BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O STANDS ON THE WORLD STAGE WITH HIS TAIL BETWEEN HIS LEGS. SPEAKING TODAY, A SHEEPISH BARRY INSISTED, "I'M REALLY JUST LIKE BLAINE WILSON, YOU KNOW. I AM A CHAMPION."
BARRY O WENT TO COPENHAGEN THINKING A LITTLE STAR POWER ON HIS PART WOULD BRING THE OLYMPICS TO CHICAGO. EITHER HIS STAR POWER HAS COMPLETELY CRATERED OR AS USUAL IT WAS A MISTAKE TO RELY ON MICHELLE OBAMA'S SOCIAL 'SKILLS,' BECAUSE TEAM OBAMA STRUCK OUT.
BARRY O CONTINUED TO STICK TO HIS PREPARED LINE OF NOT BEING A LOSER, JUST BEING "BLAINE WILSON."
HE NEVER GRASPED HOW TRUE THAT WAS. IN 2000, NBC AIRED THE WORST OLYMPICS EVER. NBC DID NOT AIR THEM LIVE AND THOUGHT THE WAY TO HANDLE SPORTS WAS AS IF IT WERE AN E: TRUE HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL. SO YOU HAD REPEATED SEGMENTS OF KATIE COURIC AND MATT LAUER INTERVIEWING BLAINE WILSON, THE GYMNIST WHO WAS 'GOING FOR THE GOLD' AND WOULD BE THE BIG SUCCESS STORY. LIKE BARACK, BLAINE GOT ALL THE PRESS. LIKE BARACK, BLAINE COULDN'T DELIVER. 8 YEARS AFTER THAT HIGHLY PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT, BLAINE WILSON ANNOUNCED HIS PROFESSIONAL RETIREMENT. WAGS SAY EXPECT BARRY O TO MAKE A SIMILAR ANNOUNCEMENT IN 3 YEARS.
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Academy Award winning actress Angelina Jolie is also the UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Today, visiting Syria, she issued a call for the world not to forget the Iraqi refugees who have been forced to flee their own country for safety. The UNHCR notes:
Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have returned to their country from Syria and other nearby countries over the past year, but many more are unable or unwilling to return to a country still rocked by violence. As the Iraqi story has largely disappeared from global headlines, so has the plight of the refugees.
Jolie, returning to visit Iraqi refugees in the poorest suburbs of the Syrian capital of Damascus after a 2007 visit, said these refugees still needed vital help and support. "Most Iraqi refugees cannot return to Iraq in view of the severe trauma they experienced there, the uncertainty linked to the coming Iraqi elections, the security issues and the lack of basic services. They will, therefore, be in need of continued support from the international community."
The acclaimed American actress, travelling with her partner Brad Pitt, was welcomed into the homes of two Iraqi families in the Jaramana district of southern Damascus. The first family, grouping seven people, fled to Syria in 2006, while the second family, members of a minority religious group, fled to Iraq in July this year after a son, Waleed,* was twice abducted and his mother, Hoda,* physically abused. The family patriarch, Fares,* had to pay US$25,000 in ransom the first time Waleed was abducted.
The second time, both son and mother were snatched, and Fares had to find US$40,000. The two were released, but they had suffered a terrible ordeal, including torture. "I was assaulted every day for 13 days by up to 10 men," Hoda* recalled, her voice trembling. "I wanted to kill myself and the only reason I decided not to go ahead is because of my children," she added.
On the release of Hoda and Waleed, the family fled to Syria.
RadarOnline offers photos of Angelina's visit to Syria.
This afternoon Fort Lewis's Media Relations department announced that Ehren Watada had completed his out processing and was discharged from the US military. We're going to stay with this topic for a bit because (a) it is important and (b) it is historical. 1st Lt Watada was the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. As Ann noted last night, "there are people who have no idea what a brave thing he did." Ehren Watada was informed he would be deploying to Iraq in June 2005. He had not given much thought to Iraq. To prepare for the deployment, his superior advised him to study up on the war so that he could answer any questions that might come up from those serving under him. He started researching the basics about the country itself, topography and geography and continuing through the history up to the current war. He came across the Downing Street Memos which exposed that the 'intelligence' for the Iraq War was fixed. He was now firmly convinced that the Iraq War was illegal and immoral. From eager to serve in Iraq to realizing he'd be violating his oath to the Constitution, Ehren was now confronted with a decision. He could keep his mouth shut and just do as he was told. Or he could take a stand which would risk the wrath of the military as well as a portion of the public.
Ehren's mother, Carolyn Ho, has explained what happened next many times as she's spoken to raise awareness of her son's case. WBAI's Law and Disorder shared one of her talks on their January 22, 2007 broadcast. Carolyn Ho explained it was the new year, January 2006, and her son called her. He explained that he had something to tell her, he'd decided decided he wouldn't deploy to Iraq when the time came. She was very upset and asked him if he understood what might result from his decision? Ehren told her that he had no choide, he'd taken an oath to the Constitution, this was what he had to do and he was going to inform his superiors.
Ehren didn't hestitate to inform his superiors. This was in January 2006. They at first attempted to change his mind. He could not be budged. So they stated they wanted to work something out. They brainstormed together. Ehren came up with ideas including, he could deploy to the Afghanistan War instead, he could resign (his service contract expired in December 2006). His superiors appeared to be eager to consider every possibility; however, they were just attempting to stall. They appear to have thought that if they put him off and put him off, when the day to deploy came, he'd just shrug his shoulders and deploy.
They did not know Ehren. June 7, 2006 ("the day before his 28th birthday," Carolyn Ho likes to remind), Ehren went public with his refusal to deploy. Jake Armstrong (Pasadena Weekly) notes Ehren stated to participate in the Iraq War would be participating in war crimes.
In August 2006, an Article 32 hearing was held. Watada's defense called three witnesses, Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois' College of Law, Champagne; Denis Halliday, the former Assistant Secretary General of the UN; and retired Colonel Ann Wright. These three witnesses addressed the issue of the war, it's legality, and the responsibilities of a service member to disobey any order that they believed was unlawful. The testimony was necessary because Watada's refusing to participate in the illegal war due to the fact that he feels it is (a) illegal and (b) immoral. Many weeks and weeks later, the finding was released: the military would proceed with a court-martial.On Monday, February 5, 2007, Watada's court-martial began. It continued on Tuesday when the prosecution argued their case. Wednesday, Watada was to take the stand in his semi-defense. Judge Toilet (John Head) presided and when the prosecution was losing, Toilet decided to flush the lost by declaring a mistrial over defense objection in his attempt to give the prosecution a do-over. Head was insisting then that a court-martial would begin against Watada in a few weeks when no court-martial could begin.January 4, 2007, Head oversaw a pre-trial hearing. Head also oversaw a stipulation that the prosecution prepared and Watada signed. Head waived the stipulation through. Then the court-martial begins and Ehren's clearly winning. The prosecution's own military witnesses are becoming a problem for the prosecution. It's Wednesday and Watada's finally going to take the stand. Head suddenly starts insisting there's a problem with the stipulation. Watada states he has no problem with it. Well the prosecution has a problem with it and may move to a mistrial, Judge Toilet declares. The prosecution prepared the stipulation and they're confused by Head's actions but state they're not calling for a mistrial or lodging an objection. That's on the record. Head then keeps pushing for a mistrial and the prosecution finally gets that Head is attempting to give them a do-over, at which point, they call for a mistrial.The case has already started. Witnesses have been heard from. Double-jeopardy has attached. The defense isn't calling for a mistrial and Head rules a mistrial over defense objection and attempts to immediately schedule a new trial. Bob Chapman (Global Research) observes, "With little fanfare the Army at Fort Lewis, Wash., accepted the resignation of the 1966 Kalari High School graduate, and he will be discharged the first week in October." With little fanfare indeed. And to those 'lefty' sites that want to smear opposition of Barack Obama's ObamaBigBusinessCare passed off as something to do with "health care"? I'd say before you accuse anyone of racism, you might take a look at your own damn ass -- which, Red or not, appears highly racist when you claim to be "anti-war" and yet 'forget' all damn week to note Ehren Watada.
And, related, like Elaine, I was disgusted that Free Speech Radio News had time for a ceremony for Glenn Beck but not time to cover Ehren Watada. Today they sort of cover him (link has audio and text):
Lt. Ehren Watada, the first US Army officer to refuse to serve in the war in Iraq, will finally be allowed to resign from the US Army today at Fort Lewis in Washington. Mark Taylor-Canfield has more from Seattle.
Spokespersons at Fort Lewis have confirmed that First Lt. Ehren Watada will be allowed to resign from the US Army. In 2003, Lt. Watada was the first US military officer to refuse to serve in Iraq, which he claims is an illegal war. In 2007 his court marshal was declared a mistrial by a civilian judge. Watada's enlistment was supposed to be up two years ago but he has not been allowed to leave the service.
According to Watada's attorney, Kenneth Kagan, he will receive a "less than honorable discharge." Watada took a leading role in the anti-war movement, speaking out publicly against the war, and criticizing President George W. Bush at the Veterans For Peace national convention in Seattle in 2006. Watada has been under a military imposed gag order since his original court marshal proceedings. Mark Taylor-Canfield, FSRN, Seattle.
Sort of? Two hours before that aired, I'd confirmed on the phone that he'd been discharged and his paper's processed but they're broadcasting, two hours later, that he is supposed to be discharged. People, it's one damn call. You pick up the phone, you call public affairs at Fort Lewis and you explain what you need. So to find people who love and people who hate Glenn Beck, FSRN can do some work. But when they finally note this historic development, they're left with nothing really to say. Not "will be," was. News. You're the ones claiming to be reporters, not me. I rejected that years ago. You're the ones begging for money, not me, I think it's incumbent upon you to do the work that makes someone feel money is well spent. (For those note catching the connection between the two -- both events, Ehren's historic day and that party for Beck took place in the Seattle region. One got an actual report and one got a brief headline. What did our 'independent' news program give us a report on? Glenn Beck's party. Look next for FSRN to woo Suzy for audio reports or possibly Cindy Adams.)
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"THIS JUST IN! DAVID LETTERMAN TRASHY!"
"Who's laughing now, Letterman?"
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Who's laughing now, Letterman?
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
ELDERLY DAVID LETTERMAN IS SPINNING THINGS AS "I HAD AFFAIRS AND SOMEONE TRIED TO BLACKMAIL ME!"
NO, OLD MAN, YOU SEXUALLY HARASSED YOUR STAFF. YOU SLEPT WITH VARIOUS MEMBERS OF YOUR STAFF.
THAT'S NOT AFFAIRS.
YOU VIOLATED CBS' ETHICS GUIDELINES AND YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PACK IN YOUR SHOW SINCE YOU'RE UNABLE TO PACK IN YOUR EGO.
HEY, REMEMBER WHEN 'CLASSY' DAVID LETTERMAN WAS DOING RAPE 'JOKES' ABOUT SARAH PALIN'S 15-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER?
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Late yesterday, the US miltary announced: "FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq – A Soldier assigned to Multi-National Corps – Iraq died of a non-combat related injury Sept. 29. The Soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The name of the service member will be announced through the U.S. Department of Defense Official Web site at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is currently under investigation." The name of the fallen soldier is Army Cpl Ross Vogel III. WGAL reports that Mary Wiley told them her son died in Iraq while on his third deployment and that his survivors include two sons and a wife. DoD announced today that the 27-year-old died in Kut and that Ross Vogel was assigned to the 67th Signal Battalion, 35th Signal Brigade, Fort Gordon, Ga." Randy Key (WJBF) add, "Specialist Vogel enlisted in the Army in 2001, and has spent most of his career at Fort Gordon, with the 35th Signal Brigade, first with the Headquarters, 67th Signal Battalion, then the 518th Tactical Installation Networking Company, and a second assignment to the 67th Signal Battalion."
The announcement brings the number of US service members killed in the Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4347. The month of September saw 10 announced deaths. Thus far.Thus far. If you're scratching your head, you're late to the party. I don't believe all the food's been put away yet in the kitchen, so go in there and help yourself. Those who arrived on time are fully aware that the US military often announces deaths from month X many days after month X has ended. It was a way to keep the death count for the month a little lower while reporters were still polishing their end of the month reflection pieces. Those really don't run these days, few papers even offer their own coverage of Iraq. The US military pulled the stunt most recently at the start of August allowing many outlets to offer "ONLY 7 US TROOPS KILLED IN JULY!" headlines. After the record 'low' was trumpeted, the US military made their announcement of, oh, yeah, we had an eighth death last month. The New York Times always gets punked. They ran with 7 for July and then started applauding August's 'only' 7 (August actually had seven deaths) and acted like they hadn't (wrongly) made a big deal out of the number seven when 'reporting' on July.The monthly toll for September may rise above 10. That noted, if the number ten sticks, it was the sixth deadliest month of the year for US service members stationed in Iraq. And, for the record, if the number was 1 we still wouldn't run with 'only 1.' There's no 'only' when someone deployed to another country dies while serving. Shame on any who imply otherwise.
Monthly toll on Iraqis killed? All deaths aren't reported. Let's focus on the few that do get reported. September 1st through September 5th saw 29 deaths reported and 167 reported injured ("Tuesday (Sept. 1st) saw 3 people reported dead and five wounded. Wednesday saw 6 reported dead and eleven wounded. Thursday saw 14 reported dead and 129 injured. Friday saw one reported death and ten reported injured. Saturday saw 5 reported deaths and twelve reported wounded."). September 6th through September 12th saw 136 reported dead and 230 reported injured ("On Sunday, there were 24 reported deaths and 7 reported wounded, Monday 26 dead and 44 wounded, Tuesday 27 dead and 42 wounded, Wednesday 13 dead and 38 wounded, Thursday 31 dead and 75 wounded, Friday 4 dead and 7 wounded and Saturday 11 dead and 27 wounded.") September 13th through September 19th saw 61 reported dead and 114 reported injured ("Sunday saw 23 people reported dead and 24 wounded, Monday saw 9 reported dead and 19 reported injured, Tuesday saw 5 reported dead and 11 reported wounded, Wednesday saw 1 person reported dead and 4 reported injured, Thursday saw 10 reported dead and 31 reported injured, Friday saw 7 reported dead and 23 reported wounded and Saturday saw 6 people reported dead and 2 reported injured."). September 20th through September 26th saw 31 reported deaths and 21 people reported wounded ("Last Sunday 1 person was reported killed in Iraq and 6 injured. Monday and Tuesday, we're supposed to believe that no one was killed in Iraq. Reality, the press just had other things to do. Wednesday, the numbers were 7 dead and six injured. Thursday saw two people reported wounded. Friday was 16 dead and 7 wounded. Saturday saw 7 reported deaths. In all, 31 reported deaths and 21 people reported injured.") As September wound down, Sunday saw 5 reported deaths and 17 reported injured, Monday saw 25 reported dead and 44 reported wounded, Tuesday saw 3 reported dead and 5 reported wounded, and Wednesday saw 7 reported dead and 20 reported wounded for a total in the final September week of 40 reported deaths and 86 reported wounded. For the month? 297 reported injured and 618 reported wounded. At least. ICCC does a valuable job reporting on the US service member death toll. They do a lousy job of Iraqis. Their total is 158 deaths. The number is 297 and they actually include more outlets -- at least in their linking -- on violence. The 297 is all McClatchy, Reuters, some US outlets plus China's Xinhua. Our total is 297 and our total is an undercount and we're not going to pretend it's not. But our total is much higher than ICCC. And not only is our tally higher, so is the official tally from the Iraqi government. AFP reports that they list the total number of deaths for the month of September to be 203. Lower than our 297, higher than ICCC. While the Iraqi 'government' tries to get you focused on the Iraqi civilian tally (125 -- they're stressing it could be seen as spitting on Iraqi Security Forces), the Red Cross' Juan-Pedro Schaerer explains to Reuters of the sitaution in Iraq, "There is a lack of respect for human life. Even if security has improved a lot ... you still have dozens of people killed on a daily basis."
Turning to political news, Iraq has elections scheduled for January 2010. However, with no law passed yet, "scheduled" may not be the correct term. They 'hope,' hope to hold elections in January. Friday Alsumaria reported that Nouri has revealed he's creating his own coalition and "will announce" it in the next week. The coalition will be Dawlat al-Qanun (State of Law) and will be a mixed coalition as Nouri attempts to paint himself more secularist due to the January 2009 elections in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces indicating that fundamentalists were not popular with the people. It is now next week. Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) reveals his coalition is made up over 40 parties (many of them minor) with Sunni tribal leaders in the mix. Al Jazeera quotes the self-aggrandizing al-Maliki declaring today, "The formation of this alliance makrs a historic turning point in the process of rebuilding the modern Iraqi state." Aamer Madhani (USA Today) speaks to Iraqi MP Safoua al-Suhail who has joined his coalition and she says, "I think it says something that this list can include (Shiite) Islamists, Sunnis and a secular liberal democrat like me." Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) notes Nouri's slate "failed to draw the Sunni support that many had expected it would. He lost the backing of Mahmoud al-Mashhadari, the vitriolic former parliament speaker, and more importantly, Ahmed Abu Risha, whose borther led the U.S.-baked counterinsurgency in western Iraq. Nor did he win ovre more established Sunni or securlar blocs or parties that could have delivered him broader support in Sunni provinces". Ned Parker and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) observe Nouri has "put himself in competition with fellow Shiite Muslims of his onetime political ally, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council." SIIC is, of course, focusing on non-sectarian issues such as the corruption of those in currently in charge. Suadad al-Salhy, Muhanad Mohammed, Khalid al-Ansary, Mohammed Abbas, Missy Ryan and Myra MacDonald (Reuters) note that "in facing off against ISCI, Maliki will battle a well-funded and well-organised party. His group also lacks several Iraqi political heavy-hitters who have not yet joined a coalition and whose support could be crucial." Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) explains, "Iraqis who are more familiar with Maliki the longtime Islamist are wary of his reincarnation as a populist." al Dulaimy quotes political analyst Haider al Musaiw stating, "Maliki has changed. The change is a result of the failure of the Islamist parties, and (he's) bending to the people's increasing demands for the return of secular rule." Nouri created his own slate after SIIC refused to guarantee him that, if their slate won, they would make him Prime Minister again.
Yesterday, the top US commander, Gen Ray Odierno, testified to the US House Armed Services Committee. Ranking Member Howard McKeon asked for a walk through of the Iraqi political process since their elections are different.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law. Once the election is completed, they take 45 days to certify the results of the election. And so what happens is we'll have hundreds of international observers -- maybe thousands, there's going to be quite a few international observers -- as well as the Iraqi High Electoral Commission will certify the results, they will take all complaints and then they will deem the elections to be credible, legitimate or not. That takes forty-five days. Once that happens, you then have thirty days to begin the formation of seating the Council of Representatives. You then have another thirty days to then select the leadership, the presidency, and then you have another time period to select the prime minister and then the Speaker [of Parliament]. So within that time period, we expect that it will take from January to June or so, maybe July, to seat the new government. In 2005, following the elections, the government -- the elections were in December and the government was seated in May of 2005 [C.I. note, he means May of 2006]. This is the Parliamentary system of government and it just takes time for them to do this. So it's -- there is timelines on it, they will follow those timelines strictly, but it will take time to seat that government.
That was from yesterday's hearing. We'll drop back to it for an exchange that took place at the end of the hearing.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: I wanted to talk to you about a conversation I had with General [David] Petraeus earlier this year when I was talking about the electrocution deaths of some of our soldiers. And I was told there was Operation Task Force Safe and that they were going to be doing the investigation. And I believe that the investigation was supposed to end right about now. But again comes some horrible news about a former American military man who came as a contractor to Iraq, Mr. [Adam] Hermanson, he was recently electrocuted. So I had a couple of questions for you, General --
Gen Ray Odierno: Sure.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: First of all, was his facility inspected or were you only inspecting the facilities that soldiers occupied?
Gen Ray Odierno: Yeah -- it was not inspected. Uh, what happens is -- as a contractor -- it's the responsibility of the contractor to ensure they have adequate facilities so we were not inspecting those facilities. However, since that incident, we have sent Task Force Safe over to first outline to all the contractors what's expected of them in terms of proper safety requirements and-and we've also offered them any assistance that they might need, with Task Force Safe, to go look at all of their facilities to ensure that they're in line with what we believe to be safe -- safe structures.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: Okay, since we knew that we were having trouble with the contractors that were supposed to be doing the safe wiring, why was the decision made not to inspect the contractors' facilities?'
General Ray Odierno: Yeah, I'm not sure we made a conscious decision not to inspect them. I think what we focused on was, uh, the Department of Defense personnel uh and uh I think as we continue to expand this, um, we will look -- but there are some contractual issues that we have to work through so we asked the lawyers to take a look at this to see what we can and can't do because of the fact that they are contractors. So we are working our way through this now. This obviously highlighted a problem that we all didn't understand at the time and so we continue to work it. And what I'm telling you is we're working this problem now but we have to go through some legal reviews and other things. We have offered some initial assistance just to make sure we don't have any repeated offenses in that specific contractor but there are many other contractors that have facilities that in some cases aren't even under Department of Defense and I don't even remember but I think this one wasn't under Department of Defense either. I think it was under a Department of State contract as well so that throws in a whole nother issue about how we do this. But we're working through this because we want to get rid of the bureaucracy so we save the lives of the people who are going there to work. And that's important to us.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: Well these men and women serve this country as well. And I really don't understand it because I know that many of them had access to the medical care that the military was providing so clearly there was some crossing over there if they felt comfortable not even reimubrsing, as you recall, I'm sure. So I just can't understand what happened there. Were there any other services provided for the people in those buildings?
General Ray Odierno: I'll have to -- I'll have to get back with you.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: Okay. If you could do that, I would appreciate that.
General Ray Odierno: I will.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: I have one last question. Can you comment on why the Department of Defense has declined to investigate the apparent electrocution of the American Department of Defense contractor?
Gen Ray Odierno: Again, I have to -- I have to go ahead and take a look at that and see exactly what happened, okay? I'll get you an answer back on that.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: I would appreciate that, General, because I feel very certain that when that family sent their loved one over to serve this country, they expected that we would do what we could to protect all of them --
Gen Ray Odierno: Sure
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: -- whether they were in uniform or whether they were serving as civilians.
For background on Adam Hermason, we'll drop back to the September 9th snapshot: "Kimberly Hefling (AP) reports that State Dept contractor (Triple Canopy) Adam Hermanson is dead at the age of 25 from 'showering in Baghdad'. Janine Hermanson states her husband died September 1st and that she was told it was from electrocution." Jermey Scahill (writing at The Nation) reported:
Hermanson's family suspects that Adam may have died as a result of faulty electrical wiring. And they have good reason to think that--at least sixteen US soldiers and two contractors have died from electrocution. The Pentagon's largest contractor in Iraq, KBR (a former Halliburton subsidiary), has for months been at the center of a Congressional investigation into the electrocution deaths because the company has the massive LOGCAP contract and is responsible for almost all of the electrical wiring in US-run facilities in Iraq. The eighteen soldiers and contractors died as a result of KBR's "shoddy work," according to Senator Frank Lautenberg.
Tuesday, Pennsylvania's WNEP reported (link has text and video) on the case:
Janine Hermanson: I just don't understand. It's not like he was killed by a bullet or killed by a roadside bomb. He was taking a shower.
Scott Schaffer: A wife asking questions about the death of her husband in Iraq.
Marisa Burke: His accident that had nothing to do with combat and why this widow now wants the government to investigate. It's our top story on Newswatch 16 at 6:00. Good evening everyone, I'm Marisa Burke.
Scott Schaffer: And I'm Scott Schaffer. It is a Newswatch 16 exclusive. A woman in Northumberland County is mourning her husband's death earlier this month in Iraq. He was electrocuted and she says it's not the first time it's happened to contractors working overseas. Newswatch's Jim Hamill, live tonight in our central Pennsylvania newsroom with a story you'll see only on 16. Jim?
Jim Hamill: Scott, Adam Hermanson was doing what many of us do every day when he died: Taking a shower. But Hermanson was far from home working as a security contractor in Baghdad's Green Zone. Now his wife and her family want to know who is responsible for his untimely death.
Janine Hermanson: I'm going to keep fighting for him. He fought for me and now it's my turn to fight for him.
Jim Hamill: These days Janine Hermanson lives with her parents near Muncy. Her late husband's belongings sit [covered from the elements] on the back proch. Earlier this month Adam Hermanson died while working as a security examiner in Iraq. The military medical examiner told Janine it appears Adam was electrocuted in the shower.
Janine Hermanson: It's been a month now and they still don't know who had the contract or contracts on his facility.
Jim Hamill: Janine says the couple planned to buy a home in the Muncy area when Adam finished working for the firm Triple Canopy. Now she spends hours every day trying to find out what went wrong? Her father says Adam did not deserve to die like this.
John Sivak: Our poor daughter. No husband. 25-years-old. This is insanity.
Jim Hamill: Janine showed us pictures of Adam. Both served in the Air Force, it's where they met. Following his death, Janine tells us she isn't getting straight answers from company officials or military officials or not only that. But Janine has learned Adam's case would make the 19th electrocution death in Iraq since 2003. That includes service members and contractors. Senator Bob Casey told us in a phone interview he's been working on this issue since early 2008 and is filing an amendment that would require inspections on any contract work paid for by tax payers.
Senator Bob Casey: It's disturbing and troubling to me that we have to file an amendment like this. This should already be part of what the army does anyway.
Jim Hamill: As for Janine, she doesn't plan on giving up on her quest for answers.
Janine Hermanson: I'm going to make sure that I find out who's responsible and make this stop. I'm tired of people not talking to me. You know, I have every right to know what happened to my husband.
Jim Hamill: Now Senator Casey says that amendment could take months to pass. The State Dept is investigating. And Triple Canopy, the company Adam Hermanson was working for, says it cannot comment until an investigation is complete. Jim Hamill, Newswatch 16, live in the central Pennsylvania newsroom.
Yesterday, Brett R. Crossley (Daily Item) noted Adam Hermanson had deployed to Iraq three times while serving in the Air Force as well as one tour in Uzbekistan. His obituary notes his motto was: "Live on day at a time, but to the fullest."
We covered Wednesday's hearing in yesterday's snapshot and Kat covered it last night. There are a few other exchanges I'd like to highlight and hopefully we can note at least one more tomorrow. Gen Ray Odierno spoke today at a Pentagon briefing and declared, "I'm not sure we will ever see anyone declare victory in Iraq because, first off, I'm not sure we'll know for ten years or five years." He declared that he expected the number of US troops in Iraq not to dip below 120,000 before the end of 2009. In reply to a question from Luiz Martinez (ABC News), Odierno confirmed what the press appeared to miss yesterday, the October draw-down "was one that was planned." This was not a new draw-down. Responding to the Voice of America's Al Pessin, Odierno replied, "I think the help I'm describing is that within the context of the strategic framework agreement, that it covers many different areas, from education, technological, security. And so it has to [be] about providing long-term assistance for developing systems. For example, from the military side. Also developing economic capacity, developing educational capacity, medical capacity -- all of those things. And I think, as we do that, that helps to build their institutions. So that's what I see happening beyond 2011." Beyond 2011, pay attention, Odierno just listed things the US will be doing for Iraq including on "the military side." The earlier quote, "I'm not sure we will ever see anyone declare victory in Iraq because, first off, I'm not sure we'll know for ten years or five years"? Odierno said after it, "And that's why I tell that the engagement after 2011 is as simportant as our continued engagements prior to 2011. Again, I don't mean military engagement necessarily." He's referring back to that list of engagments of which military is one. "I mean," he continued, "engagement across the spectrum of our government, in order to help them continue to build into a stable institution."
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"Screwing Americans, helping Big Business"
"Who's right, who's wrong?"
"The itsy-bitsy baby gets confused"
"THIS JUST IN! LIKE 2006 NEVER HAPPENED!"
ELDERLY DAVID LETTERMAN IS SPINNING THINGS AS "I HAD AFFAIRS AND SOMEONE TRIED TO BLACKMAIL ME!"
NO, OLD MAN, YOU SEXUALLY HARASSED YOUR STAFF. YOU SLEPT WITH VARIOUS MEMBERS OF YOUR STAFF.
THAT'S NOT AFFAIRS.
YOU VIOLATED CBS' ETHICS GUIDELINES AND YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PACK IN YOUR SHOW SINCE YOU'RE UNABLE TO PACK IN YOUR EGO.
HEY, REMEMBER WHEN 'CLASSY' DAVID LETTERMAN WAS DOING RAPE 'JOKES' ABOUT SARAH PALIN'S 15-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER?
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Late yesterday, the US miltary announced: "FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA, Iraq – A Soldier assigned to Multi-National Corps – Iraq died of a non-combat related injury Sept. 29. The Soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The name of the service member will be announced through the U.S. Department of Defense Official Web site at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is currently under investigation." The name of the fallen soldier is Army Cpl Ross Vogel III. WGAL reports that Mary Wiley told them her son died in Iraq while on his third deployment and that his survivors include two sons and a wife. DoD announced today that the 27-year-old died in Kut and that Ross Vogel was assigned to the 67th Signal Battalion, 35th Signal Brigade, Fort Gordon, Ga." Randy Key (WJBF) add, "Specialist Vogel enlisted in the Army in 2001, and has spent most of his career at Fort Gordon, with the 35th Signal Brigade, first with the Headquarters, 67th Signal Battalion, then the 518th Tactical Installation Networking Company, and a second assignment to the 67th Signal Battalion."
The announcement brings the number of US service members killed in the Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4347. The month of September saw 10 announced deaths. Thus far.Thus far. If you're scratching your head, you're late to the party. I don't believe all the food's been put away yet in the kitchen, so go in there and help yourself. Those who arrived on time are fully aware that the US military often announces deaths from month X many days after month X has ended. It was a way to keep the death count for the month a little lower while reporters were still polishing their end of the month reflection pieces. Those really don't run these days, few papers even offer their own coverage of Iraq. The US military pulled the stunt most recently at the start of August allowing many outlets to offer "ONLY 7 US TROOPS KILLED IN JULY!" headlines. After the record 'low' was trumpeted, the US military made their announcement of, oh, yeah, we had an eighth death last month. The New York Times always gets punked. They ran with 7 for July and then started applauding August's 'only' 7 (August actually had seven deaths) and acted like they hadn't (wrongly) made a big deal out of the number seven when 'reporting' on July.The monthly toll for September may rise above 10. That noted, if the number ten sticks, it was the sixth deadliest month of the year for US service members stationed in Iraq. And, for the record, if the number was 1 we still wouldn't run with 'only 1.' There's no 'only' when someone deployed to another country dies while serving. Shame on any who imply otherwise.
Monthly toll on Iraqis killed? All deaths aren't reported. Let's focus on the few that do get reported. September 1st through September 5th saw 29 deaths reported and 167 reported injured ("Tuesday (Sept. 1st) saw 3 people reported dead and five wounded. Wednesday saw 6 reported dead and eleven wounded. Thursday saw 14 reported dead and 129 injured. Friday saw one reported death and ten reported injured. Saturday saw 5 reported deaths and twelve reported wounded."). September 6th through September 12th saw 136 reported dead and 230 reported injured ("On Sunday, there were 24 reported deaths and 7 reported wounded, Monday 26 dead and 44 wounded, Tuesday 27 dead and 42 wounded, Wednesday 13 dead and 38 wounded, Thursday 31 dead and 75 wounded, Friday 4 dead and 7 wounded and Saturday 11 dead and 27 wounded.") September 13th through September 19th saw 61 reported dead and 114 reported injured ("Sunday saw 23 people reported dead and 24 wounded, Monday saw 9 reported dead and 19 reported injured, Tuesday saw 5 reported dead and 11 reported wounded, Wednesday saw 1 person reported dead and 4 reported injured, Thursday saw 10 reported dead and 31 reported injured, Friday saw 7 reported dead and 23 reported wounded and Saturday saw 6 people reported dead and 2 reported injured."). September 20th through September 26th saw 31 reported deaths and 21 people reported wounded ("Last Sunday 1 person was reported killed in Iraq and 6 injured. Monday and Tuesday, we're supposed to believe that no one was killed in Iraq. Reality, the press just had other things to do. Wednesday, the numbers were 7 dead and six injured. Thursday saw two people reported wounded. Friday was 16 dead and 7 wounded. Saturday saw 7 reported deaths. In all, 31 reported deaths and 21 people reported injured.") As September wound down, Sunday saw 5 reported deaths and 17 reported injured, Monday saw 25 reported dead and 44 reported wounded, Tuesday saw 3 reported dead and 5 reported wounded, and Wednesday saw 7 reported dead and 20 reported wounded for a total in the final September week of 40 reported deaths and 86 reported wounded. For the month? 297 reported injured and 618 reported wounded. At least. ICCC does a valuable job reporting on the US service member death toll. They do a lousy job of Iraqis. Their total is 158 deaths. The number is 297 and they actually include more outlets -- at least in their linking -- on violence. The 297 is all McClatchy, Reuters, some US outlets plus China's Xinhua. Our total is 297 and our total is an undercount and we're not going to pretend it's not. But our total is much higher than ICCC. And not only is our tally higher, so is the official tally from the Iraqi government. AFP reports that they list the total number of deaths for the month of September to be 203. Lower than our 297, higher than ICCC. While the Iraqi 'government' tries to get you focused on the Iraqi civilian tally (125 -- they're stressing it could be seen as spitting on Iraqi Security Forces), the Red Cross' Juan-Pedro Schaerer explains to Reuters of the sitaution in Iraq, "There is a lack of respect for human life. Even if security has improved a lot ... you still have dozens of people killed on a daily basis."
Turning to political news, Iraq has elections scheduled for January 2010. However, with no law passed yet, "scheduled" may not be the correct term. They 'hope,' hope to hold elections in January. Friday Alsumaria reported that Nouri has revealed he's creating his own coalition and "will announce" it in the next week. The coalition will be Dawlat al-Qanun (State of Law) and will be a mixed coalition as Nouri attempts to paint himself more secularist due to the January 2009 elections in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces indicating that fundamentalists were not popular with the people. It is now next week. Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) reveals his coalition is made up over 40 parties (many of them minor) with Sunni tribal leaders in the mix. Al Jazeera quotes the self-aggrandizing al-Maliki declaring today, "The formation of this alliance makrs a historic turning point in the process of rebuilding the modern Iraqi state." Aamer Madhani (USA Today) speaks to Iraqi MP Safoua al-Suhail who has joined his coalition and she says, "I think it says something that this list can include (Shiite) Islamists, Sunnis and a secular liberal democrat like me." Anthony Shadid (Washington Post) notes Nouri's slate "failed to draw the Sunni support that many had expected it would. He lost the backing of Mahmoud al-Mashhadari, the vitriolic former parliament speaker, and more importantly, Ahmed Abu Risha, whose borther led the U.S.-baked counterinsurgency in western Iraq. Nor did he win ovre more established Sunni or securlar blocs or parties that could have delivered him broader support in Sunni provinces". Ned Parker and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) observe Nouri has "put himself in competition with fellow Shiite Muslims of his onetime political ally, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council." SIIC is, of course, focusing on non-sectarian issues such as the corruption of those in currently in charge. Suadad al-Salhy, Muhanad Mohammed, Khalid al-Ansary, Mohammed Abbas, Missy Ryan and Myra MacDonald (Reuters) note that "in facing off against ISCI, Maliki will battle a well-funded and well-organised party. His group also lacks several Iraqi political heavy-hitters who have not yet joined a coalition and whose support could be crucial." Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) explains, "Iraqis who are more familiar with Maliki the longtime Islamist are wary of his reincarnation as a populist." al Dulaimy quotes political analyst Haider al Musaiw stating, "Maliki has changed. The change is a result of the failure of the Islamist parties, and (he's) bending to the people's increasing demands for the return of secular rule." Nouri created his own slate after SIIC refused to guarantee him that, if their slate won, they would make him Prime Minister again.
Yesterday, the top US commander, Gen Ray Odierno, testified to the US House Armed Services Committee. Ranking Member Howard McKeon asked for a walk through of the Iraqi political process since their elections are different.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law. Once the election is completed, they take 45 days to certify the results of the election. And so what happens is we'll have hundreds of international observers -- maybe thousands, there's going to be quite a few international observers -- as well as the Iraqi High Electoral Commission will certify the results, they will take all complaints and then they will deem the elections to be credible, legitimate or not. That takes forty-five days. Once that happens, you then have thirty days to begin the formation of seating the Council of Representatives. You then have another thirty days to then select the leadership, the presidency, and then you have another time period to select the prime minister and then the Speaker [of Parliament]. So within that time period, we expect that it will take from January to June or so, maybe July, to seat the new government. In 2005, following the elections, the government -- the elections were in December and the government was seated in May of 2005 [C.I. note, he means May of 2006]. This is the Parliamentary system of government and it just takes time for them to do this. So it's -- there is timelines on it, they will follow those timelines strictly, but it will take time to seat that government.
That was from yesterday's hearing. We'll drop back to it for an exchange that took place at the end of the hearing.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: I wanted to talk to you about a conversation I had with General [David] Petraeus earlier this year when I was talking about the electrocution deaths of some of our soldiers. And I was told there was Operation Task Force Safe and that they were going to be doing the investigation. And I believe that the investigation was supposed to end right about now. But again comes some horrible news about a former American military man who came as a contractor to Iraq, Mr. [Adam] Hermanson, he was recently electrocuted. So I had a couple of questions for you, General --
Gen Ray Odierno: Sure.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: First of all, was his facility inspected or were you only inspecting the facilities that soldiers occupied?
Gen Ray Odierno: Yeah -- it was not inspected. Uh, what happens is -- as a contractor -- it's the responsibility of the contractor to ensure they have adequate facilities so we were not inspecting those facilities. However, since that incident, we have sent Task Force Safe over to first outline to all the contractors what's expected of them in terms of proper safety requirements and-and we've also offered them any assistance that they might need, with Task Force Safe, to go look at all of their facilities to ensure that they're in line with what we believe to be safe -- safe structures.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: Okay, since we knew that we were having trouble with the contractors that were supposed to be doing the safe wiring, why was the decision made not to inspect the contractors' facilities?'
General Ray Odierno: Yeah, I'm not sure we made a conscious decision not to inspect them. I think what we focused on was, uh, the Department of Defense personnel uh and uh I think as we continue to expand this, um, we will look -- but there are some contractual issues that we have to work through so we asked the lawyers to take a look at this to see what we can and can't do because of the fact that they are contractors. So we are working our way through this now. This obviously highlighted a problem that we all didn't understand at the time and so we continue to work it. And what I'm telling you is we're working this problem now but we have to go through some legal reviews and other things. We have offered some initial assistance just to make sure we don't have any repeated offenses in that specific contractor but there are many other contractors that have facilities that in some cases aren't even under Department of Defense and I don't even remember but I think this one wasn't under Department of Defense either. I think it was under a Department of State contract as well so that throws in a whole nother issue about how we do this. But we're working through this because we want to get rid of the bureaucracy so we save the lives of the people who are going there to work. And that's important to us.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: Well these men and women serve this country as well. And I really don't understand it because I know that many of them had access to the medical care that the military was providing so clearly there was some crossing over there if they felt comfortable not even reimubrsing, as you recall, I'm sure. So I just can't understand what happened there. Were there any other services provided for the people in those buildings?
General Ray Odierno: I'll have to -- I'll have to get back with you.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: Okay. If you could do that, I would appreciate that.
General Ray Odierno: I will.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: I have one last question. Can you comment on why the Department of Defense has declined to investigate the apparent electrocution of the American Department of Defense contractor?
Gen Ray Odierno: Again, I have to -- I have to go ahead and take a look at that and see exactly what happened, okay? I'll get you an answer back on that.
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: I would appreciate that, General, because I feel very certain that when that family sent their loved one over to serve this country, they expected that we would do what we could to protect all of them --
Gen Ray Odierno: Sure
US House Rep Carol Shea-Porter: -- whether they were in uniform or whether they were serving as civilians.
For background on Adam Hermason, we'll drop back to the September 9th snapshot: "Kimberly Hefling (AP) reports that State Dept contractor (Triple Canopy) Adam Hermanson is dead at the age of 25 from 'showering in Baghdad'. Janine Hermanson states her husband died September 1st and that she was told it was from electrocution." Jermey Scahill (writing at The Nation) reported:
Hermanson's family suspects that Adam may have died as a result of faulty electrical wiring. And they have good reason to think that--at least sixteen US soldiers and two contractors have died from electrocution. The Pentagon's largest contractor in Iraq, KBR (a former Halliburton subsidiary), has for months been at the center of a Congressional investigation into the electrocution deaths because the company has the massive LOGCAP contract and is responsible for almost all of the electrical wiring in US-run facilities in Iraq. The eighteen soldiers and contractors died as a result of KBR's "shoddy work," according to Senator Frank Lautenberg.
Tuesday, Pennsylvania's WNEP reported (link has text and video) on the case:
Janine Hermanson: I just don't understand. It's not like he was killed by a bullet or killed by a roadside bomb. He was taking a shower.
Scott Schaffer: A wife asking questions about the death of her husband in Iraq.
Marisa Burke: His accident that had nothing to do with combat and why this widow now wants the government to investigate. It's our top story on Newswatch 16 at 6:00. Good evening everyone, I'm Marisa Burke.
Scott Schaffer: And I'm Scott Schaffer. It is a Newswatch 16 exclusive. A woman in Northumberland County is mourning her husband's death earlier this month in Iraq. He was electrocuted and she says it's not the first time it's happened to contractors working overseas. Newswatch's Jim Hamill, live tonight in our central Pennsylvania newsroom with a story you'll see only on 16. Jim?
Jim Hamill: Scott, Adam Hermanson was doing what many of us do every day when he died: Taking a shower. But Hermanson was far from home working as a security contractor in Baghdad's Green Zone. Now his wife and her family want to know who is responsible for his untimely death.
Janine Hermanson: I'm going to keep fighting for him. He fought for me and now it's my turn to fight for him.
Jim Hamill: These days Janine Hermanson lives with her parents near Muncy. Her late husband's belongings sit [covered from the elements] on the back proch. Earlier this month Adam Hermanson died while working as a security examiner in Iraq. The military medical examiner told Janine it appears Adam was electrocuted in the shower.
Janine Hermanson: It's been a month now and they still don't know who had the contract or contracts on his facility.
Jim Hamill: Janine says the couple planned to buy a home in the Muncy area when Adam finished working for the firm Triple Canopy. Now she spends hours every day trying to find out what went wrong? Her father says Adam did not deserve to die like this.
John Sivak: Our poor daughter. No husband. 25-years-old. This is insanity.
Jim Hamill: Janine showed us pictures of Adam. Both served in the Air Force, it's where they met. Following his death, Janine tells us she isn't getting straight answers from company officials or military officials or not only that. But Janine has learned Adam's case would make the 19th electrocution death in Iraq since 2003. That includes service members and contractors. Senator Bob Casey told us in a phone interview he's been working on this issue since early 2008 and is filing an amendment that would require inspections on any contract work paid for by tax payers.
Senator Bob Casey: It's disturbing and troubling to me that we have to file an amendment like this. This should already be part of what the army does anyway.
Jim Hamill: As for Janine, she doesn't plan on giving up on her quest for answers.
Janine Hermanson: I'm going to make sure that I find out who's responsible and make this stop. I'm tired of people not talking to me. You know, I have every right to know what happened to my husband.
Jim Hamill: Now Senator Casey says that amendment could take months to pass. The State Dept is investigating. And Triple Canopy, the company Adam Hermanson was working for, says it cannot comment until an investigation is complete. Jim Hamill, Newswatch 16, live in the central Pennsylvania newsroom.
Yesterday, Brett R. Crossley (Daily Item) noted Adam Hermanson had deployed to Iraq three times while serving in the Air Force as well as one tour in Uzbekistan. His obituary notes his motto was: "Live on day at a time, but to the fullest."
We covered Wednesday's hearing in yesterday's snapshot and Kat covered it last night. There are a few other exchanges I'd like to highlight and hopefully we can note at least one more tomorrow. Gen Ray Odierno spoke today at a Pentagon briefing and declared, "I'm not sure we will ever see anyone declare victory in Iraq because, first off, I'm not sure we'll know for ten years or five years." He declared that he expected the number of US troops in Iraq not to dip below 120,000 before the end of 2009. In reply to a question from Luiz Martinez (ABC News), Odierno confirmed what the press appeared to miss yesterday, the October draw-down "was one that was planned." This was not a new draw-down. Responding to the Voice of America's Al Pessin, Odierno replied, "I think the help I'm describing is that within the context of the strategic framework agreement, that it covers many different areas, from education, technological, security. And so it has to [be] about providing long-term assistance for developing systems. For example, from the military side. Also developing economic capacity, developing educational capacity, medical capacity -- all of those things. And I think, as we do that, that helps to build their institutions. So that's what I see happening beyond 2011." Beyond 2011, pay attention, Odierno just listed things the US will be doing for Iraq including on "the military side." The earlier quote, "I'm not sure we will ever see anyone declare victory in Iraq because, first off, I'm not sure we'll know for ten years or five years"? Odierno said after it, "And that's why I tell that the engagement after 2011 is as simportant as our continued engagements prior to 2011. Again, I don't mean military engagement necessarily." He's referring back to that list of engagments of which military is one. "I mean," he continued, "engagement across the spectrum of our government, in order to help them continue to build into a stable institution."
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"US military announces a death"
"Nouri's slate"
"Food"
"570 User Identification Failed"
"TV"
"continue to call her barbra"
"John Kenneth Galbraith's son fired"
"General Ray Odierno"
"Grab bag"
"Bob Somerby"
"Screwing Americans, helping Big Business"
"Who's right, who's wrong?"
"The itsy-bitsy baby gets confused"
"THIS JUST IN! LIKE 2006 NEVER HAPPENED!"
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The itsy-bitsy baby gets confused
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
LITTLE COCK JOEY CANNON DECIDED TO CREAM HIS MIND OVER JOHN-I-AM-A-REPUBLICAN-PLAYING-AT-BEING-A-DEMOCRAT.
THAT LED TINY PENIS JOEY TO INSIST THAT A NEWS MAX ARTICLE ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF A MILITARY COUP.
BABY PENIS JOEY CANNON GOES ON TO CRY "TREASON." AND HE WONDERS WHY PEOPLE SEE HIM AS A FREAKING NUT.
"TREASON," FOR THE IDIOTS LIKE BABY PENIS, IS NOT A TERM YOU JUST TOSS AROUND.
WE'D SAY SHAME ON BABY PENIS BUT GOD BEAT US TO IT. MEANWHILE DIDN'T HARPER'S DO A PIECE ON A MILITARY COUP BACK IN 2006 WHEN BUSH WAS IN THE WHITE HOUSE? (YES, IT DID.)
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today in DC, General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, testified before the House Armed Services Committee. The chair of that committee, US House Rep Ike Skelton, offered opening remarks that had something worthy of highlighting in every paragraph. We'll focus on a paragraph near the end because it's one the immature don't want you to hear.
Chair Ike Skelton: Finally, the US and Iraq will have to determine our future relationship. Many view January 1, 2012, as a date when our relations will transform instantly to a normal bilateral relationship. In some ways, that will likely be true. But in other ways, it may not be. Iraq will be incapable of providing fully for its external defense. Iraq may well continue to need help developing some aspects of its security forces. And we will continue to have interests in ensuring a stable Iraq, that doesn't threaten its neighbors or undermine other regional goals.
You probably won't hear about that portion of Chair Skelton's remarks -- despite the fact that the opening statement was widely distributed to the press. It's more important to the press that sold you the illegal war to begin with that you be sold (repeatedly) on the (false) notion that the Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) means the war ends and all US troops come home (or all US troops come home except the ones guarding the US Embassy in Iraq). That's not what the SOFA means. It's never been what it meant. In some ways the press is trapped in their own lies. Only the Washington Post got the SOFA right in November of 2008. The Los Angeles Times came close, but it didn't grasp it as fully as the Post did. The New York Times completely misunderstood the agreement (though Elizabeth Bumiller's reporting a month and two months after would attempt to correct the paper's misrepresentations) and McClatcy didn't have a damn clue. Leila Fadel was over her head. She was on a high as she'd semi-confess in "A reporter's farewell to Iraq," last August, too late to fix the immense damage she'd done in reports she filed and interviews she gave. "For a few months," she'd confess, "I had hope that things might work out." As many members of the Cult of St. Barack have discovered, hope doesn't pay the bills, hope doesn't put food on your table, hope doesn't put a roof over your head, and hope doesn't get the US out of Iraq. McClatchy gave us Leila The Hopeful when what the country most needed was a functioning reporter.
Let's quote Ike Skelton one more time, "Many view January 1, 2012, as a date when our relations will transform instantly to a normal bilateral relationship. In some ways, that will likely be true. But in other ways, it may not be. Iraq will be incapable of providing fully for its external defense." When you hear a liar telling you the SOFA means the war ends and the US comes home at the end of 2011, you need to ask, "Gee, then what did Ike Skelton mean?" In fairness to the Real Press, the bulk of the loudest and worst liars on the SOFA were beggars in Panhandle Media -- at The Nation, at Pacifica, etc. Some are such liars and/or fools, they forget their own lies. Earlier this month, Ava and I wrote "TV: The Suckers" which included, "Now what the treaty (Status Of Forces Agreement) does is what it was meant to, ease heat in the US over the illegal war. It's done that. It's led to so many fools and liars proclaiming the Iraq War over or almost over: Tom Hayden, CODESTINK, Raed Jarrar, throw a dart at the fringe radical and you'll draw blood from a fool swearing the Iraq War is over or about to be."
This led to Raed Jarrar insisting that we had misunderstood him. No, we hadn't. If you can't keep track of your lies, that's probably the first sign that you have a problem. In "Raed Jarrar tries to 'correct' Ava and C.I. (Dona)," Dona pointed out that even as she wrote, you could go to Raed's website and see X number of days to go until the Iraq War ended ("839" in Dona's screen snap). That's from Raed's site. He pimped the lie over and over that the SOFA meant the Iraq War ended and he added that tacky, lying counter to his website which provided a visualization of the lie. We knew what we were talking about, Ava and I. We always knew what the SOFA did and did not do. Raed? We'll be kind and just say he must be confused.
Today General Ray Odierno read word for word over the lengthy prepared statement that he and the White House wrote (the press may not tell you about White House involvement -- but first clue for those who can't grasp reality: If he wrote it, he wouldn't have stumbled over so many words while reading it). The thing to note from it is that Odierno lists Iraqi Security Forces of being "approximately 663,000 strong" with "245,000 soldiers and over 407,000 police." Otherwise, not much to note depite the fact that he was twenty-four seconds shy of 20 minutes when he finally finished reading his prepared remarks.
Odierno noted in reply to a question by Skelton that he has "the flexibility to speed up or slow down" the draw-down based on what he sees. Ranking Member Howard McKeon asked Odierno to walk through the election process in Iraq, noting that it is different than what those in the United States might be used to.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law. Once the election is completed, they take 45 days to certify the results of the election. And so what happens is we'll have hundreds of international observers -- maybe thousands, there's going to be quite a few international observers -- as well as the Iraqi High Electoral Commission will certify the results, they will take all complaints and then they will deem the elections to be credible, legitimate or not. That takes forty-five days. Once that happens, you then have thirty days to begin the formation of seating the Council of Representatives. You then have another thirty days to then select the leadership, the presidency, and then you have another time period to select the prime minister and then the Speaker [of Parliament]. So within that time period, we expect that it will take from January to June or so, maybe July, to seat the new government. In 2005, following the elections, the government -- the elections were in December and the government was seated in May of 2005 [C.I. note, he means May of 2006]. This is the Parliamentary system of government and it just takes time for them to do this. So it's -- there is timelines on it, they will follow those timelines strictly, but it will take time to seat that government.
US House Rep. Howard McKeon: Based on that timeline then, you're comfortable keeping combat troops in -- in the country until August and that will be sufficient and you're -- you're --
General Ray Odierno: I do.
US House Rep. Howard McKeon: -- comfortable with being able to pull them out securely at that time?
General Ray Odierno: I do, I do. You know I look at the first sixty days or so following the election as maybe the most critical time if we think there may be some form of violence following the election as the results are certified. Our experience in the past have been if -- within the sixty days, that's when you'd see some level of violence. So that allows us, I think, to make sure that we believe this will be a peaceful transition of power that we expect. But that will allow us to ensure this peaceful transition of power and then that allows us to draw-down as they seat the government.
US House Rep Michael Conaway would also follow up on the elections issue. He wondered what other risks might prevent elections from being held on time. "As I was going to say," General Ray Odierno began, "if we get the election law passed, I believe, unless there's some unforseen event that would happen -- and I have trouble getting my arms around what that might be, I really believe the elections will occur on time. Unless there's something that caused a large amount of sectarian violence to break out between now and the elections. But I just don't see it because the Iraqi people don't want to go there. They are tired of that and they want to move forward." The issue of the Kirkuk was discussed.
US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: General and Mr. Secretary, I'd like both of you to answer this question. General, at the end of July, you and Secretary [of Defense Robert] Gates visited with Kurdish leaders in Irbil and you were widely quoted saying that the Arab-Kurd tensions over disputed internal boundaries and natural petroleum policy were the biggest problem facing Iraq. In fact, you said, "Arab-Kurd tensions are the number one driver of insecurity." And yet this morning when you began and you talked about the drivers you didn't mention this. So my questions are: do you still believe that the number one driver is insecurity -- or do you still think it's up there -- and what measures have been taken to manage and to reduce the tensions that are going on? And, of course, Article 140 of the Constitution of Iraq provides for a phased process of normalization, census and referendum to determine the final boundaries of the Kurdish Region within a democratic process. But some have said to me that they think the US has to be more active in getting this 140 Article issue done, this process done. In fact, when I asked Secretary Gates in front of this committee, he said that, "The US fully supports Article 140." And so my question is: How involved are we in that? What are we doing to push these sides to get to a resolution under the Constitution? And if, in fact, we're going to have a responsible withdrawal, don't you think that getting that Article 140 process done is almost a pre-condition for us to be able to remove troops and make sure that these ethnic issues are taken care of? And, um, why is 140 stalled? And what are we doing to-to move it in the right direction?
General Ray Odierno: Thank you, Congresswoman. I still believe that Arab-Kurd tension is the number one driver of instability inside of Iraq. I mentioned it. I might not have said it was number one. But I did mention it. Uh-uh and this is long standing problems over land and resources and-and the distribution of those in these key areas that have been going on for hundreds of years in-inside of Iraq between the Kurds and the Arab population. The Article 140 process back in December '07 -- actually did not get finished by December of '07 which was the date on the original Iraqi Constitution -- was supposed to be finished. And when that happened what happened is we formed a UN -- uh -- the UN took over trying to renegotiate and get the sides together. So we have a UN commission now that is working very hard between the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to try to uh come to -- come to some agreement with these very difficult issues regarding disputed areas in terms of boundaries as well as a sharing of hydrocarbons and resources. So what we're doing -- what we're doing is we are fully in support of that effort. We support the UN, we engage with both the government of Iraq and the KRG on these issues to make sure they continue to participate in this -- in this process. And this process will ultimately follow, hopefully, and cause the implementation of the 140 -- Article 140 and the resolution of these issues. In addition, we are attempting to work with the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to reduce tensions in the areas. Over the last year or so, on several cases, it's the US forces who have helped to reduce tensions between these groups. We now have them in discussion and they are trying to come up with some sort of an architecture -- security architecture -- that would reduce tensions between the Arabs and Kurds. So we'll be at such level that everybody understands that-that they will solve this problem through the political processes of the UN. And this is something that Iraq has to solve. This is an Iraq problem that the Iraqis have to solve. We have to be engaged at all levels and we will continue to be engaged at all levels.
Yes, Odierno does grasp the issue and the tensions. No, US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill doesn't. (Loretta Sanchez grasps the issue very well, just FYI.) The response from Odierno above was in marked difference from the responses on the issue Chris Hill gave Congress earlier this month. We'll come back to Chris Hill later in the snapshot.
US House Rep Susan Davis: I wanted to ask you about the Wall St. Journal reported yesterday that the Iraqis are having difficulty with their budget crunch [see Gina Chon's "Iraq Is Struggling to buy Equipment"] and oil prices decreasing in purchasing equipment that they had already requested from the US government. And there are a number of issued combined with that. How difficult and how high a priority is it for us to get this straight? And are their policies that we should in fact be looking at right now that would allow them to purchase more of those in advance?
General Ray Odierno: We are -- I think it's very important. We've been working this for quite some time. First the uh Iraqi budget uh, you know, I know because of the price of oil their budget has decreased quite significantly. They're-they're MO -- they're combined MOD [Ministry of Defense] budget's about $10 billion a year. About 85% of that is fixed, non-discretionary and it has to do mainly with salaries and other things. So that leaves them a very small piece left to invest in modernization. They have already purchased several things such as patrol boats, uh, and many other army and some airforce equipment that they have to still pay. So almost all of their even discretionary income is-is-is taken up. So what I want to be able to do is assist them in some small ways -- by using stay-behind equipment. Potentially leaving for them As well as improving their ability not to have to pay all costs upfront for foreign military sales, where they can spread it over a longer time period --
US House Rep Susan Davis: As I understand it, they don't meet a number of the criteria --
General Ray Odierno: That's --
US House Rep Susan Davis: -- that we have.
General Ray Odierno: That's exactly right. They have to meet -- the IMF bank has to certify them. And, of course, they're trying to get through that certification by having enough reserves so that they get certified. So it's a very complex problem and we have things competing against each other. So we're trying to come up with many different ways to help them to get them the equipment we think is necessary to have a foundational capability by 2011. And part of that might be is we might have to -- you know -- what we believe is -- there's about -- in Fiscal Year '10 and '11, we think we need -- we have an acquirement of about 3.5 billion dollars that we need to help them in order to finish getting the foundational capacity that they need in order to have -- to be able to have security by 2011. And then we'll have to continue some sort of an FMF [Foreign Military Financing] program through the State Dept after 2011. And if we're able to do that, that will allow them to slowly build up and have the security capability necessary to protect themselves.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Thank you. I appreciate that. One of the things that must be frustrating is that violence does continue to flare from time to time and I notice that one of the high ranking Iraqi army generals was recently killed as well. I guess that was reported yesterday. What effect does that have in terms of the government? The army? Do you -- or is that -- have we gotten so numb to that now in a sense that it doesn't have the kind of impact --
General Ray Odierno: I think -- I think for the Iraqis -- First of all, that was a Brigade Commander that was killed yesterday up in Mosul. It has a -- you know, it does have an impact. Uh, the Iraqi security forces -- like our forces -- understand what their duty is and what their mission is. And they are very dedicated to providing security to their people and I have seen many acts of bravery by leaders -- Iraqi leaders -- and their soldiers. And-and-and in a lot of ways, they're no different from our soldiers when it comes to that. So they see that as their mission and they're trying to root out these last remnants of al Qaeda and insurgents and some of these difficult areas. The sad part, Congresswoman, is we continue to see these attacks against innocent civilians absolutely mean nothing to the outcome and all it does is kill innocent people. And it's frustration to us and it's frustrating to the Iraqis. And that's what we're trying to stop inside of Iraq now, these-these-these last bombings that occur, although much less frequently than they used to -- they still occur and kill many innocent people. And those are -- those are the kind of incidents we're trying to stop.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Are our civilians able to move freely, go down, have a cup of tea, at all to engage in an informal fashion yet at this point?
General Ray Odierno: They can but they can't. I would -- they can in order to meet with Iraqi officials. I-I would say you can but it's still a little bit difficult to move freely because they're targets -- is part of the problem.
On the above exchange, Odierno's belief in transitioning equipment over to Iraqis? Great. No point in bringing all of it back when most brought back will be immediately phased out as out-dated. Make a gift to the Iraqis, fine. But this idea that the Iraqis are going to get a loan for weaponry and it's okay because the payments won't be immediate but will be spread out?
I knew Cindy Crawford was working for Rooms To Go, but I had no idea Ray Odierno was. Regardless of whether payments are "spread out" or not, payments are due. The bill still has to be paid. Iraq is currently trying to break their finanical obligation to Kuwait. That's one. Two, Iraq can't afford to make the purchases now. What makes Odierno believe that they will be able to afford it in the future? Does he know something about the oil market? No, I don't think he does. But the point is, if you can't afford it today, don't buy on credit thinking you'll win the lottery and be able to afford it some day in the future. The budget is the budget. Revenues are what they are. You don't loan to people who can't afford to pay back a loan. The next step would be to consider whether the US should make a gift of it? ("It" being new weapons, not the equipment Odierno is speaking of leaving over there.) That goes to the US economy as does a loan. A gift would at least not require all the faux outrage needed for a loan (when Iraq doesn't pay back the loan, US officials take to the TV monitors to wonder why, why, why!). But this is billions. Odierno, who is not an economist or even an accountant, is stating it would be $3.5 billion. Which means it would most likely be twice that amount. Why does the US need to fork over that money?
That's the question that did not get asked.
Why does Iraq need $3.5 billion it doesn't have in order to 'save' the country? Who's the big threat there? They've got bombings? Yeah, they've had them throughout this illegal war. So? Does someone think Iran's going to come stomping in? Syria? What's the point of all this equipment because what it looks like -- and the reason the House didn't touch it -- is that Nouri's illegitimate and unpopular government needs the money not to defend itself from outside forces but to hold down their own people. And that's the observation then US Senator Joe Biden was making in April of 2008. And he and Russ Feingold were insisting this was exactly the position the US did not want to be in -- arming one side against the other. So before the US government even explores how to fund or not to fun the request, what the Congress needs to do is nail down why anything is needed? Iraq has failed to establish need. Odierno couldn't do it today before Congress. No debate on whether to gift or loan needs to take place until the need for the equpiment is established.
Ideally, we'll return to today's hearing later in the week (hopefully tomorrow -- Kat's offering observations about Odierno's testimony at her site tonight) and we can grab some other exchanges. US House Rep Mike Coffman, for example, asked some solid questions -- which Odierno answered specifically -- about the ethnic make up of the army and police. But let's grab Chris Hill. Whether you agreed with Odierno's conclusions or not, he did have his facts down. So different from Chris Hill's rude and unprepared testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Relations Committees earlier this month. This week, Thomas E. Ricks (Foreign Policy) finally stumbles upon the reality re: Chris Hill. Sort of. Chris Hill was unfit for the post -- and has a personnel record which demonstrates that. He lacked the qualifications. He had no experience in the region. He has a long (documented) history of ignoring supervisors. And the rumors about his manic depressive state was already legendary long before he landed in Iraq. (And his MD may be why, despite promising Senator John Kerry that he would be on the next plane to Iraq as soon as he was confirmed, he waited several days before departing for Iraq.) In his hearings, he demonstrated no knowledge of the issues despite several weeks of prepping with handlers. He has no concept of Kirkuk, for example. At the hearings on his confirmation, his responses on Kirkuk were laughable. They were barely better at the start of this month. Contrast them with Odierno's answers and you really grasp what a problem Hill has and, yes, what a problem Hill is.
Let's make the point really clear: The answer for Iraq is not military, it's political.
You've heard that how many damn times from how many damn people? So why is that Odierno -- a military general -- is doing more work currently in Iraq than the 'laid back' Chris Hill. Hill's confirmation was a mistake and the smartest thing the administration could do would be to ask for his resignation. Republicans opposed him. They questioned him hard and they knew -- as one on the Foreign Relations Committee told me -- that Hill was the fall guy (by which they take out Obama on the Iraq issue) if anything goes wrong. They knew it. You go back and look at their responses and you see they were all echoing one another. They were raising issues of trust and qualifications. And if the withdrawal happens and if it happens before the 2012 elections and if (a ton of ifs) it's bloody and messy, Chris Hill becomes one of the biggest talking points of the 2012 election.
He's unfit for the job and he's already repeatedly demonstrated he's not up for it. And his problems with Odierno even caused questions in today's hearings.
US House Rep Joe Courtney: How is your relationship with the ambassador, how often do you interact? I mean and what efforts are still being made by us to keep moving forward on the political end?
General Ray Odierno: Thank you so much for the question. First, I interact every single day uh, I, uh -- We probably meet personally three or four times a week. I have an office in the Embassy that I'm in. But I also have about 300 people the I'm with in MNF in I [Multi-National Force in Iraq] that are actually in the Embassy, that are in support of economic and training of other agencies, planning, that are there every single day working with the Embassy. So we're completely integrated at every level, we continue to be completely integrated.
At which point he began discussing (again) a report that is scheduled to be available in January. It will outline what US military tasks (current tasks in Iraq) are being passed on to the US Embassy in Iraq and which are being passed on to the central 'government' in Baghdad. Odierno squirmed throughout his response until he got to make a sport's joke. He did not squirm throughout the hearing. He did move around at many times (and his voice cut in and out as he moved his head away from the microphone). He jotted notes and did many other things. But he obviously and repeatedly squirmed when Hill was raised.
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FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today in DC, General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, testified before the House Armed Services Committee. The chair of that committee, US House Rep Ike Skelton, offered opening remarks that had something worthy of highlighting in every paragraph. We'll focus on a paragraph near the end because it's one the immature don't want you to hear.
Chair Ike Skelton: Finally, the US and Iraq will have to determine our future relationship. Many view January 1, 2012, as a date when our relations will transform instantly to a normal bilateral relationship. In some ways, that will likely be true. But in other ways, it may not be. Iraq will be incapable of providing fully for its external defense. Iraq may well continue to need help developing some aspects of its security forces. And we will continue to have interests in ensuring a stable Iraq, that doesn't threaten its neighbors or undermine other regional goals.
You probably won't hear about that portion of Chair Skelton's remarks -- despite the fact that the opening statement was widely distributed to the press. It's more important to the press that sold you the illegal war to begin with that you be sold (repeatedly) on the (false) notion that the Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA) means the war ends and all US troops come home (or all US troops come home except the ones guarding the US Embassy in Iraq). That's not what the SOFA means. It's never been what it meant. In some ways the press is trapped in their own lies. Only the Washington Post got the SOFA right in November of 2008. The Los Angeles Times came close, but it didn't grasp it as fully as the Post did. The New York Times completely misunderstood the agreement (though Elizabeth Bumiller's reporting a month and two months after would attempt to correct the paper's misrepresentations) and McClatcy didn't have a damn clue. Leila Fadel was over her head. She was on a high as she'd semi-confess in "A reporter's farewell to Iraq," last August, too late to fix the immense damage she'd done in reports she filed and interviews she gave. "For a few months," she'd confess, "I had hope that things might work out." As many members of the Cult of St. Barack have discovered, hope doesn't pay the bills, hope doesn't put food on your table, hope doesn't put a roof over your head, and hope doesn't get the US out of Iraq. McClatchy gave us Leila The Hopeful when what the country most needed was a functioning reporter.
Let's quote Ike Skelton one more time, "Many view January 1, 2012, as a date when our relations will transform instantly to a normal bilateral relationship. In some ways, that will likely be true. But in other ways, it may not be. Iraq will be incapable of providing fully for its external defense." When you hear a liar telling you the SOFA means the war ends and the US comes home at the end of 2011, you need to ask, "Gee, then what did Ike Skelton mean?" In fairness to the Real Press, the bulk of the loudest and worst liars on the SOFA were beggars in Panhandle Media -- at The Nation, at Pacifica, etc. Some are such liars and/or fools, they forget their own lies. Earlier this month, Ava and I wrote "TV: The Suckers" which included, "Now what the treaty (Status Of Forces Agreement) does is what it was meant to, ease heat in the US over the illegal war. It's done that. It's led to so many fools and liars proclaiming the Iraq War over or almost over: Tom Hayden, CODESTINK, Raed Jarrar, throw a dart at the fringe radical and you'll draw blood from a fool swearing the Iraq War is over or about to be."
This led to Raed Jarrar insisting that we had misunderstood him. No, we hadn't. If you can't keep track of your lies, that's probably the first sign that you have a problem. In "Raed Jarrar tries to 'correct' Ava and C.I. (Dona)," Dona pointed out that even as she wrote, you could go to Raed's website and see X number of days to go until the Iraq War ended ("839" in Dona's screen snap). That's from Raed's site. He pimped the lie over and over that the SOFA meant the Iraq War ended and he added that tacky, lying counter to his website which provided a visualization of the lie. We knew what we were talking about, Ava and I. We always knew what the SOFA did and did not do. Raed? We'll be kind and just say he must be confused.
Today General Ray Odierno read word for word over the lengthy prepared statement that he and the White House wrote (the press may not tell you about White House involvement -- but first clue for those who can't grasp reality: If he wrote it, he wouldn't have stumbled over so many words while reading it). The thing to note from it is that Odierno lists Iraqi Security Forces of being "approximately 663,000 strong" with "245,000 soldiers and over 407,000 police." Otherwise, not much to note depite the fact that he was twenty-four seconds shy of 20 minutes when he finally finished reading his prepared remarks.
Odierno noted in reply to a question by Skelton that he has "the flexibility to speed up or slow down" the draw-down based on what he sees. Ranking Member Howard McKeon asked Odierno to walk through the election process in Iraq, noting that it is different than what those in the United States might be used to.
General Ray Odierno: I'll wal -- Congressman, I'll walk you through in general terms. First, the el - by the [Iraqi] Constitution, the election is supposed to occur no later than the 31st of January. Right now, it's scheduled for the 16th of January. Again, pending the passing of the election law. Once the election is completed, they take 45 days to certify the results of the election. And so what happens is we'll have hundreds of international observers -- maybe thousands, there's going to be quite a few international observers -- as well as the Iraqi High Electoral Commission will certify the results, they will take all complaints and then they will deem the elections to be credible, legitimate or not. That takes forty-five days. Once that happens, you then have thirty days to begin the formation of seating the Council of Representatives. You then have another thirty days to then select the leadership, the presidency, and then you have another time period to select the prime minister and then the Speaker [of Parliament]. So within that time period, we expect that it will take from January to June or so, maybe July, to seat the new government. In 2005, following the elections, the government -- the elections were in December and the government was seated in May of 2005 [C.I. note, he means May of 2006]. This is the Parliamentary system of government and it just takes time for them to do this. So it's -- there is timelines on it, they will follow those timelines strictly, but it will take time to seat that government.
US House Rep. Howard McKeon: Based on that timeline then, you're comfortable keeping combat troops in -- in the country until August and that will be sufficient and you're -- you're --
General Ray Odierno: I do.
US House Rep. Howard McKeon: -- comfortable with being able to pull them out securely at that time?
General Ray Odierno: I do, I do. You know I look at the first sixty days or so following the election as maybe the most critical time if we think there may be some form of violence following the election as the results are certified. Our experience in the past have been if -- within the sixty days, that's when you'd see some level of violence. So that allows us, I think, to make sure that we believe this will be a peaceful transition of power that we expect. But that will allow us to ensure this peaceful transition of power and then that allows us to draw-down as they seat the government.
US House Rep Michael Conaway would also follow up on the elections issue. He wondered what other risks might prevent elections from being held on time. "As I was going to say," General Ray Odierno began, "if we get the election law passed, I believe, unless there's some unforseen event that would happen -- and I have trouble getting my arms around what that might be, I really believe the elections will occur on time. Unless there's something that caused a large amount of sectarian violence to break out between now and the elections. But I just don't see it because the Iraqi people don't want to go there. They are tired of that and they want to move forward." The issue of the Kirkuk was discussed.
US House Rep Loretta Sanchez: General and Mr. Secretary, I'd like both of you to answer this question. General, at the end of July, you and Secretary [of Defense Robert] Gates visited with Kurdish leaders in Irbil and you were widely quoted saying that the Arab-Kurd tensions over disputed internal boundaries and natural petroleum policy were the biggest problem facing Iraq. In fact, you said, "Arab-Kurd tensions are the number one driver of insecurity." And yet this morning when you began and you talked about the drivers you didn't mention this. So my questions are: do you still believe that the number one driver is insecurity -- or do you still think it's up there -- and what measures have been taken to manage and to reduce the tensions that are going on? And, of course, Article 140 of the Constitution of Iraq provides for a phased process of normalization, census and referendum to determine the final boundaries of the Kurdish Region within a democratic process. But some have said to me that they think the US has to be more active in getting this 140 Article issue done, this process done. In fact, when I asked Secretary Gates in front of this committee, he said that, "The US fully supports Article 140." And so my question is: How involved are we in that? What are we doing to push these sides to get to a resolution under the Constitution? And if, in fact, we're going to have a responsible withdrawal, don't you think that getting that Article 140 process done is almost a pre-condition for us to be able to remove troops and make sure that these ethnic issues are taken care of? And, um, why is 140 stalled? And what are we doing to-to move it in the right direction?
General Ray Odierno: Thank you, Congresswoman. I still believe that Arab-Kurd tension is the number one driver of instability inside of Iraq. I mentioned it. I might not have said it was number one. But I did mention it. Uh-uh and this is long standing problems over land and resources and-and the distribution of those in these key areas that have been going on for hundreds of years in-inside of Iraq between the Kurds and the Arab population. The Article 140 process back in December '07 -- actually did not get finished by December of '07 which was the date on the original Iraqi Constitution -- was supposed to be finished. And when that happened what happened is we formed a UN -- uh -- the UN took over trying to renegotiate and get the sides together. So we have a UN commission now that is working very hard between the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to try to uh come to -- come to some agreement with these very difficult issues regarding disputed areas in terms of boundaries as well as a sharing of hydrocarbons and resources. So what we're doing -- what we're doing is we are fully in support of that effort. We support the UN, we engage with both the government of Iraq and the KRG on these issues to make sure they continue to participate in this -- in this process. And this process will ultimately follow, hopefully, and cause the implementation of the 140 -- Article 140 and the resolution of these issues. In addition, we are attempting to work with the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to reduce tensions in the areas. Over the last year or so, on several cases, it's the US forces who have helped to reduce tensions between these groups. We now have them in discussion and they are trying to come up with some sort of an architecture -- security architecture -- that would reduce tensions between the Arabs and Kurds. So we'll be at such level that everybody understands that-that they will solve this problem through the political processes of the UN. And this is something that Iraq has to solve. This is an Iraq problem that the Iraqis have to solve. We have to be engaged at all levels and we will continue to be engaged at all levels.
Yes, Odierno does grasp the issue and the tensions. No, US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill doesn't. (Loretta Sanchez grasps the issue very well, just FYI.) The response from Odierno above was in marked difference from the responses on the issue Chris Hill gave Congress earlier this month. We'll come back to Chris Hill later in the snapshot.
US House Rep Susan Davis: I wanted to ask you about the Wall St. Journal reported yesterday that the Iraqis are having difficulty with their budget crunch [see Gina Chon's "Iraq Is Struggling to buy Equipment"] and oil prices decreasing in purchasing equipment that they had already requested from the US government. And there are a number of issued combined with that. How difficult and how high a priority is it for us to get this straight? And are their policies that we should in fact be looking at right now that would allow them to purchase more of those in advance?
General Ray Odierno: We are -- I think it's very important. We've been working this for quite some time. First the uh Iraqi budget uh, you know, I know because of the price of oil their budget has decreased quite significantly. They're-they're MO -- they're combined MOD [Ministry of Defense] budget's about $10 billion a year. About 85% of that is fixed, non-discretionary and it has to do mainly with salaries and other things. So that leaves them a very small piece left to invest in modernization. They have already purchased several things such as patrol boats, uh, and many other army and some airforce equipment that they have to still pay. So almost all of their even discretionary income is-is-is taken up. So what I want to be able to do is assist them in some small ways -- by using stay-behind equipment. Potentially leaving for them As well as improving their ability not to have to pay all costs upfront for foreign military sales, where they can spread it over a longer time period --
US House Rep Susan Davis: As I understand it, they don't meet a number of the criteria --
General Ray Odierno: That's --
US House Rep Susan Davis: -- that we have.
General Ray Odierno: That's exactly right. They have to meet -- the IMF bank has to certify them. And, of course, they're trying to get through that certification by having enough reserves so that they get certified. So it's a very complex problem and we have things competing against each other. So we're trying to come up with many different ways to help them to get them the equipment we think is necessary to have a foundational capability by 2011. And part of that might be is we might have to -- you know -- what we believe is -- there's about -- in Fiscal Year '10 and '11, we think we need -- we have an acquirement of about 3.5 billion dollars that we need to help them in order to finish getting the foundational capacity that they need in order to have -- to be able to have security by 2011. And then we'll have to continue some sort of an FMF [Foreign Military Financing] program through the State Dept after 2011. And if we're able to do that, that will allow them to slowly build up and have the security capability necessary to protect themselves.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Thank you. I appreciate that. One of the things that must be frustrating is that violence does continue to flare from time to time and I notice that one of the high ranking Iraqi army generals was recently killed as well. I guess that was reported yesterday. What effect does that have in terms of the government? The army? Do you -- or is that -- have we gotten so numb to that now in a sense that it doesn't have the kind of impact --
General Ray Odierno: I think -- I think for the Iraqis -- First of all, that was a Brigade Commander that was killed yesterday up in Mosul. It has a -- you know, it does have an impact. Uh, the Iraqi security forces -- like our forces -- understand what their duty is and what their mission is. And they are very dedicated to providing security to their people and I have seen many acts of bravery by leaders -- Iraqi leaders -- and their soldiers. And-and-and in a lot of ways, they're no different from our soldiers when it comes to that. So they see that as their mission and they're trying to root out these last remnants of al Qaeda and insurgents and some of these difficult areas. The sad part, Congresswoman, is we continue to see these attacks against innocent civilians absolutely mean nothing to the outcome and all it does is kill innocent people. And it's frustration to us and it's frustrating to the Iraqis. And that's what we're trying to stop inside of Iraq now, these-these-these last bombings that occur, although much less frequently than they used to -- they still occur and kill many innocent people. And those are -- those are the kind of incidents we're trying to stop.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Are our civilians able to move freely, go down, have a cup of tea, at all to engage in an informal fashion yet at this point?
General Ray Odierno: They can but they can't. I would -- they can in order to meet with Iraqi officials. I-I would say you can but it's still a little bit difficult to move freely because they're targets -- is part of the problem.
On the above exchange, Odierno's belief in transitioning equipment over to Iraqis? Great. No point in bringing all of it back when most brought back will be immediately phased out as out-dated. Make a gift to the Iraqis, fine. But this idea that the Iraqis are going to get a loan for weaponry and it's okay because the payments won't be immediate but will be spread out?
I knew Cindy Crawford was working for Rooms To Go, but I had no idea Ray Odierno was. Regardless of whether payments are "spread out" or not, payments are due. The bill still has to be paid. Iraq is currently trying to break their finanical obligation to Kuwait. That's one. Two, Iraq can't afford to make the purchases now. What makes Odierno believe that they will be able to afford it in the future? Does he know something about the oil market? No, I don't think he does. But the point is, if you can't afford it today, don't buy on credit thinking you'll win the lottery and be able to afford it some day in the future. The budget is the budget. Revenues are what they are. You don't loan to people who can't afford to pay back a loan. The next step would be to consider whether the US should make a gift of it? ("It" being new weapons, not the equipment Odierno is speaking of leaving over there.) That goes to the US economy as does a loan. A gift would at least not require all the faux outrage needed for a loan (when Iraq doesn't pay back the loan, US officials take to the TV monitors to wonder why, why, why!). But this is billions. Odierno, who is not an economist or even an accountant, is stating it would be $3.5 billion. Which means it would most likely be twice that amount. Why does the US need to fork over that money?
That's the question that did not get asked.
Why does Iraq need $3.5 billion it doesn't have in order to 'save' the country? Who's the big threat there? They've got bombings? Yeah, they've had them throughout this illegal war. So? Does someone think Iran's going to come stomping in? Syria? What's the point of all this equipment because what it looks like -- and the reason the House didn't touch it -- is that Nouri's illegitimate and unpopular government needs the money not to defend itself from outside forces but to hold down their own people. And that's the observation then US Senator Joe Biden was making in April of 2008. And he and Russ Feingold were insisting this was exactly the position the US did not want to be in -- arming one side against the other. So before the US government even explores how to fund or not to fun the request, what the Congress needs to do is nail down why anything is needed? Iraq has failed to establish need. Odierno couldn't do it today before Congress. No debate on whether to gift or loan needs to take place until the need for the equpiment is established.
Ideally, we'll return to today's hearing later in the week (hopefully tomorrow -- Kat's offering observations about Odierno's testimony at her site tonight) and we can grab some other exchanges. US House Rep Mike Coffman, for example, asked some solid questions -- which Odierno answered specifically -- about the ethnic make up of the army and police. But let's grab Chris Hill. Whether you agreed with Odierno's conclusions or not, he did have his facts down. So different from Chris Hill's rude and unprepared testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Relations Committees earlier this month. This week, Thomas E. Ricks (Foreign Policy) finally stumbles upon the reality re: Chris Hill. Sort of. Chris Hill was unfit for the post -- and has a personnel record which demonstrates that. He lacked the qualifications. He had no experience in the region. He has a long (documented) history of ignoring supervisors. And the rumors about his manic depressive state was already legendary long before he landed in Iraq. (And his MD may be why, despite promising Senator John Kerry that he would be on the next plane to Iraq as soon as he was confirmed, he waited several days before departing for Iraq.) In his hearings, he demonstrated no knowledge of the issues despite several weeks of prepping with handlers. He has no concept of Kirkuk, for example. At the hearings on his confirmation, his responses on Kirkuk were laughable. They were barely better at the start of this month. Contrast them with Odierno's answers and you really grasp what a problem Hill has and, yes, what a problem Hill is.
Let's make the point really clear: The answer for Iraq is not military, it's political.
You've heard that how many damn times from how many damn people? So why is that Odierno -- a military general -- is doing more work currently in Iraq than the 'laid back' Chris Hill. Hill's confirmation was a mistake and the smartest thing the administration could do would be to ask for his resignation. Republicans opposed him. They questioned him hard and they knew -- as one on the Foreign Relations Committee told me -- that Hill was the fall guy (by which they take out Obama on the Iraq issue) if anything goes wrong. They knew it. You go back and look at their responses and you see they were all echoing one another. They were raising issues of trust and qualifications. And if the withdrawal happens and if it happens before the 2012 elections and if (a ton of ifs) it's bloody and messy, Chris Hill becomes one of the biggest talking points of the 2012 election.
He's unfit for the job and he's already repeatedly demonstrated he's not up for it. And his problems with Odierno even caused questions in today's hearings.
US House Rep Joe Courtney: How is your relationship with the ambassador, how often do you interact? I mean and what efforts are still being made by us to keep moving forward on the political end?
General Ray Odierno: Thank you so much for the question. First, I interact every single day uh, I, uh -- We probably meet personally three or four times a week. I have an office in the Embassy that I'm in. But I also have about 300 people the I'm with in MNF in I [Multi-National Force in Iraq] that are actually in the Embassy, that are in support of economic and training of other agencies, planning, that are there every single day working with the Embassy. So we're completely integrated at every level, we continue to be completely integrated.
At which point he began discussing (again) a report that is scheduled to be available in January. It will outline what US military tasks (current tasks in Iraq) are being passed on to the US Embassy in Iraq and which are being passed on to the central 'government' in Baghdad. Odierno squirmed throughout his response until he got to make a sport's joke. He did not squirm throughout the hearing. He did move around at many times (and his voice cut in and out as he moved his head away from the microphone). He jotted notes and did many other things. But he obviously and repeatedly squirmed when Hill was raised.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Kids not feeling the love
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS ANNOUNCED HE THINKS U.S. CHILDREN SHOULD SPEND MORE TIME IN SCHOOLS EACH YEAR. THIS DESPITE THE FACT THAT OTHER COUNTRIES, SUCH AS CHINA, ALREADY SPEND FAR LESS TIME IN SCHOOL.
REACHED FOR COMMENT EIGHTH GRADER TOMMY SMITH RESPONDED, "HE WANTS US TO STAY IN SCHOOL? WELL HOW ABOUT THIS? HOW ABOUT THAT LITTLE PUNK ASS SPEND MORE TIME IN THE WHITE HOUSE? HOW ABOUT HE SPEND MORE TIME DOING HIS JOB? YOU TELL HIM I'M GONNA FIND HIM AND I'M GOING TO GIVE HIM A WEDGIE AND A WET WILLIE."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today in England, the inquiry into the death of Iraqi Baha Mousa (while in British custody) heard from two witnesses. Baha died September 16, 2003, after being beaten so badly that he had at least 93 injuries. His father gave testimony to the inquiry last Wednesday and stated he believed his son had been killed because he (the father, Daoud Salim Mousa al-Maliki) saw British soldiers breaking into a safe and stealing money, "I believe that my son may have been treated worse than other people because I had made a complaint to Lieutenant Mike that money was being stolen from the hotel safe." D007, an Iraqi also taken into British custody September 14, 2003 testified for the bulk of the day. He explained his ordeal which started when he was driving a Ministry of Education car, with permission from the Ministry, and was car-jacked.
Gerald Elias: Yes. As you were getting to the Ministry, you tell the Inquiry in your statement that something happened. Just tell us briefly what happened please.
D007: As I contacted Mr C006 and I told him that I had dropped the director of the municipality and some of the Ministry of Oil's staff. He asked me to go with the car to the parking lot of the Ministry, which was close to the Ministry, and when I was close to the Ministry I faced that accident.
Gerald Elias: What did you see when you were close to the Ministry?
D007: I saw a car alongside my car that I had been driving and they attacked me at gunpoint. Instead of going to the Ministry, I then went very fast towards the street ahead of me. I got to a crossing in Basra and after that crossing I saw a big truck so I had to wait. I had to stop.
Gerald Elias: What happened then?
D007: In the meantime, they were alongside myself. They got off their car. One of them came to me with a Kalashnikov and put it at my head -- pointed it at my head -- and he ordered me to remain where I was, not to drive on. Two people got into the back seat of my car. The person who had me at gunpoint, next to me, he got into my car in the passenger seat.
Gerald Elias: Just pause there if you will. So there were now three people in the car, two in the back and one in the passenger seat. Is that what you are saying?
D007: Correct.
Gerald Elias: Did you see how many of them had guns?
D007: Yes, they had guns.
Gerald Elias: Each of them had a gun?
D007: Yes, yes, each had a gun.
Gerald Elias: Were they carrying the guns or were the guns slung around their necks or what?
D007: They were hand-carried and the ammunition was on their chests.
Gerald Elias: Hand-carried; the ammunition was on their chests. Do you mean the ammunition was on their chests because it was looped around their necks or what?
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: So, as you told us, you decided to drive faster and not to obey the orders of the armed men in the car. Is that it?
D007: Correct.
Gerald Elias: You took the opportunity to drive the car into a collision because you told the Inquiry that you thought that was the best way for you to escape; is that right?
D007: Correct.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: So when you crashed the car it stopped, did it?
D007: That is correct and I ran away from the car.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: I think it's right, isn't it, that shortly after British soldiers arrived on the scene where the crash had occurred?
D007: Yes, they got there.
Gerald Elias: British soldiers went to examine the car that you had been driving, didn't they?
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: It wasn't only the guns that they left in the car, was it? I am just going to tell you what else the soldiers found when they searched the car. These items were found either on the back seats or in the footwell behind the driver's seat, we are told. They found the three rifles; they found eight magazines containing, I think, 240 rounds each; they found one radio antenna, as well as some paperwork, documents, which I will come to in a minute. Had all those things been in the car before these men had come into the car or do you say they brought those things as well?
D007: What I know is that the papers were car papers --
Gerald Elias: Leave aside the papers for the moment. What about the eight magazines of ammunition? Do you say the men had left those as well?
D007: Yes. Yes.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: Did the attitude of the soldiers change at any time at the police station?
D007: As we got to the police station, one of the soldiers -- the British Council -- the British troops -- he was make a contact. The policeman asked me what had happened and I explained to him. The officer understood English to some extent, so he went on explaining to one of the British soldiers and instantly the treatment changed, the treatment of the British soldiers changed and violence by the British troops started.
Gerald Elias: You say violence started. What was done to you?
D007: They immediately pulled me from behind my collar, took me to British Army vehicle. They got me there and the cars moved. I didn't know where we were going. On the road --
Gerald Elias: Just listen to my questions, if you will. When you left the police station, you say you were dragged by your collar to a vehicle. Was that to a Land Rover?
D007: Yes, it was a Land Rover, and which was close to the centre we were going, which would do, and that was close.
Gerald Elias: Are you sure it was a Land Rover, not a different army vehicle?
D007: I am sure because usually this car would be patrolling the province of Basra.
Gerald Elias: When you were taken to the Land Rover, were you restrained in any way?
D007: At the incident as it happened, I was tied up.
Gerald Elias: In what way were you tied up?
D007: With a plastic band and my hands were tied forward.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: I want to ask you about that journey in the Land Rover: were you ill-treated in any way on that journey to the detention centre?
D007: I was getting some kicks from the soldiers who were in the back of the vehicle.
Gerald Elias: How many soldiers were in the Land Rover travelling with you?
D007: Two or three.
Gerald Elias: Where were you kicked? To which part of your body?
D007: My right thigh and my left thigh.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: All right. Now I want to ask you about arriving at the detention centre where you were then kept until the Tuesday. This was the Sunday. You didn't know where you were going, did you, with the soldiers?
D007: I didn't know. I didn't know.
Gerald Elias: When you arrived at the detention centre --
D007: then I knew where I was.
Gerald Elias: You recognized the place, did you?
D007: In the beginning that place was well known in Basra.
Gerald Elias: What did you know it as?
D007: I knew it belonged to the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
Gerald Elias: Were you taken from the Land Rover when you arrived there?
D007: Until we got to the place where I had been put, they didn't get me right into the room immediately.
Gerald Elias: But they took you to a building, did they?
D007: Correct.
[. . .]
D007: When I got into the right-hand-side room, I saw people hooded. Part of those persons were on the right-hand side wall and the others were on the opposite side.
Gerald Elias: Were all the men that you saw hooded?
D007: Yes, all were hooded.
Gerald Elias: Can you remember how many men in total there were in that room hooded?
D007: Between five to six persons.
Gerald Elias: Five or six people. Apart from their heads being hooded, were they restrained in any other way that you see?
D007: I saw them restricted, tied up.
Gerald Elias: What in particular tied up?
D007: With a plastic band.
Gerald Elias: You are indicating your hands together. The wrists were tied with a band, were they?
D007: Yes, yes. [. . .] They were exhausted. Their condition was pitiful. In the beginning anybody would come in and see them, he would instantly recognise that they had been tortured.
Gerald Elias: I want a little bit more help, please, about that. Were any of them making any noise?
D007: It was moaning as a result of torture.
Gerald Elias: It was moaning.
D007: Yes.
He is hooded. His hood was removed only for meals and water (and a British soldier removed it once to give him a cigarette).
D007: They continued to beat me.
Gerald Elias: In what way did they beat you?
D007: On the right-hand side of my body at the kidney and then the right-hand side of my thigh -- on my right thigh. Then, with shoes on my head, they asked me to stand with my hands forward like this. [. . .] The blows were very hard and strong.
Gerald Elias: Do you know, for example, whether you were punched or kicked or hit with some object or don't you know?
D007: Kicks and with a device or a tool.
Gerald Elias: How soon after you were hooded did this beating start?
D007: After a short time.
And on his second night (Monday -- still not at Camp Bucca) he recalled, "Before my hood was lifted off my head, I was still receiving so many kicks -- so many beatings. One of the British soldiers strangled me -- that took around an hour or 20 minutes -- and then they left me. [. . .] His hands were -- thumbs, fingers, in my mouth, and the rest of his hands or palms around my neck with pressure. The second time he lifted my hood up to the middle of my face, to abvoe my eyes, and he also strangled me the same way." During the nearly 48 hours in custody (all before Camp Bucca), British soldiers refused to allow him to sleep, allowed him only one bathroom break, offered food only once. To keep him awake, he was beaten, "No sleep" was shouted in his ear and water was poured over his hood. It was at this detention center that Baha was killed. The witnesses were there at the same time. While he was still in detention (before being moved to Camp Bucca), the car was claimed by the Ministry of Education (the car he had wrecked) and they verified that D007 had permission. Yet D007 was not released. Another witness offering testimony today was brought in at the same time and an owner of the hotel Baha worked at (Baha was at his job when he was hauled off). He is known as D006 and he verified seeing D007 beaten and discussed the beatings he and his adult son received.
D006: As we entered the detenion centre, they had our hands tied up and made us stand toward the wall or by the wall. Then they brought a hood or hoods. Then they made us stand on one leg [. . .] Well, they were beating me all day on my head saying "No sleep, no sleep" -- always, also, hitting me on my side [. . .] they were hitting me with the torch on my head and then there was some beating with the boots.
Gerald Elias: And the beating with the boots, where were the boots
D006: My kidney area.
He and his adult son were beaten. A doctor arrived when he collapsed (CPR was given). He had a prior heart condition and had heart surgery before being taken into British custody. He had not been given his medicine. The doctor instructed that he be given medicine, attempted to have him taken to a hospital (British soldiers refused) and instead demanded he be kept unhooded and allowed to lie down. called his treatment "a crime against humainty. Even Israel wouldn't do such a thing. [Ariel] Sharon is more honourable than the army that did that, the British Army that did that. Sharon is more honourable than what the army did. It was a crime against humanity, a crime. What had we done? Can I be insulted at this age?"
The inquiry continues tomorrow morning. Yesterday the inquiry heard from D001. BBC News reports that he testified to hearing Baha begging while being beaten: "I knew it was Baha because I had known him for a long time and could recognise his voice. It seemed as if he wasn't that far away from me and the toher detainees. I heard him crying out something like, 'I am very tired, I can tolerate no more, please give me five minutes. Have mercy on me, I'm dying. I'm about to die, help me.' Then after a while I did not hear Baha scream out any more."
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CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS ANNOUNCED HE THINKS U.S. CHILDREN SHOULD SPEND MORE TIME IN SCHOOLS EACH YEAR. THIS DESPITE THE FACT THAT OTHER COUNTRIES, SUCH AS CHINA, ALREADY SPEND FAR LESS TIME IN SCHOOL.
REACHED FOR COMMENT EIGHTH GRADER TOMMY SMITH RESPONDED, "HE WANTS US TO STAY IN SCHOOL? WELL HOW ABOUT THIS? HOW ABOUT THAT LITTLE PUNK ASS SPEND MORE TIME IN THE WHITE HOUSE? HOW ABOUT HE SPEND MORE TIME DOING HIS JOB? YOU TELL HIM I'M GONNA FIND HIM AND I'M GOING TO GIVE HIM A WEDGIE AND A WET WILLIE."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Today in England, the inquiry into the death of Iraqi Baha Mousa (while in British custody) heard from two witnesses. Baha died September 16, 2003, after being beaten so badly that he had at least 93 injuries. His father gave testimony to the inquiry last Wednesday and stated he believed his son had been killed because he (the father, Daoud Salim Mousa al-Maliki) saw British soldiers breaking into a safe and stealing money, "I believe that my son may have been treated worse than other people because I had made a complaint to Lieutenant Mike that money was being stolen from the hotel safe." D007, an Iraqi also taken into British custody September 14, 2003 testified for the bulk of the day. He explained his ordeal which started when he was driving a Ministry of Education car, with permission from the Ministry, and was car-jacked.
Gerald Elias: Yes. As you were getting to the Ministry, you tell the Inquiry in your statement that something happened. Just tell us briefly what happened please.
D007: As I contacted Mr C006 and I told him that I had dropped the director of the municipality and some of the Ministry of Oil's staff. He asked me to go with the car to the parking lot of the Ministry, which was close to the Ministry, and when I was close to the Ministry I faced that accident.
Gerald Elias: What did you see when you were close to the Ministry?
D007: I saw a car alongside my car that I had been driving and they attacked me at gunpoint. Instead of going to the Ministry, I then went very fast towards the street ahead of me. I got to a crossing in Basra and after that crossing I saw a big truck so I had to wait. I had to stop.
Gerald Elias: What happened then?
D007: In the meantime, they were alongside myself. They got off their car. One of them came to me with a Kalashnikov and put it at my head -- pointed it at my head -- and he ordered me to remain where I was, not to drive on. Two people got into the back seat of my car. The person who had me at gunpoint, next to me, he got into my car in the passenger seat.
Gerald Elias: Just pause there if you will. So there were now three people in the car, two in the back and one in the passenger seat. Is that what you are saying?
D007: Correct.
Gerald Elias: Did you see how many of them had guns?
D007: Yes, they had guns.
Gerald Elias: Each of them had a gun?
D007: Yes, yes, each had a gun.
Gerald Elias: Were they carrying the guns or were the guns slung around their necks or what?
D007: They were hand-carried and the ammunition was on their chests.
Gerald Elias: Hand-carried; the ammunition was on their chests. Do you mean the ammunition was on their chests because it was looped around their necks or what?
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: So, as you told us, you decided to drive faster and not to obey the orders of the armed men in the car. Is that it?
D007: Correct.
Gerald Elias: You took the opportunity to drive the car into a collision because you told the Inquiry that you thought that was the best way for you to escape; is that right?
D007: Correct.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: So when you crashed the car it stopped, did it?
D007: That is correct and I ran away from the car.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: I think it's right, isn't it, that shortly after British soldiers arrived on the scene where the crash had occurred?
D007: Yes, they got there.
Gerald Elias: British soldiers went to examine the car that you had been driving, didn't they?
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: It wasn't only the guns that they left in the car, was it? I am just going to tell you what else the soldiers found when they searched the car. These items were found either on the back seats or in the footwell behind the driver's seat, we are told. They found the three rifles; they found eight magazines containing, I think, 240 rounds each; they found one radio antenna, as well as some paperwork, documents, which I will come to in a minute. Had all those things been in the car before these men had come into the car or do you say they brought those things as well?
D007: What I know is that the papers were car papers --
Gerald Elias: Leave aside the papers for the moment. What about the eight magazines of ammunition? Do you say the men had left those as well?
D007: Yes. Yes.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: Did the attitude of the soldiers change at any time at the police station?
D007: As we got to the police station, one of the soldiers -- the British Council -- the British troops -- he was make a contact. The policeman asked me what had happened and I explained to him. The officer understood English to some extent, so he went on explaining to one of the British soldiers and instantly the treatment changed, the treatment of the British soldiers changed and violence by the British troops started.
Gerald Elias: You say violence started. What was done to you?
D007: They immediately pulled me from behind my collar, took me to British Army vehicle. They got me there and the cars moved. I didn't know where we were going. On the road --
Gerald Elias: Just listen to my questions, if you will. When you left the police station, you say you were dragged by your collar to a vehicle. Was that to a Land Rover?
D007: Yes, it was a Land Rover, and which was close to the centre we were going, which would do, and that was close.
Gerald Elias: Are you sure it was a Land Rover, not a different army vehicle?
D007: I am sure because usually this car would be patrolling the province of Basra.
Gerald Elias: When you were taken to the Land Rover, were you restrained in any way?
D007: At the incident as it happened, I was tied up.
Gerald Elias: In what way were you tied up?
D007: With a plastic band and my hands were tied forward.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: I want to ask you about that journey in the Land Rover: were you ill-treated in any way on that journey to the detention centre?
D007: I was getting some kicks from the soldiers who were in the back of the vehicle.
Gerald Elias: How many soldiers were in the Land Rover travelling with you?
D007: Two or three.
Gerald Elias: Where were you kicked? To which part of your body?
D007: My right thigh and my left thigh.
[. . .]
Gerald Elias: All right. Now I want to ask you about arriving at the detention centre where you were then kept until the Tuesday. This was the Sunday. You didn't know where you were going, did you, with the soldiers?
D007: I didn't know. I didn't know.
Gerald Elias: When you arrived at the detention centre --
D007: then I knew where I was.
Gerald Elias: You recognized the place, did you?
D007: In the beginning that place was well known in Basra.
Gerald Elias: What did you know it as?
D007: I knew it belonged to the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
Gerald Elias: Were you taken from the Land Rover when you arrived there?
D007: Until we got to the place where I had been put, they didn't get me right into the room immediately.
Gerald Elias: But they took you to a building, did they?
D007: Correct.
[. . .]
D007: When I got into the right-hand-side room, I saw people hooded. Part of those persons were on the right-hand side wall and the others were on the opposite side.
Gerald Elias: Were all the men that you saw hooded?
D007: Yes, all were hooded.
Gerald Elias: Can you remember how many men in total there were in that room hooded?
D007: Between five to six persons.
Gerald Elias: Five or six people. Apart from their heads being hooded, were they restrained in any other way that you see?
D007: I saw them restricted, tied up.
Gerald Elias: What in particular tied up?
D007: With a plastic band.
Gerald Elias: You are indicating your hands together. The wrists were tied with a band, were they?
D007: Yes, yes. [. . .] They were exhausted. Their condition was pitiful. In the beginning anybody would come in and see them, he would instantly recognise that they had been tortured.
Gerald Elias: I want a little bit more help, please, about that. Were any of them making any noise?
D007: It was moaning as a result of torture.
Gerald Elias: It was moaning.
D007: Yes.
He is hooded. His hood was removed only for meals and water (and a British soldier removed it once to give him a cigarette).
D007: They continued to beat me.
Gerald Elias: In what way did they beat you?
D007: On the right-hand side of my body at the kidney and then the right-hand side of my thigh -- on my right thigh. Then, with shoes on my head, they asked me to stand with my hands forward like this. [. . .] The blows were very hard and strong.
Gerald Elias: Do you know, for example, whether you were punched or kicked or hit with some object or don't you know?
D007: Kicks and with a device or a tool.
Gerald Elias: How soon after you were hooded did this beating start?
D007: After a short time.
And on his second night (Monday -- still not at Camp Bucca) he recalled, "Before my hood was lifted off my head, I was still receiving so many kicks -- so many beatings. One of the British soldiers strangled me -- that took around an hour or 20 minutes -- and then they left me. [. . .] His hands were -- thumbs, fingers, in my mouth, and the rest of his hands or palms around my neck with pressure. The second time he lifted my hood up to the middle of my face, to abvoe my eyes, and he also strangled me the same way." During the nearly 48 hours in custody (all before Camp Bucca), British soldiers refused to allow him to sleep, allowed him only one bathroom break, offered food only once. To keep him awake, he was beaten, "No sleep" was shouted in his ear and water was poured over his hood. It was at this detention center that Baha was killed. The witnesses were there at the same time. While he was still in detention (before being moved to Camp Bucca), the car was claimed by the Ministry of Education (the car he had wrecked) and they verified that D007 had permission. Yet D007 was not released. Another witness offering testimony today was brought in at the same time and an owner of the hotel Baha worked at (Baha was at his job when he was hauled off). He is known as D006 and he verified seeing D007 beaten and discussed the beatings he and his adult son received.
D006: As we entered the detenion centre, they had our hands tied up and made us stand toward the wall or by the wall. Then they brought a hood or hoods. Then they made us stand on one leg [. . .] Well, they were beating me all day on my head saying "No sleep, no sleep" -- always, also, hitting me on my side [. . .] they were hitting me with the torch on my head and then there was some beating with the boots.
Gerald Elias: And the beating with the boots, where were the boots
D006: My kidney area.
He and his adult son were beaten. A doctor arrived when he collapsed (CPR was given). He had a prior heart condition and had heart surgery before being taken into British custody. He had not been given his medicine. The doctor instructed that he be given medicine, attempted to have him taken to a hospital (British soldiers refused) and instead demanded he be kept unhooded and allowed to lie down. called his treatment "a crime against humainty. Even Israel wouldn't do such a thing. [Ariel] Sharon is more honourable than the army that did that, the British Army that did that. Sharon is more honourable than what the army did. It was a crime against humanity, a crime. What had we done? Can I be insulted at this age?"
The inquiry continues tomorrow morning. Yesterday the inquiry heard from D001. BBC News reports that he testified to hearing Baha begging while being beaten: "I knew it was Baha because I had known him for a long time and could recognise his voice. It seemed as if he wasn't that far away from me and the toher detainees. I heard him crying out something like, 'I am very tired, I can tolerate no more, please give me five minutes. Have mercy on me, I'm dying. I'm about to die, help me.' Then after a while I did not hear Baha scream out any more."
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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"CODESTINK"
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"the anchor gordo"
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"Barack packed his speedo"
"THIS JUST IN! BARACK GOES FOR THE GOLD!"
Monday, September 28, 2009
Barack packed his speedo
BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
PROMISING HE'D BE BRINGING ON THE GOLD, LAND ON THE FRONT OF A BOX OF CORN FLAKES AND "I WON'T GET CAUGHT WITH MY BONG," CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O TOOK QUESTIONS FROM REPORTERS IN COPENHAGEN.
IT WAS NOT PRETTY. BARRY THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO COPENHAGEN TO COMPETE AND THAT HE WOULD BE REPRESENTING THE UNITED STATES SO IT WAS A SHOCK TO HIM WHEN REPORTERS EXPLAINED THAT HE WAS THERE IN AN ATTEMPT TO LAND THE OLYMPICS, NOT COMPETE IN THEM.
BARRY INSISTED, "IT'S ALL GOOD," BUT IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT IT WAS NOT ALL GOOD. ATTEMPTING TO PERK HIM UP, THESE REPORTERS ASKED HIM WHAT EVENT HE HAD THOUGHT HE'D BE COMPETING IN?
"PRETTIEST," HE SAID TO GASPS. "MOST PRETTIEST? WANT TO SEE ME IN THE SPEEDO I PACKED?"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Turning to peace news, Saturday Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) reported that 1st Lt Ehren Watada will not "seek a second court-martial" and that they've "accepted the resignation of" Ehren and quotes Ehren stating, "The actual outcome is different from the outcome that I envisioned in the first place, but I am grateful of the outcome."In June 2006, Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the illegal war in Iraq. June 22, 2006, his unit deployed at 6:45 am and, as he had stated, he refused to deploy. For perspective, that was also the day the US Senate voted to end the illegal war by July 2007 -- a proposal made by US Senators Russ Feingold and John Kerry. Only 13 US senators voted to pull all troops by July of 2007.Back then, the death toll for US service members in Iraq stood at 2512. It currently stands at 4346 and, no, the Iraq War has not ended.In August 2006, an Article 32 hearing was held. Watada's defense called three witnesses, Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois' College of Law, Champagne; Denis Halliday, the former Assistant Secretary General of the UN; and retired Colonel Ann Wright. These three witnesses addressed the issue of the war, it's legality, and the responsibilities of a service member to disobey any order that they believed was unlawful. The testimony was necessary because Watada's refusing to participate in the illegal war due to the fact that he feels it is (a) illegal and (b) immoral. Many weeks and weeks later, the finding was released: the military would proceed with a court-martial.On Monday, February 5, 2007, Watada's court-martial began. It continued on Tuesday when the prosecution argued their case. Wednesday, Watada was to take the stand in his semi-defense. Judge Toilet (John Head) presided and when the prosecution was losing, Toilet decided to flush the lost by declaring a mistrial over defense objection in his attempt to give the prosecution a do-over. Head was insisting then that a court-martial would begin against Watada in a few weeks when no court-martial could begin.January 4, 2007, Head oversaw a pre-trial hearing. Head also oversaw a stipulation that the prosecution prepared and Watada signed. Head waived the stipulation through. Then the court-martial begins and Ehren's clearly winning. The prosecution's own military witnesses are becoming a problem for the prosecution. It's Wednesday and Watada's finally going to take the stand. Head suddenly starts insisting there's a problem with the stipulation. Watada states he has no problem with it. Well the prosecution has a problem with it and may move to a mistrial, Judge Toilet declares. The prosecution prepared the stipulation and they're confused by Head's actions but state they're not calling for a mistrial or lodging an objection. That's on the record. Head then keeps pushing for a mistrial and the prosecution finally gets that Head is attempting to give them a do-over, at which point, they call for a mistrial.The case has already started. Witnesses have been heard from. Double-jeopardy has attached. The defense isn't calling for a mistrial and Head rules a mistrial over defense objection and attempts to immediately schedule a new trial.He's ignoring the US Constitution which forbids double-jeopardy. He thought he could give the prosectution a do-over. That's not how the justice system works in the US, double-jeopardy is banned. In November of 2007, US District Judge Benjamin Settle ruled, "The same Fifth Amendment protections are in place for military service members as are afforded to civilians. There is a strong public interest in maintaing these rights inviolate." The military stated then that they would appeal. October 22, 2008, Judge Settle ruled there could be no retrial on the charges of missing deployment, participating in a news conference or participating in the Veterans for Peace conference. That left two charges up in the air which were questionable because the strongest charge was always going to be "missing deployment."Watada was kept in the military all this time. His service ended in December 2006. Or should have. He was kept in the service to prosecute him. He was kept in the service and kept in limbo. His service contract expired in December of 2006 and instead of discharging him then, the military wasted his time and countless US tax payer dollars to conduct a nearly three-year assault on him. Audrey Mcavoy (Breaking News 24/7) reports that October 2nd is when the US military will discharge Ehren. At which point, Ehren can finally get on with his life. Michael Tsai (Honolulu Advertiser) quotes Kenneth Kagan, one of Ehren's two civilian attorneys, stating, "When the Army realized they could not beat him in court, they threw up their hands and looked for some way to handle the situation quickly and quietly." Iraq Veterans Against the War's T.J. Buonomo reflects on Ehren's news:
I am moved beyond words to hear of the imminent release of Ehren Watada from the Army. Ehren's exemplary moral courage was a great inspiration to me as a young Army officer struggling with how to respond to the Bush administration's abuses of power- from their manipulation of prewar intelligence and deception of Congress to their sanctioning of torture to their efforts to subjugate the Iraqi people under foreign multinational corporations and financial institutions.
I recall signing a petition in support of Ehren while still an Army officer -- a document that later ended up in my personnel file while under investigation for exercising my First Amendment rights. Five months later I was involuntarily discharged from the Army and joined Iraq Veterans Against the War. I have since followed Ehren's case and was elated to read that a federal court had intervened on his behalf, reaffirming his constitutional right not to be held in double jeopardy.
From news of a service member to veterans news, Friday, the VA was in the news cycle for still, STILL, not sending the checks to veterans participating in the education programs under the new GI Bill. These checks would cover tuition, would cover books, would cover living expenses. The news media ran with the month of September but, in fact, as e-mails have reminded, for some universities, the fall semester started in August. At one point early in the day Friday, the VA was attempting to lie that they were waiting for adds and drops. That was a lie. First off, many veterans are having to take out emergency students loans at their universities. These are short term loans and, no, this was not planned. Second of all, drops don't end this week. Many universities allow people to drop throughout October and into November. The VA is not doing its job and has attempted to spin. The VA notes the following in a release sent to the public e-mail:
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has authorized checks for up to $3,000 to be given to students who have applied for educational benefits and who have not yet received their government payment. The checks will be distributed to eligible students at VA regional benefits offices across the country starting October 2, 2009. More information on emergency checks. Information on VA regional benefits offices. Meanwhile Cynthia Henry (Philadelphia Inquirer) quotes Robeen Billings who is among the veterans who have not received their payments, "The GI Bill is a mess. I'm struggling because my first semester is not paid. I'm commuting from Newark to Camden, living off my credit card." Who's going to pay the interest on the debt that Billings and others are having to run up because the VA dropped the ball? Henry reports:Former Marine James Hambley, 25, of Maple Shade, has been caught short by the delay. Between his savings and GI Bill living allowance, he figured he could quit his job and attend CCC full time. Without the benefits coming in, Hambley has applied for a two-month deferment on his car and personal loans. He looked into a government student loan, but that money wouldn't be available until November, he said.College advisers have told him that he shouldn't work more than 20 hours a week while taking 14 credits toward his engineering-science degree, Hambley said, but "that's not going to cut it" until the first check arrives -- in November, the government now tells him. He's out looking for work.
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PROMISING HE'D BE BRINGING ON THE GOLD, LAND ON THE FRONT OF A BOX OF CORN FLAKES AND "I WON'T GET CAUGHT WITH MY BONG," CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O TOOK QUESTIONS FROM REPORTERS IN COPENHAGEN.
IT WAS NOT PRETTY. BARRY THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO COPENHAGEN TO COMPETE AND THAT HE WOULD BE REPRESENTING THE UNITED STATES SO IT WAS A SHOCK TO HIM WHEN REPORTERS EXPLAINED THAT HE WAS THERE IN AN ATTEMPT TO LAND THE OLYMPICS, NOT COMPETE IN THEM.
BARRY INSISTED, "IT'S ALL GOOD," BUT IT WAS OBVIOUS THAT IT WAS NOT ALL GOOD. ATTEMPTING TO PERK HIM UP, THESE REPORTERS ASKED HIM WHAT EVENT HE HAD THOUGHT HE'D BE COMPETING IN?
"PRETTIEST," HE SAID TO GASPS. "MOST PRETTIEST? WANT TO SEE ME IN THE SPEEDO I PACKED?"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Turning to peace news, Saturday Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) reported that 1st Lt Ehren Watada will not "seek a second court-martial" and that they've "accepted the resignation of" Ehren and quotes Ehren stating, "The actual outcome is different from the outcome that I envisioned in the first place, but I am grateful of the outcome."In June 2006, Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the illegal war in Iraq. June 22, 2006, his unit deployed at 6:45 am and, as he had stated, he refused to deploy. For perspective, that was also the day the US Senate voted to end the illegal war by July 2007 -- a proposal made by US Senators Russ Feingold and John Kerry. Only 13 US senators voted to pull all troops by July of 2007.Back then, the death toll for US service members in Iraq stood at 2512. It currently stands at 4346 and, no, the Iraq War has not ended.In August 2006, an Article 32 hearing was held. Watada's defense called three witnesses, Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois' College of Law, Champagne; Denis Halliday, the former Assistant Secretary General of the UN; and retired Colonel Ann Wright. These three witnesses addressed the issue of the war, it's legality, and the responsibilities of a service member to disobey any order that they believed was unlawful. The testimony was necessary because Watada's refusing to participate in the illegal war due to the fact that he feels it is (a) illegal and (b) immoral. Many weeks and weeks later, the finding was released: the military would proceed with a court-martial.On Monday, February 5, 2007, Watada's court-martial began. It continued on Tuesday when the prosecution argued their case. Wednesday, Watada was to take the stand in his semi-defense. Judge Toilet (John Head) presided and when the prosecution was losing, Toilet decided to flush the lost by declaring a mistrial over defense objection in his attempt to give the prosecution a do-over. Head was insisting then that a court-martial would begin against Watada in a few weeks when no court-martial could begin.January 4, 2007, Head oversaw a pre-trial hearing. Head also oversaw a stipulation that the prosecution prepared and Watada signed. Head waived the stipulation through. Then the court-martial begins and Ehren's clearly winning. The prosecution's own military witnesses are becoming a problem for the prosecution. It's Wednesday and Watada's finally going to take the stand. Head suddenly starts insisting there's a problem with the stipulation. Watada states he has no problem with it. Well the prosecution has a problem with it and may move to a mistrial, Judge Toilet declares. The prosecution prepared the stipulation and they're confused by Head's actions but state they're not calling for a mistrial or lodging an objection. That's on the record. Head then keeps pushing for a mistrial and the prosecution finally gets that Head is attempting to give them a do-over, at which point, they call for a mistrial.The case has already started. Witnesses have been heard from. Double-jeopardy has attached. The defense isn't calling for a mistrial and Head rules a mistrial over defense objection and attempts to immediately schedule a new trial.He's ignoring the US Constitution which forbids double-jeopardy. He thought he could give the prosectution a do-over. That's not how the justice system works in the US, double-jeopardy is banned. In November of 2007, US District Judge Benjamin Settle ruled, "The same Fifth Amendment protections are in place for military service members as are afforded to civilians. There is a strong public interest in maintaing these rights inviolate." The military stated then that they would appeal. October 22, 2008, Judge Settle ruled there could be no retrial on the charges of missing deployment, participating in a news conference or participating in the Veterans for Peace conference. That left two charges up in the air which were questionable because the strongest charge was always going to be "missing deployment."Watada was kept in the military all this time. His service ended in December 2006. Or should have. He was kept in the service to prosecute him. He was kept in the service and kept in limbo. His service contract expired in December of 2006 and instead of discharging him then, the military wasted his time and countless US tax payer dollars to conduct a nearly three-year assault on him. Audrey Mcavoy (Breaking News 24/7) reports that October 2nd is when the US military will discharge Ehren. At which point, Ehren can finally get on with his life. Michael Tsai (Honolulu Advertiser) quotes Kenneth Kagan, one of Ehren's two civilian attorneys, stating, "When the Army realized they could not beat him in court, they threw up their hands and looked for some way to handle the situation quickly and quietly." Iraq Veterans Against the War's T.J. Buonomo reflects on Ehren's news:
I am moved beyond words to hear of the imminent release of Ehren Watada from the Army. Ehren's exemplary moral courage was a great inspiration to me as a young Army officer struggling with how to respond to the Bush administration's abuses of power- from their manipulation of prewar intelligence and deception of Congress to their sanctioning of torture to their efforts to subjugate the Iraqi people under foreign multinational corporations and financial institutions.
I recall signing a petition in support of Ehren while still an Army officer -- a document that later ended up in my personnel file while under investigation for exercising my First Amendment rights. Five months later I was involuntarily discharged from the Army and joined Iraq Veterans Against the War. I have since followed Ehren's case and was elated to read that a federal court had intervened on his behalf, reaffirming his constitutional right not to be held in double jeopardy.
From news of a service member to veterans news, Friday, the VA was in the news cycle for still, STILL, not sending the checks to veterans participating in the education programs under the new GI Bill. These checks would cover tuition, would cover books, would cover living expenses. The news media ran with the month of September but, in fact, as e-mails have reminded, for some universities, the fall semester started in August. At one point early in the day Friday, the VA was attempting to lie that they were waiting for adds and drops. That was a lie. First off, many veterans are having to take out emergency students loans at their universities. These are short term loans and, no, this was not planned. Second of all, drops don't end this week. Many universities allow people to drop throughout October and into November. The VA is not doing its job and has attempted to spin. The VA notes the following in a release sent to the public e-mail:
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has authorized checks for up to $3,000 to be given to students who have applied for educational benefits and who have not yet received their government payment. The checks will be distributed to eligible students at VA regional benefits offices across the country starting October 2, 2009. More information on emergency checks. Information on VA regional benefits offices. Meanwhile Cynthia Henry (Philadelphia Inquirer) quotes Robeen Billings who is among the veterans who have not received their payments, "The GI Bill is a mess. I'm struggling because my first semester is not paid. I'm commuting from Newark to Camden, living off my credit card." Who's going to pay the interest on the debt that Billings and others are having to run up because the VA dropped the ball? Henry reports:Former Marine James Hambley, 25, of Maple Shade, has been caught short by the delay. Between his savings and GI Bill living allowance, he figured he could quit his job and attend CCC full time. Without the benefits coming in, Hambley has applied for a two-month deferment on his car and personal loans. He looked into a government student loan, but that money wouldn't be available until November, he said.College advisers have told him that he shouldn't work more than 20 hours a week while taking 14 credits toward his engineering-science degree, Hambley said, but "that's not going to cut it" until the first check arrives -- in November, the government now tells him. He's out looking for work.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Bombings in Iraq claim at least 13 lives"
"VA and the GI Bill"
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "New 'Action' from 'We Forgot Iraq'"
"And the war drags on . . ."
"Drones, deaths and don't waste my time"
"Ehren Watada scheduled to be discharged October 2nd"
Truest statement of the week
A note to our readers
Editorial: F**k that s**t
TV: Cougar Town Roars
Roundtable
Mr. Snackwell's Worst Dressed for the Week
TV: Racist and unfunny, today's SNL
Halloween (Jess)
Let him live it as a blonde
Jim's World
Idiot of the Week
Highlights
"He's hoping for a bad boy vibe"
"THIS JUST IN! TRYING TO BE A BAD BOY!"
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