Like all my blogs, this is a work in progress. I have many many thousands of pages of writings, articles and archived material from the past ten years which currently reside on hard drives and in boxes. My intention is to get all of this onto this blog in some form or other over the next few years.
Any entires that start looking rather good will be promoted to my main blog, Just Say Noam, and Twittered to death.
Until that day - please watch this space. Or not....

2004: War Continues


January 1st two members of the SAS were killed in a Baghdad car crash.
January 5th three US soldiers discharged for visciously beating and harassing Iraqi POWs .
January 6th two French nationals in Iraq shot and killed after their car broke down in Falluja.

Palestinians being killed in Nablus, west bank in an operation that began on 16th December 2003 to track down Naif Sharokh, who the army claimed was behind movement of suicide bombers from Nablus to Israel. By the 6th of January the army had killed four gunmen and fifteen unarmed civilians including six children.
Check names: Al Dawaya, 18th December, executed by army; Abdul Qassa, 25, 7th January, shot from 3 – 5 metres away while kneeling; Amra Sadija, secretary at ministry of education Palestine; Noam Hossfatter, spokesman for B’tselem; Bassam Eid, director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group; Tom Hurdall, 21, British student, shot in 2003.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/feb/01/israel 
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/1-8-2004-49237.asp

January 9th five killed, dozens injured by a bomb in a Baquba Mosque.
January 13th MP Joseph Darby gives army investigators a disk containing photos showing Abu ghraib prisoner abuse. The Pentagon is informed
January Rumsfeld learns of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse; tells bush shortly after.
15th January 30,000 of Iraqis took to the streets of Basra (and 100,000 in Baghdad) to protest. Their chant was "Yes, yes elections. No, no selections."But Bremer wouldn't budge and the UN backed him up. US have a dilemma – how can they assume that left-leaning Shia majority do not get control of the Iraqi government. The US wants the Sunni minority elite to rule Iraq.
January 16th US central command issues five-sentence press release about investigation into mistreatment of prisoners. Rumsfeld claims this is when he first learned of abuses.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani stepped in to force rethink on the Iraqi poll – January 17th 2004. The Shia want direct elections.
January 19th tens of thousands of Shia Muslims demonstrate in Baghdad to demand prompt elections.
Bush is now considering going back to France, Germany, Russia etc…..and withdrawing the ban imposed against them from bidding for contracts in Iraq. Now the US need their help – “back-pedalling”. Mid January.
January 17th US soldiers killed hits the 500 mark after roadside bomb killed three US soldiers and two Iraqi troops.
January 18th a suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck laden with 500kg of explosives at main gate of US hq in Iraq. Twenty killed and over a hundred injured.
Duraid Isa Muhammad, 27th January 2004, producer and translator for CNN; killed in ambush carried out by unknown assailants outside Baghdad.
January 19th Brigadier General Janis Karpinski is formally admonished and quietly suspended. General Sanchez orders investigation into Abu ghraib.
28th January the hutton enquiry whitewash was published.
January 30th 12 killed and 50 injured in two attacks by Iraqi “insurgents” in the north.

Pervez Mushouraf won vote of confidence from electoral college consisting of parliament and the provincial assemblies. This keeps him in power till 2007. de facto dictator January 2004

February 2004
Intellectuals Silenced
International studies in Higher Education Act of 2003 threatened academic freedom and the curriculum. Protesters who do not support US practices abroad can have their appointments terminated and any course curriculum containing criticism of US foreign policy can be censored, and any course deemed anti-American can be barred from the classroom. – Nexus, Project Censored.
Sixty of the US’s top scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement in February citing the ways the Bush administration has distorted scientific information “for partisan political ends” and calling for regulatory action. Project censored

The Law Made a Puppet
The Neo-Cons’ main vehicle to stack the federal courts with right wing judges: the federalist society of law and public policy, founded in 1982 by a small group of radically conservative law students at University of Chicago. DATE

Rise of Fundamental Christians
HR 235 – the houses of worship Free Speech Restoration Act. Referred to as a stolen right by the church lobby “prior to 1954, churches were free to speak out about any and every topic – without government limitations.” The “Johnson amendment” put a “gag over houses of worship” forbidding the church speaking on political issues. – “politically partisan”. The campaigners alleged that “Democrats make headlines standing in the pulpits of America’s churches…the IRS rarely opens an investigation to such clear-cut violations of the law in the more liberal churches.” Claims that it was against the 1st amendment.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php White House staffers taking two hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that “the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical and social struggle on every level”.
Apocalyptic Christains being consulted over Israeli policy?
http://www.nypress.com/17/41/news&columns/feature.cfm

Intelligence Wars
The awful truth that is now clear is that the Iraq war was not necessary and was based, in the Joint Intelligence Committee's own words, on "sporadic and patchy" intelligence which has turned out to be wholly false. Robin Cook, October 15, 2004, The Guardian.

Despite all the attempts to conceal the truth and punish or silence the opposition, bush’s approval rating slipped down to 47%. Those who thought bush should be re-elected were only 41%.

On February 1st the White House announced an inquiry into the use of intelligence before the war. In the UK a committee of MPs warned that the failure to find WMDs in Iraq had damaged the credibility of Britain and the US in their battle against terrorism.
At least 67 are killed and 247 wounded on February 1st when two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the offices in Irbil of the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.
On February 3rd Bliar bowed to intense pressure to agree to set up an inquiry to establish why Iraq appeared to be entirely devoid of any WMDs.
February 4th, Dr Brian Jones, a former branch head at UK’s Defence Intelligence Staff, admitted that intelligence chiefs ignored warnings that they could not be certain whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to war.
On the 5th, Tory leader Howard called for Bliar to resign over his admission that he did not know whether the controversial '45-minute' claim publicised in September 2002 referred to battlefield weapons or long-range missiles. Iraq's leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, survived an assassination attempt near his office in the central Iraqi city of Najaf.
February 8th In London, it was revealed that British intelligence staff 'spied' on members of the UN security council in the run-up to the crucial vote on a second resolution last spring.
February 10th A car bomb by a police station in the central Iraqi town of Iskandariya killed around 50 people and injured dozens more.

On February 11, Comcast surprised the media industry by announcing an unsolicited $66 billion bid for The Walt Disney Company, a deal that would have made Comcast the largest media conglomerate in the world.[32] After rejection by Disney and uncertain response from investors, the bid was abandoned in April.
It was later discovered that the deal was mostly for Comcast to acquire one of Disney's most profitable operations, ESPN, in an attempt to expand its sports reach.
It would have created a powerful rival to Time Warner and Murdoch’s News Corporation.
Source: Wikipedia                                                                                  Disney owns ABC   

Surveillance Europe
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, it was in 2004 that the EU decided to set up a security industrial complex – a military industrial complex to compete with the US version. From that came the need for a citizen database and ID Card – with one card comes everything.
In 1961 Eisenhower spoke of the MI Complex – and how it affected liberty
Brussells brought the UK into the system – technological capitalism had capability already but 9-11 gave it the green light. Using the exceptional to deliver the norm and then make them compulsory as well. It was a massive shift to the right in Europe – far right running Europe – including fascists and racists – such groups had over the years, disappeared into conservatives.

February 11th 47 Iraqis were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on an army recruitment centre in Baghdad. 
Within 24 hours the death toll of Iraqis working with US occupation forces reached 100.”
The plan remained to hand over power to Iraq government by June 30th 2004 .
US claimed that “foreign terrorists” are behind the bloody attack in Iraq. “way off the mark” according to Robert Fisk, in Indie, 12th Feb 2004, “almost all the suicide bombers who have immolated themselves…are Iraqis.” ..” to all intents and purposes Zarqawi is an Iraqi”…”both attacks targeted Shia and Sunni”.

The US is desperate to prove a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
America sets its sights on a new Public Enemy Number One. Musab Zarqawi, and “obscure and little known associate of Osoma”, real name Ahmed Fadil al-Khalaylah, associated with Ansar al-Islam movement in Northern Iraq. The US was now blaming him for the almost daily suicide bombings.” They claim he is trying to provoke a civil war in Iraq. He “is indeed inside Iraq” and “using exclusively Iraqi Sunni Muslim insurgents” and “despite what Washington would like the world to believe, he has no senior leadership position in al-Qaeda…impeccably reliable sources close to al-Qaeda say that bin Laden’s organisation wants to concentrate on the occupiers, their “collaborators” and foreigners in Iraq, not members of other Muslim communities.” Fisk claimed that Zarqawi was with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 2001 and participated in the final battles at Tora Bora.
The list of attacks that Zarqawi was supposed to be responsible for included ones in France, Germany, Israel, the British consulate in Istanbul – “al Qaeda sources scoff at this list”.
Fisk, 12th Feb.
Wikipeda - Doubts about his importance
Rumsfeld: "someone could legitimately say he’s not Al Qaeda

February 12th, insurgents in Fallujah opened fire on a convoy carrying the US senior commander in Iraq, General John Abizaid . February 14th Iraqi insurgents launched an organised raid on a police station in Fallujah , killing 23 fellow Iraqis seen as collaborators with the US occupation. The police compound came under attack by around 25 heavily-armed Iraqi fighters but provoked little immediate response from US troops.

Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani held talks with senior UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi at his home in Najaf. February 13th, following the talks, the UN indicated its support in principle for early elections but conceded that they were unlikely to happen with the current violence. The UN endorsed Washington's timetable for the transfer of power, on February 19th, and said that the elections should wait until after the handover on June 30th. But then, after the deputy police chief of Mosul was assassinated, US officials said the deadline for finalising Iraq's interim constitution, necessary before an Iraqi government would be allowed to take on full sovereignty, will not be met. The US-appointed Governing Council (IGC) announced the interim constitution on March 1st. Five key Shia members of the IGC refused to sign the interim constitution at the last minute, on March 6th and the scheduled signing of the document was cancelled. It was signed only after the country's leading Shia cleric stepped out of the row over its contents, on March 8th.  edit down: main bit is in March

February 15th two US soldiers were killed during a late night raid in Baghdad, hours after troops arrested a senior member of Saddam Hussein's former Ba'ath Party regime at his home in western Baghdad. Mohammed Zimam Abdul Razaq was number 41 on the US most wanted list. February 18th thirteen Iraqis are killed, and many civilians and coalition troops injured, in an apparent suicide attack when two explosive-laden trucks drive towards a Polish military camp in Hilla, a town south of Baghdad.
Saddam Hussein in Custody
February 16th Saddam Hussein is unlikely to stand trial for another two years, the Guardian reported. Salem Chalabi, claimed that a need to guarantee "due process of law" will delay the beginning of any trial.
Saddam was transferred to Iraqi jurisdiction (May 31st) - while remaining in US custody. No doubt the occupation forces and their Iraqi frontmen hope that a show trial of the former dictator will provide a theatrical distraction for Iraqis from the misery around them. By recalling the crimes of the Saddam regime, perhaps they imagine they can retrieve some retrospective justification for last year's unprovoked invasion. It is surely too late for that. In the wake of the revelations of the torture and abuse of prisoners by US and British soldiers, the last vestiges of moral authority have been stripped from the occupying forces, while domestic support for a war built on fabrication and deception is at an all-time low. Seumas Milne , Thursday July 1, 2004, The Guardian
February 19th two US soldiers and one Iraqi are killed by a roadside bomb attack on a military convoy in Khalidiyah, which is 60km (38 miles) west of Baghdad.
February 23rd, at least 13 people were killed when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a police station in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, in the Kurdish district of the city. Rumsfeld visited iraq
February 25th, insurgents assassinated the deputy police chief of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. – source: Guardian.
February 25th GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun demanded to be told why the case against her of disclosing information and breaking the Official Secrets Act collapsed after the prosecution offered no evidence.
February 26th Taguba report completed. It notes that, from October to December 2003, there were ‘sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses’ at Abu Ghraib.
February 26th Former minister Clare Short's made the claim that Britain spied on the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, ahead of the Iraq war. The issue was dodged as Short’s whistle-blowing was described as "deeply irresponsible" by Bliar. But the next day the Chief UN weapons inspector Blix said that he believed he had been bugged too.
Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski killed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Trajkovski in plane crash.
Libya lifted a 23 year ban on travel to the country.

UN spying row. Blix told the Guardian his UN office and home in New York were being bugged by the US, prior to the Iraq War in 1993, quoted as saying “disgusting… it feels like an intrusion into our integrity in a situation when you are actually on the same side.”
Clare Short claimed that US-UK intelligence bugged the office of the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan; transcripts of Annan’s phonecalls landed on her desk.
Blix had repeated trouble with his phone connections at his New York home. John Wolfe, US Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation, a fortnight before the war started, while debate still raged of WOMDs, presented Blix with two pictures of an Iraq drone and a cluster bomb, photos Blix said could only have been taken out of the UN weapons office. “He should not have had them.”
Boutros-Boutros Gali said he was suspicious and Richard butler, Blix’s predecessor, said it was “plain silly “ to think he wasn’t bugged.
An intelligence official told Aussie Broadcasting Corp that Blix’s mobile calls were routinely monitored from Iraq and transcripts shared by US, UK and Aus intelligence. Blix said he didn’t use his mobile in Iraq but more likely his New York calls were monitored. He was disappointed to find later that the Pentagon were briefing against him. All this broke the Vienna Convention.


Jack Kelly, US journo for USA Today, quit after admitting to fake stories.

Haiti
29th Feb 2004 Haiti’s President Aristide was forced into exile by the US military. US officials eventually admitted the kidnapping allegations – they were quick to discredit them and deny responsibility. US media just ignored it completely. PC 2005
Aristide later said he was forced out by the US (Indie 16/03/04). US troops were being shot at in poor areas. Aristide went back to Caribean from African “exile” taking offer of temporary asylum in Jamaica, 150 miles from Haiti. Gerard Latortue, the new PM, froze relations with Jamaica and recalled the ambassador. March 16th 2004.
Haiti has an almost non-existent economy, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Unemployment at greater than 80%; widespread malnutrition; contaminated water supplies; loyalty to Aristide in the slums was solid.

Bolivia
Amerindian-led protests resulted in the resignation of pro-US, pro freemarket President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.

At the end of February 2004 numbers of Israelis killed by Palestinians since the intifada began in October 2000 reached 920. No figure for Palestinians? A Hamas cell was arrested in Palestine including leader Fadal Taha – Ramallah.

March 2004
The US-appointed Governing Council (IGC) announced the interim constitution on March 1st. Five key Shia members of the IGC refused to sign the interim constitution at the last minute, on March 6th and the scheduled signing of the document was cancelled. It was signed only after the country's leading Shia cleric stepped out of the row over its contents, on March 8th.
After Iraq's US-appointed governing council announced the interim constitution there followed Iraq’s worst day of violence since the war’s end. On March 2nd, its majority Shia community was targeted in a series of attacks that killed as many as 223 people – in Baghdad and Kerbala, observer (21/03/04) said 171 died.
March 3rd the governing council vowed to forge ahead with political process as all sides try to stop blasts from aggravating conflict between Sunnis and Shias.
Who carried out these well organised attacks on Shi’ites? – clearly designed to provoke a civil war. Genuine Iraqi resistance denied it. It happened after western media chorused warnings of the ‘danger’ of civil war. When al-Sadr used his newspaper to denounce Mossad. CIA for these atrocities the US launched an all out war against him.

In early March, the US attempted to beef up security on Iraq's borders.
March 5th, former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix rubbished the government's argument that war in Iraq was legalised by existing security council resolutions.
March 6th Shia rejected the interim constitution, but it was signed on March 8th.
Sectarian assassinations on sunnis in Baghdad began from
In Israel, an opinion poll showed most Israelis wanted Sharon to resign. (March 6th 2004).
March 7th Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, who led Britain's forces to war in Iraq, reveals how Britain was on the brink of a constitutional crisis after he demanded 'unequivocal... legal top cover' before agreeing to allow British troops to fight.
March 7th. Sunnis in turn attacked Shia mosques and shrines “mosque blasts expose deadly power struggle” observer, 21.03.04.
March 10th lawyers acting for Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, succeed in preventing his advice to the government on the legality of the war against Iraq from being revealed in court.

Spain was attacked on the 11th March – may have backfired as it led to people voting socialist.
The coalition was stretched to breaking point. The right wing government in Spain fell to the electorate after the Madrid Bombings. On 21st March “Iraq: Blair and Bush seek new UN backing.” Observer.
Their was an attempt to push for a new UN resolution ‘mandating’ the continued military presence in Iraq after handing over to transistional government planned for June. Spanish pm Zapatero threatened to withdraw troops unless given a greater degree of legitimacy. Even Poland claimed it had been misled on the reasons for war.
Bombs
Major bombs in Madrid on 11th March 2004, killed 201. Jamal Zougan was arrested for the bombing 21.03.04 (Observer) “The Global Terror Network” which describes a network based entirely on mosques being visited and flats being shared. It claimed there were phone calls between Fazazi and Joumal Zougan the prime suspect in the Madrid bombings, recorded by security services in 2001.
Abdulatif Merroun, 24, was arrested. He was suspected of carrying out this bombing and the Casablanca bombing in May 2002. He worked at Heathrow airport as a manager for a Canadian airline. He was jailed for 5 years in Morocco.
It was alleged that he met Mohammed al-Fazazi in 1998, and travelled to Tangier to visit Fazazi’s mosque.
Merroun’s wife, Fatima Merroun, from west London, embarked on a campaign to free her husband who she said was innocent. He had merely acted as an interpreter once for Fazazi at Heathrow airport .
The Spanish linked Fazazi’s movement with the Madrid bombings ( & 9-11 via Hamburg mosque). Fazazi was in prison in Morrocco servinga 30 years sentence.
Salaheddine Benyaich, aka, Abu Muhgen, a veteran jihadi in Bosnia and Chechnya.

Mohamed Chaoui, Jamal Zougam and Mohamed Bekkali were blamed.
Morrocans with alleged 9-11 connections. A conversation taped in August 2001 between Barakal Yarkas (head of Al Qaeda in Spain) and Abdulak al-Magrebi “Jamal and his brother Mohamed Chaoui from Tangier” get a mention.
The ever drifiting story of the 9-11 plot now involved spain as well as Germany and Britain. Spanish AQ were supposed to have supplied money to Mohamed Atta who did visit spain in July 2001.
Spanish police held 5 suspects; 3 Morrocans, 2 Spanish-Indians: Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar – not formally arrested.

March 14th the British head of the ruling Coalition Provisional Authority in southern Iraq warned of serious inflation as signs of economic take-off emerged.

Ivan Rybkin, a challenger to Putin, disappeared for 6 days and then withdrew his candidacy in the forthcoming election. He said the contest was a “farce” and he had been subjset to “illegal”  pressure.  Rybkin claimed he’d been drugged and abducted by Russian security types but no evidence was produced.
Sergei Glazyev, another challenger, accused Putin of harnessing state resources in an attempt to ensure a 70% turnout and 70% of voters voting for Putin. March 6th 2004.
No surprise then that Putin achieved an election landslide on March 15th. The joint mission from organisation for security and cooperation in Europe and parliamentary assembly of the council of Europe said the election was dodgy. Even ColinPowell criticised it. So Putin pointed to florida in 2000. A state of emergency was called in Georgia and paramilitary forces threatened.

Adzharia crisis escalated on March 14th in Georgia – President Mikheil Saak'ashvili agreed to lift a blockade of oil-exporting port Batumi in return for more say in local affairs – a five day crisis threatened to spill into armed conflict.

March 16th a cross-party committee of UK MPs say in a highly critical report on the conflict and its aftermath that military commanders invading Iraq were hampered by poor intelligence and government fears about inflaming anti-war opinion.
Car bomb was defused outside US embassy in Pakistan on March 16th.
550 Al Qaida supporters have been arrested by Pakistani authorities since 2001
March 17th an explosion destroyed the Mount Lebanon Hotel in central Baghdad, killing at least 27 people and injuring 40, including two Britons. The blast, three days before the anniversary of the US-led invasion, left a crater 20ft across and 10ft deep outside the hotel.  The US blamed Ansar al-Islam group, masterminded by Zarqawi.
March 18th two more attacks in Iraq, underlining the worsening security situation as the coalition prepared to mark the first anniversary of the US-led invasion. US troops shot dead an Iraqi working for Dubai based satellite tv channel al-Arabiya and wounded his mate as they drove car through Baghdad. Three Iraqis working for a US funded TV station were also shot dead.

Ali Abdul Aziz, 18th March 2004, camaeraman for Dubai based al Arabiya TV channel; shot dead by US troops in central Baghdad.
Ali al-Khatib, 18th March 2004, al-Arabiya TV channel journalist in Iraq; shot dead by US troops in central Baghdad.

OBL’s deputy in Pakistan was cornered on March 18th. Egyptian born Ayman al-Zawahri in South Waziristan close to Afghan border – US special forces involved? US is preparing for a spring offensive to capture OBL.

Four UK citizens remained at Guantanamo Bay. Feroz Abbasi, Moazzam Begg, Martin Mubanga, Richard Belmar. And three UK residents. 600 prisoners in total. Four British former detainees released this year took decision to sue Rumsfled and other Pentagon officials for £22m on October 27th. Accused them of torture and inhumane  treatment. The suit was filed in Washington DC. Rhuel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, Safiq Rasul are the Tipton three. Jammal al-Hait was the other, from Manchester. The Lawyer is Eric Lewis. Tipton Three’s 115 page report described torture and abuse they witnessed at the camp. Lawsuit helped by NY based Centre for Constitutional Rights. They alleged that General Richard Myers chairman of the JCS and major General Geoffrey Miller, drew up guidelines of “coercive interrogation techniques” for dealing suspected terrorists.

Several assassination attempts against president Musharraf, the US supported, unelected, military dictator of Pakistan.

The Sunni and Shia Show


March 19th Arab journalists walked out of a Baghdad press conference given by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, in protest at the shooting dead of two of their colleagues by US soldiers.

March 22nd fourteen British soldiers are injured, three of them seriously, in Basra when hundreds of Iraqis throw stones and petrol bombs during protests about job shortages.
Ahmed Yassin was killed in an Israeli attack on 22 March 2004. While he was being wheeled out of an early morning prayer session, an Israeli helicopter gunship fired Hellfire missiles at Yassin and both of his bodyguards. They were killed instantly, along with nine bystanders.[6][23] Another 12 people were injured in the operation, including two of Yassin's sons.[citation needed] – wikip.
Defence minister Ze’ev Boim  had said that “Sheikh Yassin” is marked for death after a Gaza suicide bombing.

Professor Jarbawi: the assassination "is only the start, not the end of the process of targeting all leaders of Hamas."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0323/p01s04-wome.html

"This is part of Israel's disengagement plan. They want to leave Gaza and not leave a strong Hamas behind," Jarbawi says. But he stressed the assassination will weaken the Palestinian Authority. "It is also suffering from what happened Tuesday. In the perception of Palestinians in the street the authority is impotent, it cannot secure Palestinians. People are assassinated and killed and the authority has no reaction but to condemn this."
March 23rd nine Iraqi police officers and trainees died when gunmen sprayed bullets into a minivan in which they were travelling south of Baghdad near the town of Mussayab, as attacks spread throughout Iraq. March 28th Al-Hawza, a newspaper representing the cleric Moqtada Sadr, was closed down by the coalition for allegedly inciting violence against US troops. March 31st Four US contractors, employees of US Security firm Blackwater, are attacked in Falluja and their bodies burned, dragged by cars and strung up from a bridge by a mob. “After the killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, the marines besieged the city for three weeks in April - the watershed event for the insurgency. "I think the president ordered the attack on Fallujah," said General Hoare. "I asked a three-star marine general who gave the order to go to Fallujah and he wouldn't tell me. I came to the conclusion that the order came directly from the White House." Then, just as suddenly, the order was rescinded, and Islamist radicals gained control, using the city as a base .”
“In revenge for the killing of four American mercenaries – for that is what they were – US marines carried out a massacre of hundreds of women and children and guerrillas in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. The US military says that the vast majority of the dead were militants. Untrue say the doctors. But the hundreds of dead, many of whom were civilians, were a shameful reflection on the rabble of American soldiery who conducted these undisciplined attacks on Fallujah.” Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Trouble in the Balkans: Serbia– 1000 extra troops sent to Kosovo – 750 British. 2 million Albanians, 90% of the population and a small Serb minority in Kosovo. 23 dead – Lipjan in east Kosovo. 
Albanians attacked the finnish peace-keepers with stones and Molotov cocktails. On Wednesday 17th March 2004 gunfire across River Ibar. Fires were set on 18th. In Obilic Serbs fled their homes. UN spokesman Derek Chapell suggested attacks may have been orchestrated at same time all over Kosovo. Lt Col James Maran KFOR spokemsman was certain and said buses took protesters to different areas.
17,00 UN troops have been in Kosovo till now. UN interim Administration Mission in Kosovo UNMIK
1000s of Serbs and even more Albanians have rioted for 3 days.
Serbian elections in spring 2004 – ultra nationalist Serbian Radical Party are expected to win.

Bush and Pentagon at War
General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he had ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defence and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic." – Blumenthal

Former Treasury Sec Paul O’Neil, in January, caused a political storm when he lambasted the Bush administration for targeting Iraq when there was little evidence to link the country to al-Qaeda. Observer 21/03/04 by Kamal Ahmed.

Taiwan Election
21/03/04

Afghanistan
Operation Mountain Storm, allegedly to capture OBL, 21st March 04.

Uzbekistan – 29th March prosecuter General blamed al-Qaeda after series of bombings killed 19.
Chechnya – Pres Kadyrov and 13 others died after explosion at a stadium in Grozny.

The rich get richer
In the US wealth inequality continued apace – it has almost doubled over 30 years. In 1998 the richest 1% of households owned 38% of the nation’s wealth. The top 5% owned almost 60% of the wealth. In 2004 almost one sixth of the world’s population – 940 million people – “already live in squalid, unhealthy areas, mostly without water, sanitation, public services, or legal security. 
The US government is now “borrowing a billion dollars a day” marlow w cook. Starving the Beast.

The UN has been attempting to pass laws to keep corporations in order – see SchNews 453 – opposed by the business lobby – such as International chamber of Commerce and Shell.  look up

Trade Barriers
The US tried to force EU to drop trade barriers against gmos. Meanwhile the agricultural bio technology industry is focusing even more intently on developing countries, where regulations governing GMO use are more lax and biotech promoters continue to suppress studies that show GMOs may have adverse effects on health and the environment.

US Supreme Court made a ruling allowing Mexican trucks to enter US roads even if they didn’t meet US’s stringent emissions standards – cos of NAFTA as much as 30,000 Mexican trucks could enter the US. If the US banned Mexican vehicles on grounds of pollution it could be sued by Mexican companies – or US companies operating in Mexico. John w Warnock author of ‘The Other Mexico’ said “The new agreements are primarily about private investment rights.”.
“Shafted: Free Trade and America’s Working Poor” – book – www.foodfirst.org
PlanColombia and the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement.
Cheney’s industry-laden energy task force produced what can be boiled down to two main recommendations: “lower the environmental bar and pay corporations to jump over it”, writes Adam Werbach, executive director of the Commons Assets Defense Fund and former Sierra Club president”. Nexus, project censored 2005.
 “Iron wall of secrecy” around Cheney’s energy task force – two docs confirm that the administration’s foreign policy is being driven by the dictates of the energy industry. PC 2005.
Cheney providing tax payer dosh for companies that build new nuclear plants. PC 2005.
The American Nuclear Society claimed “waste from other energy sources is more dangerous than radiation” mark steel on US energy policy, Independent. He described just how the US Nuclear Industry is working to reinvent itself as a green project for a healthy environment. Blair too is suddenly recognising that Global Warming is happening and pushing for a solution. Part of this is to do with the greening of nuclear power industry –and it is known Blair is in favour of reviving this. UK government’s Dept of Trade and Industry once suggested that windpower could provide 40% of the UK’s energy. Those days are long gone.
In California Arnie Schwarzeneggar – the new Governor – was getting on with a plan to reorganise almost every aspect of state government. He was influenced by chevron Texaco who wanted “streamlining the permit process for the construction of new oil refineries” and “reorganising the regulatory process for…energy facilities” – associated press quotes.
Chevron Texaco was “one of about 20 companies that paid to send the governor and his staff to…Republican National Convention.” – has given over $200,000 to Arnie’s committees and $500,000 to the California Republican Party since the October recall election. Associated Press, 03/09/04, via PR Watch.
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September2994.html#

ExxonMobil Corp working to green itself – by promoting an alliance forged between itself and Earth 911 – a government/ private sector entity. “The partnership aims to educate consumers about the importance of recycling used motor oil.” ExxonMobil will get the right to slap Earth 911 logo on its branded products, and Earth911 will use the EM logo in its broadcasts. Earth911’s corp partners include HP, Home Depot, Aluminum Assn of Amercia, Vertex Energy. Exxon Valdez dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. – PR Watch, O’Dwyer’s PR Daily, sep 8th 04.

Global Food cartel – supermarkets and agribusiness are joining together and transforming into a powerful network of TNCs. By now they supplied at every stage of food production. As fewer corporations controlled food production traditional famring became a high tech form of serfdom. Lack of competition led to higher prices, lower choice and quality and also employee abuse.
WalMart? – international dicvision aims to become a global brand and monoplise the global retail market – establish 5000 to 6000 Wal Mart stores outside the US. PC 2005., Sonoma State University, Cal, USA, 04/09/04.

Shell and Ogoni in Nigeria. Dr John Huong  - Shell’s geologist Speaking Out. + Alfred Ernest Donovan.

The US held out against Kyoto while Russia hinting, in April that it will refuse to ratify, did in the end sign up.
Get date for Kyoto

In 2003 the UN’s world meteorological organisation reported unprecedented levels of extreme weather and climatic occurrences all over the world. PC 2005.
Unprecedented storms – Indie reported on the 5th September that two million were ordered to evacuate Florida on the 4th in what was the biggest evacuation ever. Hurricane Alex began in the Atlantic on 3rd of August and grazed the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Hurricane Charley devastated Florida in August – the 2nd most destructive US hurricane ever, after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. – prof. Gray of Colorado State University.
173 tornadoes reported across the US in August far exceeding the previous record of 126 set in 1979. 8 out of 10 years, including 2004, have had hurricane activity much above the last 55 years.
Hurrican on 16th September 2004.
In the Caribbean – Hurricanes Frances and Charley – and then Hurricane Ivan early Sep was the third major hurricane in a month. Storms caused by the Atlantic being unseasonably warm – Grenada hit. Then Jamaica, then Cayman Islands, then cuba, Gulf of Mexico, Florida.

Rights are Taken Away
The Justice Department made moves to repeal the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) – a 215 year old law originally passed to prosecute pirates for crimes at sea – because it threatened “important foreign policy interests” associated with TWOT. It had been the only way lawyers in recent years had been able to seek any justice for victims of the US’s foreign terror campaigns. Human rights lawyers have pursued 100 cases under the ATCA since 1980 ten years ago, victims began using the act to go after corporate profiteers too.” Nexus, project censored 2005.
Global Intelligence Working Group over seeing a new spy network – federal, state and local agencies have begun working as partners in collection and dissemination of intelligence information. Police depts receive increased funding for surveillance activity – COINTELPRO style instances of police infiltration of groups critical of government policies. PC 2005.

Chechnya – president Akhmad Kadyrov – backed by Moscow – said that 3000 ish people have disappeared in the Caucasus Republic since 1999.

An important US goal was achieved on March 29th – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia all joined NATO.

In Colombia, in March, seven police and four civilians were shot in Guaitarilla, Nari̱o Department, Colombia when they failed to stop at an army checkpoint Рevidence manipulated to try to show that police shot first.

April 2004

April 1st Abdul Qadeer Khan – top nuclear scientist – sacked probe into sale of nuke technology to Iran and Libya.
Iran being pushed into a state of internally oppression reformist MPs resigned.
In 2004,” Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld wrote that "The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy," particularly when they are under constant threat of attack in violation of the UN Charter. Whether they are doing so remains an open question, but perhaps so.” Noam Chomsky

Reza Yousefian “a totalitarian danger” Guardian council upheld ban on 2000 moderate candidates.
April 3rd Mustapha Yacoubi, an aide of Moqtada Sadr, was arrested on suspicion of complicity in a murder. The cleric's group denied his involvement.
April 4th demonstrations by supporters of Moqtada Sadr descended into riots in the Sadr city area of Baghdad, as well as in Najaf, Nasiriyia and Amara. Nine coalition troops and more than 50 Iraqis were killed; described as the worst unrest since Saddam Hussein fell.
April 5th Apache gunships struck against supporters of al-Sadr, who had attacked a US patrol in the Shuala district of Baghdad. Shia rise up in other towns including Basra, where gunmen loyal to Sadr occupied the governor's offices. Paul Bremer called Sadr an outlaw and vowed to put down the revolt. Falluja was surrounded by US.
April 6th, coalition forces fight Shia gunmen and Sunni insurgents on several fronts, with British, Italian and US troops involved in battles that killed dozens of Iraqis and at least 15 coalition soldiers.
April 7th the coalition lost control of several areas as the Sunni and Shia uprisings spread from Kirkuk, in the north, to Kut, in the south. Dozens died as bombs and missiles were used near a mosque in Falluja.
April 8th, widespread fighting left 460 Iraqis and 36 Americans dead in Falluja. Although the Indie says days of fighting in Fallujah left 600 Iraqis dead. Meanwhile, local militias took control of the cities of Najaf and Kut amid the Shia insurgency, and three Japanese civilians were taken hostage.
Robin Cook quoted figure of “350 women and children” killed.
April 9th Article 32 Hearing (military eqivelent of a Grand jury) for Sergeant Frederick.
April 9th nine US civilians were killed in a convoy near Falluja while further south the Shia militias fought on. Up to 200,000 Iraqi Muslims, many of them Shias, crowded into the precinct of Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque in the largest show of joint support against the US. Mike Bloss, a former British paratrooper, was killed while working as a security guard.
April 10th five civilians in Cajamarca, Tolima dept, Colombia, were shot dead by troops. They said it was a mistake – they were mistaken for guerrillas – this includes one six month old baby. “Ballistic tests indicated that at least one of the victims was shot from “less than ’60 cm’.” see also 15th June 2004. 
April 12th the US military vowed to "kill or capture" al-Sadr. A British civilian was released after a week.
April 13th The US gave up on its demand for the handover of the people who killed the four American mercanaries. Meanwhile, Dubya agreed to send more troops to Iraq.
April 14th An Italian security guard became the first hostage to be murdered. The Three Japanese hostages were released. It emerges Russia will evacuate 800 civilian contractors amid fears over security. OBL’s truce offer on the 15th. Gunmen killed an Iranian diplomat in Baghdad. Khalil Naimi was shot in the head, in his car, near the embassy. An Iranian envoy went to Najav to try to defuse the crisis over al-Sadr. Guardian continues to insist that Bliar wants “more softly softly negotiated approach but admits unrest serious in British controlled Basra”.
The UN Human Rights Commission rejected European Resolution that Moscow must do more to end abuses by its armed forces in Chechnya. Why? Cases of abductions, extra judicial killings and torture by Russian troops were cited. This was 3rd year running that China had escaped criticism too. 16th April 2004

In mid April car bombs in Basra killed around 80 people including kids.

Israel
Bush endorsed the separation barrier. No prospect of Palestinains recovering their freedom of movement and work. Palestinians comparing US action in Fallujah with Israel Operation Defensive shield in Jenin. Right of return for Palestinains has been ruled out by Bush, and illegal Israeli settlements to remain in place. EU wanted Palestinians involved in negotiations, not an unreasonable request.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_map_for_peace#Continuation_of_the_road_map
Bliar faced a backlash from Labour mps after offering support to proposals by Ariel Sharon to withdraw from Gaza but retain significant settlements in the West Bank without consulting the Palestinians. 15th April 2004.
Bliar wants to include Palestinians in final negotiated solution in line with the “road map” – according to Grauniad.
Sharon’s plans to remove 8,000 Jewish ‘settlers’ from the Gaza strip. He meant to preserve the status of almost 200,000 settlers in the West Bank. Demonstrations by previous Sharon supporters and demos in support by Israeli peace groups Peace Now and left wing party Yahad, end of October 2004.
GW praised “Sharon’s plan to steal yet more Palestinain land as a “historic and courageous act” Fisk  describes the illegal Jewish settlements in Gaza as “puny”…”vast areas of the Palestinian West Bank will now become Israel, courtesy of President Bush. Land which belongs to people other htan Israeli’s must now be stolen by Israelis because it is “unrealistic” to accept otherwise. “Palestinian land once included all of what is now Israel. It is not, apparently, “realistic” to change this, even to 2%?”
Sharon’s Knesset vote on 26th October 04. It left Sharon at odds with his own party and regarded by settlers as a traitor. US state Department called this ‘progress’ and a ‘return to the political process’.
Twelve people in Khan Uris killed by Israeli forces. October?
Arafat died in Paris on 11/11/04 amid predictions of doom for Palestinians. But bizarrely, once he died the media took up the line that Palestinians would be better off now Arafat is dead. They generally blamed Arafat for blocking peace talks. Some news reports implied unknown cause of death.
Will the US make capital of the new situation?

April 16th, five foreign hostages were freed but two more seized, and the resistance efforts claimed about another 30 lives as US officials struggle to conclude negotiations to halt the violence. Bliar met with Dubya to draw up a plan for Iraq and the Middle East.

“A year after ‘liberating’ Iraq President Bush will keep discussing the continuing US presence in terms of ‘waging a war’, ‘staying on the offensive’ and ’defeating the enemies’.”
“General Ricardo Sanchez is massing troops with the stated intention that he will ‘kill or capture [Muqtada] Sadr’ who ‘has taken refuge in the shrine at Najaf’ and ‘storming it would be the equivalent of attacking Canterbury Cathedral.” Robin Cook, Friday 16th April, 2004, guardian?
April 18th paramilitaries killed at least 12 people and tortured some – abducted several – Wayuu People in Bahja Portete, La Guarjira, Colombia.
April 19th there was progress in the talks with leaders from the City of Falluja. John Negroponte was named ambassador to Iraq, to replace the chief administrator, Bremer, once the transfer of power is complete on June 30.
Same day Bush backed Sharon’s demands to keep hold of parts of the west bank and refusal to grant Palestinian refugees the right of return to lands inside Israel. The Arab League condemned this. Strong condemnation from the Arab world – Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak gave the plan qualified approval.

April 20th supreme court hears arguments on the Guantanamo detentions.
The US military was on the brink of striking a deal with al-Sadr, after two days of secret negotiations. Meanwhile, 22 prisoners died in a mortar attack on a Baghdad jail.
Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, attended a memorial service for the Gaza group’s assassinated leader Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi (Rantissi?) on 17th April. Rantisi took over from Ahmad Yassin who was assassinated on 22nd March 2004, and survived an assassination attempt by Israel.
Meshaal called for an Arab and Muslim coalition to “defeat both the US and Israel.” Mahmoud Zahar was tipped to become leader of Hamas. The Israeli army fired missiles at his car – two others including Ratissi’s 27 year old son Mohammed were killed. The US and UK weakly protested.
April 21st At least 68 people, including Iraqi police recruits and children on a school bus, were killed in a series of bomb attacks in the British-controlled city of Basra. A Danish businessman who’d been kidnapped was found dead, and fighting flared again around Falluja.
Car bomb attack in Riyadh. Four killed, 148 injured, outside the national police HQ. Richard Armatage and Saudi Foreign minister Saud al-Faisal missed being the target by 30 minutes. “Confusion surrounded the exact circumstances of the bombing.”
Former head of Indonesian armed forces, General Wiranto, nominated as presidential candidate – by Golkor Party, Suharto’s party. He’d been indicted by a UN backed tribunal in 2003 for alleged crimes against humanity – Wiranto failed to stop the violence in East Timor in 1999, nearly one thousand killed when soldiers and militia ran amok.
April 22nd – Cheney visited China in mid april to put pressure on north korea over nuclear arms. In the 1980s North Korea turned against china (capitalist reform) and turned to the Soviets.
Legislation to fix Florida’s electoral system had failed to address issues or broken down due to missed deadlines and unmet funding targets. According to report by US commission on civil rights.
68 killed in Basra. US say Jordanian Islamic militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi did it and managed to produce a letter from him to al Qaeda!
Sadem Chalabi, US educated lawyer, director general of special tribunal set up yop try Saddam some time in 2005 probably
April 23rd, the US administration in Baghdad said it will begin hiring former Ba'ath party members and senior army officers as it relaxed some of the key ideological concepts behind the past year's occupation.
April 24th, a series of explosions ripped through one of Iraq's main oil facilities in one of the most daring attacks by Iraqi resistance groups to date.
£288m pledged by US and UK in aid if they accept UN  plan. 24th April referendum. Answer: No.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus_dispute
Americans accused of heavy handedness (never!) on 24/25th of April. Al Qain, on the Syrian border, US marines killed at least 31 including the city police chief, two women, a seven year old boy and five month old baby. 47 wounded.
25th April – attack on UN hq at Canal hotel killed Sergio de Mello, UN envoy.
April 26th, aid agencies warned that the Geneva Convention is being breached in Falluja, amid serious concern about the safety of civilians in the city where at least 600 people have been killed by coalition forces.
April 27th, the withdrawal of reconstruction workers because of deteriorating security has left work almost at a standstill, risking summer power cuts, coalition officials say.
Against the wishes of US Marine Commander Lt Gen James T Conway, Rumsfeld insisted on a punitive attack on Fallujah.
“In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in retaliation for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater employees.”
 “US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around.”
April 28th US warplanes pound Falluja with 500lb laser-guided bombs and marines battle with insurgents on the ground while commanders in Baghdad insist a ceasefire is holding.
April 29th US forces announced an end to their siege of Falluja, saying they will pull out immediately to allow a newly-created, Iraqi security force to secure the city. The hastily formed ‘Fallujah Brigade’ which took the American arms, equipment and training, and handed them over to the resistance.
 “The operation was a failure, with US troops eventually handing the city back to resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was that the siege had sparked uprisings across the country, triggered by reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed. This information came from three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw.”

Tami Silicio took a photo of the coffins of US servicemen being carried on a cargo plane – this upset the Pentagon and got her and her husband fired. 22 coffins in the carghohold filled the frame. Silicio was working for the defence contractor that shipped the bodies home.
www.thememoryhole.org obtained more than 300 pictures of coffins under the FOIA. The Pentagon stepped in and said their release was a mistake.

Prisoners were being tortured and sexually abused at Abu Ghraib prison. The first photographs appeared on April 29th on CBS news. On april 30th the Daily Mirror published photographs that ultimately turned out to be expertly put together hoaxes – on May 14th. The question of who put the Mirror picture together was never asked, but is it beyond credibility to ask whether the British establishment used it as a bait to get Morgan off the Mirror, which had been a thorn in the side of the government for some time? But the issue didn’t go away.

Bin Laden’s Truce offer
He said on a tape: “which religion considers your killed ones innocent and our killed ones worthless?” Linked to occupied Palestine and the Zionist lobby, “we vow to take revenge for the killing of Sheikh Yassin” killed by Israel. Bin Laden offered a truce in exchange for withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
Italian private security contractor executed on 14th April, and kidnapping of Japanese civilians.
Straw, Foreign Sec, said the al Q’s leader’s offer should be treated with contempt. – “This is a murderous organisation which seeks impossible objectives by the most violent means and has said…that whilst we love life they love death.” Bollox.
Spain, Poland, France also dismissed the offer. The CIA authenticated the tape. OBL “believed to be hiding somewhere on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

May 2004
Three Egyptian fishermen living in Italy arrested charged with planning a terrorist attack on US interests in Italy. They denied plans to attack an American cemetery and a McDonalds. They said TNT found intheir home had been planted – May1st, Indie.
It also emerged that 7 alleged terrorists killed in March 2002 by police in Macedonia was staged to win US support. The men were innocent immigrants from Pakistan. Those murderers facing charges along with former interior Minister Ljube Boskowski – reported by Indie, May 1st 2004.
Torture of Prisoners Scandal
See Wikipedia entry “Bagram torture and prisoner abuse”
Documentary: Taxi To The Dark Side
On May 1st secret reports accused US army leadership of failings at the highest levels. Soldiers were disciplined on May 3rd. On May 5th GW made apologetic broadcast to Arab viewers. More photies appeared on May 6th in the Washington Post. On May 7th Rumsfeld faced allegations at a Senate grilling that maltreatment of Iraqi detainees is widespread and systematic.
On May 10th Iraq’s first human rights minister Abdel Bassat Turki,told the Guardian that Bremer was warned in 2003 that US soldiers were abusing prisoners. Blair denied any knowledge of abuses, Hoon was criticised regarding a Red Cross report into abuses and admitted UK forces broke the law when the forcibly placed hoods over captives in 2003.

As well as the anonymous nature of the attacks, and the absurd explanations of the coalition, there’s the fact that “there are five times as many US agents tracking the movement of illegal money…[to] Fidel Castro as there are investigating the flow…to OBL and Saddam Hussein, Indie, May 1st 2004.
Fallujah was pounded nightly with warplanes and helicopter gunships – the US claimed they had killed various associates of Zarqawi in a ‘precision strike’ and however many innocents - women children and elderly.
US Marines handed control of Fallujah to former Saddam era General Jasim Mohammed Saleh. “The US says foreign fighters it insists played a leading role in the resistance may have gone to the other parts of Iraq”. May 1st, Indie.
May 2nd – Referendum – Likud Party
May 6th Six Iraqis and one US soldier are killed when a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint on the edge of the US administrative zone in Baghdad. A new recording attributed to Osama bin Laden offered rewards in gold for killing senior American and United Nations officials or citizens of any country that has troops in Iraq. May 11th Nick Berg, a US hostage in Iraq, is shown being beheaded by Islamic militants in a video released on a website sympathetic to their cause. His killers claim the execution was to avenge the abuse of Iraqi. May 12th US congress see more photos of abuse 1,800 new pictures.
May 13th Rumsfeld visited Abu Ghraib prison. Rumsfeld arrived in Iraq on a surprise visit aimed at boosting troop morale in the wake of the prison abuse allegations. The Guardian reported that ministers and Labour backbenchers urged Bliar to recalibrate his approach to foreign affairs and publicly detach himself from the Bush administration. Bliar was urged to loosen ties with the US.
http://www.taxitothedarkside.com/taxi/

May 17th, the head of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed in a suicide car bombing as he waited in his vehicle at a US-controlled checkpoint.
May 17th The New Yorker magazine claimed Rumsfeld personally authorised the expansion of a special programme which ultimately led to the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison.
May 19th Iraqis claimed more than 40 killed in US helicopter attack as a US soldier is sentenced to one year in prison in the first court martial relating to events at Abu Ghraib prison.
Leaked e-mail – White House staffers took a two hour meeting with Christian fundamentalists – apparently the Nat Sec Council’s “top Middle East aide consulted with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.” – Rick Perlstein, Village Voice, http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php May 18th 2004.
Paramilitaries killed eleven peasent farmers in Tame, Arauca, Colombia.

May 20th, Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon's one-time protégé, was humiliated when US officials and Iraqi police ransacked his private office in Baghdad. He’d been denied a senior role in the future government. Washington also discussed cutting off $340,000 monthly stipend to chalabi’s INC party, accused of using money to lobby in the US.
Chalabi, accused of being main source of dodgy WMD intelligence, and had denounced US decision to return former Ba’athists to office. His key role in the walkout of shia parties which caused delay in signing Iraq’s interim constitution caused him to be labelled as a “troublemaker”. Nepotism was rife under his rule.

May 23th testimony puts Gen Sanchez on the spot. Commander of coalition forces witnessed prisoner abuse, lawyer claimed.

May 24th , US launched an inquiry into Tehran's role in starting conflict as top Pentagon ally Chalabi accused of passing information. The Bush administration tries to erase the recent shameful images of postwar Iraq by saying it would demolish Abu Ghraib prison, and discipline its commander.

May 25th, Bliar falls out of step with the US on post-handover security arrangements, as Washington replaces its most senior general in Iraq over the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib.

May 26th the New York Times admits its coverage in the run-up to the Iraq war was 'not as rigorous as it should have been', while Downing Street denies claims that Bliar is at odds with GW over the extent of the new government's control of coalition troops.

May 28th the 25 members of Iraq's US-appointed governing council choose a former Ba'athist turned CIA supporter to serve as the country's interim prime minister after the June 30 handover - Allawi.

Allawi
“Iyad Allawi is well known for his former connections to the CIA and MI6. He was a member of Saddam’s Baath Party” and repeated claims that Allawi executed six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station.

The US vice president, Dick Cheney, campaigning in Ohio yesterday, again repeated allegations that Saddam Hussein had harboured al-Qaida and other terrorists, and connected the Iraq war to the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. He said the US had a "similar situation" in Iraq to the one it encountered in Afghanistan when the Taliban were sheltering al-Qaida, and insisted Saddam had "provided safe harbour and sanctuary for terrorists for years". A US commission that investigated the September 11 attacks cited contacts between Saddam's regime and al-Qaida, but said there was no "collaborative operational relationship" before the terror strikes. – sep 9th 2004, Gaurdian.

Find out about Porter Goss – a Florida Republican tapped by GW to the CIA
Did armed services committee hold a hearing specifically about ghost detainees?

British lawyers taking more than 40 cases of alleged abuses and killings by UK troops in Iraq, 12/09/04
Iraqi lawyer shot in chest as he reached for his firearms license – Hassan al-Battat. Trooper Kevin Williams murdered Hassan Said. Hotel receptionist Baha Mousa was beaten to death, hotel staff and managers were tortured. Armin J Cruz – a US soldier – was jailed in spetember. Uday Koreem Khalad was killed by a British soldier after accidentally hitting the soldiers leg with a car door. He was shot, dragged from the vehicle, beaten repeatedly about the head. Hussin Alaa Abid was shot dead while playing football – hit by stray bullets. His cousin Hazim Jum’aa Gatteh al-Skeini, was shot while at a funeral.

Staff seargent Ivan Frederick was court-martialled on October 20th, guilty on four counts after plea bargaining got him off others.

Al-Sadr had virtually no support from ordinary Iraqis in April , but by June a poll showed 67% of Iraqis were backing him in his battle against the US forces. A magnificent achievement by the coalition forces!

June 2004
George Tenet resigned for “personal reasons” on 3rd of June, and so did James Pavitt – the man who ran CIA’s day to day counter terrorism operations. ? Magician John E McLaughlin took over for a bit.
Candidates for post – Porter Goss, director of CIA; joe Lieberman, former VP and P candidate; tom Keane, former NJ Governor and head of 9-11 commission.
Eventually he was replaced by former Soviet analyst Robert Gates.

Saudi Arabia – oil workers taken hostage in Khobar – 22 died.

GW is a Very Naughty Boy
June 4th The Pope subjected Dubya to a very public, relentlessly critical assessment of the US administration's performance in Iraq, attacking "deplorable" abuses of prisoners and calling for an international solution to the country's crisis.
Marvin Heemeyer’s Homemade Tank Attack
Reagan died on 5th of June. Cue great piles of cheesey sentiment and out and out bullshit.
11th June Paul Johnson kidnapped in Riyadh – headless body posted on internet.

9-11 Commission
June 16th, the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks found "no credible evidence" of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida, contradicting GW’s assertion that such a connection justified the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Next day George Bush responded by insisting there were links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
The initial report came out on June 16th
Thomas Kean, Rep Gov of New Jersey, chairman
The victims relatives hired an investigator called Jean Charles Brisard – JCB Consulting.
Rice didn’t want to talk to the commission panel, but happy to talk to CNN. A compromise ws reached wherby she joined Bush and Cheney in testifying in secret.
According to Washington Post Rice’s “flurry of media interviews and statements” have contradicted other administration officials and her own previous statements.” New York Times c/o PR Watch.

G8 Summit on June 8th – Sear island Georgia.

Negroponte in – Bremer out
US officially ended its occupation of Iraq, on June 30, but much of the handover was symbolic.
Bremer who was the US's administrator in Iraq, went, and Negroponte, arrived as Iraq’s ambassador. His embassy will be the biggest in the world. Even though the Guardian and the Observer tried to paint a rosy picture of Negroponte’s appointment – there was only limited scope for positive spin on the career of a Washington appointed terrorist in chief.

See Irangate for Negroponte’s “role in the 1980s, when he assisted the rightwing contras of Nicaragua in their illegal war against the Sandinista government when he was ambassador to neighbouring Honduras.”
“At the time, the Central American country, used as a base for attacks against leftwing groups, was known as "USS Honduras". Before he took up his present job, representing the US at the UN, he was forced to deny allegations that he turned a blind eye to human rights violations, including death squads, in the region.”
During his tenure the CIA taught interrogation techniques to the Honduran police and US military aid rose from $3.9 million to $77.4m. The controversy did nothing to harm Negroponte's rise. He went on to serve in Mexico, Panama and the Philippines, before being called by George Bush to the UN job.
Powell ally - “his appointment was championed by Colin Powel…“It was also Mr Powell who put him up for the UN job.”
“At the UN, his posting since 2001, he worked to expand the role for international security forces in Afghanistan after the Taliban fell .
 He was nominated as US ambassador to the UN in 2001, his confirmation was delayed for six months as senators complained about his record as ambassador to Honduras – Paul Harris, Observer .
It was then his Honduran years seemed to catch up with him. But the spat over his nomination ended after 11 September.
“As the US ambassador to the UN, he steered resolution 1441 - the one that sent weapons inspectors back to Iraq - to unanimous approval, and was present for most of the wrangling over Iraq before and after the war.
“Negroponte became the public face of the US diplomatic effort in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. In 2002 he helped to draft Security Council Resolution 1441, which gave Baghdad one last chance to disarm. It passed unanimously, but the White House failed to get a second resolution giving a UN blessing to war in Iraq. Elsewhere, he continued his hard-headed work of furthering US interests. He vowed in July 2002 to stop US participation in peacekeeping missions if the International Criminal Court did not exempt Americans from prosecutions.

What were the priorities for the humanitarian occupying force – get the hospitals and schools working? Fix up the most used roads? Make the streets safe? Provide leccie and gas? For the US needs were different. First, radically rework the Iraqi economy, what had been trying to achieve by negotiation (in heavy handed manner of school bully) it could achieve in Iraq by military intervention. Unbridled capitalism was the goal not a bit like capitalism you’d find in a western democracy, not even in the USA. Sep 19 2003.

When Bremer left 100 “orders” were left in place. Order 81: on “patent, industrial design, undisclosed information, integrated circuits and plant variety” amended Iraq’s 1970 patent law.
It undermined the old unregulated, informal seed supply system; farm saved seeds, free innovation with an exchange of planting materials. Seeds farmers now allowed to plant “protected” crop varieties briguht into iraq by transnational corporations in the name of agricultural reconstruction will be the property of the corporations.
It will “facilitate the penetration of Iraqi agriculture  by the likes of Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and dow chemical – the corporate giants that control seed trade across the globe.

Planned July escalation by coalition forces

Patrick Cockburn, independent, 25th April 2009
The most frustrating moment for me and many other reporters came as the war escalated in 2004. It soon became clear that the US-led occupation forces controlled only islands of territory and their military position was deteriorating. But George Bush and Tony Blair were able to maintain that the war was confined to only four out of 18 provinces of Iraq and the extent of the violence was being exaggerated by the media. This was quite untrue, but journalists could not disprove it because if we ventured into these supposedly pacific provinces we stood a good chance of being kidnapped or decapitated
All this was very different from being a reporter in Lebanon during the Israeli invasion 20 years earlier. It might be dangerous but it was often safer to be a journalist than anybody else. The most ferocious Lebanese militias issued press credentials which usually preserved one from harm by their fighters. But in Iraq journalists were fair game for kidnappers or casual killers. This limited the extent to which journalists could leave their hotels, though it was still possible with extreme caution. I used to travel with two cars, the job of the second one being to see if we were being followed and, if so, tell us immediately so we could dodge down side streets and escape the car thought to be interested in our movements.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-how-well-was-the-iraq-war-reported-1674011.html

June 1st, the governing council named a tribal leader as president of the new government, after the US-backed candidate refused to accept the post. June 7th, Americans and Mahdi army quit Najaf amid new releases from Abu Ghraib but the violence continued. The US dropped call for Sadr's arrest in a peace deal. June 8th, Iraq's new government was given international legitimacy by a UN security council vote to support the transfer of sovereignty from the US-led occupation. 15 people were killed by car bombs in Baquba and Mosul. On June 9th, Bliar and GW issued a joint call for greater NATO involvement in Iraq. France rejected the plan. In Iraq, 12 resistance fighters and former members of Saddam's army were killed in Falluja. June 10th, European, local and London mayoral elections were held in Britain in the largest test of electoral opinion since the war. The Liberal Democrats and the Respect coalition stood on an explicitly anti-war agenda. June 12th, gunmen killed a top Iraqi diplomat in the first high-profile assassination in the country since an interim government took over on 1st June. More than a dozen people were killed on 13th, including a senior government official, in a wave of attacks on Iraqi politicians and security forces in Baghdad. June 14th a car bomb ripped through a convoy of vehicles carrying western contractors in central Baghdad, killing at least 13 people.

On 15th June, 34 peasent farmers in La Gabarra, Norte de Santander department, Colombia, were “executed” by scores of armed men. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were blamed by press reports. See 10th April 2004.

June 16th, the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks found "no credible evidence" of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida, contradicting GW’s assertion that such a connection justified the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Also, the political handover is dealt a blow as insurgents wreck pipelines and assassinate a top oil industry executive. Vital oil exports halted after sabotage.
June 17th Iraqi PM vowed tough action after a suicide attack on an army base... June 20th Military police investigated claims that British soldiers mutilated the bodies of Iraqi insurgents after a firefight near the southern Iraqi town of Majar al Kabir. The allegations were contained in official death certificates written by Dr Adel Salid Majid, the director of the hospital in Majar al Kabir on May 15, the day after the battle. UK troops accused of mutilating Iraqi bodies. June 22nd the body of a South Korean hostage in Iraq killed by his captors was found between Baghdad and Fallujah, the South Korean government confirms. Hostage beheaded. June 24th there were coordinated car bomb and grenade attacks in several Iraqi cities, killing at least 69 people and injuring 270 in one of the worst days of violence since the “end of major combat”, in May the previous year. June 28th Iraq's US-led administration transfered sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government in a surprise move two days ahead of the scheduled handover. Bremer signed over control of the country and responsibility for dealing with its escalating security troubles to the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, in Baghdad.
The CPA leadership disbanded 3 days ahead of schedule and transferred power to the newly appointed Iraqi Interim Government at 10.26 am on June 28th 2004 – due to civil unrest. Bremer left Iraq the same day.
– the plan came from UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – for a caretaker government which Washington accepted.
June 29th Saddam Hussein to be shown in public for the first time since his capture, it was announced. Allawi, Iraq's new interim prime minister and the man whose failed coup in 1996 ended in the torture and execution of scores of his co-conspirators by Saddam's regime, says the former tyrant and 11 others will be charged with a series of crimes.
“Faced with the record of over 1,200 civilians killed in Iraq in the last three months, more than 1,000 Iraqi policemen in the past year and nearly 1,000 occupying troops over the same period, Colin Powell pleaded last week that the US had "underestimated" the scale of the insurgency” Seumas Milne. – end of June.

100 americans killed this month (up to 25th) which was highest mortality so far – 900 injured, 600 seriously. Fewer than half the 135,000 US soldiers in Iraq are on active duty. Death toll is ‘significant’.

July 2004
There were atrocities against civilians – the Karboda bombing in March for example – but these were associated with Zarqawi “whose real role is the subject of much speculation among Iraqis.”, Seumas Sime, July 1st 2004.


Handover of Power
As Robert Fisk said: “Yes, I can well see why George Bush wants to witness a “handover” of sovereignty. “Our boys” must be out of the firing line – let the Iraqis be the sandbags.” – Independent.

Bush intends to maintain “a strategic grip on the country from more than a dozen bases”. Iraqisation was originally scheduled for a year before handover actually occurred. “get someone else to do the dirty work and the dying while Americans pull the strings It has long been the way of imperial powers and was Britain's approach when it last ruled Iraq in the 1920s.”

 “ There were no celebrations as the US proconsul Paul Bremer signed over technical authority to his green zone government of Iraqi quislings two days early to beat the expected resistance onslaught. And, humiliatingly, there could be no triumphal Bush or Bliar visit, though the pair were only a plane hop away in neighbouring Turkey. Even a Karl Rove or Alastair Campbell would have struggled to convince most Iraqis that the appointment of a patsy administration, headed by a man who spent years in the pay of the British and US intelligence services, amounted to a genuine transfer of power from the occupying powers.”

Seumas Milne , Thursday July 1, 2004, The Guardian

Bremer issued a string of edicts to tie the hands of Iraqi governments for years to come, including legal immunity for foreign soldiers and contractors.
Poll – search for it - Perhaps the 2% of Iraqis who, according to the Bush administration's own polling, regard the US and Britain as liberators, are impressed. For most of the rest, a handover to a government protected by 140,000 US troops with a good deal less functional independence than the state of Alabama is a transparent sham.
A tamed BBC: "The Americans are no longer in power," one world service announcer declared, while the cowed Today programme insisted that Iraq was now "in charge of its own destiny". Such happy days are unfortunately still some way off.

John Negroponte will now exercise ultimate power from his 3,000-strong fortified embassy inside Saddam Hussein's former palace compounds.
Negroponte – veteran of US terrorist campaigns in Central America, sent in to run CIA operations in occupied Iraq.

The solemn pledges by Bush and Bliar that they would withdraw their troops if asked to by a government of their own placemen are risible. US special forces are all that stand between the prime minister Iyad Allawi and assassination as a collaborator. A request to the US to withdraw would be a suicide note for the entire puppet administration.

After the handover the role of mercenaries increased – Anthony Sampson, Indie, August 14th 2004 – Tim Spicer – head of UK firm Aegis was co-founder of Sandline (with Simon Mann). Sandline officially went out of business in april 2004. - $300m contract.
Rubicon International founded by John Davidson.
July 2nd It is revealed that Islamist militants have released three more hostages, including two Turks freed yesterday after their company agreed to cancel its contracts with the US military. The third man, a Pakistani driver, phoned home yesterday to say he was safe and well.
~Militants release three more hostages

July 1st Much of the world's press is excluded from Saddam Hussein's court appearance. John Burns of the New York Times is the only western print journalist to witness the historic hearing, which is held in top secret, with even the judge's identity remaining confidential. Media blocked from Saddam hearing
July 3rd An Islamic militant group claims to have beheaded American Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun in the second reported killing last week of a kidnapped US soldier in Iraq. July 5th Iraq's new government announces an amnesty offer for Iraqi insurgents in an attempt to draw a line under the occupation of the country. July 6th The family of US Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun, reportedly beheaded in Iraq, say they are confident that he is free and well. "We have received reliable information the guy is free," says Sami Hassoun, speaking from the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Meanwhile, it is announced that a Lebanese-born US marine who disappeared in Iraq only to re-emerge under mysterious circumstances in Beirut will be swiftly repatriated. Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun has been the subject of conflicting reports since he went missing from his unit more than two weeks ago.
July 7th the Pentagon announced another nine detainees in US custody were subject to the Military Order signed by GWB in November 2001  but did not name them.
July 9th A Senate intelligence committee report blamed the CIA for the Bush administration's apparently unfounded claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The report admonished the outgoing director, George Tenet, and CIA analysts who, one Republican senator claimed yesterday, made "wholesale mistakes" in the collection and processing of intelligence.
July 14th Lord Butler cleared Tony Bliar of any deliberate attempt to "mislead" the country before the war - but the body of his report was to be widely interpreted as telling a different story.
July 15th Hans Blix accused Bliar of misleading the British people by failing to "think critically about the evidence at hand". Blix said he found Lord Butler's 196-page report "surprisingly" critical of the British government, even though the prime minister was personally exonerated of acting in bad faith.
July 20th Insurgents in Iraq free their hostage, Filipino lorry driver Angelo de la Cruz, less than 24 hours after Manila defies international criticism and withdraws its 51-member humanitarian force to prevent his execution.
July 20th Bliar accepted that intelligence 'caveats' should have been included in the British government's dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as he defended his decision to go to war in a “packed and turbulent” House of Commons.
Lindy England – the woman photographed with pyramid of Iraqis and one man on a leash – says she was ordered to pose for pysops – Jon Ronson. “The Crazy Rulers of the World” 14/11/04
In june Naomi Kline had reported that private contractors were accused of playing leadership roles in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A landmark class-action lawsuit filed by the Centre for Constitutional Rights alleges that Titan Corporation and CACI International conspired to ‘humiliate, torture, and abuse persons’ in order to increase demand for their ‘interrogation servcies’.
Senate Republicans defeated an attempt to bar private contractors from interrogating prisoners and also voted down a proposal to impose stiffer penalties on contractors who over charge.
The white House were trying to get immunity from prosecution for US contractors in Iraq and has requested the exemption from the new prime minister, Allawi. – Naomi Klein, 26 June 04.
July 22nd The Pentagon acknowledged in a long-awaited report that abuse of Iraqi and Afghan prisoners by their US army guards occurred on a far greater scale than previously disclosed, with at least 94 confirmed cases of death in custody, sexual and physical assault, and other mistreatment.
General Paul Kern and General George Fay were two US army Generals who oversaw an internal investigation into detention facilities in Iraq. Originally they found 8 cases of prisoners being kept off official lists – by the CIA - to hide them from the Red Cross.
July 22nd US marines shot dead 25 Iraqis in several hours of fighting in the troubled city of Ramadi.
July 28th 68 people are killed when a suicide car bomb explodes outside a police recruiting centre in central Baquba.The bombing comes amid an intense surge in violence: 35 insurgents and seven Iraqi police are killed in clashes south-east of Baghdad, a US soldier dies killed in a bomb attack and a police officer is assassinated.  July 30th Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, makes a surprise visit to Iraq and admits that Washington is becoming increasingly concerned about Iran's attempts to gain influence in the south of the country.

August 2004
August 1st, Coordinated explosions in Baghdad and Mosul added to fears of beleaguered minority. Twelve killed as bombers attacked Christians in Iraq. August 2nd, An important supply chain for US forces is disrupted when Turkish lorry owners suspend deliveries in an attempt to secure the release of two drivers being held hostage. August 6th American forces say they killed at least 300 militia fighters during a ferocious two-day battle in the holy city of Najaf. August 8th, Salem Chalabi, the man organising the trial of Saddam Hussein, is left facing a murder charge after an Iraqi judge issues a warrant for his arrest.

Pakistan – 7th August two dead in bombing outside car rental office. A day later a three year old child is among 8 killed in explosions in Karachi.
Turkey – 10th August – bombs exploded simultaneously at two hotels.

August 9th The price of crude on futures markets rises to record levels in both London and New York after the threat of sabotage by rebels forces Iraq to shut down production in its southern oilfields.
Iraq sabotage fear deepens oil crisis. August 13th James Brandon, a 23-year-old British journalist, is kidnapped by insurgents demanding the withdrawal of US forces from Najaf and then released when Moqtada al-Sadr intervenes to secure his freedom. In Najaf, an uneasy truce holds as the US and Iraqi leaders negotiate with Sadr.
August 12th The most volatile day of the Mahdi army uprising sees US commanders vow to destroy the militia and US troops set up a cordon around Najaf's Iman Ali mosque and ancient cemetery. The military action - led by Iraqi troops - nevertheless inflames some Shia districts of Baghdad and parts of majority Shia Basra. At least 68 people were killed when US war planes and Iraqi police attacked militia fighters in Kut.
Governor Jim McGreevey of New Jersey forced to resign cos he’s gay.12th August 2004
August 13th the Pentagon reported that 21 review hearings had been conducted and 150 further cases were in preparation. Some detainees refused to partake. No lawyer was provided and witness were anonymous.
Peace talks were held after three weeks of fighting between Sadr and his Mehdi army and the interim government.
August 15th peace talks collapse between Iraqi officials and Moqtada al-Sadr as fighting between the radical cleric's Mahdi soldiers and US troops continues in the holy city of Najaf. Insurgents in the huge Wadi al-Salam cemetery, a section still under control of Mehdi Army. August 16th hundreds of unarmed civilians arrived at the Imam Ali shrine – more than 2000 pledged allegiance to Muqtada Sadr and are based in the compound at the shrine. August 17th, a delegation from Iraq's national conference flies to Najaf to offer a peace deal to al-Sadr. The proposal offered amnesty and political involvement to Sadr's Mahdi army in exchange for an immediate ceasefire. On August 18th associates of Sadr suggested he was ready to vacate the shrine and disarm his militia after ten days of fighting. Al Jazeera: Sadr also demanded the US pull out of the holy city. But the US moved in still closer. CNN reported US and Iraqi forces may attack within the next day if Sadr does not personally and publicly announce disarmament. The US stormed into Sadr city in Baghdad and reportedly killed 50 Iraqis.

Referendum on the 15th August on rule of Chavez in Venezuela. Huge rally organised by opposition made up of political parties, military dissidents, civic organisations. They accused Chavez of destroying the Venezuelan economy. Venezuela is the wolrd’s 5th largest oil exporter.
Chavez’ government has funded literacy programmes, cheap food markets and free medical care. He’s been elected twice – in 1998 and 2000, and survived a coup in April 2002. But a severe recession is undermining his rule.

August 19th, Iraq's national conference finally elected the country's interim assembly, which was to serve as a watchdog  over the interim government until national elections were held in January. Chaos and farce as Iraq chooses first assembly August 20th, the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, announces the first of several "final calls" for Moqtada al-Sadr to call off fighters holding Najaf's revered Imam Ali shrine or face an assault by US-backed Iraqi soldiers. Najaf faces final assault August 24th, an army reservist charged with abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison announces that he will plead guilty to some offences when his pre-trial hearing begins tomorrow in Germany. Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick, of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company, is one of seven US soldiers charged with abusing prisoners at the jail. Sergeant will plead guilty to abusing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib  Ill disciplined and unreliable Iraqi National Guard was seen in Kufain to fire into crowds of demonstrators. On August 27th an “uneasy peace” in Najaf as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (most powerful religious leader in Iraq) stepped in to overrule Sadr. The Mehdi army ‘melted rather than marched away’. In Najaf the US demolished any building from which it suspected gunfire was coming (Patrick Cockburn) “scores of civilians dead” by Donald Macintyre, Indie, in Najaf. Sustani “alone has the authority among Iraqis to bring battles to an end.” Patrick Cockburn.
Ghasan Attiya, Iraqi commentator and historian – “their [government in Iraq] failure to finish Sadr is a defeat…if they couldn’t eliminate him why did they get into this crisis in the first place?” Allawi has “narrowed rather than expanded his already limited base of support.” Patrick Cockburn. Even the Kurds have distanced themselves from Allawi. Sadr won a victory just by surviving.
Although the British media was always going on about the ‘softly softly’ approach of the British, in Amara, north of Basra, “a British battalion fired more rounds and killed more people than they did during the invasion itself. In Najaf there had been an orgy of killing by the allies.” Alibhai-Brown.
12 Nepalese workers killed? Ansar al-Sunnah claimed responsibility?

Preliminary hearings for four detainees facing trial by military commission began on 24th August 2004. AI delegate – lawyer Jumana Musa.
The four: Salim Hamdan, a Yemen national accused of being OBL’s driver; Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul, a Yemeni; David Hicks, an Aussie; Ibrahim Mahmoud al Qosi, Sudanese.
They were tried under provisions of a Military Order signed by bush back in November 2001.

28th august in the Indie, “intelligence shake-up” – expanded powers to director of CIA set up a national counter-terrorism centre to coordinate the agencies.
Executive order placed CIA director at the top of the intelligence pyramid to control $40 bn US intelligence budget, 85% of which is currently run by the Pentagon.
Shake up received approval on 10th December 2004 passed by House of Reps, 336 – 75 and even bigger majority in the senate.
CIA and a dozen other intelligence agencies to be put under a single new director of national intelligence.

                10,000 extra border guards.
                4,000 extra immigration officers.

Only intense Whitehouse pressure quelled objections from senior Republicans.

In NYC United for Peace weren’t allowed to hold a massive anti-war rally in Central park on august 29th before the start of the Republican National Convention. Lawsuit?

August 30th the Pentagon permitted lawyer Giyanjali Guiterrez to meet detainees Begg and Abassi for habeas corpus suits.

September 2004
 “As speakers at the GOP convention trumpet Bush administration successes in the war on terrorism, an NBC News analysis of Islamic terrorism since Sep 11 2001, shows that attacks are on the rise worldwide – dramatically,” report Robert Rivas and Robert Windrem NBC News. “Of the roughly 2,929 terrorism-related deaths around the world since the attacks on New York and Washington, the NBC News analysis shows 58% of them – 1,709 – have occurred this year.” Source, MSNBC, a Sep 2nd, 2004.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5889435/

Australia opinion swayed by bomb outside Aussie embassy in Jakarta 8th sep 2004 + Bali bombing.

Beslan Tragedy & WTF is Happening in Russia?
 “Public confidence in the media in Russia has fallen to rock-bottom levels…A new opinion poll showed that just 13% of Russians trusted media reports about the [Beslan] tragedy, in which at least 335 people died. “Television stations...followed the government line that only around 350 people had been taken hostage at the school - less than a third of the actual number - and then hesitated to show the unfolding tragedy on Friday, when explosions rang out and troops moved in to start a gun battle with hostage takers.
“They have reportedly toned down their approach since the Dubrovka theatre siege in Moscow two years ago, when President Vladimir Putin criticised them for abusing media freedom and accused them of jeopardising the safety of hostages with their coverage.
 “Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a high-profile critic of the Kremlin's policy on Chechnya, was allegedly poisoned on a flight to Beslan last week.
“Andrei Babitsky, a correspondent for the US government-funded Radio Free Europe, was detained by Russian authorities at Moscow airport and prevented from travelling to the town after he was provoked into a fight that landed him in jail.
“And a Georgian TV crew was reportedly detained in Beslan for crossing the Russian border without visas, an hour after they made a report on the siege.
A “semi-official” document was circulated around Russian networks demanding “media self censorship…’special operation’ was prohibited as was ‘shahid’ [sucicide martyr] – a word along with ‘war in chechnya’ has been prohibited on state tv for a year. Analysis of options to save the hostages, steps taken, or reasons for crisis were also forbidden. Journalists drugged, some prevented from reaching Beslan, Christian Science Monitor, sep 21st , 2004

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/september_2004.html#1095739200
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/sep/08/russia.pressandpublishing
https://jspivey.wikispaces.com/What+are+the+causes+and+aftermath+of+the+Beslan+School+Siege%3F

The US knew that what it was doing in Iraq was at odds with both its professed benevolence, and didn’t fit with reports of evil doers on one side and forces for God on the other. So news management was needed. A contract was signed between the Multi National Corps-Iraq and British PR firm Bell Pottinger - which did similar work for MNC-I’s predecessor, the Coalition Provisional Authority. The US government wanted an ‘aggressive’ and comprehensive PR and advertising push in Iraq (September 16th 2004) to convey military and diplomatic goals to Iraqis and gain their support. The campaign was intended to “outreach to various segments of Iraqi Society” and involved setting up a “Rebuttal Cell”, to “immediately and effectively” challenge “reports that unfairly target the Coalition or Coalition interests.” The PR plan contrasted with news of a US National Intelligence Estimate that “spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq.” – O’Dwyer’s PR Daily (sub req’d), http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1095307200 .

Huge car bomb in Baghdad on the 14th killed at least 47 people.

Proving a problem for the US – threatened to halt cooperation in Iraq if US forces continue to attack mostly Turkmen-populated town of Tal Afar near the Syrian border (aljazeera, 14th September, 2004).
Foreign minister Abdullah Gul said it. Hundreds of Turkish trucks bringing in goods every day for US military. US carried out air and ground assault 9th September killed 57 “terrorists” in the town and denied that civilians were targeted. Turkish officials put number of Turkmen civilians killed in conflict at up to 500 but quote US sources saying that the toll is less than 50.
Turkey is also worried about Kurdish autonomy fuelling separatist demands in its own mainly Kurdish southeast.
Baku – Tibilisi – Ceyham pipeline
BP attempting to construct oil and gas pipeline through Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Campaigners in Georgia began legal action in the Euro Court of justice and Euro Court of Human Rights.
Amnesty International “ lost government agreement “that has been signed by BP and its partners with Turkey, means that Turkey has agreed to pay compensation to consortium if pipeline construction or operation is disturbed – since pipeline passes through Kurdish areas – potential for human rights abuses.
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned in early September that Turkey’s patience was running out over US reluctance to take military action against Turkish Kurd fighters hiding in northern Iraq.
In 1999 the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire with Ankara and now about 5000 members stashed in mountains of northern Iraq. – Indie.
In Tal Afar – days after the fall of SH, the Kurdistan Democratic Party appointed its own mayor – Abdel Haleq – who ran up a yellow Kurdish flag outside his office. He was told to take it down or die. He refused and was killed the next day. The flag was burned.
On the 11th September the US attacked Tal Afar, a Turkmen city in the north of Iraq, and pissed Turkey off. US said it killed 67 insurgents – Turkmen claimed that US killed 60 citizens and wounded 100.
Iraqi V-P Ibrahim Jaafari said the US “came into Iraq like an elephant astride its war machine.”
Turks fear US now working for the Kurds in conflict between Kurds and Turkmen. A Turkmen witness claimed 7 Kurds fired at the US to lure them into attacking the Turkmen.

On the 15th of September, up to 10 people were killed in a clash between US and marines in Ramadi. US marine units came under attack from Anti Iraqi Forces (AIF). No marines were injured. Car blast in Suwayre, south of Baghdad, killed two, wounded 10.  – aljazeera.net
812 US soldiers now killed and 6,290 wounded according to the Pentagon. Bush still talks about how he is “winning” in Iraq – “our strategy is succeeding”. However, “retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse, he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He adds: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends." 
“Retired general Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command, told me: "The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
Jeffrey Record, professor of strategy at the Air War College, said: "I see no ray of light on the horizon at all. The worst case has become true. There's no analogy whatsoever between the situation in Iraq and the advantages we had after the second world war in Germany and Japan."
W Andrew Terrill, professor at the Army War College's strategic studies institute - and the top expert on Iraq there - said: "I don't think that you can kill the insurgency". According to Terrill, the anti-US insurgency, centred in the Sunni triangle, and holding several cities and towns - including Fallujah - is expanding and becoming more capable as a consequence of US policy.
"We have a growing, maturing insurgency group," said Terrill, "We see larger and more coordinated military attacks. They are getting better and they can self-regenerate. The idea there are x number of insurgents, and that when they're all dead we can get out is wrong. The insurgency has shown an ability to regenerate itself because there are people willing to fill the ranks of those who are killed. The political culture is more hostile to the US presence. The longer we stay, the more they are confirmed in that view."
"If you are a Muslim and the community is under occupation by a non-Islamic power it becomes a religious requirement to resist that occupation," Terrill explained. "Most Iraqis consider us occupiers, not liberators." He describes the religious imagery common now in Fallujah and the Sunni triangle: "There's talk of angels and the Prophet Mohammed coming down from heaven to lead the fighting, talk of martyrs whose bodies are glowing and emanating wonderful scents."
General Odom said: "This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."
Terrill believes that any sustained US military offensive against the no-go areas "could become so controversial that members of the Iraqi government would feel compelled to resign". Thus, an attempted military solution would destroy the slightest remaining political legitimacy. "If we leave and there's no civil war, that's a victory."
More than 250 killed from September 10th to 17th in fighting across Iraq. Violence in Basra – UK troops fighting troops loyal to al-Sadr.
Sep 17th US stepped up pounding of Fallujah – killed dozens of people including children. Car bomb in Baghdad killed 8, 5 police, 50 injured, at a police check point. Fighting followed and 63 suspects were arrested by US.
The US military now no longer able to patrol in Fallujah. “Death toll for week tops 250 as suicide car bombers kills 13” Guardian 18.09.04.

September 9th 2004 General Paul Kern and General George Fay - two US army Generals – see July - told the senate armed services committee [chairman John Warner, Va, Rep] that the true figure could be much higher: “The number is in the dozens, to perhaps up to 100.” Prisoners held by the CIA outside the military’s usual system of registration and care were termed “ghost detainees”.
There was also a separate investigation by former US defence Sec James Schlesinger. Both investigations found that the photographed abuses was the tip of a particularly ghastly iceberg.
About 300 allegations of detainee deaths, torture and other mistreatment were uncovered – but neither found inconvenient evidence that abuse resulted from military policies.
It was a stick for the military to hit the CIA with. They said the CIA wasn’t cooperating and were operating outside the military’s control. Harold Brown, US defence Sec under Carter, “clearly responsibility for failing to plan for what actually happened after the overthrow of SH extends all the way to the top.”
According to Human Rights Watch keeping detained beligerants from the ICRC violated the Genevea Conventionand subjected those individuals to potential abuse.
The findings of the Army investigation listed 44 instances of prisoner abuse -13 direclty involving interrogations.
Senator Edward Kennedy accused Rumsfled of misleading the country about how many were responsible when he testified before congress in May.
The Geneva Convention was broken: The third GC in article 126 (cncernign prisoners of war) 4th GC in article 143 (concerning detained civilians). Requires the ICRC to have access to all detainees and places of detention, visits may only be prohibited for “reasons of imperitive military necessity” and then only as “an exceptional and temporary measure.”

September 2004: The defence secretary confuses the jailed Saddam and the fugitive Bin Laden in a speech to the US National Press Club: "Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001." He corrects himself when asked for clarification.

Annan said the US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.
The decision to take action in Iraq should have been made by the Security Council, not unilaterally. The UK government responded by saying the attorney-general made the "legal basis... clear at the time".
ATTORNEY GENERAL STITCH UP.
He also cast doubt on how credible elections in January could be if violence continued in Iraq.
"I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time - without UN approval and much broader support from the international community," When pressed on whether he viewed the invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said: "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."
A Bush administration aide angrily retorted that the comments were timed to influence the US November election. "I think it is outrageous for the Secretary-General, who ultimately works for the member states, to try and supplant his judgement for the judgement of the member states," Randy Scheunemann, a former advisor to US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the BBC. "To do this 51 days before an American election reeks of political interference." A UK foreign office spokeswoman said: "The Attorney-General made the government's position on the legal basis for the use of military force in Iraq clear at the time". Australian Prime Minister John Howard also rejected Mr Annan's remarks, saying the legal advice he was given was "entirely valid". The BBC's Susannah Price at UN headquarters in New York says Mr Annan has made similar comments before. He has said from the beginning the invasion did not conform with the UN charter - phrasing that was seen as a diplomatic way of saying the war was illegal. Our correspondent says Mr Annan's relationship with the US might be made a little uncomfortable for a while following his comments, but both sides are likely to want to play it down. US President George W Bush is due to speak at the UN General Assembly next week.
However, a day later a car bomb close to an Iraqi police station in central Baghdad killed 47 people and gunmen opened fire on a police minibus in Baquba, killing 12. – date?
Septemebr 13 to 20 – devastating car bomb struck in Baghdad and Kirkuk organised hostage taking swelling insurgency mounting criticism of heavy handed tactics.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5909 
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/barsamian.htm 

CIA National Intelligence Estimate of the situation in Iraq. It warned of the danger of civil war. In Septemebr Bush was asked about the NIE – “The CIA said life could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better. The Iraqi people don;t share their pessimism.”

Resistance changed the balance of power in Iraq. Polls showed most Iraqis wanted foreign troops out and would support parties in promised election calling for withdrawal. Those parties would most probably be banned from standing and Allawi suggested in June that elections could be postponed.
The resistance was demonised or belittled by US propaganda – they were called Ba’athite remnants, Islamist fanatics, or mindless insurgents. But it was in realty a classic resistance movement fighting a successful guerrilla war against a foreign military occupation.
Paul Bremer, the former coalition provisional authority chief, said that the strength of US forces had been insufficient from the start, leading to the present chaos. – October 5th Blumenthal article in Grauniad.
The US called for privatisation of state-owned Iraqi industries but it chose not to overturn Saddam-era edicts that outlawed trade unions. “The economic policies of occupying authorities are transforming Iraq’s working people into a pool of low-waged, semi-employed labour, desperate for jobs at any price.” PC 2005

Rumsfeld: Iraq/al-Qaida remarks 'misunderstood'
Simon Jeffery
Tuesday October 5, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/05/usa.iraq
Rumsfeld attempted to distance himself from his earlier comments that there were no links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.
He’d told the Council on Foreign Relations that "to my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two", Mr Rumsfeld claimed he had been "misunderstood". "I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between al-Qaida and Iraq," the statement said. "This assessment was based upon points provided to me by [the] then CIA director George Tenet to describe the CIA's understanding of the al-Qaida Iraq relationship." – a reversal of the position adopted by many senior Bush administration figures.
Cheney - main proponent of the idea of a relationship, last month telling a meeting in the swing state of Ohio that Saddam had "provided safe harbour and sanctuary ... for al-Qaida".
Rumsfeld told his audience in New York that he had seen intelligence on the Saddam-al-Qaida question "migrate in amazing ways" during the past year, adding that there were "many differences of opinion in the intelligence community".

One year after the war started people marched for peace in London, Berne, Seoul, Turkey and Johannesburg, Japan, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Italy, Germany, and Greece.

31 people were killed in bombings on 07/10/04 at Egyptian resorts. No credible claims of responsibility for the attacks - many of the victims were Israelis - deputy Israeli defence minister, Zeev Boim, said his view was that the attacks bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida or its sympathisers. Sharon said he and Mr Mubarak had agreed in a telephone call to "focus efforts and forces to fight terror", Reuters reported.
One came when a car laden with explosives drove into the lobby, causing a 10-storey section of the building to collapse. A second was caused by a suicide attack near the hotel swimming pool, an Israeli official said.
Later, there were two smaller blasts, caused by bombs in Toyota pickup trucks, at a beach hut and camping sites in Sinai.
Similar to one on Israeli-owned hotel north of Mombassa, Kenya, in November 2002, which killed 15 people and was blamed on al-Qaida. In that strike, a vehicle packed with explosives also rammed into the hotel. The last major terror strike in Egypt came in 1997, when 58 foreign tourists were killed by Islamist extremists in the southern town of Luxor.

War on the Media
David Macintyre, Indie journo, was warned by local police that he would be shot if he stayed in Najaf to report the continuing violence. Downing street warned against journos in Najaf. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former UK envoy to Iraq said Bliar had 18 months to show Iraq was a success.
Najaf police strategy appeared to be continuing harassment against journalists.
A police lieutenant demanded to know the whereabouts of correspondents from al Arabiya, Reuters and AP news agencies, then said, “we are going to open fire on this hotel. We are going to smash it up. I will kill you all. You did this to yourselves.” He said four snipers would be positioned on the roof of the police station to fire at any journos who left the [sea of Najaf] hotel.
Female Iraqi journalist killed on October 14th.

Militia supporting Moqtada al-Sadr, was battling US troops in the slums of Sadr City, east Baghdad, since April.
Two peace agreements had been reached in the past but then broke down and now a third was being negotiated. The militia was given five days to hand in its guns, but very few did. Talks were also under way to settle a ceasefire in Falluja.
11th October six US troops killed in attacks. Allawi, warned residents in Falluja to give up Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his supporters or face an onslaught.
An Islamic website showed the beheading of two hostages on the 11th - one a Turkish contractor and the other a Kurdish translator wearing a badge of the Titan security company.
A statement said the two were killed by the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed responsibility for slaughtering 12 Nepalese workers in August.

An American photographer, Paul Taggart, 24, was released two days after being kidnapped while working on a story about a Shia militia loyal to al-Sadr.

Rory McCarthy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/12/iraq.rorymccarthy1 Tuesday October 12, 2004
ceasefire in Sadr City is part of a larger effort by the Iraqi government and the US-led military authorities to tackle the insurgency ahead of scheduled elections in January. Talks were still under way yesterday to settle a ceasefire in Falluja.

US troops swept into the city west of Baghdad early on 13th October, sealing off key streets, taking positions on the rooftops and searching buildings, residents said. Warplanes and helicopters hovered overhead.
Rebels fought back with gunfire and mortar blasts. Three mortars, apparently aimed at the headquarters of the local administration, hit a nearby house, killing two people and wounding four, including women and children, said Dr Alaa al-Aani of Ramadi general hospital.
Two bombs exploded in Mosul, targeting an Iraqi national guard patrol and an US military convoy, witnesses and US officials said. At least two people were killed and seven others wounded.
Similar raids in Baqouba resulted in the capture of 10 suspects, including two people believed to be insurgent leaders in the area, said Capt Marshall Jackson, spokesman for the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. The detainees were being held for questioning.
The pre-Ramadan push was intensified when Ayad Allawi, warned Falluja residents to hand over Zarqawi or face attack.
But a Falluja negotiator, Hatem Karim, challenged claims that Zarqawi is in the city. "We want to know what evidence there is of Zarqawi's presence in Falluja," Mr Karim said in an interview with al-Jazeera television. "Al-Zarqawi has become like Iraqi WMD ... we hear this name, but it doesn't exist. More than 15 to 20 houses were destroyed in Falluja because they were accused of harbouring al-Zarqawi or al-Zarqawi's followers."

Naomi Klein, Wednesday October 13, 2004, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/13/iraq.development 
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2004/10/james-bakers-double-life
http://www.odiousdebts.org/odiousdebts/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=10623
Bush called for debt forgiveness June 11 – 18 at G8 Conference – he called for Iraq’s $120bn debt to be wiped out. GW wanted all the money from Iraq oil to be pumped straight to mostly US contractors involved in Iraq’s “redevelopment”. 2004 or 2005? 

Hundreds of Kurds found buried in Iraq mass graves, Rory McCarthy in Baghdad, Thursday October 14, 2004
Hatra - first of around 10 sites - the site is “a perfect place for executions," said Greg Kehoe, a former US federal prosecutor who spent five years working on the war crimes tribunal in the Balkans and who is leading the excavation team; "women and children executed for no apparent reason," he said. -. is thought to hold the bodies of several thousand Kurds in nine separate trenches.
This’ll be used in case against Saddam Hussein and his deputies.
The victims in Hatra were killed in late 1987 or early 1988, the time of the regime's Anfal campaign of repression against the Kurdish minority and a time when both Britain and the US still maintained close relations with Saddam's regime.
Exhumation at Hatra began six weeks ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/oct/11/uk.iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/oct/11/uk.iraq
At the time international human rights groups criticised the US military and occupation authorities for failing to oversee proper investigative exhumations. At least 300,000 Iraqis are believed to have been killed under Saddam's regime and at least 40 graves have so far been uncovered.

5 dead in Baghdad green zone blasts October 14, 2004
14th October , an improvised bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing one US soldier and wounding two others, the US command said. No further details were disclosed.
Elsewhere, two bombs exploded in the northern city of Mosul, targeting an Iraqi national guard patrol and an US military convoy, witnesses and US officials said. At least two people were killed and seven others wounded.

The Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, warned residents in Falluja to give up suspected militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his supporters or face an onslaught.
Allawi on Wednesday (13th) demanded that Falluja turn over al-Zarqawi or face a military invasion as he sought to recover the city from the grip of fighters ahead of national elections in In Baghdad, the government's national security adviser, Kasim Dawud, said he hoped the delegates could mediate a truce and rid the city of foreign fighters to avert a military showdown. "I hope they kick them out, otherwise we are preparing to crush them," he told reporters.
In Falluja, US air power mounted one of the fiercest attacks yet on the suspected Zarqawi stronghold Falluja, witnesses said. US warplanes struck two sites said to have been used by followers of Zarqawi. At least one Iraqi was killed and eight injured in one of the strikes and another Iraqi wounded at the other site, said Dr Thamer Ahmed at Falluja general hospital. Intelligence sources indicated one building was being used to store weapons and the other was a safehouse for people involved in the kidnapping and killing of Iraqis, a military statement said. Five Falluja residents were killed in US air strikes on Thursday. Warplanes began bombing purported hideouts of al-Zarqawi at around 1pm on Thursday as talks collapsed.

As the strikes multiplied, a delegation of city elders and leaders pulled out from talks with the government, protesting against warnings by Allawi that the city would be invaded if it did not hand over al-Zarqawi and his supporters. "We were taken aback by Allawi's comments ... since there was no mention of Zarqawi during the talks," one delegate, who gave his name as Abu Ahmad, said. He said delegates were close to reaching a breakthrough in talks that would allow Iraqi forces to come back into the city before Allawi imposed "impossible conditions."  "Basically he was telling us that he did not want to negotiate, so we suspended the talks from our end," he said. 

In initial reports of casualties from the daytime air strikes, which lasted from 1:05 pm until around 2:20pm, doctors and residents said at least three people had been killed and eight wounded, while two houses, one of which was empty, were destroyed.
One strike in the al-Jubail area on the southwest side of Falluja destroyed the home of Haraj Rashid, said his relative Amir Hamid, adding that there were casualties under the rubble.
The US military carries out almost daily air raids on Falluja, insisting they are "precision strikes". Doctors and residents in the town say the dead and wounded are often ordinary civilians, and include women and children.
US forces mounted a major operation in April to try to take the town but the assault ended in a stand-off, with Falluja transformed into a virtual no-go zone for US soldiers.
In a separate development, at least one Iraqi civilian was killed and several other people wounded in a human car bombing targeting a police station in a southern Baghdad suburb, police and medical sources said.
"One Iraqi civilian was killed and 10 people wounded, nine of
them policemen, three of them seriously injured," Dr Asir Basim of Yarmuk hospital said.
A Falluja negotiator, Hatem Karim, challenged claims that Zarqawi is in the city.
"We want to know what evidence there is of Zarqawi's presence in Falluja," Mr Karim said in an interview with al-Jazeera television. "Al-Zarqawi has become like Iraqi WMD ... we hear this name, but it doesn't exist. More than 15 to 20 houses were destroyed in Falluja because they were accused of harbouring al-Zarqawi or al-Zarqawi's followers."

More wounded in the attack in the suburb of Dura were being rushed to the hospital.
A speeding car exploded near the police headquarters in Dura at 9:45am (0645 GMT), a police officer told reporters.
An interior ministry spokesman had earlier said five policemen
and five Iraqi civilians were wounded.
The last strikes were at 2:38am (2338 GMT) as the US military bombed two more purported safe-houses of al-Zarqawi. "Since approximately 1:00pm (1000 GMT)Thursday, multi-national forces have destroyed a key planning centre, a weapons transload and storage facility, two safe-houses, a terrorist meeting site and several illegal checkpoints used by the Zarqawi network," the US military said. 
US marines said a round of raids were also carried out between 5:30pm (1430 GMT) and 8:30 pm.
US military stepped up bombing of Falluja, on Friday 15th October, 12:48 Makka Time, 9:48 GMT  aljazeera.

The Selective Service System (SSS), the bush admin and the Pentagon have been moving to fill draft board vacancies in order to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as 15th June 2005. Not reported. 2004 SSS budget was upped by several million dollars and ongoing militarization of public shool sytems – through this the Pentagon has begun efforts to double the number of Latinos in the US military by 2006.
Margaret Hassan was kidnapped on the 19th – her organisation insisted that Blair and co take a back seat in negotiations.

A female Iraqi journalist and a judge were gunned down in two attacks in Baghdad.
Two senior Iraqi army officers were killed in Baquba, north of the capital, and a militant group posted a video on the internet showing the beheading of a Turkish truck driver.
Two more Turkish and two Iraqi truck drivers were kidnapped near the town of Samarra.

More Palestinians Massacred
Palestinians fired a handmade Qassam rocket into Israeli town of Sderot in October and killed two children. The “1st [Israeli] tanks rumbled into Jabalya some hours before the rocket attack on Sderot ”.
“Israeli forces multiplied in Northern Gaza over last few weeks, 2000 fresh troops, over a hundred more tanks and bulldozers.”
All out attack on Jabalya in October (18th), full of mostly non-combatants, innocent men, women and children. Jabalya Refugee camp in Northern Gaza strip.
More than 30 children killed in the first two weeks.
“Are they supposed to mourn the deaths of four or five Israeli soldiers, and two Israeli children and accept the death of more than 60 Palestinian civilians as some kind of justice?”
“Sharon…engineered the massacres of Sabra and Shatila over 20 years ago. Now he is doing much the same, but with vastly improved weaponry.”
Israeli army also shooting at medics and journalists – all wearing identifying gear.
Eman al Hums – 13 year old girl who was killed by Israeli sniper. Find report.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Days_of_Penitence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/oct/06/israel
http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?month=10&lDim=N%3D3096&search=days+of+penitence&year=2004&sitesearch-radio=guardian&go-guardian=Search
Since intifada began 3 Palestinains killed for every Israeli. When it comes to children the ratio is 5 to 1.
Human rights group B’Tselem said 557 Palestinian minors had been killed compared to 110 Israeli minors.  “It is no longer possible to claim that these children were killed by mistake. An army doesn’t make more than 500 day-to-day mistakes of identity.” Mk Ahmed (Hadash) – it is “the distastrous result of a policy driven mainly by an appallingly light trigger finger and the dehumanisation of the Palestinians. Shooting at everything that moves, including children, has become normative behaviour.
13 year old girl Iman Alhamas – killed. Mohammed Araj shot to death by a soldier at “fairly close range” – 6 years old – killed in front of his house.
Kristen Saada in her parents car when soldiers sprayed it with bullets. She was 12.
Sami and Ahmed Abu Aziz riding bikes in full daylight – sustained direct hit by tank shell. They were 13 and 6.
Mualez Amudi and Subah Subah killed by a soldier in Burkin – soldier went bonkers after having a stone thrown at him.
Radi Mohammed from Khan Yunis refugee camp was in class when soldiers shot her – aged 12.
According to the Palestinain ministry of Educairton 3,409 schoolchildren have been wounded in the infifada.  And “their homes are demolished, their parents are humiliated in front of their eyes, soldiers storm into their homes brutally in the middle of the night, tanks open fire on their classrooms…the majority of Israelis…remain silent.”
Gideon Levy, October 19th, 2004 Ha’aretz.
“The dehumanization campaign: even killing children is no big deal any more.” 

Black Ops  in Iraq?
Margaret Hassan was kidnapped by an armed gang on October 19th. She helped to distribute medicines and other humanitarian aids in Baghdad where she had lived for three decades and spoken out about Iraqis suffering under international sanctions during the 1990s.
It was never known who did it. The main rebel groups denied being involved immediately, “commanders of 5 separate guerrilla groups in Fallujah had said they were not holding Hassan and had seen no evidence that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s organisation had kidnapped her her.” A video appeared in 1st six days showing Hassan in captivity, but not the kidnappers – nor was there any claim of responsibility. Indie, 25th October, 2004.
Link to Wolf Brigade

23rd October Iraqi suicide bombers on 23/10/04. 22 members of security forces killed six US servicemen injured, four civilians dead and sabotaged pipeline in a spate of attacks.
25th. HMX, RMX and PETN – extremely powerful, conventional weapons that are used to blow up buildings, fill missile war-heads or detonate nuclear weapons. They disappeared sometime after the fall of SH, but not formally notified to the Bush administration and the IAEA watchdog agency in Vienna until October 10th 2004.
49 Iraqi unarmed army recruits were massacred on 24th October  - execution style. This happeneded near Baquba, 40 miles north east of Baghdad inside the “Sunni triangle”. A group allegedly led by al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility. Allawi on the 26th referred to “great negligence” of American forces. Allawi also contradicted US claims that security situation was improving. He told the INC that the violence was likely to worsen. UK troops based in Basra began their move to the north – to join US operations. Allawi also called April attack on Fallujah “mismanaged”.
26th October 350 tons of explosives vanished from a military facility in Iraq NYTimes broke the story on the
Ed Seitz – a member of the US Diplomatic staff was killed in a mortar attack on Camp victory. He was a senior security specialist for the State Department and was involved in planning protective measures for USofficials. Last year he investigated the attempted assassination of Deputy Defence Secretary Wolfowitz.
US air strikes on Fallujah killed 5. An Iraqi militant group claimed it had assassinated the Chief of police in northern city of Arbil and threatened to kill Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani. The army of Ansar al-Sunna said it had killed Colonel Tah Ahmed on Saturday as a message to Barzani that “the hands of the Mujahideen would soon reach him.”
Persistent reports that insurgents have infiltrated the Iraqi security apparatus, receiveing training and weapons from the US and UK while setting up attacks on other members of the force.
US claimed that it had killed a Zarqawi associate – were contradicted by locals who said the US had just destroyed an empty base.
Officials at Fallujah’s Mujaheddin Shura claimed that Iraqi government had ended talks after making the “impossible” demand to hand over Zarqawi. US reinforced their cordon – reports that they shot several civilian drivers at ceck points. Two car bombs aimed at US troops in fallujah. Japanese man kidnapped. Video.
Voices in the Wilderness – an Iraqi aid organisation claims that in Majar al-Kabir, British troops have been accused of indiscriminate killings and mutilations – yasmin alibhai-brown, 29/10/04.
“Official figures show that coalition forces are suffering about 3000 attacks a month, and the Pentagon now believes there are approximately 25000 active and violent resisters in Iraq.”
“Only a dozen or so attacks each month are claimed by Zarqawi, who is pitiless but really only in charge of a small, extremely vicious group.
Alibhai-Brown alleges that what is happening is the US are using Israeli tactics – “kill and maim unfortunates living in close proximity to rebel groups. Kill them before they grow.”
UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has called this…”unacceptable collective punishments.”
“al-jazeera has shown residential areas being demolished, entire families being wiped out.” – “most of the western media has been kept out.”
In Falluja ‘Food is running out, people are fleeing to nowhere; hospitals have no medical supplies.”
“99% of Fallujans are opposed to the occupation. They are Sunnis who “cooperated with the allies in the early days of the war, and today the ultra-shia movement, including those who support Sadr, are sending in secret reinforcements to their presumed ideological enemies.” Talks were taking place at end of month between interim government and a delegation from fallujah.
At the end of October The White House requested more troops from the UK. Blair and Hoon agreed immediately but pretended they hadn’t for PR purposes. John McDonnel leader of the Labour Party’s trouble-making Campaign Group demanded that Blair call on the US to allow evacuation of civilians from Fallujah – before the “onslaught” began.
For the western media then the war in Iraq was being waged by sinister villain Abu Musato al-Zarqawi. “Every time [the US] attack homes, mosques and restaurants, killing women and children, they say, “we have launched a successful operation against al-Zarqawi”, they will never say they have killed him, because he does not exist.” The people of Fallujah have asked that if anyone sees al-Zarqawi they should kill him. We know now that he is nothing but a phantom created by the US.”
“Arab speakers say that US have not even bothered to give al-Zarqawi a Jordanian accent. He once had one leg, but now has two again – according to crisis. “Nick Berg beheading failed to produce any blood – Berg was already clearly a corpse.”
For more on al-zarqawi go to http://www.aljazeerah.info and scroll down to 25.10.204

Iraqi police not being issued with weapons or armour – some without ID. Col Khaldoun Abdullah – at Albiya – contradicted US claims that Iraqi police were being properly trained and equipped. “Its not just they who are in danger, but their families get attacked too.” He also intimated that the US – failing to check out new recruits – were sendinbg infiltrators to the police station. No “wonder why police stations and army barracks get blown up.”
Upset that Americans – including contractors – get armoured Toyota Land cruisers – but not the police. Many police not issued with id which is demanded by US checkpoints and as a consequence are unable to pass checkpoints and sometimes get shot by the US.
By October 28th over 70% of 300,000 inhabitants had left Fallujah. Americans made arrests among those leaving.

Sidney Blumenthal, Thursday October 7, 2004, The Guardian
Debate on telly: “Faced by another younger man, Cheney attempted to denigrate him. "Your rhetoric, Senator, would be a lot more credible if there was a record to back it up ... Now, in my capacity as vice-president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight." But it turned out that Cheney's statement was untrue. He and Edwards had met several times before and photographs were published the next day showing the two together. Cheney's effort to intimidate Edwards rebounded on his credibility, the larger point the former trial lawyer was pressing.
“Edwards praised him and his wife for their "love" and "embrace" of their gay daughter. Cheney” and then “went on to counter Bush's support for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage. "It's nothing but a political tool ... We ought to be talking about issues like healthcare and jobs and what's happening in Iraq, not using an issue to divide this country ..."
Edwards's attack on Cheney as CEO of Halliburton and a representative of entrenched special interests added another element to the strain of southern populism that runs back to before the civil war in its appeal to working-class whites against the plantation class. Even today, blacks and whites are deliberately divided by racial fear used as a "political tool". Now the lavender menace is used to augment racial anxiety.
Marlow w cook – a repoublican – who called on voters to elect Kerry – fomer US Senator [Kentucky] said that Bush’s campaign was “all negative” – “not once have they said what they have done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all.” 25th October 2004.
“I am frightened to death of George bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor government that refuses to supply the congress with requested information.” “A switch to electronic voting may seem innocent enough – until you look at who’s implementing it, and how. Indeed the transfer represents the privatisation of the voting process in the hands of a select few fervent GOP supporters who’ve insisted on keeping their operating systems and codes a trade secret – meaning they enjoy absolute control over the entire voting process, including ballot counting…There’s no paper trail.” PC 2005.
Exit polls taken during the polling showed a Kerry victory. But the result was a clear victory for Bush.

Girly Men
Oliver Burkeman in New York
Monday October 4, 2004, The Guardian
The network…apologised for the article in which the Democratic challenger was quoted telling a rally in Florida: "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" Comparing himself to the president, Mr Kerry was supposed to have said: "I'm metrosexual - he's a cowboy." Women voters, he purportedly added, "should like me! I do manicures." The "metrosexual" story taps into a persistent theme underlying the election race, in which the Republican party and its supporters in the media have sought to make a campaign issue of the candidates' perceived masculinity. At the party's convention in New York last month, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called Mr Kerry's advisers "economic girlie-men".

Republicans accused the Dems of fraud in New Mexico on 26th October – a state with only 5 electoral votes.

Springsteen appeared with Kerry in October.
The hip-hop mogul P Diddy’s "Vote or Die" campaign. The voter registration drive during the US presidential elections was merely "phase one, step one for us to get people engaged".

Madison Square Garden – NYPD responsible for “preemptive, arbitrary arrests, filthy jail conditions and long detentions without access to attorneys” – while republicans were rallying, the police “circulated among protesters, lawyers and quite a few ordinary New Yorkers who were arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time…Whenever groups of activists gathered, row upon row of riot cops would surround them with orange plastic netting and often arrest everyone inside, including journalists and bystanders. Police then defied state law by holding many people well over 24 hours without access to attorneys.” said Elspeth Schell, “this is looking more and more like a south American republic” – Salon.com, Sep 3rd.
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094184001

November 2004
Before Fallujah could be attacked – it was operation get the election out of the way first.
November 2nd – Kerry took on bush and nearly won.

The Bush campaign were actively controlling media access in run up to election, with secret service agents supervising arrests and detention of activists, and blocking ,media access to the hecklers. Journalists were told that if they approached the demonstrators they would be blocked from returning to the event site. This according to a Washington Post article, September 10, 2004.
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094788800 

Election: Kerry v Bush
Probably the dirtiest campaign in living memory. Kerry leaned heavily on war record
Despite the candidates being tied in the summer, by September GWB was 11% ahead in polls, and seeking to frighten the shit out of everyone by implying Kerry would leave the US open to attack by terrorists.
As Chomsky points out, the incumbent in a US election has great advantages: overwhelming financial resources; ability to conjure up threats to frighten the population, etc…

The relibality of the voting mechanisms was still an issue. An election in January 2004 (?) Palm Beach County – those present but not voting exceeded the margin of victory 137 to 12. Dem Congressman Robert Wexler sued LePore and Florida to force them to adopt a paper trail.
Also Wexler sponsored professor Arthur Anderson to challenge LePore for her job – an elected position. On the August polling day sheriff’s deputies showed up and surrounded the supervisor’s office with squad cars – such a police presence at election sites is technically illegal – citing a possible terrorist threat. No source for threat was ever verified and the office was doubling as a polling station and collection point for hand delivered absentee ballots – even more suspicious because of contentious sheriff election held on same day.
Sarah “Echo” Steiner – member of the Palm Beach Coalition for Election Reform – thought police presence was a ploy to try to suppress Anderson’s absentee vote count – likely to be largely his supporters as they tended not to trust the electronic machines.
LePore’s system for absentee votes was confusing too – requiring voters to fill in a broken arrow linking the name of the office to the candidate – which caused mayhem. She also ensured that Palm Beach was the only county that printed the voters party affiliation on the return envelope.
Anderson won the election by 51% to 49% - many considered the fact that one of the most hated politicians nearly winning was very suspicious. But she remained in office till January 2005 – + remained able to rig the Presidential election.
The person in charge of conducting the election in Florida, the Florida Secretary, Katherine Harris, was doubling as GW’s campaign co-chair.
Diebold memos – an “incriminating stash of Diebold election systems memos” – http://www.sentry.nu/s/lists/
DMCA – used to suppress the memos. They were posted on various web sites which went down one by one. Including Indy Media in the UK.
There was a case in Nye County, Nevada, in early September where electronic voting machine malfunctioned when polls closed after a state primary election, threatening to disenfranchise everyone who had used it – USA Today, 12/09/04. The NYTimes made claim that many state and local officials “have financial ties to voting machine companies”.
“Kerry voted for Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and he has not promised to dismantle Bush’s illegal world prisons.” Charles Glass, Indie, 15th September 2004.
“In Washington…John Kerry has been highlighting Bush's difficulties in winning NATO backing” and “the vast majority of Europeans want to see…Kerry in the White House, though their governments cannot of course say so in public.” - Ian Black, Grauniad, Monday September 20, 2004
The troublesome Diebold election systems were failing in California, April 2004. Indie – 1st May 2004.
Touchscreen machines for balloting.
Precinct 2078 West Palm Beach, Florida only had 6 voting machines and one broke down at start of voting causing a queue of over one hour for voting. Some got fed up and went home. Some found their names missing from the rolls. There were 20 ballot initiatives(?)  for voters causing confusion.
There was also Richie Robb.
Colorado’s amendment 36 did not pass.
http://www.lawanddemocracy.org/amend36.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Amendment_36_(2004)

Kerry was projected to win Illinois, the New England foursome of Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massechusetts, and New Jersey. Kerry was projected leader in electoral college (1am UK time) by 78 votes to 66.
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida were too close to call by networks.
There were irregularities in Philadelphia, Penns, but “balloting went smoothly”.

It was the biggest turnout since 1968 – which was also a wartime election.
Exit polls suggested Kerry held a very narrow lead in Florida and Ohio.

A Zogby poll estimate prior to the polls had Kerry winning overall by 311 to 213 electoral votes.

As many as 20% of the eligibal voters took advantage of early voting and many used absentee voting – outside the reach of exit pollsters.

The IOS on 24th October said “the meltdown has already started”...”voting machines have already begun to break down, accusation of systematic voter suppression and fraud are rampant, and lawyers are fully armed and ready with an intimate knowledge of the nation’s byzantine election laws have flocked to court to cry foul in half a dozen states.” Andrew Gumbel

In Jacksonville the county elections supervisor resigne don the first day of polling.
Democrats working to get Ralph Nader barred from the ballot – successful in Pennsylvania.
Computer breakdowns in Memphis
Multiple crashed in pre election tests – Riverside county, California; and Palm Beach County, Fa
Non-english language problems.
Nebraska – dead people were found to have applied for absentee ballots.
Ken Blackwell who rejected buying electronic voting machines but is in defience of a court order for a policy that is biased against Democratic voters.
Sec of state in Florida, Glenda Hood, does political bidding of Jeb Bush.
She has directed supervisors to reject registration forms where applicants signed that they are US citizens but forgot to check a citizenry box elsewhere.
She’s been in a long battle to limit what manual recounts the electronic voting machines permit. She has said “but if there is any discrepancy” between count and analysis of the computerised machines’ internal audit logs in the event of a close race “supervisors are to go wit the original count!” rendering the recount pointless!
“Studies suggest they fail to record as many votes as their predesessors.” And “all evidence of problems is hidden away in the binary code of an electronic black box, and is, to all intents and purposes, invisible.”

Article II of the constitution...offers noautomatic right to vote” states can choose.
“After granting the franchise in the special context of Article II...[the state] can take back the power to appoint electors” – supreme court majoroity in its Bush v Gore ruling.

The final CNN/Gallup poll put candidates level on 49%. Harris poll gave Bush a 49-48 lead.

The Whole World Hates Bush
Lucky the “leader of the free world” didn’t have to put himself to the vote in the “free world” he’d have lost. By a long way. A ten country opinion poll showed voters in eight out of 10 countries, including Britain, wanted to see John Kerry win, and on average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans.
The Israelis back Bush 2-1 over Kerry and see the US as their security umbrella - and the Russians who, despite their traditional anti-Americanism, recorded unexpectedly favourable attitudes towards the US in the survey conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan tragedy.
Seven out of ten Americans were worried about the worsening of the US image abroad. This was according to a poll by Universuity of Maryland and Globescan. ¾ said world opinion would not affect their vote for the president. 60% of Americans said they would like the US to strengthen its partnership with the EU.
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094702400

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/05/usa.uselections20041

November 10th bush administration nominated Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General.

Fallujah Attacked
“The images from [November’s] siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated. 
It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.
On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime.

Kofi Annan’s letter – Fallujah Warning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3987641.stm

In the OBL vid three days before the US election – the BBC said it was “spectral” – a fuzzy picture. Crisis described three OBLs, 1) lean-looking OBL who denounced 9-11 attacks in the Pakistani media, 2) fat OBL interviwed by Pakistani paper “The Dauri” (?check name?) in November 2001 and 3) Thin again OBL claiming responsibility for 9-11. See Dec 2001 reports that OBL is dead.

In Britain a minor breach of parliamentary security made by Uber Posh pro-hunting demonstrators led to calls for CCTV to be installed in parliament’s corridors, a proposal supported by MI5. It would enable them to heavesdrop on mps conversations.

In November 2004, concurrently with the US and Iraqi attack on the city of Fallujah, the Battle of Mosul (2004) began. On November 10, insurgents conducted coordinated attacks on the police stations. The policemen who were not killed in the fighting fled the city, leaving Mosul without any civil police force for about a month. However, soon after the insurgents' campaign to overrun the city had begun, elements from the 25th Infantry Division and components from the Multinational force comprised mainly of Albanian forces, took the offensive and began to maneuver into the most dangerous parts of the city. Fighting continued well into the 11th with the insurgents on the defensive and US forces scouring neighborhoods for any resistance. Wikip.
“Good journalists who knew what they were about could produce critical stories but they could only go where the Americans went. An example of the disadvantage of this was the US marines ‘bloody’ but victorious assault on Fallujah in November 2004 which was heavily covered by the media. But the insurgents’ counterstroke, during which they captured most of the northern city of Mosul for a few days, passed almost unnoticed by the outside world because there were very few Americna troops there and hence no embedded journalists to report this military disaster.
Cockburn, indie, 25/04/09

In November a senior CIA official called Mike Scheuer spoke out. 22 years in the CIA, former head of the CIA’s OBL unit, criticised Bush for going to war in Iraq and for the way it conducted the war on terror in general. The Christian Science Monitor (November 12th 2004) reported “a tension” between the White House and the CIA since 9-11. 9-11 committee recommendations – an uber director for the whole intelligence committee. Scheuer published 2 books. “Through Our Enemies” ans “Imperial Hubris” under ‘anonymous’ www.csmonitor.com/2004/1112/p02-02-usfp.htm 

August 19th, Iraq's national conference finally elected the country's interim assembly, which was to serve as a watchdog over the interim government until national elections were held in January

US Retreat?
Bush finally came good with his threat to withdraw US troops from Yoorup. Around 70000 uniformed and 100,000 civilian employees will be pissing off in the next 10 years. Hoorah!
Most to be repositioned in the USA, but troops numbers in Eastern Europe may rise slightly!
“The greatest impact may be on Gemrany.” US Navy’s Yooruppeen headuarters may be moved from GB to Italy. Retired General Wesley Clark said it would “significantly undermine US security”. South Korean based troops will reduce to around 25,000 from 37,000. Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the UN was disappointed.

That Troublesome Democracy Thing…
Bliar having his own problems, after mentioning his intention to invite the Iraqi “prime minister” to Labour’s conference Mark Seddon said members of the NEC would walkout. Seddon wanted to invite John Kerry to the conference. Activists from Labour Against the War have circulated an e-mail:

Philippines
2004 election campaign – filmstar Fernando Poe Arroyo.

The transatlantic drift
Ian Black, Monday September 20, 2004
On Jan 28th David Kay told a Senate Committee “we were almost all wrong “ in believeing that SH had chemical or biological arms.
On Jan 30th C Rice admitted intelligence may have been wrong “what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew was going on and what we found on the ground.” She told CBS News
“Washington is now deeply irritated at [Spanish pm Zapatero’s] suggestion that other countries in the "coalition of the willing" should follow his example. Bliar was conspicuously absent from the festive dinner at Madrid's Moncloa palace, suggesting that prospects are poor for his hopes of forging a trilateral alliance between London, Paris and Berlin to call the shots in the EU and repair the damage caused by the war.
And it quickly became clear that NATO - the institutional embodiment of transatlantic ties - was as deeply divided about the post-war situation as it had been before the invasion.
Modest plans to deploy a NATO mission to train the fledgling Iraqi security forces have yet to be agreed. The same "gang of three" - France, Germany and Belgium - which opposed a preventive deployment to Turkey last year are opposing any arrangement which requires the alliance as a whole to be involved. Spain has joined them.
a growing majority of Europeans seek a more independent role from the US. Some 58 per cent of Europeans said strong US leadership in the world was undesirable, an increase of nine percentage points from a similar poll last year. Only in Britain and the Netherlands do a majority desire strong American leadership. Eighty per cent of the Europeans surveyed did not believe the invasion of Iraq was worth the loss of life and cost. Some 73 per cent of Europeans believe the war increased the risk of terrorism, as do 49 per cent of Americans.
Bush is now seen to be acquiescing to the ruling Likud party's hardline approach to Israeli settlements, as well as the wider question of tackling the root causes of terrorism.

The Price of Oil
August 9th The price of crude on futures markets rises to record levels in both London and New York after the threat of sabotage by rebels forces Iraq to shut down production in its southern oilfields.
Oil is close to reaching, or may have reached its highest levels of production potential. Once the peek is reached oil prices will start to rise – this will have devastating effects on the US economy – US leaders bowing to oil industry pressure have not worked to dvelop viable altenraitves.

When an OBL video turned up just before the election, Walter Cronkite was quoted as saying “I’m a little inclined to think that Karl Rove…probably set up bin Laden to this thing.”

the elections
Karzai postponed the presidential election - originally scheduled to take place in June - until October, and the parliamentary elections until next spring in order to avoid voters being frightened from the polls by bloodshed.
The Taliban has vowed to step up attacks ahead of the election, and on August 30 a car bomb ripped through the offices of a US security company in Kabul, killing 10 people. Afghans voted on October 9th for a new president, the UN team organising the poll has said it "will not look pretty" - but the result will stand .
The Taliban threatened bombings, the warlords might tried to rig some of the voting, much of the electorate is illiterate and has never voted before, and roads and communications are poor over the vast terrain.
The candidate expected to win was the then, unelected transitional president, Hamid Karzai, who had been more or less holed up in his secure compound in the capital, Kabul, after coming under fire on a helicopter trip in September.
Karzai had 17 rival candidates - an ethnically diverse group - included warlords with some very questionable backgrounds in terms of human rights, one woman, and a poet, Latif Pedram.
The UN estimated that 90% of the Afghan electorate may vote, with about 40% of the voters being women. But it has encountered an anomaly: the UN thinks 9.5 million people are eligible to vote, but eyebrows were arched after 10.5 million actually registered. During polling hands were inked to try and stop multiple voting.
The UN organisers of the vote hired 5,000 mobile phones, 1,150 Russian jeeps, four helicopters and a cargo plane but also some 300 donkeys.  And it will be by donkey that the ballot box from one polling station in the Hindu Kush mountains will be delivered - two weeks after the polls have closed.
Official electoral monitors are only several hundred strong, and the legwork manning and returning ballot boxes from the 22,000 polling stations will be done by the 114,000 local staff hired by the UN, which is spending £111m on the election. David Avery, who is in charge of the UN's joint electoral management body, admitted that not every ballot box was going to make it. He told the Guardian: "In the end, you count what you get."
There has been widespread violence against election officials, and a dozen election workers have so far been killed in shootings and bombings.  US and NATO troops are patrolling the capital and countryside, leaving it to thousands of newly trained Afghan national police and army troops to guard candidates and polling stations.
A UN report warned that local warlords could use guns to intimidate both voters and candidates. It also suggested that a lack of information and understanding about how the elections work, especially in rural areas, where many people are illiterate, could hinder a fair outcome.
More than 1,000 people have died in violence over the last year, making it the deadliest since the US-led invasion ousted the Taliban.
The Pakistani president, Pervez Musharaff, promised to stop the remnants of the Taliban launching raids into Afghanistan from bases inside Pakistan, but Afghan leaders say this is still happening.

In September 2002, Karzai survived an assassination attempt in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Several organisations, including Médecins sans Frontières, have withdrawn from Afghanistan following unprecedented attacks on aid workers.

On Wednesday October 6, just three days before the polls open, a convoy carrying Mr Karzai's vice-presidential running mate, Ahmed Zia Massood, was attacked by a roadside bomb. Mr Massood was unharmed but one man died.

If none of those candidates wins a simple majority, a run-off election in November will determine a final winner.

Yussus Qanuni admitted defeat on the 24th October while counting was still going on but Mohammed Mohaqeq refused to concede.

“Each time it reports on Zimbabwe the BBC sanctimoniously announces it is not allowed to report freely from that country. Why not the same warning when it is covering Iraq, so we know we are getting partial information?” Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. She said “don’t believe the PR about Basra. Yes, British soldiers are less hated than Americans, but only marginally.”. and people from Basra are “enraged that there is so much censorship.” She said the questions that journalists are failing to ask ‘How many Iraqis have died since the war began? How many were blameless civilians? Why don’t you know? Why don’t you want us to know? Where is your proof that all those you are killing are terrorists?

There was a general war against the media – the US silencing dissenting outlets in Iraq. In the UK the main trouble makers during the war were tamed, Peirs Morgan was sacked after pressure from “American investors’ and BBC’s “compliance unit”.

End of August - Stricken suddenly by a dodgy ticker, Clinton had to undergo major heart surgery, which ruled him out of campaigning for Kerry in run up to the election. Until 26th October when Clinton made appearance in Philapelphia.

Tom Daschle – Senate minority leader – in a fight to keep his seat. Dems lost Senate Feb 03? Their best chance was in the Senate, as they needed a net gain of 10 in House of Representatives, or as one commentator put it, they “haven’t a prayer”.

Apocalypse Now in Falluja
Naomi Klein wrote: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".
David T Johnson, US acting ambassador wrote to Klein suggesting “that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it.” And then she went on to lay out her evidence.  She made assertion that US had failed in their April assault on Falluja after civilian deaths had reached such proportion that rebellion was sparked off all over Iraq forcing US forces to withdraw and hand power back to insurgents. To ensure that there was no repeat in the next assault scheduled for after the November election, the US planned a massive information suppression operation to parallel the conventional attack.
Within hours of GW’s victory speech the Pentagon put their plan into action and take Falluja. It was a massacre. November 8th to November …

General Hoare was quoted back in September: that he believed from the information he had received that "a decision has been made" to attack Fallujah "after the first Tuesday in November. That's the cynical part of it - after the election. The signs are all there."
He compared any such planned attack to the late Syrian dictator Hafez al-Asad's razing of the rebel city of Hama. "You could flatten it," said Hoare. "US military forces would prevail, casualties would be high, there would be inconclusive results with respect to the bad guys, their leadership would escape, and civilians would be caught in the middle. I hate that phrase collateral damage. And they talked about dancing in the street, a beacon for democracy."  –
The Pentagon pulled out all stops to "liberate" the people of Fallujah. According to residents, the city quickly became littered with thousands of cluster bombs.

"The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Falluja," marine Lt Col Gareth Brandl told the BBC.
Donald Rumsfeld, who would have us believe that [insurgents] are all from Syria and Jordan. And since US army vehicles are blaring recordings forbidding all men between the ages of 15 and 50 from leaving the city, it would suggest that there are at least a few Iraqis among what CNN now obediently describes as the "anti-Iraqi forces".
“The US military and Iraqi government officials say Fallujah is a base for foreign militants loyal to Zarqawi, a Jordanian whose group has claimed responsibility for kidnappings and murderers, including that of…Ken Bigley.” Indie, 25/10/04

“Escape routes have been sealed off, homes are being demolished, and an emergency health clinic has been razed - all in the name of preparing the city for January elections. In a letter to United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, the US-appointed Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi explained that the all-out attack was required "to safeguard lives, elections and democracy in Iraq." 
“The first major operation by US marines and Iraqi soldiers was to storm Falluja general hospital, arresting doctors and placing the facility under military control. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casual ties", noting that "this time around, the American military intends to fight its own information war, countering or squelching what has been one of the insurgents' most potent weapons". The Los Angeles Times quoted a doctor as saying that the soldiers "stole the mobile phones" at the hospital - preventing doctors from communicating with the outside world.
“But this was not the worst of the attacks on health workers. Two days earlier, a crucial emergency health clinic was bombed to rubble, as well as a medical supplies dispensary next door. Dr Sami al-Jumaili, who was working in the clinic, says the bombs took the lives of 15 medics, four nurses and 35 patients. The Los Angeles Times reported that the manager of Falluja general hospital "had told a US general the location of the downtown makeshift medical centre" before it was hit.
“Whether the clinic was targeted or destroyed accidentally, the effect was the same: to eliminate many of Falluja's doctors from the war zone. As Dr Jumaili told the Independent on November 14: "There is not a single surgeon in Falluja." When fighting moved to Mosul, a similar tactic was used: on entering the city, US and Iraqi forces immediately seized control of the al-Zaharawi hospital.”
“Just as doctors and journalists have been targeted, so too have many of the clerics who have spoken out forcefully against the killings in Falluja. On November 11, Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, was arrested. According to Associated Press, "Al-Sumaidaei has called on the country's Sunni minority to launch a civil disobedience campaign if the Iraqi government does not halt the attack on Falluja". On November 19, AP reported that US and Iraqi forces stormed a prominent Sunni mosque, the Abu Hanifa, in Aadhamiya, killing three people and arresting 40, including the chief cleric - another opponent of the Falluja siege. On the same day, Fox News reported that "US troops also raided a Sunni mosque in Qaim, near the Syrian border". The report described the arrests as "retaliation for opposing the Falluja offensive". Two Shia clerics associated with Moqtada al-Sadr have also been arrested in recent weeks; according to AP, "both had spoken out against the Falluja attack".

“"We don't do body counts," said General Tommy Franks of US Central Command. The question is: what happens to the people who insist on counting the bodies - the doctors who must pronounce their patients dead, the journalists who document these losses, the clerics who denounce them? In Iraq, evidence is mounting that these voices are being systematically silenced through a variety of means, from mass arrests, to raids on hospitals, media bans, and overt and unexplained physical attacks. “
Thousands of families trapped inside Fallujah with no food, clean water or medical assistance. US forces claimed to have killed 1,200 ‘rebels’ in Fallujah. Iraqi Red Crescent Society were not allowed in by the US. A woman who managed to flee the city – “most families stayed inside their houses all the time…we were always very hungry because we didn’t want to eat our food or drink all of the water we never knew if we would be able to get more, so we treid to be careful.” One young refugee: “anyone who left their house would either be shot by American snipers or recruited by the Mujahideen.2 The US surely did bomb families hiding in their homes. Iraqi rebels by then had taken control of large areas of Ramadi, Samarra, Haditha, Buquba, Qaim, Latifiyah, Taji and Khaldiyah – fighting also in Shia holy city of Kerbala. Fighting spread across Baghdad too. There was the first fighting between Polish and resistance fighters. 15/11/04.

The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud. Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, was the focal point of the movement with thousands of protesters demonstrating daily. Nationwide, the democratic revolution was highlighted by a series of acts of civil disobedience, sit-ins, and general strikes organized by the opposition movement.
The protests were prompted by reports from several domestic and foreign election monitors as well as the widespread public perception that the results of the run-off vote of November 21, 2004 between leading candidates Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych were rigged  by the authorities in favor of the latter.[1] The nationwide protests succeeded when the results of the original run-off were annulled, and a revote was ordered by Ukraine's Supreme Court for December 26, 2004. Under intense scrutiny by domestic and international observers, the second run-off was declared to be "fair and free". The final results showed a clear victory for Yushchenko, who received about 52 percent of the vote, compared to Yanukovych's 44 percent. Yushchenko was declared the official winner and with his inauguration on January 23, 2005 in Kiev, the Orange Revolution ended.
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Revolution

UN head Annan was targeted in November – fraud allegations against him and his brother over Iraqi oil coupons came from the US.
UN officials able to benefit from a scam in which SH was able to skim billions of dollars from a UN program intended to help the Iraqi people. Congressman Scott Garrett leading calls for resignation or to put him in jail. Noone outside of the US is taking this seriously.
Norm coleman on the committee investigating oil for food scandal. Chirac hinted that Annan’s critics had a hidden agenda. US diplomat to UN John Danforth – not fully supportive of Annan.
UN reform report
Annan had declared Iraq war to be illegal and was behind moves to end execmption of US soldiers from prosecution by ICC. Failing to contribute to the US inspired elections in Iraq. An ad in the US accused the UN of becoming an “apologist and defender of terrorists and their agents.” UN officials say that Saddam diverted $21.3 bn from the Iraq program but that included all the illegal revenue obtained by SH since sanctions in 1991 – not just the funds from illicit surcharges and kickbacks under the Iraq programme.
All contracts in oil for food were approved by sanctions committee of UNSC whose permanent members include the US.
Annan’s son, Kojo, worked for a company given contracts with the oil-for-food scheme in Iraq – Cotecna.

December 7, 2004, The Guardian
President Pervez Musharraf's 50-minute meeting with Bush in the Oval Office on Saturday prompted widespread comment from the Pakistani papers. Aside from the war on terror, the leaders discussed the Kashmir dispute, peace in the Middle East, and future trade relations.
Both leaders had practised diplomatic caution on sensitive issues, said the Daily Times, as "Mr Bush did not emphasise too much the need for Pakistan to become fully democratic and Gen Musharraf did not say he felt bad about what his host was doing in Iraq." Still, they both "exploited the theme of terrorism to their advantage".
Bush's "effusive" praise of Gen Musharraf's fight against terror dispelled "the impression that the Pakistan army had downgraded the search for Osama bin Laden". But a sceptical editorial viewed the meeting as "a mere photo opportunity with the Pakistani side doing most of the listening and the US side most of the talking".

Election in Afghanistan 
Former pm Mahmoud Abbas allowed to travel freely in occupied territories while his rivals are restricted.
Elections last held in 1996 .
Dr Mustafa Barghouti – complaining
Marwan Barghoputi (no relation)
Abbas has criticised the armed Palestinian revolt.

Palestinian elections on  - scheduled for 9th January

Five gunmen stormed US consulate in Jeddah . the first major attack in Saudi Arabia since the end of May, when Islamist gunmen attacked a housing compound in Khobar, killing 22 civilians. Tuesday December 7, 2004.

Residents were allowed to return to Fallujah in mid-December 2004 after undergoing biometric identification, provided they wear their ID cards all the time. US officials report that "more than half of Fallujah's 39,000 homes were damaged during Operation Phantom Fury, and about 10,000 of those were destroyed" while compensation amounts to 20 percent of the value of damaged houses, with an estimated 32,000 homeowners eligible, according to Marine Lt Col William Brown.[18] According to NBC, 9,000 homes were destroyed, thousands more were damaged and of the 32,000 compensation claims only 2,500 have been paid as of April 14, 2005.[19] According to Mike Marqusee of Iraq Occupation Focus writing in the Guardian, "Fallujah's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines".[20] Reconstruction mainly consists of clearing rubble from heavily-damaged areas and reestablishing basic utility services. Ten per cent of the pre-offensive inhabitants had returned as of mid-January 2005, and 30% as of the end of March 2005.[21] In 2006, some reports say two thirds have now returned and only 15 percent remain displaced on the outskirts of the city.[22]
Pre-offensive inhabitant figures are unreliable; the nominal population was assumed to have been 250,000-350,000. Thus, over 150,000 individuals are still living as IDPs in tent cities or with relatives outside Fallujah or elsewhere in Iraq. Current estimates by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and Coalition Forces put the city's population at over 350,000, possibly closing in on half a million.
In the aftermath of the offensive, relative calm was restored to Fallujah.
In December 2006, enough control had been exerted over the city to transfer operational control of the city from American forces to the 1st Iraqi Army Division. During the same month, the Fallujah police force began major offensive operations under their new chief. Coalition Forces, as of May 2007, are operating in direct support of the Iraqi Security Forces in the city. The city is one of Anbar province's centers of gravity in a newfound optimism among American and Iraqi leadership about the state of the counterinsurgency in the region.[23][24]
In June 2007, Regimental Combat Team 6 began Operation Alljah, a security plan modeled on a successful operation in Ramadi. After segmenting districts of the city, Iraqi Police and Coalition Forces established police district headquarters in order to further localize the law enforcement capabilities of the Iraqi Police.[25] A similar program had met with success in the city of Ramadi in late 2006 and early 2007 (See Battle of Ramadi (2006)).

Decemebr 30th Dep Attorney General James Comey disavows Bybee torture memo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bybee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bybee_Memo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_interrogation_techniques

Bits…
Mercaneries arrested on their way to mount a coup in Equatorial Guinea – Simon Mann, cofounder of Sandline.

A study on pre-school children’s tooth decay rates after fluoridation became law in Kentucky – 28% developed cavities in 1987 increased to 47% in 2001. According to July/August issue of Pediatric Dentistry. New York coalition opposed to fluoriditation 16th august 2004, via http://www.enn.com. Also Christopher Bryson, “the Fluoride Deception”.

 “I was and still am, a member of the majority of American voters who were not realised in the last presidential election. And there is no doubt of outright criminality at the highest level by the court-declared winners. We are now seeing in America the possibilities of an absolute government by the few for the betterment of the few. This is to be reached in any manner. But as one of that great majority who believes and knows America as America is not the person, politician or political party who happens to be in office for a stated period of time, in the words of Martin Luther King, “We shall overcome” and we will.” (BBC1, The British Academy and Film Awards, Feb 24th, 2003).

Brazil
As FTAA looks like becoming the biggest trading bloc in history – expanding NAFTA to 34 countries from Canada to far south of the Americas – Brazil being awkward and holding up the Jan 2005 deadline. Pres Lula though NAFTA sceptic is instituting his own brand of FTAA austerity policies – that are sure to drive the region’s poor into deeper pverty.

North Korea
North K called John Bolton – Yale educated lawyer and US Under Sec of State for Arms Control and International Security. Long standing US demands for multilateral talks on NK’s nuclear arms ambitions. GWB, at start of his administration put a damper on SK’s “sunshine policy” of détente with the North – Simon Tisdall, Grauniad.

Wolfowitz, Paul
US department fo Defense “we are going to try and kill as many of the Taliban as possible” – harsh comment on former friends of the CIA.

US insurance sector corrupt, says Spitzer, David Teather in New York
Friday October 15, 2004
The Guardian
Eliot Spitzer, the battling New York attorney general who took on Wall Street, yesterday turned his sights on the insurance industry, accusing it of widespread corruption.
in a lawsuit filed against the largest insurance broker in the United States, Marsh & McLennan. The suit also names some of the biggest insurers, including Chubb, American International Group, ACE, Hartford Financial Services and Munich Re, and Mr Spitzer said separate civil or criminal actions could be pursued against each of them.
The suit alleges that Marsh & McLennan steered unsuspecting clients to insurers with whom it had lucrative payoff agreements. He also said the broker solicited rigged bids for insurance contracts to make it look as though it had sought the best offer. The result is a distorted market and higher insurance costs, the suit claims.
Spitzer wrung $1.4bn from the biggest banks on Wall Street to settle allegations that the banks' research departments were issuing conflicted advice to in vestors. He has also extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the mutual fund industry in an ongoing investigation into corrupt practices that favour big clients over ordinary investors.
More recently he has turned to the drugs industry and exposed GlaxoSmithKline's suppression of negative data about its anti-depressant, Seroxat.
The complaint against Marsh alleges that the firm has "at least since the late 1990s" received special payments from insurance companies above and beyond normal sales commissions. The payments, known as "contingent commissions", were characterised as compensation for "market services" but were in fact rewards for the business that Marsh steered their way, Mr Spitzer said. Marsh collected $800m in contingent commissions in 2003 alone, more than half its $1.5bn profit.
Spitzer said allegations went to the heart of the way the insurance industry does business.

Reconstruction? What Reconstruction?
Congress had allotted $18.4 bn for the reconstruction of Iraq . But the money wasn’t being spent and the reconstruction wasn’t being carried out.- only $3.2 bn had been spent by the summer. Then the Whitehouse changed the plan. Now they intended using the money as leverage to control the Iraqi government “with $15bn outstanding: how likely are Iraq’s politicians to refuse US demands for military bases and economic ‘reforms’?”
Tim Spicer’s company Aegis was paid $293m “to save the program management office from embarrassment” as well as assassination, kidnapping and injury. Spicer had previously been employed to put down rebels and stage a military coup in Papua New Guinea - It was overthrown by disgruntled soldiers before the plan could be put into effect – and was involved in a plan to break the arms embargo in Sierra Leone. Three UK firms picked up £43m worth of reconstruction contracts awarded by the Pentagon in March Amec won part of a $1bn contract to rebuild water and sewage networks in Iraq.
The State Department took $184m earmarked for drinking water projects and moved it to the budget for the huge US embassy in Saddam Hussein’s former palace. Richard Armitage – Dep Sec of State – found himself $1bn short for the embassy or CIA headquarters, so said he might have to “rob from Peter in my fiefdom to pay Paul”. Consumer group Public Citizen said that Iraqi people were as a result – facing “massive outbreaks of cholera, diarrhoea, nausea and kidney stones” from drinking contaminated water.
“Allawi… threatened to declare martial law, and his defence minister said of resistance fighters: "We will cut off their hands, and we will behead them."
 “the Bush administration revealed plans to shift $3.46 billion from Iraqi reconstruction projects to the areas of security, oil output and the January elections.” The changes required congressional approval though. Of the $18bn approved for Iraq’s construction only about $1bn had been spent by now. It was justified due to “changing circumstances”. Many parts of Iraq still suffered daily power outages. The administration planned to shift $1.8bn originally earmarked for water, sewage and electricity projects to expand the security forces, which should add 45,000 Iraqi police officers and 16,000 officials for border enforcement. Another $180m would go to help plan elections and strengthen local government. 
$450m from refined oil projects to go to expand Iraq’s oil capacity, to “increase Iraqi oil production by 650,000 barrels per day by mid 2005.” The White House wanted to expand oil production and exports at the Kirkuk oilfield, including a new pipeline at Rumaylah oilfield.
$380m would be used to boost economic development. Some of that money would also be used as resettlement aid to 300,000 Kurds. A separate $286m would help expand job training programmes.
$360m to be set aside to cover “budget cost” of writing off 95% of Iraq’s debt to the US –run up largely in the 80s. – aljazeera.net

March 14th the British head of the ruling Coalition Provisional Authority in southern Iraq warned of serious inflation as signs of economic take-off emerge.


The [fictional] Iraq – al Qaeda Connection  .
In the debate between the running mates in run up to the election, Edwards separated the Iraq war from the war on al-Qaida. Rumsfeld, had disclaimed any connection between Saddam Hussein and 9-11. But the implication of a connection had been a principal reason for public support of the war. “The latest Gallup poll shows that 62% of Republicans still believe that Saddam was behind 9/11.”
"I have not suggested there is a connection between Iraq and 9/11," Cheney said, even though he had many times, and right after the debate the networks broadcast tapes of these statement. Cheney refused to admit he was wrong, "What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had to recommend it all over again, I would ..."
On September 2002, he’d said, "We do have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaida members, including some that have been in Baghdad," and in October 2002: He told a Pentagon briefing he had already been informed there is "solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qaida members". In August 2002: he  claimed "there are al-Qaida in Iraq", in March 2003 he said the US-led coalition has solid evidence that senior al-Qaida operatives had visited Baghdad in the past, and that Saddam had an "evolving" relationship with the terror network. In September 2004: The defence secretary confused the jailed Saddam and the fugitive Bin Laden in a speech to the US National Press Club: "Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001." He corrected himself when asked for clarification.
Several hours after Rumsfeld had told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that "to my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two", Rumsfeld claimed he had been "misunderstood". "I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between al-Qaida and Iraq," the statement said. "This assessment was based upon points provided to me by [the] then CIA director George Tenet to describe the CIA's understanding of the al-Qaida Iraq relationship." – a reversal of the position adopted by many senior Bush administration figures.
Cheney in September told a meeting in Ohio that Saddam had "provided safe harbour and sanctuary ... for al-Qaida".
Rumsfeld told his audience in New York that he had seen intelligence on the Saddam-al-Qaida question "migrate in amazing ways" during the past year, adding that there were "many differences of opinion in the intelligence community".


The Road to Democracy or the Road to Nowhere?
Robert Fisk wrote about how dubious this top-down democratic process was: “The moment we suggest that Iraq never was fertile soil for western democracy, we get accused of being racists.” He explains, “Arabs states are largely squalid, corrupt, brutal dictatorships. No surprise there. We created most of these dictators. We kicked off with the Kings and Princes and – if they didn’t exercise sufficient control over the masses – then we supported a wretched bunch of generals and colonels most of whom wore a variety of British military uniforms with eagles instead of crows on their hat badges…we never wanted the Arabs to have democracy”. He described “a cabal of neo-conservative, pro-Israeli proselytisers – Messrs Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Kristol, et al – helped to propel Bush and US Defence Sec Rumsfeld into this war with grotesquely inaccurate prophecies of anew Middle East of democratic, pro-Israeli Arab states…They were going to reshape the map of the Middle East and bring democracy to the region…The Arabs wanted democracy, they would seize it, we would be loved, welcomed, praised, embraced for brining this much sought  after commodity to the region. The problem is not the people…[it] is the environment, the make up of the patriarchal society and…the artificial states which we created for them. They do not and cannot produce democracy…the Arab peoples had confidence only in their tribes. The Kings were tribal – and the dictators were tribal. Saddam…was a Tikriti. And these ruthless men held their power through a network of tribal and sectarian alliances.” 

Paul Bremer, “America’s failed proconsul in Iraq”, at some point, stopped talking about Democracy and started referring to “representative government” – which is not the same thing. Then Daniel Pipes, “a right wing cousin of the Neo-Cons, started advocating not democracy for Iraq but a “democratically minded autocrat”.”


Chemical Weapons?
Did US troops use chemical weapons and poisonous gas during its offensive on Fallujah. “The US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally-banned chemical weapons,” resistance sources told Al-Quds Press on November 10. The bodies of innocent civilians littered sidewalks and streets.  “They use chemical weapons out of despair and helplessness in the face of the steadfast and fierce resistance put up by Fallujah people, who drove US troops out of several districts, hoisting proudly Iraqi flags on them. Resistance has also managed to destroy and set fire to a large number of US tanks and vehicles. “The US troops have sprayed chemical and nerve gases on resistance fighters, turning them hysteric in a heartbreaking scene,” an Iraqi doctor told Al-Quds Press.
 “Some Fallujah residents have been further burnt beyond treatment by poisonous gases,” added resistance fighters, who took part in Golan battles, northwest of Fallujah.
An Iraqi doctor who requested anonymity told al-Quds Press that "the US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally banned chemical weapons". The Washington Post has confirmed that US troops are firing white-phosphorus rounds that create a screen of fire impervious to water.
Dr Muhammad Ismail, a member of the governing board of Fallujah's general hospital "captured" by the Americans at the outset of Operation Phantom Fury, has called all Iraqi doctors for urgent help. Ismail told Iraqi and Arab press that the number of wounded civilians is growing exponentially - and medical supplies are almost non-existent. He confirmed that US troops had arrested many members of the hospital's medical staff and had sealed the storage of medical supplies.
The wounded in Fallujah are in essence left to die. There is not a single surgeon in town. And practically no doctors as well, as the Pentagon decided to bomb both the al-Hadar Hospital and the Zayid Mobile Hospital. So far, the International Committee of the Red Cross has reacted with thunderous apathy. 

"The bombs being dropped on Fallujah don't contain explosives, depleted uranium or anything harmful - they contain laughing gas - that would, of course, explain [Pentagon chief Donald] Rumsfeld's misplaced optimism about not killing civilians in Fallujah. Also, being a 'civilian' is a relative thing in a country occupied by Americans. You're only a civilian if you're on their side. If you translate for them, or serve them food in the Green Zone, or wipe their floors - you're an innocent civilian. Just about everyone else is an insurgent, unless they can get a job as a 'civilian'."
- Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl, author of the blog Baghdad Burning

In August 2003, the United States admitted dropping napalm on Iraq, despite earlier denials by the Pentagon that the “horrible” weapon had not been used in the three-week invasion of Iraq.
After the offensive on Iraq ended on April 9 last year, Iraqis began to complain about unexploded cluster bombs  that still litter their cities.
With the media blackout, the banning of Al-Jazeera satellite channel and use of subjective embedded journalists the US military could easily have done this with only Arabic media – if any – in a position to report this. “More and more, the US military edits and censors reports sent by embedded journalists to their respective newspapers and news agencies,” local sources added.
Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Al-Shaalan had said Tuesday, November 9, would be decisive.
“Al-Shaalan declaration meant nothing but the use of chemical weapons and poisonous gases to down Fallujah fighters,” observers told Al-Quds Press.
While the West insisted that Saddam was the one behind the heinous attack [on the Kurds], the ousted president pointed fingers at the then Iranian regime.
The resistance in Fallujah   suddenly became widespread in Baghdad, Ramadi, , Latifiyah, Kirkuk, Mosul. Streets on fire, everywhere: Hundreds, thousands of Fallujahs. The Iraqi resistance has even regained control of a few Baghdad neighborhoods.
Baghdad residents said there are practically no US troops around, even as regular explosions can be heard all over the city. Baghdad sources confirm to Asia Times Online that the mujahideen now control parts of the southern suburb of ad-Durha, as well as Hur Rajab, Abu Ghraib, al-Abidi, as-Suwayrah, Salman Bak, Latifiyah and Yusufiyah - all in the Greater Baghdad area. This would be the first time since the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, that the resistance has been able to control these neighbourhoods.
In a major development not reported by US corporate media, for the first time different factions of the resistance have released a joint statement, signed among others by Ansar as-Sunnah, al-Jaysh al-Islami, al-Jaysh as-Siri (known as the Secret Army), ar-Rayat as-Sawda (known as the Black Banners), the Lions of the Two Rivers, the Abu Baqr as-Siddiq Brigades, and crucially al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Unity and Holy War) - the movement allegedly controlled by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The statement is being relayed all over the Sunni triangle through a network of mosques. 
Fallujah civilians have told families and friends in Baghdad that the US bombing has been worse than Baghdad suffered in March 2003.
The Fallujah resistance for its part seems to have made the crucial tactical decision of clearing two main roads - called Nisan 7 and Tharthar Street - thus drawing the Americans to a battle in the center of town. Baghdad sources close to the resistance say that now the Americans seem to be positioned exactly where the mujahideen want them. This is leading the resistance to insist they - and not the Americans, according to the current Pentagon spin - now control 70% of the city.
There are at least 120 mosques in Fallujah. A consensus is emerging that almost half of them have been smashed by air strikes and shelling by US tanks - something that will haunt the United States for ages. The mosques stopped broadcasting the five daily calls for prayer, but Fadhil Badrani, an Iraqi reporter for BBC World Service in Arabic and one of the very few media witnesses in Fallujah, writes that "every time a big bomb lands nearby, the cry rises from the minarets: 'Allahu Akbar' [God is Great]".
Badrani also disputes the Pentagon spin: "It is misleading to say the US controls 70% of the city because the fighters are constantly on the move. They go from street to street, attacking the army in some places, letting them through elsewhere so that they can attack them later. They say they are fighting not just for Fallujah, but for all Iraq." The mujahideen tactics are a rotating web - Ho Chi Minh's and Che Guevara's tactics applied to urban warfare by the desert: snipers on rooftops, snipers escaping on bicycles, mortar fire from behind abandoned houses, rocket-propelled-grenade attacks on tanks, Bradleys being ambushed, barrages of as many as 200 rockets, instant dispersal, "invisible" regrouping.
Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan, all highways except a secondary road leading to the borders, plus Baghdad's airport, all remain closed. Baghdad in theory has become an island sealed off from the Sunni triangle - but not for the resistance, which keeps slipping inside. Hundreds of Iraqis are stuck on the Syrian border trying to go back home.
Riverbend, the Iraqi girl blogger quoted above, writes of "rumors that there are currently 100 cars ready to detonate in Mosul, being driven by suicide bombers looking for American convoys. So what happens when Mosul turns into another Fallujah? Will they also bomb it to the ground? I heard a report where they mentioned that Zarqawi 'had probably escaped from Fallujah' ... so where is he now? Mosul?"
He could well be in Ramadi, where hundreds of heavily armed mujahideen now control the city center - with no US troops in sight.



The making of the terror myth
Since September 11 Britain has been warned of the 'inevitability' of catastrophic terrorist attack. But has the danger been exaggerated? A major new TV documentary claims that the perceived threat is a politically driven fantasy - and al-Qaida a dark illusion. Andy Beckett reports
Friday October 15, 2004
The Guardian
Since the attacks on the United States in September 2001, there have been more than a thousand references in British national newspapers, working out at almost one every single day, to the phrase "dirty bomb". There have been articles about how such a device can use ordinary explosives to spread lethal radiation; about how London would be evacuated in the event of such a detonation; about the Home Secretary David Blunkett's statement on terrorism in November 2002 that specifically raised the possibility of a dirty bomb being planted in Britain; and about the arrests of several groups of people, the latest only last month, for allegedly plotting exactly that.
Starting next Wednesday, BBC2 is to broadcast a three-part documentary series that will add further to what could be called the dirty bomb genre. But, as its title suggests, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear takes a different view of the weapon's potential.
"I don't think it would kill anybody," says Dr Theodore Rockwell, an authority on radiation, in an interview for the series. "You'll have trouble finding a serious report that would claim otherwise." The American department of energy, Rockwell continues, has simulated a dirty bomb explosion, "and they calculated that the most exposed individual would get a fairly high dose [of radiation], not life-threatening." And even this minor threat is open to question. The test assumed that no one fled the explosion for one year.
During the three years in which the "war on terror" has been waged, high-profile challenges to its assumptions have been rare. The sheer number of incidents and warnings connected or attributed to the war has left little room, it seems, for heretical thoughts. In this context, the central theme of The Power of Nightmares is riskily counter-intuitive and provocative. Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." The series' explanation for this is even bolder: "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
Adam Curtis, who wrote and produced the series, acknowledges the difficulty of saying such things now. "If a bomb goes off, the fear I have is that everyone will say, 'You're completely wrong,' even if the incident doesn't touch my argument. This shows the way we have all become trapped, the way even I have become trapped by a fear that is completely irrational."
So controversial is the tone of his series, that trailers for it were not broadcast last weekend because of the killing of Kenneth Bigley. At the BBC, Curtis freely admits, there are "anxieties". But there is also enthusiasm for the programmes, in part thanks to his reputation. Over the past dozen years, via similarly ambitious documentary series such as Pandora's Box, The Mayfair Set and The Century of the Self, Curtis has established himself as perhaps the most acclaimed maker of serious television programmes in Britain. His trademarks are long research, the revelatory use of archive footage, telling interviews, and smooth, insistent voiceovers concerned with the unnoticed deeper currents of recent history, narrated by Curtis himself in tones that combine traditional BBC authority with something more modern and sceptical: "I want to try to make people look at things they think they know about in a new way."
The Power of Nightmares seeks to overturn much of what is widely believed about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The latter, it argues, is not an organised international network. It does not have members or a leader. It does not have "sleeper cells". It does not have an overall strategy. In fact, it barely exists at all, except as an idea about cleansing a corrupt world through religious violence.
Curtis' evidence for these assertions is not easily dismissed. He tells the story of Islamism, or the desire to establish Islam as an unbreakable political framework, as half a century of mostly failed, short-lived revolutions and spectacular but politically ineffective terrorism. Curtis points out that al-Qaida did not even have a name until early 2001, when the American government decided to prosecute Bin Laden in his absence and had to use anti-Mafia laws that required the existence of a named criminal organisation.
Curtis also cites the Home Office's own statistics for arrests and convictions of suspected terrorists since September 11 2001. Of the 664 people detained up to the end of last month, only 17 have been found guilty. Of these, the majority were Irish Republicans, Sikh militants or members of other groups with no connection to Islamist terrorism. Nobody has been convicted who is a proven member of al-Qaida.
In fact, Curtis is not alone in wondering about all this. Quietly but increasingly, other observers of the war on terror have been having similar doubts. "The grand concept of the war has not succeeded," says Jonathan Eyal, director of the British military thinktank the Royal United Services Institute. "In purely military terms, it has been an inconclusive war ... a rather haphazard operation. Al-Qaida managed the most spectacular attack, but clearly it is also being sustained by the way that we rather cavalierly stick the name al-Qaida on Iraq, Indonesia, the Philippines. There is a long tradition that if you divert all your resources to a threat, then you exaggerate it."
Bill Durodie, director of the international centre for security analysis at King's College London, says: "The reality [of the al-Qaida threat to the west] has been essentially a one-off. There has been one incident in the developed world since 9/11 [the Madrid bombings]. There's no real evidence that all these groups are connected." Crispin Black, a senior government intelligence analyst until 2002, is more cautious but admits the terrorist threat presented by politicians and the media is "out of date and too one-dimensional. We think there is a bit of a gulf between the terrorists' ambition and their ability to pull it off."
Terrorism, by definition, depends on an element of bluff. Yet ever since terrorists in the modern sense of the term (the word terrorism was actually coined to describe the strategy of a government, the authoritarian French revolutionary regime of the 1790s) began to assassinate politicians and then members of the public during the 19th century, states have habitually overreacted. Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford, says that governments often believe struggles with terrorists "to be of absolute cosmic significance", and that therefore "anything goes" when it comes to winning. The historian Linda Colley adds: "States and their rulers expect to monopolise violence, and that is why they react so virulently to terrorism."
Britain may also be particularly sensitive to foreign infiltrators, fifth columnists and related menaces. In spite, or perhaps because of, the absence of an actual invasion for many centuries, British history is marked by frequent panics about the arrival of Spanish raiding parties, French revolutionary agitators, anarchists, bolsheviks and Irish terrorists. "These kind of panics rarely happen without some sort of cause," says Colley. "But politicians make the most of them."
They are not the only ones who find opportunities. "Almost no one questions this myth about al-Qaida because so many people have got an interest in keeping it alive," says Curtis. He cites the suspiciously circular relationship between the security services and much of the media since September 2001: the way in which official briefings about terrorism, often unverified or unverifiable by journalists, have become dramatic press stories which - in a jittery media-driven democracy - have prompted further briefings and further stories. Few of these ominous announcements are retracted if they turn out to be baseless: "There is no fact-checking about al-Qaida."
In one sense, of course, Curtis himself is part of the al-Qaida industry. The Power of Nightmares began as an investigation of something else, the rise of modern American conservatism. Curtis was interested in Leo Strauss, a political philosopher at the university of Chicago in the 50s who rejected the liberalism of postwar America as amoral and who thought that the country could be rescued by a revived belief in America's unique role to battle evil in the world. Strauss's certainty and his emphasis on the use of grand myths as a higher form of political propaganda created a group of influential disciples such as Paul Wolfowitz, now the US deputy defence secretary. They came to prominence by talking up the Russian threat during the cold war and have applied a similar strategy in the war on terror.
As Curtis traced the rise of the "Straussians", he came to a conclusion that would form the basis for The Power of Nightmares. Straussian conservatism had a previously unsuspected amount in common with Islamism: from origins in the 50s, to a formative belief that liberalism was the enemy, to an actual period of Islamist-Straussian collaboration against the Soviet Union during the war in Afghanistan in the 80s (both movements have proved adept at finding new foes to keep them going). Although the Islamists and the Straussians have fallen out since then, as the attacks on America in 2001 graphically demonstrated, they are in another way, Curtis concludes, collaborating still: in sustaining the "fantasy" of the war on terror.
Some may find all this difficult to swallow. But Curtis insists,"There is no way that I'm trying to be controversial just for the sake of it." Neither is he trying to be an anti-conservative polemicist like Michael Moore: "[Moore's] purpose is avowedly political. My hope is that you won't be able to tell what my politics are." For all the dizzying ideas and visual jolts and black jokes in his programmes, Curtis describes his intentions in sober, civic-minded terms. "If you go back into history and plod through it, the myth falls away. You see that these aren't terrifying new monsters. It's drawing the poison of the fear."
But whatever the reception of the series, this fear could be around for a while. It took the British government decades to dismantle the draconian laws it passed against French revolutionary infiltrators; the cold war was sustained for almost half a century without Russia invading the west, or even conclusive evidence that it ever intended to. "The archives have been opened," says the cold war historian David Caute, "but they don't bring evidence to bear on this." And the danger from Islamist terrorists, whatever its scale, is concrete. A sceptical observer of the war on terror in the British security services says: "All they need is a big bomb every 18 months to keep this going."
The war on terror already has a hold on western political culture. "After a 300-year debate between freedom of the individual and protection of society, the protection of society seems to be the only priority," says Eyal. Black agrees: "We are probably moving to a point in the UK where national security becomes the electoral question."
Some critics of this situation see our striking susceptibility during the 90s to other anxieties - the millennium bug, MMR, genetically modified food - as a sort of dress rehearsal for the war on terror. The press became accustomed to publishing scare stories and not retracting them; politicians became accustomed to responding to supposed threats rather than questioning them; the public became accustomed to the idea that some sort of apocalypse might be just around the corner. "Insecurity is the key driving concept of our times," says Durodie. "Politicians have packaged themselves as risk managers. There is also a demand from below for protection." The real reason for this insecurity, he argues, is the decay of the 20th century's political belief systems and social structures: people have been left "disconnected" and "fearful".
Yet the notion that "security politics" is the perfect instrument for every ambitious politician from Blunkett to Wolfowitz also has its weaknesses. The fears of the public, in Britain at least, are actually quite erratic: when the opinion pollsters Mori asked people what they felt was the most important political issue, the figure for "defence and foreign affairs" leapt from 2% to 60% after the attacks of September 2001, yet by January 2002 had fallen back almost to its earlier level. And then there are the twin risks that the terrors politicians warn of will either not materialise or will materialise all too brutally, and in both cases the politicians will be blamed. "This is a very rickety platform from which to build up a political career," says Eyal. He sees the war on terror as a hurried improvisation rather than some grand Straussian strategy: "In democracies, in order to galvanize the public for war, you have to make the enemy bigger, uglier and more menacing."
Afterwards, I look at a website for a well-connected American foreign policy lobbying group called the Committee on the Present Danger. The committee features in The Power of Nightmares as a vehicle for alarmist Straussian  propaganda during the cold war. After the Soviet collapse, as the website puts it, "The mission of the committee was considered complete." But then the website goes on: "Today radical Islamists threaten the safety of the American people. Like the cold war, securing our freedom is a long-term struggle. The road to victory begins ... "
• The Power of Nightmares starts on BBC2 at 9pm on Wednesday October 20.

Curtis cites the suspiciously circular relationship between the security services and much of the media since Sep 2001; the way in which official briefings about terrorism, often unverified or unverifiable by journalists, have become dramatic press stories which in a jittery media driven democracy have prompted firther briefings and further stories. Few of these ominous announcements are retracted if they turn out to be baseless: “There is no fact checking about al Qaeda.”

the terror myth October 15, 2004, The Guardian
Dirty Bombs
“the US government had been successful in creating the conditions to enable them to frighten the folks at home”
A tv documentary series was aired which made claims that the international terror network, and the threat it implied "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media." Politicians have brought this state of affairs about because "In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
Adam Curtis , wrote and produced the series, said " we have all become trapped, the way even I have become trapped by a fear that is completely irrational."

In the three years since 9-11 British newspapers carried over 1000 references to the phrase ‘dirty bomb’. People were being terrorised with the idea of lethal radiation spread widely in an explosion in a large city. Plans for evacuations were talked about. In November 2002, Blunkett made a statement on terrorism that ‘raised the possibility of a dirty bomb being planted in Britain’ and people were arrested allegedly plotting exactly that – in September 2004 and earlier – look up.
"I don't think it would kill anybody," says Dr Theodore Rockwell, an authority on radiation, in an interview for the series. "You'll have trouble finding a serious report that would claim otherwise." The American department of energy, Rockwell continues, has simulated a dirty bomb explosion, "and they calculated that the most exposed individual would get a fairly high dose [of radiation], not life-threatening." And even this minor threat is open to question. The test assumed that no one fled the explosion for one year.

Claims were made of various foiled or failed terror plots: Manila January95, Operation Bojinka; LA Airport New Year’s eve 1999; In Jordan, against US and Israeli tourists, New Year’s eve 1999; Against the USS The Sullivans,near Aden, June 2000; Strasbourg, December 2000; US embassy in Paris, September 2001; NATO’s air base in Belgium; the shoe bomber, December 2001; Demaah Islamiya, Jan 02; US embassy in Rome, Feb 02; US and UK warships near Gibraltar, May 02; Jose Padillo and a dirty bomb in June 02; Heideberg US base, Sep 02; Israeli plane with missile at Mambosa, Kenya Nov 02; Brit embassy in Yemen, sep 03.
In run up to Athens Olympics, regular scare stories appeared in the press, “Sports stars get armed guards over terror fears” 21/03/04; 50,000 strong “security umbrella” including 16,000 troops at Athens Olympics; CIA and FBI “taking the lead role in co-ordinating intelligence gathering”.
In fact it was said that wherever Bush/ Blair had been in trouble in media attacks materialised. The al Ghraib torture scandal was pushed off the schedules by dodgy video of Nick Berg’s beheading by overweight Islamic militants – one wearing a gold ring. Transfer of UK troops to Baghdad was eclipsed by the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan. Indonesia was wavering on new anti terrorist law before bombing in 2002? Check? Saudi refusing to cooperate before bombings there?


The Basis of the war
This week's casualty: the legal case for war in Iraq
Robin Cook, Friday October 15, 2004,The Guardian
The formal admission this week that the 45-minute claim was bunkum comes 18 months too late to save Zaneb and her family, or to influence the vote on war in parliament. Whitehall knew long before that vote that much of the intelligence in the September dossier was unsound. They knew because Hans Blix and his inspectors had visited sites it identified and drawn a blank. They knew because SIS had already developed doubts about the credibility of the source of the 45-minute claim. Andrew Gilligan was only in error about timescale when he claimed Whitehall knew that intelligence in the September dossier was wrong. They did not know it at the time of its publication, but they did know when they asked parliament for authority for war.

Blair pleaded the defence of good intentions - he acted in good faith but was misled by wrong information. So why is he not more angry with those who misled him? Blair is curiously indulgent to all those who led him into the most damaging episode of his premiership. We even read that all the key players in preparing the false prospectus for war are to be rewarded in a special honours list.

What does the government now think was the legal basis for war?
The initial opinion of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, was that invasion would require a second UN resolution. This was an opinion that he only revisited when it became evident that there would be no second resolution. At this point Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, resigned and subsequently protested that "the conflict in Iraq was contrary to international law". This week we learned that two other colleagues resigned along with her, which must have left a lot of empty desks in the legal department.
The attorney general himself still appeared unsure of his ground, but his dilemma was eased by the suggestion from Downing Street that he outsourced the drafting of his opinion to a law professor with a record of support for war. As a result the nation went to war against the advice of Whitehall's experts in international law and on the strength of an opinion from a professor at the LSE.
The government has resisted publishing the text that resulted, presumably because even it would reveal awkward reservations and legal quibbles, but a precis was produced as a parliamentary answer. What is striking is the centrality that disarmament plays in it as the justification for war. Thus Iraq is held to be in material breach of the ceasefire resolution because it had not fulfilled "its obligations to disarm". There is a logical, inescapable conclusion from this chain of reasoning. If Iraq had in reality fulfilled its disarmament obligation there was no legal authority for the invasion.
Tony Blair appeared conscious of this problem when he answered questions this week. He does not now rely on the need to disarm Iraq, but on other breaches by Saddam of UN resolutions. But the only breach that could have justified a war would have been failure to disarm. To be sure, Saddam was in breach of his obligation to keep proper paperwork on the destruction of his chemical and biological weapons, but that hardly justifies an intensive bombing campaign and a ground invasion by a quarter of a million troops. Any international court would be certain to rule by its first coffee break that such a response was not legitimate when weighed against the twin tests of proportionality and necessity. We are left with the unsettling conclusion that the legal case for the war collapses among the rubble of false intelligence in the same way as the political justification.
Lord Goldsmith is a decent, able lawyer. It may be that he was just as duped as parliament by the assurances from Downing Street that the evidence of the intelligence was much firmer than it has turned out to be. Maybe they also withheld from him the growing evidence from the UN inspections that our intelligence was simply wrong. If so, the attorney general owes it to himself, never mind the rest of us, to state what would have been his opinion on the legality of the war if he had been given the true facts. It may be prudent on his part to prepare a revised opinion, as now it can only be a matter of time before the legality of the war is challenged in the British or international courts.
Does the legality of the war still matter over a year after the event? The only responsible answer must be yes.
In the first place we are still struggling with the legacy of our decision to conquer Iraq and the incompetence of an occupation that has compounded the original misjudgment. Iraq may have been no threat to us at the time of the war, but we have certainly turned it into one as a base for international terrorism. Instead of delivering a modern Iraq as a model for the region, we have made Iraq a source of instability in a Middle East that looks much more precarious than two years ago.
But it also matters because the fabric of orderly relations between nations, the strength of human rights law and cooperation against terrorism are built on respect for international law. We cannot demand that respect from other nations if we ourselves do not give it a higher priority than we appear to have done in reaching our decision to go to war in Iraq.
r.cook@guardian.co.uk

ISG Report
Washington set up its own Iraq Survey Group (ISG) after it lost confidence in the UN arms inspectors ability to tell the correct lies. 1,625 UN and US inspectors spent two years searching 1,700 sites at a cost of more than $1bn. - delivered their verdict on the 6th October 2004 .
The ISG was CIA led. Ray Lopez FBI bomb expert in Iraq; Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez commander of US ground forces in Iraq; Tuwaitha research facility?
“Saddam Hussein destroyed his last weapons of mass destruction more than a decade ago and his capacity to build new ones had been dwindling for years by the time of the Iraq invasion, according to” the “comprehensive US report.
So the ISG conclusions, starkly contradict GW’s pre-war claims as well as statements he has made on the campaign trail. The one consolation in the report was the claim that Saddam had ambitions to restart at least chemical and nuclear programmes once sanctions were lifted. The main evidence of this were his own cryptic remarks, and the meaning his aides inferred from them. Dubya had been insisting that, although Iraq had no WMD at the time of the war, it was a "gathering threat" which had to be confronted. But the ISG found Saddam represented a diminishing threat.
“Rather than focus on the big picture - there were no WMD - much of the briefing has diverted media attention on to claims that Saddam intended to buy the favour of nations such as France, Russia and China, and individuals, including the expelled Labour MP George Galloway. That way the report can be used to discredit opponents of the war, rather than those who pushed for it”
 “It's hardly a surprise that the ISG document includes these crumbs of comfort for London and Washington. After all, the Iraq Survey Group is not some independent or UN-affiliated body. It was, in fact, set up by the Bush administration, in preference to having Hans Blix and his team return to Iraq to finish their inspections. It operated as an arm of the CIA; its head, Charles Duelfer, first came to prominence as an appointee of President Bush's father.”
 Charles Duelfer, the head of the ISG and the report's chief author, said that by late 2001, when the international embargo on Iraq was tightened, it was clear sanctions would not have contained Saddam for much longer. Duelfer told a Senate committee that the Saddam regime "had made progress in eroding sanctions, and had it not been for September 11, things would have taken a very different turn for the regime". He pointed out the report was comprehensive but "not final" as a team of 900 linguists were still sifting through a mountain of documents. But Duelfer, a former UN weapons inspector, added: "I still do not expect that militarily significant WMD stocks are hidden in Iraq." 
Blair grabbed at the only part of the report that could remotely justify his support for the war and said that the it Saddam was seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction and had retained key scientists to do so, "the situation is far more complicated than many thought. Just as I have had to accept that the evidence now shows that there were not stockpiles of actual weapons ready to deploy, I hope others will have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions were not working. On the contrary Saddam was doing his best to get round those sanctions". As would any head of state. But Iraq had complied in the only sense that mattered, having "essentially destroyed" its illicit weapons ability by the end of 1991, according to the report.”
Iraq had pesticide plants and other chemical facilities which could have been converted to the production of chemical weapons, the ISG found, but there was no clear evidence of such plans. Meanwhile, Saddam appears to have lost interest altogether in biological weapons. "ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW [biological warfare] programme or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes," the report concluded, adding that "there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the presidential level". Iraq would therefore "have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability". 
As far as making a nuclear bomb was concerned, Mr Duelfer said Saddam "was further away in 2003 than he was in 1991. So the nuclear programme was decaying steadily". Mr Duelfer's team did find evidence that Saddam wanted to restart his weapons programmes if the United Nations embargo on his country was lifted. According to Mr Duelfer, Saddam saw WMD primarily as a counterbalance to Iran's programmes. The ousted dictator reportedly told his interrogators "he would do whatever it took to offset the Iranian threat, making it clear he was referring to Iran's nuclear capability". Duelfer suggested that only the ousted leader knew what his weapons plans were and that even close aides were uncertain whether Iraq had WMD or not.
A separate CIA report, leaked to the US press this week, found no clear evidence of Iraq harbouring Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist believed to be behind many of the attacks.

Whatever the US and Blair says – it does not explain the haste nor why they considered that the UN inspections weren’t working.
“Jack Straw says the ISG report convinces him that Saddam posed an "even greater threat" than previously understood. This is surreal logic. Would the country have been persuaded to go to war merely to stop an intention of Saddam's, one several years from even the possibility of realisation? Would parliament have voted for it? The intention of a perceived enemy does not count as grounds for war - not under international law, not under even the loosest notion of moral philosophy.”

“The UN charter allows for self-defence from an actual attack, not an intention. Even the advocates of pre-emptive war, a concept not permitted by the UN, agree there first has to be clear evidence of a threat, defined as intention plus capability. Mere intention is not enough. In other words, the ISG report does not provide sufficient evidence to meet even the most hawkish neocon's definition of legitimate war. On the contrary, it proves what the sceptics said all along: that containment worked and Saddam had been tamed. War was unnecessary.”

ISG smeared enemies of the Coalition
France angrily rejected accusations by the ISG that its politicians and companies profited from Saddam Hussein's oil revenues. A prominent Russian party leader also dismissed similar claims, as did the George Galloway. France said, the ISG had made accusations against companies and individuals "without having taken the trouble to verify the information in advance with the individuals and companies concerned, nor indeed with the authorities in their countries".
Galloway's name is mentioned twice as having been allocated oil vouchers, once with a Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat, and once on his own. The ISG admits that many of those named never converted their allocations into cash. Galloway said he had not seen the ISG report but noted similar accusations had been made in the past. "A lie doesn't become true just because you keep repeating it…The Iraqi official concerned, Mr Faraj, made the same allegations earlier this year. They were false then and they are false now." Galloway took action against the Daily Telegraph over similar allegations - scheduled to begin in the high court on November 16.
Whitehall pushed to have Galloway's name published and was disappointed when it was not. After phone calls to the US, Whitehall was told that, as the US was withholding the names of US citizens, it was extending the same courtesy to its ally and removed Mr Galloway's name. Whitehall asked that Mr Galloway's privacy be waived and his name published. A nice bit of character assassination.
In Moscow, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultra-nationalist politician, also denied claims in the report. "I never took a drop [of oil], or a single dollar from Iraq or from any other country. I have never dealt with oil," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
The report also named the Indonesian president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the former French interior minister Charles Pasqua as voucher recipients and implicated other governments, including Namibia and Yemen.

The Economy
Eliot Spitzer, the battling New York attorney general who took on Wall Street, accused the insurance industry of widespread corruption.
a lawsuit filed against Marsh & McLennan - the largest insurance broker in the United States. The suit also names other big insurers, including Chubb, American International Group, ACE, Hartford Financial Services and Munich Re, and Mr Spitzer said separate civil or criminal actions could be pursued against each of them.
alleges that Marsh & McLennan steered unsuspecting clients to insurers with whom it had lucrative payoff agreements and that the broker solicited rigged bids for insurance contracts to make it look as though it had sought the best offer. The result is a distorted market and higher insurance costs, the suit claims.
Spitzer wrung $1.4bn from the biggest banks on Wall Street to settle allegations that the banks' research departments were issuing conflicted advice to investors. He has also extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from the mutual fund industry in an ongoing investigation into corrupt practices that favour big clients over ordinary investors.
More recently he has turned to the drugs industry and exposed GlaxoSmithKline's suppression of negative data about its anti-depressant, Seroxat.
The complaint against Marsh alleges that the firm has "at least since the late 1990s" received special payments from insurance companies above and beyond normal sales commissions. The payments, known as "contingent commissions", were characterised as compensation for "market services" but were in fact rewards for the business that Marsh steered their way, Mr Spitzer said. Marsh collected $800m in contingent commissions in 2003 alone, more than half its $1.5bn profit.
Shares across the industry were mauled on Wall Street. Marsh shares fell more than 17% on the announcement, tumbling $7.83 to $38.30. AIG was 11% lower in mid-day trade and ACE dropped more than 8%. Marsh, AIG and ACE had no immediate comment. Hartford denied any wrongdoing and said it was cooperating with the investigation

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)