United States News Digest
Pentagon: 'Iraqi Casualties Really Don't Count'
A prominent White House correspondent has been attempting to find out how many Iraqis have been killed in the various U.S. operations since the official "end of hostilities" announced by Bush in his famous speech on the aircraft carrier. But the Pentagon hasn't even been counting the Iraqi casualties. In reply to the reporter's questions, a Pentagon spokesman explained: "We don't act unless we are provoked. And in those cases, the numbers of Iraqi casualties really don't count."
Army Mission in Iraq Won't Change After July 1 Turnover
Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham, the commander of Task Force Olympia, the 9,000 strong U.S. Army force that replaced the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad and at the Pentagon via satellite link, on March 9, that he does not expect his security mission to change very much after the July 1 handover of sovereignty to a new government in Baghdad. He said that he would still be getting his instructions from the coalition military headquarters in Baghdad, under the command of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. "I don't see that there will be a major shift in security operations post the 30th of June," he said.
McCain Says He Would Consider a Kerry-McCain Ticket
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said he would consider running for Vice President on a Kerry ticket. McCain was asked on ABC's "Good Morning America," on March 14, about what Associated Press characterized as "Democrats fantasizing about a bipartisan dream team to defeat President Bush."
"John Kerry is a close friend of mine," said McCain. "We have been friends for years. Obviously I would entertain it." McCain added that "it's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist hawk" for their ticket.
Senate Panel Holds Closed Briefings on Terrorism Matters
While several of the Senate committees have been holding high-profile, and confrontational hearings about Iraq and terrorism over the last two weeks, grilling senior members of the Bush Administration, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee quietly held a briefing March 9, on one of the most important policy issues: the "Transition in Iraq." Witnesses included Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Mark Grossman; the recently appointed Coordinator for Iraq Transition, Frank Ricciardone; and Lt. Gen. Claude Kicklighter, the Coalition provisional Authority's Coordinator of Transition.
One March 8, the same committee held a briefing on Saudi Arabia Cooperation on Counter-Terrorism (a controversial issue since the neo-conservatives in Congress and the Pentagon, back up by "Clash of Civilizations" ideologues, already have a Saudi Arabia "accountability act" in the works). This hearing featured a CIA briefer; Ambassador Cofer Black, who is the State Department's Coordinator for Counterterrorism; Juan Zarate, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury for investigations of terrorist financing; and FBI Counterterror chief, John Pistole. The Committee also heard testimony on anti-terrorist preparations for the 2004 Olympics. A pattern of this many closed briefings is unusual, and none of the testimony is available to the public.
Three 'Paintball' Defendants Convicted, One Acquitted
The final defendant in the so-called "Virginia Jihad," or the "Paintball" case, was acquitted on March 9, after a one-day bench trial in Alexandria, Va. The judge said that prosecutors had failed to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that Sabri Benkhala had fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan in the summer of 1999. The judge said that the government had proved only that Benkhala was "very interested in violent jihad."
Last week, three of the defendants were convicted on a number of counts, and acquitted on others. Another defendant was acquitted by the judge at mid-trial. The main evidence of connections among the men was their participation in "paintball" games, which the Justice Department says represented military training, in their case.
Of the 11 Muslim men (most of whom are American citizens) originally indicted, six pleaded guilty under the threat of decades-long prison sentences; they will probably end up serving only a few years in prison as a result of their guilty pleas. (This is the way that the Ashcroft Justice Department has obtained most of its convictions in "terrorism" cases. A number of them became witnesses for the prosecution against the otherswhich is also typical of Ashcroft's fraudulent legal "war on terrorism.")
The other five insisted, courageously, on going to trial, even in the face of long sentences. As a result of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws pertaining to weapons, two of those convicted are likely to be given sentences of around 50 years each. None of the defendants were convicted ofor even charged withinvolvement in any planned acts of terrorism against the United States.
As some of the defense lawyers, and supporters of the defendants have stated, the Justice Department vastly "overcharged" the case, throwing everything they could at the defendants, on the assumption that some of it would stickand it did, in the post-9/11 climate of anti-Muslim hysteria.
In a statement read for him, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned darkly: "Today, Americans get a glimpse of what is hiding in the shadows. Terrorists recruit, train, and finance jihad in America." And he boasted that the Alexandria case had produced the largest number of "terrorist" convictions in any single case to date.
Roche Drops Bid To Be Army Secretary
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been trying to get James Roche confirmed as Secretary of the Army, as a supporter of Rumsfeld's Revolution in Military Affairs. Rumsfeld dismissed Secretary Thomas White last year for his objections on the RMA. But Roche, currently the Secretary of the Air Force, is involved in the Boeing scandal, involving his effort to rent 100 Boeing 767s as tankers. The scandal involves an insider at the Air Force who negotiated the deal and then went to work at Boeing, but it also involves Richard Perle, who received a $20 million investment from Boeing for one of his private business ventures, and also wrote articles supporting the over-priced tanker lease deal, that was being whittled down by Congress.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) has been demanding that Roche turn over his e-mails on the affair, but Roche has refusedthereby losing his bid to become Army Secretary. He will remain as Air Force Secretaryat least, until the scandal blows up.
Wall Street Journal Defends Novak on Plame Leak
The synarchist Wall Street Journal, in a March 11 editorial, rose to the defense of columnist Robert Novak's "outing" of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. In addition to insisting that Novak didn't violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the Journal implied that successful prosecution of Administration officials would be difficult. And it attacked the criminal case, now being investigated by an independent counsel, as a "blow to a free press," blaming Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband who blew the whistle on the fraud of the Niger yellow-cake story, for instigating the probe.
The WSJ was responding to Wilson's lawyer, Christopher Wolf, who went on the offensive, blasting "the government's deployment of a newspaper columnist to attack administration critics." "Last summer, the administration (and your opinion pages) embarked on a campaign to impugn former Amb. Joseph Wilson because of his criticism," Wolf charged in a letter to the editor. "He was chosen as a target because he was the first to question the now thoroughly discredited administration claim that Iraqi-held WMDs existed and justified war. This campaign included the administration suggesting to Mr. Novak that one way to undermine Mr. Wilson was to implicate his CIA agent wife. Her identity was protected by federal law and naming her was wrong and probably illegal. For the Journal to wrap itself in the flag of journalistic privilege in the face of such misconduct," he charged, "appears facetious."
Indeed, the Journal's argument "is further undermined by the continuation of your personal attacks on both Mr. and Mrs. Wilson," Wolf added.
More important, said Wolf, "the Journal does "not even factor in the extent to which CIA operations may have been compromised by the administration-Novak gambit."
Moreover, the current special prosecutor may demand Novak reveal his source, if a testthat the information went "to the heart" of a case, and could not otherwise be obtainedis not met.
Kennedy: Nominations Don't Get Much Worse Than This
That's what Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) said, on March 11, in a statement explaining why he is opposed to the nomination of Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes, to become a judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.
As DOD General Counsel, Kennedy said, Haynes has responsibility for three policies which suggest that he lacks a commitment to the U.S. Constitution and to the separation of powers between the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches of the government. These are:
1. The refusal to treat any of the hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention;
2. The DOD's scheme for military tribunals, condemned by human rights organizations and America's closest allies; and
3. The indefinite detention of U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants," without access to a lawyer or judicial review.
Kennedy said that Haynes' record is particularly troubling because it is the Fourth Circuit to which Haynes has been nominated. "The Fourth Circuit has also increasingly become the Justice Department's preferred court on controversial cases involving the detention of foreign nationals and other civil liberties issues.... It's critical for this Committee not to confirm any nominee to that court who has shown a willingness to ignore the law in order to reach the results he wants."
Despite Kennedy's protests, the Judiciary Committee voted 10-3 to send Haynes' nomination to the full Senate. Six Democrats voted to "pass" on the nomination.
Hastert Vows Push for Large Highway Bill
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill) said Republicans will move ahead with a $275 billion highway and mass-transit bill next month, almost $20 billion more than the Administration has proposed. Hastert said he told Bush directly of the challenge at a face-to-face meeting March 10 at the White House.
Moreover, Hastert, who is usually the consummate White House team player, stated that he no longer was dealing with Bush's staff on the transportation issue, because of distrust created by the Administration's lack of honesty in negotiating. "We weren't getting straight answers from his people, and they changed their mind in the middle of the process," he declared in a striking display of frustration, at a March 11 news conference. "So we are going to do what we feel we need to do," he added.
|