No SOFA For You

The complete and utter failure of our policy in Iraq is exemplified in our ability to negotiate a working Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with a country that is run by a man who would be dead or exiled in 24 hours if our troops weren't there.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

The position of the Maliki government is this--we'll get a better deal from someone else. They refuse to be the Arab client state of the neoconservative movement, so they have scuttled the talks and dealt Bush a very minor blow.

Minor, because the war isn't exactly being reported in the US. That's why we're blogging this on Sunday morning--no one gives a shit about what failed over the weekend. You can expect the fact that we have no SOFA agreement with Iraq--after over five years of occupation--to be raised as an issue exactly zero times from here on in.

--WS

Yes, He Will Cut and Run--Because He Wants A Legacy

Now that the so-called surge has "worked" in the collective wisdom of the Washington DC establishment, the acceleration of the withdrawal of US troops can start--so that George W Bush can depart the Presidency with troops being drawn down. He can do this because coverage of the war is non-existent, it makes people feel good about him, and it allows him phony coverage so he can claim he "won" the Iraq war, handed it off to someone else, and brought the boys home by Christmas.

The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.

One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.

More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month.

Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for withdrawal, the officials said.

The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.

Prepare to be sickened by the praise for the Bush Administration. They know the only chance McCain has is to eliminate the Iraq War as an issue, so the Bush Administration and the DC Establishment is going to do whatever they can to praise Bush for his "leadership" and to show that only John McCain can be trusted to "finish the job."

This cynical, unrealistic and untenable position on the war is all these people have left. They are fighting tooth and nail to keep the American people from seeing the costs of the war--in deaths and injuries, in lost souls and wandering, homeless Veterans. They desperately need to draw down to around a hundred thousand US troops or slightly less--so they can say that there are "more" troops deployed in Europe, Japan and Korea than in the Middle East. It's a sham, and no one should buy it.

--WS

Israel Plans to Lobby Washington For an Attack on Iran

Laura Rozen says that the hard sell will start to happen over the next two weeks:

While the Israeli government considers the Bush administration highly sympathetic and sensitive to its security concerns, there are growing signs that Washington and Jerusalem may be diverging in their analysis of the urgency of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program and its defensive military preparations for countering a possible strike, and their subsequent prospective timelines for considering possible military action against Iran. While Israeli national security experts say that Israel would not act without coordinating with the US, and there are other significant factors weighing against prospective Israeli military action on Iran before the Bush term ends, there are also emerging differences between the US and Israel on the accepted intelligence over when Iran would be considered to have a nuclear breakthrough, as well as what would constitute a "redline" that would prompt military action, Washington analysts say. In addition, the US, unlike Israel, feels more deeply constrained by the considerable investment it has made in blood and treasure in stabilizing Iraq, which could be risked by the tumult that could follow military action on Iran.

"My sense is the Pentagon would be worried or opposed to an Israeli attack," says David Wurmser, former Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, who left the White House job late last summer. "They are afraid it would inflame the situation in Iraq, which could undermine the US position there.

It's refreshing to hear Wurmser speaking a little more sensibly these days, but let's not forget that this "genius" and this "strategist" once joined Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and others to come up with a nearly ingeniuous plan to destabilize the entire Middle East based on assumptions that were wrong and ideas that dissipated into nothing when actually put in play by the Bush Administration.

So I don't know what Wurmser adds--an attack on Iran proper would legitimize the Iranian regime and cause the price of oil to skyrocket--thanks to the fact that it's already headed that way anyway. Every time someone beats the war drums, oil goes up a notch. The oil needed by the industrialized world is now transferring unprecedented wealth to the Middle East. Pretty soon, they'll be able to buy armies and protection anyway, so maybe attacking them now isn't so crazy.

Except that it is.

--WS

White House Circulates Unflattering Bio of Berlusconi

When you run a disgraceful operation such as the current White House--one built by ideologues on lies, smearing people, and ruining anyone who is critical of what they do--you'll get things like this.

An embarrassed White House apologized on Tuesday for an "unfortunate mistake" -- the distribution of less-than-flattering biography of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi at the Group of Eight summit. Still, the gaffe led to headlines in Italy.

The summary of Berlusconi was buried in a nearly inch-thick tome of background that the White House distributed at the summit of major economic powers. The press kit was handed out to the White House traveling press corps.

The biography described Berlusconi as one of the "most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for government corruption and vice."

It was just last month that Berlusconi welcomed Bush to Rome, calling him "a personal friend of mine and also a great friend of Italy." And Bush responded then: "You're right. We're good friends."

The biography, written by Encyclopedia of World Biography, said Berlusconi burst onto the political scene with no experience and used his "vast network of media holdings" to finance his campaign on a promise to "purge the notoriously lackadaisical Italian government of corruption."

The biography went on to say that Berlusconi was appointed to the prime minister's office in 1994, "however, he and his fellow Forza Italia Party leaders soon found themselves accused of the very corruption he had vowed to eradicate."

How did this happen? Well, if you believe it happened by accident, fine. But if you believe it was done out of malice, or a half-assed form of unintended malice in that someone had the bio and unwittingly tipped their hand by accidentally releasing something they agreed with, you're on solid ground when it comes to this White House.

The adults are not in charge. They run everything based on smearing, slamming or denigrating their opponents. A basic biography of Silvio Berlusconi issued by the White House should be simple enough to produce. If your modus operandi is to keep the nasty, partisan material OUT of your day to day operation, then something like this should have stood out and revealed itself for what it was--something that could embarrass an ally.

But if your modus operandi is to deal in sleaze and bullshit, then what's the difference between slamming Berlusconi--whose country pulled out of Iraq and whose judiciary is pursuing a legal case against some CIA operatives--and smearing him with the material that got swept into a package which should have been thoroughly vetted to avoid insulting a G-8 ally?

After seven and a half years, the White House should be a tight ship when it comes to preparing material for foreign travel. These are the final overseas trips--where is the . These mistakes happen in the fledgling days of an unsteady team. This was not a mistake--this was someone deciding on payback, Fox News style, and they might as well admit it.

Debunking the myth of "Left Wing NGOs" and insurgencies

So many misconceptions and lies, so little time. Mary Anastasia O'Grady carries water for the pro-Uribe contingent found in the conservative movement by trying to paint organizations--Non-Governmental Organizations or "NGOs"--that operate in war zones as "ultra-left" and "sympathetic to terrorists." She writes about the recent rescue of three American contractors and Ingrid Betancourt (and a handful of other unnamed souls) and opines that since the trickery involved convincing the FARC rebels that an aid organization was coming to help them, then it is proof that the FARC is in cahoots with the aid organizations.

This warrants attention because it adds to the already robust evidence that left-wing NGOs and other so-called human rights defenders, including Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian Sen. Piedad Cordoba, are nothing more than propagandists for terrorists.

When passions over kidnap victim Ingrid Betancourt and the other hostages were running high, these actors pressed Mr. Uribe to grant FARC demands. Now it is clear that the pressure was geared more toward strengthening the rebels' hand than freeing the captives.

Left-wing NGOs have made undermining the Colombian government's credibility a priority for many years. A 2003 internal report from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá titled "A Closer Look at Human Rights Statistics" confirmed as much. It found that NGO analyses – for example by the Jesuit-founded Center for Popular Research and Education known as Cinep – of the human-rights environment contained a heavy bias against the government while granting a wide berth to guerrillas.

This is sheer wingnuttery in action--always blame the people in the war zone who aren't carrying guns.

The success of the raid is not proof of anything, other than the fact that the FARC is in decline and has a significantly reduced cadre. A ruse that never would have worked three or four years ago worked because of incompetence on the part of the FARC rebels, not on the brilliance of the plan itself. Why did all of those past attempts at rescue fail? Because the FARC reacted and moved accordingly. Why did that fail this time around? Because they didn't react and move--there was no experienced leader to see through the ruse--so they got complacent and tired, and that is deadly for a popular insurgency. The FARC has long been in decline--too many old members and not enough new blood. So much for their power.

Popular insurgencies are made up of the people--therefore, the NGO is usually in a difficult position of helping the people and inadvertently helping--you guessed it--the popular insurgency. That's not "so-called humanitarianism" as O'Grady snarls--it's basic humanitarianism. You know--taking care of people? Isn't that the job of the Colombian government? And isn't the Colombian governments' answer to helping the people to look the other way when narco-terrorists disguised as right-wing pro-government militia come barreling into town? Who would you prefer that they assist--the right wing death squads that shoot up villages or the insurgents themselves? The mission of the NGO is to help whoever needs help. I don't think they have time to ask for membership cards and ID. There aren't many good guys, but there sure are a lot of poor people who need help. It's unrealistic to think that an organization that isn't carrying guns in the war zone and is trying to help people wouldn't inadvertently help a few guerrillas. I'd be shocked if they didn't, but I'm an adult who lives in the real world.

Now, simply accepting a document from the US Embassy in Bogota is difficult--not that there is anything wrong with having a bias, but failing to accept that the bias could exist is almost enough to debunk the claim itself. If the embassy in the country that we give billions to is led by a political appointee of an administration that enthusiastically promises more billions in aid to that same country, then how is there any way to verify that the analysis made by that embassy is independent and verifiable? When was the last time the Bush Administration said anything substantive or critical about Colombia?

Where does that mentality come from? The likes of NGO Watch:

In May 2003, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios delivered his now-infamous speech to NGOs at a conference organised by the US umbrella grouping InterAction. In it, he roundly scolded NGOs for not clearly and consistently identifying their aid activities in Afghanistan as funded by the US government, and admonished them that they needed to demonstrate measurable results if they wanted to continue to receive USAID funding in the future. Shortly after the speech (in a coincidence noted in press reports) a new website, ‘NGO Watch’, was launched by the conservative think-tanks the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.

The website project, kicked off by a conference entitled ‘NGOs: The Growing Power of an Unelected Few’, contends that the largely left-wing NGO sector wields undue influence over US foreign policy and US corporations. The venture has prompted a more than usual degree of concern among humanitarian practitioners, not least because several senior administration officials come from the two think-tanks involved.

The site’s founders declare that, ‘without prejudice’, they intend to ‘compile factual data about non-governmental organizations’, and much of what is on NGO Watch is no different from the information posted on any number of websites and consortia rosters. Yet some in the US NGO community suspect that the NGO Watch project was designed as a tool for the administration to bully non-compliant NGOs, so that those who insist on openly criticising the US government’s actions in Iraq and elsewhere will be held up for public lambasting on the site.

The tone of the language about NGOs (‘What are their agendas? Who runs these groups? Who funds them? And to whom are they accountable?’); its corporate sponsorship; and its underlying ideology indicate a heightened level of anti-NGO sentiment, uncomfortably close to official government circles. How real is the threat to NGOs and humanitarian action? Insiders at USAID and others in the US humanitarian community dismiss fears as conspiracy theory-mongering – an over-reaction fuelled by Euro-humanitarian indignation.

Yes, there are communication problems with the military, but USAID is a longstanding partner and protector of NGOs and fully understands the importance of their independence and the principle of neutrality, despite some surprising rhetoric from officials (Secretary of State Colin Powell’s talk of NGOs as ‘force multipliers’, for example). Natsios comes from an NGO background himself, and was known not to mince words with the US government.

I broke that up into paragraphs so that it can read better, and I hope I did not do disservice to the material. Abby Stoddard has been writing tirelessly about this subject, and she all but predicts the kind of backlash we are seeing in the wake of the rescue of the hostages in Colombia. If you think that the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society are looking out for mom, Apple pie, the truth, the American Way, and free and open exchanges of ideas, you're kidding yourself. They are the perpetuation of wingnuttery and neoconservative thought, plain and simple.

See the coincidence? In the same year that the US Embassy is claiming that NGOs are undermining the right wing government of Alvaro Uribe, the NGO Watch organization is created in order to further the bullying.

And that's the basis of O'Grady's criticism? More like the continuation of neoconservative goals and right wing intimidation of the people who, as I said, go into the war zone without guns and try to help the people. Undermining the contributions of NGOs allows the neoconservatives to operate in countries without any check on their power--with no one to document the atrocities from either side, the atrocities don't exist. I am not accusing the US government of atrocity--I'm saying that it is easier to bomb villages from a mile up by accident or by virtue of a bad piece of intelligence and write it off as "collateral damage" if there's no one helping the victims. Maybe I am accusing it of an atrocity. Instead of getting caught up in that, let's just acknowledge that horrible mistakes happen in war zones, and if there aren't busybodies running around taking notes, it is easier for a defense establishment to perpetuate the notion that they're saving the people from themselves and bringing them Democracy. I think we could use less of that.

Demonizing the NGOs is easier than dealing with the human rights nightmare that is the Uribe government:

Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary groups are immeasurably powerful. Through drug trafficking and other illegal businesses, they have amassed enormous wealth. They have taken over vast expanses of the country’s territory to use for coca cultivation or as strategic corridors through which they can move drugs and weapons. In recent years, they have succeeded in expelling left-wing guerrillas and strengthening their own control of many parts of the country. And thanks to this power, they now exert a very high degree of political influence, both locally and nationally.

Paramilitaries accrued their power and influence by force. “It is stipulated that there are borders and you have to win people’s respect, and so we had to kill people to show that you could not come in or go out of certain areas,” a demobilized paramilitary told Human Rights Watch. “It was not a fight for Colombia. It was a drug trafficking war,” said a former squad commander, discussing his experience as a paramilitary.

Considered terrorist organizations by the United States and Europe, over the last two decades paramilitaries have killed thousands of civilians; tortured, kidnapped, and stolen from tens of thousands more; and threatened and otherwise disrupted the lives of literally hundreds of thousands of Colombians, with almost no consequences for the perpetrators. To the contrary, paramilitaries have historically enjoyed the collaboration, support, and toleration of units of the Colombian security forces, a fact that has led many to refer to the paramilitaries as a “sixth division” of the army. Today, paramilitaries have made major gains in consolidating this impunity, along with their economic and political power, with the collusion of the Colombian government.

Two years ago, paramilitary commanders initiated demobilization negotiations with the administration of President Álvaro Uribe in the hope that they could obtain a deal that would allow them to avoid extradition and potentially lengthy prison terms in the United States for drug trafficking. Since the start of negotiations, thousands of paramilitaries have started to turn in weapons and enter government reintegration programs. This trend accelerated towards the end of 2004, when five paramilitary blocks entered the demobilization process by turning in weapons. The process is poised to accelerate much more rapidly: on June 21, 2005, the Colombian Congress approved a demobilization law that gives paramilitaries almost everything they want.

Why isn't there any accountability for this? Oh, that's right--lip service is paid to a phony war on drugs we never had any intention of fighting. Whatever keeps Uribe in power as a bulwark against Venezuela is the rule of the day. Why this country insists on opposing and pissing off people who have scads of oil is beyond me.

I should clarify something--in general, the NGOs operate without being armed. There are some instances where this is simply not possible. Stoddard has written about what the NGOs have to do to protect themselves. It's not widespread and it's not common practice, however. And that's what I was alluding to.

What can agencies do to defend themselves?

Some agencies have taken to hiring armed guards, but that's a very sensitive topic. No one knows who's doing it or where, and even within organizations themselves it's not discussed, because it's antithetical to the whole humanitarian stance.

When humanitarians try to fashion their own security approach, it's fashioned on what's called the "acceptance" side of the security triangle - blending in, reaching out to local populations, becoming known and trusted entities within the community, and making sure you're constantly projecting a neutral and impartial face. That works really well in some places, and has no effect in others. Certainly you can't base your security in Iraq or Afghanistan on acceptance at this point. So agencies have either gone completely to the deterrence side, traveling with military convoys, or they've gone completely in new and strange means of protective approaches. We've seen clandestine approaches, in which they take all marking off themselves, their cars, their aid, and deliver under the table, as it were, so that the beneficiaries themselves don't know where this aid is coming from.

And, yes, that means that the efforts of the NGO can and sometimes do end up supporting a popular insurgency within a population. Well, sometimes government aid ends up supporting things we don't agree with as well--like right wing death squads. Which is worse?

Wearing Out the Troops, Bush Administration Style

This is sickening to have to find out on the Thursday afternoon before a long holiday weekend--thanks for the News Dump, there, Pentagon Office of Public Affairs or whatever. These guys are NOT intended for long deployments and this is an ABUSE of the US Marine Corps.

The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday that the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October.

Military leaders as recently as Wednesday stressed the need for additional troops in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has repeatedly praised the work of the 24th MEU in fighting Taliban militants in Helmand Province.

So, all of this talk about war with Iran--is it a pipe dream? Because there are no troops left. The cupboard is bare and we've exhausted our military.

When Bush leaves office, there won't be a single US combat division--Army, Marines, or Reserve/National Guard component--available for combat at 100% strength. That's the worst shape our military has been in since the start of the Korean War. Even during and after Vietnam, we had divisions sitting in Germany that were ready to fight. And in all of their infinite wisdom, they knew this was going to happen and they're deliberately leaving the next President without ANY military forces available to him. NONE.

It's a disgrace unparalleled in our history. A disgrace.

--WS

"...for the protection of the American people."

Even though we write about this topic a lot, we don't write about it nearly enough. We are never going to stop pounding this drum--it's going to go down as the worst thing our country did in the name of protecting the American people.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden admitted, in his February testimony before Congress, that the Central Intelligence Agency used a technique known as waterboarding on three high-profile Al Qaeda detainees. He also said the CIA had not used the technique in five years -- though the administration seems to be asserting that the agency can use it, when necessary.

President George W. Bush told ABC News in April, "I'm aware our national-security team met on this issue. And I approved.” The president was referring to reports that the National Security Council’s “principals committee” -- the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the head of the NSC and the CIA director -- discussed and approved the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking with Google employees in Mountain View, Calif., in May, said, “after Sept. 11, whatever was legal in the face of not just the attacks of Sept. 11, but the anthrax attacks that happened, we were in an environment in which saving America from the next attack was paramount.” She added, “there has been a long evolution in American policy about detainees and about interrogations...we now have in place a law that was not there in 2002 and 2003.”

In just the last few weeks, a parade of White House, Defense Dept. and CIA lawyers have squirmed before hostile Congressional committees, giving testimony eerie in its clinical treatment of what most of the world thinks is torture. The hearings produced countless stunning quotes, but one attributed to a CIA lawyer stands out: "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

Indeed, they have been doing it wrong. But they all say they are doing it for us -- for the protection of the American people.

If that was the motivation, no thanks. No one has to be tortured to keep anyone safe.

--WS

Another Corrupt Army Officer Pleads Guilty

Are we ever going to get to the bottom of what went on in the early days of the Iraq war? How could our government funnel billions of dollars in cash into the country and not provide any basic oversight or control on what happened to the money?

An Army officer and his wife have pleaded guilty in a money laundering scheme involving contracts in Iraq, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday.

Maj. John Cockerham, 43, pleaded guilty to one count each of bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering, the Justice Department said. His wife, Melissa, 41, pleaded guilty to a count of money laundering.

The pleas were taken on Jan. 31, but weren't unsealed until Tuesday, the Justice Department said.

John Cockerham admitted taking or being promised more than $9 million in bribes for awarding contracts while stationed in Kuwait, the Justice Department said. He was responsible for awarding contracts worth millions of dollars including those for bottled water.

Once he agreed to take the bribes, Cockerham told contractors to pay his wife, sister and others to hide the activity, the Justice Department said.

What's even worse is that, reportedly, two suicides in Kuwait can be linked to the investigation that caught Cockerham:

Although a Justice Department official said it was too early to know if the suspects in the corruption investigation operated independently or in a network, public records indicate that several served overlapping tours. At least two officers who worked at Camp Arifjan when Major Cockerham was there committed suicide after learning they would face bribery charges. One, Maj. Gloria D. Davis of Missouri, shot herself in December 2006, a day after admitting she took at least $225,000 in bribes, government officials said.

Here's how it all worked--allowing Cockerham to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars:

The camp, a $200 million logistics hub, stands like an island in the middle of the desert south of Kuwait City. Major Cockerham worked in a prefabricated two-story building with about 20 other military people and civilians, committing millions of dollars on the phone or with a few strokes on his computer in his cubicle.

Military officials said a major assigned to award such large contracts for the Army Contracting Agency should have at least 10 years of experience in “broad acquisition,” a minimum of four years of direct contracting experience and annual ethics training. But the procurement workload from the Iraq war grew so big so fast that the Pentagon was forced to rush people with virtually no training or experience into some of its most complicated contracting jobs, Army officials said.

“From what I understand, John didn’t get the courses he should have had for his assignment until his assignment was over,” said Mr. Parks, Major Cockerham’s lawyer.

Oversight was virtually nonexistent by design. There were no auditors at Camp Arifjan, and contracts worth more than $500,000 were the only ones requiring review in Washington. Most contracts were written for about $100,000. It was also common for contracting officers to use “blanket purchase agreements,” allowing them to open a line of credit with a company with little more than a promissory note, much like a customer at a small-town grocery store.

Ideally, Army officials said, the purchasing cycle would be divided among at least three contracting officers. One would take an order for supplies from a unit commander and seek bids from companies to fill the order. Another would award the contract, and a third would oversee delivery of the goods. That system, officials said, would allow each contracting officer to serve as a check on the others.

At Camp Arifjan, a single contracting officer handled all three parts of the process, giving the officers broad discretion and creating opportunities for unit commanders to join conspiracies by inflating their troops’ needs. What resulted, said Mr. Young, the Army Contracting Agency director, was “a web of deceit.”

The only thing that is shocking is that he got caught. Cockerham apparently kept ledgers of what he did in his home--a pretty clear indication that he knew what he was doing was wrong, he wanted to keep detailed records of what he was doing, and at the end of the day, proof positive that a person can be too smart for their own good.

Memo to all you wannabe criminal masterminds out there--don't keep a ledger of all of the the illegal things you do in your home.

How Dubai Undermines US Sanctions Against Iran

This is not an attempt to make the case for easing sanctions against Iran, but it is an attempt to point out why they're ridiculous in the first place. If an idiot blogger like me can figure this stuff out, how come our own government can't figure out that Dubai is helping Iran get around the sanctions we've been using against Iran?

Not a week goes by without an Iranian minister or official visiting Dubai.

The 350,000 Iranians of Dubai compose the third largest community after the Indians and the Pakistanis. The large fortunes belong to families of Iranian origin. There are 8,200 Iranian companies today in Dubai compared to 6,500 in 2005.

Dubai has become Iran's back-up base and Iranian companies that do business abroad prefer to be based in the emirate. More than 200 flights each week link Dubai to the main Iranian cities. The port ships merchandise of all kinds to Iran, from cars to electric machinery and food.

The official trade figure between the two countries is $6 billion annually, but the smuggling amounts to an estimated additional $1.2 billion a year. Out of that $1.2 billion figure about $250 million stems from U.S. goods, supposedly banned from entering Iran.

What are US relations with Dubai like anyway?

The UAE Is A Key Partner In The War On Terror. The UAE provides U.S. and Coalition forces unprecedented access to its ports and territory, overflight clearances, and other critical and important logistical assistance. Today, the UAE is providing assistance to the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, combating terrorists by cutting off their financing, and enhancing America's homeland security by actively participating in initiatives to screen shipments and containers.

*UAE Ports Host More U.S. Navy Ships Than Any Port Outside The United States. The UAE provides outstanding support for the U.S. Navy at the ports of Jebel Ali - which is managed by DP World - and Fujairah and for the U.S. Air Force at al Dhafra Air Base (tankers and surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft). The UAE also hosts the UAE Air Warfare Center, the leading fighter training center in the Middle East.

*The UAE Is A Partner In Shutting Down Terror Finance Networks. The UAE has worked with us to stop terrorist financing and money laundering, including by freezing accounts, enacting aggressive anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations, and exchanging information on people and entities suspected of being involved in these activities.

*The UAE Is An Established Partner In Protecting America's Ports. Dubai was the first Middle Eastern entity to join the Container Security Initiative (CSI) - a multinational program to protect global trade from terrorism. Under CSI, a team of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers is permanently stationed inside Dubai's ports, where they work closely with Dubai Customs to screen containers destined for the United States. Cooperation with Dubai officials has been outstanding and a model for other operations. Dubai was also the first Middle Eastern entity to join the Department of Energy's Megaports Initiative, a program aimed at stopping illicit shipments of nuclear and other radioactive material.

*The UAE Is A Critical Partner In Afghanistan. The UAE extends vital military and political support to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and substantial financial and humanitarian support to Afghanistan and its people.

*The UAE Is Supporting The New Iraqi Government.

*The UAE has provided significant monetary and materiel support to the Iraqi government, including a pledge of $215 million in economic and reconstruction assistance.

*The UAE Is Supporting Middle East Peace Efforts. The UAE is a moderate Arab state and a long-time supporter of all aspects of Middle East peace efforts. The U.S. and the UAE are also working together to create a stable economic, political and security environment in the Middle East.

That all sounds well and good, but the reality is, when our friends in Dubai are done doing business with us, they're turning around and doing business with Iran, and the last time I looked it up--wasn't that called appeasement? OMG!

Appeasement looks funny when the Bush Administration tries it on for size:

The Bush administration is considering setting up a diplomatic outpost in Iran in what would mark a dramatic official U.S. return to the country nearly 30 years after the American embassy was overrun and the two nations severed relations.

Even as it threatens the Iranian regime with sanctions and possible military action over its nuclear program, the administration is floating the idea of opening a U.S. interests section in Tehran similar to the one the State Department runs in Havana, diplomatic and political officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

Like the one in communist Cuba, an interest section, or de facto embassy, in the Iranian capital would give the United States a presence on the ground through which it can communicate directly with students, dissidents and others without endorsing the government, one official said.

Is that appeasement? Because I have no idea what appeasement is anymore. I keep hearing that term come out of the mouths of every neocon shill and I think it means that appeasement is when someone we don't like gets something we don't want them to have when we're supposed to be in charge of making sure they don't get what they want. Or does it mean giving someone something to get them to shut up? I know--it means whatever the neocons says it means this week. But next week? That'll probably change. So is Dubai appeasing the Iranians by helping them get around the sanctions? The sanctions we believe will beat the Iranians back and force them to give up?

Everyone knows we beat the Cubans with sanctions! Wait. Check that--everyone knows we accomplished absolutely nothing whatsoever with sanctions against Cuba. And our diplomacy was stellar, wasn't it? Wait--there really wasn't any. And that's why we're no further along than we were fifty years ago. But in ANOTHER fifty years, we'll have those Cubans eating out of our hand, won't we?

How can you expect diplomacy to work when you're the Bush Administration? You don't do diplomacy. You do unprovoked wars of aggression and reckless incompetence. You don't do diplomacy, for crying out loud. You do shock and awe, not chit chat.

When do we attack Dubai? I mean, if we're going to be over there for a hundred years, we need to get cracking.

Here's Why We Need a Truman Committee

I hate to write about something that's going to upset people so early in the morning, but how can anyone stomach the incompetence and the greed and the corruption of the political appointees of the Bush Administration?

A House investigative committee has learned that the American ambassador to Albania knew evidence of Chinese origins was being removed last year from an ammunition shipment before a U.S. contractor sent the material to Afghanistan, said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel.

This month, Maj. Larry Harrison, a Pentagon official at the U.S. Embassy in Albania, told staff members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Ambassador John L. Withers II held a late-night meeting with Albania's defense minister. After the Nov. 19 meeting, the order was given to Albanian officers "to remove all evidence of Chinese packaging" from the ammunition, Waxman said in a letter sent yesterday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In a June 9 appearance, Harrison told the committee that "the ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing," Waxman wrote. Harrison also said "that he did not agree with the decision to remove the Chinese markings," Waxman said.

A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Efraim E. Diveroli, president of AEY Inc., the U.S. company involved, on 71 counts, including conspiracy to defraud the government on a $298 million U.S. Army contract to provide various types of ammunition to the government of Afghanistan.

Where do you start with something like that?

I hope Major Harrison's career doesn't come to an end because of this incident. Rarely does the person who speaks up and blows the whistle on the Bush Administration and their political appointees emerge unscathed from the act of thwarting their political goals and their rampant greed. Someone will likely take action against Harrison's career, and that's why we are seeing a military that is hollowed out, staffed with yes-men, and overrun by the God-boys who invite crazies to come to the Pentagon and give them briefings.

No matter how you look at this story, what emerges is a troubling incident of corruption and greed:

On March 27, The New York Times published an article that said Albanian documents showed that the Miami company had bought more than 100 million Chinese cartridges that were stored for decades in former cold war stockpiles.

Mr. Diveroli arranged to have them repacked in cardboard boxes, many of which split or decomposed after shipment to the war zones, according to the article. Different lots or types of ammunition were mixed. In some cases the ammunition was dirty, corroded or covered with a film.

The repackaging operation, carried out by an AEY subcontractor at the Rinas Airport in Tirana, has become the focus of the Congressional investigation.

According to the transcript excerpts released by the committee, Major Harrison told investigators that he did not agree with the decision to hide the boxes from the reporter, and said that he felt “very uncomfortable” during the meeting.

Major Harrison, who as the chief of the embassy’s office of defense cooperation was responsible for helping American efforts to train, equip and modernize Albania’s military, said that his suggestion to bar the reporter from visiting the Albania base was rejected.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Monday that there were signs that embassy officials in Tirana tried to cover up the November meeting once Mr. Waxman’s staff began an investigation into the arms company. The letter said the committee would seek to interview Mr. Withers and other embassy personnel.

This is the kind of thing that sets off warning bells. When Major Harrison realized what sort of ground he was standing on, he immediately took steps to protect himself--perhaps he already was savvy to how the Bush Administration treats people who get between them and their money:

After his hour-long interview, Harrison "expressed an interest in seeking advice of counsel" and a Pentagon attorney terminated the session, Waxman wrote. Three days later, Harrison's lawyer told the committee he needed at least two weeks to prepare for continuing the interview.

Waxman charged in his letter that "it appears" embassy officials kept from the committee information related to the ambassador's meeting in Albania. Harrison told the panel that he had "urged embassy officials to inform the committee," Waxman wrote, but embassy officials did not mention it in response to a prior request for information.

All this, so a few corrupt officials in Albania could dump Cold War-era ammunition into the hands of some Club-hopping trash from Florida, who could then make millions re-packaging it and sending it to the Middle East.

Perhaps the death penalty for war profiteers isn't harsh enough.

The FDA blows off the GAO

Typically, when the Government Accounting Office says that a government agency should do something, it does so with the best interests of the American people in mind. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) typically blows them off and does whatever it wants. Which is usually nothing.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring the safety of roughly 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, including $417 billion worth of domestic food and $49 billion in imported food annually. Changing demographics and consumption patterns along with an increase in imports have presented challenges to FDA. At the same time, recent outbreaks, such as E. coli from spinach and Salmonella from tomatoes, have undermined consumer confidence in the safety of the food supply.

In November 2007, FDA released its Food Protection Plan, which articulates a framework for improving food safety oversight.

In January 2008, GAO expressed concerns about FDA's capacity to implement the Food Protection Plan and noted that more specific information about the strategies and resources needed to implement the plan would facilitate congressional oversight. This testimony focuses on

(1) FDA's progress in implementing the Food Protection Plan,
(2) FDA's proposal to focus inspections based on risk, and
(3) FDA's implementation of previously issued GAO recommendations intended to improve food safety oversight.

To address these issues, GAO reviewed FDA documents, such as FDA's operations plan, and FDA data related to the plan. GAO also interviewed FDA officials regarding the progress made. GAO also analyzed FDA data on domestic and foreign food firm inspections. GAO also analyzed the status of past recommendations.

So that all sounds well and good, doesn't it? Hundreds of people have been sickened this past week--and the US tomato industry is collapsing.
What is the FDA doing to comply? To protect American citizens?

Since FDA's Food Protection Plan was first released in November 2007, FDA has added few details on the resources and strategies required to implement the plan. FDA plans to spend about $90 million over fiscal years 2008 and 2009 to implement several key actions, such as identifying food vulnerabilities and risk. From the information GAO has obtained on the Food Protection Plan, however, it is unclear what FDA's overall resource need is for implementing the plan, which could be significant.

For example, based on FDA estimates, if FDA were to inspect each of the approximately 65,500 domestic food firms regulated by FDA once, the total cost would be approximately $524 million. In addition, timelines for implementing the various strategies in the plan are also unclear, although a senior level FDA official estimated that the overall plan will take 5 years to complete.

Importantly, GAO has noted that public reporting is the means through which the federal government communicates the results of its work to the Congress and the American people. FDA officials told GAO that they had prepared a draft report on progress made in implementing the Food Protection Plan, but as of June 4, 2008, FDA told GAO that the Department of Health and Human Services had not cleared the report for release. The Food Protection Plan identifies the need to focus safety inspections based on risk, which is particularly important as the numbers of food firms have increased while inspections have decreased.

For example, between 2001 and 2007, the number of domestic firms under FDA's jurisdiction increased from about 51,000 to more than 65,500, while the number of firms inspected declined slightly, from 14,721 to 14,566. Thus, conducting safety inspections based on risk has the potential to be an efficient and effective approach for FDA to target scarce resources based on relative vulnerability and risk. FDA has implemented few of GAO's past recommendations to leverage its resources and improve food safety oversight.

Since 2004, GAO has made a total of 34 food safety related recommendations to FDA, and as of May 2008, FDA has implemented 7 of these recommendations.

Yep--the FDA is in compliance with about 21% of what the GAO recommends. That's a great track record. But--when all is said and done--it's a great metaphor for where we stand today. The American people are in danger because this administration cannot protect them from bad food supply issues that have already been identified and have already been submitted to them as recommendations. We're not talking about unknown threats, variables no one can anticipate or obscure issues that only affect a handful of people. We are talking about major problems facing millions of consumers that have been identified by the GAO.

And, sadly, that's the Bush administration--21% in the approval ratings, and 21% in the compliance ratings.

He Doesn't Recall?

So where are these photos? Why doesn't someone find out why the President can't recall?

Convicted superlobbyist Jack Abramoff influenced White House actions while his firm wooed administration officials over expensive meals and plied them with sports tickets, according to a House of Representatives committee report released Monday.

Abramoff, who's cooperating with federal prosecutors after pleading guilty in an expanding corruption investigation, previously had reported that his firm had more than 400 contacts with White House officials.

After receiving new White House documents and speaking with witnesses, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Monday that staffers had verified 80 of the contacts Abramoff reported and uncovered 70 others despite White House assertions that Abramoff had overblown his administration connections. The report also detailed unreleased photos of Abramoff meeting with President Bush on six occasions. Bush has said he doesn't remember Abramoff.

"The new documents and testimony show that Mr. Abramoff had personal contact with President Bush, that high-level White House officials held Mr. Abramoff and his associates in high regard and solicited recommendations from Mr. Abramoff on policy matters," the committee said.

The committee, however, added that it had "obtained no evidence" that Abramoff lobbied the president directly.

Administration officials have denied repeatedly that Abramoff held any sway over the administration. They asserted that Abramoff's claims of contact, as reported in billing records to Indian tribe clients, demonstrated his propensity for exaggeration.

On Monday, White House spokesman Tony Fratto called the report "warmed-up leftovers" and questioned the news media's interest in it.

Am I alone in wondering how it is that such a thing is possible? I was alive during the 1990s, and if the shoe were on the other foot, the outcry over those photos and the indignation over such a ridiculous "can't remember" denial would be everywhere. As in, on TV, in the newspapers, why, even in them there magazines they used to have. There would be a special counsel appointed by 4 PM in order to get to the bottom of where those photos exist and what the chain of custody of them is in terms of the White House Office of the Special Photographer and all that. There would be teams of FBI agents poring over the South Lawn by dinner time.

Granted, there really wasn't much of an Internet back then, but come on. If this was 1995, we'd hear screaming and chest beating from conservatives to see those photos and to "hear the oval office tapes" of any and all conversations between Abramoff and the President.

Even if there really weren't any...

--WS

Yet Another Turf War in the Making

While browsing through some items at War and Piece, this stuck out

Executive Order 12333. LAT:

A Bush administration plan to issue new orders realigning the chain of command over U.S. spy services has triggered turf-related skirmishes across the intelligence community.

The changes could erode the CIA's standing as the nation's lead spy service abroad by requiring agency station chiefs in certain countries to cede authority to officials from other U.S. spy agencies, officials said. ...

Is this just an "updating" of the document or a real attempt at speeding along the wholesale destruction of the CIA? The basis for the changes was the virtually unnecessary creation of yet another bureaucratic strata called the Director of National Intelligence. The director, of course, has no control over national intelligence and can't hire or fire anyone or make significant changes in the budget without being told to do so by the Secretary of Defense. The DNI is supposed to guide the intelligence community, but precious little guiding can be done without any power.

Instead of dealing with anything significant, the update has a controversial provision:

The most controversial component of the new order would reshape the roles of the CIA's station chiefs, the agency's top representatives in other countries.

Station chiefs have traditionally operated with significant autonomy, serving as the main intelligence advisors to U.S. ambassadors, controlling clandestine operations in their countries, and acting as the main point of contact for foreign intelligence services.

Under the proposed plan, the station chiefs would remain in position but could be required to cede some of their authority to officials from other agencies, including the NSA or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

"There will always be a station chief," said a second U.S. intelligence official familiar with the proposal. But the director of national intelligence "may choose a different representative."

That's a recipe for disaster. In effect, the change would allow the DNI to swoop in, make a change as to who is calling the shots, and nothing can be done about it. What would cause that to happen? Say, for example, a CIA station chief refuses to allow some aspect of what he or she controls to be politicized. The DNI can walk straight out of a meeting at the White House and make a change that would sideline the station chief and put "someone else" in charge.

Well, would that someone else be the "best person for the job" or would that person be "a sycophantic yes man who will go along with anything?"

Which answer gets to the part about who is doing the job of defending this country against its enemies? Because that question never comes up when the Bush Administration starts issuing orders and changing things. The first and only consideration is--what's the best way to defend this country. Not "what can we do to make sure we get our way?"

Can we get back to the days of defending this country?

Here Come the Threats and the Empty Posturing

Hold on a minute...we're going to call a do-over with our Farm Bill post just like the House did a little while ago...

The House overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's veto of a $290 billion farm bill Wednesday, but what was to have been a stinging defeat for the president became an embarrassing episode for Democrats.

Only hours before the House's 316-108 vote, Bush had vetoed the five-year measure, saying it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The Senate then was expected to follow suit quickly.

Action stalled, however, after the discovery that Congress had omitted a 34-page section of the bill when lawmakers sent the massive measure to the White House. That means Bush vetoed a different bill from the one Congress passed, leaving leaders scrambling to figure out whether it could become law.

Democrats hoped to pass the entire bill, again, on Thursday under expedited rules usually reserved for unopposed legislation. Lawmakers also probably will have to pass an extension of current farm law, which expires Friday.

"We will have to repass the whole thing, as will the Senate," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. "We can't let the farm bill just die."

Republican leaders called for a farm bill do-over. The White House, almost gleefully, seized on the fumble and said the mixup could give Congress time to fix the "bloated" bill.

It's a setback, to be certain, but what is needed now is a little bit of legislative statecraft and sleight of hand to GET the farm bill BACK on track and get it passed. Was the bill sabotaged? Who knows? But the President simply doesn't matter anymore. That's why so many Republicans are voting for the Farm Bill this year.

Pushback

When caught, the White House attempts to change the subject to what's wrong with the media, instead of what's wrong with their own analogy:

The White House on Monday called on NBC News to set the record straight on "deceitful" editing of an interview with President Bush, in which correspondent Richard Engel asks whether comments about the president of Iran were directed at Barack Obama.

Bush aides were angered by how the president's answer was portrayed when Engel questioned him about his condemnation of "the false comfort of appeasement" in an address last week to the Israeli Knesset. NBC stood by its treatment of the interview Monday.

Bush had mentioned the president of Iran in his speech, and said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

Obama's campaign considered that statement an attack on him, which the White House has denied.

Engel asked Bush if he was referring to Obama in his speech.

As it appeared on "Nightly News" Sunday and the "Today" show Monday, Bush's response was: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has ... And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously."

But the White House said NBC edited out these words that Bush said between those two sentences: "People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was that we need to take the words of people seriously."

Bush counsel Ed Gillespie, in a letter to NBC News President Steve Capus, said that "this deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible." He asked that the network air Bush's response in full on the two programs.

Apparently, no one in the White House has ever--ever--watched Fox News.

College drop-out Sean Hannity added global warming to the growing list of subjects on which he is a self-proclaimed expert Friday night (10/26/07) on Hannity & Colmes. As “proof” of his contention that global warming “by no means should be considered accepted science,” he presented an unbalanced segment that skewed public and scientific opinion and also conflated a CNN special with the climate-change issue, itself. Hannity is obsessed with global warming and seems willing to go to any lengths to discredit any such concerns – any length, that is, except having an honest and fair debate on the subject.

[SNIP]

UPDATE: After this post went up, News Hounds was contacted by two students from the panel discussion, each of whom felt he had been misrepresented by selective editing. It was also alleged that the general consensus of the panel was "neutral to positive" and had also been distorted by FOX News.

There are numerous examples--that is just one out of several dozen that could have been chosen to illustrate the ridiculous charge of "selective editing." The President and the Vice President do not regularly make themselves available for news conferences or live television appearances. On the President's most recent trip abroad, he left the press traveling with him out of the loop.

The White House has never liked seeing the "truth" about anything published anywhere. They will ruin the lives of covert spies if they think they can get away with it. It is laughable to think that their idea of pushback even matters. It's like the boy who cried wolf for the hundredth time--and there is still no wolf.

Gillespie brought up some other grievances, too, including NBC News coverage of the Iraq war and the nation's economic woes. The White House was not happy when NBC News decided to call the situation in Iraq a civil war and called attention to its decision.

And that wasn't all.

The White House didn't just send its letter of complaint to NBC. It blasted it out to every reporter who receives White House press releases and posted it prominently on the White House Web site.

At least they care to try to spin things nowadays. Is anyone paying attention anymore? Is there a single American, outside of the blind 26% or so who will never accept reality, who believes anything these people say?

"the severest case of PTSD she'd seen in her life..."

Photo: Travis and Willard Twiggs

Marine with PTSD kills brother, self:

Last month, Marine Staff Sgt. Travis N. "T-Bo" Twiggs went to the White House with a group of Iraq war veterans called the Wounded Warriors Regiment and met President George W. Bush. Twiggs had been through four tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan and months of therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in which he said he was on up to 12 different medications.

"He said, `Sir, I've served over there many times, and I would serve for you any time,' and he grabbed the president and gave him a big hug," said Kellee Twiggs, his widow. About two weeks later, Travis Twiggs went absent without leave from his job in Quantico, Virginia. He and his brother drove to the Grand Canyon, where their car was found hanging in a tree in what appeared to be a failed attempt to drive into the chasm. The brothers carjacked a vehicle at the park Monday.

Two days later they were at a southwestern Arizona border checkpoint, and took off when they were asked to pull into a secondary inspection area, Border Patrol spokesman Michael Bernacke said. Eighty miles (130 kilometers) later, the car was on the Tohono O'odham reservation, its tires wrecked by spike strips.

As tribal police and Border Patrol agents closed in, Twiggs, 36, apparently fatally shot his 38-year-old brother, Willard J. "Will" Twiggs, then killed himself. Pinal County Sheriff's spokesman Mike Minter said no motive has been established. But Kellee Twiggs said the decorated Marine would still be alive if the military had given him enough help.

[SNIP]

Travis Twiggs, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1993 and held the combat action ribbon, wrote about his efforts to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder in the January issue of the Marine Corps Gazette.

The symptoms would disappear when he began each tour, he said, but came back stronger than ever when he came home.

He wrote that his life began to "spiral downward" after the tour in which two Marines from his platoon died.

"I cannot describe what a leader feels when he does not bring everyone home," he wrote. "To make matters even worse, I arrived at the welcome home site only to find that those two Marines' families were waiting to greet me as well. I remember thinking, 'Why are they here?"'

Weeks later, Twiggs "saw a physician's assistant who said that was the severest case of PTSD she'd seen in her life," his widow said.

He began receiving treatment, but the Marine wrote that he mixed his medications with alcohol and that his symptoms did not go away until he started his final tour in Iraq.

When he came home, "All of my symptoms were back, and now I was in the process of destroying my family," he wrote. "My only regrets are how I let my command down after they had put so much trust in me and how I let my family down by pushing them away."

Kellee Twiggs said her husband was "very, very different, angry, agitated, isolated and so forth," upon his return. "He was just doing crazy things."

She said her husband was treated in the psychiatric ward of Bethesda Naval Medical Center and then sent to a Veterans Administration facility for four months.

Most recently, Travis Twiggs was assigned to the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory at Quantico, a job he said helped him "get my life back on track."

"Every day is a better day now," he wrote in the Marine Corps Gazette. "... Looking back, I don't believe anyone is to blame for my craziness, but I do think we can do better."

Twiggs urged others suffering from similar problems to seek help. "PTSD is not a weakness. It is a normal reaction to a very violent situation," he wrote.

Kellee Twiggs said she cannot understand why her husband was not sent to a specialized PTSD clinic in New Jersey.

"They let him out. He was OK for a while and then it all started over again," she said.

Say Hello To a $5 Gallon of Gas

MSNBC.COM - BREAKING NEWS: White House says Saudi Arabia does not see a reason to increase oil production

Translation: The President has no powers of persuasion, nor does he have any influence with a country that has been aligned with his family for decades.

Ties Between Venezuela and Colombian Rebels Alleged

In March of this year, the US government stated that the possibility of ties between the government of Venezuela and the FARC were unacceptable:

The United States accused unnamed members of Venezuela's left-wing government [in March 2008] of conspiring against neighboring Colombia by supporting Marxist guerrillas.

Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, said files discovered on a rebel chief's computer in March contained "troubling" evidence about ties between some Venezuelan officials and guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"It will either have to commit itself to using its relationship with the FARC to promote peace or it will have to explain why members of its government are conspiring against a democratic neighbor," Shannon said in a speech in California.

Venezuela quickly denied the claims:

Venezuela insists files seized by Colombian forces during a cross-border raid in Ecuador in March indicating Caracas-FARC links, are fake.

US intelligence has recently claimed the files retrieved from the laptop of the slain FARC's second-in-command Raul Reyes showed strong ties between Caracas and the FARC guerrillas.

"We don't recognize the validity of any of these documents," Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez said, AFP reported citing an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

"They are false, and an attempt to discredit the Venezuelan Government," he added.

Following the March 1 attack of a FARC camp in Ecuador by Colombian forces, Bogota claimed it had found files showing ties between the rebels, Venezuela and Ecuador.

Yesterday, the contents of the files were released:

High-ranking officials in Venezuela offered to help Colombian guerrillas obtain surface-to-air missiles meant to change the balance of power in their war with the Colombian government, according to internal rebel documents.

Venezuelan officials served as middlemen with Australian arms dealers and agreed to help the rebel commanders travel to the Middle East to receive missile training, according to files on computer hard drives seized by Colombian authorities and shown to The Washington Post. In interviews, Colombian officials said they have no evidence that the guerrillas obtained the antiaircraft missiles but added that Venezuelan authorities appear to have provided light arms, thousands of rounds of ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The disclosures have already started to reverberate in the Bush administration and among Latin America policymakers on Capitol Hill, where a small group of Republicans has proposed classifying Venezuela, a major oil exporter to the United States, as a state sponsor of terrorism. The United States and Europe long ago blacklisted the rebel organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as a terrorist group.

At Colombia's request, Interpol, the international police agency, has completed an extensive forensic analysis on the hard drives, which were confiscated in an army raid on a rebel camp on March 1. On Thursday, Interpol is expected to announce that there is no evidence that anyone tampered with the hard drives after they were seized, though the agency cannot vouch for the veracity of the rebels' claims, according to an American official knowledgeable about the study.

The documents are the latest to be released among 16,000 files and photographs being reviewed by Colombian and U.S. officials that describe meetings between FARC commanders and Venezuelan officials, including Interior Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín; the military intelligence chief, Gen. Hugo Carvajal; other top generals such as Clíver Alcalá; and Amilkar Figueroa, who organizes Venezuela's civilian militias.

Once again, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez rejects the findings:

President Hugo Chávez, who has publicly lauded the FARC and characterized Colombia's government as illegitimate, ridiculed the latest batch of correspondence Sunday as "imbecilic documents." He cast Colombian President Álvaro Uribe as a "manipulator" linked to drug trafficking and charged that the Bush administration is using the documents as a pretext to invade Venezuela from Colombia.

Communications Minister Andrés Izarra, speaking to a group of American newspaper editors on Tuesday in Caracas, called the findings "laughable."

"It's part of the lies that are spread around every day against what we are doing," he said.

Not everyone is backing the administration:

After a recent fact-finding trip to the region, Carl Meacham, a senior aide to Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted in a report that a hard line against Venezuela could damage trade with the United States and inadvertently strengthen Chávez's position.

Colombian officials have also debated the ramifications of a tough stance, since it could endanger $6.5 billion in annual trade with Venezuela. Santos, the defense minister, said, "I want to normalize relations with Venezuela because it would be convenient for all of us." He added: "But to do that, they cannot help the FARC."

Colombian officials and former FARC guerrillas said the close ties between the group and Venezuela are not new, though officials in Chávez's government and rebel commanders have drawn closer since 2005.

Senator Kit Bond Proposes New Interrogation Procedures

Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) has changed his overall position on "waterboarding" and sent a letter to Senate colleagues yesterday that specifically named "waterboarding" as a technique to be banned, but has introduced the legislation in non-binding language:

The AP [Associated Press] reports that Bond appears to have had a change of heart and is searching for a “compromise” over how the CIA can interrogate prisoners. In a letter to fellow senators yesterday, [Thursday, May 8] Bond proposed explicitly outlining what tactics are banned, rather than which ones are allowed:

One proposal has been to require our intelligence agencies, when conducting interrogations of individuals in their custody, to use only the nineteen techniques explicitly authorized by the Army Field Manual (AFM). This has received immediate objection by the DNI and CIA Director who expressed concern that the AFM fails to exhaust the universe of techniques that could be authorized consistent with the Geneva Conventions. I believe there is a better legislative alternative that, unlike current proposals, satisfies two key objectives: (1) to forbid the use of harsh interrogation techniques that may run afoul of the Geneva Conventions; and (2) to give our intelligence agencies the tools and flexibility they need to conduct full and timely interrogations of terrorists and other detainees.

Rather than authorizing intelligence agencies to use only those techniques that are allowed under the AFM, I believe the more prudent approach is to preclude the use of specific techniques that are prohibited under the AFM. In this way, the Congress can state clearly that certain harsh interrogation techniques will not be permissible. At the same time, this approach allows for the possibility that new techniques that are not explicitly authorized in the AFM, but nevertheless comply with the law, may be developed in the future. This alternative ensures that our intelligence operators know the exact parameters of what is lawful, rather than forcing them to rely on and interpret a Manual that was written solely for military intelligence operations.

Specified prohibitions in conjunction with intelligence interrogations would include: forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee and using duct tape over the eyes; applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or similar forms of physical pain; “waterboarding”; using military working dogs; inducing hypothermia or heat injury; conducting mock executions; and depriving the detainee of adequate food, water or medical care.

It is not known as to whether the White House would allow such legislation to go forward.

Bond, the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, outlined his proposal in nonbinding language accompanying a bill that sets out the intelligence community's policies, programs and spending for 2009. An unclassified summary was released Thursday.

Like the 2008 version of the authorization bill — which President Bush vetoed — the 2009 bill restricts the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques approved by the military in the Army Field Manual. Bond said he would seek to attach his proposed compromise to this or other legislation.

Bond's change of heart on the seriousness of the technique of "waterboarding" is all the more evident by comparing his most recent efforts to a statement made on PBS in December, 2007:

SEN. KIT BOND: First, let me go back and take issue with some of the things that have just been said. Number one, what the CIA is doing is not torture. It conforms to the Detainee Treatment Act, the Geneva Convention, the Convention against Torture. None of these things that are being used, by any stretch of the imagination, could be described as torture.

Now, I think it was a terribly bad idea that in the intelligence authorization bill there was a ban imposed on the CIA using any techniques other than those in the Army Field Manual. The Army Field Manual is meant to advise junior officers in the field who are questioning the people picked up in the field who perhaps have tactical knowledge.

The information in those field manuals are included in all of the al-Qaida training, and they know how to resist those. If we are to get any information from high-value detainees, such as the ones on whose these enhanced techniques were used, then there have to be different techniques.

And I think, as a side note, I think it was absolutely outrageous that a former CIA agent would discuss these kinds of things, because once you describe what techniques are being used, and they are far less serious and threatening than techniques we use on Marines and pilots who go through our training, then the high-value detainees will never speak to us. That's why they used....

GWEN IFILL: I just would like to -- but do you think that waterboarding, as I described it, constitutes torture?

SEN. KIT BOND: There are different ways of doing it. It's like swimming, freestyle, backstroke. The waterboarding could be used almost to define some of the techniques that our trainees are put through, but that's beside the point. It's not being used.

There are some who say that, in extreme circumstances, if there is threat of an imminent major attack on the United States, it might be used, but I certainly would not favor it in any circumstance..

Bush Planning to Fire CENTCOM Chief?

Think Progress has an excellent piece on the possibility that Admiral William Fallon may be gone soon. Thomas P.M. Barnett indicates in a magazine article for Esquire that he might be out at CENTCOM as soon as this summer:

[W]ell-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don’t want a commander standing in their way.

The article goes on to say that Fallon now denies calling General Petraeus an "ass-kissing little chickenshit."

Is that an attempt to hang on to his job? The only thing standing between the Bush Administration and war with Iran is a thin line of leaders, personified by Fallon at CENTCOM. Is getting rid of Fallon an attempt to start a conflict with Iran that has the intention of securing some kind of legacy for the Bush Administration?

The legacy is too shameful to rehabilitate--and no amount of firing people can save it. Especially when they try to fire the wrong people.