Global and Local Affairs ~ by k8

7.6.06

Pentagon Endorses Force-Feeding Hunger Strikers

by Will Dunham

Don't force feed them laxatives, like you did last hunger strike

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon document setting rules for medical professionals in detainee operations endorses force-feeding hunger strikers, a practice criticized by rights activists, U.S. officials said on Monday.

Ethical codes endorsed by the American Medical Association, including a declaration by the World Medical Association, state that if a doctor considers a hunger striker "capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially."

The policy decree, set to be unveiled on Tuesday, is one of three long-awaited documents on detainee operations being formulated by the Pentagon, along with the still-pending Army Field Manual and a directive guiding interrogation practices.

Human rights activists have said U.S. medical personnel have been complicit in detainee abuse, and have denounced force-feeding of prisoners as a violation of international codes of medical ethics.

The Pentagon said in a statement the new document "reaffirms the policy to prevent injury or loss of life of hunger strikers by involuntarily feeding those at serious risk of injury or death, as approved by the detention facility commanding officer or designated senior officer."

Many foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have engaged in hunger strikes their lawyers call a protest of their conditions and lack of legal rights. The military has involuntarily fed some hunger strikers through tubes inserted through the nose and into the stomach.

Critics note that ethical codes endorsed by the American Medical Association, including a declaration by the World Medical Association, state that if a doctor considers a hunger striker "capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially."

'A HASSLE'

Authorities at Guantanamo have said they have strapped some detainees into "restraint chairs" during involuntary feeding and isolated them after determining some had been purposely vomiting the liquid they had been fed. A senior general told reporters some detainees subsequently decided taking part in the hunger strike had become "too much of a hassle."

Writing in March in the British medical journal The Lancet, 263 doctors from seven countries called on the United States to stop force-feeding detainees and using restraint chairs.

"It seems like the motive (for force-feeding detainees) is to prevent embarrassment to the United States government because they don't appear to be waiting until someone's life or health is in significant danger," said Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of the group Physicians for Human Rights.

Detainees' lawyers have previously accused the military of violently shoving tubes through the men's noses and into their stomachs without anesthesia or sedatives and then hurling religious taunts at them when they vomited blood.

Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a spokesman at Guantanamo, said this weekend the number of hunger strikers there had dropped from 89 as of last Thursday to 18.

"The hunger strike technique is consistent with al Qaeda practice and reflects detainee attempts to elicit media attention to bring international pressure on the United States to release them back to the battlefield," a military statement said.

The new policy directive also "reaffirms the responsibility of health care personnel to protect and treat all detainees under their care in keeping with the established principles of medical practice and humane treatment," the Pentagon said.

Pentagon guidelines do not prohibit medical personnel from assisting interrogations by using knowledge of a prisoner's medical or mental condition.

6.6.06

Army Manual to Skip Geneva Detainee Rule

The Pentagon's move to omit a ban on prisoner humiliation from the basic guide to soldier conduct faces strong State Dept. opposition.

by Julian E. Barnes

Changing a policy that has been broken after the fact, in my opinion still renders the policy valid if it was broken before the policy was changed. Changing these standards are yet another complicit act of US Government, to suit their convoluted agenda's and allow the unthinkable to allow to continue.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

The decision could culminate a lengthy debate within the Defense Department but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a step that has been delayed. However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon and White House to reconsider, the Defense Department officials acknowledged.

For more than a year, the Pentagon has been redrawing its policies on detainees, and intends to issue a new Army Field Manual on interrogation, which, along with accompanying directives, represents core instructions to U.S. soldiers worldwide.

The process has been beset by debate and controversy, and the decision to omit Geneva protections from a principal directive comes at a time of growing worldwide criticism of U.S. detention practices and the conduct of American forces in Iraq.

The directive on interrogation, a senior defense official said, is being rewritten to create safeguards so that all detainees are treated humanely but can still be questioned effectively.

President Bush's critics and supporters have debated whether it is possible to prove a direct link between administration declarations that it will not be bound by Geneva and events such as the abuses at Abu Ghraib or the killings of Iraqi civilians last year in Haditha, allegedly by Marines.

But the exclusion of the Geneva provisions may make it more difficult for the administration to portray such incidents as aberrations. And it undercuts contentions that U.S. forces follow the strictest, most broadly accepted standards when fighting wars.

"The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people," said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School. "Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire."

The detainee directive was due to be released in late April along with the Army Field Manual on interrogation. But objections from several senators on other Field Manual issues forced a delay. The senators objected to provisions allowing harsher interrogation techniques for those considered unlawful combatants, such as suspected terrorists, as opposed to traditional prisoners of war.

The lawmakers say that differing standards of treatment allowed by the Field Manual would violate a broadly supported anti-torture measure advanced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain last year pushed Congress to ban torture and cruel treatment and to establish the Army Field Manual as the standard for treatment of all detainees. Despite administration opposition, the measure passed and became law.

For decades, it had been the official policy of the U.S. military to follow the minimum standards for treating all detainees as laid out in the Geneva Convention. But, in 2002, Bush suspended portions of the Geneva Convention for captured Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Bush's order superseded military policy at the time, touching off a wide debate over U.S. obligations under the Geneva accord, a debate that intensified after reports of detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Among the directives being rewritten following Bush's 2002 order is one governing U.S. detention operations. Military lawyers and other defense officials wanted the redrawn version of the document known as DoD Directive 2310, to again embrace Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

That provision — known as a "common" article because it is part of each of the four Geneva pacts approved in 1949 — bans torture and cruel treatment. Unlike other Geneva provisions, Article 3 covers all detainees — whether they are held as unlawful combatants or traditional prisoners of war. The protections for detainees in Article 3 go beyond the McCain amendment by specifically prohibiting humiliation, treatment that falls short of cruelty or torture.

The move to restore U.S. adherence to Article 3 was opposed by officials from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, government sources said. David S. Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, and Stephen A. Cambone, Defense undersecretary for intelligence, said it would restrict the United States' ability to question detainees.

The Pentagon tried to satisfy some of the military lawyers' concerns by including some protections of Article 3 in the new policy, most notably a ban on inhumane treatment, but refused to embrace the actual Geneva standard in the directive it planned to issue.

The military lawyers, known as judge advocates general, or JAGs, have concluded that they will have to wait for a new administration before mounting another push to link Pentagon policy to the standards of Geneva.

"The JAGs came to the conclusion that this was the best they can get," said one participant familiar with the Defense Department debate who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the protracted controversy. "But it was a massive mistake to have withdrawn from Geneva. By backing away, you weaken the proposition that this is the baseline provision that is binding to all nations."

Derek P. Jinks, an assistant professor at the University of Texas School of Law and the author of a forthcoming book on Geneva called "The Rules of War," said the decision to remove the Geneva reference from the directive showed the administration still intended to push the envelope on interrogation.

"We are walking the line on the prohibition on cruel treatment," Jinks said. "But are we really in search of the boundary between the cruel and the acceptable?"

The military has long applied Article 3 to conflicts — including civil wars — using it as a minimum standard of conduct, even during peacekeeping operations. The old version of the U.S. directive on detainees says the military will "comply with the principles, spirit and intent" of the Geneva Convention.

But top Pentagon officials now believe common Article 3 creates an "unintentional sanctuary" that could allow Al Qaeda members to keep information from interrogators.

"As much as possible, the foundation is Common Article 3. That is the foundation," the senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the new policies had not been made public. "But there are certain things unlawful combatants are not entitled to."

Another defense official said that Article 3 prohibitions against "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment" could be interpreted as banning well-honed interrogation techniques.

Many intelligence soldiers consider questioning the manhood of male prisoners to be an effective and humane technique. Suggesting to a suspected insurgent that he is "not man enough" to have set an improvised explosive device sometimes elicits a full description of how they emplaced the bomb, soldiers say.

The Pentagon worries that if Article 3 were incorporated in the directive, detainees could use it to argue in U.S. courts that such techniques violate their personal dignity. IT DOES

"Who is to say what is humiliating for Sheikh Abdullah or Sheikh Muhammad?" the second official asked. "If you punch the buttons of a Muslim male, are you at odds with the Geneva Convention?"

Military officials also worry that following Article 3 could force them to end the practice of segregating prisoners. The military says that there is nothing inhumane about putting detainees in solitary confinement, and that it allows inmates to be questioned without coordinating their stories with others.

Human rights groups have their doubts, saying that isolating people for months at a time leads to mental breakdowns.

"Sometimes these things sound benign, but there is a reason they have been prohibited," said Jumana Musa, an advocacy director for Amnesty International. "When you talk about putting people in isolation for eight months, 14 months, it leads to mental degradation."

Jinks, of the University of Texas, contends that Article 3 does not prohibit some of the things the military says it wants to do. "If the practice is humane, there is nothing to worry about," he said.

Defense officials said the State Department and other agencies had argued that adopting Article 3 would put the U.S. government on more solid "moral footing," and make U.S. policies easier to defend abroad.

Some State Department officials have told the Pentagon that incorporating Geneva into the new directive would show American allies that the American military is following "common standards" rather than making up its own rules. BU*SH*IT
Department officials declined to comment for this article about the directive or their discussions with the Pentagon.

Common Article 3 was originally written to cover civil wars, when one side of the conflict was not a state and therefore could not have signed the Geneva Convention.

In his February 2002 order, Bush wrote that he determined that "Common Article 3 of Geneva does not apply to either Al Qaeda or Taliban detainees, because, among other reasons, the relevant conflicts are international in scope and Common Article 3 applies only to 'armed conflict not of an international character.' "

Some legal scholars say Bush's interpretation is far too narrow. Article 3 was intended to apply to all wars as a sort of minimum set of standards, and that is how Geneva is customarily interpreted, they say.

But top administration officials contend that after the Sept. 11 attacks, old customs do not apply, especially to a fight against terrorists or insurgents who never play by the rules.

"The overall thinking," said the participant familiar with the defense debate, "is that they need the flexibility to apply cruel techniques if military necessity requires it."

...and people wonder why I lost respect for america.

4.6.06

ABC News: Capitol Police Probing Reports of Gunfire

By DAVID ESPO AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON May 26, 2006 (AP)— Police investigated reports of gunfire in a House office building on Friday and briefly sealed off the Capitol as a precaution.

Capitol police were investigating "the sound of gunfire in the garage level of the Rayburn House Office Building," said an announcement on the internal Capitol voice alarm system.

There was no confirmation of gunfire. The FBI and D.C. Fire Department said there have been no injuries reported.

Capitol police scheduled a noon EDT briefing.

The Senate was in session at the time, but the House was not as most lawmakers had left for the Memorial Day recess. Four ambulances were on standby outside Rayburn as police methodically searched the office building. Police lined the street between the Capitol and the Rayburn building, rifles prominently displayed.

Dozens of police officers, many of them armed with assault rifles, milled around ouside the entrance to the garage.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., conducting a House Intelligence Committee hearing, interrupted a witness to request those attending the meeting to remain in the room and said the doors must be closed.

"It's a little unsettling to get a Blackberry message put in front of you that says there's gunfire in the building," he said.

The Rayburn House Office Building was completed in early 1965 and is the third of three office buildings constructed for the U.S. House of Representatives. It sits southwest of the Capitol. The building has four stories above ground, two basements and three levels of underground garage space.

Steven Broderick, press spokesperson for Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., was in his car in the Rayburn garage Friday morning getting ready to drive his boss to the airport, when he was ordered by a Capitol Police officer to park the car and put his hands on the steering wheel. The officer then told him to run toward an exit where other officers where gathered.

"He just told me to run and don't look back," Broderick said.

The U.S. Capitol Police Department's Containment & Emergency Response Team maintains an indoor shooting range in the basement of the Rayburn building, according to the department's Web site.

Continued

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3.6.06

Russian Diplomat "Killed in Iraq"

Russian Diplomat "Killed in Iraq"

Bad Move.

Saturday 03 June 2006

One Russian diplomat has been killed and four kidnapped in Iraq's capital, Baghdad, Iraqi interior ministry officials say.

The gunmen used three cars to block a road then opened fire on the Russian diplomatic vehicle, the officials say.

The attack took place in Mansour district in the west of the city, close to the Russian embassy.

An embassy official confirmed the death and abductions to Russia's Interfax agency but made no further comment.

Russia's foreign ministry in Moscow would only say it was still checking the information.

Mansour houses a number of embassies and has seen attacks on other diplomats.

A United Arab Emirates diplomat was seized and held for two weeks before being freed last month.

Last year, two Algerian, one Egyptian and two Moroccan embassy workers were abducted and killed.

Severed Heads

The latest abductions came on another day of violence across the country.

Iraqi police said they had found eight severed heads on a roadside near the town of Baquba, 60km (35 miles) north-east of Baghdad.

The identities have not been confirmed but a note at the scene said at least one had been killed in retaliation for the murder of four Shia doctors.

Police told the Reuters news agency one of the men was identified as the Sunni preacher of a mosque in Tarmiya, 30km north of Baghdad.

And a police lieutenant-colonel, Adil Zihari, told Associated Press five of the men worked at a hospital in Baghdad.

Separately, seven policemen were killed and 10 other people wounded in an attack on a checkpoint in Baquba.

Insurgents raided the al-Razi checkpoint with rocket-propelled and hand grenades and small arms fire.

In other violence, at least four bodies were found across Baghdad, all with signs of torture.

The violence comes as the new government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki prepares to name the new interior and defence ministers - a move the administration hopes will help ease unrest.

2.6.06

Iraqi Assails U.S. for Strikes on Civilians - New York Times

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

Published: June 2, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.

Mohammed Adnan/Associated Press

Iraqis mourned their dead relatives outside a morgue in Baquba Thursday after gunmen ambushed a bus and killed at least five people.

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Forum: The Transition in Iraq

As outrage over reports that American marines killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha last year continued to shake the new government, the country's senior leaders said that they would demand that American officials turn over their investigative files on the killings and that the Iraqi government would conduct its own inquiry.

In his comments, Mr. Maliki said violence against civilians had become a "daily phenomenon" by many troops in the American-led coalition who "do not respect the Iraqi people."

"They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion," he said. "This is completely unacceptable." Attacks on civilians will play a role in future decisions on how long to ask American forces to remain in Iraq, the prime minister added.

The denunciation was an unusual declaration for a government that remains desperately dependent on American forces to keep some form of order in the country amid a resilient Sunni Arab insurgency in the west, widespread sectarian violence in Baghdad, and deadly feuding among Shiite militias that increasingly control the south.

It was also a sign of the growing pressure on Mr. Maliki, whose governing coalition includes Sunni Arabs who were enraged by news of the killings in Haditha, a city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province. At the same time, he is being pushed by the Americans to resolve the quarreling within his fragile coalition that has left him unable to fill cabinet posts for the Ministries of Defense and the Interior, the two top security jobs in the country.

Military and Congressional officials have said they believe that an investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis in Haditha on Nov. 19 will show that a group of marines shot and killed civilians without justification or provocation. Survivors in Haditha say the troops shot men, women and children in the head and chest at close range.

For the second day in a row, President Bush spoke directly about the furor surrounding the case. "Obviously, the allegations are very troubling for me and equally troubling for our military, especially the Marine Corps," President Bush said Thursday, in response to a question from a reporter after a meeting of his cabinet. Referring to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, he added, "I've spoken to General Pace about this issue quite a few times."

Investigators are examining the role of senior commanders in the aftermath of the Haditha killings, and trying to determine how high up the chain of command culpability may rest.

Marine officials said Thursday that Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, who was the top Marine Corps commander in Iraq during the Haditha killings, had been set to be promoted to become the service's senior officer in charge of personnel, a three-star position.

General Johnson is widely respected by the Marine Corps' senior leadership, yet officials said it was unlikely that the Pentagon would put him up for promotion until the Haditha investigations were concluded.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that a parallel investigation into whether the killings were covered up has concluded that some officers reported false information and that superiors failed to adequately scrutinize the reports about the two dozen deaths.

The newspaper said that the inquiry had determined that Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, a squad leader present at Haditha, made a false statement when he reported that a roadside bombing had killed 15 civilians. The inquiry also said that an intelligence unit that later visited the site failed to highlight that civilians had gunshot wounds.

In Baghdad, senior Iraqi officials demanded an apology and explanation about Haditha from the United States and vowed their own inquiry.

"We in the ministers' cabinet condemned this crime and demanded that coalition forces show the reasons behind this massacre," Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie, one of the most powerful Sunni Arabs in the new government, said in an interview.

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This is a disgrace, and our commander in chief should pay the price. I don't blame the people of this country for their anger at US now.

Where There Was One Enemy, Now There Are Many

by Terri Judd

Amid the posters of Muqtada al-Sadr and other radical clerics plastered across Basra, the face of a small wide-eyed child stares forth from a far more insignificant circular.

The handwritten inscription below explains his family are desperate for information about the little boy, aged no more than five. But the Baswaris appeared not to notice it on their way to market. "Probably kidnapped," one man said dismissively as if it was too ordinary an occurrence these days to merit further discussion.

Iraqi police commandos search a car at a checkpoint in the southern city of Basra. A pregnant woman was shot dead at a US checkpoint in Iraq while on her way to give birth, officials said, sparking further controversy amid a furor over an alleged marines shooting rampage.(AFP/Essam Al Sudani)

Down the street, a large mural in the local police station depicts a map of Iraq. The red paint streaked down it represents the blood of its people, a police officer explained in an equally matter-of-fact manner.

There was a genuine sense of optimism when British tanks rolled into Iraq's second largest city more than three years ago. Some were so overjoyed, they greeted the soldiers with food and flowers. Those who had lost sons, fathers and uncles to Saddam Hussein's regime openly thanked the army.

But slowly that spirit has been crushed. One enemy has been replaced by countless others.

As Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared a state of emergency in the British-controlled area yesterday, anyone with any money or hope of escape is trying to emigrate.

Eman Aziz, has lost three of her university classmates since the invasion. All were shot in broad daylight. "It will be difficult for me to leave my country," she said. "But every day my husband goes to work I have to wonder if he will come back."

Murder statistics in the city fluctuate constantly from as many as 20 a day to an official figure of 60 assassinations in February. The people live in fear of the local militia, divided between Sadr's people and the Badr Brigade, as well as the British trained police force. While the British forces now acknowledge that there is a "rotten core" among the police they have trained, locals are far more blunt.

"If you ask anybody in Basra, they would tell you most of the crimes committed, the assassinations, they are carried out by policemen in police cars," said Major General Abdul Latif Thua'Aban, head of Iraqi army's 10 division, recently. He insisted his soldiers, who now command far more respect both locally and among the multi-national forces, are doing their best to stabilise the region.

But every attack aimed against British forces brings another bloody day for the people of Basra. Mortars and rockets which pound the British bases fall short with fatal consequences. A roadside bomb aimed at an armoured Warrior earlier this year tore through a classroom, packed with schoolchildren. Soldiers from the Highlanders battle group rebuilt it, mending the windows and desks - if not the children's peace of mind.

The servicemen and womenhave become used to the violence which appears to come in often inexplicable waves. Each death chips away at morale, and for some it brings searing grief. "Everyone was so keen to come out here. They are not so keen now," said one Royal Anglian soldier, who lost a friend 18 days ago.

There are also signs of optimism, economically at least. A fleet of new buses now waits outside the station. Amid the sewage and filth which still fill the streets, ambitious building projects abound. But ask the Baswaris who can possibly afford to build an ostentatious mansion beside the river and they simply shrug.

It is a common expression in a city where a largely moderate population is now afraid to speak out. Women in particular have seen their rights disappear since the invasion.To go out without a scarf, a regular sight three years ago, is tantamount to suicide. "Before the invasion you didn't talk about the Ba'ath party. Now you are afraid to talk about ten or 12 parties," said Eman Aziz.

An Immovable Obstacle to Action on Climate Change

An Immovable Obstacle to Action on Climate Change

by Andrew Gumbel

If you had to pick one company in America as the ultimate corporate villain, you might be hard pressed to find a better candidate than ExxonMobil. At a time of soaring petrol prices and growing public anger over the cost of filling up cars and trucks, ExxonMobil is not only making money hand over fist at an increasing rate - it is actually making more money than any other oil company in the world.

Environmentalists spit blood at the very mention of the name ExxonMobil for a variety of reasons - the company's willingness to spend millions of dollars to refute the significance or even the existence of global warming, and the role of energy companies in exacerbating it; its extraordinary lobbying, more energetic than any of its rivals', to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration; and its continuing refusal to make good on its full compensation payments to the victims of the 1988 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska.

The company's top officers and stockholders are, naturally, delighted. But just about everyone else these days seems to be hopping mad. The company was successfully sued last year by petrol station owners who alleged they were being overcharged.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, spit blood at the very mention of the name ExxonMobil for a variety of reasons - the company's willingness to spend millions of dollars to refute the significance or even the existence of global warming, and the role of energy companies in exacerbating it; its extraordinary lobbying, more energetic than any of its rivals', to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration; and its continuing refusal to make good on its full compensation payments to the victims of the 1988 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska.

Watchdogs of good corporate governance have been raising eyebrows for years at the compensation collected by ExxonMobil's top officers. Lee Raymond has been a particular object of public opprobrium for some time. Last November, he testified before Congress that America's soaring petrol prices were caused by "global supply and demand" and promised that ExxonMobil was assuming its share of the pain. "We're all in this together," he told congressmen. That, though, was before it emerged that ExxonMobil made a record-breaking $36bn (£19bn) in profits in 2005, a 40 per cent increase over the previous year

The recent sharp spike in petrol prices - now well over $3 a gallon, compared with well under $2 at the start of the Bush administration - has unleashed a political hurricane and played a major role in hammering President Bush's approval ratings.

The issue is also likely to play a prominent role in November's mid-term elections. Already, one Senate candidate, the Tennessee Democrat Harold Ford, has put out television adverts blaming the Republicans for allowing the oil companies to get away with murder. Mr Raymond's retirement package, he said, was something "you and I paid for".

In New York state, an ardent campaign is under way to break the company's monopoly hold on petrol stations along a stretch of road known as the Thruway. Eric Goldstein, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defence Council, a leading environmental lobbying group, justified the initiative, saying: "ExxonMobil has gone out of its way time and again to distinguish itself from its competitors as the most anti-environmental oil company."

Indeed, the company has financed about 40 organisations dedicated to debunking global warming, starting in the late 1980s. Mr Raymond himself has twice served as chairman of the climate change-denying Global Climate Coalition.

Even the federal government has found evidence the company has contributed directly to the increased cost of energy. The Government Accountability Office recently found that Exxon's 1999 merger with Mobil alone added four to five cents to the price of a gallon of petrol.

31.5.06

Truthdig - Reports - Robert Scheer: Bush Links Energized Enron

Posted on May 30, 2006

Then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush wrote this letter to then-Enron Chairman Ken Lay in 1997. Personal letters like this one, obtained by The Smoking Gun, lay waste to Bush’s claim to be only a distant acquaintance of the disgraced energy trader.

By Robert Scheer

The Bush family consistently acted to put Enron and its longtime CEO, Ken Lay, into a position to rip off investors and taxpayers. Why is the mass media ignoring that fact now that Lay has been convicted in arguably the most egregious example of white-collar fraud in U.S. history?

Until he hooked up with the Bushes, Lay was just another mid-level energy trader complaining endlessly about being hemmed in by onerous government regulations and those terrible consumer lawyers who prevent free market hustlers from doing their thing. But after he and his company became top supporters of the Bushes — eventually giving $3 million in total to various Bush electoral campaigns and the Republican Party — doors opened for them in a big way. In particular, once Bush the father got rid of key energy industry regulations, Lay was a made man and Enron’s fortunes soared.

This program of corporate welfare led Lay to dub the first President Bush “the energy president” in a column supporting his reelection because “just six months after George Bush became president, he directed … the development of a new energy strategy,” which, in effect, compelled local utility companies to carry Enron electricity on their wires. It was, Lay crowed, “the most ambitious and sweeping energy plan ever proposed.”

Another huge gift from the first Bush regime came in the form of a ruling by Wendy Gramm, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, that permitted Enron to trade in energy derivatives, making possible the company’s exponential growth. Five weeks after that ruling, Gramm resigned and joined the Enron board of directors, serving on its subsequently much criticized audit committee. Six years later, Gramm’s husband, U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), further enabled Enron greed by pushing through additional anti-regulation legislation.

29.5.06

The Hardest Word

by Scott Ritter

One has to wonder as to what must have been going through the minds of those who were advising George W Bush and Tony Blair to "come clean", so to speak, about their respective shortcomings regarding the conduct of the war in Iraq. With over 2,460 American and 106 UK soldiers killed in Iraq (not to mention untold thousands of dead Iraqis), the two people in the world most responsible for the ongoing debacle in Iraq displayed the combination of indifference and ignorance that got them neck deep in a quagmire of their own making to begin with.

President Bush kicked himself for "talking too tough", while the British prime minister ruminated on the decision to disband the Ba'athist infrastructure that held Iraq together in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein. Neither expressed any regret over the decision to invade Iraq in the first place.

Bush made no reference to the exaggerated and falsified claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction he and his loyal ally bandied about so freely in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Blair, recently returned from a visit to Baghdad where he met with the newly appointed prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, did not reflect on the reality that the Iraq of Saddam Hussein was a more peaceful and prosperous land before British and American troops overthrew the Iraqi president and condemned Iraq to the horrific reality of insurgent-fed civil strife.

"Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing," Bush remarked, although he was quick to add, "Not everything has turned out the way we hoped". That, of course, could qualify for the understatement of the year. For his part, Blair spoke of faulty judgements, perhaps the greatest of which was to underestimate the scope and intensity of the insurgency, which he in typical fashion characterized as fighting against the democratic process, as opposed to struggling against an illegal, illegitimate and unjust occupation.

Blair shared his reflective insights at moment when the people of the United Kingdom were wrestling with new revelations concerning how he misled their attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, into putting forward a legal finding that enabled Britain to go to war with Iraq void of a second United Nations security council resolution. Blair had apparently told Lord Goldsmith that Iraq was in "material breach" of its obligations, despite the fact that no new intelligence on WMD had been unearthed, and UN weapons inspectors were on the ground in Iraq receiving total cooperation from the Iraqi government. Not a peep from the prime minister on this matter, though.

For his part Bush waxed eloquently about the cost of war to America. "No question that the Iraq war has, you know, created a sense of consternation here in America," the president said. "I mean, when you turn on your TV screen and see innocent people die day in and day out, it affects the mentality of our country." He added: "I can understand why the American people are troubled by the war in Iraq. I understand that. But I also believe the sacrifice is worth it and it's necessary."

Of course, the president remained mute as to the current visit to Iraq by the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Michael Hagee, who in the light of recent accusations of excessive force on the part of Marines fighting a life and death struggle in the Anbar province of Iraq, were cautioned to kill "only when justified". Some 717 Marines have lost their lives in the fighting in Iraq, most in the violence-prone Anbar province, where the Iraqi insurgency is particularly deeply entrenched. Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment are accused of slaughtering scores of innocent Iraqis in the aftermath of a fire-fight that followed a deadly attack on the Marines by a road-side bomb. In the middle of a conflict not of their making, fighting an enemy as deadly and resolute as they themselves are, the Marines are now lectured by general's to destroy only that which needs destroyed, kill only those who need killed, as if war was ever that easy.

Instead of focusing on the horrific reality of the unmitigated disaster that these two politicians are solely responsible for inflicting on their own respective armed forces and the people of Iraq, Bush deflected any talk about bringing American troops home. "I have said to the American people, 'As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down,'" he said. "But I've also said that our commanders on the ground will make that decision." Blair dutifully chimed in that, in the aftermath of his Baghdad visit, he "came away thinking that the challenge is still immense, but I also came away more certain than ever that we should rise to it."

Both politicians were playing to their respective electorates, Blair in an effort to forestall his inevitable departure from government, Bush trying against hope to prevent a democratic landslide in the mid-term elections upcoming in November. But they both forgot that, to paraphrase an old military saying, "the enemy has a vote, too." And the Iraqi insurgency votes on a daily basis, its ballots counted in the bodies of those killed because of the violence brought on Iraq thanks to the decision by Bush and Blair to invade.

That decision, based upon lies and deceit, and done in pursuit of pure power (either in the form of global hegemony, per Bush, or a pathetic effort to ride Bush's coattails in the name of maintaining a "special relationship", for Blair), underscores the reality that when it comes to Iraq, both are resting on a policy that is as corrupt as one can possibly imagine.

Void of any genuine reflection as to what actually went wrong, and lacking in any reality-based process which seeks to formulate a sound way out of Iraq, these two politicians are simply continuing the self-delusional process of blundering down a path in Iraq that can only lead to more death and destruction.

Perhaps the advisors of Bush and Blair thought they were going to put a human face on two leaders who had been so vilified over the Iraq debacle. If so they failed. The joint press conference was little more than a pathetic show where two failed politicians voiced their continued support of failed policies, which had gotten their respective nations embroiled in a failed war. To quote Blair: "What more can I say? Probably not wise to say anything more at all."

Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq (1991-1998) and Marine Corps intelligence officer. He is the author of "Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the U.N. and Overthrow Saddam Hussein."

28.5.06

Greg Palast | Lay Convicted, Bush Walks, Ahnold Got Lay'd

Greg Palast | Lay Convicted, Bush Walks, Ahnold Got Lay'd

Lay Convicted, Bush Walks
By Greg Palast
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 25 May 2006

Don't kid yourself. If you think the conviction of Ken Lay means that George W. Bush is serious about going after corporate bad guys, think again.

First, Lay got away with murder - or at least grand larceny. Like Al Capone convicted of failing to file his taxes, Ken Lay, though found guilty of stock fraud, is totally off the hook for his BIG crime: taking down California and Texas consumers for billions through fraud on the power markets. Lay co-convict Jeff Skilling and Enron did not act alone. They connived with a half dozen other power companies and a dozen investment banks to manipulate both the stock market and the electricity market. And though their co-conspirators have now paid $3 billion to settle civil claims, the executives of these other corporations and banks get a walk on criminal charges. Furthermore, to protect our president's boardroom buddies from any additional discomfort, the Bush Justice Department, just days ago, indicted Milberg-Weiss, the law firm that nailed Enron's finance industry partners-in-crime. The timing of the bust of this firm - the top corporation-battling law firm - smacks of political prosecution, and is a signal to Big Business that it's business as usual. Lay and Skilling have to pay up their ill-gotten gains to Enron's stockholders, but what about the $9-plus billion owed to electricity consumers? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Bush's electricity cops, have slapped Enron and its gang of power pirates on the wrist. Could that have something to do with the fact that Ken Lay, in secret chats with Dick Cheney, selected the Commission's chairmen? Team Bush had to throw the public a bone, so they threw us Lay and Skilling for the crime - note - not of ripping off the public, but of ripping off stockholders - the owner class. This limited conviction, and the announcement of only one more indictment - of the crime-busters at Milberg-Weiss - is Team Bush's "all clear!" signal for the sharks to jump back into the power pool.

That leaves one question: If Bush's Justice Department let Ken and company keep the California loot, what about that state's own government? If you want to know how Californians' $9 billion went bye-bye, read on...

When Ahnold Got Lay'd

Peninsula Hotel, Beverly Hills. May 17, 2001. The Financial Criminal of the twentieth century, not long out of prison, meets with the Financial Criminal of the twenty-first century, who fears he may also have to do hard time. These two, bond-market manipulator Mike Milken and Ken Lay, not-yet-indicted Chairman of Enron Corporation, were joined by a selected group of movers and shakers - and one movie star.

Arnold Schwarzenegger had been to such private parties before. As a young immigrant without a nickel to his name, he put on private displays of his musculature for guests of his promoter. As with those early closed gatherings, I don't know all that went on at the Peninsula Hotel meet, though I understand Ahnold, this time, did not have to strip down to his Speedos. Nevertheless, the moral undressing was just as lascivious, if you read through the 34 page fax that arrived at our office.

Lay, who convened the hugger-mugger, was in a bit of trouble. Enron and the small oligopoly of other companies that ruled California's electricity system had been caught jacking up the price of power and gas by fraud, conspiracy and manipulation. A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon it was real money - $6.3 billion in suspect windfalls in just six months, May through December 2000, for a half-dozen electricity buccaneers, at least $9 billion for the year. Their skim would have been higher, but the tricksters thought they were limited by the number of digits the state's power-buying computers could read.

When Ken met Arnold in the hotel room, the games were far from over. For example, in June 2003, Reliant Corporation of Houston simply turned off several power plants, and when California cities faced going dark, the company sold them a pittance of kilowatts for more than gold, making several million in minutes.

Power-market shenanigans were nothing new in 2000. What was new was the response of Governor Gray Davis. A normally quiet, if not dull, man, this Governor had the temerity to call the energy sellers "pirates" - in public! - and, even more radically, he asked them to give back all the ill-gotten loot, the entire $9 billion. The state filed a regulatory complaint with the federal government.

The Peninsula Hotel get-together was all about how to "settle" the legal actions in such a way that Enron and friends could get the state to accept dog food instead of dollars. Davis seemed unlikely to see things Ken's way. Life would be so much better if California had a governor like the muscle guy in the Speedos.

And so it came to pass that, in 2003, quiet Gray Davis, who had the cojones to stand up to the electricity barons, was thrown out of office by the voters and replaced by the tinker-toy tough guy. The Governator performed as desired. Soon after Schwarzenegger took over from Davis, he signed off on a series of deals with Reliant, Williams Company, Dynegy, Entergy and the other power pirates for ten to twenty cents on the dollar, less than you'd tip the waitress. Enron paid just about nothing.