Dutch government collapses over Afghanistan mission: The Dutch coalition government collapsed Saturday over whether to extend the country’s military mission in Afghanistan, leaving uncertain the future of its 1,600 soldiers fighting there. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende announced that the second largest party in his three-party alliance is quitting … Balkenende made no mention of elections as he spoke to reporters after a 16-hour Cabinet meeting in The Hague that ended close to dawn. However, the resignation of the Labor Party — which has demanded the country stick to a scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan — would leave his government with an unworkable majority, and political analysts said early elections appeared inevitable … Dutch soldiers have been deployed since 2006 in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan on a two-year stint that was extended until next August. Labor demanded that Dutch troops leave Uruzgan as scheduled. Balkenende’s Christian Democratic Alliance wanted to keep a trimmed down military presence in the restive province, where 21 soldiers have been killed. ‘A plan was agreed to when our soldiers went to Afghanistan’, said Labor Party leader Wouter Bos. ‘Our partners in the government didn’t want to stick to that plan, and on the basis of their refusal we have decided to resign from this government’. NATO recently sent a letter to the government asking if it would consider staying longer — a move that the Western alliance normally would do only if it had a clear signal of agreement. ‘The future of the mission of our soldiers in Afghanistan will now be in the hands of the new Cabinet’, said Deputy Defense Minister Jack de Vries” … Opinion polls suggest the Afghan war is deeply unpopular”. The full report is here.

New Name for War in Iraq: “The Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq a new name — ‘Operation New Dawn’ — to reflect the reduced role U.S. troops will play in securing the country this year as troop levels fall, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates [to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander for the region]. Since U.S. forces charged across the Kuwaiti border toward Baghdad in 2003, the war has been known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The new name is scheduled to take effect in September, when U.S. troop levels are supposed to drop to about 50,000 … Such name changes are not unusual. The name of the 1991 Persian Gulf War changed as the mission changed, from Operation Desert Shield to Operation Desert Storm and then finally to Operation Southern Watch and Operation Northern Watch”. This report is published here

The Gates memo was first reported by ABC Television news, which posted it on its website — 17 Feb 2010 Request to change the name Operation Iraqi Freedom to Iraqi New Dawn: “… to take effect 1 Sept 2010 … Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation IRAQI FREEDOM has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission. It also presents opportunities to synchronize strategic communication initiatives, reinforce our commitment to honor the Security Agreement, and recognize our evolving relationship with the Iraqi government”. The original memo is posted here.

Whatever the similarities — and there are many — the Washington Post article notes that “the Abu Ghraib photographs also depicted some actions, such as punching or stomping, that bear no relation to the techniques described in the memos, as well as others that were improvised by guards, such as forcing detainees to masturbate or to form human pyramids while naked”.

This article can be read in full here.

Some of the comments on this article argue that, regardless of orders emanating from above, the Army prison guards were nonetheless still guilty of abuse and torture: lrobby1 commented, for example, that “Private Graner was brutally sadistic toward the Iraqi detainees. There are videos on Google here that show him torturing prisoners. The other guards were also guilty of horrifically abusing military detainees and they should all be punished. Lawyers for the DOJ, including Alberto Gonzales, legitimized the torture of military detainees and provided justification for their abuse. But neither the legal memos nor the authorizations by Rumsfeld and others approved of urinating on prisoners, pulling out pubic and chest hairs, sexual molestation, electrocution, pyramiding detainees, sodomizing prisoners or dragging them naked on concrete floors … no one knows exactly how many people were disappeared into blacksites and ultimately killed. While I still believe that a thorough investigation of those involved in the authorization of torture should be conducted, lawyers should be disbarred and Bush Administration officials should be prosecuted, I also believe that Pvt. Graner and the other guards were justifiably punished for their own actions”.

The NYTimes op ed suggests that, “In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections … If only 9/11 could somehow be pinned on Iraq, the case for war would be a slamdunk. But there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq, and the White House knew it. Torture may have been the last hope for coercing such bogus ‘intelligence’ from detainees who would be tempted to say anything to stop the waterboarding. Last week Bush-Cheney defenders, true to form, dismissed the Senate Armed Services Committee report as ‘partisan’. But as the committee chairman, Carl Levin, told me, the report received unanimous support from its members — John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman included. Levin also emphasized the report’s accounts of military lawyers who dissented from White House doctrine — only to be disregarded. The Bush administration was ‘driven’, Levin said. By what? ‘They’d say it was to get more information. But they were desperate to find a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq’. Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to ‘protect’ us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from another 9/11, torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 … President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole … ” This NYTimes op ed can be read in full here .

The U.S. Senate report said that it was a Presidential Order signed by George W. Bush on 7 February 2002 that opened the door to “aggressive techniques” for interrogations — or, to what became torture.

The report continues:
“President Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflict with al-Qaeda and concluding that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or the legal protections afforded by the Third Geneva Convention. The President’s order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatement, to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees“. The report also shows that more than a month earlier, “the Department of Defense (DoD) had already solicited information …. from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), an agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Conventions”.

And, the U.S. Senate report states that “The techniques used … based, in part, on Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean war to elicit false confession, include stripping students of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, disrupting their sleep, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatutres. It can also include face and body slaps and until recently … it included waterboarding”.

The U.S. Senate report, divided into two parts, can be read, 1.) here, and 2.) here.

The Executive Summary of the U.S. Senate report begins with a quotation from remarks made on 10 May 2007 by General David Petraeus: “What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight… is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings”.

Time Magazine wrote that “The irony is that the U.S. military appears to have … [taken] … a training program that had been designed to prepare American soldiers to withstand torture by communist regimes seeking to extract false confessions, and twisting it into a highly controversial interrogation manual. The story of that mutation emerges in disquieting detail in a new report by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. It shows how U.S. interrogators at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and camps in Afghanistan based some of their interrogations on techniques taken from the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program”.

There were dissident voices, Time reported, but they were not able to stop what was happening: “Jerald Ogrisseg, an Air Force SERE psychologist, warned the JPRA chief of staff Daniel Baumgartner that waterboarding detainees was illegal. In Oct 2002, Lt. Col Morgan Banks, an Army SERE psychologist, warned officials at Gitmo of the risks of using SERE techniques for interrogation, pointing out that even with the Army’s careful monitoring, injuries and accidents did happen. ‘The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially’, he wrote. But by then, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had already issued two legal opinions, signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, declaring that the techniques did not amount to torture. JPRA training for Gitmo interrogators was stepped up. In December, with Rumsfeld’s authorization, officials of the Joint Task Force at Gitmo devised a standard operating procedure for the use of many SERE techniques to interrogate detainees. Rumsfeld would rescind his authorization in a manner of weeks, after the Navy General Counsel, Alberto Mora, raised concerns about many techniques, arguing that they violated U.S. and international laws and constituted, at worst, torture … But even after Rumsfeld in January 2003 rescinded the authority for the use of SERE techniques at Gitmo, they remained in use in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq. Since Rumsfeld never declared these techniques illegal, military lawyers down the line were able to cite his original authorization as Pentagon policy. JPRA instructors would eventually travel to Iraq to train military interrogators there.”

Time reports, in its story, that ” While much of the controversy over interrogation and detention practices at Guantanamo has centered on the CIA, the SASC report puts the spotlight firmly on the Pentagon – specifically on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his DoD lawyer Jim Haynes, his policy chief Douglas Feith, Guantanamo commanders Maj. Gen. Michael Dunleavy and Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, and a raft of other DoD officials”.

This article can be read in full on Time.com here.

This report continued: “Leopold has reported that “According to Zubaydah’s account to the International Committee of the Red Cross he was subjected to brutal methods. ‘Two black wooden boxes were brought into the room outside my cell. One was tall, slightly higher than me and narrow’, Zubaydah told an ICRC representative, according to the organization’s report. ‘Measuring perhaps in area [3 1/2 by 2 1/2 feet by 6 1/2 feet high]. The other was shorter, perhaps only [3 1/2 feet] in height. I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly slapped in the face … I was then put into the tall black box for what I think was about one and a half to two hours. The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside…. They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury’. … Leopold reported that “In July 2002, a meeting was convened at the White House, where former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department attorney John Yoo, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s attorney David Addington, and unknown CIA officials discussed whether the CIA could interrogate Zubaydah more aggressively in order to get him to respond. It was at this July 2002 meeting that Yoo, Gonzales and Addington gave the CIA the green light to use a wide variety of techniques, including waterboarding, on Zubaydah and other detainees at several secret prisons to ‘break’ them and force them to cooperate with interrogators, according to an account published in Newsweek in late December 2003. Additionally, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his legal counsel, William Haynes, solicited input from military psychologists about developing harsh methods that interrogators could use against detainees who were being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba … John B. Bellinger, the legal adviser to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, said he recalled participating in meetings with Ashcroft and Rumsfeld in July 2002 about an Army and Air Force survival training program called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), SERE was meant to prepare U.S. soldiers for abuse they might suffer if captured by an outlaw regime. But it was reverse engineered and used against detainees. According to Bybee’s memo under this new ‘phase’ of interrogation, Zubaydah would only have contact with a new ‘interrogation specialist’ and a psychologist who specialized in the military’s SERE program, ‘who has been involved with the interrogations since they began … This phase will likely last no more than several days but could last up to thirty days,” Bybee’s memo says”. Leopold also wrote that “In his book The One Percent Doctrine, author Ron Suskind reported that President George W. Bush had become obsessed with Zubaydah and the information he might have about pending terrorist plots against the United States. ‘Bush was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth’, Suskind wrote. Bush questioned one CIA briefer, ‘Do some of these harsh methods really work?’ … According to Suskind, Zubaydah’s captors soon discovered that their prisoner was mentally ill and knew nothing about terrorist operations or impending plots. That realization was ‘echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President’, Suskind wrote. Still, in public statements, President Bush portrayed Zubaydah as ‘one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States’ and added: ‘So, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures’ to get Zubaydah to talk. The President did not want to ‘lose face’, because he had stated Zubaydah’s importance publicly, Suskind wrote”. Jason Leopold’s report is published in full here.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said that these “interrogation techniques” should be considered a success.

I also wonder how many will “defend until death” this journalist’s right to express his opinion about outgoing U.S. President George Bush’s invasion and on-going military occupation of Iraq? And how many will instead denounce the behavior — judging that the way that this journalist expressed himself that was wrong, impolite, futile, stupid, and/or violent?

A dear friend here in Jerusalem has just told me that she wished that all the journalists present at that press conference in Baghdad had also taken off their shoes and thrown them at Bush, in solidarity with al-Zeidi’s gesture.

But, many of the journalists’ actual responses were very different — rather more careerist. The NYTimes reported that “Like many Iraqi reporters at the news conference, Mr. Nassar [Haider Nassar, who worked with him at Baghdadia] said he did not think this was an effective way for Mr. Zaidi to make his points. ‘This is so silly; it’s just the behavior of an individual’, Mr. Nassar said. ‘He destroyed his future’.”

An AP story from Baghdad reported another journalistic colleague also criticizing Al-Zeidi: “‘He was very boastful, arrogant and always showing off’, said Zanko Ahmed, a Kurdish journalist who attended a journalism training course with al-Zeidi in Lebanon. ‘He tried to raise topics to show that nobody is as smart as he is’ … ‘Regrettably, he didn’t learn anything from the course in Lebanon, where we were taught ethics of journalism and how to be detached and neutral’, Ahmed said”.

This same AP story added that “Al-Zeidi was held Monday in Iraqi custody for investigation and could face charges of insulting a foreign leader and the Iraqi prime minister, who was standing next to Bush. Conviction carries a sentence of up to two years in prison or a small fine — although it’s unlikely he would face the maximum penalty given his newfound cult status in the Arab world”. The full AP report can be read here.

Yet another AP report said that “many in the Mideast saw the act by an Iraqi journalist as heroic, expressing the deep, personal contempt many feel for the American leader they blame for years of bloodshed, chaos and the suffering of civilians. Images of Bush ducking the fast-flying shoes at a Baghdad press conference, aired repeatedly on Arab satellite TV networks, were cathartic for many in the Middle East, who have for years felt their own leaders kowtow to the American president. So the sight of an average Arab standing up and making a public show of resentment was stunning. The pride, joy and bitterness it uncorked showed how many Arabs place their anger on Bush personally for what they see as a litany of crimes — chief among them the turmoil in Iraq and tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths since the 2003 U.S. invasion”. This AP story can be seen in full here .

In its story, the NY Times reported that “The Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, a correspondent for Al Baghdadia, an independent Iraqi television station, stood up about 12 feet from Mr. Bush and shouted in Arabic: ‘This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!’ He then threw a shoe at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly avoided it. As stunned security agents and guards, officials and journalists watched, Mr. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, ‘This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!’ That shoe also narrowly missed Mr. Bush as Prime Minister Maliki stuck a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him. Mr. Maliki’s security agents jumped on the man, wrestled him to the floor and hustled him out of the room. They kicked him and beat him until ‘he was crying like a woman’, said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party, which is led by Mr. Maliki. [This sexist language is revolting]Mr. Zaidi was then detained on unspecified charges … In the chaos, Dana M. Perino, the White House press secretary, who was visibly distraught, was struck in the eye by a microphone stand.” This NYTimes story can be read in full here.

AP reported that “The crowd [does this mean also the other journalists sitting near Mr. Zaidi, some of whom reportedly offered words of apology to Bush for the incident?] descended on al-Zeidi, who works for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt. He was wrestled to the ground by security officials and then hauled away, moaning as they departed the room. Later, a trail of fresh blood could be seen on the carpet, although the source was not known … …Al-Baghdadia’s Baghdad manager told the AP he had no idea what prompted his reporter to go on the attack. ‘I am trying to reach Muntadar since the incident, but in vain’, said Fityan Mohammed. ‘His phone is switched off’. The station issued a statement on the air Sunday night asking the Iraqi government to release al-Zeidi ‘to spare his life’…” The AP story can be read in full here

What if the shoe had actually hit Bush?

(You did notice the agile move of the President ducking the first shoe, right? But the second shoe somehow caught Bush by surprise, and he winced and flinched as it was thrown, drawing his head down into his collar, as beside him Iraqi PM Maliki reflexively thrust his hand — with open palm facing the journalists and fingers rather ineffectively widespread — somewhere in the general direction of Bush’s face, like a fan trying to catch a wide shot from the bleachers of a baseball game…)

The AP “Reporter’s Notebook” story added that “When Bush met with reporters later aboard Air Force One, he had a joke prepared: ‘I didn’t know what the guy said but I saw his “sole”.’ Later, he said: ‘I’m going to be thinking of shoe jokes for a long time. I haven’t heard any good ones yet’.”

The AP story also reported that Bush said, as the room erupted into chaos, “Don’t worry about it”, and added that “Iraqi reporters started shouting what Bush later explained were apologies for the incident”. And, AP, added, Bush said: ” ‘So what if the guy threw a shoe at me?’ … comparing the action to political protests in the United States”.

“You would consider yourself to be living under a dishonourable regime?” “Absolutely.”

He has talked many times about his readiness to proceed – serenely – through what he terms “the exit door”. “What do you expect to find on the other side?” “Nothing.” …
“But you’re convinced that, to put it crudely, when you die, that’s it.” “No,” Vidal replies. “I wouldn’t say: ‘When you die, that’s it.’ I’d say: ‘When you’re born, that’s it.’”

The full interview can be read here .

This report concerned Bilal Hussein, who the AP explained “was one of three journalists who were stopped at gunpoint by insurgents and taken to see the propped-up body. None of the journalists witnessed his death, said Santiago Lyon, AP’s director of photography. Hussein has been held by the U.S. military since he was detained on April 12, 2006, in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad. Throughout his incarceration, he has maintained he is innocent and was only doing the work of a professional news photographer in a war zone. Hussein was a member of an AP team that won a Pulitzer Prize for photography in 2005, and his detention has drawn protests from rights groups and press freedom advocates. After the amnesty committee decision, AP President Tom Curley renewed the news organization’s call for the military to ‘do the right thing by ending its detention of a journalist who did nothing more than his job’ … New York-based Human Rights Watch also appealed for Hussein’s release. ‘The U.S. military held Bilal Hussein for nearly two years without charging, then transferred him to the Iraqi justice system, which apparently sees no reason to detain him’, Joe Stork, the group’s Middle East director, said in a statement Thursday. ‘It’s time to set him free’.” This AP report is posted here .

“The Special Rapporteur on the right to food to the Human Rights Council, Jean Ziegler, issued the following statement today:

‘Geneva, 6 March 2008: — I am deeply concerned about information I continue to receive concerning the deteriorating situation in Ashraf City/Camp Ashraf (Iraq) and its surrounding area, following an explosion on 8 February 2008 that destroyed the water pumps in Zorganieh, which supply the area.

Some of the reports I have received allege that the explosion may have been intended to increase pressure on over 3,000 members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) confined in Camp Ashraf in Diyala province.  In July 2004, the United StatesThe camp remains under the control of the multi-national force under the demobilization agreement the Iraqi authorities signed with the PMOI in May 2003. Government recognized PMOI members as Protected Persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention, meaning that they should not be deported, expelled or repatriated, or displaced inside Iraq.

The rights to food and to drinking water are protected by international human rights law.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right of everyone “to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food”, and other international human rights instruments, to which Iraq is a party, further spell out the protection of these rights.

The Iraqi authorities have failed to protect the inhabitants of Ashraf City and its surrounding area from the actions of third parties which are impeding enjoyment of the rights to food and water and creating a critical humanitarian situation. The competent authorities must restore urgently the water supply to all the inhabitants of the region affected by the explosion in the water pumping station; the affected population must be protected from violation of their rights by third parties. I call on the Iraqi authorities to take immediate measures to guarantee the rights to food and water of the inhabitants of Ashraf City/Camp Ashraf and its surrounding area.

*****

The Special Rapporteur on the Right to food sent a letter to the Iraqi government on 17 October 2006 where he inter alia raised concern about the damages caused by a series of explosions to the water pipeline that stretches 26 km from the pumping station near the Tigris River to Camp Ashraf. This allegedly affected access of the Camp residents and nearby villages to drinking water for approximately two weeks. Irrigation was also reportedly disrupted by the explosions.

For further information on the mandate and work of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, please consult the following website http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm

Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in the air attacks with chemical weapons that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in Halabja and elsewhere, and a cousin of Saddam Hussein, will now die within the 30-day limit specified by Iraqi law — but, it will probably happen much sooner, and maybe even as early as tomorrow.

UPDATE: Reuters is now reporting that the Presidency Council (the president and the two vice-presidents) actually approved the sentence two days ago, and that there was no explanation of why this decision has been kept secret. This Reuters report is here.

The verdicts were upheld on appeal last September. It was earlier reported that they had been approved by the Iraqi president (and the two vice presidents) today (Friday).

Another new element today is that the death sentences passed and upheld on appeal on two other former senior officials — including one who had reportedly been promised amnesty by senior U.S. military officials, apparently for his covert assistance — has not been approved, or at least not yet.

It is not yet clear whether the death sentences for these two men — Hussein Rashid Mohammed, described as a former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces, and Sultan Hashim al-Taie, a former defense minister — will be commuted. Iraqi officials are reportedly saying that both men were really only career military officers who were simply carrying out orders

If their sentences are commuted, the imminent execution of Ali Hassan al-Majid would be the last of the capital punishments carried out on the former leaders of Iraq’s Baathist regime.