By William Fisher
After a thousand days of widely acknowledged failure in the job of rebuilding Iraq, the Department of Defense has quietly been relieved of that responsibility, with the State Department taking over as America’s lead reconstruction agency and coordinating the work of all other government departments.
While supporters of the policies of President George W. Bush dismiss the change as an administrative adjustment, others suggest it is symbolic of a decades-old turf battle between the two departments, and the administration’s increasing frustration with the reconstruction performance of the DOD and its contractors.
They also point to the switch as an example of how the president goes about making policy changes in Iraq: exhorting the public to “stay the course” while changing it without fanfare.
Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS, "It's a belated recognition that existing policy on reconstruction and stabilization has been woefully inadequate."
The switch was made through a little-noticed December 7 Presidential National Security Directive. Its objective is “to promote the security of the United States through improved coordination, planning, and implementation for reconstruction and stabilization assistance for foreign states and regions at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife.”
The Directive says, “The Secretary of State shall coordinate and lead integrated United States Government efforts”, coordinating these efforts with the Secretary of Defense to ensure harmonization with any planned or ongoing U.S. military operations across the spectrum of conflict.”
It explains that to maximize the effectiveness of U.S. rebuilding efforts, “a focal point is needed (i) to coordinate and strengthen efforts of the United States Government to prepare, plan for, and conduct reconstruction and stabilization assistance and related activities in a range of situations that require the response capabilities of multiple United States Government entities and (ii) to harmonize such efforts with U.S. military plans and operations.”
To achieve the objectives of the Directive, the Secretary of State will appoint a Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization with wide-ranging responsibilities.
These include “developing and approving strategies…for reconstruction and stabilization activities directed towards foreign states at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife: develop guiding precepts and implementation procedures for reconstruction and stabilization which, where appropriate, may be integrated with military contingency plans and doctrine; and coordinate reconstruction and stabilization activities and preventative strategies with foreign countries, international and regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and private sector entities…(and) identify lessons learned and integrate them into operations.”
While reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been made far more difficult by security concerns, they have also been plagued by massive corruption, overcharging by many American contractors, lack of transparency and accountability in the contracting process, and confusion about lines of responsibility among U.S. Government agencies, and between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
The State Department has now been tasked to “resolve relevant policy, program, and funding disputes among United States Government Departments and Agencies with respect to U.S. foreign assistance and foreign economic cooperation, related to reconstruction and stabilization….”
The Bush Directive, which is global in scope and not limited to Iraq and Afghanistan, also established a Policy Coordination Committee (PCC) for Reconstruction and Stabilization Operations. The PCC will be chaired by the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization and a member of the National Security Council (NSC) staff.
The State Department will lead U.S. Government efforts to prevent countries at risk “from being used as a base of operations or safe haven for extremists, terrorists, organized crime groups, or others who pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy, security, or economic interests.”
Problems with contractors and with financial management in general have dogged the DOD for many years. The agency’s contracting procedures have been widely condemned and, in one much-publicized case, the department’s most senior contracting official received a prison term for conflicts of interest and other offenses involving the Boeing Corporation, one of the largest military contractors. Other DOD contractors have also proved problematic; in particular, the Halliburton Company has been accused of substantial over-charges on many of its no-bid contracts and has become the poster child for a broken system.
Government accountants have never been able complete a satisfactory audit of DOD expenditures.
Most recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that DOD contractors have received $8 billion over five years in bonuses on weapons programs that were often plagued by significant cost overruns, performance problems and delays.
The GAO, an independent auditor for Congress, reviewed 93 of 597 military contracts in force between 1999 and 2004 that included the possibility of a bonus. Contractors on average were awarded about 90 percent of the bonus money available, the agency said.
For example, Lockheed Martin and Boeing received $1.7 billion, or about 91 percent of $1.847 billion available on four major programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter, even as these programs "experienced significant cost increases, technical problems and development delays," the GAO said.
The GAO report also cited the Boeing-United Technologies RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, canceled in April 2004, and two other Lockheed programs: the F/A-22 fighter and a satellite system to detect enemy missile launches.
Bonuses paid on these troubled programs ranged from 74 percent to 100 percent of the potential award, the agency said. "These practices undermine the effectiveness of fees as a motivational tool and marginalize their use in holding contractors accountable," the audit agency said. "They also serve to waste taxpayer funds."
Friday, December 23, 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
THE FOG OF G.W.O.T.
By William Fisher
Recent polling on the views of the American people about the ‘Global War on Terror’ continues to suggest increasing ambivalence, confusion and lack of reliable information. And other events over the past few days, topped by the revelation that President George W. Bush ordered secret warrantless wiretaps of phone calls and emails of American citizens, are unlikely to reverse this trend.
American troops should withdraw from Iraq immediately. Or they should ‘stay the course’. Some civil liberties must be sacrificed in order to make the American people secure from terror threats. Or civil liberties and security can both exist side by side. Torture of prisoners in U.S. custody is never permissible. Or it is permissible under certain conditions. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was linked to Osama Bin Laden and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Or there was no connection.
The people’s inability to get credible answers has led to their growing disapproval of both Congress and the President. In recent polling, disapproval of Congress hovers between 50 and 65 percent, while the president’s overall approval rating is now at 42 percent, a rise of 4 percentage points since he began a series of speeches in November to rally support for the war in Iraq, but well within the margin of error.
As the American people struggle to understand the answers pivotal questions related to the Global War on Terror– a task made far more difficult by the ‘spin’ routinely articulated by politicians – the Bush Administration, the Congress and the Courts find themselves wrestling to resolve many of the same problems.
The president’s wiretapping admission – and defense – came only a day after he refused to discuss the issue at all in an interview with Jim Lehrer of public television’s Newshour. The following afternoon, he used his entire live weekly radio address to say the wiretaps were necessary, legal and within his powers as Commander-in-Chief in wartime.
He also said he had advised Congressional leaders, but those who have spoken publicly thus far disagree with this assertion. Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives, said she raised objections. Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, said he was never told about the program during his time on the committee. He admitted attending a meeting in early 2002 in the Vice President's White House office about the NSA, but claims it focused on other operations, such as monitoring overseas e-mail traffic that flowed through Internet service providers based in the U.S.
But other leaders, including Republican Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, pointed out that Congress established a law and a procedure back in the 1970s for law enforcement authorities to ask a special court to issue warrants. The court, reincarnated in the Patriot Act, is known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), and is the court now used by the Justice Department to obtain authority to conduct surveillance on American citizens.
It is still unclear why the President did not go through the FISA process. But a number of senators, including Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and Republican Lindsay of South Carolina, said on Sunday they think the president may have broken the law by failing to do so.
Adding to people’s confusion is the ongoing debate about re-authorizing the USA Patriot Act, which was hurriedly passed six weeks after the 9/11 attacks and which is due to expire on Dec. 31 unless renewed. The House of Representatives and the Senate have been unable to reach unanimity on which body’s version of the new act will become law. As a result, a group of Senate Republicans and Democrats continue to debate the measure and have asked for a three-month extension of the current law to give them more time to work out their differences. The president has said he would veto such a request.
Two other terror-related issues added to the public’s confusion last week.
Government lawyers told the Supreme Court it would be "wholly imprudent" for it to hear Jose Padilla's challenge to his military detention as an enemy combatant. They urged the justices to dismiss Padilla's case as moot now that the government plans to try him on terrorism charges in a civilian court. Since Padilla's indictment last month by a federal grand jury has given him the "very relief" he sought when he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court, any Supreme Court decision now on his petition "will have no practical effect" on Padilla, they said.
But Padilla's lawyers filed a brief with the appeals court, asking it to retain jurisdiction over Padilla's case long enough for the Supreme Court to act on it. They want to establish whether the president has the authority to declare a U.S. citizen an ‘enemy combatant’ and hold him indefinitely without charge, access to legal counsel, and the right to ask a civilian court to determine his status.
Padilla, an American citizen, was arrested in 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, designated an enemy combatant, and held in a Navy brig until last month, most of the time without access to legal counsel or to the evidence against him.
Last month, the Justice Department, unwilling to risk a negative court decision on Padilla’s three-year incarceration without charges, filed a case against him in a civilian appeals court.
At the time of his arrest, the Justice Department charged Padilla was going to detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ within the U.S. But when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced criminal charges against him in a civilian court, the ‘dirty bomb’ accusation was absent. Instead, he was charged with being part of a North American terrorist support network that sent money and fighters abroad.
A third issue likely to increase public confusion about ‘the rules’ governing the Global War on Terror is the so-called Graham Amendment, now pending in congress as part of a massive spending bill to fund veterans’ benefits and the operations of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, along with Republican John Kyl of Arizona and Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, the measure won solid Senate approval for its provisions requiring interrogation techniques used by the military to be guided only by the Army Field Manual.
But there are two little-discussed provisions in the measure. One relies on a secret annex to the manual to spell out the specific techniques the military can and cannot use. Ordinary Americans – and most of the Congress – will probably never know what these techniques are. But in a December 15 appearance on CNN's ‘The Situation Room’ program, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to define waterboarding as "torture". Waterboarding, considered one of the most egregious interrogation practices, is a technique in which a person is led to believe he is drowning.
The second potentially controversial provision in the Graham amendment is the suspension of habeas corpus – the right to go to court to contest the reason for their detention as well as their treatment -- for prisoners in U.S. custody, including some 500 held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Habeas Corpus is considered the gold standard for Anglo-American justice.
About the habeas proposal, Brian J. Foley, a professor at the Florida Atlantic School of Law, told us, “"The ability to file a habeas corpus petition is perhaps the preeminent civil right. Most politicians would deem it untouchable. Taking it away from Guantanamo prisoners, where we know some have been imprisoned by mistake and where we know some have been tortured, means that our government's way of 'protecting civil liberties' is to make sure no court ever hears about any violations in the first place."
Recent polling on the views of the American people about the ‘Global War on Terror’ continues to suggest increasing ambivalence, confusion and lack of reliable information. And other events over the past few days, topped by the revelation that President George W. Bush ordered secret warrantless wiretaps of phone calls and emails of American citizens, are unlikely to reverse this trend.
American troops should withdraw from Iraq immediately. Or they should ‘stay the course’. Some civil liberties must be sacrificed in order to make the American people secure from terror threats. Or civil liberties and security can both exist side by side. Torture of prisoners in U.S. custody is never permissible. Or it is permissible under certain conditions. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was linked to Osama Bin Laden and the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Or there was no connection.
The people’s inability to get credible answers has led to their growing disapproval of both Congress and the President. In recent polling, disapproval of Congress hovers between 50 and 65 percent, while the president’s overall approval rating is now at 42 percent, a rise of 4 percentage points since he began a series of speeches in November to rally support for the war in Iraq, but well within the margin of error.
As the American people struggle to understand the answers pivotal questions related to the Global War on Terror– a task made far more difficult by the ‘spin’ routinely articulated by politicians – the Bush Administration, the Congress and the Courts find themselves wrestling to resolve many of the same problems.
The president’s wiretapping admission – and defense – came only a day after he refused to discuss the issue at all in an interview with Jim Lehrer of public television’s Newshour. The following afternoon, he used his entire live weekly radio address to say the wiretaps were necessary, legal and within his powers as Commander-in-Chief in wartime.
He also said he had advised Congressional leaders, but those who have spoken publicly thus far disagree with this assertion. Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives, said she raised objections. Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, said he was never told about the program during his time on the committee. He admitted attending a meeting in early 2002 in the Vice President's White House office about the NSA, but claims it focused on other operations, such as monitoring overseas e-mail traffic that flowed through Internet service providers based in the U.S.
But other leaders, including Republican Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, pointed out that Congress established a law and a procedure back in the 1970s for law enforcement authorities to ask a special court to issue warrants. The court, reincarnated in the Patriot Act, is known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), and is the court now used by the Justice Department to obtain authority to conduct surveillance on American citizens.
It is still unclear why the President did not go through the FISA process. But a number of senators, including Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and Republican Lindsay of South Carolina, said on Sunday they think the president may have broken the law by failing to do so.
Adding to people’s confusion is the ongoing debate about re-authorizing the USA Patriot Act, which was hurriedly passed six weeks after the 9/11 attacks and which is due to expire on Dec. 31 unless renewed. The House of Representatives and the Senate have been unable to reach unanimity on which body’s version of the new act will become law. As a result, a group of Senate Republicans and Democrats continue to debate the measure and have asked for a three-month extension of the current law to give them more time to work out their differences. The president has said he would veto such a request.
Two other terror-related issues added to the public’s confusion last week.
Government lawyers told the Supreme Court it would be "wholly imprudent" for it to hear Jose Padilla's challenge to his military detention as an enemy combatant. They urged the justices to dismiss Padilla's case as moot now that the government plans to try him on terrorism charges in a civilian court. Since Padilla's indictment last month by a federal grand jury has given him the "very relief" he sought when he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court, any Supreme Court decision now on his petition "will have no practical effect" on Padilla, they said.
But Padilla's lawyers filed a brief with the appeals court, asking it to retain jurisdiction over Padilla's case long enough for the Supreme Court to act on it. They want to establish whether the president has the authority to declare a U.S. citizen an ‘enemy combatant’ and hold him indefinitely without charge, access to legal counsel, and the right to ask a civilian court to determine his status.
Padilla, an American citizen, was arrested in 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, designated an enemy combatant, and held in a Navy brig until last month, most of the time without access to legal counsel or to the evidence against him.
Last month, the Justice Department, unwilling to risk a negative court decision on Padilla’s three-year incarceration without charges, filed a case against him in a civilian appeals court.
At the time of his arrest, the Justice Department charged Padilla was going to detonate a ‘dirty bomb’ within the U.S. But when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced criminal charges against him in a civilian court, the ‘dirty bomb’ accusation was absent. Instead, he was charged with being part of a North American terrorist support network that sent money and fighters abroad.
A third issue likely to increase public confusion about ‘the rules’ governing the Global War on Terror is the so-called Graham Amendment, now pending in congress as part of a massive spending bill to fund veterans’ benefits and the operations of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, along with Republican John Kyl of Arizona and Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, the measure won solid Senate approval for its provisions requiring interrogation techniques used by the military to be guided only by the Army Field Manual.
But there are two little-discussed provisions in the measure. One relies on a secret annex to the manual to spell out the specific techniques the military can and cannot use. Ordinary Americans – and most of the Congress – will probably never know what these techniques are. But in a December 15 appearance on CNN's ‘The Situation Room’ program, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to define waterboarding as "torture". Waterboarding, considered one of the most egregious interrogation practices, is a technique in which a person is led to believe he is drowning.
The second potentially controversial provision in the Graham amendment is the suspension of habeas corpus – the right to go to court to contest the reason for their detention as well as their treatment -- for prisoners in U.S. custody, including some 500 held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Habeas Corpus is considered the gold standard for Anglo-American justice.
About the habeas proposal, Brian J. Foley, a professor at the Florida Atlantic School of Law, told us, “"The ability to file a habeas corpus petition is perhaps the preeminent civil right. Most politicians would deem it untouchable. Taking it away from Guantanamo prisoners, where we know some have been imprisoned by mistake and where we know some have been tortured, means that our government's way of 'protecting civil liberties' is to make sure no court ever hears about any violations in the first place."
BACK TO THE FUTURE
By William Fisher
President Bush’s do-it-yourself eavesdropping notwithstanding, the Pentagon could soon have legal authority to “covertly” gather intelligence on American citizens in the United States – a power taken from them because of excesses during the Vietnam War.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting in closed session, last month quietly approved a request from the Department of Defense (DOD) to allow it to conduct surveillance operations within American Muslim communities. The DOD said the cooperation of these communities could help fight insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We believe there are people in the United States who have information of value to us," said Jim Schmidli, deputy general counsel for operations at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. "That information is within different ethnic communities in this country -- recent additions to our population from distressed areas of the world, primarily the Middle East."
But civil liberties groups and leaders of the Muslim community say the Pentagon is using the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to resume the domestic spying powers that Congress banned after those powers were used to spy on Americans during the Vietnam era.
Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told us, “We are seeing the increasing militarization of our American streets. Shame on the Senate for permitting the military to prowl our streets, spy on us, entrap unknowing people and terrify America. Are we living in Franco’s Spain? The military is not trained in constitutional rights; they belong on the battlefield and not in our homes.”
And Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, told us, “At a time when domestic intelligence collection by the military is surging, the nation desperately needs an independent oversight body to exercise checks and balances. Unfortunately, it looks like the congressional intelligence committees are or unwilling or unable to provide that service.”
The intelligence committee supports inclusion of the request in the 2006 intelligence spending authorization bill. The full Senate will take up the bill later this month. The Pentagon's request was not included in the House version of the bill, which passed in June. The bill now goes to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
An identical provision was included in last year’s version of the same bill, but was removed after its details were disclosed by Newsweek magazine and critics charged it could lead to “spying” on US citizens.
But late last month, with no public hearings or debate, a similar amendment was inserted into the same annual authorization bill at the request of the Pentagon.
The intelligence committee also included two other amendments. One would allow intelligence agencies greater access to databases on U.S. citizens. Another would grant the Defense Intelligence Agency the right not to disclose "operational files" under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The Pentagon defended its request for the new powers, saying it needs more flexibility as it expands its role in counterterrorism.
"This is not about spying on Americans," DIA general counsel George Peirce said in an interview with the Washington Post. He defended the legislative language approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“We are not asking for the moon," Peirce said. "We only want to assess their suitability as a source, person to person" and at the same time "protect the ID and safety of our officers."
The CIA and the FBI already have such authority, he added, and the [Defense Intelligence Agency] needs it "to develop critical leads" because "there is more than enough work for all of us to do."
However, the idea has not been well received in the US Muslim community, or by other critics of the new power.
"This has a back-alley, dead-of-night feel to it that I don't think would be received well by the Muslim community," said Ibrahim Cooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Lisa Graves of the American Civil Liberties Union disagreed with a defense official's statement that the proposed change would not allow for carte blanche Pentagon spying inside the United States.
"That's some spin," Graves said. "The change would allow them to gather information on Americans surreptitiously. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."
Some Republican legislators see the Pentagon request as an effort to do an end-run around the authority of the new director of national intelligence, Ambassador John D. Negroponte.
They are concerned that the Pentagon "may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress” by creating “parallel functions to what is going on in intelligence, but is calling it something else,” according to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Hoekstra said he believed the proposed activities were designed to "obscure" the Pentagon's intelligence activities in order to keep them out of Mr. Negroponte's jurisdiction.
In the 1970s, Army intelligence agents were caught snooping on antiwar
protesters. Since then, military intelligence agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States.
But this week, U.S. network television news displayed a DOD dossier purportedly showing that the military was already carrying out surveillance and risk assessments of peaceful antiwar protests in the U.S. The documents listed the license plate numbers of people attending antiwar rallies, and categorized the rallies as a “threat”.
The new provision would exempt the DOD from complying with the Privacy Act that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and why they want the information.
A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intelligence agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. "Current counterterrorism operations," the report claims, require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States."
DIA officials say they need the provision in order to question American businesspersons and college students who travel abroad.
But the provision will also be helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and contractors inside the United States, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Watchdog groups see the DOD’s proposals as "mission creep”. According to
Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, "This...
is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," adding, "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night." The Center is frequently critical of the war on terror
President Bush’s do-it-yourself eavesdropping notwithstanding, the Pentagon could soon have legal authority to “covertly” gather intelligence on American citizens in the United States – a power taken from them because of excesses during the Vietnam War.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting in closed session, last month quietly approved a request from the Department of Defense (DOD) to allow it to conduct surveillance operations within American Muslim communities. The DOD said the cooperation of these communities could help fight insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We believe there are people in the United States who have information of value to us," said Jim Schmidli, deputy general counsel for operations at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. "That information is within different ethnic communities in this country -- recent additions to our population from distressed areas of the world, primarily the Middle East."
But civil liberties groups and leaders of the Muslim community say the Pentagon is using the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to resume the domestic spying powers that Congress banned after those powers were used to spy on Americans during the Vietnam era.
Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told us, “We are seeing the increasing militarization of our American streets. Shame on the Senate for permitting the military to prowl our streets, spy on us, entrap unknowing people and terrify America. Are we living in Franco’s Spain? The military is not trained in constitutional rights; they belong on the battlefield and not in our homes.”
And Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, told us, “At a time when domestic intelligence collection by the military is surging, the nation desperately needs an independent oversight body to exercise checks and balances. Unfortunately, it looks like the congressional intelligence committees are or unwilling or unable to provide that service.”
The intelligence committee supports inclusion of the request in the 2006 intelligence spending authorization bill. The full Senate will take up the bill later this month. The Pentagon's request was not included in the House version of the bill, which passed in June. The bill now goes to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
An identical provision was included in last year’s version of the same bill, but was removed after its details were disclosed by Newsweek magazine and critics charged it could lead to “spying” on US citizens.
But late last month, with no public hearings or debate, a similar amendment was inserted into the same annual authorization bill at the request of the Pentagon.
The intelligence committee also included two other amendments. One would allow intelligence agencies greater access to databases on U.S. citizens. Another would grant the Defense Intelligence Agency the right not to disclose "operational files" under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The Pentagon defended its request for the new powers, saying it needs more flexibility as it expands its role in counterterrorism.
"This is not about spying on Americans," DIA general counsel George Peirce said in an interview with the Washington Post. He defended the legislative language approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“We are not asking for the moon," Peirce said. "We only want to assess their suitability as a source, person to person" and at the same time "protect the ID and safety of our officers."
The CIA and the FBI already have such authority, he added, and the [Defense Intelligence Agency] needs it "to develop critical leads" because "there is more than enough work for all of us to do."
However, the idea has not been well received in the US Muslim community, or by other critics of the new power.
"This has a back-alley, dead-of-night feel to it that I don't think would be received well by the Muslim community," said Ibrahim Cooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Lisa Graves of the American Civil Liberties Union disagreed with a defense official's statement that the proposed change would not allow for carte blanche Pentagon spying inside the United States.
"That's some spin," Graves said. "The change would allow them to gather information on Americans surreptitiously. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."
Some Republican legislators see the Pentagon request as an effort to do an end-run around the authority of the new director of national intelligence, Ambassador John D. Negroponte.
They are concerned that the Pentagon "may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress” by creating “parallel functions to what is going on in intelligence, but is calling it something else,” according to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Hoekstra said he believed the proposed activities were designed to "obscure" the Pentagon's intelligence activities in order to keep them out of Mr. Negroponte's jurisdiction.
In the 1970s, Army intelligence agents were caught snooping on antiwar
protesters. Since then, military intelligence agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States.
But this week, U.S. network television news displayed a DOD dossier purportedly showing that the military was already carrying out surveillance and risk assessments of peaceful antiwar protests in the U.S. The documents listed the license plate numbers of people attending antiwar rallies, and categorized the rallies as a “threat”.
The new provision would exempt the DOD from complying with the Privacy Act that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and why they want the information.
A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intelligence agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. "Current counterterrorism operations," the report claims, require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States."
DIA officials say they need the provision in order to question American businesspersons and college students who travel abroad.
But the provision will also be helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and contractors inside the United States, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Watchdog groups see the DOD’s proposals as "mission creep”. According to
Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, "This...
is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," adding, "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night." The Center is frequently critical of the war on terror
BUSH, MCCAIN, TORTURE AND BEYOND
By William Fisher
President George W. Bush suffered a stinging defeat when overwhelming congressional support forced him to abandon his opposition to anti-torture legislation and reach an agreement with its sponsor, Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.
The president’s reversal came after months of White House attempts – led by Vice President Disk Cheney and National Security Advisor Steven Hadley -- to weaken the measure, which would prohibit the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any detainee in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.
The Administration had been negotiating with McCain to either drop the measure or to modify it so that interrogators, especially those working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), would have significant exemptions.
Bush had previously threatened to veto the bill and Vice President Cheney lobbied hard to change the McCain proposal to give interrogators more flexibility to use a range of extreme tactics on terrorism suspects.
Mc Cain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, made it clear that he would not change a single word in his proposal. The House of Representatives voted 308 to 122 to endorse the measure, which is an amendment to the massive defense spending bill that funds military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The supportive vote in the Senate was 90 to 9.
But in the deal worked out with the President, McCain was willing to add two paragraphs to give civilian interrogators legal protections that are already afforded to military interrogators. This means that civilians would be able to defend their use of interrogation tactics by arguing in court that a "person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful."
However, experts say that if CIA or civilian personnel believe they were being directed to use an interrogation technique that was illegal, they would be obligated to disobey the order.
The president’s support came in an appearance with McCain in the Oval
Office. The president said, "We've been happy to work with (Sen. McCain) to achieve a common objective, and that is to make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention [on] torture, whether it be here at home or abroad."
"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the
terrorists," McCain said at his joint appearance with Bush.
He added, "We are a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think that this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world."
But the deal did not garner unanimous support. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who is chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, threatened yesterday to block the legislation unless the White House provides him with a written assurance that the legislation would not interfere with the ability of intelligence officials to carry out their missions.
The Bush-McCain deal won applause from human rights groups.
"We've come a long way as a country since 9/11, and this development is a sign
of that," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human
Rights Watch. "We've gone from a sense of 'anything goes' to a recognition that torture hurts America even more than it hurts the enemy."
But human rights advocates were already looking beyond McCain’s victory to a separate proposed amendment by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a former military judge, that would eliminate certain rights of detainees held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Graham amendment would prevent detainees from using the U.S. courts to invoke the right of habeas corpus to contest their treatment, including claims that they have been tortured. It would also effectively allow the U.S. government to indefinitely detain people at Guantanamo based on evidence obtained through "coercion."
Tom Wilner, a lawyer who represents a group of Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo Bay, told the Washington Post that the Graham amendment would make McCain’s prohibition against torture essentially unenforceable, by giving U.S. troops an incentive to engage in coercive interrogations of detainees, without fear of being held liable.
The significance of the suspension of habeas corpus is likely to be a major congressional concern as debate continues. According to Brian J. Foley, a professor at the Florida Atlantic School of Law in Jacksonville Florida, “Restricting habeas corpus for anybody in our custody is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Our lawmakers are deluded, and are deluding us into believing, that excluding the courts from addressing prisoners' claims about their treatment, which includes claims that they have been tortured, will somehow help us in the so-called War on Terror. It won't, and it can't. Instead, allegations about torture will be both unprovable and, importantly, un-disprovable, which will give propaganda fodder to our enemies.”
He told us, “Dangerously, the Executive Branch will be un-checkable, which will prevent us from knowing whether the President is actually fighting terrorists or merely beating confessions out of hapless, innocent men who were rounded up near a battlefield or sold to U.S. forces for a bounty -- quite possibly by the real terrorists -- and simply telling us we're 'winning the war.'
“Without courts applying hard-nosed reasoning and logic, we can't know anything more than what the President tells us. That's what courts are for -- and they're especially important when Congress drops the ball vis a vis its oversight of the President, as it has been doing shamelessly since 9-11. We're all in the dark and unable to participate -- which puts us in the position of having merely to trust the President. That's always scary, but here it is especially scary, with the level of incompetence we've seen,” he said.
It is generally acknowledged that mistaken identity has been a problem at Guantanamo Bay. More than 800 prisoners were initially taken there for detention. That number is now down to slightly more than 500. The Defense Department will not comment in detail on the disposition of those who are no longer there, but it has been widely reported that some have been sent back to law enforcement authorities in their home countries for further detention but that others have simply been released, presumably because the government had no evidence that they were terrorists.
Some continue to be held through what appears to be administrative incompetence. For example, U.S. forces freed Saddiq Ahmad Turkistani from a Taliban prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in late 2001. He told reporters that he had been wrongly imprisoned for allegedly plotting to kill Osama bin Laden.
He professed hatred for al Qaeda and the Taliban -- groups he said tortured him in prison -- and offered to help the United States. Though cleared by U.S. officials, Turkistani was first taken to a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Unlike many others prisoners at Guantanamo, he was not captured on the battlefield, nor was he a suspected terrorist. He was arrested in the ‘fog of war’ that marked the early days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Though he was a potential ally, he found himself unable to challenge his detention.
But nearly four years later, Turkistani remains imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, despite being cleared for release early this year after a government review concluded he is "no longer an enemy combatant."
Turkistani’s lawyers and some U.S. officials speculate that he has been held by mistake. They say he remains incarcerated because the United States simply does not know what to do with him.
President George W. Bush suffered a stinging defeat when overwhelming congressional support forced him to abandon his opposition to anti-torture legislation and reach an agreement with its sponsor, Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.
The president’s reversal came after months of White House attempts – led by Vice President Disk Cheney and National Security Advisor Steven Hadley -- to weaken the measure, which would prohibit the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment of any detainee in U.S. custody anywhere in the world.
The Administration had been negotiating with McCain to either drop the measure or to modify it so that interrogators, especially those working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), would have significant exemptions.
Bush had previously threatened to veto the bill and Vice President Cheney lobbied hard to change the McCain proposal to give interrogators more flexibility to use a range of extreme tactics on terrorism suspects.
Mc Cain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, made it clear that he would not change a single word in his proposal. The House of Representatives voted 308 to 122 to endorse the measure, which is an amendment to the massive defense spending bill that funds military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The supportive vote in the Senate was 90 to 9.
But in the deal worked out with the President, McCain was willing to add two paragraphs to give civilian interrogators legal protections that are already afforded to military interrogators. This means that civilians would be able to defend their use of interrogation tactics by arguing in court that a "person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful."
However, experts say that if CIA or civilian personnel believe they were being directed to use an interrogation technique that was illegal, they would be obligated to disobey the order.
The president’s support came in an appearance with McCain in the Oval
Office. The president said, "We've been happy to work with (Sen. McCain) to achieve a common objective, and that is to make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention [on] torture, whether it be here at home or abroad."
"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the
terrorists," McCain said at his joint appearance with Bush.
He added, "We are a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are. And I think that this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world."
But the deal did not garner unanimous support. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who is chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, threatened yesterday to block the legislation unless the White House provides him with a written assurance that the legislation would not interfere with the ability of intelligence officials to carry out their missions.
The Bush-McCain deal won applause from human rights groups.
"We've come a long way as a country since 9/11, and this development is a sign
of that," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human
Rights Watch. "We've gone from a sense of 'anything goes' to a recognition that torture hurts America even more than it hurts the enemy."
But human rights advocates were already looking beyond McCain’s victory to a separate proposed amendment by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a former military judge, that would eliminate certain rights of detainees held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Graham amendment would prevent detainees from using the U.S. courts to invoke the right of habeas corpus to contest their treatment, including claims that they have been tortured. It would also effectively allow the U.S. government to indefinitely detain people at Guantanamo based on evidence obtained through "coercion."
Tom Wilner, a lawyer who represents a group of Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo Bay, told the Washington Post that the Graham amendment would make McCain’s prohibition against torture essentially unenforceable, by giving U.S. troops an incentive to engage in coercive interrogations of detainees, without fear of being held liable.
The significance of the suspension of habeas corpus is likely to be a major congressional concern as debate continues. According to Brian J. Foley, a professor at the Florida Atlantic School of Law in Jacksonville Florida, “Restricting habeas corpus for anybody in our custody is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Our lawmakers are deluded, and are deluding us into believing, that excluding the courts from addressing prisoners' claims about their treatment, which includes claims that they have been tortured, will somehow help us in the so-called War on Terror. It won't, and it can't. Instead, allegations about torture will be both unprovable and, importantly, un-disprovable, which will give propaganda fodder to our enemies.”
He told us, “Dangerously, the Executive Branch will be un-checkable, which will prevent us from knowing whether the President is actually fighting terrorists or merely beating confessions out of hapless, innocent men who were rounded up near a battlefield or sold to U.S. forces for a bounty -- quite possibly by the real terrorists -- and simply telling us we're 'winning the war.'
“Without courts applying hard-nosed reasoning and logic, we can't know anything more than what the President tells us. That's what courts are for -- and they're especially important when Congress drops the ball vis a vis its oversight of the President, as it has been doing shamelessly since 9-11. We're all in the dark and unable to participate -- which puts us in the position of having merely to trust the President. That's always scary, but here it is especially scary, with the level of incompetence we've seen,” he said.
It is generally acknowledged that mistaken identity has been a problem at Guantanamo Bay. More than 800 prisoners were initially taken there for detention. That number is now down to slightly more than 500. The Defense Department will not comment in detail on the disposition of those who are no longer there, but it has been widely reported that some have been sent back to law enforcement authorities in their home countries for further detention but that others have simply been released, presumably because the government had no evidence that they were terrorists.
Some continue to be held through what appears to be administrative incompetence. For example, U.S. forces freed Saddiq Ahmad Turkistani from a Taliban prison in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in late 2001. He told reporters that he had been wrongly imprisoned for allegedly plotting to kill Osama bin Laden.
He professed hatred for al Qaeda and the Taliban -- groups he said tortured him in prison -- and offered to help the United States. Though cleared by U.S. officials, Turkistani was first taken to a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay.
Unlike many others prisoners at Guantanamo, he was not captured on the battlefield, nor was he a suspected terrorist. He was arrested in the ‘fog of war’ that marked the early days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Though he was a potential ally, he found himself unable to challenge his detention.
But nearly four years later, Turkistani remains imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, despite being cleared for release early this year after a government review concluded he is "no longer an enemy combatant."
Turkistani’s lawyers and some U.S. officials speculate that he has been held by mistake. They say he remains incarcerated because the United States simply does not know what to do with him.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
BACK TO THE FUTURE
By William Fisher
By the end of the current session of congress later this month, the Pentagon could have legal authority to “covertly” gather intelligence on American citizens in the United States – a power taken from them because of excesses during the Vietnam War.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting in closed session, last month quietly approved a request from the Department of Defense (DOD) to allow it to conduct surveillance operations within American Muslim communities. The DOD said the cooperation of these communities could help fight insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We believe there are people in the United States who have information of value to us," said Jim Schmidli, deputy general counsel for operations at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. "That information is within different ethnic communities in this country -- recent additions to our population from distressed areas of the world, primarily the Middle East."
But civil liberties groups and leaders of the Muslim community say the Pentagon is using the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to resume the domestic spying powers that Congress banned after those powers were used to spy on Americans during the Vietnam era.
Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told IPS, “We are seeing the increasing militarization of our American streets. Shame on the Senate for permitting the military to prowl our streets, spy on us, entrap unknowing people and terrify America. Are we living in Franco’s Spain? The military is not trained in constitutional rights; they belong on the battlefield and not in our homes.”
And Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS, “At a time when domestic intelligence collection by the military is surging, the nation desperately needs an independent oversight body to exercise checks and balances. Unfortunately, it looks like the congressional intelligence committees are or unwilling or unable to provide that service.”
The intelligence committee supports inclusion of the request in the 2006 intelligence spending authorization bill. The full Senate will take up the bill later this month. The Pentagon's request was not included in the House version of the bill, which passed in June. The bill now goes to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
An identical provision was included in last year’s version of the same bill, but was removed after its details were disclosed by Newsweek magazine and critics charged it could lead to “spying” on US citizens.
But late last month, with no public hearings or debate, a similar amendment was inserted into the same annual authorization bill at the request of the Pentagon.
The intelligence committee also included two other amendments. One would allow intelligence agencies greater access to databases on U.S. citizens. Another would grant the Defense Intelligence Agency the right not to disclose "operational files" under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The Pentagon defended its request for the new powers, saying it needs more flexibility as it expands its role in counterterrorism.
"This is not about spying on Americans," DIA general counsel George Peirce said in an interview with the Washington Post. He defended the legislative language approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“We are not asking for the moon," Peirce said. "We only want to assess their suitability as a source, person to person" and at the same time "protect the ID and safety of our officers."
The CIA and the FBI already have such authority, he added, and the [Defense Intelligence Agency] needs it "to develop critical leads" because "there is more than enough work for all of us to do."
However, the idea has not been well received in the US Muslim community, or by other critics of the new power.
"This has a back-alley, dead-of-night feel to it that I don't think would be received well by the Muslim community," said Ibrahim Cooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Lisa Graves of the American Civil Liberties Union disagreed with a defense official's statement that the proposed change would not allow for carte blanche Pentagon spying inside the United States.
"That's some spin," Graves said. "The change would allow them to gather information on Americans surreptitiously. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."
Some Republican legislators see the Pentagon request as an effort to do an end-run around the authority of the new director of national intelligence, Ambassador John D. Negroponte.
They are concerned that the Pentagon "may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress” by creating “parallel functions to what is going on in intelligence, but is calling it something else,” according to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Hoekstra said he believed the proposed activities were designed to "obscure" the Pentagon's intelligence activities in order to keep them out of Mr. Negroponte's jurisdiction.
In the 1970s, Army intelligence agents were caught snooping on antiwar
protesters. Since then, military intelligence agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States.
But this week, U.S. network television news displayed a DOD dossier purportedly showing that the military was already carrying out surveillance and risk assessments of peaceful antiwar protests in the U.S. The documents listed the license plate numbers of people attending antiwar rallies, and categorized the rallies as a “threat”.
The new provision would exempt the DOD from complying with the Privacy Act that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and why they want the information.
A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intelligence agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. "Current counterterrorism operations," the report claims, require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States."
DIA officials say they need the provision in order to question American businesspersons and college students who travel abroad.
But the provision will also be helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and contractors inside the United States, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Watchdog groups see the DOD’s proposals as "mission creep”. According to Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," adding, "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night." The Center is frequently critical of the war on terror
By the end of the current session of congress later this month, the Pentagon could have legal authority to “covertly” gather intelligence on American citizens in the United States – a power taken from them because of excesses during the Vietnam War.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting in closed session, last month quietly approved a request from the Department of Defense (DOD) to allow it to conduct surveillance operations within American Muslim communities. The DOD said the cooperation of these communities could help fight insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We believe there are people in the United States who have information of value to us," said Jim Schmidli, deputy general counsel for operations at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. "That information is within different ethnic communities in this country -- recent additions to our population from distressed areas of the world, primarily the Middle East."
But civil liberties groups and leaders of the Muslim community say the Pentagon is using the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to resume the domestic spying powers that Congress banned after those powers were used to spy on Americans during the Vietnam era.
Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told IPS, “We are seeing the increasing militarization of our American streets. Shame on the Senate for permitting the military to prowl our streets, spy on us, entrap unknowing people and terrify America. Are we living in Franco’s Spain? The military is not trained in constitutional rights; they belong on the battlefield and not in our homes.”
And Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS, “At a time when domestic intelligence collection by the military is surging, the nation desperately needs an independent oversight body to exercise checks and balances. Unfortunately, it looks like the congressional intelligence committees are or unwilling or unable to provide that service.”
The intelligence committee supports inclusion of the request in the 2006 intelligence spending authorization bill. The full Senate will take up the bill later this month. The Pentagon's request was not included in the House version of the bill, which passed in June. The bill now goes to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
An identical provision was included in last year’s version of the same bill, but was removed after its details were disclosed by Newsweek magazine and critics charged it could lead to “spying” on US citizens.
But late last month, with no public hearings or debate, a similar amendment was inserted into the same annual authorization bill at the request of the Pentagon.
The intelligence committee also included two other amendments. One would allow intelligence agencies greater access to databases on U.S. citizens. Another would grant the Defense Intelligence Agency the right not to disclose "operational files" under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The Pentagon defended its request for the new powers, saying it needs more flexibility as it expands its role in counterterrorism.
"This is not about spying on Americans," DIA general counsel George Peirce said in an interview with the Washington Post. He defended the legislative language approved by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“We are not asking for the moon," Peirce said. "We only want to assess their suitability as a source, person to person" and at the same time "protect the ID and safety of our officers."
The CIA and the FBI already have such authority, he added, and the [Defense Intelligence Agency] needs it "to develop critical leads" because "there is more than enough work for all of us to do."
However, the idea has not been well received in the US Muslim community, or by other critics of the new power.
"This has a back-alley, dead-of-night feel to it that I don't think would be received well by the Muslim community," said Ibrahim Cooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Lisa Graves of the American Civil Liberties Union disagreed with a defense official's statement that the proposed change would not allow for carte blanche Pentagon spying inside the United States.
"That's some spin," Graves said. "The change would allow them to gather information on Americans surreptitiously. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck."
Some Republican legislators see the Pentagon request as an effort to do an end-run around the authority of the new director of national intelligence, Ambassador John D. Negroponte.
They are concerned that the Pentagon "may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress” by creating “parallel functions to what is going on in intelligence, but is calling it something else,” according to Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Hoekstra said he believed the proposed activities were designed to "obscure" the Pentagon's intelligence activities in order to keep them out of Mr. Negroponte's jurisdiction.
In the 1970s, Army intelligence agents were caught snooping on antiwar
protesters. Since then, military intelligence agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States.
But this week, U.S. network television news displayed a DOD dossier purportedly showing that the military was already carrying out surveillance and risk assessments of peaceful antiwar protests in the U.S. The documents listed the license plate numbers of people attending antiwar rallies, and categorized the rallies as a “threat”.
The new provision would exempt the DOD from complying with the Privacy Act that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and why they want the information.
A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intelligence agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government. "Current counterterrorism operations," the report claims, require "greater latitude ... both overseas and within the United States."
DIA officials say they need the provision in order to question American businesspersons and college students who travel abroad.
But the provision will also be helpful in investigating suspected terrorist threats to military bases and contractors inside the United States, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Watchdog groups see the DOD’s proposals as "mission creep”. According to Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," adding, "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night." The Center is frequently critical of the war on terror
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
HOW DO AMERICANS FEEL ABOUT TORTURE?
By William Fisher
As the battle between the White House and a leading Republic Senator over U.S. policies for treating terrorist suspects appears to be headed toward a showdown, recent polling data suggests that the American people are ambivalent on the issue of torture.
Results of some recent surveys of American adults nationwide show that a sizable majority thinks torture of alleged terrorist prisoners is often or sometimes justified, while other polls find that people think the practice is rarely or never justified.
In one poll, however, respondents added a caveat to their vote – 58% would be willing to permit torture if it yielded information that thwarted a major terrorist attack on the U.S.
The issue of prisoner treatment hit front pages worldwide with release of the photographs of American military personnel mistreating detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Since then, there have been numerous allegations of similar or worse prisoner treatment in other U.S.-run prisons, including the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
As a result, Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and Vietnam-era prisoner of war, has introduced legislation that would ban cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners by the U.S. military, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and private contractors.
McCain has been locked in a struggle over the measure with the Bush Administration, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, who has demanded an exemption for the CIA.
But the Senate vote approving the measure was passed 90-9 on a bipartisan basis, despite the administration’s threat to veto it. However, a veto would be difficult for the President, since the McCain measure is attached to a “must-pass” defense department spending bill that provides funding for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill is likely to come to a Senate vote before legislators depart for their Christmas break.
One of the polls, conducted by the Pew Research Center, found in a survey of 2,006 people in the general public, 46 percent believe that torturing terror suspects to gain important information is sometimes (31 percent) or often (15 percent) justified while 17 percent thought it is rarely justified and 32 percent were opposed.
But two others produced different results. A CNN / USA Today poll reported that 56% of respondents would be unwilling to permit torture of prisoners, with 38% willing. And Newsweek Magazine’s poll found that 66% of respondents said torture should be used never (33%) or rarely (33%).
The Pew survey also found a pronounced divide between attitudes of the general public and those of more influential Americans. Of the 520 opinion leaders -- academics, news media leaders, military and foreign-affairs experts, religious leaders and scientists – polled on the same issue, no more than one in four believes that torture of terrorist suspects can be sometimes or often justified.
Pew reported that strong opposition to torture is particularly pronounced among security experts, religious leaders and academics, majorities of whom say the use of torture to gain important information is never justified. Nearly half (48%) of scientists and engineers also take this position, as do military leaders (49%), the Pew survey found.
But while opinion leaders largely agree in opposing the use of torture, their views widely differ as to who should be held responsible for prisoner abuse in Iraq and alleged prisoner abuse in the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
By more than three-to-one (75%-21%) scientists and engineers say that these abuses were mostly the result of official policies. A majority of security (57%) and foreign affairs experts (58%) agree, along with about half of academics (53%) and news media leaders (53%). But most military (60%) and religious (67%) leaders believe cases of prisoner mistreatment were mostly the result of misconduct on the part of soldiers and contractors.
Pew added, “The American public is far more open than opinion leaders to the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information. Nearly half of the public (46%) says this can be ‘often’ (15%) or ‘sometimes’ (31%) be justified. This is consistent with results of Pew surveys since July 2004.”
The Pew poll found that "The general public is divided over this question - 48 percent believe soldiers and contractors are to blame, while 36 percent blame official policies," the report said.
But another poll, conducted by Harris Interactive among American adults nationwide, found that among the 66 percent of adults who believe that prisoners captured in Iraq and Afghanistan were tortured, a 41 percent plurality feels that those in command are most responsible followed by the soldiers (30%), the Administration (13%) and the Pentagon (10%).
In the Newsweek poll, while a majority of respondents (66%) rejected torture, 58% said they would change their vote if torture could prevent a major terrorist attack on the U.S.
In the same poll, 73% of respondents said the torture issue had damaged America’s image abroad ‘a lot’ (39%) or ‘somewhat’ (34%).
Some of the polling was done contemporaneously with disclosure by the Washington Post newspaper that the U.S. had kidnapped prisoners and taken them to secret prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
On her recent visit to Europe, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such prisons, but insisted that torture was against both U.S. law and policy.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 55% of respondents felt the U.S. had ‘taken the right course’ in holding detainees in such prisons, as opposed to 30%, who felt the government had ‘gone too far’.
Adding fuel to the prisoner treatment issue are allegations that torture and inhuman treatment persist. Most recently, five members of an elite U.S. Army Ranger unit in Iraq were charged with kicking and punching detainees while awaiting movement to a detention facility.
At least 108 people have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them violently, according to government data provided to The Associated Press. Roughly a quarter of those deaths have been investigated as possible abuse by U.S. personnel. There have been 21 homicides.
The torture issue has drawn strong criticism from human rights groups. Typical is John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. Sifton told IPS, "The Bush administration continues to believe that by invoking the word 'terror' it can detain anyone in any corner of the world without any oversight," he said. "Yet all these cases do is suggest that the United States has no commitment to legal principles. Turning your back on the law is not the way to stop terrorism."
The Harris poll was conducted in April 2005, the Pew poll in September and October, and others in mid-November
As the battle between the White House and a leading Republic Senator over U.S. policies for treating terrorist suspects appears to be headed toward a showdown, recent polling data suggests that the American people are ambivalent on the issue of torture.
Results of some recent surveys of American adults nationwide show that a sizable majority thinks torture of alleged terrorist prisoners is often or sometimes justified, while other polls find that people think the practice is rarely or never justified.
In one poll, however, respondents added a caveat to their vote – 58% would be willing to permit torture if it yielded information that thwarted a major terrorist attack on the U.S.
The issue of prisoner treatment hit front pages worldwide with release of the photographs of American military personnel mistreating detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Since then, there have been numerous allegations of similar or worse prisoner treatment in other U.S.-run prisons, including the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
As a result, Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and Vietnam-era prisoner of war, has introduced legislation that would ban cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners by the U.S. military, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and private contractors.
McCain has been locked in a struggle over the measure with the Bush Administration, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, who has demanded an exemption for the CIA.
But the Senate vote approving the measure was passed 90-9 on a bipartisan basis, despite the administration’s threat to veto it. However, a veto would be difficult for the President, since the McCain measure is attached to a “must-pass” defense department spending bill that provides funding for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill is likely to come to a Senate vote before legislators depart for their Christmas break.
One of the polls, conducted by the Pew Research Center, found in a survey of 2,006 people in the general public, 46 percent believe that torturing terror suspects to gain important information is sometimes (31 percent) or often (15 percent) justified while 17 percent thought it is rarely justified and 32 percent were opposed.
But two others produced different results. A CNN / USA Today poll reported that 56% of respondents would be unwilling to permit torture of prisoners, with 38% willing. And Newsweek Magazine’s poll found that 66% of respondents said torture should be used never (33%) or rarely (33%).
The Pew survey also found a pronounced divide between attitudes of the general public and those of more influential Americans. Of the 520 opinion leaders -- academics, news media leaders, military and foreign-affairs experts, religious leaders and scientists – polled on the same issue, no more than one in four believes that torture of terrorist suspects can be sometimes or often justified.
Pew reported that strong opposition to torture is particularly pronounced among security experts, religious leaders and academics, majorities of whom say the use of torture to gain important information is never justified. Nearly half (48%) of scientists and engineers also take this position, as do military leaders (49%), the Pew survey found.
But while opinion leaders largely agree in opposing the use of torture, their views widely differ as to who should be held responsible for prisoner abuse in Iraq and alleged prisoner abuse in the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
By more than three-to-one (75%-21%) scientists and engineers say that these abuses were mostly the result of official policies. A majority of security (57%) and foreign affairs experts (58%) agree, along with about half of academics (53%) and news media leaders (53%). But most military (60%) and religious (67%) leaders believe cases of prisoner mistreatment were mostly the result of misconduct on the part of soldiers and contractors.
Pew added, “The American public is far more open than opinion leaders to the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information. Nearly half of the public (46%) says this can be ‘often’ (15%) or ‘sometimes’ (31%) be justified. This is consistent with results of Pew surveys since July 2004.”
The Pew poll found that "The general public is divided over this question - 48 percent believe soldiers and contractors are to blame, while 36 percent blame official policies," the report said.
But another poll, conducted by Harris Interactive among American adults nationwide, found that among the 66 percent of adults who believe that prisoners captured in Iraq and Afghanistan were tortured, a 41 percent plurality feels that those in command are most responsible followed by the soldiers (30%), the Administration (13%) and the Pentagon (10%).
In the Newsweek poll, while a majority of respondents (66%) rejected torture, 58% said they would change their vote if torture could prevent a major terrorist attack on the U.S.
In the same poll, 73% of respondents said the torture issue had damaged America’s image abroad ‘a lot’ (39%) or ‘somewhat’ (34%).
Some of the polling was done contemporaneously with disclosure by the Washington Post newspaper that the U.S. had kidnapped prisoners and taken them to secret prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
On her recent visit to Europe, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice would neither confirm nor deny the existence of such prisons, but insisted that torture was against both U.S. law and policy.
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 55% of respondents felt the U.S. had ‘taken the right course’ in holding detainees in such prisons, as opposed to 30%, who felt the government had ‘gone too far’.
Adding fuel to the prisoner treatment issue are allegations that torture and inhuman treatment persist. Most recently, five members of an elite U.S. Army Ranger unit in Iraq were charged with kicking and punching detainees while awaiting movement to a detention facility.
At least 108 people have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them violently, according to government data provided to The Associated Press. Roughly a quarter of those deaths have been investigated as possible abuse by U.S. personnel. There have been 21 homicides.
The torture issue has drawn strong criticism from human rights groups. Typical is John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. Sifton told IPS, "The Bush administration continues to believe that by invoking the word 'terror' it can detain anyone in any corner of the world without any oversight," he said. "Yet all these cases do is suggest that the United States has no commitment to legal principles. Turning your back on the law is not the way to stop terrorism."
The Harris poll was conducted in April 2005, the Pew poll in September and October, and others in mid-November
WINK, WINK, NOD, NOD
By William Fisher
Washington’s characterization of Egypt’s recent parliamentary election as another important step on the road to democracy is trumped only by President Hosni Mubarak’s cynical demand for a review of the election’s widespread violence and voter disenfranchisement.
Like the aging ruler had no knowledge of why at least ten people were killed and scores more injured during the monthlong election or why police cordoned off many polling stations to prevent people from voting.
Just to remind you, the violence flared after Egypt's banned Islamic movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, won 88 seats compared to the 15 it held in the outgoing 454-member parliament. This happened despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is banned from participating in elections, and its candidates are obliged to run as ‘independents’.
Egyptian authorities say the security measures were taken to enable Egyptians to vote in an orderly manner. Right! The police brutality had nothing to do with trying to prevent the Brotherhood from making even larger gains.
“The elections, with their negative and positive aspects, will be a matter of intensive study by all parties to derive lessons to develop future party and democratic actions,'' Mubarak's spokesman, Suleiman Awwad, quoted the president as telling the lawmakers.
“Negative aspects should be answered strongly so that they will not be repeated.''
Study by whom? Mubarak’s National Democratic Party? The state-controlled media? Not likely. The United States? The United Nations? When pigs fly!
As always, the de-construction of this election will fall to local and international NGOs who monitor bad governance and abuses of human rights. And, if past is prologue, their reports will attract little press attention anywhere.
Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for a quarter of a century, took his first ‘significant’ step toward democracy by introducing an amendment to the country’s constitution. That measure purported to allow multiple candidates to run against him for the presidency for the first time.
Then came the fine print. The amendment placed severe restrictions on, for example, political parties that would be recognized as ‘legal’ by the government.
That eliminated a lot of the opposition.
Then the government proceeded with what almost everyone agrees were trumped-up charges against Ayman Nour, head of a leading opposition party. Mr. Nour is now on trial for forging signatures on his party’s registration documents, even though his principal accuser has recanted this claim, which he now says was obtained under police duress.
President Bush and his fans may acknowledge that the amendment and the presidential and parliamentary elections were flawed, but that the mere fact that they took place at all represents progress on the road to democratic rule.
They will also imply that none of this good news would have happened without George W. Bush’s call for the democratization of the greater Middle East.
We don’t really know how much impact the Bush doctrine had on the electoral process in Egypt or anywhere else.
What we do know is that, given the enormous largesse the U.S. has doled out to Egypt over the past quarter-century – currently some $2 billion a year – America had more than enough leverage to do much more diplomatically to ensure that Egypt’s first baby steps toward representative government were something better than the political theater of the absurd.
But the Bush Administration values Egypt far more as an ally in its Global War on Terror than as a partner in its Global War for Democracy.
And that excuses even the absurd.
Washington’s characterization of Egypt’s recent parliamentary election as another important step on the road to democracy is trumped only by President Hosni Mubarak’s cynical demand for a review of the election’s widespread violence and voter disenfranchisement.
Like the aging ruler had no knowledge of why at least ten people were killed and scores more injured during the monthlong election or why police cordoned off many polling stations to prevent people from voting.
Just to remind you, the violence flared after Egypt's banned Islamic movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, won 88 seats compared to the 15 it held in the outgoing 454-member parliament. This happened despite the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is banned from participating in elections, and its candidates are obliged to run as ‘independents’.
Egyptian authorities say the security measures were taken to enable Egyptians to vote in an orderly manner. Right! The police brutality had nothing to do with trying to prevent the Brotherhood from making even larger gains.
“The elections, with their negative and positive aspects, will be a matter of intensive study by all parties to derive lessons to develop future party and democratic actions,'' Mubarak's spokesman, Suleiman Awwad, quoted the president as telling the lawmakers.
“Negative aspects should be answered strongly so that they will not be repeated.''
Study by whom? Mubarak’s National Democratic Party? The state-controlled media? Not likely. The United States? The United Nations? When pigs fly!
As always, the de-construction of this election will fall to local and international NGOs who monitor bad governance and abuses of human rights. And, if past is prologue, their reports will attract little press attention anywhere.
Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for a quarter of a century, took his first ‘significant’ step toward democracy by introducing an amendment to the country’s constitution. That measure purported to allow multiple candidates to run against him for the presidency for the first time.
Then came the fine print. The amendment placed severe restrictions on, for example, political parties that would be recognized as ‘legal’ by the government.
That eliminated a lot of the opposition.
Then the government proceeded with what almost everyone agrees were trumped-up charges against Ayman Nour, head of a leading opposition party. Mr. Nour is now on trial for forging signatures on his party’s registration documents, even though his principal accuser has recanted this claim, which he now says was obtained under police duress.
President Bush and his fans may acknowledge that the amendment and the presidential and parliamentary elections were flawed, but that the mere fact that they took place at all represents progress on the road to democratic rule.
They will also imply that none of this good news would have happened without George W. Bush’s call for the democratization of the greater Middle East.
We don’t really know how much impact the Bush doctrine had on the electoral process in Egypt or anywhere else.
What we do know is that, given the enormous largesse the U.S. has doled out to Egypt over the past quarter-century – currently some $2 billion a year – America had more than enough leverage to do much more diplomatically to ensure that Egypt’s first baby steps toward representative government were something better than the political theater of the absurd.
But the Bush Administration values Egypt far more as an ally in its Global War on Terror than as a partner in its Global War for Democracy.
And that excuses even the absurd.
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