Friday, February 19, 2010

Gordon Brown tests the waters . . . and sinks

Gordon Brown is the current Prime Minister of England. He will appear before the Iraq Inquiry shortly (the date has not been publicly released yet). Eddie Barners (The Scotsman) reports:

Speaking to Tribune magazine, the Prime Minister declared that the real issue had not been the danger of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, but the dictator's failure to comply with UN resolutions that demanded he provide full disclosure to weapons inspectors.
This, said Brown, was the reason Britain and America were right to send in the troops.
Mr Brown's words represent a marked change from the government's main rationale for military action in 2003, when it asked MPs to support invasion. The motion, voted on by MPs, declared first and foremost that the UK should send in troops "to ensure the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction".


The comments ring more than a little hollow since Tony Blair sold the illegal war to England with the claims of WMD (specifically, that Iraq could strike the UK with WMD within 45 minutes). Brown may realize how hollow it sounds and may be attempting to publicly craft his testimony -- to test it out before appearing. He's enough trouble in terms of holding onto power and he really can't afford public ridicule but that's all his current idiotic statements invite. It may not be too late for him to save Labour's election chances by announcing his resignation as Prime Minister.

Staying with England, Danny Fitzimons is an Iraq War veteran and suffers from PTSD. In August 2009, he went back to Iraq as an employee of AmrourGroup Inc and is charged in the August 9th shooting deaths of Darren Hoare (Australian contractor), and Paul McGuigan (British contractor) and in the wounding of Iraqi Arkhan Madhi. BBC News reports that his father and step-mother continue to work on getting Danny's trial move to the United Kingdom and quotes Liz Fitsimons stating, "Imagine if it was your son or brother who was facing a death penalty. We are setting our hopes on Danny getting a fair trial, a sentence and he is brought back here." AP reports he was in an Iraqi court yesterday and informed that he needed to appear again April 7th. (To be clear, Danny is being held in an Iraqi prison. He's not wandering through the Green Zone.) Yesterday, Amnesty International issued the following:

Responding to news that Danny Fitzsimons' trial on murder charges in Iraq has been delayed until April, Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
"We've always said that it’s right that private military and security contractors are held fully responsible for any alleged wrongdoing when they're working in places like Iraq, but we’re seriously concerned about this case.
"Iraq has a dreadful record of unfair capital trials and there is a real danger of Danny Fitzsimons being sentenced to death after a shoddy judicial process.
"At the very least we want to see the Iraqi authorities ruling out capital punishment in his case."
Iraq is one of the biggest users of the death penalty in the world and Amnesty recently revealed that Iraq is preparing to execute approximately 900 prisoners, including 17 women.
The 900-plus prisoners have exhausted all their appeals and their death sentences are said to have been ratified by the Presidential Council, meaning that they could be executed at any time. The condemned prisoners have been convicted of offences such as murder and kidnapping, but many are thought to have been sentenced after unfair trials.

There is a petition on Facebook calling for Danny to be tried in the United Kingdom and not in England. Reprieve is raising funds for Danny's defense.

Turning to Iraq where elections are expected to be held March 7th. Alsumaria TV reports that Sadr City residents are complaining that their candidates have not shown to campaign nor have they bothered to "address people's complaints" regarding sewage and garbage issues. Delovan Barwari (Kurdish Herald) reports:

In the last elections, nearly all of the Kurdish political parties, along with a number of Chaldo-Assyrian and Turkmen parties, entered the elections under a banner called the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan (DPAK). DPAK secured 53 of the 275 parliamentary seats, became a key player in Iraqi politics, and allowed Kurds to expand their political influence in Baghdad. As a result of DPAK’s strong showing in the national parliamentary elections, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Secretary General Jalal Talabani, became the first Kurd in Iraq’s history to become president of the country.
However, the political atmosphere in Iraqi Kurdistan has changed quite significantly since then. A new opposition group, known simply as "Change" (or "Gorran" in Kurdish), has emerged in Iraqi Kurdistan as a strong political force. This new group is led by Jalal Talabani’s former deputy, Newshirwan Mustafa. The Change List received enough votes to turn heads, winning the majority of votes in the Sulaymaniyah province and receiving nearly 25% of total votes in the Kurdistan region. Many analysts expect the Change List to have a strong showing in the upcoming Iraqi national elections and, as Kirkuk will also be voting, some believe that the Change List will receive an even greater share of Kurdish votes this time around.
The new political reality in Kurdistan may weaken the Kurdish position in Baghdad as the fundamental source of Kurdish power has been previously fueled by the united stance of the various Kurdish political groups. Today, there are three major Kurdish political lists entering the Iraqi elections independently. The largest of the three remains the bloc led by the President of Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Massoud Barzani, and the current Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (from the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the PUK, respectively), which will be joined once again by a number of smaller Kurdish political parties. The newly-emerged Change List will be the second largest political bloc that is comprised of a number of important players who formerly identified themselves with the PUK. Another noticeable political power is an alliance between the two Islamic parties in Kurdistan, the Islamic Group and the Islamic Union.

Gorran is fueled by US funds and US interests. And it's turnout wasn't remarkable in the provincial elections -- and that's before you consider how many US dollars were poured into funding the 'grassroots' party. AFP reported yesterday that Goran was claiming that Jala Talabani's forces had shot three of their workers -- this was PUK accused, not related to Talabani being the president of Iraq.

Today Reuters reports 1 police officer shot dead in Tal Afar, a Kirkuk roadside bombing injured one person and, dropping back to last night, 1 man shot dead in Mosul.

We'll note this from Debra Sweet's "March 2010: Gather in Washington to Protest the Wars!" (World Can't Wait):

Cindy Sheehan's Peace of the Action begins Camp OUT NOW on Saturday March 13 on the Mall. Peace Actions begin Monday March 22.
Peace of the Action Demands:

* Troops out of the Middle East, which includes drones, permanent bases, contractors and torture/detention facilities.
* Reparations for the peoples of these war torn regions and a fully funded VA system to reintegrate our soldiers healthfully into our society.


National Protests: End the Occupation of Iraq & Afghanistan on Saturday March 20 in Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles

A.N.S.W.E.R.


TV notes. NOW on PBS begins airing Friday on most PBS stations (check local listings):

From the raucous tea party rallies to the painful sacrifices families
are making behind closed doors, voter angst and anger are sweeping the
country like a storm. Directly in its path: the 2010 midterm elections.
On February 19 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW examines the
strong impact this groundswell has already had on electoral politics,
and what we can expect in November. Our investigation uncovers what
motivates people who've come together under the tea party banner, and how a larger dissatisfaction among voters spells trouble for incumbents
in both parties, some of whom have decided to avert the storm by leaving Congress altogether.


Staying with TV notes, Washington Week begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (and throughout the weekend, check local listings) and joining Gwen around the table this week are Gloria Borger (CNN), Jackie Calmes (New York Times), Eamon Javers (Politico) and Alexis Simendinger (National Journal). Two things on Washington Week, first a PBS friend asked me to note that the website has been redesigned again and that they will be featuring many moments of past moments where the show weighed in on historic moments. (Ronald Reagan being sworn in -- the roundtable on that -- is currently offered.) So be sure to check out the website and it's new look and design (and remember the new show won't be posted online until Monday afternoon -- however, if you podcast, you will be able to download it no later than Saturday). Second, look at the line up. It would be great to say that they've had three female guests and one male guest many times before. They haven't. They have, however, had three male to one female. I've repeatedly stated that the chat & chew shows book like 'hot' radio programmed well into the 80s -- limiting women. (As late as 1985, Whitney Houston and other women suffered because many radio stations refused to play two women in a row. They'd play whole blocks of songs with male vocals but they just knew, JUST KNEW, two women in a row would run off listeners. Turns out it wasn't the listeners that were running scared, it was the programmers.) Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Bernadine Healy, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Nicole Kurakowa and Irene Natividad to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes:

Blackwater 61
"Blackwater 61" is the call sign of a plane flown by the embattled government contractor Blackwater that crashed into a mountain in Afghanistan killing all onboard. The widow of one of the soldiers killed - a pilot herself - says the firm was negligent in the way it operated the flight. Steve Kroft reports.

The Bloom Box
Large corporations in California have been secretly testing a new device that can generate power on the spot, without being connected to the electric grid. They're saying it's efficient, clean, and saves them money. Will we have one in every home someday? Lesley Stahl reports.

Ground Zero
It's been eight years since the attack on the World Trade Center and billions of dollars have been spent, yet none of the promised buildings and memorial has been completed in what its developer calls "a national disgrace." Scott Pelley reports. | Watch Video

60 Minutes, Sunday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Radio notes, The Diane Rehm Show begins airing live at 10:00 a.m. EST on most NPR stations and streaming live online. For the first hour (domestic hour), Diane's guests are Melinda Henneberger (Politics Daily), Susan Page (USA Today) and Jerry Seib (Wall St. Journal). The second hour (international round up) features Karen DeYoung (Washington Post), James Kitfield (National Journal) and Moises Naim (Foreign Policy). Remember that the show is archived online (you can listen for free) and you can also subscribe to the podcast.

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VA, Stop-Loss, Oil profiteering

Eastern Jackson County, MO -- Three Independence soldiers help make up nearly 170 Missouri National Guard Soldiers deployed to Iraq with the 1139th Military Police Company of Harrisonville.
Soldiers spent 35 days training at Camp Clark for pre-mobilization training that allowed them to learn necessary skills for deployment. They learned how to use a Defense Advanced GPS Receiver for land navigation, the proper technique for removing a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical suit, how to move as a team during urban operations and much more. Soldiers finalized appropriate training for deployment at Fort Dix, N.J., before heading to Iraq.
Spc. Jeffery A. Norris, of Independence, has been with the Missouri Army National Guard for over 19 years and is a military policeman for the 1139th Military Police Company in Harrisonville. He has also served in the active duty Army.

The above is from Rachel Knight's "Local soldiers deploy to Iraq with 1139th MPs" (Independence Examiner) and, yes, the Iraq War continues and, yes, US troops continue to deploy there. KWTX reports on the VA in Waco, Texas plan to employ an additional 100 workers in order to meet claims processing needs (link has video and text including House Rep Chet Edwards and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki speaking). The 100 additional employees will bring to 359 the number of employees the Waco VA will have added in the last two years.

In yesterday's snapshot, we noted the latest on Marc Hall who was attempting to have his court-martial held in the US and not in Iraq but Judge William T. Moore Jr. did not grant his appeal. Dahr Jamail (MidEast Dispatches) reports:

It is believed that Hall is still incarcerated in the Liberty County Jail in Hinesville, Georgia, but it is possible that Hall could already be in Iraq. Neither Hall's attorneys, nor even the military prosecutor, know of Hall's whereabouts.
"Not just the Constitution, but the rules for courts-martial, prohibit prosecutors from holding a court-martial in a combat zone as a pretext for depriving an accused of a public trial, counsel of his choice and necessary witnesses," David Gespass, Hall's civilian attorney and the president of the National Lawyers Guild, said of the Army's decision, "Whatever the Army may claim, that is exactly what the Army is doing to Marc."

UPI covers the latest news here, AllHipHop Daily News here. Meanwhile, remember the silence over the US-based firms that are set to profit from Iraqi oil? A number of right-wingers as well as journalists with feeble minds were insisting, "It wasn't about oil! It had nothing to do with oil! If it did, the US would be getting Iraq fields!" That insane argument required that you believe all companies were nationals (as opposed to multi-nationals), that you weren't aware the prize fields still haven't been auctioned off and that you weren't aware of what oil production entails. Monica Hatcher's "Iraq's oil revival could be a gusher for Houston firms" (Houston Chronicle) will probably be ignored in the same way other reports on how US-based firms are set to profit:

With Iraq poised to begin the first major overhaul of its energy sector in decades, Houston stands to benefit in a big way from the multibillion dollar effort to redevelop the country's battered oil fields, a project one analyst described as the greatest opportunity in the oil patch today.
A 23-member delegation from the country's oil ministry visited Houston this week, meeting with officials of engineering and oil field services companies and other businesses likely to play a major role in the reconstruction efforts.


Valerie Harper is amazing in Looped. The show is now doing Broadway previews. For some reason, Joe Allen decides to weigh in on Tallulah in "Another side of a movie legend" (US Socialist Worker). First off, Tallulah Bankhead (whom Valerie plays so amazingly well) was not a "movie legend." She was a stage legend. Were she a "movie legend," Looped going to Broadway would be news because it would be another film being translated to a Broadway play. It's really sad that Allen can't even mention The Skin of Our Teeth -- let alone any of Tallulah's many successes in London and New York. Yes, after returning from a failed movie career, she stumbled onstage; however, prior to that she was guaranteed ticket sales which is why she was hired so often. Instead, he focuses -- kind-of, sort-of -- on the Little Foxes. And he ends his article with:

The other reason is the mysterious choices that biographers and playwrights make about their subjects, usually based on what they think will be "popular." Sometimes they're right, and other times they're wrong. But either way, it usually means that we never see the complete person.
As a new play about Tallulah Bankhead opens, it's important to remember there was another side to her that is worth knowing.

No, not on what is "popular," on what you can do in the limited time frame. I'm getting damn sick of people who don't know the first thing about a script or a play 'informing' us of how decisions are made. Ally Sheedy has a wonderful moment in The Breakfast Club, a scene of just her, singing a Phil Ochs song and hugging herself. Obviously, that scene was cut because it was too much, right? Wrong. It just didn't fit with the movie and the movie was already too long. Sometimes a banana is just a banana. Tallulah lived a long, long life and there's way too much for any one play. The decisions made on what to include in Looped weren't made in terms of "popular" -- in fact, there are some very 'scandalous' moments in the play.

Furthermore, why is the Socialist Worker writing about Tallulah? And if they're going to be, why don't they do so honestly. Lillian Hellman wrote The Little Foxes. A great play (Bette Davis is amazing in the film directed by William Wyler). Joe Allen wants to talk about that -- and really only that -- but leaves out Hellman and Talluah's conflict. Strange because Lillian couldn't talk about Tallulah without anger long afterwards (I knew Lillian after Tallulah was dead). The two women hated each other. Why didn't Joe Allen include that? Did he not think it was 'popular'?

He may not know. Tallulah was a Democrat. Why is the Socialist Worker writing about her? Her conflict with Lillian was over the USSR and Communism. And Tallulah was strongly anti-communist. Allen writes about how Tallulah didn't have an FBI file. Why would she? She was never suspected of being a Communist which was one of the reasons J. Edgar Hoover would order surveillance. In addition -- and Joe Allen should have known this, Tallulah was very good friends with Hoover.

Again, why did the Socialist Worker write about Tallulah? I have no idea. But she was staunchly anti-Communist. It was the conflict between her and Lillian -- a huge conflict -- that led the two women to loathe one another.


Allen wrote, "The other reason is the mysterious choices that biographers and playwrights make about their subjects, usually based on what they think will be 'popular.' Sometimes they're right, and other times they're wrong. But either way, it usually means that we never see the complete person." Maybe that's a confession? Maybe he's telling us he chose to write what he thought would be "popular" with readers of the Socialist Worker and that's why he left out Tallulah's very public loathing of Communism? I have no idea. I'm writing about it because a friend sent me the article and because Valerie's show Looped has made it to Broadway and she's amazing in it, so see it if you can, you won't feel the evening was wasted. She'll blow you away with her performance. I've seen her performance three times and each time I've been amazed. It's a great piece of theater and Valerie should easily garner a Tony nomination for her performance.

And for the record, I like Joe Allen's writing. But I'm getting really tired of ulterior motives being ascribed to every project by people who don't know better. Community members can put this with my problems with a person who thought you could show up as a movie was being filmed with 'character notes' and everyone would be thrilled, as the movie was being shot, to get your notes on how the characters they had already created should be.

The following community sites updated last night:




Lastly the US Justice Dept. First, they issued the following yesterday:

U.S. Army Contracting Official Charged with Bribery and Related Crimes in Off-Post Housing Scheme

A U.S. Army contracting official was charged today with bribery and unlawful salary supplementation in connection with two schemes to solicit more than $30,000 in bribes from an Egyptian businessman in Kuwait, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia.

William Rondell Collins, 46, of Bartlett, Tenn., was charged today in a four-count indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia, with two counts of soliciting and accepting bribes as a public official and two counts of unlawful salary supplementation from a source other than the U.S. government.

According to the indictment, the U.S. Army Area Support Group-Kuwait (ASG-KU) is responsible for maintaining Camp Arifjan, a U.S. military installation providing support for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations in the Southwest Asian Theater. As part of those responsibilities, the ASG-KU maintains an off-post housing office in downtown Kuwait City, which procures, leases and supervises off-post housing for government employees and military service members stationed at Camp Arifjan. According to the indictment, Collins was employed in the ASG-KU’s off-post housing office as a housing specialist responsible for supervising private contractors and procuring off-post apartment rentals.

The indictment alleges that, in January 2009, a company owned by an Egyptian businessman was awarded a fixed-price U.S. government contract to provide maintenance services for off-post housing managed by Collins and the ASG-KU off-post housing office.

According to the indictment, in July 2009, Collins allegedly solicited a monthly fee of approximately $1,400 from the Egyptian businessman in return for Collins’s agreement to provide favorable and preferential treatment and advice to the Egyptian businessman’s company on the performance and renewal of the contract. Collins also allegedly agreed to conceal from his supervisors the existence and nature of the monthly fee arrangement. According to the indictment, Collins allegedly accepted five $1,400 payments from the Egyptian businessman between July and December 2009.

The indictment also alleges that, between July and December 2009, Collins solicited a monthly payment of approximately $962 from the Egyptian businessman in exchange for drafting and submitting an inflated off-post apartment lease to the United States for approval. According to the indictment, Collins allegedly received approximately $5,775 from the Egyptian businessman on Dec. 13, 2009, representing a six-month advance on the scheme.

The bribery counts each carry a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a fine of the greater of $250,000 or twice the value gained or lost. The unlawful salary supplementation counts each carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of the greater of $250,000 or twice the value gained or lost.

The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve A. Linick, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section; and Fraud Section Trial Attorneys James J. Graham and Ryan S. Faulconer. The investigation is being conducted by the FBI, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Division, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and members of the National Procurement Fraud Task Force and the International Contract Corruption Task Force (ICCTF).

The National Procurement Fraud Task Force, created in October 2006 by the Department of Justice, was designed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention, and prosecution of procurement fraud associated with the increase in government contracting activity for national security and other government programs. The ICCTF is a joint law enforcement agency task force that seeks to detect, investigate, and dismantle corruption and contract fraud resulting from U.S. Overseas Contingency Operations, including in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty at trial beyond a reasonable doubt.

And they issued this on Wednesday:

Former U.S. Military Contractor Pleads Guilty to Bribery and Money Laundering Scheme Related to Defense Department Contracts in Support of Iraqi War
Defendant to Forfeit $15,757,000 to the U.S. Government

Former military contractor Terry Hall, 43, of Snellville, Ga., pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to pay more than $3 million in bribes to U.S. Army contracting officials stationed at Camp Arifjan, an Army base in Kuwait, and to money laundering conspiracy, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.

Terry Hall was indicted on May 6, 2009, along with U.S. Army Major Eddie Pressley, 39, and his wife, Eurica Pressley, 37, both of Harvest, Ala. According to court documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Hall’s companies received approximately $21 million between 2005 and 2007 in connection with contracts his companies received. To obtain the contracting business and facilitate unlawful payments by other contractors, Hall admitted he made more than $3 million in unlawful payments and provided other valuable items and services to U.S. Army contracting officials stationed at Camp Arifjan, including U.S. Army Major Eddie Pressley, and former Majors John Cockerham, James Momon and Christopher Murray, among others.

According to court documents, Hall owned and operated several companies, including Freedom Consulting and Catering Co., (FCC) and Total Government Allegiance (TGA), which provided goods and services to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in connection with Operation Iraqi Freedom. Hall’s companies received a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) to deliver bottled water in Iraq and a contract to construct a security fence in Kuwait.

A BPA is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract by which the DoD agrees to pay a contractor a specified price for a particular good or service. Based on a BPA, the DoD is permitted to order the supplies on an as-needed basis, and the contractor is bound by the price agreed upon in the BPA. The term for this type of order by the DoD is a "call."

The case against Hall arose out of a wide-ranging investigation of corruption at the Camp Arifjan contracting office. To date, eight individuals including Hall have pleaded guilty for their roles in the bribery scheme. On Dec. 2, 2009, former Cockerham was sentenced to 210 months in prison and ordered to pay $9.6 million in restitution. According to court documents, Cockerham arranged for Hall’s companies to receive bottled water calls worth more than $2.6 million, as a result of which Hall paid Cockerham approximately $800,000.

According to court documents, Momon arranged for Hall’s companies to receive bottled water calls worth approximately $6.4 million, as a result of which Hall paid Momon more than $300,000. Momon pleaded guilty on Aug. 13, 2008, to receiving bribes from various contractors at Camp Arifjan, including Hall, and is awaiting sentencing.

Also according to court documents, Murray arranged for Hall to receive contracts to construct security fences at Camp Arifjan, as a result of which Hall paid Murray approximately $30,000. Murray pleaded guilty to receiving bribes from various contractors at Camp Arifjan, including Hall, and making a false statement. He was sentenced on Jan. 8, 2009, to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $245,000 in restitution.

The case against Eddie Pressley and his wife, Eurica Pressley, is scheduled for trial on April 5, 2010. The indictment alleges that the Pressleys received more than $2.8 million in money and other valuable items from Hall, in exchange for Eddie Pressley’s agreement to take official actions to benefit Hall. Eurica Pressley, at her husband’s request, allegedly arranged for an entity named EGP Business Solutions Inc., (EGP) to be incorporated, opened a bank account in the name of EGP, and opened bank accounts in her name in the United States, Dubai, United Arab Emirates and the Cayman Islands, all in order to receive the bribe payments.

The charge of bribery conspiracy carries a maximum prison sentence of five years and a $250,000 fine. The money laundering conspiracy carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and a $250,000 fine. According to the court documents, Hall will forfeit $15,757,000 to the U.S. government.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Peter C. Sprung and Edward J. Loya Jr. of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. The case is being investigated by special agents of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Army Criminal Investigation Command, Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI.

The National Procurement Fraud Task Force, created in October 2006 by the Department of Justice, was designed to promote the early detection, identification, prevention and prosecution of procurement fraud associated with the increase in government contracting activity for national security and other government programs.


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Thursday, February 18, 2010

I Hate The War

Tonight Jake Tapper (ABC News) broke the story that the Iraq War will drop Operation Iraqi Freedom and go by the name Operation New Dawn. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote a memo to CENTCOM's Gen David Petraeus and copied it to Adm Mike Mullen, the Chair of the Joint-Chiefs. [PDF format warning] ABC has posted the memo:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND

SUBJECT: Request to Change the Name of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM to Operation NEW DAWN

The requested operation name change is approved to take effect 1 September 2010, coinciding with the change of mission for U.S. forces in Iraq. Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation IRAQI FREEDOM has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission. It also presents opportunities to synchronize strategic communication initiatives, reinforce our commitment to honor the Security Agreement, and recognize our evolving relationship with the Government of Iraq.

What this reminds me of is a very basic legal move. A client and an attorney appear before a judge so the client can change his or her name. The judge asks if the client is attempting to escape accountability, debts or hide out by changing his/her name? When the answer "no" is given, the judge okays the name change.

Only here, it is to escape accountability and it is to hide out. And, no doubt like many changing their names, the US government wants to pretend it's something else.

Jake Tapper notes objection to the name change (or the attempt to pretend something's changed) by Brian Wise speaking on behalf of Military Families United. He also notes that "Operation New Dawn" was used for the fall 2004 assault on Falluja. Greg Jaffe (Washington Post) adds, "Since U.S. forces charged across the Kuwaiti border toward Baghdad in 2003, the war has been known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The new name is scheduled to take effect in September, when U.S. troop levels are supposed to drop to about 50,000." But that wasn't always it's name, now was it? It was Operation Iraqi Liberation at first. Then it became a joke on the White House because the acronym for Operation Iraqi Liberation is "OIL."

That name was used. For those who doubt it, here's the opening statement of the White House press briefing on March 23, 2003 by Ari Fleischer.

MR. FLEISCHER: Good afternoon. Let me give you a report on the President's day. The President this morning has spoken with three foreign leaders. He began with Prime Minister Blair, where the two discussed the ongoing aspects of Operation Iraqi liberation. The President also spoke with President Putin to discuss the situation involving Iraq. They discussed cooperation on humanitarian issues. They both reiterated their strong support for the U.S.-Russia partnership, and agreed to continue, despite the differences that the two have over Iraq. And the two also discussed the United States' concerns, which President Bush discussed, involving prohibited hardware that has been transferred from Russian companies to Iraq. Following the call, the President also spoke with Prime Minister Aznar of Spain.

All the name change is another wave of Operation Happy Talk. Since the illegal war began, the ones running it have tried to trick you -- usually with the help of a very compliant press.

They can give it all the extreme make overs they want, they can slap as much plaster and paint on it, it's still an illegal war and will still be one even after the "combat" troops leave -- at which point, apparently, Iraq will be populated with the US military's arts & crafts troops. I understand they'll make powdered beverages for snack time and teach how to cut with big kid scissors and how to color within the lines, right?

The US military is combat. That's what the troops are trained in. The administration can keep lying and some will buy it but the Iraq War doesn't end until the US troops are out of Iraq and that's all the troops.


It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4376. Tonight? 4376.




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