Oversight of Teams In Iraq, Afghanistan Faulted in Hill Report

The U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan through local reconstruction teams lacks clear goals, organizational structure and lines of command, according to a new congressional report.

Funding for the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which President Bush has called the leading edge of stabilization efforts in the two nations, is ad hoc and comes from so many sources that congressional investigators were unable to determine how much has been spent on the joint military-civilian teams, the report by the House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee says.

The subcommittee, which conducted a six-month investigation, recommends that the State and Defense departments develop a "unity of command" for the PRTs, as they are known, along with specific objectives and ways to ascertain whether they have been met. It also urges more intense and streamlined congressional oversight.

The United States has been in Iraq for five years "and in Afghanistan even longer," the subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), said yesterday. "If the current [PRT] structure was working well, we should have a smooth operation now. But we don't."

Rep. Todd Akin (Mo.), the subcommittee's ranking Republican, agreed. "The organizational structure is a little goofy," he said, adding that it had been "put together with glue and baling wire."

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U.S. Lacks Plan to Operate in Pakistani Tribal Areas, GAO Says

By Dan Eggen / Washington Post

The Bush administration has no comprehensive plan for dealing with the threat posed by Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding, according to a new report released yesterday from the research arm of Congress.

The Government Accountability Office also said "the United States has not met its national security goals to destroy terrorist threats and close the safe haven" provided by the tribal areas, despite having spent more than $10 billion for Pakistani military operations in the mountainous border region."

GAO staff members interviewed experts inside and outside the government, and "we found broad agreement . . . that al-Qaida had regenerated its ability to attack the United States and had succeeded in establishing a safe haven" in the unpoliced region, the report says.

U.S. intelligence officials have previously portrayed the proliferation of fighters in the Pakistani tribal areas as a central threat to U.S. security and have expressed frustration at the lack of progress there by Pakistan forces.

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Japanese Court Says Iraq Deployment Violates Constitution

Also see: Keep Article 9 in Constitution

A Japanese court said in a non-binding ruling Thursday(4-17-08) that the country's dispatch of air force troops to Iraq was unconstitutional, but the government said the deployment would proceed anyway.

Japan has about 210 air force personnel in Kuwait, from which they air lift supplies to U.S. led forces in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

The Nagoya High Court dismissed the case, saying that it could not rule on the plaintiff's demand for suspension of the deployment, but that the dispatch violated Article 9 of Japan's 1947 constitution.

Iranians Give U.S. Democrats Their Vote

Iran may be knee-deep in its own parliamentary elections but the contest taking place in the US is proving much more compelling for many locals, as they hope for an end to the policies that saw them labelled part of an “axis of evil”.

“In the US they have real democracy, not like here,” says Mehdi, sipping tea in his fabric stall in Tehran’s bustling bazaar. “So I’m very interested in watching their democratic process.”

For many Iranians, their parliamentary elections – which took place last month and will go to a second round on April 25 – are boring. With mass disqualifications of reformist candidates, it was a foregone conclusion that power would remain in conservative hands.

The US election, on the other hand, is anything but pre-ordained. Iran arguably has the most to gain from a Democratic victory: the Bush administration has targeted Tehran’s authorities, instigating a financial crackdown aimed at shutting them out of the international banking system, and the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is also considered an Iran hawk.

“The Democrats are much better than the Republicans – they have a softer policy towards Iran and they are more rational,” says Reza, a middle-aged man selling leather belts in the bazaar who like most Iranians did not want to give his full name because of sensitivities about political debate. “But the Republicans are all liars. They said they were bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq, but all they brought was death.”

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Netanyahu: Won't Honor Peace Deal If Elected

Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu has said if he is elected prime minister, he won't carry out any peace deal with the Palestinians reached by current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Netanyahu told the Makor Rishon daily that he would regard the election as a referendum on any such accord.

If Olmert doesn't win, "then you cannot cynically and manipulatively force upon the people a move they do not want," Netanyahu said.

Polls show that if elections were held today, Netanyahu would handily beat both Olmert and the Labor Party's chairman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Earlier Olmert had hinted at his strategy in the event of a future election by suggesting that a merger between the Knesset's two largest factions, Kadima and Labor, would be possible, the Israeli daily, Ma'ariv reported on Thursday.

In excerpts from the interview, Olmert said he did "not rule out" such unification.

On Saturday a Labor official said that such a merger was being negotiated, with the aim of blocking Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu from becoming Israel's next prime minister.

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Mental Health Injuries Scar 300,000 U.S. Troops

Some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries, a new study estimates.

Only about half have sought treatment, said the study released Thursday by the RAND Corporation.

“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Terri Tanielian, the project’s co-leader and a researcher at the nonprofit RAND.

“Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The 500-page study is the first large-scale, private assessment of its kind — including a survey of 1,965 service members across the country, from all branches of the armed forces and including those still in the military as well veterans who have left the services.

Its results appear consistent with a number of mental health reports from within the government, though the Defense Department has not released the number of people it has diagnosed or who are being treated for mental problems. The Department of Veterans Affairs said this month that its records show about 120,000 who served in the two wars and are no longer in the military have been diagnosed with mental health problems. Of the 120,000, approximately 60,000 are suffering from PTSD, the VA said.

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FBI Email says Bush Signed Exec Order Authorizing Torture

President George W. Bush’s comment to ABC News -- that he approved discussions that his top aides held about harsh interrogation techniques -- adds credence to claims from senior FBI agents in Iraq in 2004 that Bush had signed an executive order approving the use of military dogs, sleep deprivation and other tactics to intimidate Iraqi detainees.

When the American Civil Liberties Union released the FBI e-mail in December 2004 -- after obtaining it through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit -- the White House emphatically denied that any such presidential executive order existed, calling the unnamed FBI official who wrote the e-mail “mistaken.”

President Bush and his representatives also have denied repeatedly that the administration condones “torture,” although senior administration officials have acknowledged subjecting “high-value” terror suspects to aggressive interrogation techniques, including the “waterboarding” -- or simulated drowning -- of three al-Qaeda detainees.

But the emerging public evidence suggests that Bush’s denials about “torture” amount to a semantic argument, with the administration applying a narrow definition that contradicts widely accepted standards contained in international law, including Geneva and other human rights conventions.

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Big Companies to Compete for Iraq's Oil

Iraq, which pre-qualified international oil companies this week for the bidding, will open the southern fields of Rumaila North, Rumaila South, West Qurna and Zubair for exploration, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said in an interview in Brussels yesterday. In the north, international oil companies will be invited to develop the Kirkuk oil field and the Akkaz gas field.

"At least six giant fields will be included, including some gas fields," Shahristani said. "There will be other bid rounds next year, and more companies will be qualified as we go along."

Iraq aims to nearly double oil production to 4 million barrels a day in the coming years with the help of international companies, many of which have refused to invest in the country because of a lack of security and the lack of a federal energy law. No legislation has been passed because of disagreements over revenue sharing and oil-field development.

Iraq pre-qualified 35 of 120 U.S., European and Asian companies that submitted documents between Jan. 9 and Feb. 18 to participate in the licensing round, Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said Monday.

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, and Europe's two biggest, Royal Dutch Shell and BP, were among the 35, as were ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Total.

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FBI Abuse of "National Security Letters" -- New Revelations

When biochemist Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar was released from custody in Cairo in 2005, no one could have be more relieved than the vacationing former student and his family.

Falsely accused by British authorities for alleged links to the July 7, 2005 London transport bombings that killed 52 and maimed 700, el-Nashar was taken into custody in Egypt because he had casually known two of the suicide bombers. He had met them while obtaining a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Leeds. When freed, el-Nashar told the International Herald Tribune,

"The reason for suspecting me was because I specialize in chemistry. I am completely innocent," he said, adding that he planned legal action against British media that he said had defamed him. He did not identify the media. ("Egyptians Free Biochemist Who Knew 2 of the London Bombers," International Herald Tribune, August 10, 2005)

Released unharmed by Egypt's notoriously torture-prone Interior Ministry police, el-Nashar lived to tell the tale. But unbeknownst to the former North Carolina State University student there was a disturbing backstory to his arrest.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a damning report Tuesday documenting the FBI's abuse of the process for obtaining a National Security Letter (NSL) in connection with its probe of el-Nashar.

Incredibly, the Bureau delayed its own investigation in North Carolina "by forcing a field agent to return documents acquired from a U.S. university," Ryan Singel reports.

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U.S. to Expand Collection Of Crime Suspects' DNA

Policy Adds People Arrested but Not Convicted

By Ellen Nakashima and Spencer Hsu / Washington Post

The U.S. government will soon begin collecting DNA samples from all citizens arrested in connection with any federal crime and from many immigrants detained by federal authorities, adding genetic identifiers from more than 1 million individuals a year to the swiftly growing federal law enforcement DNA database.

The policy will substantially expand the current practice of routinely collecting DNA samples from only those convicted of federal crimes, and it will build on a growing policy among states to collect DNA from many people who are arrested. Thirteen states do so now and turn their data over to the federal government.

The initiative, to be published as a proposed rule in the Federal Register in coming days, reflects a congressional directive that DNA from arrestees be collected to help catch a range of domestic criminals. But it also requires, for the first time, the collection of DNA samples from people other than U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who are detained by U.S. authorities.

Although fingerprints have long been collected for virtually every arrestee, privacy advocates say the new policy expands the DNA database, run by the FBI, beyond its initial aim of storing information on the perpetrators of violent crimes.

They also worry that people could be detained erroneously and swept into the database without cause, and that DNA samples from those who are never convicted of a crime, because of acquittal or a withdrawal of charges, might nonetheless be permanently retained by the FBI.

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Pentagon Records Detail Prisoner Abuse by U.S. Military

By Lara Jakes Jordan / AP

Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, according to Pentagon documents released Wednesday.

Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, the documents show.

A 2006 Army review of the case concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."

The documents, which were turned over Wednesday evening to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.

The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.

The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged to slapping the detainees — a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school. SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.

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U.S. Secret Services in Between China and Tibet?

The Tibet images published by the CNN are simplistic: on the one hand they show the Chinese as the bad guys because they are communist; on the other hand we have the Tibet people, the Buddhists. But Comandante Fidel Castro warns that all that is but mere propaganda. The history of that Asian region discloses the truth, the old causes and disputes between the United States and China: the adhesion of Tibet to the Kuomintang to fight Mao and the Buddhist guerrilla under the command of the CIA.

Without some basic historical knowledge, the subject I am dealing with will not be understood.

In Europe, people had heard about China. In the autumn of 1298, Marco Polo told marvelous tales about an amazing country he called Cathay. Columbus, an intelligent and intrepid sailor, was aware of the Greeks’ knowledge about the roundness of the Earth. His own observations led him to coincide with those theories. He came up with the plan of reaching the Far East sailing westward from Europe. But, he calculated the distance with far too much optimism, for it was several times greater. Unexpectedly, between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, this continent loomed up on his route. Magellan would make the journey conceived by him, even though he died before reaching Europe.

Still, the voyage was paid with the value of the spices gathered, and the trip begun with several vessels, out of which only one returned, was a prelude of future colossal profits.

Since those days, the world began to change at an accelerated pace. Old forms of exploitation were repeated again, from slavery to feudal serfdom; ancient and new religious beliefs spread over the planet.

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Neo-Con Calls For Shredding Constitution, Imposing World Government

A recent Austin-American Statesman review of Neo-Con Philip Bobbitt's new book Terror and Consent features an image of a shredded Constitution under the words "Everything must go," which acts as a suitable entrée to a disgusting diatribe which praises Bobbitt's call for the end of America and its replacement with a de facto world government in the name of fighting terror.

The words, "How to Fight Terrorism" are in place of a torn piece of the Bill of Rights.

Reviewer James E. McWilliams describes Bobbitt as "a distinguished lecturer and senior fellow at the University of Texas and a law professor at Columbia University," but anyone with a basic grasp of what America's founders envisioned and what Ronald Reagan later termed the "shining city on a hill" would be more apt to describe Bobbitt - nephew of Lyndon Baines Johnson and former State Department counselor - as an enemy of the Republic.

McWilliams' fawning review of the book is intended to sucker in millionaire pseudo-intellectuals who think they are part of the elite by using mental gymnastics and brazenly contradictory statements in order to justifying the revolting underlying premise of the book.

As soon as we learn that the facade of Bobbitt's argument is to provide a solution "for fighting the wars that are bound to plague the 21st century," we're already safe in the knowledge that Bobbitt represents another chicken-necked warhawk who has already claimed ownership of the next 10 decades for his Neo-Con ideological fetish of imperial bloodletting and brutal domination.

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Government's Trumped Up Case Fails a 2nd Time

Judge declares mistrial in 'Liberty City 7' terrorism case

A judge has declared a mistrial in the retrial of six men accused of plotting terrorist acts with al Qaeda.

The decision comes after 13 days of deliberation and marks the second time government prosecutors have failed to convince a jury that the six defendants were guilty of terror-related charges.

It is unclear whether the government will pursue a third trial against the defendants.

The first trial ended in a mistrial last December after nine days of deliberations left a jury hopelessly deadlocked on the six defendants. A seventh was acquitted.

The defendants are known as the "Liberty City 7" because authorities say the men operated out of a warehouse in Miami's Liberty City housing project.

After their arrests in June 2006, federal officials said the homegrown terror plot may have included as its possible targets the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago -- the tallest building in North America -- as well as the FBI's Miami offices and other sites.

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Pentagon Wants to Fund Foreign Militaries!!

By Sara A. Carter / Washington Times

Pentagon officials are seeking authority, now held by the State Department, to oversee funding for foreign militaries.

The State Department agrees with the change, but some lawmakers are concerned.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday asked members of the House Armed Services Committee to approve the change.

"For a long time, programs like the State Department's foreign military financing were of minimal interest to the U.S. armed forces," Mr. Gates told the committee. "That our military would one day need to build large amounts of partner capacity to fulfill its mission is something that was not anticipated. ... The attacks of 9/11 and the operations that have followed around the globe reinforced to military planners that the security of America's partners is essential to America's own security."

Three years ago, Congress authorized a Defense Department pilot program, known as Section 1206, to train and equip foreign militaries for counter-terrorism or stability operations, along with another three-year program that allowed the State Department to redirect Pentagon funds for governance, training and equipping, and other stabilization programs.

Section 1206 "provides commanders a means to fill long-standing gaps in the effort to help other nations build and sustain" military forces, allowing the State and Defense departments to respond in months rather than years, Mr. Gates said.

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Diplomats Warned of Possible Mandatory Service in Iraq!

The State Department has warned U.S. diplomats that they may be required to serve in Iraq next year if there are insufficient volunteers to fill job openings there, U.S. officials said.

The possibility of "directed assignments" was first raised last fall, when State projected a shortfall of about 50 volunteers for positions at the Baghdad embassy and other locations in Iraq in 2008. Although those jobs eventually were filled without compulsory postings, the possibility of being forced to serve in a war zone caused deep unease at State.

Diplomats will be invited next month to bid on about 300 positions that will open up next year in Iraq, according to a cable sent to State employees and diplomats last week. With more than 700 State Department personnel, the Baghdad embassy is the largest U.S. mission in the world.

Although the next bidding cycle for worldwide diplomatic jobs does not officially begin until summer, State decided to move early on the Iraq jobs, said one official who was not authorized to speak on the record. The cable, first reported yesterday by the Associated Press, said, "We face a growing challenge of supply and demand in the 2009 staffing cycle."

As in the previous cycle, officials said that directed assignments -- which every officer agrees to upon entry into the Foreign Service -- would be necessary only if the number of volunteers falls short.

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FBI Fights New Curbs On Domestic Spying

The FBI is resisting legislation that would put more restrictions on domestic surveillance of Americans' private records, saying the agency already has tightened its rules to crack down on wrongful use of national security letters.

FBI General Counsel Valerie E. Caproni told a House panel that the agency has responded to abuses outlined in internal reports by tightening the requirements for issuing national security letters.

"In light of the FBI's tremendous progress in this regard, further legislative changes, including the measures envisioned by [Congress], would be neither necessary nor appropriate," Caproni testified to a Judiciary subcommittee.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are pushing legislation that would limit the FBI's ability to secretly collect reams of information on the bank, telephone, credit card and Internet accounts of private Americans involved in terrorism investigations.

Government Changes Position on Bisphenol A

By Lyndsey Layton / Washington Post

A federal health agency acknowledged for the first time yesterday concerns that a chemical found in thousands of everyday products such as baby bottles and compact discs may cause cancer and other serious disorders.

The draft report by the National Toxicology Program signaled a turning point in the government's position on bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical so ubiquitous in the United States that it has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of the population over 6 years of age.

Last year, another expert panel using outside scientists minimized the health risks of BPA, but its findings were widely assailed after a congressional investigation found that a firm hired to perform scientific analysis was also working for the chemical industry.

Used in the production of plastic since the 1950s, BPA may be linked in laboratory animals to breast cancer, prostate cancer, early puberty in females and behavioral changes, according to the study released yesterday. It called for more research into the chemical's health effects.

Although the National Toxicology Program, an office of the National Institutes of Health, has no power to regulate BPA, its findings are used by other federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, which set safe exposure limits for chemicals.

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Setting the Propaganda Stage for an Attack on Iran: American Hegemony Is Not Guaranteed

By Paul Craig Roberts

Exactly as the British press predicted, last week's congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Green Zone administrator Ryan Crocker set the propaganda stage for a Bush regime attack on Iran. On April 10 Robert H. Reid of AP News reported: "The top US commander has shifted the focus from al-Qaida to Iranian-backed 'special groups' as the main threat . . . The shift was articulated by Gen. Petraeus who told Congress that 'unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.'"

According to the neocon propaganda, the "special groups" (have you ever heard of them before?) are breakaway elements of al Sadr's militia.

Nonsensical on its face, the Petraeus/Crocker testimony is just another mask in the macabre theatre of lies that the Bush regime has told in order to justify its wars of naked aggression against Muslims.

Fact #1: Al Sadr is not allied with Iran. He speaks with an Iraqi voice and has his militia under orders to stand down from conflict. The Badr militia is the Shi'ite militia that is allied with Iran. Why did the US and its Iraqi puppet Maliki attack al Sadr's militia and not the Badr militia or the breakaway elements of Sadr's militia that allegedly now operate as gangs?

Fact #2: The Shi'ite militias and the Sunni insurgents are armed with weapons available from the unsecured weapon stockpiles of Saddam Hussein's army. If Iran were arming Iraqis, the Iraqi insurgents and militias would have armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles.

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FBI Caused Delay in Terror Case Ahead of Senate Testimony

Counterterrorism officials in FBI headquarters slowed an investigation into a possible conspirator in the 2005 London bombings by forcing a field agent to return documents acquired from a U.S. university. Why? Because the agent received the documents through a lawful subpoena, while headquarters wanted him to demand the records under the USA Patriot Act, using a power the FBI did not have, but desperately wanted.

When a North Carolina State University lawyer correctly rejected the second records demand, the FBI obtained another subpoena. Two weeks later, the delay was cited by FBI director Robert Mueller in congressional testimony as proof that the USA Patriot Act needed to be expanded.

The strange episode is recounted in newly declassified documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents shed new light on how senior FBI officials' determination to gain independence from judicial oversight slowed its own investigation, and led the bureau's director to offer inaccurate testimony to Congress. The revelations are likely to play a key role in Capitol Hill hearings Tuesday and Wednesday on the FBI's use of so-called national security letters, or NSLs

At issue is the FBI's probe of a former chemistry graduate student at North Carolina State University who was then suspected aiding the deadly attack.  The student has since been cleared of any involvement.

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