will later comment: “I presume that for President Bush, it was a signal that he wasn’t making Tenet a scapegoat. It would be the natural thing to do, right? You’ve seen this episode of ‘I, Claudius.’ You know, you put the knife in one side and the medal on the other side, and that’s politics.” And author James Bamford will say: “Tenet [retired], and kept his mouth shut about all the things that went on, about what kind of influence [Vice President Dick] Cheney might have had. They still have a CIA, but all the power is now with his team over at the Pentagon. They’re gathering more power every day in terms of intelligence. So largely, Cheney won.” [PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006] Author and media critic Frank Rich will later write: “The three medals were given to the men who had lost Osama bin Laden (General Tommy Franks), botched the Iraq occupation (Paul Bremer), and called prewar intelligence on Saddam’s WMDs a ‘slam dunk’ (George Tenet). That the bestowing of an exalted reward for high achievement on such incompetents incited little laughter was a measure of how much the administration, buoyed by reelection, still maintained control of its embattled but not yet dismantled triumphalist wartime narrative.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 158]

Top Iraqi officials head to Washington for the second meeting of the Iraq-US Joint Economic Commission. The first meeting took place in September. At a press conference, Iraqi Finance Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi tells reporters that the new Iraqi government is implementing, or intends to implement, a number of major changes to the country’s economy. Some of the reforms he mentions would be part of a new oil law that will be “open to investment, to foreign investment downstream, maybe even upstream.” He explains that the law is being developed by a “high-ranked official from the Oil Ministry” in consultation with “his counterparts and with agencies here in the States.” Mahdi also says that Iraq will review the oil contracts that Saddam Hussein had inked with countries like France and Russia. “So I think this is very promising to the American investors and to American enterprises, certainly to oil companies,” he says. Mahdi also defends an agreement the Iraqi government recently made with the IMF to implement certain reforms, which included an end to food subsidies (see September 29, 2004). “I think this is a necessity for the Iraqi economy,” Mahdi says. “We really need to work on our subsidy side. Subsidies are taking almost 60 percent of our budget. So this is something we have to work on… Other measures really were a real necessity for the Iraqi economy before becoming conditions asked by the IMF.” But as Inter Press Service notes, Iraq’s food subsidies system “have kept millions of Iraqis from starvation under US and UK-pressed sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the 1991 Gulf War.… It is believed that many more Iraqis would have died if not for Hussein’s strong subsidies system that gave food to Iraqi families.” An issue that is apparently not discussed during the two-day meeting between US and Iraqi officials is the large amount of money that is known to have been defrauded from the CPA. In response to a reporter’s question, Mahdi says only, “No, this issue has not been discussed. We are interested to follow such issues, of course. Whatever concerns corruption or money, we are interested.” [US Department of State, 12/21/2004; Inter Press Service, 12/24/2004]

Ariel Cohen, who co-authored a September 2002 paper (see September 25, 2002) recommending the privatization of Iraq’s oil industry, explains to reporter Greg Palast how his privatization plan would have ended OPEC’s control over oil prices. He says that if Iraq’s fields had been sold off, competing companies would have quickly increased the production of their individual patches, resulting in over production which would have flooded world oil markets, thrown OPEC into panic, and destabilized the Saudi monarchy. [BBC Newsnight, 3/17/2005; Democracy Now!, 3/21/2005; Harper's, 4/2005, pp. 75]

In an interview with Greg Palast, Robert Ebel, a former Department of Energy and and CIA oil analyst, acknowledges that the invasion of Iraq was driven by oil interests. “The thought was, ‘Why are you going into Iraq? It’s about oil isn’t it?’ And my response was, ‘No, It’s about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. The morning after, it’s about oil.’” [Democracy Now!, 3/21/2005]

The US sends teams of US-trained former Iranian exiles, sometimes accompanied by US Special Forces, from Iraq into southern and eastern Iran to search for underground nuclear installations. [New Yorker, 1/24/2005; United Press International, 1/26/2005; Guardian, 1/29/2005] In the north, Israeli-trained Kurds from northern Iraq, occasionally assisted by US forces, look for signs of nuclear activity as well. [United Press International, 1/26/2005] Both teams are tasked with planting remote detection devices, known as “sniffers,” which can sense radioactive emissions and other indicators of nuclear-enrichment programs while also helping US war planners establish targets. [New Yorker, 1/24/2005; United Press International, 1/26/2005] The former Iranian exiles operating in the south and east are members of Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), a group that has been included in the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations since 1997 (see 1997) and included in a government white paper (see September 12, 2002) that criticized Iraq for its support of the group. After the US invaded Iraq, members of MEK were “consolidated, detained, disarmed, and screened for any past terrorist acts” by the US (see July 2004) and designated as “protected persons.” (see July 21, 2004) Initially, the MEK operate from Camp Habib in Basra, but they later launch their incursions from the Baluchi region in Pakistan. [United Press International, 1/26/2005; Newsweek, 2/15/2005] They are assisted by information from Pakistani scientists and technicians who have knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program. [New Yorker, 1/24/2005] Pakistan apparently agreed to cooperate with the US in exchange for assurances that Pakistan would not have to turn over A. Q. Khan, the so-called “father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb,” to the IAEA or to any other international authorities for questioning. Khan, who is “linked to a vast consortium of nuclear black-market activities,” could potentially be of great assistance to these agencies in their efforts to undermine nuclear weapons proliferation. [New Yorker, 1/24/2005] In addition to allowing Pakistan to keep Khan, the US looks the other way as Pakistan continues to buy parts for its nuclear-weapons arsenal in the black market, according to a former high-level Pakistani diplomat interviewed by Seymour Hersh [New Yorker, 1/24/2005] The United States’ use of MEK is criticized by Western diplomats and analysts who agree with many Iranians who consider the group to be traitors because they fought alongside Iraqi troops against Iran in the 1980s. [Christian Science Monitor, 12/31/2003]

At a conference with oil companies in Beirut, the British ambassador in Baghdad gives the Iraqi finance minister a report (see Autumn 2004) authored by the International Tax and Investment Centre, a Washington-based oil industry lobby. The report, which contains recommendations for a new Iraqi oil policy, expresses the view that Iraq’s relationships with oil companies should be governed through the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs). [Observer, 3/4/2007]

A new chief of the CIA’s Baghdad station is appointed. Possibly due to problems the previous two station chiefs are perceived to have experienced (see (Late December 2003) and December 2004), this new official files only one Aardwolf priority report during his one-year tour. An anonymous official will later say that this report is widely derided within the CIA as “a joke,” because it asserts that the United States is winning the war despite all evidence to the contrary. Harper’s journalist Ken Silverstein will comment, “It was garbage, but garbage that the Bush administration wanted to hear.” At the end of his tour, the station chief will be given what Silverstein calls a “plum assignment.” [Harper's, 5/18/2006]

Ben Carter, an employee for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, & Root (KBR), serves as the foreman of the water purification unit at Camp Ar Ramadi, a US military base also known as “Junction City.” At the base, both potable and non-potable water is supplied for different purposes. Non-potable water, despite not being used for drinking, is expected to meet certain safety standards so that US troops can use it for bathing, showering, shaving, laundry, and cleaning. After another KBR employee discovers larvae swimming in a toilet bowl, Carter does a test and discovers that there is no chlorine present in the non-potable water. When he tests the non-potable water tank, he is shocked to find out that “the water in the tank tested negative for chlorine; that the access lid of the tank was not in place, let alone secure, and the air vents to the tank were turned upward and left unscreened; leaving the water supply vulnerable to contamination from dust, insects, rodents or even enemy attack.” He reports his findings and urges the military to chlorinate their water tanks. But he is told by the KBR site commander that the water is not his concern. Carter is frequently hindered by higher-ups in his attempts to make sure that the water is properly purified and eventually leaves Iraq in frustration. [Democratic Policy Committee, 1/23/2006, pp. 6-8 ]

Newsweek reports that the Pentagon is considering a new approach to dealing with the insurgency in Iraq, one defense officials call the “Salvador Option.” During the 1980s, the US, primarily through the CIA, funded and supported paramilitary units, often called “death squads” by the citizenry and various human rights organizations which monitored their activities, in El Salvador and other Central American nations. These death squads carried out numerous assassinations and kidnappings, including the murder of four American nuns in 1980. Many US conservatives consider the Salvadoran operation a success, though many innocent Salvadorans died, some under torture, and the operation fomented the US government policies that became known collective as “Iran-Contra.” Now the Pentagon is debating whether the same tactics should be used in Iraq. “What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are,” says a senior military official. “We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing.” Another military source contends that Iraqis who sympathize with the insurgents need to be targeted: “The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists. From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation.” One proposal would “send [US] Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria.” Among the proposal’s supporters is Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But other Pentagon officials are shy of running any operation that might contravene the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and prefer the CIA to run the proposed operation. And many lawmakers, Pentagon officials, and military experts are wary of expanding the role of US Special Forces operations in such a legally and morally dubious direction. They also worry about the ramifications of using Iraqi Kurds and Shi’ite militia members against Iraqi Sunnis in potential death squads, characterized by investigative reporter Robert Parry as “a prescription for civil war or genocide.” Some speculate that this operation might be one of the reasons John Negroponte was recently named US ambassador to Iraq. Negroponte served as US ambassador to Honduras during the 1980s, and many feel Negroponte was a key figure in the establishment and operations of the Central American death squads. Other Bush officials active in the Central America program include Elliott Abrams, who oversaw Central American policies at the State Department and who is now a Middle East adviser on Bush’s National Security Council staff, and Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a powerful defender of the Central American policies as a member of the House of Representatives. Negroponte denies any involvement in any such program operating in Iraq. [Newsweek, 1/8/2005; Consortium News, 1/11/2005] Christopher Dickey, a Newsweek reporter with personal experience in El Salvador during the time of the death squads, writes that he is “prepared to admit that building friendly democracies sometimes has to be a cold-blooded business in the shadowland of moral grays that is the real world,” but says that the idea of US-formed death squads in Iraq, and the corollary idea of sending US Special Forces teams into Syria and perhaps other Middle Eastern countries is not only potentially a mistake, but one that is little more than “a formalization of what’s already taking place.” Former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst and Middle East specialist Patrick Lang says, “We are, of course, already targeting enemy cadres for elimination whether by capture or death in various places including Afghanistan and Iraq.” So many Special Forces personnel are already involved in such operations, Lang says, that there is an actual shortage of Green Berets to perform their primary task: training regular Iraqi troops. The operation could benefit the US presence in two ways: helping win the hearts and minds of the ordinary citizenry by successfully eliminating insurgents, or just by making the citizenry “more frightened of [the US] than they are of the insurgents.” [Newsweek, 1/11/2005]

The National Intelligence Council, the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the US intelligence community, issues a report concluding, “Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of ‘professionalized’ terrorists.” [Washington Post, 1/15/2005] In May, the CIA will report that Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in al-Qaeda’s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat. [New York Times, 6/22/2005]

Stuart W. Bowen. [Source: PBS]A report completed by Stuart W. Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, finds that $8.8 billion of the $20 billion in Iraqi funds that the Coalition Provisional Authority spent between April 16, 2003 and June 28, 2004 is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management. “Severe inefficiencies and poor management” by the Coalition Provisional Authority has “left auditors with no guarantee the money was properly used,” the report says. The reports says that in once case, it’s possible that thousands of “ghost employees” were on an unnamed ministry’s payroll. “CPA staff identified at one ministry that although 8,206 guards were on the payroll, only 602 guards could be validated,” the audit report states. “Consequently, there was no assurance funds were not provided for ghost employees.” [Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 1/30/2005, pp. 16 ; CNN, 1/31/2005] Two years after the release of this report, the inspector general will tell Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Ca) that the $8.8 billion figure was in fact too low because his investigation was limited to funds disbursed to Iraqi ministries between October 2003 and June 24, 2004. Bowen will tell Waxman that he believes that the lack of accountability and transparency actually extended to the entire $20 billion spent by the CPA. [US Congress, 2/6/2007, pp. 16 ]

A former chief of the CIA’s station in Baghdad, Iraq (see December 2004), reportedly brags about mistreating detainees. Details of the comments, including who they are made to, are unknown. However, they do lead to an investigation, which finds that the former chief’s statements are untrue and that he was exaggerating. [McClatchy, 8/25/2009]

More than 250 members of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), a militant Iranian opposition group, return to Iran from Camp Ashraf in Iraq, accepting Iran’s December offer of amnesty. For years, the MEK leadership has assured the group’s members they faced certain death if they returned to Iran. Many remaining MEK members, over 3,500 in Iraq alone, say they are skeptical of the Iranian government’s promises and [Christian Science Monitor, 3/22/2005] dismiss the defectors as “quitters.” According to the Los Angeles Times, which interviewed several of Camp Ashraf’s residents, remaining MEK members appear to “show no interest” in going back. [Los Angeles Times, 3/19/2005]

Emiliano Santiago. [Source: Elliot Margolies]Oregon National Guardsman Emiliano Santiago’s lawsuit against his forcible redeployment back to Iraq begins in a Seattle, Washington, appeals court. Santiago spent eight years in the Guard, and his term of duty expired in June 2004. But four months later, the Army ordered him to ship out to Afghanistan. It also reset his military termination date to December 24, 2031. (The 26-year extension was explained by Army lawyers as being made for “administrative convenience.”) Santiago refused to go, and filed a lawsuit naming Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as the defendant. The lawsuit, Santiago v. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, is the highest court review of the Army’s controversial “stop-loss” policy (see November 2002, November 13, 2003, Early January, 2004, and June 2, 2004) to date. Army lawyers say that under the November 2002 “stop-loss” policy, President Bush can “suspend any provision of the law relating to promotion, retirement or separation” of any soldier who is deemed essential to national security in times of crisis. Santiago’s lawyers say in a written statement: “Conscription for decades or life is the work of despots.… It has no place in a free and democratic society.… If the government can break its promises to young men and women like Santiago, then the bedrock of our all-volunteer army—trust in the government’s promises—will crumble.” Many legal observers believe that if Santiago loses in the appeals court, he and his lawyers will push the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Ironically, Santiago is slated to be redeployed to Afghanistan within a week, and may not be on hand to hear whether he wins or loses his case. [Seattle Times, 4/6/2005] Santiago says it is not a matter of politics for him, but of fairness. “If I still had two years or one year left of my contract, I would say, ‘I signed up for it, I’m in,’” he says. “This is not right. [The Army is] not doing what they told me they were going to do.… It’s crazy.” Santiago recalls being told by his recruiter in 1997 that there was virtually no chance of his being sent overseas for active duty. According to Santiago, the recruiter told him, “The only reason the National Guard would get deployed is if there was, like, a World War III.” [Seattle Weekly, 3/30/2005] Santiago will lose the lawsuit, and will redeploy to Afghanistan (see April 15, 2005). [Oakland Tribune, 1/14/2006]

An appeals court rules unanimously that Sergeant Emiliano Santiago must redeploy to Iraq under the military’s “stop-loss” program. Santiago filed a lawsuit to prevent his forcible redeployment, saying that he had already fulfilled his eight-year enlistment (see April 6, 2005). He unwillingly returns to Afghanistan today. [Oakland Tribune, 1/14/2006] Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor rejected Santiago’s request for his case to be reviewed by the Court. In defense of Santiago, Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) told the House: “His case—his plight—should be known, and feared, by every high-school junior and senior across the country. The ugly little secret in the Pentagon is that Emiliano Santiago’s voluntary service is now involuntary.” [Seattle Times, 4/15/2005]

The corpses of Sunni males begin appearing in Baghdad’s main morgue after reportedly being detained by men wearing police uniforms. The abductors are often seen driving Toyota Land Cruisers and armed with Glocks. A US official claims that police uniforms can be bought for a cheap price by non-governmental armed groups. But unexplained is how the attackers can afford Toyotas and Glocks, both of which are very expensive and usually only used by Western contractors and Iraqi government forces. Faik Baqr, director of the morgue, tells Knight Ridder that the bodies always look as if they were killed in a “methodical” fashion. The bodies are often tortured and mutilated with their eyes blindfolded. They look as if they had been “whipped with a cord, subjected to electric shocks or beaten with a blunt object and shot to death, often with single bullets to their heads.” The torture markings are similar to those that have been found on the bodies of survivors rescued from Interior Ministry prisons by the human rights ministry. The morgue director also says that he has been receiving about 700 to 800 suspicious deaths a month ever since May, with 500 having firearm wounds. [Knight Ridder, 6/28/2005]

Outgoing Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, one of the key architects of the Iraq occupation, is bemused by the fact that, despite his predictions and those of his neoconservative colleagues, Iraq is teetering on the edge of all-out civil war. He has come under fire from both political enemies and former supporters, with Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) accusing him of deceiving both the White House and Congress, and fellow neoconservative William Kristol accusing him of “being an agent of” disgraced Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see November 6-December 18, 2006). Feith defends the invasion of Iraq, calling it “an operation to prevent the next, as it were, 9/11,” and noting that the failure to find WMD is essentially irrelevant to the justification for the war. “There’s a certain revisionism in people looking back and identifying the main intelligence error [the assumption of stockpiles] and then saying that our entire policy was built on that error.” Feith is apparently ignoring the fact that the administration’s arguments for invading Iraq—including many of his own assertions—were built almost entirely on the “error” of the Iraqi WMD threat (see July 30, 2001, Summer 2001, September 11, 2001-March 17, 2003, Shortly After September 11, 2001, September 14, 2001, September 19-20, 2001, September 20, 2001, October 14, 2001, November 14, 2001, 2002, 2002-March 2003, February 2002, Summer 2002, August 26, 2002, September 3, 2002, September 4, 2002, September 8, 2002, September 8, 2002, September 10, 2002, September 12, 2002, Late September 2002, September 19, 2002, September 24, 2002, September 24, 2002, September 28, 2002, October 7, 2002, December 3, 2002, December 12, 2002, January 9, 2003, February 3, 2003, February 5, 2003, February 8, 2003, March 22, 2003, and March 23, 2003, among others).
Cultural Understanding Did Not Lead to Success - Feith says he is not sure why what he describes as his deep understanding of Iraqi culture did not lead to accurate predictions of the welcome the US would receive from the Iraqi people (see November 18-19, 2001, 2002-2003, September 9, 2002, and October 11, 2002). “There’s a paradox I’ve never been able to work out,” he says. “It helps to be deeply knowledgeable about an area—to know the people, to know the language, to know the history, the culture, the literature. But it is not a guarantee that you will have the right strategy or policy as a matter of statecraft for dealing with that area. You see, the great experts in certain areas sometimes get it fundamentally wrong.” Who got it right? President Bush, he says. “[E]xpertise is a very good thing, but it is not the same thing as sound judgment regarding strategy and policy. George W. Bush has more insight, because of his knowledge of human beings and his sense of history, about the motive force, the craving for freedom and participation in self-rule, than do many of the language experts and history experts and culture experts.”
'Flowers in Their Minds' - When a reporter notes that Iraqis had not, as promised, greeted American soldiers with flowers, Feith responds that they were still too intimidated by their fear of the overthrown Hussein regime to physically express their gratitude. “But,” he says, “they had flowers in their minds.” [New Yorker, 5/9/2005; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 228-229]

US Intelligence officers report that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 02 pistols that have no serial numbers. The numbers have not been removed; the guns came off a production line with no number. “Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as US authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.” [United Press International, 6/6/2005]

At the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Natik al-Bayati, director general of Iraq’s Oil Exploration Company, tells reporters that Iraqi officials are hoping that foreign oil companies will return to Iraq and begin working by the third quarter of 2006. “Hopefully by the first quarter of 2006 the companies will come back. Maybe by mid-year or the third quarter [of 2006]. This is what we have in mind,” he says. He explains that the objective is to increase production to 3.5 million-4 million barrels per day by 2010. To meet this goal, Iraq’s exploration sector will need between $15 billion and $20 billion, he says. [International Oil Daily, 6/15/2005] Iraq will have to begin negotiating with the oil companies this year in order to make that deadline. As one observer notes, this would be taking place “before a legitimate Iraqi government is elected and in parallel with the writing of a Petroleum Law. This time frame means that contracts will be negotiated without public participation or debate, or proper legal framework.” [Muttitt, 2005]

Gordon Cucullu. [Source: The Intelligence Summit]“Independent military analyst” Gordon Cucullu, a former Green Beret, is an enthusiastic participant in the Pentagon’s Iraq propaganda operation (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond). Cucullu has just returned from a half-day tour of the Guantanamo detention facility (see June 24-25, 2005), and is prepared to give the Pentagon’s approved message to the media.
Talking Points Covered in Fox Appearance - In an e-mail to Pentagon official Dallas Lawrence, he alerts the department to a new article he has written for conservative Website FrontPage, and notes that he has appeared on an early-morning broadcast on Fox News and delivered the appropriate talking points: “I did a Fox & Friends hit at 0620 this morning. Good emphasis on 1) no torture, 2) detainees abuse guards, and 3) continuing source of vital intel.” [Salon, 5/9/2008]
Op-Ed: Pampered Detainees Regularly Abuse Guards - In the op-ed for FrontPage, entitled “What I Saw at Gitmo,” he writes that the US is being “extraordinarily lenient—far too lenient” on the detainees there. There is certainly abuse going on at Guantanamo, Cucullu writes—abuse of soldiers by the detainees. Based on his three-hour tour of the facility, which included viewing one “interrogation” and touring an unoccupied cellblock, Cucullu says that the detainees “fight their captors at every opportunity” and spew death threats against the soldiers, their families, and Americans in general. The soldiers are regularly splattered with “feces, urine, semen, and spit.” One detainee reportedly told another, “One day I will enjoy sucking American blood, although their blood is bitter, undrinkable.” US soldiers, whom Cucullu says uniformly treat the detainees with courtesy and restraint (see August 8, 2002-January 15, 2003), are constantly attacked by detainees who wield crudely made knives, or try to “gouge eyes and tear mouths [or] grab and break limbs as the guards pass them food.” In return, the detainees are given huge meals of “well-prepared food,” meals which typically overflow from two styrofoam containers. Many detainees insist on “special meal orders,” and throw fits if their meals are not made to order. The level of health care they are granted, Cucullu says, would suit even the most hypochondriac American. Cucullu writes that the detainees are lavished with ice cream treats, granted extended recreational periods, live in “plush environs,” and provided with a full array of religious paraphernalia. “They are not abused, hanged, tortured, beheaded, raped, mutilated, or in any way treated the way that they once treated their own captives—or now treat their guards.” The commander, Brigadier General Jay Hood, tells Cucullu that such pampered treatment provides better results than harsher measures. “Establishing rapport” is more effective than coercion, Hood says, and, in Cucullu’s words, Hood “refers skeptics to the massive amount of usable intelligence information [the detainees] produce even three years into the program.” In conclusion, Cucullu writes, the reader is “right to worry about inhumane treatment” at Guantanamo, but on behalf of the soldiers, not the detainees. [FrontPage Magazine, 6/27/2005]

The Pentagon, tracking every bit of media coverage provided by the “independent military analysts” who are part of its Iraq propaganda program (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond), is particularly pleased with the results of its half-day tour of Guantanamo for selected analysts (see June 24-25, 2005). Its tracking (see 2005 and Beyond) finds that Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Cucullu (see June 27, 2005) receives the most coverage during the almost two weeks after the tour, followed by Major General Donald Shepperd (see June 24-27, 2005). In all, the analysts made 37 media appearances. They emphasized the following talking points:
Prisoner/Guard Abuse -
“Most abuse is either toward US military personnel and/or between prisoners.”
“US military guards are regularly threatened by prisoners.”
“Some analysts stated there may have been past abuses at Gitmo but not now.”
'Prisoner Interrogations' -
“Interrogators are building relationships with prisoners, not torturing them.”
“We are still gaining valuable information from prisoners.”
Interrogations are very professionally run.”
'Quality of Prisoner Care' -
“Prisoners are given excellent treatment, including provision of any and all religious paraphernalia.”
“Special dietary requests are routinely granted.”
'Closing Gitmo' -
“Gitmo exceeds Geneva Convention requirements.”
“We should not close this facility and let dangerous terrorists out.” [Salon, 5/9/2008]

Iraq’s presidential council endorses the final draft of Iraq’s permanent constitution and sends it to the National Assembly. The constitution will be subjected to a referendum vote on October 15 (see October 15, 2005). While the proposed constitution is supported by the Kurdish and Shiite members of the council, the document is bitterly opposed by representatives of the Sunni Arabs, the ethnic Turkomen of northern Iraq, Christians, secular groups, and women. [New York Times, 8/29/2005]
The second article of the constitution declares that Islam is the official state religion, and that it will be regarded as “a main source of legislation.” It also states that “no law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.” Clerics, therefore, would likely sit on the Supreme Court and would have a role in presiding over family disputes like marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The provision is considered an affront to women’s rights since most interpretations of Islamic law afford women substantially fewer rights than men. [New York Times, 8/29/2005; Associated Press, 10/12/2005]
Article 25 states that the Iraqi government “shall guarantee the reforming of the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector.” [Associated Press, 10/12/2005] It marks a significant departure in economic policy from the Baathist government, whose constitution stated that “national resources and basic means of production are owned by the people.” [Constitution of Iraq, 1968]
Article 110, which deals with oil policy, states: “The federal government and the governments of the producing regions and provinces together will draw up the necessary strategic policies to develop oil and gas wealth to bring the greatest benefit for the Iraqi people, relying on the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment.” Observers note that, while this section states that both the federal government and the regional governments will work together, a subsequent clause appears to contradict this. That clause states: “All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal authorities is in the authority of the regions. In other powers shared between the federal government and the regions, the priority will be given to the region’s law in case of dispute.” [Associated Press, 10/12/2005]
Article 115 of the constitution would make it possible for provinces to organize themselves as semi-autonomous federal regions, with their own distinct laws. This means, for example, that regions would be able to negotiate contracts with oil companies on their own and exercise control over a bulk of the oil revenue. [Muttitt, 2005] However, the precise division of authority between the central government and any regional governments is not clearly stated in the document. “All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal authorities is in the authority of the regions,” the document says. “In other powers shared between the federal government and the regions, the priority will be given to the region’s law in case of dispute.” Most of Iraq’s oil is located in either the Kurdish northern region or the Shiite-dominated south. The Sunnis, who have ruled Iraq almost without interruption since 1920 and whose communities lie predominantly in the resource-poor provinces of central and western Iraq, are opposed to this federalist political structure. [Associated Press, 10/12/2005]
The final draft of the constitution is missing an article that had appeared in an earlier draft declaring that it is “forbidden for Iraq to be used as a base or corridor for foreign troops” or “to have foreign military bases in Iraq.” [Asia Times, 10/15/2005]

Three war contractors for KBR, the firm supplying logistical support for US troops in Iraq and Kuwait, meet in a quiet lounge in London’s Cumberland Hotel. The three men are unaware that federal agents are tailing them. They spend the afternoon drinking and discussing the various bribes they have accepted as kickbacks as a routine part of doing business. KBR procurement manager Stephen Seamans, who, unbeknownst to his colleagues, is wearing a wire for the FBI, wonders whether or not he should return $65,000 in bribes his two fellows, executives from the Saudi conglomerate Tamimi Global Co, gave him. One of the two executives, Tamimi operations director Shabbir Khan, tells him to conceal the money by falsifying business records. “Just do the paperwork,” Khan advises. This and other information about KBR war profiteering in Iraq comes from a federal investigation that will begin in late 2007 (see October 2006 and Beyond). [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008; Chicago Tribune, 2/21/2008]

Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi deputy prime minister and former chair of the country’s Energy Council, says, “In order to make major quantum increases in oil, we need to have production sharing agreements, but that has to wait until after the formation of parliament.” [Reuters, 11/22/2005; Inter Press Service, 11/23/2005]

A report authored by Greg Muttitt of PLATFORM concludes that Iraq would not benefit from an oil policy based on production sharing agreements (PSAs). According to Muttitt, the PSAs would cost Iraq “hundreds of billions of dollars in potential revenue,” while oil company profits would see annual rates of return “ranging from 42 percent to 62 percent for a small field, or 98 percent to 162 percent for a large field.” Muttitt’s study also warns that PSAs would result in Iraqis forfeiting control of their oil industry to foreign oil companies. For example, Iraq would lose its ability to control the depletion rate of its own oil resources. “As an oil-dependent country, the depletion rate is absolutely key to Iraq’s development strategy, but would be largely out of the government’s control,” Muttitt notes. Furthermore, PSAs, which typically have fixed terms of between 25 and 40 years, often include “stabilization clauses” that grant oil companies immunity from all future laws, regulations, and government policies. If Iraq were to sign such PSAs, future Iraqi governments would be unable to change tax rates or laws regulating labor standards, workplace safety, or the environment. PSA agreements also tend to put the host government at a disadvantage when there is a dispute with the contracted oil company. Most PSAs stipulate that disputes must be resolved in international arbitration tribunals where they are generally presided over by corporate lawyers and trade negotiators who will only consider narrow commercial issues without regard to Iraqi public interest. Muttitt’s report argues that Iraq has several options for developing its oil industry that would be far more beneficial to Iraq than relying on PSAs. One option would be for Iraq to hire specialist companies under short-term technical service contracts to provide expertise only when native expertise is lacking. There is no reason, Muttitt notes, for Iraq to give oil companies full control over the industry when Iraq has a highly-skilled oil sector workforce that is fully capable of managing the country’s oil production. All that’s needed, he says, is for them to receive training on the latest technologies. Until that is achieved, Iraq would be adequately served with a policy based on short-term technical service contracts. Muttitt also argues that Iraq has several options for acquiring the needed capital to jump start the oil sector. Foreign investment is neither the only, nor the most attractive solution for Iraq. He argues that using Iraqi money or borrowing funds would save Iraq billions of dollars in the long term. [Muttitt, 2005]

The Iraqi government cuts subsidies on gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and cooking fuel in order to meet an IMF requirement that Iraq allow fuel prices to increase to levels on par with prices elsewhere in the Middle East. The Iraq government agreed to implement this reform, and a number of others, in exchange for having as much as 80 percent of its debts forgiven (see September 29, 2004 and November 22, 2004). The debts had accumulated during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iraq’s rolling back of the fuel subsidies is followed by violent protests across the country. The price of cooking fuel immediately increases by about three-fold, while gasoline prices increase by a factor of five. Diesel fuel prices rise about nine-fold. [Associated Press, 12/19/2005; BBC, 12/30/2005; New York Times, 12/31/2005]

The IMF’s 24-member executive board approves a standby arrangement for a new $685 million loan for Iraq. The IMF previously provided the country with a $436.3 million emergency post-conflict loan in September 2004 (see September 29, 2004). The approval means that creditor nations will forgive an additional 30 percent of Iraq’s debt, all of which was incurred under the rule of Saddam Hussein. If Iraq fulfills the requirements in the standby arrangement, another 20 percent of its debt will be forgiven (see November 22, 2004). [Associated Press, 12/23/2005; Agence France-Presse, 12/23/2005] One of the reforms required by the stand-by arrangement is that Iraq work with the IMF on the drafting of an oil law to be implemented by the end of 2006. [Bretton Woods Project, 1/23/2006] The agreement states that Iraq needs to “draft a new petroleum law in line with the new constitution and international best practices, thereby defining the fiscal regime for oil and establishing the contractual framework for private investment in the sector.” It adds that IMF staff have underscored “the need to press ahead with structural fiscal reforms,” which include “the move forward toward the commercialization of oil-related state enterprises, and the drafting of a new petroleum law.” [International Monetary Fund, 12/7/2005, pp. 18 ]

KBR subcontractor Stephen Seamans and his business crony, Shabbir Khan of the Saudi Arabian conglomerate Tamimi Global Co, are arrested as part of the ongoing investigation into war profiteering by KBR and its subcontractors (see October 2006 and Beyond). Khan is convicted of lying to federal agents about the kickbacks he provided Seamans (see February 20, 2008, October 2005, October 2002, April 2003, and June 2003), and will serve 51 months in prison. Seamans pleads guilty to charges stemming from the same business deals, and serves a year and a day in prison. Seamans, an Air Force veteran, once taught ethics to junior KBR employees. In December, during his sentencing hearing, he says he is sorry for taking the bribes, “It is not the way that Americans do business.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008; Chicago Tribune, 2/21/2008]

Farid Ghadry. [Source: Committee on the Present Danger]Farid Ghadry, the president of the Washington-based Reform Party of Syria (see October 2001), “wants to be the [Ahmed] Chalabi of Syria,” warns Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Chalabi played a key role in the US’s attempt to bring about regime change in Iraq, and was the neoconservatives’ choice to lead Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (see 2002-2003). Perthes says, “Chalabi is a role model for Ghadry.” [ABC News, 1/12/2006] Ghadry, like Chalabi, is a rich Arab exile with strong connections to Washington neoconservatives who wants to overthrow the Ba’athist dictator of his native country—in this case, Bashir Assad. Ghadry says that even though there doesn’t seem to be a strong impetus to invade Syria any time soon in Washington, Syria needs to be targeted, and soon. In February 2005, he said, “Maybe we don’t have weapons of mass destruction. But there’s reason enough to help. It’s important to free Syria because Syria could be on the avant-garde of helping the US win the war on terror.” Ghadry has taken pains to distance himself from the inevitable comparisons with his Iraqi counterpart, even sending one mass e-mail titled “I am not Ahmed Chalabi.” But like Chalabi, he has cultivated friends and colleagues within the American political and business communities; [Slate, 2/7/2005] in the US, where he is known as “Frank” Ghadry, he once presented himself as Lebanese instead of Syrian, and has owned a number of businesses, including a small defense contracting firm and a failed Washington coffee-shop chain called Hannibal’s. [Washington Business Journal, 10/4/1996; Business Forward, 3/2000] He is charming, comfortable with Westerners, and has long supported the idea of peaceful co-existence with Israel. [Slate, 2/7/2005] For instance, in May 2007, Ghadry, a member of the right-wing American Israel Public Affairs Committee, will write, “As a Syrian and a Muslim, I have always had this affinity for the State of Israel. As a businessman and an advocate of the free economic system of governance, Israel to me represents an astounding economic success in the midst of so many Arab failures.… While many Arabs view Israel as a sore implant, I view it as a blessing.” [Vanity Fair, 3/2007; Farid Ghadry, 5/5/2007]
Ties to US Neoconservatives - Upon creating the Reform Party of Syria, Ghadry told reporters that Chalabi provided him with a template for his own plans for Syria: “Ahmed paved the way in Iraq for what we want to do in Syria.” And in 2005, Ghadry discussed his agenda with Chalabi, a discussion which took place in the living room of powerful US neoconservative and Chalabi sponsor Richard Perle, who, like Ghadry, supports enforced regime change in Syria. [Boston Globe, 12/13/2005] Later, Ghadry joined the Committee on the Present Danger, a group of mostly right wing politicians and think-tank fellows, and which boasts as members such prominent neoconservatives as Newt Gingrich, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and James Woolsey. [Slate, 2/7/2005] He is particularly close to Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, who serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs [Syria News Wire, 2/19/2006] and heads of the State Department’s Iran-Syria Operations Group, tasked with planning strategies to “democratize” the two nations. [Vanity Fair, 3/2007] Cheney ensured that Ghadry’s group received some of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to the “Middle East Partnership Initiative,” which contributes to opposition groups throughout the region, [Iran Solidarity, 11/5/2006] and has coordinated at least one meeting, in February 2006, between Ghadry and senior Bush administration officials, including officials from Vice President Cheney’s office, the National Security Council, and the Pentagon. [Washington Post, 3/26/2005] Ghadry describes notorious neoconservative political operator Michael Ledeen as “my friend.” [National Review, 3/2/2005] He writes frequent screeds warning of dire consequences to the world if Assad remains in power, which often get picked up in right-wing media outlets such as Front Page and the Washington Times. And, like Chalabi, Ghadry says that once the US moves against Syria, it will be a virtual cakewalk: though Ghadry hasn’t lived in Syria since the 1960s, he says he has intimate knowledge of the Syrian society and culture, and he knows the Syrian people will welcome their US liberators. Syria has, he says, “good dissidents, who understand the United States, can work with the United States, and can help bring about major change.” [Slate, 2/7/2005] Boston Globe columnist H.D.S. Greenway wasn’t so sure, writing in December 2005, “Chalabi… is often accused of seducing the administration with false intelligence into invading Iraq. But the fact is that the Bush administration desperately wanted to be seduced. If you are feeling charitable, you can say that Chalabi, having lived in exile for so many years, may just have been out of touch with the real situation in Iraq. But one suspects that Farid Ghadry may be no better informed about his homeland than was Chalabi.” [Boston Globe, 12/13/2005]
Refusal to Work With Other Dissidents - A Syrian news site observes in February 2006 that Ghadry’s plans for Syria are made more difficult by his refusal to work with other dissident groups because, according to one dissident leader, Husam Ad-Dairi, Ghadry “only wanted to be a leader.” Another dissident Syrian, Riad At-Turk, calls Ghadry’s idea of opposition “nonsense.” Ad-Dairi says, “Ghadry did not split off from the [Syrian National Council, an umbrella organization of dissident groups] because we are Ba’athists or Islamists. He split off because he was not willing to be part of the group; he only wanted to be a leader. He wanted to start a Syrian government in exile with 19 people in Washington DC. Who does that represent? So we opposed it.” Ghadry will later attack Ad-Dairi, At-Turk, and other dissidents, widely considered some of the most liberal in the disparate dissident movements, “Stalinists” and accuse them of supporting al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. [Syrian Comment, 1/30/2006; Syria News Wire, 2/19/2006]
Ties to Abramoff? - Ghadry’s hopes to lead Syria may be tainted by his apparent ties to GOP lobbyist and convicted criminal Jack Abramoff. In January 2006, the Reform Party of Syria’s headquarters were located very near the offices of Abramoff’s lobbying firm, Middle Gate Ventures, which was apparently partnered with the Reform Party. Middle East expert Joshua Landis called the group “a front organization for Israeli interests in the Levant… supported by an impressive constellation of neoconservative stars. Regime change, effected by a US invasion and occupation of Syria and Lebanon, is the one and only item at the top of this gang’s agenda, and it comes as no surprise that Abramoff’s ill-gotten gains went to funding it.” [Syrian Comment, 1/11/2006]

A federal appeals court refuses to block the forced redeployment of a California National Guardsman under the Army’s so-called “stop-loss” program (see August 2004). The appeals court finds that the right of the plaintiff, known for purposes of the lawsuit as “John Doe,” were not violated. “[T]he ‘stop-loss’ order extending Doe’s enlistment is a valid exercise of presidential power” authorized by a federal law, and that law neither violates the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of due process of law nor is an improper delegation of congressional power,” writes Circuit Judge Stephen Trott in a unanimous three-judge opinion. Trott also finds that the “stop-loss” order does not conflict with other sections of federal law, and even if it did, it would override such laws. The appeals court upholds a similar finding of a lower court from March 2005. Doe’s attorney, Michael Sorgen, had argued that without a Congressional declaration of war, the president’s power to force soldiers to serve indefinitely violates the Constitutional separation of powers. [Oakland Tribune, 1/14/2006]

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says that the violence in Iraq has reached the point of civil war and that his country is nearing a “point of no return.” Allawi, who leads a 25-member coalition of representatives in the Iraqi National Assembly, says: “It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more.” Answering claims that Iraq is not locked in such a conflict, Allawi says, “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.” General George Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq, contradicts Allawi, claiming, “We’re a long way from civil war.” Vice President Dick Cheney, part of an administration that is marking the three-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by US and coalition forces (see March 19, 2003) by presenting a unified front, echoes Casey’s remarks, and adds that the war must be viewed in a broader context. “It’s not just about Iraq, it’s not about just today’s situation in Iraq,” he says. “It’s about where we’re going to be 10 years from now in the Middle East and whether or not there’s going to be hope and the development of the governments that are responsive to the will of the people, that are not a threat to anyone, that are not safe havens for terror or manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction.” Cheney blames the news media for the perception that the war is going badly: “I think it has less to do with the statements we’ve made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality, than it does with the fact that there’s a constant sort of perception, if you will, that’s created because what’s newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad,” he says. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compares the Iraq war to the two great conflicts of his generation, World War II and the Cold War. “Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis,” he writes in an op-ed published by the Washington Post. “It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination.” [New York Times, 3/19/2006]

The newly released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq says that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the 9/11 attacks. The NIE is compiled from information provided by the 16 American intelligence agencies, and written by the US government’s National Intelligence Council. The NIE is released internally in April 2006, but portions are made public on September 24, 2006. It is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began. [New York Times, 9/24/2006] Robert Hutchings, the council’s former chairman, says, "The war in Iraq has exasperated the global war on terror." [Toronto Daily News, 9/24/2006] The White House has issued its own reports touting its successes against Islamist terrorism and predicting that such activities will dwindle in the coming months. [New York Times, 9/24/2006] The NIE report says, "[T]he Iraq war has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists…and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives. …[T]he Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of al-Qaeda ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea. Our study shows that the Iraq war has generated a stunning increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and civilian lives lost. Even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one third." Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of the British secret service (MI5), agrees. She will say in early 2007, "Young teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers. The threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation." [Independent, 3/1/2007] Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) says the report should "put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush’s phony argument about the Iraq war." [ABC News, 9/25/2006]

Retired Marine Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, until October 2002 the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is another in a small but vocal group of current and retired generals voicing public dissent against the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq. Newbold writes an op-ed for Time magazine, and leads off by saying that after Vietnam, he and other career military officers determined never again to “stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it.” But, Newbold writes, it happened again. He takes responsibility for his own actions in planning for the invasion of Iraq, but notes that “[i]nside the military family, I made no secret of my view that the zealots’ rationale for war made no sense. And I think I was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. But I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda.” Newbold retired from the military in late 2002, “in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11’s tragedy to hijack our security policy. Until now, I have resisted speaking out in public. I’ve been silent long enough.” The cost of the Bush administration’s “flawed leadership continues to be paid in blood,” he writes, and that blood debt drives him to speak out.
A Justifiable War - Invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do, Newbold says, to take on the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And though invading Iraq was unnecessary and wrong, he says, the US cannot now just withdraw precipitously: “It would send a signal, heard around the world, that would reinforce the jihadists’ message that America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances of future conflicts. If, however, the Iraqis prove unable to govern, and there is open civil war, then I am prepared to change my position.”
Outrage - Newbold writes of his deep anger at the words of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who recently said that “we” made the “right strategic decisions,” but made thousands of “tactical errors” (see March 31-April 1, 2006). Newbold calls that statement “an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.” Instead, he writes: “What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures.… My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions—or bury the results.” Many of the Pentagon’s highest-ranking generals bear their own blame, Newbold writes, in “act[ing] timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military’s effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction.” Some few actually believed the rationale for war, others were intimidated, and many believed that their sense of duty and obedience precluded their speaking out. “The consequence of the military’s quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort.” Many members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, “defaulted in fulfilling their constitutional responsibility for oversight.” Many media reporters, editors, and pundits ignored the warnings and instead played up the rationale for war.
New Visions, New Strategies - The first thing to do, says Newbold, is to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld along with “many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach.” The US owes their troops, living and dead, a debt of gratitude and the responsibility to “construct a unified strategy worthy of them. It is time to send a signal to our nation, our forces and the world that we are uncompromising on our security but are prepared to rethink how we achieve it.” More generals and others in positions of leadership need to speak out, Newbold concludes, and make sure that we as a nation are not “fooled again.” [Time, 4/9/2006]

Harper’s journalist Ken Silverstein names a former CIA Baghdad station chief in an online post at the magazine’s website. The chief, whose name is Gerry Meyer according to Silverstein, wrote alarming reports about the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency (see August 30, 2003 and November 10, 2003) and was later forced out of his position in circumstances that are unclear (see (Late December 2003)). [Harper's, 5/18/2006]

Iraq’s new oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, says that Iraq will need international assistance and billions of dollars in investment to develop its oil sector. “There is need to pass an oil and gas law to guarantee the right conditions for international companies to help develop the Iraqi oil sector,” he says. [Dow Jones Newswires, 5/23/2006]

Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri also mentioned the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a video. [Source: As Sahab]A man said to be Osama bin Laden releases an audio message following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was said to be head of al-Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq (see June 8, 2006). The voice says that al-Zarqawi, who died following a US air strike, is “one of our greatest knights and one of our best emirs… We were very happy to find in him a symbol and role model for our future generations.” The voice, which the CIA says is bin Laden’s, also asks that al-Zarqawi’s body be returned to Jordan, where he was born. The speaker also says: “We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, until we drain your money and kill your men and send you home defeated, God willing, as we defeated you before, thanks to God, in Somalia.” The message lasts almost 20 minutes and is posted on a website associated with al-Qaeda. [CNN, 6/30/2006] Al-Zarqawi pledged loyalty to bin Laden in 2004 (see October 17, 2004).

The US sends Washington, DC lawyer Ronald Jonkers to Iraq to work with Iraqi officials on the drafting of a new law that would govern private sector involvement in the development of Iraq’s oil. Jonkers is an attorney with Hills Stern & Morley. From 1992 to 2003 he served as assistant general counsel for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US agency that provides financing and political risk insurance to US businesses investing abroad. [American Lawyer, 4/26/2007]

A draft for a new Iraq oil law is completed. The proposed law was drawn up by three Iraqis—Tariq Shafiq, Farouk al-Qassem, and Thamir al-Ghadban—who have been working on it for three months. Shafiq is the director of the oil consultant firm Petrolog & Associates and was the founding director of Iraq’s National Oil Company in 1964. Ghadban recently served as the country’s oil minister (see June 2004). [United Press International, 5/2/2007] One provision in the draft law lists production sharing agreements (PSAs) as one type of contract that could be used to govern private sector involvement in the development of Iraq’s oil sector. Under PSAs, oil companies would claim up to 75 percent of all profits until they have recovered initial drilling costs, after which point they would collect about 20 percent. These terms are more favorable to investors than typical PSAs, which usually give about 40 percent to the company before costs are recovered and only 10 percent afterwards. Even when the price of oil was as low as $25 per barrel, the lower paying PSAs were profitable for companies. Critics say that the oil companies want to negotiate and sign the PSAs with Iraq before the country is stabilized so they can argue that the political risk of doing business in Iraq warrants higher profit shares. But then they would wait until after the situation has improved before moving in. Iraq would be the first Middle Eastern country with large oil reserves to use PSAs. Other countries have avoided PSAs because they are widely thought to give more control to companies than governments. James Paul of the Global Policy Forum will tell the Independent: “The US and [Britain] have been pressing hard on this. It’s pretty clear that this is one of their main goals in Iraq.” The Iraqi authorities, he says, are “a government under occupation, and it is highly influenced by that. The US has a lot of leverage… Iraq is in no condition right now to go ahead and do this.” Critics also suggest the companies’ shares of profits should be lower than typical PSAs, if anything, since Iraq’s oil is so accessible and cheap to extract. Paul explains: “It is relatively easy to get the oil in Iraq. It is nowhere near as complicated as the North Sea. There are super giant fields that are completely mapped, [and] there is absolutely no exploration cost and no risk. So the argument that these agreements are needed to hedge risk is specious.” [Independent, 1/7/2007] Immediately after this draft is completed, it is shared with the US government and oil companies (see July 2006). In September it will be reviewed by the International Monetary Fund (see September 2006). Iraqi lawmakers will not see the document until early 2007. The provision mentioning PSAs will be axed from the final draft due to Iraqi opposition (see February 15, 2007).

The US government and major oil companies are given the opportunity to review the latest draft of a new oil law for Iraq (see July 2006). The draft has yet to be seen by Iraqi lawmakers. [Independent, 1/7/2007]

A shift leader of Triple Canopy, a private US security firm, shoots into at last two civilian vehicles in Baghdad after declaring that he is going to “kill someone today,” according to two of the firm’s employees, Shane Schmidt and Charles L. Sheppard III. It is suspected that at least one person died as a result of the unprovoked attack. [New York Times, 11/17/2006; Washington Post, 11/17/2006]

Triple Canopy employees Shane Schmidt and Charles L. Sheppard III notify the company’s senior supervisors in Iraq that they witnessed a shift supervisor shoot into two Iraqi civilian vehicles (see July 8, 2006). Within a week, the company terminates their employment contracts, saying that Schmidt and Sheppard did not report the incidents soon enough. The two employees later file a lawsuit against Triple Canopy, claiming that the company never investigated the shootings. They also alleged that Triple Canopy blacklisted them within the private security industry. [New York Times, 11/17/2006; Washington Post, 11/17/2006]

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, on a visit to Baghdad, refers to the drafting of a new oil that is underway and says it is important that the Iraqi Parliament—which apparently is not involved in the drafting process—pass it soon. [Time, 2/28/2007] Iraq needs to “pass a new law, a new hydrocarbon law under which international companies will be able to make investments in Iraq,” he says. Opening up Iraq’s oil industry will help Iraq realize “its very considerable potential with the benefit of investments from the international community.” He adds that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, along with the oil and electricity ministers, are “optimistic of passing that law by the parliament and they hope to pass such a law by end of this calendar year.” He says that US oil companies won’t consider investing in Iraq’s oil sector until “first there is security and second there is a hydrocarbon law that will delineate the rules of the road.” [Agence France-Presse, 7/18/2006]

Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani tells the Financial Times that the drafting of a new oil law is underway and that Iraq’s parliament will hopefully pass it “by the end of the year.” He says the law “will open the door for the international companies to come and work in Iraq, and develop our new fields…. We have many, many fields that are waiting for development, (and) some of them are giant fields.” [Financial Times, 7/27/2007] Iraq’s legislators are apparently not involved in the drafting of the law. [Time, 2/28/2007]

The White House orders the military to capture and detain as many Iranians as possible in Iraq. The Bush administration wants to build a case that Iran is fueling the violence. According to a former senior intelligence official interviewed by reporter Seymour Hersh, US forces have had as many as “five hundred locked up at one time.” But many of these included Iranian humanitarian and aid workers who “get scooped up and released in a short time.” [New Yorker, 3/5/2007]

Neoconservative academic Meyrav Wurmser, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute, says the problem with the Iraq war is that it is confined to Iraq. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” she says. “My argument has always been that this war is senseless if you don’t give it a regional context.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 344-345]

The International Monetary Fund is reportedly given the opportunity to review the latest draft of Iraq’s proposed oil law. The draft was sent to the US government and oil companies in July (see July 2006). [Independent, 1/7/2007]

A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate based on a Congressional Research Service Report states that total funding for Iraq and the Global War on Terror could reach $808 billion by 2016. The report also states problems with oversight in that the Department of Defense has not provided Congress with the individual costs of each operation. The report begins by stating the administration has not answered frequently asked questions such as:
How much has Congress appropriated for each of the three missions since the 9/11 attacks—Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF, Afghanistan and other “Global War on Terror” operations), and Operation Noble Eagle (enhanced security for defense bases) for defense, foreign operations, and related VA medical care?
How much has the Pentagon obligated on average per month for each of the three missions each year?
What do trends in costs tell us about likely spending levels in the future?
It continues by outlining major unknowns which Congress may wish to pursue for accountability in government:
What is the estimated cost to reset—repair and replace war-worn equipment—and how might that funding affect the Pentagon’s regular or baseline budget?
How are some types of war costs affected by policy and contracting decisions as well as operational needs and troop levels?
How have deployed troop levels changed since the 9/11 attacks and how could Congress get accurate information on past and future troop levels?
What is the average cost per deployed troop for OIF and OEF, and how might that cost affect future war costs?
What are the estimates of future war costs? [Congressional Budget Office, 9/22/2006, pp. 1-3 ]

A committee made up of ministers and politicians from the main Shiite, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish blocs begins final negotiations on a proposed oil law that will govern the development of Iraq’s oil sector. The latest draft of the oil law was completed several months ago (see July 2006). While Iraqi legislators have yet to see law, it has already been reviewed by the US government and major oil companies (see July 2006), as well as the International Monetary Fund (see September 2006). According to the New York Times, “Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander here, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, have urged Iraqi politicians to put the oil law at the top of their agendas, saying it must be passed before the year’s end.” The major issue of contention concerns how oil revenue will be distributed. Most Sunni communities are located in provinces where there is little or no oil. Consequently, they are arguing that revenue should be controlled by the central government and then distributed equitably among Iraq’s provinces. Their position is supported by the Shiites. But the Kurds, who live in the oil-rich north, strongly disagree arguing that the constitution guarantees the regions absolute authority in those matters. [New York Times, 12/9/2006]

Federal prosecutors attempt to determine just how much corruption, fraud, and theft has occurred among government contracts handed out to corporations for their work in Iraq. The preliminary answer: a great deal. The US Justice Department chooses to center its probe into war profiteering in the small town of Rock Island, Illinois, because high-ranking Army officials at the arsenal there administer KBR’s LOGCAP III contract to feed, shelter, and support US soldiers, and to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure. KBR, formerly Kellogg, Brown, & Root, is a subsidiary of oil-construction giant Halliburton. The reported violations are rampant (see February 20, 2008, October 2005, October 2002, April 2003, June 2003, and September 21, 2007). [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008] The investigation is under the aegis of the National Procurement Fraud Task Force, formed by the Justice Department to detect, identify, prevent, and prosecute procurement fraud by firms such as KBR. The Task Force includes the FBI, the US Inspectors General community, the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, and others. [PR Newswire, 7/13/2007]
Multiple Prosecutions Underway - The Justice Department prosecutes four former supervisors for KBR, the large defense firm responsible for most of the military logistics and troop supply operations in Iraq. The government also prosecutes five executives from KBR subcontractors; an Army officer, Pete Peleti, has been found guilty of taking bribes (see February 20, 2008). Two KBR employees have already pleaded guilty in another trial, and about twenty more people face charges in the ever-widening corruption scandal. According to recently unsealed court documents, kickbacks, corruption, and fraud were rampant in contractual dealings months before the first US combat soldier arrived in Iraq. Not only did KBR contractors receive handsome, and illicit, payoffs, but the corruption and fraud endangered the health and safety of US troops stationed in Iraq and Kuwait. One freight-shipping subcontractor has already confessed to bribing five KBR employees to receive preferential treatment; five more were named by Peleti as accepting bribes. Prosecutors have identified three senior KBR executives as having approved deliberately inflated bids. None of these people have yet been charged. Other related charges have been made, from KBR’s refusal to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that the corporation charged $45 for a can of soda.
Pentagon Slashed Oversight - The overarching reason why such rampant fraud was, and is, taking place, prosecutors and observers believe, is that the Department of Defense outsourced critical troop support jobs while simultaneously slashing the amount of government oversight (see 2003 and Beyond).
Lack of Cooperation - Kuwait refuses to extradite two Middle Eastern businessmen accused of LOGCAP fraud. And KBR refuses to provide some internal documents detailing some of its managers’ business dealings. KBR says it “has not undertaken an exhaustive search of its millions of pages of procurement documents” to determine whether other problems exist. [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008; Chicago Tribune, 2/21/2008]

Shakir al-Abssi, a 51-year-old Palestinian militant and former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leaves Syria and heads to the Nahr al Bared Palestinian refuge camp in Lebanon, where he establishes the new Sunni militant group Fatah al-Islam. Abssi’s departure coincides with a clamp-down in Syria against Islamic militant groups. By late March 2007, Abssi’s organization will boast a militia force of 150 fighters, roughly 50 of whom are Saudi Arabians or nationals from other Arab countries who have fought in the insurgency in Iraq. [Scotsman, 3/25/2007; Reuters, 3/25/2007]

According to the Independent, several major oil companies reportedly send “teams” into Iraq to “lobby for deals ahead of the [Iraq Oil] law.” [Independent, 1/7/2007]

Concerned that the balance of power in the Middle East has tilted in favor of Shiite-dominated Iran, the Bush administration implements a major shift in its policy toward the region. According to a number of current and former high-level government officials interviewed by reporter Seymour Hersh, the focus of the new policy is to roll back Iran’s growing influence in Iraq. The administration’s top concern is that the failure of its policy in Iraq has empowered Iran. To undermine Iranian influence, the Bush administration begins supporting clandestine operations in Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. The administration avoids disclosing these operations to Congress by skirting congressional reporting requirements and by running them through the Saudis. The White House is also turning a blind eye to Saudi support for religious schools and charities linked to Islamic extremists. “A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda,” Hersh notes. One former senior intelligence official explains to Hersh, “We are in a program to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shiite influence, and we’re spreading the money around as much as we can.” The official adds that the money “always gets in more pockets than you think it will. In this process, we’re financing a lot of bad guys with some serious potential unintended consequences. We don’t have the ability to determine and get pay vouchers signed by the people we like and avoid the people we don’t like.” Much of the money used to finance these activities became available as a result of the budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for. A Pentagon consultant tells Hersh, “There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions.” Hersh reports that according to his sources, the US is providing large sums of cash to the Sunni government of Lebanon, which in turn is being funneled to emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. “These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same time, their ideological ties are with al-Qaeda,” Hersh writes. Another group receiving support is the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Sunni group that is an avowed enemy of the US and Israel. The “Redirection” is reportedly being led by Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, former Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, and Saudi Arabia National Security Adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The clandestine activities are said to be guided by Cheney. Critics of the White House’s new policy compare it to other times Western state-powers have backed Islamic militants, such as when the CIA supported the mujahedeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s (see 1986-1992). The “blowback” from that policy included the creation of al-Qaeda. Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, notes another instance: “The last time Iran was a threat, the Saudis were able to mobilize the worst kinds of Islamic radicals. Once you get them out of the box, you can’t put them back.” [Democracy Now!, 2/28/2007; New Yorker, 3/5/2007; New York Times, 12/13/2007]

Robert Gates. [Source: US Defense Department]In its final report, the Iraq Study Group (ISG) recommends significant changes to Iraq’s oil industry. The report’s 63rd recommendation states that the US should “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise” and “encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.” The recommendation also says the US should “provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law.” [Iraq Study Group, 2006, pp. 57 ] The report makes a number of recommendations about the US occupation of Iraq, including hints that the US should consider moving towards a tactical withdrawal of forces from that beleaguered nation. President Bush’s reaction to the report is best summed up by his term for the report: a “flaming turd.” Bush’s scatological reaction does not bode well for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s own hopes that the administration will use the ISG report as a template for revising its approach to Iraq. This does not happen. Instead, Vice President Dick Cheney organizes a neoconservative counter to the ISG’s recommendations, led by the American Enterprise Institute’s Frederick Kagan. Kagan and his partner, retired general Jack Keane, quickly formulate a plan to dramatically escalate the number of US troops in Iraq, an operation quickly termed “the surge” (see January 10, 2007). The only element of the ISG report that is implemented in the Bush administration’s operations in Iraq is the label “a new way forward,” a moniker appropriated for the surge of troops. Administration officials such as Rice and the new defense secretary, Robert Gates, quickly learn to swallow their objections and get behind Bush’s new, aggressive strategy; military commanders who continue to support elements of the ISG recommendations, including CENTCOM commander General John Abizaid and ground commander General George Casey, are either forced into retirement (Abizaid) or shuttled into a less directly influential position (Casey). [Salon, 1/10/2007]

The Iraq Study Group (ISG), chaired by former Republican Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, holds an early-morning breakfast session with senior officials of the Bush administration, including President Bush, to discuss its 79 recommendations for the future conduct of the Iraq war. The White House essentially ignores the report (see December 2006). ISG member Lawrence Eagleburger will later say of Bush, “I don’t recall, seriously, that he asked any questions” during the meeting.
Former Senator's Recollection - Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, another ISG member present at the breakfast meeting, later recalls: “It was an early-morning session, seven a.m., I think, breakfast, the day we trotted it out. And Jim and Lee said, ‘Mr. President, we will’—and Dick was there, [Vice President] Cheney was there—‘just go around the room, if you would, and all of us share with you a quick thought?’ And the president said fine. I thought at first the president seemed a little—I don’t know, just maybe impatient, like, ‘What now?’ He went around the room. Everybody stated their case. It just took a couple minutes. I know what I said. I said, ‘Mr. President, we’re not here to present this to vex or embarrass you in any way. That’s not the purpose of this. We’re in a tough, tough situation, and we think these recommendations can help the country out. We’ve agreed on every word here, and I hope you’ll give it your full attention.’ He said, ‘Oh, I will.’ And I turned to Dick, and I said, ‘Dick, old friend, I hope you’ll gnaw on this, too. This is very important that you hear this and review it.’ And he said, ‘I will, I will, and thanks.’ Then the president gave an address not too far after that. And we were called by [National Security Adviser Stephen] Hadley on a conference call. He said, ‘Thank you for the work. The president’s going to mention your report, and it’ll be—there will be parts of it that he will embrace, in fact, and if he doesn’t happen to speak on certain issues, you know that they’ll be in full consideration in the weeks to come,’ or something like that. And we all listened with a wry smile. We figured that maybe five of the 79 recommendations would ever be considered, and I think we were pretty right.”
Hamilton's Recollection - Hamilton has similar recollections of the meeting and the administration’s response to the report: “Cheney was there, never said a word, not a—of course, the recommendations from his point of view were awful, but he never criticized. Bush was very gracious, said we’ve worked hard and did this great service for the country—and he ignored it so far as I can see. He fundamentally didn’t agree with it. President Bush has always sought, still seeks today, a victory, military victory. And we did not recommend that. The gist of what we had to say was a responsible exit. He didn’t like that.” [Vanity Fair, 2/2009]

John Negroponte resigns from his position as director of national intelligence. The official explanation is that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has lured him to serve as her deputy, a post that has been vacant since July. [Washington Post, 1/4/2007; Fox News, 1/5/2007] But according to sources interviewed by reporter Seymour Hersh, Negroponte’s decision was spurred by a shift in the White House’s Middle East policy (see Late 2006) that he felt was reminiscent of the Iran-Contra affair. A former senior intelligence official tells Hersh, “Negroponte said, ‘No way. I’m not going down that road again, with the NSC running operations off the books, with no finding.’” (Findings are written communications issued by the president to Congress informing lawmakers about covert operations.) [New Yorker, 3/5/2007] Another factor, according to Hersh, was that he doesn’t get along with Cheney very well—Cheney apparently feels Negroponte is too “legalistic.” [Democracy Now!, 2/28/2007]

Details of ‘surge’ troop deployments . [Source: Jordan Times] (click image to enlarge)In a major policy speech regarding Iraq, President Bush announces that he will order 21,500 more US combat troops to Iraq, in a troop escalation he calls a “surge.” The bulk of the troops will be deployed in and around Baghdad. In addition, 4,000 Marines will go to the violent al-Anbar province. In announcing the escalation, he concedes a point he has resisted for over three years, that there have not been enough US troops in Iraq to adequately provide security and create conditions favorable for an Iraqi democracy to take hold. He admits that his previous strategy was based on flawed assumptions about the unstable Iraqi government. “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility lies with me,” he says. Bush says that to consider any withdrawals of American troops would be a grave mistake, and that by increasing the number of troops in Iraq now, conditions will improve to a point at which troops can be withdrawn. “To step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government,” he says. “Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.” Bush also commits the Iraqi government to meeting a series of “benchmarks,” tangible indicators of progress being made, that include adding a further 8,000 Iraqi troops and police officers in Baghdad, passage of long-delayed legislation to share oil revenues among Iraq’s ethnic groups, and a $10 billion jobs and reconstruction program, to be financed by the Iraqis. Bush aides insist that the new strategy is largely the conception of the Iraqi government, with only limited input from US planners. If successful, he says, the results will be a “functioning democracy” that “fights terrorists instead of harboring them.” [New York Times, 1/10/2007; ABC News, 1/10/2007; White House, 1/10/2007] While no one is sure how much the new policies will cost, Bush is expected to demand “billions” from Congress to fund his new escalation in the weeks ahead. [Marketwatch, 1/5/2005]
'New Way Forward' - The surge has a new marketing moniker, the “New Way Forward.” Some believe that the surge is more for political and public relations purposes than any real military effectiveness. “Clearly the deteriorating situation in Iraq is the overall background,” says political scientist Ole Holsti. The changes may indicate “they are looking for new bodies bringing fresh thinking…or you may have a kind of public-relations aspect,” to show Bush’s change in course is “more than just words.” [CBS News, 1/5/2007; USA Today, 1/5/2007]
Surge Already Underway - Interestingly, while Bush announces the “new” strategy of escalating the US presence in Iraq tonight, the escalation is already well underway. 90 advance troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne are already in Baghdad, and another 800 from the same division are en route. The escalation will necessitate additional call-ups from the National Guard as well as additional reactivation of troops who have already toured Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, the naval group spearheaded by the aircraft carrier USS Stennis will shortly be en route to the Persian Gulf. Whether the new plan will work is anyone’s guess, say military commanders in Iraq. The escalation will take several months to implement and longer to see tangible results. One military official says, “We don’t know if this will work, but we do know the old way was failing.”
Contradicting Previous Assertions - In announcing the surge, Bush contradicts the position he has asserted since the March 2003 invasion—that military commanders were determining the direction of the war effort. Bush has repeatedly spoken of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort, and has said that he won’t second-guess his commanders. “It’s important to trust the judgment of the military when they’re making military plans,” he said in December 2006. “I’m a strict adherer to the command structure.” However, Bush balked at following the advice of many top military officials and generals, who have recommended a gradual drawdown in troop strengths, and in recent weeks replaced several top military officials who expressed doubts about the need or efficacy of new troop deployments in Iraq (see January 5, 2007). Instead, Bush believes the escalation will alleviate the drastically deteriorating security situation in Iraq. According to Pentagon officials, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who oppose the surge, have agreed to support it only grudgingly, and only because Bush officials have promised a renewed diplomatic and political effort to go along with the escalation. Outgoing Central Command chief General John Abizaid said in November that further troop increases were not a viable answer to the Iraq situation, and in their November 30 meeting, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki did not ask Bush for more troops, instead indicating that he wanted Iraqi troops to take a higher profile. Viewpoints differ on Bush’s interaction with his commanders up to this point—some have seen him as too passive with the generals and military advisers, allowing them almost free rein in Iraq, while others see him as asserting himself by forcing the retirements or reassignments of generals who disagree with his policies.
Rebuffing the ISG - Many observers believe the surge is a backhanded rebuff to the Iraq Study Group (see January 10, 2007).
Surge Plan Concocted at Right-Wing Think Tank - Interestingly, the surge plan itself comes largely from neoconservative planners at the American Enterprise Institute (see January 2007).
Long-Term Ramifications - The Joint Chiefs worry that a troop escalation will set up the US military for an even larger failure, without having any backup options. The Iraqis will not deliver the troops necessary for their own security efforts, they believe, and worry that US troops will end up fighting in what amounts to a political vacuum unless Bush comes up with a plan for dramatic political and economic changes to go along with the military effort. A surge could lead to increased attacks by Iraqi al-Qaeda fighters, open the troops up to more attacks by Sunni insurgents, and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to battle US forces in Iraq. And the escalation’s short-term conception—to last no more than six to eight months—might well play into the plans of Iraq’s armed factions by allowing them to “game out” the new strategy. The JCS also wonder just where Bush will find the troops for the surge. Frederick Kagan, one of the architects of the surge plan, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain want far more than 20,000 troops, but the Joint Chiefs say that they can muster 20,000 at best, and not all at once. Rumsfeld’s replacement, Robert Gates, played a key role in convincing the Joint Chiefs to support the escalation. The biggest selling point of the escalation is the White House’s belief that it will portray the administration as visibly and dramatically taking action in Iraq, and will help create conditions that will eventually allow for a gradual withdrawal of US troops: Bush says, “[W]e have to go up before we go down.” [Washington Post, 1/10/2007]

Iraq’s Oil Committee (see October 2006) agrees on what is said at this time to be the final draft of the oil law. Instead of specifying the use of production sharing agreements, as a previous draft did (see July 2006), this draft calls for the creation of a federal committee that would determine what kinds of contracts can be used for hiring oil companies to help develop Iraq’s oil sector. The next step is for the law to be approved by the Iraqi cabinet. [Iraq Oil Committee, 1/15/2007; Reuters, 1/17/2007] This happens on February 15 (see February 15, 2007).

The Guardian publishes an op-ed piece by Iraqi economist Kamil Mahdi under the title “Iraqis will never accept this sellout to the oil corporations.” Mahdi, a professor at Exeter University (UK), writes: “Before embarking on controversial measures such as [the proposed Oil Law] favoring foreign oil firms, the Iraqi parliament and government must prove that they are capable of protecting the country’s sovereignty and the people’s rights and interests… The oil law (see January 16, 2007) is likely to open the door to these corporations at a time when Iraq’s capacity to regulate and control their activities will be highly circumscribed. It would therefore place the responsibility for protecting the country’s vital national interest on the shoulders of a few vulnerable technocrats in an environment where blood and oil flow together in abundance. Common sense, fairness, and Iraq’s national interest dictate that this draft law must not be allowed to pass during these abnormal times, and that long-term contracts of 10, 15, or 20 years must not be signed before peace and stability return, and before Iraqis can ensure that their interests are protected. This law has been discussed behind closed doors for much of the past year. Secret drafts have been viewed and commented on by the US government, but have not been released to the Iraqi public—and not even to all members of parliament. If the law is pushed through in these circumstances, the political process will be further discredited even further. Talk of a moderate cross-sectarian front appears designed to ease the passage of the law and the sellout to oil corporations. The US, the IMF and their allies are using fear to pursue their agenda of privatizing and selling off Iraq’s oil resources. The effect of this law will be to marginalize Iraq’s oil industry and undermine the nationalization measures undertaken between 1972 and 1975. It is designed as a reversal of Law Number 80 of December 1961 that recovered most of Iraq’s oil from a foreign cartel. Iraq paid dearly for that courageous move: the then prime minister, General Qasim, was murdered 13 months later in a Ba’athist-led coup that was supported by many of those who are part of the current ruling alliance—the US included. Nevertheless, the national oil policy was not reversed then, and its reversal under US occupation will never be accepted by Iraqis.” [Guardian, 1/16/2007]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates tells the military to minimize its controversial “stop-loss” program (see November 2002), which forces US soldiers to remain on active duty long after their terms of service have expired. While US Army spokespersons have defended the policy as essential for keeping units intact, critics say it hurts morale and has strong, adverse effects on recruiting and retention (see September 15, 2004). Gates gives each branch of the military until February 28, 2007, to suggest how it intends to minimize stop-loss deployments for both active and reserve troops. [National Guard, 2/2007] Gates’s order will have little real impact (see May 2008).