Taking steps

To start undoing what has been done in our name:

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, introduced an amendment to the 2010 intelligence authorization bill imposing a 15-year criminal sentence on any “officer or employee of the intelligence community” who tortures a detainee. (Twenty years if the torture involves an “act of medical malfeasance”; life if the detainee dies.)

And

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is concerned about possible misconduct in Afghanistan by the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater and has promised to review the issue, the Pentagon said.

So what does Blackwater do?

A Code Pink protester claimed a high-ranking Blackwater official threatened his life during a break of a Senate Armed Services hearing focused on the military contractor's actions in Afghanistan.

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin reported that the threat was made by Johnny Walker, a program manager with one of Blackwater's subsidiaries. Walker testified at the hearing about the role his company, Paravant, played during its mercenary deployments to the Middle East.

But then this is going on:

In an interview with the Pakistani TV station Express TV, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the private security firms Blackwater and DynCorp are operating inside Pakistan. “They’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan,” Gates said, according to a DoD transcript of the interview. “There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”

And the realization that if we didn't have mercenary groups, we'd be unable to fight the wars we're in. We don't have the troops.

Yet the court sides against Rumsfeld:

CHICAGO � A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen's ruling did not say the two contractors had proven their claims, including that they were tortured after reporting alleged illegal activities by their company. But it did say they had alleged enough specific mistreatment to warrant hearing evidence of exactly what happened.

Andersen said his decision "represents a recognition that federal officials may not strip citizens of well settled constitutional protections against mistreatment simply because they are located in a tumultuous foreign setting."

Andersen did throw out two of the lawsuit's three counts but gave former contractors Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel the green light to go forward with a third count alleging they were unconstitutionally tortured under procedures personally approved by Rumsfeld.

Update 3/7:UPDATE:

A Xe spokesman has told Talking Points Memo that they are unaware of any plans for the RNC to hold a fundraiser at their Moyock, N.C. facility. The spokesman said he was unsure why there was a slide in an RNC fundraising presentation that suggested otherwise. RNC Communications Doug Heye also told Politico's Ben Smith, who broke the story, that "No such Blackwater event ever existed," despite the calendar entry.

The Republican National Committee plans to hold an April fundraiser at a Moyock, N.C. compound owned by the military contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater, Politico reports.

According to an RNC fundraising document uncovered on Wednesday, RNC "Young Eagles" -- party major donors under 40 -- will meet at the facility in the spring.

Xe formerly known as Blackwater

Has stayed past its expiration date in Iraq:

WASHINGTON – Armed guards from the security firm once known as Blackwater Worldwide are still protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq, even though the company has no license to operate there and has been told by the State Department its contracts will not be renewed two years after a lethal firefight that stirred outrage in Baghdad.

Private security guards employed by the company, now known as Xe, are slated to continue ground operations in parts of Iraq long into the summer, far longer than had previously been acknowledged, government officials told The Associated Press.

In addition, helicopters working for Xe's aviation wing, Presidential Airways, will provide air security for U.S. diplomatic convoys into September, almost two years after the Iraqi government first said it wanted the firm out.

The company's continued presence raises fresh questions about the strength of Iraq's sovereignty even as the Obama administration urges the budding government to take more responsibility for the nation's future.

[snip]

Some of the same security personnel who worked for Blackwater might simply transfer to the new companies operating there, industry experts say.

"As Triple Canopy's work expands, the logical place to start looking and interviewing and evaluating employees will be those who are already there, those who have some skills and are already employed by Blackwater," said Alan Chvotkin, a senior vice president and counsel for the trade group Professional Services Council.

Xe, DynCorp and Triple Canopy are all members of the council.

Chvotkin added that in view of the controversies over Blackwater's role, "Triple Canopy and other security companies are making an independent assessment of any individual before deciding whether to hire them."

The Iraqi official also said that some former Blackwater officials could remain in Iraq, depending on their experience.

The transition from Blackwater to a new air security firm may be even more complicated. Chvotkin said it will not be easy to find a firm with Blackwater's air resources. Blackwater should not be ruled out as an option, he said.

"Since the nature of the work is so very different, there may actually be authority for them to operate the air services contract even though they don't have a license for private security," Chvotkin said.

Blackwater has been shifting its focus to other lines of business, including international training and air support in places like Afghanistan and Africa.

Avast, tis Blackwater thinkin' a fightin' pirates!

Think Progress:

The private security firm Blackwater is planning to offer a new service to make money: protection from the pirate-infested waters off the coast of East Africa. “Blackwater’s push to land its first antipiracy contract is part of a strategy to build its business outside its State Department security work in Iraq, which brings in between $300 million and $400 million a year.” The security company may be looking for new lucrative opportunities partly because the Iraqi government has now ratified a law stripping Blackwater contractors of immunity. Indeed, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell noted the legal benefits of operating in the open sea: “We would be allowed to fire if fired upon; the right of self-defense is one that exists in international waters.”

This will work fine. Private companies pay for private security on the high seas ... until Blackwater starts shooting innocent fishing vessels out of the water. And the media will always go and wreck it by finding out that pirates have starving families too....

Blackwater and the other defense contractors won't like this

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Security contractors working in Iraq will no longer receive immunity from prosecution in that nation under a deal being brokered by Iraqi and U.S. officials, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.

Zebari said he briefed Iraqi parliament members about the immunity agreement Tuesday during a closed-door meeting. Officials at the U.S. State Department, which is leading the U.S. side of the negotiations, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The immunity issue was one of the sticking points in talks over a long-term security pact that deals with, among other things, the future of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Negotiations on the pact continue.

The reported immunity agreement comes more than nine months after an incident in which Iraqi officials allege guards with the Blackwater security firm shot and killed 17 people, including women and children, and wounded 27 at Baghdad's Nusoor Square.

Ah, I was right:

Contractors working for the U.S. military in Iraq say a move to end their immunity from Iraqi law would make many leave their jobs instead of face a justice system they do not trust.

Earlier this week, the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said the immunity issue was one of the American concessions made in ongoing negotiations over a long-term security agreement. Since the announcement, contractors — both current and former workers in Iraq — have been buzzing about its implications. There are an estimated 180,000 foreign contractors working in Iraq, more than there are U.S. troops in the country. More than 1,000 have been killed.

"Having worked for two years and two months in Iraq, I can tell you without a doubt, I would in no way work if I fell under Iraqi Law," a deputy sheriff who trains Iraqi police said in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes. "Are you kidding? You wouldn’t be able to get but the most desperate people to work if they fell under their ridiculous laws."

Like almost all contractors working in Iraq, he is not allowed to do media interviews without approval from his company, so he asked that his name not be used.

Other contractors expressed similar concerns about the Iraqi legal system.

"I would immediately have to consider my options concerning leaving this country," another Department of Defense contractor said. "They, the Iraqis, cannot rule themselves and now they want to try and rule contractors."

Some said that unless laws are broken in the first place there’s nothing to worry about.

"I am confident if all [security] contract members stick to their drills and follow the rules of engagement as laid down by the U.S. military or respective companies, there shouldn’t be a problem in the near future," a member of a private security team said.

Under a provision instituted shortly after the invasion, security contractors have been immune from Iraqi law. Under a change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, they can now be charged and tried in military courts.

The first such case — against an interpreter accused of stabbing another interpreter — was completed earlier this month. The contractor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to time in a military detention facility.

Debate over the status of contractors peaked last year when guards with the Blackwater security company allegedly shot and killed 17 people in a Baghdad incident. Iraqi officials say the guards shot indiscriminately; Blackwater officials have said their guards came under attack.

Blackwater officials declined comment this week on the reported immunity negotiations, saying it would wait until an agreement is announced.

A new agreement between Iraq and the U.S. must be reached before December, when the U.N. mandate under which U.S. forces currently work expires.

Jaco Botes is a security contractor who has worked in Iraq for four years. Last year, he founded the International Contractors Association, which provides members legal and moral support and — more generally — seeks to dispel the notion that the profession is "a bed of dollar bills."

Botes said this week that a vast majority of the group’s 2,500 members would think seriously about leaving Iraq if the immunity deal is cemented.

In his own posting to the group’s online discussion board, Botes voiced many of the same concerns.

Botes brought up issues such as who would represent contractors in legal disputes and how the Iraqi public’s perception — marked by incidents such as the Blackwater shooting — affect the process.

"We do not ask for much. We don’t expect Welcome Home banners or medals or even a pat on the back (we get paid right?)" he wrote, noting it was his personal opinion. "What I expect is to be acknowledged as an important part of the whole effort to bring peace and stability to this region. In my mind this is a package deal. By taking away contractor immunity, contractors are being marked as expendable assets — assets that will be placed in the hands of a very shaky and corrupt law system."

A very shaky and corrupt law system? Like under the Bush administration where torture isn't torture unless you (oops!) die and telecoms can break the law because the president said so? Where mercenary armies can be funded by US taxpayers but need not account for their expenditures or actions? When justices go after Democrats because the attorney general wants it to happen before the election and they get fired if they don't? Where you can literally be disappeared off the streets because Habeas Corpus is dead?

Ohhh... you're talking about the destroyed legal system of the 'Iraqi government'. I wonder why it's destroyed.... hmmmm.

Update 7/14: Juan Cole of Informed Consent has more:

In September 2007, 17 Iraqis died as a result of unjustified and unprovoked shooting at the Nisour Square. Personnel of Blackwater Worldwide, a private agency contracted by the U.S. to operate in Iraq, were involved in the shooting. A week later the Iraqi Government revoked the license of Blackwater to operate in the country. In the last week of September, Blackwater received a contract worth up to $92 million from the U.S. State Department. In April 2008 the assignment to provide personal protection for diplomats in Iraq by Blackwater has been renewed for the third year. The FBI is still investigating the killings at Nisour Square; more than 30 witnesses have been questioned and three Iraqis have testified before the Federal Grand Jury in May 2008. Neither the lives of the ordinary Iraqis nor the decisions of the Iraqi Government were taken into consideration while renewing the contracts for Blackwater.

“This is bad news,” Sami al-Askari, advisory to Prime Minister Maliki said, “I personally am not happy with this, especially because they have committed acts of aggression, killed Iraqis, and this has not been resolved yet positively for families of victims.” The neglect of such crucial Iraqi concerns by the U.S. has in fact prompted the demand for withdrawing foreign troops from Iraqi soil.

The Nisour Square killing is not an isolated incident. In February 2007 a Blackwater sniper shot three Iraqi guards, without provocation, ironically from the terrace of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. In October 2007 a Blackwater personnel was so heavily drunk that he killed the bodyguard of the Iraqi Vice-President. In the same month an Iraqi civilian was shot for simply driving too close to the State Department convoy.

The Iraqi Government has come to realize that the U.S. is attempting to run the Iraqi state through private contractors who cannot be held accountable for their misdeeds. The Report from the American Congressional Research Service in July 2007 clearly indicated that the Iraqi government has no authority over private security firms contracted by the U.S. Government. A shocking incident in the Green Zone in 2006 has demonstrated that the Blackwater personnel have gained greater impunity than the regular U.S. armed forces. A SUV driven by Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee. The Blackwater guards disarmed the army soldiers and forced them to lie on the ground at gunpoint until the vehicle was recovered.

It never was about the mushroom cloud,

The weapons of mass distraction, the mocking by Saddam's mustache, the smearing of democracy, the Eternal War on a Noun... it was to slot in Chalabi as a Bush pal in Iraq (so they could then bomb Iran?)

BooMan of The Booman Tribune discusses the recent review of General Sanchez' book where he talks about how Rumsfeld tries to scrape off the Iraqi hot potato on him:

Sanchez goes on the explain that his interpretation of this meeting was that he was being bribed with job offers in an attempt to get him to agree that Rumsfeld had no knowledge that he was being left in charge of the occupation of Iraq. But, again, while that is interesting, the important point is that it appears that there was no plan to stick around in Iraq. The plan was to get the hell out.

The only thing I can think of that explains this is that the lunatics around Cheney and Rumsfeld seriously believed that they could just install Ahmed Chalabi as a new strongman and that he would be able to maintain order. But once they arrived in Iraq they quickly realized that that would be impossible and that Ayatollah Sistani (who they had probably never heard of before) was the most important man in Iraq. They couldn't do anything without his approval, and that is when things began to unravel in a hurry.

This theory can explain a lot of things, like why General Franks did so little Phase IV (occupation) planning and why the State Department's plan was tossed aside, and (potentially) why the decisions were made to disband the military and engage in de-Ba'athification.

But, in any case, it doesn't look like the plan was initially to have a long-term occupation of Iraq.

If this is true, the neocons in the Bush administration are not only evil but incompetently evil. And we get to pay for their destructive influence for decades to come. Heckovajob, Bushies!

Sibel Edmonds is finally getting attention

And look who has run this article! The American Conservative:

Charismatic and articulate, the 37-year-old Edmonds has deftly worked the system to get as much of her story out as possible, on one occasion turning to French television to produce a documentary entitled “Kill the Messenger.” Passionate in her convictions, she has sometimes alienated her own supporters and ridden roughshod over critics who questioned her assumptions. But despite her shortcomings in making her case and the legitimate criticism that she may be overreaching in some of her conclusions, Edmonds comes across as credible. Her claims are specific, fact-based, and can be documented in detail. There is presumably an existing FBI file that could demonstrate the accuracy of many of her charges.

[snip]

Edmonds’s revelations have attracted corroboration in the form of anonymous letters apparently written by FBI employees. There have been frequent reports of FBI field agents being frustrated by the premature closure of cases dealing with foreign spying, particularly when those cases involve Israel, and the State Department has frequently intervened to shut down investigations based on “sensitive foreign diplomatic relations.” One such anonymous letter, the veracity of which cannot be determined, cites transcripts of wiretaps involving Marc Grossman and a Turkish Embassy official between August and December 2001, described above, in which Grossman warned the Turk that Brewster Jennings was a CIA cover company. If the allegation can be documented from FBI files, the exposure of the Agency cover mechanism took place long before journalist Robert Novak outed the company in his column on Valerie Plame in 2003.

[snip]

Curiously, the states-secrets gag order binding Edmonds, while put in place by DOJ in 2002, was not requested by the FBI but by the State Department and Pentagon—which employed individuals she identified as being involved in criminal activities. If her allegations are frivolous, that order would scarcely seem necessary. It would have been much simpler for the government to marginalize her by demonstrating that she was poorly informed or speculating about matters outside her competency. Under the Bush administration, the security gag order has been invoked to cover up incompetence or illegality, not to protect national security. It has recently been used to conceal the illegal wiretaps of the warrantless surveillance program, the allegations of torture and the CIA’s rendition program, and to shield the telecom industry for its collaboration in illegal eavesdropping.

Both Senators Grassley and Leahy, a Republican and a Democrat, who interviewed her at length in 2002, attest to Edmonds’s believability. The Department of Justice inspector general investigation into her claims about the translations unit and an internal FBI review confirmed most of her allegations. Former FBI senior counterintelligence officer John Cole has independently confirmed her report of the presence of Pakistani intelligence service penetrations within the FBI translators’ pool.

Edmonds wasn’t angling to become a media darling. She would have preferred to testify under oath before a congressional committee that could offer legal protection and subpoena documents and witnesses to support her case. She claims that a number of FBI agents would be willing to testify, though she has not named them.

But this information is not good:

Prior to 2006, Congressman Henry Waxman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee promised Edmonds that if the Democrats gained control of Congress, he would order hearings into her charges. But following the Democratic sweep, he has been less forthcoming, failing to schedule hearings, refusing to take Edmonds’s calls, and recently stonewalling all inquiries into the matter. It is generally believed that Waxman, a strong supporter of Israel, is nervous about exposing an Israeli lobby role in the corruption that Edmonds describes. It is also suspected that Waxman fears that the revelations might open a Pandora’s box, damaging Republicans and Democrats alike.

[snip]

Sibel Edmonds makes a number of accusations about specific criminal behavior that appear to be extraordinary but are credible enough to warrant official investigation. Her allegations are documentable: an existing FBI file should determine whether they are accurate. It’s true that she probably knows only part of the story, but if that part is correct, Congress and the Justice Department should have no higher priority. Nothing deserves more attention than the possibility of ongoing national-security failures and the proliferation of nuclear weapons with the connivance of corrupt senior government officials.

C'mon, Waxman! You've been a hero in pursuing corruption and injustice so far. Take on Sibel Edmonds' case and let the truth be told. Corruption on this level must be addressed even though it looks like it's both sides of the aisle.

Silly diplomats!

Of course Iraq is safe! Hasn't the White House said this over and over again? So get your ass on out there to Baghdad!

WASHINGTON - Nearly half of U.S. diplomats unwilling to volunteer to work in Iraq say one reason for their refusal is they don't agree with Bush administration's policies in the country, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Security concerns and separation from family ranked as the top reasons for not wanting to serve in Iraq. But 48 percent cited "disagreement" with administration policy as a factor in their opposition, said the survey conducted by the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats.

In addition, nearly 70 percent of U.S. diplomats oppose forced assignments to Iraq, a prospect that sparked a storm of controversy last year when the State Department announced it might have to require such tours under penalty of dismissal in the largest diplomatic call-up to a war zone since Vietnam.

The results suggest the State Department is facing a far more serious revolt over Iraq among its ranks than previously thought, and call into question its ability to fully staff diplomatic missions in Iraq, as well as those in Afghanistan and other dangerous posts deemed critical to the administration's foreign policy goals.

The survey was conducted late last year among the 11,500 members of the U.S. diplomatic corps and found deep frustration over Iraq, safety and security issues elsewhere, pay disparities and the leadership of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top deputies.

"The results of this survey raise serious questions about the long-term health of the Foreign Service and, with it, the future viability of U.S. diplomatic engagement," said union President John Naland. "This argues for immediate action to deal with the concerns highlighted in the survey."

A peek into future corporations

If we hold no one accountable for their actions:

Former Halliburton/KBR employees have described an atmosphere of “rampant sexual harassment.” Poe has also confirmed that his office has heard from multiple other women who were victims of sexual assault while working for KBR in Iraq.

But... no one will pursue Jamie Leigh Jones' rape case:

The Bush administration has been anything but cooperative. Both the State and Justice departments refused to give Poe “answers on the status” of the investigation. The DoJ “refused to send a representative” to a Congressional hearing last month, and the State, Defense and Justice departments all missed Nelson’s deadline for answering questions.

Now, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense has written to Nelson and other lawmakers, saying that his agency will not investigate the allegations:

In letters to lawmakers, DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter said that because the Justice Department still considers the investigation into Jones’ case open, there is no need for him to look into the matter.

“[T]he U.S. Justice Department has issued a statement that they are investigating the allegations,” wrote Kicklighter’s office to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who had requested he look into the matter. “No further investigation by this agency into the allegations made by [Jones] is warranted.”

Creating all that new 'reality' really went to their heads:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

The 'new empire' has been run by barbarians who have little regard for human suffering.

No wonder the Bush administration has tried to shut Sibel Edmonds up

They have been trying for years:

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” she said.

[snip]

Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.

She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities’ failure to act.

One of Edmonds’s main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.

“What I found was damning,” she said. “While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.”

The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

[snip]

She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.

The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI’s methods and current investigations.

Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing.

She was able to discuss the case with The Sunday Times because, by the end of January 2002, the justice department had shut down the programme.

She has been forced into silence by court order and commands from her bosses. She's been under extreme scrutiny and pressure from those who do not want the truth to get out.

It's time we heard all of what she has to say.

Your passport will betray you

And will talk readily to strangers without you knowing:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Passport cards for Americans who travel to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean will be equipped with technology that allows information on the card to be read from a distance.

The technology was approved Monday by the State Department and privacy advocates were quick to criticize the department for not doing more to protect information on the card, which can be used by U.S. citizens instead of a passport when traveling to other countries in the western hemisphere.

The technology would allow the cards to be read from up to 20 feet away. This process only takes one or two seconds, said Ann Barrett, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the State Department. The card would not have to be physically swiped through a reader, as is the current process with passports.

The technology is "inherently insecure and poses threats to personal privacy, including identity theft," Ari Schwartz, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement. Schwartz said this specific technology, called "vicinity read," is better suited for tracking inventory, not people.

The State Department said privacy protections will be built into the card. The chip on the card will not contain biographical information, Barrett said.

And the card vendor - which has yet to be decided - will also provide sleeves for the cards that will prevent them from being read from afar, she said.

Oh, I can hardly wait to find out which Bush crony will get the card vendor business!

Bush's Legacy: Letting Cheney and Rumsfeld loose upon the world

John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer who resigned from the State Department over the planned war in Iraq writes for Asia Online about Cheney and Rumsfeld and why they attacked Iraq: (my bold)

According to some commentators, when it came to the American ascendancy abroad, the real powers behind (or in) the White House were Cheney and Rumsfeld, who had been collaborators ever since the distant Ford administration. Some argue that they - and their neo-con poodle and second-in-command at the Defense Department, Paul Wolfowitz, as well assorted neo-cons once linked to the Likud party in Israel and the Christian right in the US - were the true framers of a Bush empire.

To be sure, Rumsfeld was an early member of the Project for the New American Century and no doubt had ideas - or perhaps simply fantasies masquerading as ideas - about a more aggressive use of American military strength throughout the world. Cheney's former position as chief executive officer of Halliburton and his connections with large corporations certainly made him the prime imperial candidate for considering global energy flows and eyeing Iraq as one vast oil field just waiting to be seized, one more country with must-have natural resources for the American imperium.

Even if the duo were eager indeed to expand US influence and resources overseas, as veterans of countless Washington partisan and personal battles, what really got their aged blood flowing was the sleazy, vindictive inside-the-Beltway world of Washington, DC. Rumsfeld's utter inability to focus on post-invasion planning in Iraq was in itself strong evidence that what happened there ("events" which he so often simply made up) was of secondary concern. Iraq - or success in that country - was indeed important but mainly to the extent that it heightened his profile as a monster player in Washington.

For both Cheney and Rumsfeld, it was the imperial capital, not the empire itself that really mattered. There, "war" would mean the loosing of a commander-in-chief presidency unchecked by Congress, courts, anything - which meant power in the only world that mattered to them. War in the provinces was their ticket to renewed prominence within DC's self-absorbed biosphere, a kind of lost space station far removed from Mother Earth, and a place where they had longstanding, unfinished accounts - both personal and political - to settle.

"Foreign policy," in other words, was an excuse for war in a far-off country that 63% of American youth between the ages of 18 and 24 could not, according to a National Geographic survey, find on a map of the Middle East. That, in turn, would make both the vice president and secretary of defense (for a while) little Caesars in the only place that mattered, Washington, DC.

If Saddam and assorted terrorists were enemies, they weren't the ones who really mattered. In the realest war of all, the one on the banks of the Potomac, Cheney and Rumsfeld were, above all, targeting those symbols of American internationalism that they had grown to despise in their previous Washington stays - the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency - perhaps because those organizations, at their best, aspired to see how the world looked at the United States, and not just how the United States could dismiss the world.

Just as Bush "kicked ass" in Iraq, so Cheney and Rumsfeld used Iraq to "kick ass" among the striped-pants weenies at Foggy Bottom and the eggheads in the intelligence community. (Consider Cheney's treatment of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who questioned the validity of the administration's claim about Saddam's search for uranium yellowcake in Niger in the late 1990s.)

In toppling Iraq, the "imperial" aim of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, their foreign policy "experts" and their acolytes was to raise the flag of their own power high above Washington, DC, while discrediting and humiliating those in the foreign-policy profession interested in the outside world for itself, those willing to consider how it related to actual US national interests, not fantasy ones, and who therefore dared to question the goals and intentions of the dynamic duo.

To see how Washington-centered this cast of characters actually was, just recall the secretary of defense's self-glorifying press conferences in his post-invasion heyday, when he played the strutting comedian. In that period, Rumsfeld, venerated by, among others, aging neo-con Midge Decter in a swooning biography, was the king of the heap and visibly loving every second of it.

Front-page headlines in the imperial capital were what counted, never the reality of Iraq - any more than it did when Bush strutted that aircraft-carrier deck in his military get-up for his "mission accomplished" moment, launching (against a picturesque backdrop of sailors and war) Campaign 2004 at home. Poor Iraq. It was the butt of the imperial joke, as was - for a while - the rest of the outside world.

Political theorist Benjamin Barber caught the Bush foreign-policy moment perfectly. The US, he wrote, made "foreign policy to indulge a host of domestic concerns and self-celebratory varieties of hide-bound insularity. The United States remains a hegemonic global superpower sporting the narrow outlook of mini-states like Monaco and Lichtenstein."

In the end, the Bush administration is likely to be remembered not for a failed imperialism, but a failed parochialism, an inability to perceive a world beyond the Washington of Cheney and Rumsfeld, beyond Bush's national security "homeland". That may be the president's ultimate legacy.

Blackwater is deliberately unaccountable

Jeremy Scahill lists the reasons:

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians by operatives of the Blackwater security company have concluded that 14 were victims of unjustified and unprovoked shootings. Some died in a hail of bullets as they fled. The investigators also have rejected assertions by Blackwater that its forces were defending themselves, saying there is no evidence to support that claim.

This initial glimpse into the evidence uncovered by the FBI bolsters the Iraqi government's claim (made within hours of the shootings in Baghdad's Nisoor Square) that the killings were criminal, as well as the findings of a U.S. military investigation that called all 17 of the killings unjustified. But that raises a crucial and complicated question: Who will prosecute the killers?

The answer may be no one. That certainly seemed to be the view of veteran diplomat Patrick Kennedy, who recently reviewed the State Department's use of private security. Kennedy and his team came back from Baghdad concluding that they were "unaware of any basis for holding non-Department of Defense contractors accountable under U.S. law."

Although the FBI conclusions appear damning, each of the three potential avenues for prosecuting Blackwater have fatal flaws:

U.S. civilian law: The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000 provides for prosecution in federal court of U.S. contractors for crimes committed overseas. The problem is that this law only applies to contractors working for or directly accompanying the U.S. military. Blackwater works for the State Department in Iraq as "diplomatic security," which is separate from military operations. Legislation has been introduced that would expand the act to apply to all contractors, but not retroactively. The Justice Department might argue that the Blackwater guards were indeed accompanying the military, but courts could well throw out such a case.

U.S. military law: In late 2006, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) inserted an amendment in the Defense Authorization Act that places all U.S. contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the court-martial system. But this has not been tested, and the Department of Defense has shown no desire to use this option against any security contractors -- let alone ones who aren't working for the military. Facing a military prosecution, Blackwater could even get support from civil libertarians, who would see it as a creep toward applying military law to civilians.

Iraqi law: The Iraqi government wants to prosecute the Blackwater shooters in its courts, but that isn't going to happen. The day before L. Paul Bremer III ended his tenure as the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in June 2004, he issued Order 17. It grants all contractors sweeping immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. There is a provision that allows the U.S. to lift immunity in individual cases, but Washington would never hand over a U.S. citizen to an Iraqi court.

"These legal loopholes amount, in practice, to a license to kill with impunity," says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is suing Blackwater for wrongful death and war crimes in federal court over the shootings. "There is no genuine deterrence to acting unlawfully."

Even if the Justice Department moves forward, the investigation was contaminated from the start. The State Department's initial report on the shooting was drafted by a Blackwater contractor on U.S. government stationery. Two weeks passed before the FBI was dispatched to investigate; for two weeks, the only people looking into this crime were from a non-law-enforcment agency, the State Department, which had potential culpability of its own.

Then there is this fact: The State Department inspector general, Howard Krongard, who previously has been accused of impeding investigations into Blackwater, has direct family ties to the company. His brother, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, former CIA executive director, this year joined Blackwater's advisory board as a paid consultant. While at the CIA, Krongard played a role in Blackwater's first soldier-for-hire contract in Afghanistan in 2002.

Deliberately setting up mercenaries above the law. And Blackwater wants to operate inside the United States.

Not only do we need new laws, we need a new government. Fire everybody who was hired in after January 2001 for starters. The whole place is contaminated.

The incestuousness of the Bush administration

Continues. Sorghum Crow of Sorghum Crow's General Store notes that the State Department Inspector General's brother is on Blackwater's board of directors. Krongard called it an ugly rumor and then found out it was true.

Think Progress:

During today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the performance of State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) revealed that Krongard’s brother — former CIA Executive Director A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard — sits on Blackwater USA’s board. Krongard vehemently denied the allegation, calling it an “ugly rumor”:

KRONGARD: I can tell you very frankly, I am not aware of any financial interest or position he has with respect to Blackwater. It couldn’t possibly have affected anything I’ve done, because I don’t believe it. And when these ugly rumors started recently, I specifically asked him. I do not believe it is true that he is a member of the advisory board, as you stated, and that is something I think I need to say.

During a break in today’s hearing, Krongard called his brother and confirmed that the “ugly rumor” was in fact true, and promised to recuse himself from any Blackwater investigations:

KRONGARD: This is in response to something I think you found important. During the break I did contact my brother. I reached him at home — he is not at the hotel. But I learned that he had been at the advisory board meeting yesterday. I had not been aware of that, and I want to state on the record right now that I hereby recuse myself from any matters having to do with Blackwater.

WAXMAN: I see. You indicated you had called your brother to ask him earlier whether he was on the board. He told you he wasn’t.

KRONGARD: Well that was about six weeks ago, and I was not aware — and this board meeting happened yesterday, and I found out just during the break that he had in fact attended yesterday.

Well gee whiz. Imagine that.

For those who think diplomacy is worthless

And that it is easier to persuade people at the point of a gun, this is what you do to your diplomatic corps, belittle them by calling them names:

The State Department recently announced that it will force at least 50 diplomats to take posts in Iraq next year “because of expected shortfalls in filling openings there, the first such large-scale forced assignment since the Vietnam War.” Several hundred diplomats swiftly “vented” their “anger and frustration” over the forced posting, likening it to a “potential death sentence.”

[snip]

Yesterday, the State Department joined in the bashing. On its Dipnote blog, it published an open letter by career Foreign Service Officer John Matel. In the letter, Matel insinuates that diplomats who refuse to serve in Iraq are “embarrassing” “wimps and weenies”:

We signed up to be worldwide available. All of us volunteered for this kind of work and we have enjoyed a pretty sweet lifestyle most of our careers. I will not repeat what the Marines say when I bring up this subject. I tell them that most FSOs are not wimps and weenies. I will not share this article with them and I hope they do not see it. […]

We all know that few FSOs will REALLY be forced to come to Iraq anyway. Our system really does not work like that. This sound and fury at Foggy Bottom truly signifies nothing. Get over it! I do not think many Americans feel sorry for us and it is embarrassing for people with our privileges to paint ourselves as victims.

The State Department’s blog post appears aimed at providing fodder for the right-wing blogosphere, which has been ripping the “diplowimps” who refuse to serve in Iraq.

Nice. Isn't it interesting that the wingnuts are so eager for people to go to Iraq that they shove them forward.... but they never step forward themselves. Hmmm....

Well what a surprise....

The State Department kinda sorta forgot to tell investigators about uh... you know.. the IMMUNITY they gave to Blackwater:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 — State Department investigators offered Blackwater USA security guards immunity during an inquiry into last month’s deadly shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad — a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the company’s employees involved in the episode, government officials said Monday.

The State Department investigators from the agency’s investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, they added.

[snip]

F.B.I. agents have been at the Blackwater compound in the Green Zone interviewing guards involved in the shooting.

Immunity is intended to protect the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination while still giving investigators the ability to gather evidence. Usually, people suspected of crimes are not given immunity and such grants are not made until after the probable defendants are identified. Even then, prosecutors often face serious obstacles in bringing a prosecution in cases in which defendants have been immunized.

I will predict something. Blanket immunity papers for everybody that ever worked for Bush, passed out January 20, 2009! On the White House lawn right after the paper shredding party and the memory-erasing pills.

Update: Dana Perino and Blackwater's immunity:

If Georgie needs more money for his war

Why doesn't he just get it back from the mercenaries who can't remember what they did with it?:

(CNN) -- The U.S. State Department is unable to account for most of $1.2 billion in funding that it gave to DynCorp International to train Iraqi police, a government report said Tuesday.

"The bottom line is that State can't account for where it went," said Glenn D. Furbish, who was involved in putting together the 20-page report for the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR).

The Department of State's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) "did not have the information needed to identify what DynCorp provided under the contract or how funds were spent," the report said.

As a result, the audit agency announced it has suspended its oversight of the agency's project until INL gathers the information.

"Their records are just not detailed," Furbish said Monday in a telephone interview. "From an audit perspective, we've identified the problem; they're working to rectify the problem."

They are working to rectify the problem? Uh huh. Riiiiiiight.

We want our money back.

Blackwater's owner Erik Prince blames the State Department

For not defending his company during the recent media focus. And he will not let his employees stand trial for misdeeds because there is no functional Iraqi justice system:

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - In the latest development in the fallout of a September 16 shooting incident in a busy Baghdad square, a defiant Erik Prince, Chairman and founder of Blackwater USA, said Tuesday that he intends to shield his employees from the Iraqi justice system.

"We will not let our people be taken by the Iraqis," Mr. Prince told editors and reporters at The Washington Times.

Prince defended the Blackwater guards implicated in the September 16 incident that left 17 civilians dead and sparked an international uproar over the prevalence, and legal ambiguity, of private security firms bolstering U.S. efforts in Iraq.

"In an ideal sense, if there was wrongdoing, there could be a trial brought in the Iraqi court system, but that would imply that there is a valid Iraqi court system where Westerners could get a fair trial," Prince said. "That is not the case right now."

Prince told the Times that at least 17 of the 20 Blackwater guards under investigation for their involvement in the incident are in a secure compound in Baghdad's Green Zone, where they are carrying out limited duties. Two more have left the country.

He added that if an ongoing FBI investigation uncovers evidence of wrongdoing, Blackwater guards should face trial in the U.S. under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Prince also criticized the State Department for not defending the company in the wake of the shootings. The department has responded by implementing more oversight of its security contractors and is currently negotiating with the Iraqi government for Blackwater's dismissal.

He will not let his employees stand trial in a corrupt and broken justice system ... which reflects the corrupt and broken country ... that is corrupt and broken because of lawless and unaccountable actions by many tribes and sects and soldiers and military contractors ... who are benefiting by the corrupt and broken justice system to do whatever they damn well please.

Hmmm..

Bush works his magic

Over yet another beleaguered governmental department:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is poised to suspend a major post-9/11 security initiative to cope with increasingly angry complaints from Americans whose summer vacations are threatened by new passport rules.

A proposal, expected to be announced Friday, will temporarily waive a requirement that U.S. citizens have passports to fly to and from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda, provided the traveler can prove he or she has already applied for a passport, officials said Thursday.

The temporary lifting of the passport rule is aimed at clearing a massive backlog of passport applications at the State Department that has slowed processing to a crawl, they said. Rep. Heather Wilson (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., said the suspension would last until the end of September.

[snip]

Wendy Berry of Franklin, W.Va., applied in March for a passport for her 18-year-old son, Jonathan. But the day he was to leave to visit his sister in Peru, his passport hadn't come.

"There are two things I wish they would do," she said of the government. "The only really responsible party is the Passport Office. I wish they would be held accountable. And I wish they would staff more people. The whole system is ready to collapse."

Just which civil war are we in the middle of?

Sunni and Shia? Or Pentagon and State Department?

WASHINGTON, May 14 The U.S. Defense and State departments are in a "bureaucratic knife fight" over the best way to revive Iraq ' s economy, a published report said Monday. Pentagon officials said they believe reopening state-run businesses could reduce violence by employing tens of thousands of Iraqis. But State Department officials argue this is antithetical to free-market reforms, The Washington Post reported.

"There has been a surprising degree of venom and hostility" between the departments, a senior U.S. government official involved in Iraq policy told the newspaper. The dispute has become so pitched that Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Paul Brinkley has stopped working with the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and set up his office elsewhere in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

"We tend to not deal with them very often," Brinkley said of embassy officials. "We have our own mission, and we do our own thing." Brinkley also told the Post he expected several factories to reopen this summer.

By year's end, he said he envisions Wal-Mart stores selling made-in-Baghdad leather jackets and other U.S. retailers stocking Iraqi loafers, hand-stitched carpets and pinstripe suits, the newspaper said.

Excellent overview of the disaster

In getting passports. (Updates as well.) The State Department is understaffed, underpaid and swamped. Do not expect your passports in less than three months.

Wow, Georgie! Here's another fine mess you've gotten us into!