Abuses Found in Hiring at Iraq Bases

Abuses Found in Hiring at Iraq Bases

Violations of laws on human-trafficking prompt U.S. military's order for change

by Cam Simpson

WASHINGTON - The top U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered sweeping changes for privatized military support operations after confirming violations of laws against human-trafficking and other abuses by contractors involving possibly thousands of foreign workers on American bases, according to records obtained by the Chicago Tribune. Gen. George W. Casey Jr. ordered that contractors be required by May 1 to return passports that have been illegally confiscated from laborers on U.S. bases after determining that such practices violated U.S. laws against trafficking for forced or coerced labor. Human brokers and subcontractors from South Asia to the Middle East have worked together to import thousands of laborers into Iraq from impoverished countries. Two memos obtained by the Tribune indicate that Casey's office concluded that the practice of confiscating passports from such workers was widespread on American bases and in violation of the U.S. anti-trafficking laws. The memos, including an order dated April 4 and titled "Subject: Prevention of Trafficking in Persons in MNF-I," or Multinational Forces-Iraq, say the military also confirmed a host of other abuses during an inspection of contracting activities supporting the U.S. military in Iraq. They include deceptive hiring practices; excessive fees charged by overseas job brokers who lure workers into Iraq; substandard living conditions once laborers arrive; violations of Iraqi immigration laws; and a lack of mandatory "awareness training" on U.S. bases concerning human trafficking. Along with a separate memo from a top military procurement official to all contractors in Iraq, dated April 19 and titled, "Withholding of Passports, Trafficking in Persons," Casey's orders promise harsh actions against firms that fail to return passports or end other abusive practices. Contracts could be terminated, contractors could be blacklisted from future work, and commanders could physically bar firms from bases, the memos show. "Contracts must incorporate appropriate language to compel the protection of individual rights" at the contract and subcontract levels, Casey's orders say, adding that it was his goal "to promote [the] rule of law in Iraq and in the labor recruiting process." Under future contracts, Casey is requiring that all firms, no matter how far down the chain, "provide workers with a signed copy of their employment contract that defines the terms of their employment." He is ordering that contracts include "measurable, enforceable standards for living conditions [e.g., sanitation, health, safety, etc.] and establish 50 feet as the minimum acceptable square footage of personal living space per worker," after finding that some conditions were substandard. Contractors and subcontractors also must "comply with international laws" regarding transit, exit and entry procedures, "requirements for work visas," and Iraqi immigration laws. The orders also mandate that future contracts and subcontracts include "language that prohibits contractors and subcontractors at all tiers from utilizing unlicensed recruiting firms, or firms that charge illegal recruiting fees." The short-term impact of the orders is unclear, because the separate memo to contractors, which is dated April 19 and written by Col. Robert K. Boyles, a top official with the Joint Contracting Command-Iraq/Afghanistan, shows many of the reforms would be implemented by changes in the language in future contracts. Nonetheless, the findings and actions represent a dramatic turnabout for the U.S. military, and come after three months of behind-the-scenes pressure on the Defense Department from State Department officials charged with monitoring and combating human trafficking worldwide. The State Department launched an investigation and promised other actions this year in response to a series published Oct. 9-10 by the Tribune, "Pipeline to Peril," that detailed many of the abuses now noted in the memos. The articles disclosed the often-illicit networks used to recruit low-skilled laborers from some of the world's most impoverished and remote locales to work in menial jobs on American bases in Iraq. Although other firms also have contracts supporting the military in Iraq, the U.S. has outsourced vital support operations to Halliburton subsidiary KBR at an unprecedented scale, at a cost to the United States of more than $12 billion as of late last year. KBR, in turn, has outsourced much of that work to more than 200 subcontractors, many of them based in Middle Eastern nations condemned by the United States for failing to stem human trafficking into their own borders or for perpetrating other human rights abuses against foreign workers. About 35,000 of the 48,000 people working under the privatization contract last year were "Third Country Nationals," who are non-Americans imported from outside Iraq, KBR has said. "Pipeline to Peril," which was based on reporting in the United States, Jordan, Iraq, Nepal and Saudi Arabia, described how some subcontractors and a chain of human brokers allegedly engaged in the same kinds of abuses routinely condemned by the State Department as human trafficking. Melissa Norcross, a Halliburton spokeswoman, issued a statement from the company yesterday saying that KBR "fully supports the Department of Defense's efforts to ensure that all contractor and subcontractor personnel working for the U.S. government be treated in a fair and humanitarian manner."

Condoleezza Rice Leaked Info to Lobbyist on Trial

Condoleezza Rice Leaked Info to Lobbyist on Trial

Tres amusant

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday.

Prosecutors disputed the claim.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist's lawyer said Friday. (AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards)

The allegations against Rice came as a federal judge granted a defense request to issue subpoenas sought by the defense for Rice and three other government officials in the trial of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two are former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged with receiving and disclosing national defense information.

Defense lawyers are asking a judge to dismiss the charges because, among other things, they believe it seeks to criminalize the type of backchannel exchanges between government officials, lobbyists and the press that are part and parcel of how Washington works.

During Friday's hearing, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III said he is considering dismissing the government's entire case because the law used to prosecute Rosen and Weissman may be unconstitutionally vague and broad and infringe on freedom of speech.

Rosen's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the testimony of Rice and others is needed to show that some of the top officials in U.S. government approved of disclosing sensitive information to the defendants and that the leaks may have been authorized.

Prosecutors opposed the effort to depose Rice and the other officials. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin DiGregory also disputed Lowell's claim, saying, "She never gave national defense information to Mr. Rosen."

The issuance of subpoenas does not automatically require Rice or anybody else to testify or give a deposition. A recipient can seek to quash the subpoena.

Calls to the State Department seeking comment Friday evening were not immediately returned.

The judge also granted subpoenas for David Satterfield, deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq; William Burns, U.S. ambassador to Russia and retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni.

"Each of these individuals have real-life dealings with the defendants in this case. They'll explain what they told Dr. Rosen in detail," Lowell said. "On day one, Secretary of State Rice tells him certain info and on day two one of the conspirators tells him the same thing or something less volatile."

The indictment against Rosen and Weissman alleges that three government officials leaked sensitive and sometimes classified national defense information to the two, who subsequently revealed what they learned to the press and to an Israeli government official.

One of the three government officials is former Pentagon official Lawrence A. Franklin, who pleaded guilty to providing classified defense information to Rosen and Weissman and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.

Franklin has said he was concerned that the United States was insufficiently concerned about the threat posed by Iran and hoped that leaking information might eventually provoke the National Security Council to take a different course of action.

The indictment against Rosen, of Silver Spring, Md., and Weissman, of Bethesda, Md., alleges that they conspired to obtain classified government reports on issues relevant to U.S. policy, including the al-Qaida terror network; the bombing of the Khobar Towers dormitory in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel; and U.S. policy in Iran.

Lowell said it is impossible for Rosen and Weissman to determine what is sensitive national defense information when they are receiving the information from government officials who presumably understand national security law and therefore would not improperly disclose national defense information.

The World War I - era law has never been used to prosecute lobbyists before.

UK Foreign Office Lawyers Warn: Support for Bush Military Action Would Be Illegal

UK Foreign Office Lawyers Warn: Support for Bush Military Action Would Be Illegal

WHAT HE'S DOING NOW IS ILLEGAL!

Iran Split UK Foreign Office Lawyers Warn: Support for Bush Military Action Would Be Illegal Army Warns: We're Too Stretched to Cope With Any More Military Action

by Westminster Editor James Cusick and Neil Mackay

Foreign Office lawyers have formally advised Jack Straw that it would be illegal under international law for Britain to support any US-led military action against Iran. The advice given to the Foreign Secretary in the last few weeks is thought to have prompted his open criticism last week of Tony Blair’s backing for President George Bush, who has refused to rule out military action against the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, Straw received similar private advice from senior Foreign Office lawyers who had also advised the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, on the illegality of an invasion without the express authority of the United Nations Security Council. The Foreign Office’s deputy legal adviser, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, later resigned when the attorney general reversed his initial view on the war’s legality. Sources within the Foreign Office say there is an express desire that this time their legal advice is heard and acted upon. A source close to Straw told the Sunday Herald: “There is now a clear paper trail of legal advice.” Straw last week passed on the legal advice to some of his cabinet colleagues after Blair effectively backed the White House view that military action could not be ruled out. Although the Prime Minister claimed any other option would be a “message of weakness”, Straw said it would be “inconceivable” that Britain would support a military strike against Tehran. The Foreign Office’s lawyers have gone further than merely advising on the legality of military assistance. It is thought their advice stretched to the use of British military advisers, UK airspace and even the dangers of Tony Blair expressing support which could be taken as legitimising a US-led attack without the express authority of the United Nations. The lawyers have urged the British government to await the full report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Authority’s head, Mohamed ElBaradei. His report will be handed to the Security Council in New York this week. The report is not expected to identify a “smoking gun” that would point to Iran seeking to weaponise a nuclear programme that it still claims is for peaceful civilian energy generation. The matter will then effectively go back to the Security Council to consider what to do next. But the White House is concerned that a rogue state is being given too much time by the UN, as it believes it did with Iraq. A State Department official said last week that time was running out for Iran and if the UN did not take action over a state which it claimed “was violating every nuclear agreement it has ever made” then it was time “for other countries to use their leverage”. To add to the pressure on Blair not to become entangled in any military action against Iran, the officer in charge of army recruitment in Scotland has warned that the shortage of troops is so severe that another overseas conflict – or a resurgence of domestic terrorism in Northern Ireland – would lead to the UK having to pull troops out of Iraq or Afghanistan. In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Lieutenant Colonel David Steele warned that although the UK armed forces can currently cope with its domestic and overseas duties, any additional strain would be too much. “We are stretched,” he said, “but at the moment we have enough men to adequately do the job. If there was one more operation, we would have to look at it very carefully and ask ourselves if we could do the job. “If the Northern Ireland situation worsened suddenly then we’d have to examine all our commitments. “We are heavily committed at the moment. If there was another overseas conflict, we’d have to analyse the situation and see if we could commit to it or not. If it was something that we really had to do, then we might have to stop doing something else [in another theatre of conflict].” Recruitment into the Scottish battalions – recently amalgamated in the Royal Regiment of Scotland – has fallen between 10% and 15% over the years since the war on terror and the war in Iraq broke out. In the year 2000, some 1300 soldiers joined Scottish regiments each year. Today, only 1100 are joining. The Scottish battalions will tomorrow launch a huge recruiting campaign across the county. This week, recruiting sergeants will be targeting deprived areas such as Clydebank in the hope of getting young disadvantaged men to sign up. Army recruiters and regimental pipers will be in Clydebank Shopping Centre tomorrow, aiming to attract unemployed youths with the promise of a career and travel.

Johann Hari - Archive

Johann Hari - Archive

After three years, after 150,000 dead, why I was wrong about Iraq A melancholic mea culpa

A few weeks ago, a small moment – a little line of text – underlined for me how far life in Iraq has slumped. As I was reading a story, the ticker-tape on the BBC News website casually stated: ‘Car bomb in Baghdad; 50 dead.’ There were no accompanying details. When these Iraqi suicide-massacres started to happen in Iraq, I would nervously call my friends out in Baghdad and Basra and Hilla to make sure they were okay. But I soon realised this was antagonising them, driving every bomb further into their skulls – should they store a standard text ‘No, not killed in suicide bomb today’ message and send it out three times a day? So I swallowed hard, waited, and the next day, I looked through all the newspapers for details. Nobody mentioned it. Suicide-slaughters the size of 7/7 are now so common they don’t even bleed into News in Brief. So after three years and at least 150,000 Iraqi corpses, can those of us who supported the toppling of Saddam Hussein for the Iraqis’ sake still claim it was worth it? (I am assuming the people who bought the obviously fictitious arguments about WMD are already hanging their heads in shame). George Packer, a recalcitrant Iraq-based journalist who tentatively supported the invasion, summarises the situation in the country today: “Most people aren’t free to speak their minds, belong to a certain group, wear what they want, or even walk down the street without risking their lives.” In many regions – including the British controlled South – power has been effectively ceded to fascist militias who “take over schools and hospitals, intimidate the staffs, assaulted unveiled women, set up kangaroo sharia courts that issue death sentences, repeatedly try to seize control of the holy shrines, run criminal gangs, firebomb liquor stores, and are often drunk themselves. Their tactics are those of fascist bullies.” So when people ask if I think I was wrong, I think about the Iraqi friend – hiding, terrified, in his own house – who said to me this week, “Every day you delete another name from your mobile, because they’ve been killed. By the Americans or the jihadists or the militias – usually you never find out which.” I think of the people trapped in the siege of a civilian city, Fallujah, where amidst homes and schools the Americans indiscriminately used a banned chemical weapon – white phosphorous – that burns through skin and bone. (The Americans say they told civilians to leave the city, so anybody left behind was a suspected jihadi – an evacuation procedure so successful they later used it in New Orleans.). I think of the raw numbers: on the largest estimate – from the Human Rights Centre in Khadimiya – Saddam was killing 70,000 people a year. The occupation and the jihadists have topped that, and the violence is getting worse. And I think – yes, I was wrong. Terribly wrong. The lamest defence I could offer – one used by many supporters of the war as they slam into reverse gear – is that I still support the principle of invasion, it’s just the Bush administration screwed it up. But as one anti-war friend snapped at me when I mooted this argument, “Yeah, who would ever have thought that supporting George Bush in the illegal invasion of an Arab country would go wrong?” She’s right: the truth is that there was no pure Platonic ideal of The Perfect Invasion to support, no abstract idea we lent our names to. There was only Bush, with his cluster bombs, depleted uranium, IMF-ed up economic model, bogus rationale and unmistakable stench of petrol, offering his war, his way. (Expecting Tony Blair to use his influence was, it is now clear, a delusion, as he refuses to even frontally condemn the American torture camp at Guantanomo Bay). The evidence should have been clear to me all along: the Bush administration would produce disaster. Let’s look at the major mistakes-cum-crimes. Who would have thought they would unleash widespread torture, with over 10,000 people disappearing without trial into Iraq’s secret prisons? Anybody who followed the record of the very same people – from Rumsfeld to Negroponte – in Central America in the 1980s. Who would have thought they would use chemical weapons? Anybody who looked up Bush’s stance on chemical weapons treaties (he uses them for toilet paper) or checked Rumsfeld’s record of flogging them to tyrants. Who would have thought they would impose shock therapy mass privatisation on the Iraqi economy, sending unemployment soaring to 60 percent – a guarantee of ethnic strife? Anybody who followed the record of the US towards Russia, Argentina, and East Asia. Who could have known that they would cancel all reconstruction funds, when electricity and water supplies are still below even Saddam’s standards? Anybody who looked at their domestic policies. The Bush administration was primarily motivated by a desire to secure strategic access to one of the world’s major sources of oil. The 9/11 massacres by Saudi hijackers had reminded them that their favourite client-state – the one run by the torturing House of Saud – was vulnerable to an internal Islamist revolution that would snatch the oil-wells from Haliburton hands. They needed an alternative source of Middle East oil, fast. I obviously found this rationale disgusting, but I deluded myself into thinking it was possible to ride this beast to a better Iraq. Reeling from a visit to Saddam’s Iraq, I knew that Iraqis didn’t care why their dictator was deposed, they just wanted it done, now. As I thought of the ethnically cleansed Marsh Arabs I had met, reduced to living in a mud hut in the desert, I thought that whatever happens, however it occurs, it will be better. In that immediate rush, I – like most Iraqis – failed to see that the Bush administration’s warped motives would lead to a warped occupation. A war for oil would mean that as Baghdad was looted, troops would be sent to guard the oil ministry, not the hospitals – a bleak harbinger of things to come. But it is easy for me to repent at leisure. Just as the opponents of the war would never have faced Saddam’s torture chambers, I am not hiding in my home, rocking and clutching a Kalashnikov. Millions of Iraqis are, and many thousands more did not live to see even that future because of the arguments of people like me. And so, after the melancholic mea culpas from almost everyone but Blair and Bush, what? Iyaad Allawi – the man the Americans tried to impose as Prime Minister until a massive programme of peaceful civil disobedience spearheaded by the Ayatollah Sistani made elections unavoidable – says a low-level civil war has already begun. There has been a worrying trend among some right-wing commentators to blame the Iraqis: we though you guys would be a Czechoslovakia, but if you insist on being a Yugoslavia, fine. There have even been evil whispers that Iraq “needs a Saddam” to hold it together. But this is not a grassroots civil war a la Rwanda or the Lebanon, where neighbour hacks to pieces neighbour. It is a top-down civil war, fought by a minority of militias, all of whom (apart from the jihadi-Zarquawi crowd, who are a very small minority) claim to fight in the name of keeping Iraq together. Until 2003, over 20 percent of Iraqi marriages were across the Sunni-Shia divide – is husband now going to turn on wife, and mother on son? It is very hard to see a solution, but I believe the threads of one are visible. The polls show that most of these violent militias draw their support from the fact that they oppose the foreign troops, not from the fact that they massacre fellow-Iraqis. So the best way to drain their support – and dampen the inertia towards civil war – is to withdraw the troops now. Iraqis can see this very clearly: a poll recently conducted by the Ministry of Defence (hardly an anti-war source) found that 80 percent of Iraqis want out “immediately” so they can deal with the remaining jihadists and anti-democratic fundamentalists themselves. (In a revealing mirror-image, a Zogby poll of US troops in Iraq found that 72 percent believe the occupation should end within the year. This will soon be a surreal war where the unwilling occupy the unwilling.) Yes, there is a danger that withdrawal will create a power vacuum exploited by militias, but that is the reality on the ground already. It is unquestionably time to leave Iraq – but will the Bush administration surrender Iraq’s oil, after spending $200bn to grab it, just because the Iraqi people and their own troops want them to? POSTSCRIPT: There's been a collosal response to this article and I'm still picking through the e-mails. Over fifty from Iraqis, of which some mournfully agree, although this e-mail was more typical: "Your article in the Independent today, 20/3/2006, was really disappointing to all of your admirers. You let them down. You changed your mind and switched from pro-war to join the anti-war campaigners, means that you gave in bowed to the aggressors. So instead of blaming the terrorists for this mass killing in Iraq at the hand of the terrorists, you put the blame on Bush and Blair for liberating Iraqi people from the worst dictator in history. If your new stance is right, then it was wrong to stand up against Hitler in the WW II, because that war caused humanity 55 million casualties. So it was better not oppose the Axis sates. Is that fair? Is this is the justice that we are looking for? If the tyrants were left to do as they like because of the possible revenge from their followers, then our glob will be place for the tyrants only and the whole planet population will be living like sheep. Abdulkhaliq Hussein"

British military doctor court martialed for refusing to serve in Iraq

British military doctor court martialed for refusing to serve in Iraq

On April 13, a court martial sentenced a British Royal Air Force (RAF) doctor to eight months imprisonment for failing to comply with orders when he refused to cooperate in training and deployment for a third tour of Iraq.

A panel of five RAF officers at Aldershot in Hampshire convicted Flight Lieutenant (Dr.) Malcolm Kendall-Smith on five charges, including refusing to serve in Basra. He will be dismissed from the air force. As an additional punitive measure Kendall-Smith was ordered to pay £20,000 from his personal savings towards the costs of his defence.

Dr. Kendall-Smith told the military hearing that he had refused to serve in Basra last July because he believed that the invasion of Iraq was illegal and did not want to be complicit in an “act of aggression” contrary to international law. He is the first officer to challenge the legality of the Iraq conflict at a court martial.

Kendall-Smith said he formed his belief that the war was unlawful after serving tours of duty in Kuwait and Qatar at the time of the US-led invasion.

At a pre-trial hearing, defence counsel Philip Sapsford QC argued that the doctor believed there was no lawful reason to enter Iraq because it had not attacked the UK. Sapsford added that Kendall-Smith was “an officer of impeccable character” with an “exemplary record” and a “man of great moral courage.”

In order to limit any discussion on the legality of the Iraq war, all the defence witnesses—including former service personnel—were barred. The defence was also heavily constricted in its ability to air any of the findings upon which Kendall-Smith had based his decision. The doctor told the court, “I have evidence that the Americans were on a par with Nazi Germany with [their] actions in the Persian Gulf. I have documents in my possession which support my assertions. This is on the basis that ongoing acts of aggression in Iraq and systematically applied war crimes provide a moral equivalent between the US and Nazi Germany.”

He said he had refused to take part in training and equipment fitting prior to the deployment because he believed these were “preparatory acts which were equally criminal as the act itself.”

He considered the war in Iraq to be the equivalent of an “imperial invasion and occupation.” He had become extremely disturbed by the US “imperial campaign of military conquest,” which was in direct conflict with his stated duties:

“It struck me as incongruous and disturbing that the US air force published the phrase ‘global power for America’ on their documentation during the conflict. I found that the phrase ‘global power for America’ was imperial.”

Asked by David Perry, prosecuting counsel, whether he really believed that the actions of US forces in Iraq were comparable to those of the Third Reich, Kendall-Smith replied, “On the basis of active aggression and systematically applied war crimes, serious violations of international law—yes.”

Perry then asked, “By cross-examining you in this court, am I responsible for a criminal act?” Kendall-Smith replied, “Yes. You are demonstrating complicity with ongoing criminal acts.”

Perry said the doctor lived in a “utopian world” and that soldiers could not be expected to read and understand numerous books on international law.

Kendall-Smith replied, “It is a utopian world. I joined as an idealist and I remain so. I love the air force as much today as the day I joined.”

Opening the case for the prosecution, Perry asserted that Kendall-Smith did not have the “responsibility” to question the legality of orders given to him.

“The presence of British forces was not unlawful and as a regular serviceman he could not pick and choose those orders he did or did not wish to obey and no question of any unlawful order being given to him arises in this case,” he told the hearing.

Kendal-Smith’s legal team was prevented from making a more sustained argument over the illegality of the war. At a pre-trial hearing Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss had ruled that the question of the legality of the 2003 invasion was not relevant to the court martial because it predated the charges, which date back to last year. The judge stated that the US and British forces were now in Iraq on the invitation of the Iraqi government.

In a trial marked by bitter exchanges, Bayliss repeatedly shouted down the defendant and his counsel. At one point when Kendall-Smith began to refer to the notes in front of him on the witness box about the legal standing of the war, the judge snapped, “I will not allow diatribes on international law. It is already clear in your evidence that you believe the war is illegal.”

Later the judge stated, “I will not let this court be used as a grandstand.” Kendall-Smith replied, “I am not grandstanding. It’s in the context of the presentation of my position in my case to outline misconceptions put before this court.... If I am unable to speak how can I put my position to the court?”

Bayliss retorted, “I am not prepared to be argued with by a witness defendant in my court.”

In summing up, the judge advocate said, “None of the orders given to the defendant in this case was an order to do something which was unlawful. I also conclude that it is no defence to a charge of wilfully disobeying a lawful order that the defendant believed that the order was not lawful. That might be a point in mitigation, but it cannot provide a defence in law ... the offence is a deliberate disobedience of an order which the defendant received and understood.”

He added that Kendall-Smith’s understanding of the crime of aggression under international law was “seriously flawed.” It was, he claimed, “a crime which can only be committed by those responsible for the policy of a nation at the top of government or of the armed forces and that responsibility for it does not trickle down to those at lower levels of the chain of command. The order for you to go to Basra, cannot therefore have made you complicit to such a crime given your junior rank and position as a doctor.”

Demonstrating his extreme hostility, Bayliss continued. “You have, in the view of this court, sought to make a martyr of yourself and shown a degree of arrogance which is amazing. Consequently you have lost any credit you might have been given for guilty pleas.”

A non-custodial sentence, he concluded, “would send a message to all those who wear the Queen’s uniform that it does not matter if they refuse to carry out the policy of Her Majesty’s government...

“Obedience of orders is at the heart of any disciplined force. Refusal to obey orders means that the force is not a disciplined force but a disorganised rabble.

“Those who wear the Queen’s uniform cannot pick and choose which orders they will obey. Those who seek to do so must face the serious consequences.”

After the trial, Kendall-Smith was taken from the court to Colchester military prison to undergo a medical examination and a period of demilitarisation that will see him stripped of his rank and ordered to hand over his uniform and kit.

He will then be transferred to a civilian prison, where he will serve the remainder of his sentence.

Following the sentencing, Kendall-Smith’s solicitor, Justin Hugheston-Roberts (chairman of Forces Law, a network of lawyers giving advice to service personnel, who advised the solicitor of two British soldiers from the 16th Air Assault Brigade serving in Iraq, who refused to fight in April 2003) said his client was “shocked” and “distressed” by the judgment and would appeal against the sentence. “He has asked me to say that he feels now, more than ever, that his actions were justified and he would not, if placed in the same circumstances, seek to do anything differently.”

In a statement released to the press, Kendall-Smith said the following, “As a commissioned officer I am required to consider ... every order that is given to me and I am required to consider the legality of each order.” Having studied various documents, including the attorney general’s advice to the government (“in particular the note to the prime minister dated 7 March 2003”), “I believe the occupation of Iraq is illegal ... and for me to comply ... would put me in conflict with both domestic and international law.... I would, in fact, refuse the orders as a duty under international law, the Nuremburg principles and the law of armed conflict.”

Kendall-Smith is going to appeal against both his conviction and the sentence imposed on him.

Fundamental legal issues raised

The vicious character of the response to Kendall-Smith is underlined by the fact that he is a medical officer. The military top brass must understand from years of experience that a doctor is the most likely figure to be troubled by being placed in a war situation. While donning a uniform makes the wearer a combatant, a doctor’s primary duty is to save lives, including those of enemy casualties. Such a man would naturally display a high degree of sensitivity to the mounting death toll In Iraq, more so even than the front line soldier.

There are at least 400 British military medical personnel in Iraq, including surgeons, dentists, physiotherapists and mental health specialists. They are exposed to a daily accumulation of human carnage that must often seem relentless. And it is significant that the first British soldier to come forward to urge mass refusal among the ranks to serve in Iraq, Lance Corporal George Solomou, served with the Royal Army Medical Corps.

One might assume that the last thing the RAF would want to do would be to make a “martyr” of Kendall-Smith. But the officer elite must have concluded that this was a necessary risk, not only as a warning to others but because he openly challenged the legality of the Iraq conflict in a court of law.

Every effort was made to prevent such issues being raised. But in doing so, the court martial has left unanswered the essential issue raised by Kendall-Smith. Judge Advocate Bayliss determined that the issue of the legality of the war was not relevant “due to the fact that the US/UK military is in Iraq on the invitation of the Iraqi government.” But the fact remains that the Iraqi government was installed in power by US and British forces following an illegal war. Bayliss merely declared in court that the attorney general had advised the government that the war was legal and that members of the armed forces could not question this. But he was forced to concede that “legal opinion may be divided as to the correctness or otherwise of the advice given by the attorney general.”

Moreover, the judge advocate’s statements that “it is no defence to a charge of wilfully disobeying a lawful order that the defendant believed that the order was not lawful” and that responsibility for war crimes “does not trickle down to those at lower levels of the chain of command” is legally unsound.

The most important trials for war crimes in history were those conducted against the German Nazi regime at Nuremburg. The most famous of these involved 24 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany held from November 1945 to October 1946. But 12 other trials were also conducted by the United States, under Control Council Law No. 10. These not only involved officers at the lower level of the chain of command, but the first of them involved 23 medical doctors accused of involvement in Nazi human experimentation. Seven of these doctors received death sentences and another 12 prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment.

It should also be noted that the US prosecuted 16 German jurists and lawyers. Ten of these defendants were found guilty, of whom four received life sentences.

See Also:
Britain: Blair sets out ideological justification for new wars of aggression
[24 March 2006]
Video shows British Army brutality in Iraq
[14 February 2006]
One hundredth British military death in Iraq
[2 February 2006]
Britain: growing opposition to occupation of Iraq as more Black Watch troops die
[13 November 2004]
Mother of British soldier killed in Iraq demands troop withdrawal
[3 September 2004]

Big Business Sees A Chance For Ethnic and Class Cleansing

Big Business Sees A Chance For Ethnic and Class Cleansing

Black and poor residents are excluded from the city elections and they're still finding bodies, but America has lost interest

by Gary Younge

"There are two types of power," said Linda Jeffers, addressing an accountability session of New Orleans mayoral candidates at the city's Trinity Episcopal church. "Organized money and organized people." Since Hurricane Katrina, the battle between those two forces has shaped the struggle to rebuild New Orleans. With mayoral elections on Saturday it is set to intensify. The one thing both sides seem to agree on is that neither wants the city to return to the way it was before the hurricane. The people of New Orleans, most of whom are black and many of whom are poor, want schools that will educate their children, jobs that will pay a living wage, and neighborhoods where capital investment matches the large pools of social capital created by their churches and close-knit communities. Organized money has something else in mind: the destruction of many of those communities and permanent removal of those who lived in them, a city that follows the gentrification patterns of racial removal and class cleansing that have played out elsewhere in the US. Under these circumstances, the organization of people has been impressive. Grassroots groups have done a remarkable job of gathering those scattered throughout the country into a political constituency. Jeffers spoke to an audience of more than 500 people who had been bussed in from Tennessee and elsewhere in Louisiana, as well as over 1,000 who watched the session on satellite in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Five days later Jeffers, a leader with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) who moved from New Orleans to Houston after Katrina, schlepped through the unforgiving Houston heat distributing food and signing up evacuees for their absentee ballots. Meanwhile organizations have been ferrying people from neighboring states to satellite polling stations dotted around Louisiana for early voting. But the circumstances have been dire. Evacuees in Houston exist in a constant state of bureaucratic harassment. Last week the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in effect issued 25,000 eviction notices to evacuees in Houston. Almost half have no health insurance because they lost their jobs in the storm; more than one in eight children have been going without prescribed medication. Contrary to Barbara Bush's infamous predictions, this is not working out very well for them. In this context, the New Orleans mayoral elections have particular significance. Whoever wins will have the task of mediating between organized people and organized money, and therefore shaping the priorities for rebuilding the city. But by almost any standard these elections are neither free nor fair. Fewer than half the city's residents have returned. Yet requests for polling stations to be set up in the major towns outside the state where many have resettled were rejected by the federal courts. "You're telling me they can do it in Iraq but they can't do it here?" said Walter Milton, a leader with the IAF. As a result, people have to either travel hundreds of miles to vote or organize a postal vote. The overwhelming majority of those most adversely affected are once again black and poor. So Jim Crow is on the ballot. But this is the New South with a new, more subtle, but no less effective, racism. Black demands for full citizenship no longer fall foul of the law of the land but instead the law of probabilities. They were more likely to be flooded, more likely to be displaced, the least likely to be able to return, and therefore the least likely to be able to vote. With organized people thus thwarted, organized money has asserted itself with great effect. The current mayor, Ray Nagin, was the candidate of big business. He came to power in 2002 with a minority of black support and the overwhelming backing of whites and the business community. But he rejected a plan by the Urban Land Institute in November. The institute presented a map with three "investment zones." The areas earmarked for mass buyouts and future green zones, and the last to be invested in, were overwhelmingly populated by African-Americans and the poor. New Orleans needed a smaller footprint, it said; but it would be big enough to kick out African-Americans and the poor. When Nagin balked at the plan, business looked for a new standard-bearer. Its favoured son this time is Ron Forman, head of the Audubon Nature Institute. But as a backup, business interests are also investing in the local political aristocracy in the guise of Mitch Landrieu. Landrieu, Louisiana's lieutenant governor, is the brother of Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana senator, and the son of Moon Landrieu, New Orleans's last white mayor, who left office in 1978. So the people have a vote, but business has picked both the incumbent and the two main challengers. Unlike Nagin, both Landrieu and Forman are white. With little to choose between the three on substantive issues, the decision may come down to the symbolism of race. Given everything that happened and continues to happen after Katrina, this is probably inevitable: given the needs of the city, it is regrettable. It will take more than melanin to rebuild the city; indeed it is an obsession with melanin that continues to destroy it. Only this time, no one is watching. Like teenagers discovering sex, the American media developed an intense fascination with the mundane facts of American life following the hurricane: namely, the glaring disparities in race and class that persist and pervade. Having gorged themselves on the undeniable evidence of glaring disparities in race and class, they soon got sick and went to sleep. Up in the mostly white and wealthy Garden District, the Boulangerie on Magazine Street offers a delicious choice of croissants. Down in the ninth ward they are still finding dead bodies - nine in March, some half-eaten by animals, plus a skull. But there is no dramatic backdrop to the systematic and systemic exclusions of African-Americans this time around. It's as though corpses have to be floating down the street and thousands stranded without food or water before racism is once more worthy of note here. "I came down off my rooftop and I walked through the waters," said Jeffers. "And now I feel like they're taking me back on to the rooftop." The organized people of New Orleans keep trying to move to higher ground: the organized money keeps trying to sell the land from under their feet.

Mexican Consumers Plan ‘Great American Boycott’

Mexican Consumers Plan ‘Great American Boycott’

More countries ought to follow suit. There is quite a few points to be made by boycotting america. Of course the Immigration issue is very high priority, but its a human rights issue globally. America has lost its United appeal and needs a wake up call, and I don't mean another fabricated "attack" mass murder of the public by our officials.

Millions of people throughout Mexico are threatening to turn their backs on US products and businesses on May 1 as part of a protest that is being dubbed “the great American boycott”.

Teachers, telephone operators, housewives and farmers are just a handful of the groups that have decided on the boycott as a way to support Latin Americans living in the US who have vowed not to turn up to work on May 1.

The protest in the US, called “a day without immigrants”, aims to put pressure on Congress to legalise the status of millions of undocumented migrant workers who have become a vital source of cheap labour for the US economy. Senators have been debating several proposals to reform immigration laws but have failed to reach a compromise.

The delay has led to increasing frustration among the Hispanic community in the US, and now it is starting to spread across the border.

In Mexico, by far the biggest source of cheap labour for companies in the US, the boycott is threatening to turn into a nationwide movement. Fernando Amezcua, a high-ranking official at the Mexican Union of Electricians (SME), says his organisation will raise the issue at its general assembly on Monday with the idea of urging its 60,000 members to participate in the protest.

He also says the SME is calling on a wider coalition to support the boycott, which he claims brings together about 10m members of unions, social groups and non-governmental organisations.

On the streets of Mexico City, the word is spreading. Cristina Robles, an elegantly dressed business woman who has just done the family shopping at Superama, a supermarket chain owned by US retailer Wal-Mart, says she will support the ban. “I am not going to buy anything American,” she says. “I know it is not easy because there are a lot of illegal immigrants but the US has to treat them the same as any other worker.”

Joaquín García Nava, owner of a corner cafe in La Condesa, a swanky neighbourhood in central Mexico City, agrees. “For me, the protest serves a double purpose: I get to support the immigrants and I also get to express my slightly anti-Yankee sentiments.”

In other regions, too, what started out as a grassroots initiative spread through e-mails is catching on. In Jerez, a town of about 60,000 in Zacatecas, a largely agricultural state to the north of the capital, residents have staged a number of demonstrations in parallel with those that have taken place in recent weeks throughout the US.

Antonio Pereyra, a local government official, says people feel strongly about the need for immigration reform in large part because of their increasing dependence on remittances – money sent home by immigrants in the US. “Every single family has at least one member working in the US and without the money they send back home every month many would not be able to survive,” he says.

According to Mexico’s central bank, the estimated 7m Mexicans living and working illegally in the US send their families back home more than $20bn (€16.28bn) a year, making remittances Mexico’s second-biggest source of foreign currency after oil.

Larry Rubin, who heads the American Chamber of Commerce in Mexico City, a body that represents US companies in Mexico, is sympathetic to those who are pushing for progressive immigration reform. But he argues that boycotting US products and businesses in Mexico is misguided. “It is totally the wrong approach because the US business community has been one of the most adamant supporters and lobbyists of a comprehensive immigration bill.”

China, Iran, Saudi, US Main Executioners: Amnesty

China, Iran, Saudi, US Main Executioners: Amnesty

LONDON - More than 2,000 people were known to have been executed around the world last year, the vast majority of them in China, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

A man looks at toy guns lined up inside a vending machine during a Control Arms campaign by Amnesty International in Madrid March 16, 2006. More than 2,000 people were known to have been executed around the world last year, the vast majority of them in China, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, Amnesty International said on Thursday. REUTERS/Susana Vera

In its annual report on executions, the rights group said about 1,770 executions were reported to have been carried out in China in 2005, but added the real figure was undoubtedly much higher, noting a Chinese legal expert had been quoted as saying the true figure was about 8,000.

More than 20,000 people were on death row around the world, said the report, which repeated a call for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty.

Amnesty said at least 2,148 people were executed in 2005 in 22 countries -- 94 percent of them in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. That's down from 3,797 executions in 2004, but up from 1,146 in 2003.

"The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights, because it contravenes the essence of human values, it is often applied in a discriminatory manner, follows unfair trials or is applied for political reasons," Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan said in a statement.

At least 94 people were executed in Iran, 86 in Saudi Arabia and 60 in the United States.

"As the world continues to turn away from the use of the death penalty, it is a glaring anomaly that China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the U.S. stand out for their extreme use of this form of punishment," Khan said.

China has carried out executions by shooting or lethal injection, Saudi Arabia by beheading, Iran by hanging or stoning and the United States by electrocution or lethal injection, Amnesty said.

Amnesty said its figures were approximate because of secrecy surrounding the death penalty. China refuses to publish official statistics on executions while Vietnam has classified statistics on the death penalty as a "state secret", it said.

But the rights group said with the addition of Mexico and Liberia, 86 countries had now abolished the death penalty for all crimes, compared with 16 countries in 1977, it said.

In China, a person can be executed for as many as 68 crimes, including non-violent crimes such as tax fraud, embezzlement and drug offences, it said.

Amnesty said Iran was the only country it knew of that had executed juvenile offenders last year. The United States outlawed juvenile executions in March 2005.

Iran executed at least eight people in 2005 for crimes committed when they were children, including two who were still under the age of 18 at the time of their execution, it said.

War Costs Approach $10 Billion a Month

War Costs Approach $10 Billion a Month

Military faces huge maintenance tab and spending to replace depleted equipment

by Jonathan Weisman

Annual war expenditures in Iraq will almost certainly come close to doubling since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat. The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise -- from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found. Annual war costs in Iraq are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today's dollars. The Iraq invasion's "shock and awe" phase of high-tech laser-guided bombs, cruise missiles and stealth aircraft has long faded, but the costs of even those early months are just coming into view as the military confronts equipment repair and rebuilding costs it has avoided and procurement costs it never expected. "We did not predict early on that we would have the number of electronic jammers that we've got. We did not predict we'd have as many (heavily) armored vehicles that we have, nor did we have a good prediction about what our battle losses would be," Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "If you look at the earlier estimates of anticipated costs, this war is a lot more expensive than it should be based on past conflicts," said Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent defense think tank. The issue will be hotly debated next week when the Senate takes up a record $106.5 billion emergency spending bill that includes $72.4 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House passed a $92 billion version of the bill last month that included $68 billion in war funding. That comes on top of $50 billion already allocated for the war this fiscal year. The bill is the fifth emergency defense request since the Iraq invasion in March 2003. Senate Democrats say that, in the end, they will vote for the measure, which congressional leaders plan to deliver to President Bush by Memorial Day. But the upcoming debate will offer opponents of the war ample opportunity to question the Bush administration's funding priorities. At roughly $15 billion, personnel costs will actually drop 14 percent this year. But Pentagon officials and budget analysts point to a simple, unavoidable driver of the escalating costs -- the cost of repairing and replacing equipment and developing new war-fighting materiel has exploded. In the first year of the invasion, such costs totaled $2.4 billion, then rose to $5.2 billion in 2004. This year, they will hit $26 billion, and could go as high as $30 billion, Kosiak said. Total operations and maintenance budgets will rise 33 percent this year, while investment in new technologies will climb 25 percent, according to the Congressional Research Service. The helicopters, tanks, personnel carriers and even small arms "have required more maintenance than we planned for," said Gary Motsek, director of support operations at the Army Materiel Command. "We're working them to death." In the first years of the war, Army and Marine units rotating out of Iraq left behind usable equipment for the next units rolling in. But even the working equipment is now being shipped back to the Army's five depots, where they are refurbished and upgraded. Last year, the depots repaired and upgraded 600 helicopter engines. This year, they will see 700, Motsek said. A total of 318 Bradley fighting vehicles went through the depots in 2005; 600 will be cycled through in 2006. Last year, depot workers upgraded 5,000 humvees with new engines and new transmissions to support ever-heavier armor. This year, they will see close to 9,000. They also will have to patch up 7,000 more machine guns, 5,000 more tank tracks and 100 more M1A1 Abrams tanks. In 2001, the depots logged 11 million labor hours. Last year, that reached 20 million, and this year, it will total 24 million, Motsek said. And that is only the work being done in the United States. In and around Iraq, 53,000 people -- 52,000 of them contractors -- are maintaining and rebuilding lightly damaged equipment, a senior Senate defense aide said. Indian workers are refurbishing U.S. humvees for $6 an hour. "The equipment is wearing out five times faster than (in) normal operations," said Jeremiah Gertler, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former House Armed Services Committee staffer. What cannot be repaired has to be replaced. Procurement costs were a fraction of the initial emergency war requests, Kosiak said. This year, new equipment purchases will consume 20 percent of the war funds. Such costs were always there, Gertler said, but Bush administration officials and members of Congress put off maintenance and procurement expenditures to keep the war price tag down.

In Terror War, Not All Names Are Equal

In Terror War, Not All Names Are Equal

by William Fisher

NEW YORK - A major government watchdog group is charging that Muslim charities are being shut down for supposedly backing terrorist causes, while giant firms like Halliburton are receiving the full protection of U.S. law for allegedly breaking government sanctions against doing business with Iran -- a country designated as a sponsor of terrorism. "There is unequal enforcement of anti-terrorist financing laws," says the Washington-based non-profit OMB Watch. Even though little is known about the evidence the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) relied on to freeze and seize assets of Muslim charities, it appears there is much stronger evidence against Halliburton... If U.S. charities formed Cayman Island subsidiaries, could they avoid the USA PATRIOT Act, IEEPA, and Executive Order restrictions on dealings with groups or countries linked to terrorism? OMB Watch The group says the USA Patriot Act gives the government "largely unchecked power to designate any group as a terrorist organisation". And once a charitable organisation is so designated, all of its materials and property may be seized and its assets frozen. The charity is unable to see the government's evidence and thus understand the basis for the charges. Since its assets are frozen, it lacks resources to mount a defence. And it has only limited right of appeal to the courts. So the government can target a charity, seize its assets, shut it down, obtain indictments against its leaders, but then delay a trial almost indefinitely. Kay Guinane, OMB Watch's director of Nonprofit Speech Rights, told IPS, "The real tragedy behind closure of Muslim charities is the fate of people in need of humanitarian assistance, who are doing without because the funds have been frozen by the U.S. and sit in the bank, benefiting no one." "The U.S. government could demonstrate its good faith by releasing these funds to other charities or aid agencies," she suggested. Thus far, OMB Watch says, the effort has resulted in the government shutting down five charities that support humanitarian aid in Muslim areas without disclosing any official finding that they were aiding terrorist organisations. There has only been one indictment, no trials, and no convictions. They include two Chicago-area Islamic charities, the Global Relief Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Texas, the Islamic American Relief Agency and the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. OMB Watch says that dozens of charitable groups have been investigated since 2001. The organisations shut down were not on any government watch list before their assets were frozen, it adds. The result is that Muslims have no way of knowing which groups the government suspects of ties to terrorism. "Organisations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism are guilty until proven innocent," it says. To support its claim that the government is applying the law unevenly and targeting Muslim-American groups, OMB Watch cites the government's "velvet glove" treatment of the Halliburton Corporation, a giant defence contractor once headed by Vice Pres. Dick Cheney. Halliburton has been under investigation by the Treasury Department, which oversees the terror-financing campaign, and the Department of Justice since 2001 for doing business with Iran, which is listed as a sponsor of terrorism. But, says OMB Watch, rather than seizing and freezing assets "pending an investigation", Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Justice Department sent an inquiry to Halliburton requesting "information with regard to compliance". Halliburton sent a written response explaining why it felt it was in compliance with the law. Halliburton's defence seemed to rest on the fact that its dealings with Iran were done through a Cayman Islands subsidiary, not its U.S.-based entity. Over two years later, in January 2004, OFAC sent a follow-up letter requesting additional information, to which Halliburton responded that March. In July of that year, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas sent a grand jury subpoena requesting documents and the case was referred to the Justice Department. On Sep. 22, 2005, the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives wrote to Pres. George W. Bush, asking that Halliburton be suspended from hurricane relief contracts for a host of reasons, including "dealing with nations that sponsor terrorism". The White House took no action and Halliburton received no-bid contracts valued currently at 61.3 million dollars, and growing, to provide clean-up, rebuilding and logistical assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Last year, an organisation called Halliburton Watch charged that the handling of the case against the company raises serious legal questions. For example, "If Halliburton were a charity, would its assets have been frozen like the U.S.-based Muslim charities?" "Even though little is known about the evidence OFAC relied on to freeze and seize assets of Muslim charities, it appears there is much stronger evidence against Halliburton -- what legal distinction is OFAC making. If U.S. charities formed Cayman Island subsidiaries, could they avoid the USA PATRIOT Act, IEEPA, and Executive Order restrictions on dealings with groups or countries linked to terrorism?" the group asked. Halliburton has also become the poster child for waste, fraud and abuse among U.S. contractors in Iraq. To date, it has received more than 12 billion dollars in contracts there, many of them on a no-bid basis. The company failed to account for 43 percent of its Middle East expenses, with one billion dollars of those being considered "unreasonable" and another nearly half-billion in the "unsupported" category, according to Defence Department auditors. Critics say the government's anti-terror financing campaign is a product of the paranoid Islamophobia that has gripped the U.S. since 9/11. They also say is has had its desired effect: to scare Muslim-Americans into abandoning one of the premier tenets of Islam -- giving to those in need. The government denies these charges, saying it is merely trying to cut off funding to a wide variety of so-called charitable organisations that funnel money to groups that practice terrorist tactics. The Treasury Department cites Pres. Bush's pledge to ensure "that Arab Americans and American Muslims feel comfortable maintaining their tradition of charitable giving". Meanwhile, Muslim charities report a precipitous decline in contributions. Contributions that do arrive come increasingly in cash from anonymous givers. And donors who happen to be Muslim are increasingly turning to the large household names like Oxfam and Save the Children, which may conduct programmes in predominantly Muslim areas abroad. Leaders of the Muslim charitable community in the U.S. have had numerous meetings with officials at the Treasury Department, and together developed a set of "guidelines" for charitable organisations and their donors. But these guidelines lack any specificity regarding Muslim philanthropy and could be applied to any charitable organisation. They also provide no safe harbour from being shut down. OMB Watch told IPS, "A group could comply 100 percent and still be shut down 'pending an investigation'." Leaders of the Muslim philanthropic community in New Jersey asked the Treasury Department at the start of Ramadan in 2004 to issue a "white list" of "approved" charities. But the request was denied. The government claimed it was impossible to fulfill. "Our role is to prosecute violations of criminal law," a spokesman said, adding, "We're not in a position to put out lists of any kind, particularly of any organisations that are good or bad." But government critics also claim that Treasury's campaign is reminiscent of the activities of John Ashcroft's Justice Department in the months following the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. The government then launched its "Global War on Terror" by rounding up thousands of "Middle Eastern-looking" men and women, sending them to jail without charges or access to lawyers, holding many in solitary confinement, but accusing none of them with terror-related crimes, convicting no one, and ending up deporting some for non-criminal immigration violations.