Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Miraj at Baghdad Chronicles wrote a post a few days ago lamenting the frustration the Iraqis feel in George W Bush’s Iraq. Her posts are often raw but always genuine. They chronicle the frustration that ordinary Iraqis feel day in and day out. In response to her post, an American commenter wrote the following:

Bush does have the support of the majority of Americans and so do you. Iraq has been given a great gift. Far greater than you seem to realize in your focus on short-term "facts" which are really distortions. Someday, you or your children will have the opportunity of a far better life than you had under Sadaam. Even if you don’t deserve it.

I am so glad that we Americans are giving the Iraqis this "gift" even though they "don’t deserve it." Apparently freedom is the Almighty’s gift to mankind. Therefore the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis are sending them to the Almighty so that they can receive their "gifts". How fucking arrogant. How fucking ridiculous.

I am now going to go and vomit.

"Even assuming that Hamden is a dangerous individual who would cause great harm or death to innocent civilians given the opportunity, the Executive nevertheless must comply with the prevailing rule of law in undertaking to try him and subject him to criminal punishment. " - Justice John Paul Stevens writing the majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et. al.

The United States Supreme Court today rejected the Bush Administration’s contention that it could ignore the United States Constitution and laws and set up kangaroo courts in which to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The Court rejected the argument that the Congress had stripped its jurisdiction by enacting the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. The Court also held that the Executive Branch must obey the law of war, the Geneva Conventions (including Common Article 3), and the UCMJ. In short, the Court held that the President is not above the law, even in a time of war.

By holding that the President must obey the laws, Justice Stevens took a giant bite out of the Unitary Executive theory that the Bush Administration loves and cherishes so much.  In rather short order, the legal arguments put forth by John Yoo justifying torture now begin to crumble. The Court’s holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions binds the actions of the Executive nullifies the argument used by this Administration to exclude parts of Article 3 from the latest Army Field Manual on interrogation. A house of cards built on the fantasy of an unchecked ruler has crumbled today upon colliding with the United States Constitution.

The Bush Administration’s arguments for Executive overreach have never had firm legal grounding. Their grounding has been based on fear and fanaticism. The debate has always been between fanaticism and reason. Today reason won a temporary reprieve. But the fanatics are still in charge of the Ship of State. The Administration’s principal premise, whether it is to justify torture or to justify indefinite detention, has been that the people we are holding are bad, evil, horrible. Therefore, anything we do to them is justified. Every overreaching act of the Bush Administration has been predicated on that fundamental premise.

The Bush Administration tortures a prisoner because it assumes a priori that the prisoner is a terrorist. Therefore, to extract valuable intelligence that might save lives the Administration must torture the terrorist. The bush Administration detains a prisoner indefinitely because it assumes a priori that the prisoner is a terrorist. Therefore, to protect the safety of all Americans the Administration must detain the terrorist indefinitely.

This underlying premise that all we hold are terrorists has emotional appeal to supporters of the Bush Administration and many Americans who are terrified of an unseen and unpredictable enemy. The Administration knows this and never misses an opportunity to perpetuate this notion:

“The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people.”

“I mean, these are terrorists for the most part. These are people that were captured in the battlefield of Afghanistan or rounded up as part of the al Qaeda network."

”We’ve already screened the detainees there and released a number, sent them back to their home countries. But what’s left is hard core.”  - Vice President Dick Cheney, June 2005

The Administration’s supporters duly follow this line that everyone at Guantanamo Bay and everyone the United States tortures is a terrorist. However, there is plenty of evidence that this is not the case. Many prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were sold to the Americans by enterprising Pakistanis and Afghanis for hefty fees. A large number of these detainees were later found to be innocent and some have been released. There are others at Guantanamo, like Abdur Sayed Rahman and Muhibullah, who are being held there for reasons that defy sanity:

But there are many more, it seems, who sound like Abdur Sayed Rahman, a self-described Pakistani villager who says he was arrested at his modest home in January 2002, flown off to Afghanistan and later accused of being the deputy foreign minister of that country’s deposed Taliban regime.

"I am only a chicken farmer in Pakistan," he protested to American military officers at Guantánamo. "My name is Abdur Sayed Rahman. Abdur Zahid Rahman was the deputy foreign minister of the Taliban."

…

At one review hearing last year, an Afghan referred to by the single name Muhibullah denied accusations that he was either the former Taliban governor of Shibarghan Province or had worked for the governor. The solution to his case should have been simple, Mr. Muhibullah suggested to the three American officers reviewing his case: They should contact the Shibarghan governor and ask him.

But the presiding Marine Corps colonel said it was really up to the detainee to try to contact the governor. Assuming that the annual review board denied his petition for freedom, noted the officer, whose name was censored from the document, Mr. Muhibullah would have a year to do so.

"How do I find the governor of Shibarghan or anybody?" the detainee asked.

"Write to them," the presiding officer responded. "We know that it is difficult but you need to do your best."

"I appreciate your suggestion, but it is not that easy," Mr. Muhibullah said.

The Bush Administration not only detains people without charge who are not terrorists they have also kidnapped and tortured people who are not terrorists. By not following the laws or international Conventions, the Bush Administration has denied itself the tools to determine who is truly a terrorist and who is being unjustly held and tortured. But, based on their principal premise, the distinction between guilt and innocence need not be made.

Having lost the legal fight it remains to be seen if the Bush Administration will be able to stoke the flames of fear enough to convince the American people to look the other way as it continues to torture and detain "terrorists". The Supreme Court has spoken; will the President listen?

I have largely ignored the New York Times report about the Bush Administration’s tracking of international banking transactions. I have done so mainly because this is a non-story. Almost everyone with a pulse had to assume that the Government was monitoring the highly regulated world of international banking. It would be monumentally stupid to assume that financial transactions that are so tightly regulated would not be monitored. So, it came as quite a surprise when the Bush Administration started to accuse the New York Times of divulging secrets that the rest of the world already knew.

As Dan Froomkin pointed out in today’s Washington Post, the "double super secret" organization that the New York Times mentioned in its article is not so secret. SWIFT, or the Society for Worldwide InterBank Financial Telecommunication, is a very public organization that facilitates international bank-to-bank communications. According to its very public website:

SWIFT is the financial industry-owned co-operative supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to 7,800 financial institutions in more than 200 countries. SWIFT’s worldwide community includes banks, broker/dealers and investment managers, as well as their market infrastructures in payments, securities, treasury and trade.

So, it is quite clear that SWIFT is not a "secret" organization. SWIFT also claims on its website that it cooperates with law enforcement, including the US Department of Treasury, to prevent illegal acts and it complies with valid subpoenas. However, tonight on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, terrorism analyst Roger Cressey suggested that though SWIFT may have had a website, it was not widely publicized until the New York Times splashed it across its front page. So, I decided to take a look at how well-known SWIFT was before the New York Times published its article.

Since I am originally from Bangladesh, and Bangladesh is a Third World Muslim majority country, I thought a good place to start would be to find out if an ordinary Bangladeshi might be familiar with SWIFT. With that in mind, I decided to take a look at what a Bangladeshi might have to do if he or she wanted to send money back home. A reasonable place to start would be the Bangladeshi Embassy. It turns out that the Embassy offers its citizens advice on how to remit funds to Bangladesh through participating American banks. It also lists the participating banks’ SWIFT Codes to facilitate the wire transfers. For example, if you wanted to use the Bank of New York to wire money to Bangladesh you would contact the bank at:

Bank of New York
Head Office: One Wall Street, New York, NY 10286, USA
Tel:+ 1212 495 1784, Fax:+1 212 635 1799
E-mail: comments@bankofuy.com SWIFT: IRVTUS3N

Clearly, a Bangladeshi national abroad will become familiar with SWIFT if he tries to wire money home.

But, what about Bangladeshis living in Bangladesh? It turns out that SWIFT is quite the marketing tool in Bangladesh. Banks regularly tout their membership in SWIFT to demonstrate their stability and international connections. For example, the Bangladesh Krishi Bank, which was founded to provide banking services to farmers in Bangladesh, proudly advertises its membership in SWIFT:

Bangladesh Krishi Bank is now a proud member of SWIFT. It is connected with modern international financial tele communication system. L/C advising/transferring and quick transfer of remittances as well as other financial correspondences have become very easy & speedy with the installation of SWIFT.

So, apparently Bangladeshi farmers are also aware of SWIFT.

Ok, so what happens if you are not a Bangladeshi farmer or living abroad. Perhaps you might read a newspaper in Bangladesh and happen to browse the business section of one of the major newspapers, The Daily Star. You might run into an article announcing:

CM Koyes Sami, managing director of The Oriental Bank Limited, has been re-elected chairperson of SWIFT member Group of Bangladesh for the term 2004-2005.

SWIFT is a worldwide community, with head quarter in Belgium, having over 7,500 financial institutions in 199 countries as its members, says a press release.

The guiding principles of SWIFT are to offer the financial services industry a common platform of advanced technology and access to shared solutions through which each member can build its competitive edge.

The organisation is engaged in supplying secure, standardised messaging services and interface software to its members.

The SWIFT community includes commercial banks, investment managers, as well as other market infrastructures requiring payments, and transferring securities, treasury and trade.

The fact of the matter is that SWIFT is ubiquitous in the Third World and known to anyone who attempts to transfer money overseas. If you want to do business with a Bangladeshi company and would like to transfer funds, you must know the company’s bank account number and the bank’s corresponding SWIFT Code. Here is a tariff card of a Bangladeshi company. Feel free to send some money to them.

In case you might be under the impression that Bangladesh might be an exception, here is a link to Nepal’s tourism website that announces that major banks in Nepal use the SWIFT system to transfer money abroad. My guess is that since most of the Third World seems to know about SWIFT, I would not be going out on a limb if I posited that al Queda also knows about SWIFT.

So, is Tony Snow that stupid? After all, when asked about how national security was compromised by the New York Times he said this at the White House briefing: "I am absolutely sure they didn’t know about SWIFT." Someone should tell Mr. Snow that most of the underdeveloped world knew about SWIFT well before the New York Times published its article. It appears the only people who thought this was a secret were the Bush Administration. The question then becomes: Is the Bush Administration’s intelligence that bad or do they think we are idiots?

Both England and France have advanced into the quarterfinals of the 2006 World Cup on the backs of their respective captains and aging stars. While the young stars of world soccer continue to shine at this year’s World Cup, the old guard still remind us why we love this game and their contributions to it.

In England’s round of 16 match against Ecuador, David Beckham demonstrated why his right foot is considered a national treasure in England. Beckham scored the game winner with a brilliant free kick in the second half. Even though Beckham was sick before the game, he stayed on the pitch throughout the game and struck when it counted. He became dehydrated and vomited on the field during the game. In spite of his distress, he captained England into the quarterfinals. Click here to watch the video of his sublime free kick.

Zinedine Zidane is perhaps the greatest soccer player of our time. He may also be one of the greatest of all time. He is a master on the ball and his passing and dribbling are nothing short of art. On top of all that, he is a magnificent goal scorer. Zidane has said that he will retire after this World Cup. With that in mind, I watched today’s round of 16 match between France and Spain. France prevailed 3-1 against the Spaniards. France’s second goal came off of Zidane’s free kick and Zidane put the game away with a wonderful solo effort for a third goal with time running out. YouTube does not yet have video of today’s match. So, instead, here are two videos of Zidane’s goals while playing for Real Madrid. In the first video the Irish commentator apparently has an orgasm from watching Zidane score. In the second video, the Spanish commentator wins the prize for the longest rendition of "gooaaaaal" ever captured on tape. Enjoy!

Over the weekend Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki offered a national reconciliation plan to the Iraqi National Assembly. The plan offered to the Assembly was lacking some of the more controversial clauses that were part of an earlier draft. Nonetheless the plan signals the beginning of the end of the American occupation of Iraq.

The Prime Minister’s gambit comes a week after his national security advisor floated the idea of a timetable for an American military withdrawal from Iraq. Maliki’s plan highlights the important cross currents in Iraq that the Bush Administration has thus far failed to appreciate or understand. There are three separate wars raging in Iraq. There is a war between the occupying forces and the Iraqi national resistance; there is a war between the United States and the jihadists; and, finally there is a civil war between the Shia, Sunni and Kurds. The United States is fighting only one of these wars - the war against the jihadists.

Maliki’s reconciliation plan aims to end the war against the occupation only. This is the war the United States has been sleepwalking through in its quest to fight the War on Terror on Iraqi soil. The key elements of the national reconciliation plan that address the occupation are:

• A call for a timetable for the withdrawal of all occupying forces
• Release of all security detainees being held by the occupying forces
• Amnesty for resistance forces but not "terrorists" 

These elements of the reconciliation plan have appeal to all major factions in Iraq with the possible exception of the Jihadist foreign fighters. An American withdrawal will take the oxygen out of the Jihadists’ campaign in Iraq. With the Americans gone, the foreign Jihadists become easy targets for native Iraqis and are likely to be driven out rather quickly. With the American withdrawal, Iraq will cease to be a battleground in the war between the United States and the jihadists; a new battleground will undoubtedly be chosen, but at least Iraq will be spared.

A withdrawal of American forces has been the goal of Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurds from the outset. However, they have had differing agendas on when and how the withdrawal should take place. The Sunni have always resisted the Americans because they understood that the longer the Americans stay in Iraq, the more firmly the majority Shia will consolidate their hold on power.

The Shia have used the American occupation as cover to consolidate power. They have very astutely managed to ride the American occupation without losing their political independence. You will note that the spiritual leader of the Shia, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has never once met with any American official - choosing instead to work through intermediaries to influence events. Having now consolidated power, the Shia are ready to remove the "training wheels" by asking the Americans to leave.

The Kurds are the faction in Iraq who can afford to wait the longest for the Americans to leave. However, make no mistake, they certainly want the Americans to leave. They have used the occupation to quietly position their militias around the city of Kirkuk. However, they have made no attempt to take Kirkuk while the Americans are on the ground in Iraq. The Kurds view Kirkuk, with its vast oil wealth, as the future capital of Kurdistan. They will almost certainly take Kirkuk after an American withdrawal from Iraq.

The release of all security detainees being held by American forces is another plank of the plan to end the occupation. Iraqis view these detainees as the resistance and similar to prisoners of war. Thus, they expect that at the end of hostilities, that is, when the Americans withdraw, these prisoners will be released.

The call for amnesty for the Iraqi resistance is perhaps the most controversial element of Maliki’s plan. However, it is a necessary condition for the Iraqis. The earlier draft of the plan made a distinction between "resistance" and "terrorists". This is a crucial distinction for the Iraqis. But the definition of "terrorist" is not the same in Baghdad as it is in Washington. It is clear to the Iraqis that the "resistance" is any Iraqi engaged in attacking American soldiers. To Washington, what Iraqis call the "resistance" are "terrorists". However, when Maliki or the Shia ruling alliance call someone a "terrorist" they are referring to both foreign Jihadists and Sunnis who are engaged in sectarian violence against the Shia. Washington makes no such distinction when it comes to "terrorist"; in Washington, everyone involved in violence in Iraq is a terrorist. When Maliki’s plan calls for offering amnesty to the "resistance" he is aiming to end the occupation, not the civil war. This is an important distinction that the Bush Administration and much of the American press fail to understand.

The American occupation of Iraq was always destined to end. Whether President Bush chooses to "cut and run" or leave at the request of the Iraqis, the occupation by its very nature was always time limited. The Iraqis have always known it. The only unknown was how much havoc it was going to cause Iraqi society. Unfortunately, the more intractable conflict will continue to rage. That is the civil war between the three main factions in Iraq. There is little indication that the civil war is going to subside any time in the future. All indications are that it continues to rage and is likely to get worse. Maliki’s plan, even if it is implemented, will do very little to quell the civil war. The tensions that have been unleashed by the American invasion of Iraq are now set to play themselves out. That tension, manifested in the current Iraqi civil war, has the potential of becoming a regional conflict. If that happens, the legacy of George W Bush will not only be a failed invasion of Iraq but also a destabilization of the entire region.

This morning I attended a teach-in at the Georgetown University Law Center on Torture and Extraordinary Rendition. The panelists discussed the issue of torture, current torture cases, and pending legislation that will attempt to stop the Bush Administration from torturing. There were many legal, constitutional, and practical arguments put forth as to why torture should not be practiced. However, one argument stood out amongst all the rest. That argument was made by Nora Mislem - a woman, a mother, a torture survivor. In this post I want to tell you her story as best as I can convey with written words. Her story is her argument against torture.

Nora Mislem is from Honduras. In the early 1980s she was amongst a group of leftist students in Honduras who went to the Salvadoran border to assist refugees fleeing El Salvador. During this time the Honduran government was running CIA backed death squads to crush and terrorize the opposition. The Reagan Administration, in its proxy war against Marxist guerrillas in Central America, was training and supporting ruthless regimes in Honduras and other neighboring countries. In Honduras, the most notorious acts of murder and torture were being carried out by a CIA trained unit called Battalion 316. In 1981 and again in 1982 Nora Mislem was kidnapped by men from Battalion 316.

Under the custody of Battalion 316, Nora Mislem suffered torture like countless other victims. I sat silent today in the auditorium as she recounted in Spanish what horrors her torturers inflicted upon her. Every once in a while she paused as her translator, Sister Maureen from Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, described in English the horrors we knew she had spoken in her native tongue. In the next few sentences I will recount what I heard. But when I write them they will sound to the reader like many other tales of torture I am sure you have heard about. However, when I heard them today from her they were neither banal nor distant. They were the words of a human being who had suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of monsters who continue to live among us.

Nora Mislem was tied up and hooded. She was handcuffed and tied with rubber tubing. She was told that her two-year-old son had been killed by the death squads in retaliation. She was told that soon her parents too would be killed. She was beaten. She was given electric shock all over her body including her genitals. A plastic bag was brought out. A machete was put to her head. She was told she was a dog. She was told her head would be cut off and put in the plastic bag for other dogs to eat. She was told that her genitals would be mutilated. She was repeatedly violated by her male torturers. Then without hope, she was released to live with the physical and emotional scars forever.

I asked her afterwards why she thinks she was tortured, what did her torturers hope to gain by torturing her? She said to me that she believes that she was tortured to instill fear and terror in the population. Others who dared to speak out against the government would face a similar fate. Her torture was an act of terrorism, not a method of interrogation. The purpose was to intimidate and humiliate. Ultimately she was tortured because the torturers had the freedom to torture without facing any consequences.

Nora Mislem’s story is not unique. Unfortunately she is one of many thousands of women, mothers, daughters, sisters and human beings around the world who carry the scars of torture with them every day of their lives. Her story is the story of torture. The Bush Administration has now made all Americans characters in the story of torture.

One of the participants at today’s teach-in made the point that the wrong discussion to have is whether torture as an interrogation technique works or not. That is irrelevant. Torture should not be allowed because it makes monsters of the torturers. When the Bush Administration decided that torture was acceptable, it dehumanized the Americans who are charged with practicing it. It dehumanized us as a people. In the 1980s the United States turned a blind eye when our allies practiced torture - today we have imported the practice and made it our own. Is this the nation we want to be?

Tomorrow, June 26th, has been designated by the United Nations as the International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture. There will be many events marking the day. After the events are over, many of us will move on with our lives. Occasionally we will rise in opposition to torture and hope our efforts will some day end this evil practice. In time Nora Mislem’s story will likely fade from our memories. However, for Mrs. Mislem and other survivors, torture is a lifelong tragedy. For her and for the thousands of others who continue to suffer torture we as a nation need to become human again. 

Events in Washington DC marking the 9th Annual U.N. International Day in Support of Survivors and Victims of Torture:

• Beginning Monday, June 26th at 7 a.m., TASSC will hold a 24-hour Vigil in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. Click here for the schedule. I plan on being there in the evening.
• Amnesty International USA will lobby Congress tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to stop extraordinary rendition.

On Friday, while the Attorney General of the United States was preparing to announce the indictments of seven alleged terrorists in Miami, where was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff? Of course, you say, he was engaged on the issue of terrorism and busy working hard for the American people. Well, not really. On the day the United States accused seven men of attempting to carry out the biggest terrorist act against the homeland since 9/11, Secretary Chertoff found it appropriate to attend a panel at the Heritage Foundation entitled "’24′ and America’s Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does It Matter?" Secretary Chertoff was joined on the panel by such terrorism experts as the stars, writers and producers of the television show "24", and terrorism expert and moderator Rush Limbaugh.

Secretary Chertoff has a habit of dashing off to conferences during important national security or disaster events. You will recall that the day after Katrina came ashore, the Honorable Michael Chertoff felt that it was more important to go to Atlanta for a conference than to manage the worst natural disaster the United States had experienced in decades. So, unsurprisingly, the Secretary was yet again serving the American public Friday morning by discussing the merits of the television show "24" with actors and producers. The event was deemed so important that such luminaries as Justice Clarence Thomas and Ann Coulter wannabe Laura Ingraham were in attendance.

After Secretary Chertoff finished his speech about what a great show "24" was and how DHS also had some great people who defend this country (without violating the laws!), it was time for Rush Limbaugh to take the moderator’s lectern. In recognition of the esteem that the conservative Heritage Foundation holds for Rush Limbaugh, in 2000 the Foundation awarded Limbaugh its coveted Clara Boothe Luce Award for Limbaugh’s contributions to conservative thought. Clearly, the Heritage Foundation felt that Mr. Limbaugh was well qualified to moderate a panel on terrorism policy consisting of people who make up reality on a regular basis. To emphasize Limbaugh’s stature, Heritage Foundation Executive Vice President Phil Truluck introduced Limbaugh as "a real hero of the conservative movement and a true voice of reason."

Limbaugh began by blaming the "drive-by" media for constraining American interrogation techniques. He wanted to know what "24" taught us about how to act in the ticking time bomb scenario. He was told that in real life the ticking time bomb scenario does not occur and the panelists could not think of one instance in history in which it had occurred. That was the high point of the discussion. A discussion about fiction then became more and more disconnected from reality. The actors and writers protested that "24" was only a television show and not reality, but Limbaugh seemed to find hidden meaning in the "optimistic" plotlines of the show. He found that "24" portrayed America at its best and underscored the need for harsh interrogation techniques. In "24", America always wins in the War on Terror.

According to Limbaugh, the media is largely to blame for the negative impression of America around the world. He found solace and more "reality" in "24" than in real life. That, I have to say, is typical of the reality challenged crowd at the head of this Administration. Finding reality too difficult to cope with and slightly off script, they are content with basking in the fictional successes of shows like "24" in the War against Terror.

The thought that a discussion of a television show was being taken so seriously by conservatives, and the notion that it was more important for the Secretary of Homeland Security to attend this function than work on national security issues, underscores how far astray this Administration and its backers have gone from the thin thread of reality. Ironically, Jack Bauer, the person who most embodies what characters like Limbaugh consider reality, was absent from this gathering of conservatives and fictional characters. Apparently Kiefer Sutherland had more pressing things to do than Michael Chertoff on this particular day.

As part of Torture Awareness Month, Georgetown University in Washington DC will host a teach-in on Extraordinary Rendition and Torture this Sunday, June 25th, 2006. I will be attending. I encourage anyone who lives in the Washington DC area to also attend. The teach-in is free and promises to be informative. As an added bonus, if you can guess who I am I promise to buy you a coffee at the nearest Starbucks.

Click here for the schedule and agenda of the teach-in. I hope to see you there.

Click here to register for the teach-in.

Senator Rick Santorum, together with Congressman Peter Hoekstra, announced today that newly declassified evidence proves the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq after the 2003 Iraq invasion. Senator Santorum went on the Senate floor and touted this "new" information. Finally here was proof that George W Bush’s little adventure in Iraq was not totally pointless.

Senator Santorum’s press release on the subject states in part:

“The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq,” said Senator Santorum. “It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq.”

The following are the six key points contained in the unclassified overview:

• Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.

• Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.

• Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market. Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

• The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

• The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

• It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.

Either Senator Santorum is an idiot or he thinks the American public are idiots - or both. After his stunning revelations it made some sense to go back and review three crucial reports on the subject of Iraq’s WMD. These are:

• The Final Report of the Iraq Survey Group (also known as the Duelfer Report) released on September 30, 2004.
• The Addendums to the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD released in March 2005.
• The Report to the President from the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (also known as the Silberman-Robb Commission) released on March 31, 2005.

Senator Santorum claims that the discovery of pre-1991 chemical weapons munitions proves Iraq had WMD. Here is what Volume III of the Duelfer Report, entitled Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Program, had to say about these munitions in its key findings:

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

• The scale of the Iraqi conventional munitions stockpile, among other factors, precluded an examination of the entire stockpile; however, ISG inspected sites judged most likely associated with possible storage or deployment of chemical weapons.

The Duelfer Report goes on to state:

Disposition of CW Munitions Post-1991

ISG expended considerable time and effort investigating longstanding Iraqi assertions about the fate of CW munitions known to have been in Baghdad’s possession during the Gulf war. We believe the vast majority of these munitions were destroyed, but questions remain concerning hundreds of CW munitions.

Since May 2004, ISG has recovered dozens of additional chemical munitions, including artillery rounds, rockets and a binary Sarin artillery projectile (see Figure 5). In each case, the recovered munitions appear to have been part of the pre-1991 Gulf war stocks, but we can neither determine if the munitions were declared to the UN or if, as required by the UN SCR 687, Iraq attempted to destroy them. (See Annex F.)

• The most significant recovered munitions was a 152mm binary Sarin artillery projectile which insurgents had attempted to use as an improvised explosive device.
• ISG has also recovered 155mm chemical rounds and 122mm artillery rockets which we judge came from abandoned Regime stocks.

…

Iraq Unilateral Weapons Destruction in 1991

Iraq completed the destruction of its pre-1991 stockpile of CW by the end of 1991, with most items destroyed in July of that year. ISG judges that Iraq destroyed almost all prohibited weapons at that time.

• ISG has obtained no evidence that contradicts our assessment that the Iraqis destroyed most of their hidden stockpile, although we recovered a small number of pre-1991 chemical munitions in early to mid 2004.

These remaining pre-1991 weapons either escaped destruction in 1991 or suffered only partial damage. More may be found in the months and years ahead. [Emphasis added by me.]

The March 2005 Addendum to the Duelfer Report lays the findings out even more clearly:

ISG assesses that Iraq and Coalition Forces will continue to discover small numbers of degraded chemical weapons, which the former Regime mislaid or improperly destroyed prior to 1991. ISG believes the bulk of these weapons were likely abandoned, forgotten and lost during the Iran-Iraq war because tens of thousands of CW munitions were forward deployed along frequently and rapidly shifting battlefronts.

• All but two of the chemical weapons discovered since OIF were found in southern Iraq where the majority of CW munitions were used against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
• As the Coalition destroys the thousands of conventional munitions at depots around the country the possibility exists that pre-1991 vintage chemical rounds could be found mixed in with conventional munitions at these locations.
  • ISG identified 43 bunkers and depots where the Coalition is in the process of destroying conventional munitions and that were suspected of being associated with the pre-1991 WMD programs.

However, ISG believes that any remaining chemical munitions in Iraq do not pose a militarily significant threat to Coalition Forces because the agent and munitions are degraded and there are not enough extant weapons to cause mass casualties.

Finally, the Silberman-Robb Commission concluded that Iraq had no chemical weapons capability and what remained were discarded pre-1991 munitions:

The Iraq Survey Group’s findings undermined both the Intelligence Community’s assessments about Iraq’s pre-war CW program and, indeed, the very fundamental assumptions upon which those assessments were based. The ISG concluded–contrary to the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments–that Iraq had actually unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of CW thereafter. Iraq had not regained its pre-1991 CW technical sophistication or production capabilities prior to the war. Further, pre-war concerns of Iraqi plans to use CW if Coalition forces crossed certain defensive "red lines" were groundless; the "red lines" referred to conventional military planning only. Finally, the only CW the Iraq Survey Group recovered were weapons manufactured before the first Gulf War; the ISG concluded that, after 1991, Iraq maintained only small, covert labs to research chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.

…

Overall, although the vast majority of CW munitions had been destroyed, the Iraq Survey Group recognized that questions remained relating to the disposition of hundreds of pre-1991 CW munitions. Still, given that, of the dozens of CW munitions that the ISG discovered, all had been manufactured before 1991, the Intelligence Community’s 2002 assessments that Iraq had restarted its CW program turned out to have been seriously off the mark.

Senator Santorum, it seems, failed to read either the ISG reports or the Silberman-Robb Commission reports. If he had, he would have realized that the "chemical weapons" he is touting are old, ineffective munitions manufactured before 1991 that had been discarded or partially destroyed. Furthermore, these munitions pose no proliferation threat. It should however surprise no one that the Senator would leap to such conclusions. This is exactly the mentality that got us into the Iraq war in the first place. Senator Santorum and the Bush Administration claimed that Iraq had WMD and used any scrap of intelligence to try to justify the case for war. It appears that Senator Santorum has not yet learned the lessons of the Iraq war - that fixing the intelligence around the policy is a dangerous path to follow.

We as a country are being ill served by such ignorant behavior from our Senators and our Congressmen. The only question really is whether Senator Santorum is willfully misleading the public or whether he really is this stupid.

This has got to be one of the dumbest ideas I have seen during this entire Iraq war fiasco. A new American Public Service Announcement is currently in production. The PSA will urge Iraqis not to resort to suicide bombing. At a cost of 1 million dollars this PSA will be broadcast on Iraqi television this summer.

The PSA will feature Matrix like slow motion camera angles and will be slick and high tech. A paragraph from the Newsweek article about the PSA illustrates the buzz:

Onlookers were later asked to stand back as the pyrotechnic crew blew up a poor old Yugo coupe and stunt men and women, padded under their Arab garb, were thrust into the air with ropes and pulleys to simulate the impact of a bomb exploding. "We all watch it on the evening news," says 900 Frames partner Drew Plotkin, "but we’re using a 120-camera set up that was used in films like ‘The Matrix.’ It gives a frozen-in-time feeling. Instead of seeing a flash and ambulances racing to the scene, we’re showing the street right before the attack, during and right after. That will communicate the horror, the carnage, the human toll these attacks take on innocent civilians."

What a colossal waste of a million dollars!

I am wondering how many suicide bombers will watch the PSA and decide that it’s just too terrible and give up on the idea. Is the PSA more realistic than the actual carnage that occurs on a daily basis in Iraq? How many people saw the Matrix movies and decided to give up gunplay? I would venture that those movies may have even made it cool to dress up in black overcoats and shoot people.

I can’t help thinking that our approach to the war in Iraq is very much like this PSA. It’s more about images and the perception of reality than what is actually real. It’s this kind of thinking that makes one believe that a suicide bomber will be dissuaded by an ad telling him that suicide bombing kills people. It’s also this kind of thinking that makes one believe that Iraqis would greet Americans with flowers.

I wonder what the office of Public Diplomacy at the State Department thinks of this PSA. Is this "Good PR"?