5 men, 1 woman

Today on NPR's Talk of the Nation, the guests were Ken Rudin, Bob List, John Hickenlooper, Jonathan Zimmerman, Suleika Jaouad and Bob Fu.

In today's snapshot, C.I. notes an interview Australian TV did with some Palestinian Iraqis.  I strongly recommend you stream the two videos if you're able to stream.  I would also add that Revenge was so great tonight!  Stream it on Thursday if you missed it.

And poor Nolan!!!!  I won't say what happened but get ready to be surprised if you haven't seen it yet.  


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, May 16, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri wants his 'accomplishments' acknowledged (if only there was one to point to), State of Law insists a conspiracy is a foot!, a US House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee hears that a change VA wants to make will actually hurt disabled veterans, and more.

 

 

"Our nation's commitment to restoring the capabilities of disabled veterans struggling with devasting combat wounds resulting in the loss of limb began with the Civil War," declared US House Rep Ann Marie Buerkle this morning shortly after she brought the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Health to order.  "Restoring these veterans to wholeness was a core impetus behind the creation of the Department of Veteran Affairs and then, now, it continues to play a vital role in the Department's mission."

 

Buerkle is the Chair of the Subcommittee and this morning's hearing was entitled "Optimizing Care for Veterans With Prosthetics."  Chair Burerkle also noted, "Following WWII, 1945, veterans disatisfied with the quality of VA prosthetic care stormed the Capitol in protest. "  How is the care today?  To answer that question, the Subcommittee heard from four panels.  Gulf War Veteran John Register and Vietnam Veteran Jim Mayer.  Disabled American Veterans' Joy Ilem, American Orthotic & Prosthetic Association's Michael Oros, Paralyzed Veterans of America's Alethea Predeoux and Southeast Wounded Warrior Project's Jonathan Pruden.  The third panel was the VA's Office of Inspector General's Linda Halliday accompanied by Nicholas Dahl, Kent Wrathall and Dr. John D. Daigh Jr. and Dr. Robert Yang.  The fourth panel was the VHA's Dr. Lucille Beck accompanied by Dr. Joe Webster, Dr. Joe Miller and Norbert Doyle.  Some of the issues were outlined in the Ranking Member's opening remarks.

 

Ranking Member Mike Michaud: I've said it on this Committee before, but what seems to be the case, there is little accountability in management and, once again, procurement procedures and policies were not in place or not followed in managing nearly $2 billion worth of prosthetics and sensor aids.  The VA, in the last year's budget submission, claims $355 million in savings in the Fiscal Year 2012 and 2013 due to aquistions improvements.  But if the VA can't follow its own policies and procedures, how much faith can we have in the claim of acquisition savings?  I hope the VA can help us understand today what accountability we should expect and to make certain that the VA does not continue to overpay for prosthetics in the future, that taxpayers and veterans receive the best value for their devices, and for management to ensure that the prosthetics and sensor aids services is fully meeting veterans needs. Finally, it has come to my attention that VA has proposed changes in the procurement of prosthetics and that there is a high degree of concern among some of our witnesses today as to the effectiveness of these changes. I look forward to hearing from the VA on these changes as well.

 

 

A proposed change that's bothering some veterans?  What proposal is Ranking Member Michaud speaking of?  On the second panel, Jonathan Pruden explained the proposal (and here we're using his opening written remarks which differ some what from what he delivered):

 

Under current practice, VA physicians and prosthetists are able to see a veteran, make a determination regarding the most appropriate type of prosthetic equipment for a veteran, and relay that information to a Prosthetics Service purchasing officer to complete a purchase-order to obtain the needed item.   Those purchasing officers exclusively handle prosthetics' purchases, and are specialists in ordering medical equipment specified by health care providers.  A major change that the Veterans Health Administration intends to institute on July 30th, would require that any prosthetic item whose cost exceeds $3000 -- to include such essential items as limbs, wheelchairs and limb-repair components – must be procured by a contracting officer.  This is not simply a matter of substituting a generalist for a specialist.  Under the proposed change, these contracting officers would use a labor-intensive system (the Electronic Contract Management System (eCMS)) designed to achieve cost savings.  That system, designed for high-dollar bulk-procurement purchases that benefit from using the Government's purchasing power, requires over 300 individual steps to manually process a purchasing order.  While well-suited for buying widgets, the system was neither designed for nor well-suited to procuring highly specific, individualized medical equipment. Ill-suited to prosthetics, this new process would also require increased coordination between clinicians and off-site contracting officers who would be responsible for purchasing everything from light bulbs to now highly specific prosthetic legs.

This is not a small change.  Moreover, it not only increases the margin for error but also the potential for prolonged, delaying "back-and-forth," with the likelihood of clinicians having to justify why a more expensive wheelchair is clinically necessary when a seemingly-similar less- costly model exists.  We see no prospect that this planned change in prosthetics procurement holds any promise for improving service to the warrior.  Instead, it almost certainly threatens greater delay in VA's ability to provide severely wounded warriors needed prosthetic devices.

 

This would be "the wrong path" Iraq War veteran Jonathan Pruden stated.  He was injured in a July 1, 2003 Baghdad bombing resulting in multiple surgeries including the amputation of his right leg.  This next excerpt is from his oral testimony.

 

 

 

Jonathan Pruden:  Under the change, only a contracting officer could procure a prosthetic item costing more than $3,000.  This policy would effect essential items including most limbs like mine and wheel chairs.  It would require the use of a system designed for bulk procurement purchases that involves manually processing over three hundred -- that's 300 -- individual steps to develop a purchase order.  This system may be great for buying cinder blocks and light bulbs but it is certainly not appropriate for providing timely and appropriate medical care.  Equally troubling, this change offers no promise of improving service to the warrior.  Instead, it would mean greater delays. The change could realize modest savings but at what cost?  A warrior needing a new leg or wheel chair should not have to wait longer than is absolutely necessary.  I know warriors who have stayed home from our events, stay home from school, from work, can't play ball with their kids or live in chronic pain while they wait for a new prosthesis.   I know first hand what it's like to not be able to put my son into the crib while I'm waiting for a new prosthetic, to live in chronic pain and to have my daughter ask my wife once again, "Why can't Daddy come and walk with us?"   With VA moving ahead on changing procurement practices, wounded warriors need this Committee's help.  A prosthetic limb is not a mass produced widget. Prosthetics are specialized, medical equipment that should be prescribed by a clinician and promptly delivered to the veteran.  We urge this Committee to direct VA to stop implementation of this change in prosthetic procurement.

 

We'll note this exchange from the second panel.

 

 

Chair Ann Marie Buerkle: Mr. Pruden, in you testimony, you talked about how VA prosthetic research has lagged in recent years.  Now Mr. Oros talked about outcomes but I think you're talking more generally in terms of the research.  What impact -- and I shouldn't speak for you.  I should let you say what research you were referring to.  And then, if you could, after you tell us that piece, what impact has that had on veterans and the service that they need?

 

Jonathan Pruden:  VA has-has stepped up in a number of capacties in the past few years.  But, as Mr. Mayer pointed out earlier, DoD has taken the lead on the development of the DEKA Arm [a project DoD and the VA work on together] and all of these advanced techonology things.  In years past, VA has been -- One of its key roles and one of the reasons it exists is to provide specialized medical equipment for our combat wounded, for our veterans.  And VA really needs to have the capacity and the focus on research for durable medical equipment when DoD and Global War on Terror Dollars go away.  And this also ties into the discusssions about the centers of excellence at Walter Reed, Brooke Army Medical Center and so forth.  When these dollars go away, those DoD facilities will certainly scale back their capacity both for rehabilitation and for research.  And what we're calling for is for VA through the amputee system of care and enhancements and research to be prepared to meet the needs as DoD scales back.

 

Chair Ann Marie Buerkle: Thank you.  Miss Predeoux, I'm extremely concerned with regards to your comments about the filing system being outdated and the backlog that it creates.  Could you comment on that for us?

 

Alethea Predeoux:  Yes, in my written statement with the filing system, it refers to medical records in one VA medical center.  And if, for instance, one veteran was to relocate -- For example, our director of benefits relocated to this area from San Diego and it took quite a bit of time for the medical records to be delivered from San Diego to DC simply because there's not one central system in which all the medical centers are able to locate and actually view  the medical records of a veteran.  And as the panel before us testified, it's not just a wait time, it's a matter of being able to be comfortable and actually to be mobil.

 

 

Noting that Wounded Warrior was favoring a freeze on VA's proposed change, Ranking Member Michaud asked Oros, "Do you think we should ask the VA to freeze the reorganization? Bringing everthing in house?"   Oros responded, "Absolutely. Absolutely." US House Rep Gus Bilirakis wanted to know about the real life effects if VA went through with their change in procurement?

 

 

Jonathan Pruden:  Under the current system, there are safeguards in place to ensure that VA is being fiscally responsible. And it can take a month, two months.  Some of this is predicated on the clinical needs of the patient and the availablility of the product in their area  which is appropriate.  Our real concern is that -- is that with the new system, it would be supposition but it may take months and months longer to get purchase orders for needed equipment. And the veterans should not have to wait and the clinician's hands should not be tied.  If they feel that a device is appropriate and going to provide the best care for a warrior, they should be able to prescribe that device.  I have had the opportunity to speak with over a dozen VA clinicians and prosthetists who are currently serving in several former chiefs of prosthetics.  And every single one of them said that they share our concerns about the ability to remain timely and potential delays in veterans receiving needed prosthetic devices under this new system.  Dr. Bechel and she'll say that, 'One of the things that we're going to consider is if a device is generally available and interchangeable.  Then it will fall under the federal acquisition regulations.'  Who is determining what is generally available and interchangeable? It's going to be somebody in acquisitions , not a physician, not a clinician who has the patient's best interest at heart.  And that -- that's our real concern.

 

 

 

That's one of the main points from the hearing.  Time permitting, we may cover some other issues or go deeper into this one in another snapshot.

 

 

 

From the House to the Senate, Senator Patty Murray is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and the Committee issued the following today:

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Contact: Murray Press Office

(202) 224-2834

 

Senator Murray's Statement on Sweeping Army-Wide Review of Behavioral Health Evaluations and Diagnoses

 

Investigations Will Review Mental Health Diagnoses Since 2001

 

(Washington, D.C.) -- Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, released the following statement after the Army announced that they will begin a comprehensive, Army-wide review of soldier behavioral health diagnoses and evaluations since 2001.  This major announcement comes after Senator Murray spurred an investigation into inconsistencies in diagnoses at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in her home state of Washington.  The Army has since returned PTSD diagnoses to over 100 servicemembers that sought treatment there.  Murray has repeatedly pushed Army leadership to investigate whether problems similar to those at Madigan were being seen at Army bases across the country.

 

 

For more information on the Army's announcement visit:

 

 

"The Army clearly realizes they have a nationwide, systematic problem on their hands. I credit them with taking action, but it will be essential that this vast and truly historic review is done the right way.  That means continued engagement from Army leadership at the highest levels, prompt attention to the problems of servicemembers identified during the review, and not only the identification of problems but quick action to implement and enforce solutions.

"This comprehensive review is born out of a review I helped initiate in my home state that has already returned PTSD diagnoses to over 100 servicemembers since the beginning of this year.  That review has been successful because the Army identified and reached out to affected servicemembers and veterans, conducted reevaluations using the appropriate tools and best practices, and was made a priority by top military leaders.  This nationwide review must be given the same attention from leadership in order to succeed.

"But the bottom line is that the Army needs to fix the inconsistencies we have seen in diagnosing the invisible wounds of war.  Out of this review, the Army needs to provide a uniform mental health policy so that service members are given the care they need.

"This is an issue that affects every aspect of the lives of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Without proper mental health treatment we will continue [to] see see servicemembers struggle to readust to family life, contine to self-medicate, and in far too many cases, take their own lives.

"Servicemembers, veterans, and their families should never have to wade through an unending bureaucratic process to get proper access to care. The Army has an extrordinary opportunity to go back, correct the mistakes of the past, and ensure that they are not repeated."

 

###

 

 

Matt McAlvanah

Communications Director

U.S. Senator Patty Murray

202-224-2834 - press office

202--224-0228 - direct

matt_mcalvanah@murray.senate.gov

News Releases | Economic Resource Center | E-Mail Updates

 

 

 

 

Yesterday the Presidency of the Republic of Iraq's website deleted the image of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.  Alsumaria reports that the deletion is being blamed on a "technical issue" and that they are in the process of rolling out a new website design.  Though some worried this might mean that al-Hashemi had been stripped of his post, others no doubt found it shocking that the Presidency still has a web domain.  The Ministy of Higher Education & Scientific Research has lost its domain as has the Ministry of Trade. and the Ministry of Displacement and Migration and the Ministry of Culture and . . .

 

Due to Nouri al-Maliki's targeting of Tareq al-Hashemi, some were worried about the disappearnace.  At this point, the President's office is insisting it was merely a "technical issue."  Nouri targeted al-Hashemi at the same time he did Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq.  He wanted al-Mutlaq stripped of his post for the 'crime' of telling CNN that Nouri was becoming a dictator.  Nouri always feels the need to punish truth tellers. 

 

For an overview of the political crisis, we'll note this from Marina Ottaway and Danial Kaysi's [PDF format warning] "The State Of Iraq"  (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) reviewed events and noted:

Within days of the official ceremonies marking the end of the U.S. mission in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved to indict Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges and sought to remove Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq from his position, triggering a major political crisis that fully revealed Iraq as an unstable, undemocractic country governed by raw competition for power and barely affected by institutional arrangements.  Large-scale violence immediately flared up again, with a series of terrorist attacks against mostly Shi'i targets reminiscent of the worst days of 2006.

But there is more to the crisis than an escalation of violence.  The tenuous political agreement among parties and factions reached at the end of 2010 has collapsed.  The government of national unity has stopped functioning, and provinces that want to become regions with autonomous power comparable to Kurdistan's are putting increasing pressure on the central government.  Unless a new political agreement is reached soon, Iraq may plunge into civil war or split apart.

 

 

Alsumaria reports that an Iraqiya offshoot, White Iraqiya, is stating al-Mutalq will be at a Council of Ministers meeting next week.  Ali Hussein (Al Mada) offers a column on the drama of Nouri and Saleh and notes that, throughout, there was always the pretense of shedding tears over how this was preventing the people's business. Iraqiya made clear that they are fine with the various names tossed around as possible replacements for Nouri.  Alsumaria reports that Nouri's political slate, State of Law, is insisting that there's a conspiracy to replace Nouri and that KRG President Massoud Barzani is behind the conspiracy.  In addition, Nouri says that his achievements should not be overlooked.  Presumably, Nouri doesn't mean for people to look at the potable water issue.  Though Nouri's been prime minister since 2006, potable water is still an aspiration in Iraq.  The cholera season will soon, once again, be upon Iraq.  Al Mada reports that only 15% of Nineveh Province are serviced by networks of potable water. 

 

 

Not a ringing endorsement.  May 7th, the Iraqi government  acknowledged that it can't protect the people, Al Rafidayn reported that Nouri's agreed to allow every Iraqi household to keep one gun provided they register it with the nearest police department.  Dar Addustour added that Nouri's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh has explained the one gun can be either a rifle or a pistol.  Al Sabaah noted that the Ministry of the Interior will issue guidelines on how the new procedure will be implemented.  Kitabat explained that the current policy had been for the Iraqi forces to confiscate any weapon they found during a house raid.  May 10th, the pushback began.  Alsumaria reported that State of Law MP Shirwan Waeli is questioning the wisdom of the decision and stating State of Law shouldn't be giving legitimacy to arming people and that, futhermore, it suggests that the government is unable to protect Iraqis so it is now the direct responsibility of the citizens to protect themselves.  Supporters argue that the move was an attempt to limit guns and that the one-gun rule will greatly reduce the number of firearms in each home. Alsumaria noted that objections to Nouri's one-gun policy are also coming from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Kurdistan Alliance.  Ala Talabani, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Alliance, spoke publicly today about the issue and declared that they fear making each household register their one gun with the nearest police station in their areas will provide temptation for corruption.  Talabani also states that they fear the rule could lead to an increase in so-called 'honor' killings as well as an increase in domestic violence.  Mustafa Habib (Niqash) reports:

 

 

But a source inside the Ministry of Interior said the authorities actually felt this was an acknowledgement of the reality in Iraq, an idea that would allow them to better control security inside the country. By getting locals to register their firearms, the government would get a better idea of what kinds of weapons were in the country and how many there were.

 

Up until recently, the right to own a firearm in Iraq was reserved for members of the security forces and those in certain other professions. However, in reality, it would be fair to say that most Iraqi households own at least one gun, whether permitted or not.

 

 

UPI notes, "A prison that Iraq's government said it closed a year ago is still open and being used for torture and unlawful detentions, a human rights group said Tuesday."  Al Mada notes Human Rights Watch published their report yesterday  and that the secret prisons are in the Green Zone, one of which is Camp Honor which the government insists was closed. Mohammed Tawfeeq and CNN quote Human Rights Watch's Joe Stork stating  "It's a matter of grave concern that Iraqis in so many walks of life, officials included, are afraid for their own well-being and fear great harm if they discuss allegations of serious human rights abuses."   Al Arabiya adds, "The rights group called for Baghdad to start an independent investigation into allegations of torture and mistreatment, as well as other issues, at Camp Honor and other jails."  Ahram Online explains:

 

 

The HRW report cited testimonies and acknowledgments by former prisoners, lawyers, parliamentarians, family members, government and security officials. Based on the interviews, HRW concluded that the Iraqi government carries out mass arrests, illegally detaining hundreds of citizens, dozens of them transferred to Camp Honor.

Two particular waves of mass arrests were mentioned in HRW's account. The first occurred in October and November 2011 when officials and officers were targeted. Those were allegedly Baath Party and Saddam Hussein loyalists and were ordered detained directly through Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's military office.

The "Baathist arrests" were supposedly to round up plotters against Iraq's regime. Testimonies said those released were forced to sign pledges against public criticism of the government as well as false confessions. Threats of torture (or further torture), family member raping and prolonging imprisonment preceded the signings.

The second wave of arrests was prior to the March 2012 Arab summit in Baghdad. This wave was preemptive, an effort to secure the summit not hosted in Baghdad for decades because of insecurity, claimed now to be secure by Iraq's government.

 

 

Alsumaria reports a Kirkuk roadside bombing injured one police officer and the burned corpse of 1 young man was discovered in Kirkuk  "handcuffed and blindfolded."   Xinhua notes that a Jalawla roadside bombing left four police officers injured, a garage continer bombing in Jalawla left a young boy injured, a Baghdad construction cite bombing left three construction workers wounded.  In addition, KUNA adds, "Up to three Iraqis were killed and 11 others suffered injuries violent incidents close to the nothern cities of Kukuk and Mosul on Tuesday."  Noting 96 deaths from violence in Iraq so far this month, Iraq Body Count notes 10 dead yesterday: "Mosul: 2 by gunfire.  Shirqat: 2 by gunfire, 1 body.  Al-Zaeraiah: 2 Sahwa members by fungire.  Taza: 2 bodies found in grave.  Mosul: 1 by mortars."

 

 

Meanwhile some of the targeted in Iraq do get out of alive.  Suheil Damouny (SBS' World News Australia, link is text and video) reports that a group of Iraqi Palestinians have made it to Sydney where they have family, "They say they have suffered great human rights violations in Iraq, especially since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003." 

 

 

Suheil Damouny:  Almost as soon as the government fell in 2003, Iraqis wanted Palestinians out -- anywhere, except Iraq.  Human rights groups are still cataloguing the intense harassment, kidnappings and even murders.  Shia landlords wanted to reclaim properties Saddam's government had forced them to rent to Palestinians virtually for free.

 

Shhadi Ameen Badwan:  They would come to our homes and draw a noose on the door, saying that they will hang us if we do not leave. We were targeted as Palestinians.  They would say that the buildings we live in are theirs.  They say that Iraqi families are living on the streets while we are living in buildings.  They say they do not want us there at all and we have to leave.

 

Suheil Damouny: Subhi and his wife left Iraq with their daughter in 2007.  They left behind a son.  His fate?  Still unknown, another kidnapped in Iraq in 2006 presumed dead.

 

Rihaneh Ibrahim Khalil Badwan:  They too my son.  They took him from the shop and he was never seen again!  Until now I have not seen him.  The Mehdi Army took him.   We were humiliated.  How many times have we been displaced! From Palestine we were kicked out.  They do not want us in Iraq.  We went to Syria and look what happened there.

 

Suheil Damouny:  They made their way into Syria using forged Iraqi documents.  In Damascus, left with nothing, they turned themselves in. They were then sent back to the border where they remained in barren refugee camps for five years.  It was as far as they could go.  No country would let them in.

 

Subhi Ameen Badwan:  For Palestinians, this card, our passports, wouldn't even allow us to travel for 20 metres.  They would fight us simply based on this Iraqi card. Once someone is idnetified as a Palestinian we would be kidnapped, then they would demand ransom money. 

 

Suheil Damouny: Amnesty International's Graham Thom visited the camp.  The conditions were appalling.

 

Graham Thom:  There were scorpians, there were snake bites.  And, again, these camps were on the sides of busy highways and so we had small children who were being run over and killed by trucks in the middle of the desert.

 

 

Lastly, Peter Van Buren works for the US State Dept.  He wrote We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.  He's a whistle blower.  And the administration has gone after him like crazy.  A friend asked that we note Kim Zetter's "ACLU Warns State Dept. Against Firing Worker Who Criticized Government" (Wired):


The American Civil Liberties Union has come to the defense of a former State Department employee who looks likely to be fired for blogging and writing critically about the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
The ACLU says doing so would violate the constitutional rights of veteran State Department employee Peter Van Buren, according to a letter the group sent the government on Tuesday.
The letter further accuses the government of unlawful retaliation against Van Buren for publishing critical comments about U.S. foreign policy on his personal blog last year.
"The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that public employees retain their First Amendment rights even when speaking about issues directly related to their employment, as long as they are speaking as private citizens," and as long as they're writing about matters of public concern, the ACLU wrote in its letter (.pdf). "There can be no dispute that the subject matter of Mr. Van Buren's book, blog posts, and news articles -- the reconstruction effort in Iraq -- is a matter of immense public concern."

 

 

 

iraq
cnn
mohammed tawfeeq

alsumaria

al mada

4 men

Today on Talk of the Nation (NPR), the guests were Richard Cohen, Bernard Lewis, Alice Randall and  Rich Cohen. 

All men today.

Not a single woman.

Why is it that not one NPR show tries to book an equal number of men and women?

And why is that the ombudsperson never want to tackle that issue?


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, May 15, 2012.  Chaos and violence continues, the secret prisons and torture continue in Iraq, Tareq al-Hashemi's trial starts without him, Jason Ditz is a dunce, and much more.

 

 

Today is a really sad day as the BBC spits on human rights and treats 'confessions' most likely stemming from torture as being real.  Americans (wrongly) built a shrine to the BBC in 2003.  And, yes, by comparison to American outlets, the BBC coverage of the lead up to the war was better.  But compared to the basic standards of journalism, the BBC didn't even cut it.  It was as much a failure as the American outlets.  (And the providing of a confidential source's name to Blair's cabinet goes far beyond any known crimes of US outlets.)  No surprise that it would again be Iraq that saw the BBC reveal its true nature.

 

 

KUNA reports, "The first session for the trial of former Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi began here Tuesday with the charges being guiding and financing terrorist attacks."  Tareq al-Hashemi (pictured above) has been a vice president since 2006.  He is currently serving his second term.  Currently serving.  He has not been removed from office so this trial is legally not supposed to take place.  But the law's never mattered in Nouri's Iraq.  Nouri waited until the bulk of US forces had left to Iraq to suddenly declare his political rival al-Hashemi a "terrorist."  The vice president remains in Turkey.

 

Iraq practices forced confessions and, despite the Iraqi Constitution insisting upon innocence until proven guilty, the Baghdad court declared al-Hashemi guilty back in Februray.  Tareq al-Hashemi has repeatedly requested that the trial be moved elsewhere -- a request that should have been honored the moment the Baghdad judges declared him guilty in February at their press conference and while one judge was stating that he had been threatened by al-Hashemi! (He actually claims to have been threatened by 'supporters' of al-Hashemi -- he can't even make the claim if press for proof that it was by a bodyguard of al-Hasehmi.) Today, after being pushed back twice, the kangaroo court finally hopped into session.

Chen Zhi (Xinhua) reports that, as the trial started this morning, the court sent out spokesperson Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar to insist, "There are many crimes that Hashimi and his bodyguards are accused of and we have confessions from them, including the assassination of six judges."  A court that's dropped even the pretense of being impartial is exactly the sort that would send out a spokesperson to declare they had confessions.

 

AFP had a confusing report which was confusing for many reasons including: "Three other witnesses gave testimony, accusing Hashemi of masterminding the assassinations, before reporters were led out of the room."  If reporters are led out of the courtroom while a trial is going on, hate to break it to AFP, but that's your lede, not the fifth sentence and fifth paragraph of your report.  And that's all the more true when there were calls for international observers in advance of the trial and that call does not appear to have been heeded.  Equally true, if reporters are led out of the courtroom, you explain why they were.  And if no reason given to the reporters, you include that: "Reporters were ushered out of the courtroom.  No reason was given for the removal."

 

AFP declares there were three witnesses who testified after "families of three victims whose deaths Hasemi is accused of orchestrating."  They tell you nothing about those three witnesses.  As noted this morning, "But I do expect to know if these people could even offer any testimony against al-Hashemi. By that I mean, victims families can testify to losses. That's all they can do unless they're eye witnesses.  Even if they are eye witnesses, they have no testimony on al-Hashemi."  This was confirmed by this afternoon by Sinan Salaheddin (AP) when Salaheddin reported of the family witnesses, "They said they did not witness the attacks, and only complained against al-Hashemi after hearing the accusations against him in Iraqi media." Salaheddin also states there was one other witness, someone who was an ex-employee of al-Hashemi's (worked in the vice president's "media office") and that reporters "were ordered to leave the court during" that testimony. Suadad al-Salhy, Ahmed Rasheed, Barry Malone and Alistair Lyon (Reuters) note two bodyguards and "five relatives of people allegedly killed by the death squads" and that the court is now adjourned until May 20th. 

 

BBC files a report that indicates they had no one in the courtroom and that they didn't bother to do anything other than scan the wire reports quickly and then (also quickly) dash off a 'report.'  It's very shoddy.  But let's skip their bad journalism to note their shame: "Mr Hashemi's supporters have also claimed that some of his bodyguards made allegations about death squads under torture. The Iraqi judiciary dismissed the accusations of torture." How very sad that the BBC chooses to self-embarrass and self-shame on a day when the world learns (yet again) that Nouri al-Maliki is still running secret prisons and torture chambers.  Equally true,  Human Rights Watch and Amnesty are not "supporters" of Tareq al-Hashemi.  They are human rights organizations. 

 

March 23rd, Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into the death of Amir Sarbut Zaidan al-Batawi, a bodyguard of al-Hashemi's who died in custody, whose family states he was tortured to death and whom photos show "a burn mark and wounds."  The Iraqi government tried to say his kidneys failed.  As though he had some pre-existing condition (which the family denies). If he did, that would still be on the Iraqi government.  If someone has a medical condition when you take them into custody, you're having custody of them means in you're responsible for their well being.  Had the alleged kidney failure resulted from natural causes, the Iraqi government would still need to explain how they failed to provide treatment for a known condition?  But most likely the kidneys were damaged in torture which isn't at all uncommon, especially in Latin America.  Especially in Latin America?  The US government taught the thugs of Iraq to behave like the death squads of El Salvador in the 80s.

 

In December 2003, Robert Dreyfuss reported for American Prospect:

 

The Prospect has learned that part of a secret $3 billion in new funds tucked away in the $87 billion Iraq appropriation that Congress approved in early November will go toward the creation of a paramilitary unit manned by militiamen associated with former Iraqi exile groups. Experts say it could lead to a wave of extrajudicial killings, not only of armed rebels but of nationalists, other opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baaathists up to 120,000 of the estimated 2.5 million former Baath Party members in Iraq.

"They're clearly cooking up joint teams to do Phoenix-like things, like they did in Vietnam," says Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA chief of counterterrorism.  Ironically, he says, the U.S. forces in Iraq are working with key members of Saddam Hussein's now-defunct intelligence agency to set the program in motion.

[. . .]

But the bulk of the covert money will support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, and revenge-minded, Iraqi security force.  "The big money would be for standing up an Iraqi secret police to liquidate the resistance," says [John] Pike. "And it has to be politically loyal to the United States." 

 

In addition to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International issued the following January 30th:

 

Rasha Narneer Jaafer al-Hussain and Bassima Saleem Kiryakos were arrested by security forces at their homes on 1 January.  Both women work in the media team of Iraqi Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, who is wanted by the Iraqi authorities on terrorism-related charges. 

Al-Hasehmi has denied the charges, saying the accusations are politically motivated. 

"The arrest of the two women appears to be part of a wider move targeting individuals connected to Tareq al-Hashemi," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnest International's Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa.

"The Iraqi authorities must immediately disclose the whereabouts of Rash al-Hussain and Bassima Kiryakos.  At the very minimum they should have immediate access to their family and a lawyer.

"The circumstances of their arrest and their incommunicado detention when we know that torture is rife in Iraq can only raise the greatest fears for their safety," she said.

 

April 14th, Amnesty noted:

 

One of the two women working for the Iraqi Vice-President's Office who were arrested on 1 January has been released. The other woman's whereabouts are still unknown. 

Rasha Nameer Jaafer al-Hussain, who was working at the Iraqi Vice President's Office, was arrested without a warrant at her parents' house in Baghdad's al-Zayuna district on 1 January 2012. The security forces claimed they were taking her away for questioning and that she would return two hours later.  Since her arrest her family has not known her whereabouts.  However, the Iraqi media reported on 30 January that a Human Rights Parliamentary Committee had visited several of the Iraqi Vice-Preisdent's employees, including both arrested women, who claimed they had been tortured in detention.  It is believed she was arrested in connection with a warrant for the arrest of the Iraqi Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, who has been wanted by the authorities since December 2011.  He is accused of terrorism-related offenses, an accusation which he has publicly said is politically motivated.

 

 

But let's all make like the BBC and pretend as if torture never happens in Iraq and that the only ones claiming it does are "supporters" of Tareq al-Hashemi.

 

Let's stay with the topic of torture and then we'll do an Iraq fact check.  Human Rights Watch issued the following today:

 

 

 

(Beirut) -- Iraq's government has been carrying out mass arrests and unlawfully detaining people in the notorious Camp Honor prison facility in Baghdad's Green Zone, based on numerous interviews with victims, witnesses, family members, and government officials. The government had claimed a year ago that it had closed the prison, where Human Rights Watch had documented rampant torture.
Since October 2011 Iraqi authorities have conducted several waves of detentions, one of which arresting officers and officials termed "precautionary." Numerous witnesses told Human Rights Watch that security forces have typically surrounded neighborhoods in Baghdad and other provinces and gone door-to-door with long lists of names of people they wanted to detain. The government has held hundreds of detainees for months, refusing to disclose the number of those detained, their identities, any charges against them, and where they are being held.
"Iraqi security forces are grabbing people outside of the law, without trial or known charges, and hiding them away in incommunicado sites," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The Iraqi government should immediately reveal the names and locations of all detainees, promptly free those not charged with crimes, and bring those facing charges before an independent judicial authority."
The government should appoint an independent judicial commission to investigate continuing allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, disappearances, and arbitrary detention in Camp Honor and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said.
Multiple witnesses told Human Rights Watch that some detainees arrested since December 2011 have been held in the Camp Honor prison in Baghdad's International Zone, known as the Green Zone. In March 2011 the government announced it had closed Camp Honor prison, after legislators visited the site in response to evidence Human Rights Watch provided of repeated torture at the facility.
The two most sweeping arrest dragnets occurred in October and November 2011, detaining people alleged to be Baath Party and Saddam Hussein loyalists, and in March 2012, ahead of the Arab summit in Baghdad at the end of that month.
In April two Justice Ministry officials separately told Human Rights Watch that since the roundups began in October, security forces often have not transferred prisoners into the full custody of the justice system, as required by Iraq law. Instead, the officials said, security forces have transported dozens of prisoners at a time in and out of various prison facilities, sometimes without adequate paperwork or explanation, under the authority of the military office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Fourteen lawyers, detainees, and government officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that recent detainees have been held at Camp Honor prison. Some of the officials said that detainees have also been held at two secret detention facilities, also inside Baghdad's Green Zone. These allegations are consistent with concerns raised in a confidential letter from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) obtained by Human Rights Watch in July 2011 after the letter's existence was made public by the Los Angeles Times.
Officials, lawyers, and former detainees also told Human Rights Watch that judicial investigators from the Supreme Judicial Council continue to conduct interrogations at the Camp Honor prison. Between December and May, Human Rights Watch interviewed over 35 former detainees, family members, lawyers, legislators, and Iraqi government and security officials from the Defense, Interior, and Justice Ministries. Without exception, they expressed great concern for their own safety and requested that Human Rights Watch withhold all names, dates, and places of interviews to protect their identities.
"It's a matter of grave concern that Iraqis in so many walks of life, officials included, are afraid for their own well-being and fear great harm if they discuss allegations of serious human rights abuses," Stork said.
"Precautionary" Detentions ahead of March 2012 Arab Summit
The most recent mass arrests occurred in March as the government dramatically tightened security throughout Baghdad in preparation for the Arab League summit there on March 29. Family members and witnesses told Human Rights Watch that arresting officers characterized the roundups as a "precautionary" measure to prevent terrorist attacks during the summit. Six detainees released in April told Human Rights Watch that while they were in detention, interrogators told them that they were being held to curb criminal activity during the summit and any "embarrassing" public protests.
Legislators from Prime Minister al-Maliki's State of Law party have denied in the news media that any preemptive arrests took place, claiming that all arrests were of suspected criminals and in response to judicial warrants. All detainees and witnesses interviewed, over 20 in all, said they had not been shown arrest warrants.
In Baghdad neighborhoods where multiple arrests were made, including Adhamiya, Furat, Jihad, Abu Ghraib, and Rathwaniya, residents told Human Rights Watch it appeared that a large proportion of those detained had previously spent time in prisons run by the US military, including Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca, and Camp Cropper. Some family members and legislators concluded that people were being arrested not because of suspected current criminal activity, but simply because they had been detained before.
In May an Interior Ministry official told Human Rights Watch that "security forces, in the interest of keeping security incidents to a minimum during the summit, while the world was watching, sometimes decided it was easier to just round up people who had been imprisoned years before, regardless of what crime they may have committed." In April a Justice Ministry official told Human Rights Watch that of the hundreds arrested, "some have been released, about 100 will be officially charged within the justice system, and the rest are somewhere else. We do not know where."
During an April 9 parliament session, Hassan al-Sinead, head of the parliament's Security and Defense Committee and a member of Prime Minister al-Maliki's State of Law Party, held up what he said were official security reports of Baghdad Operation Command and said, in response to allegations of pre-emptive arrests by other legislators, that there were only 532 arrests in all of Baghdad during the month of March, and that none were pre-emptive.
Two other members of the parliamentary committee subsequently told Human Rights Watch that this figure greatly underreported arrests that month. At the April 9 session an investigative committee was formed, made up of members of the Security and Defense and Human Rights committees. Members of the investigative committee told Human Rights Watch that plans to visit detainees never happened. To date, no investigation results have been released.
"Baathist" Arrests
In October and November 2011, security forces arrested hundreds of people in Baghdad and outlying provinces, almost all during nighttime raids on residential neighborhoods. State television reported that Prime Minister al-Maliki ordered these arrests. Government statements, including by the prime minister, claimed that those arrested were Saddam Hussein loyalists plotting against the government. Family members told Human Rights Watch that security forces came to their doors with lists and read off names. Some of those listed were former Baath party members and others were not, including people who had died years ago. Three officials separately told Human Rights Watch that the total number arrested in the campaign approached 1,500.
A man whose 57-year-old father was arrested along with 11 neighbors on October 30 told Human Rights Watch in December, "A week after my father was arrested, some of the same police officers who arrested him came back and found family members to give them belongings [of neighborhood men who had been arrested], like clothes or money or IDs, but they still said they had no information about where they were being held, or what they were being charged with."
The man's son showed Human Rights Watch a document the police had given to him that listed the date his father was arrested but left blank the space reserved for the name of the detention facility.
Upon learning that some prisoners were being held in Baghdad's Rusafa prisons, run by the Justice Ministry, Human Rights Watch asked Justice Minister Hassan al-Shimmari on January 4 for access to the prisoners. The request was refused.
Though not all arrests have been on the same scale as those in October, November, and March, regular arrest campaigns have taken place, often in largely Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad as well as in several outlying provinces, said witnesses, family members and media reports. Strict government secrecy regarding the number of arrests and exact charges makes it difficult to assess the scope.
While some prisoners were released within hours or days and say they were not mistreated, others told Human Rights Watch they were tortured, including with repeated electric shocks. Most said interrogators forced them to sign pledges not to criticize the government publicly or to sign confessions. They said interrogators threatened that unless they signed these documents they would suffer physical violence, female family members would be raped, or they would never be released. Some families told Human Rights Watch that they were told to pay thousands of dollars in bribes to secure their loved ones' release. In two cases known to Human Rights Watch, detainees were released after the families made such payments.
Camp Honor Prison
Camp Honor is a military base of more than 15 buildings within Baghdad's fortified International Zone, which Iraqis and others continue to refer to as the Green Zone. The Iraqi Army's 56^th Brigade, also known as the Baghdad Brigade, which falls under direct command of the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, controls the Camp Honor complex and is responsible for the security of the Green Zone.
On March 29, 2011, Justice Minister al-Shimmari told Human Rights Watch that the government had closed the camp's main detention facility, Camp Honor prison (often simply referred to as "Camp Honor"). Al-Shimmari said that authorities had moved all its detainees, whom he alleged were terrorists and Islamist militants, to three other facilities under the control of his ministry.
Contrary to this assurance, Human Rights Watch has received information from government and security officials indicating that some detainees from the "Baathist" and "Summit" roundups were held in Camp Honor prison and that it is still being used at least as a temporary holding site, or as a place to extract confessions before moving detainees into the official correctional system. This use of military prisons outside the control of the Justice Ministry is consistent with known procedures at other publicly acknowledged facilities outside of the ministry's control, such as Muthanna Airport Prison and a facility in western Baghdad run by the army's Muthanna Brigade, both of which have also housed hundreds of detainees from the recent arrests, according to government officials and former detainees.
A security official from the Defense Ministry told Human Rights Watch in April that judicial investigators attached to the Supreme Judicial Council go to the Camp Honor prison on a regular basis, where they participate in investigations and interrogations, alongside military investigators from the 56th Brigade. A lawyer who works for the government but did not want his department identified corroborated this allegation in an April interview with Human Rights Watch.
Three former detainees who spoke with Human Rights Watch between December and April gave credible accounts of what they said were their interactions with judicial investigators in Camp Honor prison. These allegations are consistent with judicial procedures known to have taken place there in the past. One detainee told Human Rights Watch in April that he had been held for over a month in Camp Honor prison, from late October to early December.
In a March interview, another man told Human Rights Watch he had been detained in Baghdad in early November and taken to a prison inside the Green Zone, which guards and other detainees told him was Camp Honor prison. His description and a sketch he made of the layout of the cells and interrogation trailers were consistent with the known layout of the facility.
Another detainee said in early December that he could confirm that he was in Camp Honor prison in May 2011 by the proximity of clearly recognizable surrounding buildings. When he was taken from the main holding facility to adjacent trailers for violent interrogations on three separate occasions, he said, he was not blindfolded. "The Defense Ministry and the old Council of Ministers [Hall] are right there," he said. "I'm a former military man, and I used to work very close to there, so I knew right where I was."
In July Human Rights Watch obtained a copy of a May 22,2011 letter written by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which said the ICRC had "collected reliable allegations" of two separate secret detention facilities attached to Camp Honor military base, plus another facility next to the headquarters of the Counter-Terrorism Service, also in the Green Zone, "that are used to this day to hold and conceal detainees when committees visit the primary prison."
In the letter, the ICRC also documented the methods of torture used inside Camp Honor prison and affiliated facilities, consistent with torture methods Human Rights Watch had previously reported.The ICRC addressed the letter to Prime Minister al-Maliki and copied Farouq al-Araji, head of al-Maliki's military office, General Mahmoud al-Khazraji, commander of the 56th Brigade, other defense officials, Justice Minister al-Shimmari, and Judge Midhat al-Mahmoud, head of the Supreme Judicial Council.
After the Los Angeles Times made public the letter's existence on July 14, the ICRC released a statement declining to confirm or deny its authenticity, as per long-standing policy to confine its communications to officials of the government concerned. In July and August, two Iraqi government officials and one former official familiar with the letter assured Human Rights Watch of the letter's legitimacy.
Two defense lawyers separately told Human Rights Watch in May 2012 that clients of theirs had been held in Camp Honor prison as recently as August 2011. Another lawyer told Human Rights Watch that while working at the Supreme Judicial Council over the past year he encountered frequent references in comments by judges and others, as well as in court paperwork, to prisoners being held in Camp Honor prison and in "two other prisons in the Green Zone also run by the 56th Brigade." Four officials from the Defense and Justice ministries, plus two former officials, also told Human Rights Watch of the existence of these secret prisons, one also part of the Camp Honor complex, unofficially called "Five Stars," and another outside the base, but still within the Green Zone.
Treatment of Detainees
Statements to Human Rights Watch by those captured in the roundups and detained in various prisons, including those run by the Justice Ministry, varied in describing the treatment they received. Some said they were not physically mistreated. Three people detained in the "Summit" dragnet told Human Rights Watch that security officers assured them that they just had to wait until the Arab Summit was over and they would be released -- that holding them "was just a precautionary measure." Others described multiple beatings and threats and some described abuse that amounts to torture.
In May, a 59-year-old man told Human Rights Watch that he was arrested in late October in a southern province of Iraq and transported with more than 60 other prisoners to a detention facility in Baghdad, which he identified but asked Human Rights Watch to keep confidential. "When I first arrived, I was blindfolded and had my hands tied behind my back, and I had to walk down a long line of men, each of whom punched me in the face and hit my head with wire cables as I passed them," he said. "After that, I was in solitary confinement for some time, and then they brought me before the judicial investigators. I couldn't believe that they beat so hard and gave me electric shocks for three continuous hours, without even asking me any questions."
He also said that during other interrogations his captors stripped him naked, hit him with wire cables, boxed his ears, poured cold water over him, and shocked him with electrodes attached to his back.
He was released in March, five months later, after his family paid over US $10,000 in bribes and an influential politician intervened on his behalf. Before leaving custody, he was forced to sign what he said was a confession, though he is not sure of its contents, as well as a pledge to never speak "against the government" and never to talk to the media about his arrest. "They told me that if I break any of these rules, they will bring in my sons and destroy them, and rape my wife," he said. "As I left, they told me, 'We will arrest you again, and make sure you're executed.'"
Family members of detainees who spoke with Human Rights Watch said they had no idea where their loved ones were being held, despite multiple inquiries to the Ministry of Human Rights and the headquarters of the security forces that arrested them. In cases in which the government disclosed where prisoners were being held, security forces hindered or completely blocked detainees' access to legal and family visits.
"On paper, a defendant can be defended by a lawyer, but in real life, it is next to impossible," said a defense lawyer who is attempting to represent two men arrested in the "Summit" sweep in March. He told Human Rights Watch that when he is actually informed of the location of a detainee and allowed in, he is kept waiting for hours, and then told to go home because it is the end of the day. "Any lawyer attempting to see his client will be subjected to threats by the security forces holding the detainees," the lawyer told Human Rights Watch. "Several times in the past few months, they said, 'So, you want to represent a Baathist and a terrorist? I wonder what is making you do this, why you are on his side.' This is clearly an attempt to intimidate attorneys from standing up for their victims."
Families who tried to hire lawyers to defend relatives arrested in the "Baathist" sweep gave strikingly similar accounts. In December, one man told Human Rights Watch that his family went to four separate criminal defense lawyers who were at first cooperative. But when they learned that his father was taken in the "Baathist" arrests, he said, "each immediately told us that they could not interfere in this case because the arrests were by order of the prime minister's office." He cited one lawyer as saying: "This case is already decided. It's a lost case, and I can't be part of it, because they were arrested by the order of the prime minister.'"
"It is amazing that all four had the same reaction and this made us lose hope," the family member said. "We did not try to get another lawyer, and have no idea where my father is."

 The Los Angeles Times can't find a writer in Iraq to touch it so it's left to Carol J. Williams to note, "The continued operation of the Camp Honor detention site was disclosed by Los Angeles Times staff writer Ned Parker in July, four months after Maliki's government said the facility had been closed at the urging of Iraqi lawmakers and human rights advocates."  Ned Parker can't cover it because he's currently on sabbatical (he's an Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations).  The Telegraph of London adds, "Amnesty International also said in a February 2011 report that Iraq operates secret jails and routinely tortures prisoners to extract confessions that are used to convict them."

 

What can I say this time

Which card shall I play

The dream is not over,

The dream is just away

And you will fly

like some little wing

straight back to the sun

The dream was not over

The dream has just begun

-- "Straight Back," written by Stevie Nicks, first appears on Fleetwood Mac's Mirage

 

 

Which card shall I play?  How about the fact check one?

 

In a post, Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) at one point includes this, "Martin Kobler, head of the U.N. mission in Iraq, said, 'all our figures indicate that there is no deterioration in the security situation of the country' and that 600 people have, so far, died in violence this year."

 

That is wrong.  That is false.

 

It is not, however, surprising.  Drop back to Friday's "Iraq snapshot" and you'll find:

 

 

Kobler also attempted to spin the violence today insisting 600 people died this year.  Pay a little closer attention and you realize he's just talking about Baghdad.  Since the UN's supposedly concerned with all of Iraq, Kobler's little stunt is pretty offensive.  Iraq Body Count not only notes 55 dead so far this month, they noted 290 dead for the month of April, 295 for the month of March,  278 for the month of February and 458 for the month of January.  That's 1376 reported deaths from violence in Iraq since the start of the year.  That's twice as many as "600."  Again, Kobler was being deliberately misleading.  When the United Nations whores what people remember are the rapes by UN peace keepers (many, many times, but try these two who raped a 14-year-old boy in Haiti), the times the UN did nothing while countries were attacked (Iraq for starters -- and then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared the Iraq War illegal) and so much more.  Kobler didn't just make himself into a cheap whore with that little stunt, he reminded everyone of just how flawed -- some would say criminal -- the United Nations can be.  A far more realistic picture on the continued violence came not from Kobler but from a business decision.  Jamal al-Badrani (Reuters) reports, "Mobile phone operator Asiacell has closed its offices in the Iraqi city of Mosul, an al Qaeda stronghold, after attacks and threats by militants, security officials and employees said this week."

 

 

 

See, we called it out for a reason, Kobler's wording ensured that there was a good chance people would misunderstand the 600 figure and assume it applied to all of Iraq when it only applied to Baghdad.  Griffis' mistake will most likely be made by many others and Kobler seems to have intentionally sought that rection.

 

 

While Griffis' mistake may be understandable, there's no excuse for what Jason Ditz has done here. He laments that the residents of Camp Ashraf might be taken off the terrorist list, this "is almost certain to be delisted in the next 60 days, in a mover that is likely to dramatically increase tensions between the US and Iran."  And he amplifies his error and ignorance with this: "Technically speaking, officials say, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hasn't made an official decision on the matter, but has promised to do so in the next 60 days."

 

 

No, she hasn't.

 

 

Maybe before you write about something, you should read several different reports and not just one outlet.  Had Ditz bothered to do that, he would know that the attorney representing the State Dept and Hillary in court refused to give a deadline when prompted by the judge and specifically stated that anything they discovered in the 60 day time period, in the search of Camp Ashraf, could add additional time.

 

Again, we covered this Friday in the snapshot:

 

Ashish Kumar Sen (Washington Times) maintains, "Mrs. Clinton will decide on removing the MEK from the list no later than 60 days after Camp Ashraf has been vacated, and data gathered from the relocation has been studied to verify the group's claims that it is not a terror group, Mr. Loeb said."  However, that's not accurate.  The sixty days is a projection, it's not a promise and Loeb stated in court that information may result from a search of the then-empty Camp Ashraf that could delay any decision by Hillary on the issue beyond the 60 days.  How far beyond the sixty days?  Loeb didn't have specific numbers.  This is among the reasons Dinh made the argument that the residents want a decision even if it's a decision against them because they can appeal that.  The limbo status that they've been in for two years now is something very different.  

 

How very sad to show up days after (Ditz published Monday) and not have nailed down any of the facts.

 

But what do facts matter to Antiwar.com?  Apparently damn little.  Ditz has been allowed to be 'creative' with 'news' if the topic was the MEK.  He does so again in a way -- take a warning, I know Ed -- that could result in a lawsuit.

 

Ditz writes, "The move would be a great relief to several officials, including former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who violated federal law by taking funds from a still-listed terrorist organization in return for giving speeches on their behalf." That's not just a lie, Jason Ditz, it's one that can get your ass sued. 

 

Again, I know Ed and I wouldn't be the least surprised if, months from now, he filed a lawsuit over that statement.  He'd win too.  Justin Raimondo better start providing supervision of his little outlet and that includes telling Scott Horton and Jason Ditz that they can't liable (Ditz) and slander (Horton).  They've been given free reign by Raimondo on the MEK and allowed to say any crazy ass thing they wanted.  Not as opinion, mind you, but to lie and present as fact.

 

Does Justin want the next fundraiser to be about Antiwar.com's legal fees?

 

If you click on the link that Jason Ditz has supplied, what you find is another bad article by Jason Ditz from March with a link to this Philadelphia Inquirer article that speaks of "reportedly" in terms of a probe. 

 

Ed Rendell has not been found guilty of anything nor has he entered any plea on any charge.  In what's supposed to be a news report from Antiwar.com -- an outlet that promotes itself as a news outlet every time they beg for money -- Jason The Ditz is declaring that Ed "violated federal law by taking funds . . ."  Jason The Ditz can't prove that.  If he can prove it, he should consider filling in for the federal prosecutor.

 

If Antiwar.com wants to be an opinion journal that's fine and dandy but while they're promoting themselves as an alternative news outlet and while Ditz is billed as the "news editor," they need to learn that you can't write a news story and call someone guilty before they've either admitted guilt or been convicted.  One careful word could have taken Ditz's 'report'  from potential lawsuit to just bitchy.  That word is "allegedly."  Ditz should try to familiarize himself with the term.

 

 

The superficial libertarian media lobby has spoken, if you missed it, Glenn Greenwald among them.  He weighs in today playing tough talker. ("Superficial libertarian media lobby" does not refer to all libertarians in media.  Adam Kokesh, certainly, is not superficial.  But there is a set among the lobby that is.  Glenn Glenn represents them.)

 

Everytime Little Glenn Glenn tries to legalize, you realize just how uninformed he is and why he's such a joke in legal circles.  He dealt with civil liberties -- specifically those of people accused of -- and convicted of -- violent crimes.  There's nothing wrong with that and there is a need for it but don't turn around and try to pimp that as "I'm a Constitutional lawyer."  No, you weren't. 

 

Glenn manages to fool people because most don't know what a litigator is.  That's not about the Constitution and, as he rightly notes sometimes, he was a litigator. 

 

There are Constitutional attorneys.  Glenn doesn't have the academic background or the courtroom history to be trusted with those issues by anyone but the most desperate.  Constitutional cases go before the Supreme Court.  Glenn argued before them how many times?

Yeah.  Exactly.

 

In his bad column today, Glenn provides an 'update' where he explains, having just learned (oh, he's a smart one!), that the Bush administration originally declared the residents of Camp Ashraf terrorists -- specifically the residents of Camp Ashraf not just MEK.  That would be news to anyone not paying attention to the issue.  Good going, Glenn, you 've established that you've written repeatedly about a subject you knew nothing about.

 

Being on that list is why the US had them disarm.  This was all known by the adults long ago.  Who knows what Glenn was doing while the rest of us were paying attention?

 

Camp Ashraf residents have to leave Iraq.  That is a reality.  They have been twice attacked by Nouri's forces.  That is a reality.  It is why Amnesty issued an alert.  Glenn and his boy squad of faux crusaders want to pretend they're doing something.  But all they're doing is slamming the residents of Camp Ashraf.  The residents -- my opinion -- have been used as a political football by many including some MEK spokespeople.  It's a damn shame that here in the US you have the Glenn Brigade working overtime to trash a people who are basically a sinking lifeboat and need assistance immediately.

 

But that's how the Glenn Brigade rolls. 

And Antiwar.com better their act together real damn quick because, as I understand it, their house of cards could collapse real quick and they can't afford a law suit.  The very smart thing to do right now would be for Jason Ditzy to do a correction to that post -- immediately.  But, again, Justin's provided no oversight and allowed Scott Horton (Antiwar Radio) and Jason Ditz to slander and libel repeatedly if it was MEK related.

 

I'm going to repeat it one more time and hope that even Jason Ditz can grasp what I'm saying: What you have written is actionable.  You can be sued for it.  I would not make a point to go after Ed Rendell period (I like Ed) but, if I were to do so, I'd be damn sure I didn't say or write anything that left me open to a lawsuit.  Hopefully that's clear enough for even Jason Ditz.

 

 

In Iraq, the political crisis intensifies, Al Rafidayn reports that MP Mohammed Jawad (of Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc) is stating that, should a no-confidence vote take place, the names on the list to replace Nouri al-Maliki are Ahmed Chalabi, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Hussein al-Shahristani and Khudayr Musa Jafar Abbas al-Khuzai.   Ahmed Chalabi -- like Nouri -- has very tight connections to Iran.  So much so that his compound was raided by the US military despite the fact that he was once one of the prized exiles (he was also Dexter Filkins' favorite Iraqi source for 'reporting').  Ibrahim al-Jaafari was previously prime minister.  (The US refused to allow him a second term in 2006 and demanded that Nouri al-Maliki be named prime minister.)  Hussain al-Shahristani is the Deputy Prime Minister for Energy. He was educated in London and Toronto.  He's a nuclear scientist who fled Saddam Hussein's Abu Ghraib prison during the first Gulf War and went through Iran onto Canada. al-Khuzai is the Shi'ite Vice President.  Alsumaria notes that MP Abdul Amir Mayahi (also of the Sadr bloc) stated that Ibrahim al-Jaafari is their ideal candidate, calling him a national figure and a moderate. (al-Jaafari was prime minister from April 2005 until May 2006.)  Meanwhile Al Mada has interesting article where State of Law and Dawa officials state that, if Nouri is replaced, the replacement must come from the National Alliance.  The argument goes that Nouri wouldn't have been prime minister without the consolidated support and backing of the National Alliance therefore they should be the pool from which a different prime minister was selected.  All the names being tossed around are from the National Alliance (a slate of various Shi'ite political groups).  What makes it interesting is that Dawa -- Nouri's own political party -- and State of Law -- Nouri's own political slate -- appear to be preparing for the possibility that Nouri might be replaced.  Prior to this, they've insisted that it wasn't happening.  Now their public presentation is: If it does, the prime minister has to come from the National Allaince.  This shift in public strategy may result from the meeting Alsumaria reports took place last night and was chaired by Ibrahim al-Jaafari.  All the political blocs of the National Alliance were present.

iraq

kuna

xinhua

chen zhi

afp

robert dreyfuss

bbc news
the associated press

sinan salaheddin

antiwar.com
margaret griffis

6 men, 1 woman

That's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Barack's Shrinking Stature" from last night and today on Talk of the Nation (NPR), the guests were Ken Rudin, Jeff Berkowitz, Ben Jones, Michael Jacobides,  Tim Taylor, David Berliner and Deborah Davis.

As I noted Friday, Whitney has been re-newed (YEA!) and it will move to Fridays with Community and they'll lead in to Grim and then 30 Rock Center with Brian Williams.

I would assume the whole cast would be back (Sue) and that the show will pick up where it left off (Lonnie).  I don't think it would be smart to try and retool the show.

I hate when they do that.  When they take Drew Carey and put in a different job or when they ditch Holly on These Friends of Mine.  Or when they take a small but funny show, like the one where Gary painted houses -- Gary Unmarried was the name, I think -- and it was a good cast and funny.  Then came season two and some 'genius' decided the show would work better if Gary was a radio host.

Unlike the bulk of NBC's comedies, Whitney delivered an audience.  So they just need to leave it alone and get out of the way.
 

This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Monday, May 14, 2012.  Chaos and violence continue, the State Dept trashes Tim Arango's report . . . while also confirming it, two consevatives seem to think they read tea leaves but all they had to do was pay attention to Congressional hearings, at least 75 people have died from violence so far this month in Iraq, the politcal crisis continue, and more.           At the conservative blog American.com (American Institute Enterprise), Marc Thiessen is noting "what a different five months make," contrasting Barack's December words of eternal ties with Iraq with the New York Times report yesterday, Tim Arango's "U.S. May Scrap Costly Efforts to Train Iraqi Police."  Arango reported that the police training program has already cost US taxpayers $500 million since October alone and is an utter failure with Iraqis having ceased attending training on US facilities and Americans unwilling to train the Iraqi police on Iraqi facilities due to safety concerns. If it accomplishes nothing else, Arango's article forced the State Dept and spokesperson Victoria Nuland to address Iraq in their daily briefing today (here for transcript and video):       QUESTION: Yeah. Iraq.       MS. NULAND: Yeah.       QUESTION: I realize this was addressed by the Embassy yesterday, but I just want to get from here -- you know what I'm talking about, yes? -- in terms of the elimination, or reported elimination, of the Iraqi police training program. This -- the report said that it was being considered that the whole program could be -- could vanish, that it could go away. The Embassy, while it denied that, didn't say that it wouldn't be substantially cut or whittled down to a mere fraction of what it originally had been planned to be. Can you just clarify what exactly is -- what are the plans for the police training program?       MS. NULAND: Well, first let me clarify we have no intention to cancel our police training program in Iraq. What we are engaged in, in collaboration with the Iraqis, is a right-sizing exercise for this program along with all of our programs. As you know, we are absolutely committed to, first of all, supporting Iraqi self-reliance. So if they tell us they need less support, we are going to downsize. And in this case, they are asking us to continue the advisory and training program but to downsize it, and also to saving the U.S. taxpayer money wherever we can.  So I can't give you a final size for this. We are in the evaluation process now, working with the Iraqis. But we do anticipate we're going to be able to downsize it considerably while continuing to be able to support the Iraqis on the police training side.       QUESTION: Okay. This is the second time in -- since the beginning of the year that this particular publication has written something about the Embassy which you had a serious dispute with. Both times it has been cast -- the reports have cast these reductions or slashing of personnel as serious miscalculations by the Administration in terms of its Iraq policy. What's your feeling about that, that characterization of it?       MS. NULAND: Well, again, it's important to appreciate that we are in a new phase with Iraq. We're in a phase where it is up to the Iraqis to decide precisely what kind of footprint they want by foreign support, foreign countries offering support, offering assistance in the context of their overall approach to their sovereignty. So we very much need to respect that this is a collaborative decision how much support they want on the police training side.  So we're trying to be in step with their increasing self-reliance. We're trying to do this in a negotiated, phased, managed way. But we're also trying to make clear to Iraqis that we think we have valuable training, valuable advice to offer, as we do to some hundred countries around the world. So we're going to work this through, but I think folks need to get on the program that we have a sovereign Iraq who's going to make its own decisions about how much outside support it wants.       QUESTION: All right. So you agree or disagree with the characterization that this is -- that this represents a serious political -- or a serious policy miscalculation?       MS. NULAND: Well, of course I'm going to disagree with that. Thank you.         QUESTION: Was the report correct that the Administration has spent $500 million so far on the police training program?         MS. NULAND: I don't have the total amount here, but as you know, we've been involved in police training from the beginning of the Iraq operation, as far back as 2003. I can take the question if it's of interest to you to sort of tote it all up. But we were involved in police work ourselves, police training for the Iraqis from the beginning, the standing up of their own professional police forces. I don't think anybody in that country wanted to submit themselves to the old Saddam-ite police, so it needed a bottom-up work and cleansing. So --     QUESTION: One other thing. The report alleged that much of the training provided by the United States, and in particular by the State Department since the departure of the U.S. military from Iraq, was not helpful to the Iraqis, that it consisted of retired or late-in-their-career American state troopers telling war stories about how they conduct their activities in the United States. And it cited one anecdote in which it said that the two key indices of someone possibly going to -- planning to launch a suicide bombing were: one, that they would withdraw a lot of money from the bank; and two, that they'd go out and get drunk. And it suggested that those were perhaps not very apposite indicators for Iraq where: one, a lot of Iraqis don't have bank accounts; and two, a lot of Iraqis don't drink. Do you -- how do you address the criticisms in the story that regardless of how many millions were spent on this, that the training wasn't actually all that useful?       MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, I'm not going to get drawn into parsing the anecdotes in a story with which we took considerable issue, both in its macro assertions and in many of its details. We had considerable difficulties with that story, as the statement from Embassy Baghdad made clear.  With regard to the integrity of the police training that we do -- we have done in Iraq over these many years, we stand by it. The Iraqis have a new, modern, more democratic police force largely as a result of the support of the international community led by the United States. I'm obviously not in a position to speak to every individual involved in this, but all over the world we rely on the expertise of retired officers from the United States, from other countries, who are willing to participate in these training programs. And they participate on the basis of their experience in democratic law enforcement, not to hang around and tell inappropriate war stories. So we stand by the program. And if you'd like more on the numbers, et cetera, we can get you a separate briefing.     QUESTION: Can I just -- the last one this?       MS. NULAND: Yeah.         QUESTION: Just given the severity of the differences that you had with this, has there been any contact between the Department or anyone -- any senior officials in the Department and the editorship of the publication in question?       MS. NULAND: Well, I'm not going to get into our discussions with the --       QUESTION: Well, have you asked for a correction or clarification or --     QUESTION: Or a retraction?       MS. NULAND: We have made absolutely clear in our public statements and in our messages to that publication how we feel about the story.       QUESTION: But does that mean that you've asked for a retraction or a correction or some kind of -- I mean, after the first one, you demanded one. And you were quite open about it, and you got one.       MS. NULAND: Yeah. I think we're still working on that set of issues.       They should work on those issues.       They should also work on Victoria Nuland's status of spokesperson.  That's the full exchange on Iraq so we're not accuesed of misquoting her.  But the key passage to her response was this: "What we are engaged in, in collaboration with the Iraqis, is a right-sizing exercise for this program along with all of our programs. As you know, we are absolutely committed to, first of all, supporting Iraqi self-reliance. So if they tell us they need less support, we are going to downsize. And in this case, they are asking us to continue the advisory and training program but to downsize it, and also to saving the U.S. taxpayer money wherever we can."        That's exactly what Tim Arango reported.   That the program was being downsized, that cuts were being considered and that the program might get scrapped.  That is what he reported.  Nuland can pretend to be upset and outraged but she should be most upset and outraged with herself because she confirmed Arango's report.  Arango did not report, "The State Dept is closing the police training program!"  His opening sentence established the main point of the article: "In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed -- and may jettison entirely by the end of the year -- a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here."  That jibes exactly with what she said in the paragraph above.       At the conservative opinion journal Commentary, Max Boot also takes to gloating ("also" refers back to Marc Thiessen -- not to Victoria Nuland or Tim Arango).  Boot insists, "All of this was utterly predictable -- and in fact was predicted by numerous commentators, including yours truly, who had no faith in State's ability to run such an ambitious undertaking in a coutry that remains so dangers."  So there's Max Boots crowing about his crystal vision.  I think, by contrast, I'll just sing along with Carly Simon, "I'm no prophet and I don't know natures way" ("Anticipation," written by Carly, first appears on her album of the same name).       I didn't need to be a prophet and I don't understand why the conservatives are gloating?  If they really think they stumbled onto something, they've just demonstrated how out of touch they are.  Let's go back to the February 8, 2012 snapshot:       We covered the November 30th House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the MiddleEast and South Asia in the December 1st snapshot and noted that Ranking Member Gary Ackerman had several questions. He declared, "Number one, does the government of Iraq -- whose personnel we intend to train -- support the [police training] program?  Interviews with senior Iaqi officials by the Special Inspector General show utter didain for the program.  When the Iraqis sugest that we take our money and do things instead that are good for the United States. I think that might be a clue."  The State Dept's Brooke Darby faced that Subcommittee. Ranking Member Gary Ackerman noted that the US had already spent 8 years training the Iraq police force and wanted Darby to answer as to whether it would take another 8 years before that training was complete?  Her reply was, "I'm not prepared to put a time limit on it."  She could and did talk up Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Interior Adnan al-Asadi as a great friend to the US government.  But Ackerman and Subcommittee Chair Steve Chabot had already noted Adnan al-Asadi, but not by name.  That's the Iraqi official, for example, Ackerman was referring to who made the suggestion "that we take our money and do things instead that are good for the United States."  He made that remark to SIGIR Stuart Bowen. Brooke Darby noted that he didn't deny that comment or retract it; however, she had spoken with him and he felt US trainers and training from the US was needed.  The big question was never asked in the hearing: If the US government wants to know about this $500 million it is about to spend covering the 2012 training of the Ministry of the Interior's police, why are they talking to the Deputy Minister?       In that hearing, nearly a month before Barack's speech, Stuart Bowen and Brooke Darby confirmed that the puppet Nouri al-Maliki had over the Minister of the Interior had said he didn't want the US training Iraqis.        In that same House Foreign Relations Committee hearing, it was also established that the State Dept had no real plan.       Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: When will they be willing to stand up without us?     Brooke Darby: I wish I could answer that question.     Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: Then why are we spending money if we don't have the answer?     [long pause]     Ranking Member Gary Ackerman: You know, this is turning into what happens after a bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding. It's called "a Jewish goodbye."  Everybody keeps saying goodbye but nobody leaves.         Given the chance, by Darby, to retract his remark, he stood by it.  We could drop back further but there's no need to bother, Peter Van Buren's already beaten us to it as he explains (at Huffington Post):       In October I reported on my blog wemeantwell.com that the State Department was on Capitol Hill in front of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, begging a skeptical Congress for more money for police training in Iraq. "Training" was again being cited as the cure-all for America's apparently insatiable desire to throw money away in Mesopotamia. That latest tranche of taxpayer cash sought by State was one billion dollars a year, every year for five years, to pay police instructors and cop salaries in Iraq. The U.S. has been training Iraqi cops for years. In fact, the U.S. government has spent $7.3 billion for Iraqi police training since 2003. Ka-ching! Anybody's hometown in need of $7.3 billion in Federal funds? Hah, you can't have it if you're American, it is only for Iraq! Ever-reliable State Department tool Pat Kennedy led the pack of fibbers in asking Congress for the cash: "After a long and difficult conflict, we now have the opportunity to see Iraq emerge as a strategic ally in a tumultuous region." He went on (... and on) promising "robust this" and "robust that." Best of all, Pat Kennedy also said that providing assistance to the Iraqi police and security forces "will eventually reduce the cost of our presence as security in the country improves and we can rely on Iraqi security for our own protection."       Peter Van Buren is the author of We Meant Well: How I helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.      Now apparently Max Boot never heard of these hearing or others like it -- there were others -- but he's happy because he had a vision and turned out to be true.      Back in the land of reality,  Nicholas Noe and Walid Read (Bloomberg News) note Ahmad al-Muhanna's Al Mada column about "the bitter power struggle between the Shiite Maliki on the one side and the main Kurdish and Sunni leaders on the other.  In addition, Maliki is in a scrape with his fellow Shiite Muqtada al-Sadr, whose parliamentary bloc froms the ruling coaling with the PM's party.  Sadr, who unlike Maliki is a determined foe of the U.S., has openly criticized Maliki for isolation Shiites by mopolizing governming powers.  He joined Maliki's opponents recently in issuing the Irbil Paper, a list of demands including one that Maliki not run again after his current term expires in 2014."       Yesterday Al Rafidayn reported that the prime minister stated he was willing to dialogue about the issue of Saleh al-Mutlaq -- Deputy Prime Minister whom Nouri's State of Law is still trying to have stripped of his post in Parliament -- but that there would be no discussions or meetings on the issue of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi. Al Mada notes that al-Hashemi declared yesterday that he was optimistic about the possibility of returning to Baghdad and that he feels negotiations will result in the charges against him being dropped. Alsumaria reports that Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc is declaring that they have candidates to replace Nouri and are ready to go forward with a no-confidence vote if Nouri doesn't meet the demands.  The demands include a multi-point agreement by Moqtada which the press still hasn't reported on in any real depth.  The demands also include the implementation of the Erbil Agreement.     The March 2010 elections were followed by eight months of political stalemate after Iraqiya (led by Ayad Allawi) came in first, besting State of Law (led by Nouri).  Nouri didn't want to give up the post of prime minister and with both Tehran and the White House backing him, he knew he could dig his heels in.  The US-brokered the Erbil Agreement in November 2010.  Allowing Nouri to have the second term the White House wanted meant that Nouri would conceed on various other points.  Nouri used the agreement to become prime minister and then went back on his word and refused to honor the agreement.  This is the cause of the current political crisis in Iraq and it's been ongoing for over a year and a half.        Bashdar Pusho  Ismaeel (Kurdish Globe) observes, "Iraq has been gripped by a grave political crisis for several months and there appears little intent on the part of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malik's government to soothe tensions by working towards national reconciliation and resorting to constitutional principles."       Moqtada al-Sadr has given Nouri a 15 day deadline to take action on the demands agreed to at the April 28th meet-up in Erbil attended by, among others, Moqtada, Allawi, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, KRG President Massoud Barzani and Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi.  Al Mada reports State of Law states that they don't understand the deadline and that Nouri didn't attend because the meeting was with the Kurds and the Kurds follow their bloc and the KRG Prime Minister and not Nouri.  State of Law does love the insults.  But, reality, Nouri wasn't invited to the April 28th meeting.       Of that meeting, Mohammad Akef Jamal (Gulf News) observes:       Former prime minister Ebrahim Al Jaafari, who is also the INA's chairman, did not attend the meeting, neither did the representative of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. These absences that may seem innocent are usually due to political reasons. The policies of the State of Law Coalition headed by Al Maliki pushed Iraq into a maze, domestically and regionally. They also created a ripe atmosphere for a mutiny against the current set-up by the blocs that make up the INA. And although the 'news' that is planted from time to time about the conflicts inside the alliance is either exaggerated or played down, one cannot deny the existence of a serious crisis facing the Shiite alliance for the first time.   And on the subject of Tareq al-Hashemi, Ayhan Simsek (Deutsche Welle) explains:   Despite a "red notice" issued by Interpol, Ankara has declined to deport its close political ally to Iraq. "Mr. al-Hashemi has a health problem and is in Turkey for medical treatment," a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman told the press. "We expect him to return to Iraq when the treatment is completed." "The red notice doesn't mean that an arrest is required," he added. "Individual states have their own legal jurisdiction and can respond with whatever action they want." This is the latest bout of a Turkish-Iraqi spat that has lasted for weeks, and has added to the concerns over a growing Sunni-Shi'ite rift in the region.       Today's violence?  Alsumaria notes a Kirkuk roadside bombing has left four people injured -- at least two of which were police officers, a Baquba roadside bombing targeted a teacher's home and left a 12-year-old girl injured,  and late last night there was a Baghdad home invasion which left a police officer and two members of his family injured.  AGI adds that a Falluja car bombing claimed 5 lives and left eight people injured, intelligence officer Abbas Fatih Ahmed died in a sticky bombing attack, two armed attacks in Falluja left ten people wounded.  Iraq Body Counts notes that, as of Sunday's violence, 75 people have died so far this month from violence.         In other violence news, Al Rafidayn reports that Iraq's Human Rights Minister Mohammed  Shiya al-Sudani has declared that over 300,000 Iraqis were killed by "insurgents" since 2003 and that the international community must understand that when Iraq is handing out death sentences today.  He refers to it as a process of transition.  Of course, similar excuses have been given before.  Clare O'Dea (Swiss Info) reported in 2009 of then Iraqi Minster of Human Rights Wijdan M. Salim, "Salim said the death penalty might be abolished at some point but not at present.  'The violence in Iraq is so high, the number of terrorist victims is so large.  It's not for me to stop it or not.  I think it will not stop until another time."        iraq the new york times tim arango bloomberg news al mada

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