THE COST OF THE
WAR IN IRAQ:
(Your tax dollars hard at work)
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007
Government Scientists Accuse Bush Administration
of Interfering, Misleading on Climate Change
According to a new survey, hundreds of government scientists say they have perceived or personally experienced pressure from the Bush administration to eliminate phrases such as “climate change” and “global warming” from their reports and public statements. One of those scientists -- NASA climatologist Drew Shindell – testified Tuesday before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform. [includes rush transcript] The Bush administration was accused on Tuesday of misleading the public over the threat of global warming and of interfering with the work of government scientists studying climate change. According to a new survey, hundreds of government scientists said they have perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate phrases such as "climate change" and “global warming" from their reports and public statements. One-third of the scientists surveyed also said officials at their agencies have made statements on climate change that misrepresented their findings.
One of those scientists -- NASA climatologist Drew Shindell – testified on Tuesday before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform. Dr. Shindell has worked as a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies since 1995.
* NASA climatologist Drew Shindell, testifying on Tuesday before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform committee.
The committee’s chair, Henry Waxman, later questioned Shindell about how the Bush administration has altered scientific reports to downplay the threat of global warming.
* Rep. Henry Waxman questioning Drew Shindell.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: One of those scientists, NASA climatologist Drew Shindell, testified Tuesday before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform. Dr. Shindell has worked as a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies since 1995.
DR. DREW SHINDELL: Scientists provide information to policymakers and the public on issues affecting society. Climate change is clearly such an issue, and one for which it is especially critical that decisions be made using the best available scientific information, as the potential costs to society of action, or of inaction, are large. The earth, as a whole, is unquestionably warming, and virtually all climate scientists believe that the evidence regarding a human role in this warming is clear and compelling. Multiple lines of evidence, based on measurements, theory and modeling, support these conclusions. The scientific evidence indicates that the earth is now warmer than at any time during the last thousand years.
While continued warming is inevitable, the seriousness of the consequences of climate change will depend upon societal action to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants that are the dominant cause of global warming. These consequences include droughts and flood, increased severity of summer heatwaves, and rises in sea level that could devastate low-lying coastal areas.
Although the scientific basis for the conclusion that human activities are altering earth’s climate is extremely strong, there are questions that are still raised over whether current scientific understanding justifies societal action. One of these arguments has concerned Antarctic temperature trends. While most of the planet has warmed rapidly during the past several decades, much of the Antarctic continent has, by contrast, cooled. Lack of an adequate explanation for this has been cited as evidence that scientific understanding of climate change is simply too incomplete to warrant taking action to mitigate global warming.
In the fall of 2004, a team I led at NASA published a paper providing an explanation of how ozone depletion over Antarctica and increasing greenhouse gases could together account for this observed cooling of Antarctica. The study was the first to look at how these two factors work together to influence Antarctic temperatures. It not only helped to explain the observed cooling, but also predicted a warmer future for Antarctica based on projections of continued increases in greenhouse gases. This has clear implications both for the debate on global warming and for potential sea-level rise, as Antarctica contains an enormous reservoir of water in its ice sheets.
The NASA press corps and I wrote a press release on these findings to convey them to the broader public. While previous to this time, press releases had been issued rapidly and with reservations from headquarters that basically were made to improve clarity and style, this release was repeatedly delayed, altered and eventually watered down. When we at GISS enquired of those higher up the NASA chain what was going on, we were told in the fall of 2004 [inaudible] that releases were being delayed because two political appointees and the White House were now reviewing all climate-related press releases.
Scientists do not simply explore what we are most curious about. We know that our research is funded by the public, and we go to great lengths to provide policy-relevant information to support decision-making. While it was frustrating for me to see my work suppressed, even more importantly it’s a disservice to the public to distort or suppress information needed. But that experience is only one example of a series of actions that attempted to suppress communication of climate science to the public.
Also during the fall of 2004, NASA headquarters insisted that a NASA press officer be present to monitor all interviews, either in person or on the phone, a measure most of us felt was unbefitting of a democratic society. As with the interference with press releases, the restrictions were not imposed on other parts of NASA, such as Space Science, or even other areas of Earth Science outside of climate research.
AMY GOODMAN: NASA climatologist Drew Shindell, testifying Tuesday before the Committee on House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee’s chair, Henry Waxman, later questioned Shindell about how the Bush administration has altered scientific reports to downplay the threat of global warming.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Many experts are telling us that global warming is one of the most severe environmental threats facing this nation and the world, that challenges confronting us are enormous potentially, and therefore, I think policymakers have an obligation to understand the science, and we need to get that scientific information without any manipulation of the science, without any suppressing of the reports, or misleading the public about the issues seems to me would be a breach of the public trust. So we have been asking for this information.
Dr. Shindell, you’re one of the nation’s leading climate change scientists, and I want to discuss some of the documents that the committee staff reviewed and ask whether you are concerned about the issues in these documents. First of all, let me begin by asking about some of the edits urged by the White House Office of Management and Budget. OMB asked that an EPA report be rewritten to remove the statement that global warming may "alter regional patterns of climate" and “potentially affect the balance of radiation.” Dr. Shindell, do you think this was an appropriate change in the document? The statement in the EPA draft was that climate change can alter regional climates and affect the balance of radiation. Is there any scientific justification for removing these assertions?
DR. DREW SHINDELL: No. That is a very well-supported statement. For the change in the energy balance of the planet, we have satellite data and have measured that balance directly for decades now, and we can see it changing. It is extremely well-documented and uncontroversial.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Another -- excuse me. Another edit I want to --
DR. DREW SHINDELL: As far as regional patterns, I mentioned before, Antarctica has gone the other way from the rest of the globe. Different areas have warmed more, others less. It’s quite clear that this is happening.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Another edit deleted the phrase, “Changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly the result of human activities.” And that phrase was replaced with a phrase that said, “A causal link between the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.” Is this an appropriate change? Does the rephrasing accurately represent the science, or does it mislead the public?
DR. DREW SHINDELL: I would say that that is also a misleading statement. While technically true, the first statement, that human activities play the dominant role, is a much more accurate picture of the science.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Some of the edits we reviewed were made by CEQ chief of staff Philip Cooney. Mr. Cooney is not a scientist by training. Instead, he's a lawyer who was working as a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before he was appointed to his position at the Council on Environmental Quality. And I’d like to ask you some questions about his edits. In one document, Mr. Cooney deleted a reference to the National Research Council's finding that human activities are causing temperatures to rise. Obviously, the National Research Council is this country's premier scientific body. Can you tell us if there is a scientific basis for deleting a reference to this finding?
DR. DREW SHINDELL: No. That is again a well-supported statement.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: In the same document, Mr. Cooney deleted the phrase, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." Is there anything scientifically questionable about this phrase?
DR. DREW SHINDELL: Again, no.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: In yet another edit, Mr. Cooney wrote that satellite data disputes global warming. Is this scientifically valid?
DR. DREW SHINDELL: No. There was for many years a controversy, where satellite data showed warming but to a different degree than was seen at the surface or that was predicted by models higher up in the atmosphere. It never disputed global warming, and that controversy has since been resolved.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: If climate changes offer us an incredibly serious problem, then we need to get the facts and rely on federal scientists and agencies to give Congress and the public the true facts about this global threat. Yet the preliminary evidence we're seeing from the White House suggests that the administration may have taken a very different approach. If the documents we have seen so far are representative, it appears that the White House installed a former oil industry lobbyist as the chief of staff for the Council on Environmental Quality and then systematically sought to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from reporting on dangers to health, the environment and the economy. In effect, it appears that there may have been an orchestrated effort to mislead the public about the threat of global climate change. These are serious allegations, and they are ones that we'll be exploring in detail in this hearing and in our ongoing investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Henry Waxman questioning NASA climatologist Drew Shindell
SOURCE: DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG
"The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got. Some in this chamber, and in our country, did not support the LIBERATION of Iraq."
-Unelected President George W. Bush
Webster's Dictionary defines LIBERATION as the following:
1 : to set at liberty : FREE; specifically : to free (as a country) from domination by a foreign power
2 : to free from combination
3 : to take or take over illegally or unjustly
Which definition best suits the LIBERATION of Iraq?
When did human rights become un-american?
PRESS RELEASE
The O'odham VOICE Against the WALL
P.O. Box 1835
Sells, Arizona 85634
Jeg_os@hotmail.com
"Wind Storm"
Human Rights Abuse 0n the Tohono O'odham Nation
This statement is to provide a personal experience documenting the brutality and harassment by the U.S. Government on O'odham (people), and other indigenous groups along the US/Mexican Border under the auspices of Homeland Security.
The U.S. government "Operation Safeguard" deliberately redirected illegal border crossers unto O'odham territory increasing human right abuses and deaths. The over 300 illegal immigrate deaths of on O'odham territory profoundly impacts all O'odham dignity and way of life.
Throughout my lifetime, I have been working closely with my traditional elders. I grew up listening to the traditional Elders; therefore, have a responsibility to protect our traditional way of life. To advocate the traditional Elder leadership voice, we have established an organization, "The O'odham VOICE Against the WALL".
The organization, have been able to provide the elders and youth with information on the developments along the US/Mexican Border. Furthermore, making the people aware of their rights. These rights are guaranteed in by-laws adopted by the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Provisions and Laws in United States Government and International Human Rights.
Recently, the Tohono O'odham Nation collaborated with the United States Department of Homeland Security in support of the re-enforcement of the 74-mile border. This further impacts the lives of O'odham and our traditional lands. This action was made without full disclosure to the traditional O'odham on both sides of the border.
The US Environmental Impact Statement pertaining to the permanent sealing of the US/MX border is, a 350+ page document submitted to the Tohono O'odham Nation. This document was not available to traditional O'odham. Many do not understand the irreparable impacts this will create. The proposed border wall for national security will sever families and the continuation of traditional ceremonies on both sides of this boundary. The protection of our desert environment and sacred sites along this boundary remains insignificant in this decision.
This agreement made it necessary to seek public awareness and support to maintain our traditional way of life. We have received support from various indigenous organizations and International Human Rights groups, as well as the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations.
The Tohono O'odham Nation and the US Government is aware of my activities and have increased vigilance in monitoring. The following is a documentation of Human Rights abuses on the Tohono O'odham Nation by the Tohono O'odham Nations Police and Border Agencies. These incidents against the O'odham have been escalating.
Historically, the O'odham territory came under occupation and the establishment of the border in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Treaty of Le Mesilla (Gadsden Purchase) in 1853. O'odham have continued to maintain the traditional routes and communities on both sides of this border despite impacts of hostile enforcement of border policies and inhumane immigration laws.
We don't want our elders, our mothers, our fathers and all our relatives to experience this inhumane treatment;
Monday, December 27, 2004 at 3:00 P.M.
I am a O'odham mother and grandmother.
A Tohono O'odham Nation non-O'odham police officer attacked me at my mother's village, Ali Jegk, Gu-Vo District, Tohono O'odham Nation.
This officer brutally threw me against the car and handcuffed me and arrested me. He injured my wrist, arm and shoulder. I have severe Rheumatoid Arthritis and unable to lift my arms over my head as well as severe disfigurement on my hands.
I asked what he was arresting me for, he said that I failed to stop and show I.D.
He officially arrested me, read my rights, charging me with five charges;
1-Interfered with the work of the border patrol because I was taking pictures,
2-failure to stop,
3-failure to show I.D., and
4 and 5- 2 counts of aggressive behavior threatening an officer.
He threatened to charge me with an additional charge of, threatening a police officer, if I didn't voluntarily climb into the Tohono O'odham Nation Police Jeep.
He held me under arrest in his vehicle for 45 minutes. While a second police officer called that he was arriving I was un-handcuffed and repeatedly asked to get out of the jeep. When the second TON police officer arrived he was told that it was "just a little misunderstanding" and there is no problem. He dismissed his question of, "what happen to your wrist". I was then completely ignored, as if I was not there and that nothing happened, while the two policemen carried on a conversation about not having enough gasoline for the return to headquarters.
This police called me by name as he attacked and arrested me. He clearly knew who I was before he tailgated me on the community road then stopped me in my mother's yard. He was on the telephone talking, while two border patrol vehicles blocked the yard entrance but did not approach or face to witness this action. The intimidation tactics directed at me while under arrest was clear that he used whatever force necessary to hold me without cause to intimidate and threaten, to scare me. I was released without a single document, a traffic citation or a report to prove that this happened.
My friend and her two children (ages 6 and 8) witnessed the whole brutality.
This action is deliberate and makes a clear statement to the entire community, already afraid to report abuses. The Tohono O'odham Nation's police force is an armed arm of the Homeland Security agents. This can happen to anyone that in anyway questions or document the inhumane actions of the border patrols and the tribal police and any of it's other agents. I have documented this abuse at the Derechos Humanos Office in Tucson.
Ofelia Rivas, The O'odham VOICE Against the WALL
An Essay On The Left Vs. Right
By Luke Immia of OneWordSolution
Dictators of Demise
During the torrential downpour that has invaded Los Angeles for the last three weeks, I was waiting at a red light when this old man pulled up along side me and told me that I’m sick, that I need a doctor because I have a disease. “Liberalism is a disease!” he says before he drives two lengths up because the wet weather has slowed the morning commute and delayed commerce. Now this just provided the fuel I needed to finally write something about the election and upcoming inauguration. It gave me the vindication to finally get off my chest what has been bugging me for weeks. That man is right. The left has fallen victim to the old divide and conquer routine, too busy fighting amongst ourselves over who the more righteously left candidate is. Divided we have fallen.
In this last election our only real choices were G.W. Bush and John F. Kerry, not much of a distinction if you ask any politically minded person, but alas, the Right rallied ‘round the “Faith Based Values” system while the Left took up the “Anybody But Bush” campaign. Great strategy as long as there’s only one candidate to pick. This principle does not work with a melting pot of Lefty Candidates as we have seen in not only this last election, but also the one previous. The Left is to blame for Bush still retaining the presidency. It is our fault this has happened. The Left in general is not united in the slightest; thousands have already applied for Canadian citizenship since November, while the rest continue to proceed with their weekly psychiatrist visits and doubling their Xanax prescriptions. And yet the few, who chose to remain, either because of lack of funds or just to stand strong against the injustice, are met with conflict, disdain, pity, and hatred. Hatred because we choose to ask questions nobody else will, Pity because we don’t believe everything we hear from the media, and Disdain because we want to make the world a better place.
The Right by comparison stands together as one for the most part, unifying for one common goal in this last election: No To Homosexuals. Simplified cause, yes, yet every state that supported the Anti-Gay legislation in the Bible belt also voted against same-sex unions of any kind. They also seem content on rallying behind the president, because he’s the president and therefore he knows more than they do. True, if that president were Woodrow Wilson or FDR, but not so in this instance. In this particular case it came down to “if they report it, then it must be true!” Propaganda is defined as being media released by an entity to further along that secular point of view. So show me a deposit of near completion or ready to use WMD’s, link Iraq and al-Qaeda with real hard concrete evidence, find Bin-Laden and bring him to justice already if he’s the perpetrator of 9/11, bring jobs back to the States, and give money to foreign aid even when the US doesn’t destroy that country first. Are these simple requests not too much to ask of our “representative” government? Is it possible to free our News Media from the reigns of plutocracy?
This system of government we have come to know as a “democratic republic” is the farthest thing from either one. And I have a couple of theories on this one. A) When a population reaches a certain size, it becomes imperative that the ruling party hold its tenure of power for longer intervals making democracy impossible to exist creating the need for institutionally appointed leaders, i.e.: Fascism/Dictatorship. B) It is a physical impossibility to count all the votes cast by 170million (+/-) registered voters in the US to receive a result accurate enough for a true democracy/republic to exist. If all the votes were actually accurately counted the entire process could take up to a year pending the number of recounts, which would mean that the electoral process would have to be altered to accommodate and allow for that length of time. If both of these theories hold the weight that I think they do, then basically we deserve the government we’ve been bestowed. We deserve Fascism if nobody will raise a ruckus over illicit voting procedures. We deserve plummeting dividends and sky rocketing unemployment as long as we allow our elected officials to issue tax breaks to corporations that ship production and service jobs over-seas. We deserve a media that lies to us with so much as a smile and a wink because they think we can’t handle the truth especially when we do nothing to question and challenge their integrity as reporters. We deserve all this and more. The Left is a disease, a cancer, and the Right is acting as the cure. We’ve been too busy fighting, and arguing, and dividing against ourselves to see with open eyes that our country has been stripped from us, the people, and given to the Corporate Dollar Sign, the Religious Zealots, and the Contemptuous Media Conglomerates. They have declared war on the populace and are winning, as we stand idly by fighting amongst ourselves in the confines of this concrete prison.
Another Iraq Casualty: Nearly 900 U.S. Kids Lost a Parent in War, Scripps Finds
By E&P Staff / Editor & Publisher
NEW YORK The escalating toll of American dead in Iraq is causing another tragedy that cuts deeper. After studying casualty reports and obituaries and accounts in hometown newspapers, and also conducting family interviews, Scripps Howard News Service has identified nearly 900 U.S. children who have lost a parent in the war.
At least half are under the age of ten. More than 40 troops died without ever seeing their newly born children. At least 60 children lost parents last month.
Although precise comparable data is not available for other U.S. conflicts, military experts told Scripps reporters Lisa Hoffman and Annette Rainville that the number of American children left bereaved or made orphans by the Iraq war is unprecedented in scope.
It represents, as Scripps put it in a graphic, about 18 large school buses fully packed with kids.
"This is a new state of affairs we have to confront," said Charles Moskos, a leading military sociologist and a Northwestern University professor. As much as we are concerned about veterans' programs, we now have to be concerned about orphan programs. This is the first time we have crossed this threshold."
Among the parents who died, according to Scripps, were six female soldiers who had borne a total of 10 children, which Hoffman and Rainville termed another historic first for females in the U.S. military.
This lengthy report was part of a package, distributed to papers and posted at the Scripps Howard Web site, that included a separate story on the deceased mothers and last letters home from soldiers to children.
One reason for the high rate of dead parents is the reliance by the U.S. military on reserves, who tend to be older and have more children.
submitted by an anonymous visitor...
THE YOUTH NEED A LIBERATION FRONT
By Rev. Terry and Crudocrust of the DAAA Collective Modesto CA, Central Valley
From forthcoming and final DAAA Collective zine, NCAA (Northern Californian Anti-Authoritarian) #5.
Every business day a living creature is violated, condemned, coerced, biologically molested, and standardized to the point of misery between the hours 8:00am-3:00pm, preparing for a life full of preparing for life, or what they would tell us will be "our lives". These creatures are made to feel inferior, and are forced through state sanctioned means of coercion and degradation, to compete and test against each other, creating newly formed class systems that in their earlier years never existed. Like a hunter gather thrust into a world of divide labor and complicated technology, we have been thrust from our world of play and fun into a world where suddenly things are serious. These creatures are children, around the ages 4-18. Chances are a child today has already been a witness to divorce, addiction, violence, and witnessed some one they love crushed by debt or job loss. Now they will have the experience of hearing that he/she is "not as advanced" or "hyper-active" because they can't sit through 8+ hours of bland restricted teaching? As the problems increase, so do the pills. Where once a happy child bounced with the joys of young life, a life-shell now sits, digesting their drug intake. Some of our eyes are opening, and some of us are seeing that we are not supposed to fit into the mold that they are forcing us into. Schools have us training to be math whizzes and track stars, but most of us aren't or don't want the position if left to our own devices, and we are very pissed off about it.
As a child of 16, (before being kicked out of Riverbank High and into a continuation school), I was woken up at 6:30, which my body could tell me was too early for my growing young adult frame. Teen's brains don't even become awake until about 10:00am, and thus the first half of the day is wasted as I doze in and out of class. Across the nation however, children are herded into school not later, but earlier, as schools are starting classes at new times. This loss of sleep I will never gain back, and will just add to the plenty of sleep I will soon lose in the work place. Parents and teachers will justify this by saying, "Go to sleep earlier", which if I did I would never have time to spend with my friends or actually learn. At 6:50am, I'm not hungry (which I took as another signal from my body that I wasn't supposed to be awake at this time), this of course, as one would probably guess, effected my whole day. The food that the state offers me isn't good for my health either. From milk filled with hormones, to soda filled with calories and stimulants no young person should be exposed to, I've become a walking target for a youth market that is totally captured in one space. As the "Terminator" terminates more and more state money for Public Schools, suddenly Mountain Dew bought text books don't look that bad. I now can learn about health from my good friends at Frito Lay, and are provided with cool bookbinders by the Navy. The lack of sleep and lack of food combine to create not a winning performance, but one of malnutrition, insomnia, and lack of any real education. I'm not learning about the world, I'm learning about how to survive in the work world. In short, I'm learning to take my place in the capitalist landscape. A poster in one of my teachers' classroom reads, "Like School? You'll love Work!"
At 8:12am I was already late for "youth concentration camp…" as anarchist writer Bob Black would call it. I would arrive on time but would leave the campus to feed one of my many addictions with many other students who "vent" in this way. By this time in my life I had got over the fear of being in trouble. And when called to the office because of my recurring tardiness and absences, I would confidently state my beliefs to the vice principal out of spite and disgust for my imposed situation.
Every day millions of kids have their natural search of knowledge crushed by the schools associating learning with pain and force. Reading is hated because of years of useless short stories and imposed novels, history feared because of one-sided textbooks that shorten years into paragraphs and repeated math that may or may-not be used in the future are shoved down our throats. The struggles and achievements of people of color, women, and radicals appear as footnotes, and we struggle to copy down the accomplishments of a few rich white men. A child can pass every test, but still be called a failure because he/she did not spend the little time they have off doing homework. A child can also spend all their time doing homework, and fail because they can't take standardized tests. What is achieved here is not if we actually learn or not, but if we are able to produce something that meets requirements. Not every child is going to learn the same way. Some may learn from notes, reading, audio/visual, or experience.
School tries one way, and if that doesn't work, then that student is a failure. If I had a book I wanted to read or just needed some time off, who are you to tell me that is not acceptable. Is this to prepare me for the factory, where new ideas are scorned, and obedience and output is expected? You are human just like me, and the only thing that separates me from adults of authority is a piece of paper that some other human gave you.
I learned more "slacking around" and making forts from sticks down by the river, than I learned a week in physical science. Just as any difference in students is stopped (hair, clothes, thought, etc..), standards restrict what a teacher may teach, destroying the differences in opinion. Where once a flowing tapestry of knowledge existed, now only a dry book of state sanctioned facts remain. Thus children only know that what is on the "big" test in the end, and high-test scores mean that the school gets their funding, and that children are "educated" and ready to work. This is what you call learning, because it looks like standardization to me.
Then I go home to my parents already pissed off from their crappy days at work, who soon learn, from the robotic voice on the phone, my day's ordeals. I'm not against learning, quite the opposite, its just not happening. We can't just spend our lives preparing for life. You will go to school instead of living and then to work instead of having fun, hoping some day you will get to live the life you once had.
If school is the beginning, then we will unmake school, better yet - we will declare war. An endless war for the endless attack that the system of markets, commerce, and work has created all around us. They would give us biological molestation; we will allow ourselves the sleep that our bodies need. They would give us genetically modified foods and meats, carbonated sugar waters and disgusting corporate tripe, and we will give them broken vending machines and green houses that produce fruits and vegetables that we will grow, cook, and eat. In place of standardization, we will have free association. The puppet student governments will be meaningless in the face of organized student assemblies and councils. As the flags by the office are burned, the principles office will make a perfect home for the creation of an Indy media center, as propaganda teams occupy the copier to make news of the insurrection. Unlimited knowledge, unlimited access, unlimited freedom to explore, create, and become the kinds of people that we want to be. Perhaps we will find our true selves not in the mold that capitalism would have us in, but at war with the mold that they have created for us.
Student Government Never, Student Self-Management Now!
Private contractor lifts the lid on systematic failures at Abu Ghraib jail
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday May 7, 2004
The Guardian
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column, Friday May 14 2004
In the interview below, we quoted a remark Torin Nelson made about "cooks and truck drivers". Mr Nelson has asked us to make it clear that he intended the remark to be rhetorical. He did not mean that people from those jobs were actually working at the prison as interrogators. He intended the remark to reflect what he felt was the declining quality of private interrogators at the prison. Since the article was published, CACI Interntional, the company involved, has insisted that all interrogators have been vetted for the job.
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Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis picked up at random by US troops, and incarcerated by under-qualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the notorious jail told the Guardian.
Torin Nelson, who served as a military intelligence officer at Guantánamo Bay before moving to Abu Ghraib as a private contractor last year, blamed the abuses on a failure of command in US military intelligence and an over-reliance on private firms. He alleged that those companies were so anxious to meet the demand for their services that they sent "cooks and truck drivers" to work as interrogators.
"Military intelligence operations need to drastically change in order for something like this not to happen again," Mr Nelson said. He spoke to the Guardian in a series of interviews by phone and email.
He claimed that "many of the detainees at the prison are actually innocent of any acts against the coalition and are being held until the bureaucracy there can go through their cases and verify their need to be released."
"One case in point is a detainee whom I recommended for release and months later was still sitting in the same tent with no change in his status."
Mr Nelson said that the same systemic problems were also responsible for large numbers of Afghans being mistakenly swept into Guantánamo Bay. He estimated that "30-40%" of the inmates at the controversial prison camp had no connection to terrorism.
"There are people who should never have been sent over there. I was involved in the process of reviewing people for possible release and I can say definitely that they should have been released and released a lot sooner," he said.
The former commander of the Guantánamo Bay Camp, Major General Geoffrey Miller, was transferred to Iraq a month ago to overhaul the prison system there, although he has been criticised for his recommendations last year that US prison guards in Iraq help "set the conditions" for interrogations by softening up detainees.
Such allegations have been made before by victims' families and human rights groups but Mr Nelson's story represents the first insider's account by an American interrogator. It amounts to an indictment of a system gone awry, and contradicts claims by the White House and the Pentagon that Abu Ghraib does not represent a systemic problem.
Mr Nelson denies any involvement in the physical and sexual abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, and is listed in the official military report into the scandal as a witness rather than a suspect. He says he resigned from his job in February in fear for his life, because Abu Ghraib was coming under increasing attack by Iraqi insurgents, and because of his disillusion in the military leadership there. He is now working for a private contractor - but not as an interrogator - in another country that is part of the US "global war on terrorism". He did not want his whereabouts published.
Mr Nelson said he had come forward to speak now because he believed that military intelligence was seeking to blame the Abu Ghraib scandal on a handful of soldiers to divert attention away from ingrained problems in the military detention and interrogation system.
As a witness in an ongoing investigation, Mr Nelson said he could not talk about the abuses of specific prisoners at Abu Ghraib, but he said the nature of the detention system makes the imprisonment and abuse of innocent people all but inevitable.
"A unit goes out on a raid and they have a target and the target is not available; they just grab anybody because that was their job," Mr Nelson said, referring to counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. "The troops are under a lot of stress and they don't know one guy from the next. They're not cultural experts. All they want is to count down the days and hopefully go home. They take it out on the nearest person they can't understand."
"I've read reports from capturing units where the capturing unit wrote, "the target was not at home. The neighbour came out to see what was going on and we grabbed him," he said.
According to Mr Nelson's account, the victims' very innocence made them more likely to be abused, because interrogators refused to believe they could have been picked up on such arbitrary grounds.
"Now, whether the detainees are put into the general intelligence holding area, where they rot for a few months until final release, or if they are placed in solitary confinement because their story seems unbelievable is completely in the hands of the interrogator's opinion," he said. "It is in solitary that the abuses can be committed. So, in theory it is in fact very possible that purely innocent Iraqis could be placed in an environment where they could be brutalised, abused, "softened up" or even killed."
"At Abu Ghraib there were plenty of detainees talking or wanting to talk, but the leadership was focused on the "hard" targets of high-value," Mr Nelson said. "This was mainly because the leadership was almost completely focused on getting the highest ranking Ba'ath party members still in hiding. And many of the interrogators were anxious to "go after" the difficult eggs. They wanted to be the one interrogator who broke the linking detainee and found such and such high value target. They weren't interested in going through the less glamorous work of sifting through the chaff to get to the kernels of truth from the willing detainees, they were interested in "breaking" the tough targets."
Much of the problem lay in the quality of US interrogators, Mr Nelson said, explaining that only the youngest and least experienced intelligence officers actually question detainees.
"Once you get up to a level of NCO [non commissioned officer] or warrant officer you generally get moved into administration. You are taken out of working as an interrogator," he said.
As the number of suspects sucked into the system exploded, the Pentagon came to rely increasingly on interrogators from private contractors to question them. Mr Nelson was one of a team of roughly 30 in Abu Ghraib employed by a Virginia-based firm, CACI International. He believes his decade of experience in military intelligence made him well-qualified to do the job, but he had growing doubts about his colleagues.
"I'd say about of the contractors that it's kind of a hit or miss. They're under so much pressure to fill slots quickly ... They penalise contracting companies if they can't fill slots on time and it looks bad on companies' records," Mr Nelson said. As a result, he added, the quality of CACI's interrogators dropped sharply as demand rose.
CACI International did not respond to a request for comment on Mr Nelson's account. The firm has told other reporters that it has not been contacted by military investigators about the work of its employees at Abu Ghraib. Its recruitment notices seeking interrogators state that the job "requires a top secret clearance" and note that the successful applicant would operate "under minimal supervision."
Mr Nelson worked at Guantánamo Bay as a senior interrogator attached to the Utah National Guard. He said that most of the interrogators there were military professionals, but that by the time he left in early 2003, private contractors had begun to arrive.
There is no evidence of abuses on the scale of Abu Ghraib being committed at Guantánamo Bay, but Mr Nelson said that like the Iraqi jail, it was packed with innocent people, who are only now being released.
"Mistakes were made and people who should never have been sent there ended up there, and it's taken this amount of time to get people to take the decision to get these people out of there," Mr Nelson said.
"All it takes is the signature of a low ranking NCO to send someone right around the world and have them locked up indefinitely but it takes the signature of the secretary of defence to let them go."
Do you know?
George W. Bush has proposed spending $1.5 billion dollars on a "healthy marriage" initiative, designed to promote marriage among heterosexual youth, unmarried couples, and low income couples.
US officials now admit that intelligence agencies "could find no provable connection between Saddam and al Qaeda" prior to the invasion of Iraq, even though the Bush administration continued to claim such a connection existed.
Just three weeks into the invasion of Iraq, it was by determined by on-the-ground weapons inspectors that there were no WMDs.
Two U.S. peace activists have been restricted from airplane travel after their names appeared on an FBI no-fly list.
Army units in Iraq are scrambling to find materials to create their own homemade vehicle armor to protect their non-fortified Humvees from roadside bombs.
Mercenaries are being recruited in Chile by the Pentagon for work in Iraq guarding oil wells and lines. Ten thousand ex-special forces mercenaries have already been in place in Iraq since last year.
The broad powers provided by The Bush Administration's Patriot Act have been used by law enforcement agencies to investigate crimes not related to terrorism.
Despite the need to create 150,000 US jobs a month to simply keep up with population growth, only 97,000 jobs were created in January of 2004.
Despite being rebuffed by Congress, George W. Bush continues to push for changes to overtime rules in place since 1938 which could lead to the elimination of overtime pay for up to 8 million Americans.
The Bush Administration has ignored the scientific conclusions reached by a National Research Council review they themselves requested on the health risks of using treated sewage sludge as fertilizer.
The Bush Administration is projecting a historic $521 billion federal budget deficit for 2004.
George W. Bush is proposing that his tax cuts, many of which are set to expire in 2005, be made permanent, a move that will increase the federal deficit by $2 trillion dollars.
George W. Bush is proposing changes to Title IX regulations of the 1972 Federal Education Act that would allow public schools to segregate classes and even entire schools based on sex.
The Bush Administration dropped from the 2003 budget a low-income child tax credit provision that could have benefited close to 12 million children across the country, while retaining tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
The United States has lost over 3 million jobs since George W. Bush took office.
The Bush Administration is spending $3 billion to set up a secret police force in Iraq, which will include ex-members of Saddam Hussein's own intelligence force.
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"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall
at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII
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