Saturday, May 22, 2004
Up the chain of command
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of coalition forces in Iraq, issued an order last October giving military intelligence control over almost every aspect of prison conditions at Abu Ghraib with the explicit aim of manipulating the detainees' "emotions and weaknesses", it was reported yesterday.
The October 12 memorandum, reported in the Washington Post, is a potential "smoking gun" linking prisoner abuse to the US high command. It represents hard evidence that the maltreatment was not simply the fault of rogue military police guards.
The memorandum came to light as more details emerged of the extent of detainee abuse. Formal statements by inmates published yesterday describe horrific treatment at the hands of guards, including the rape of a teenage Iraqi boy by an army translator.
More.
posted by chris at 11:35 AM
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Friday, May 21, 2004
Setting the stage for Abu Ghraib
A series of Justice Department memorandums written in late 2001 and the first few months of 2002 were crucial in building a legal framework for United States officials to avoid complying with international laws and treaties on handling prisoners, lawyers and former officials say.
The confidential memorandums, several of which were written or co-written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was serving in the department, provided arguments to keep United States officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated. They were endorsed by top lawyers in the White House, the Pentagon and the vice president's office but drew dissents from the State Department.
The memorandums provide legal arguments to support administration officials' assertions that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees from the Afghanistan war. They also suggested how officials could inoculate themselves from liability by claiming that abused prisoners were in some other nation's custody.
Story
posted by chris at 4:22 PM
Industry does the work for the EPA
Pushing aside new scientific studies of possible health risks, the Environmental Protection Agency approved an air pollution regulation this year that could save the wood products industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
In doing so, the agency relied on a risk assessment generated by a chemical industry-funded think tank, and a novel legal approach recommended by a timber industry lawyer. The regulation was ushered through the agency by senior officials with previous ties to the timber and chemical industries.
The officials say they advocate a balanced approach to environmental regulation that weighs costs as well as benefits. Their critics say science and public health are losing out.
"This rulemaking veers radically from standard scientific and regulatory practices," said David Michaels, an epidemiologist who was assistant Energy secretary for environment, safety and health in the Clinton administration. Others say it may violate the Clean Air Act.
The regulation addresses emissions of formaldehyde, a chemical used by plywood manufacturers and other industries. Exposure to formaldehyde may cause cancer and lead to nausea and eye, throat and skin irritation. At the time the regulation was being drafted, the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health disclosed new studies showing that exposure to formaldehyde might also cause leukemia in humans.
The EPA rule, signed in February, did not mention the possible link to leukemia. Instead, it adopted a standard for exposure based on a cancer risk model developed by the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology. That assessment is about 10,000 times less stringent than the level previously used by the EPA in setting general standards for formaldehyde exposure.
More.
posted by chris at 11:25 AM
It just keeps getting worse
Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets.
The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan, according to copies of the statements obtained by The Washington Post.
The statements provide the most detailed picture yet of what took place on the cellblock. Some of the detainees described being abused as punishment or discipline after they were caught fighting or with a prohibited item. Some said they were pressed to denounce Islam or were force-fed pork and liquor. Many provided graphic details of how they were sexually humiliated and assaulted, threatened with rape, and forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers.
Story.
posted by chris at 11:24 AM
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Thursday, May 20, 2004
Greenpeace prevails, Ashcroft looks for even earlier law
In a rebuke to the U.S. Justice Department, a federal judge in Miami Wednesday threw out a criminal case against the environmental-activist group, Greenpeace, which it had based on an obscure 1872 law against "sailormongering" that it applied to a protest against a ship carrying 70 tons of illegally cut mahogany.
U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan acquitted the group at the end of the prosecution's case, midway through the third day of the jury trial. He said the prosecution had failed to provide enough evidence for the case to go to the jury.
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It was triggered by an April, 2002, protest in which two volunteers from a Greenpeace vessel boarded the APL Jade cargo ship, which was carrying the mahogany from Brazil toward the Port of Miami.
Just a few months before, President George W. Bush himself publicly committed Washington to help developing countries prevent illegal logging of mahogany, and the two activists who boarded the ship unfurled a banner that read, "President Bush, Stop Illegal Logging." The two activists, as well as the four others in the Greenpeace boat, were arrested when they came into port, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, and spent a weekend in jail.
Fifteen months later, however, the Justice Department filed an indictment in Miami against Greenpeace itself under the 1872 law, which had last been used in 1890.
The law was originally intended to keep houses of prostitution and rum shops from luring sailors on incoming ships to shore with promises of women and grog, and the judge decided the case on a technicality. As the boarding took place about six miles from port, according to the Jordan, it did not meet the statutory requirement that it was "about to arrive," suggesting that he might have ruled differently on the motion to dismiss had the boat been much closer when the protest occurred. "Caveat emptor," he warned the defendant in reference to future protests.
You gotta watch out for those rum-laden Greenpeace prostitutes.
posted by chris at 6:05 PM
Isn't this timely?
The Bush administration wants the U.N. Security Council to renew on Friday a controversial resolution exempting American peacekeepers from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court.
Although the resolution is expected to be adopted, diplomats expect opposition among the wider U.N. membership following the U.S. abuse of prisoners in Iraq and general complaints about American unilateralism.
Two years ago the same resolution was adopted unanimously after the United States threatened to veto U.N. peacekeeping missions, one by one. A year ago, three countries abstained.
This year at least four nations -- Brazil, Spain, Germany and France -- are expected to abstain. But U.S. officials are confident they will reach the minimum nine votes needed for adoption in the 15-nation council.
Story.
posted by chris at 6:01 PM
How they passed the Medicare bill
Also from the Center for American Progress:
REPORT ALLEGES CONSERVATIVE HOUSE LEADERS BRIBED MEMBERS FOR VOTES: This week, Common Cause released a report chronicling all of the improprieties that occurred before and after the passage of the Bush administration's Medicare bill. Perhaps most disturbing: conservative leaders in the House held the vote on the Medicare bill open for 3 hours in the middle of the night while they pressured Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI) and others to switch their votes. Normally, votes in the House are open for 15 minutes. In a 11/23/03 column on his website Rep. Smith wrote, "members and groups made extensive financial campaign supports and endorsements for my son Brad who is running for my seat. They also made threats of working against Brad if I voted no." The following month on a radio interview, Smith said "the first offer was to give [my son Brad] $100,000-plus for his campaign and endorsement by national leadership." While Smith stuck to his principles, others did not, and the bill passed by one vote.
CONSERVATIVE HOUSE LEADERS CENSORED C-SPAN: The House leadership controls the C-SPAN cameras in the chamber. Normally, during a vote, the camera constantly pans side to side monitoring floor activity. But during the three hours the conservative leadership was harassing members to switch their votes, the camera was locked on the Democratic side of the chamber. As a result "there is no visual record of who was talking to whom that night while votes were sought by the leadership."
ADMINISTRATION THREATENED GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES TO HIDE TRUE COST: Chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster "was threatened with dismissal if he released his official estimate of the cost of the prescription drug bill," which was $156 billion higher than the administration promised. The White House was well aware of the higher estimate because Foster gave the estimates to them in June 2003. According to Foster, that same month Medicare administrator Tom Scully "decided to restrict the practice of our responding directly to provide responses to him so he could decide what to do with them." An April 26, 2004 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report found that Scully's behavior was likely illegal. According to the CRS, a federal government employee who issues a "'gag order' on subordinate employees, to expressly prevent and prohibit those employees from communicating directly with Members or committees of Congress, would appear to violate a specific and express prohibition of federal law."
EMPLOYEE WHO ISSUED GAG ORDER CASHES IN: In December 2003, just after the president signed the Medicare bill, chief Medicare administrator Tom Scully joined a law firm that represents drug manufacturers and other major players in the health care industry who benefited from the law. The Bush administration granted Scully an ethics waiver "so that he could negotiate with potential employers while he helped write the Medicare law."
posted by chris at 5:52 PM
Taxpayer funded illegal covert propaganda
From the Center for American Progress:
The non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the Bush administration engaged in illegal, covert propaganda when it produced fake news segments about the new Medicare law and distributed them to local television stations. The segment featured individuals purporting to be Washington reporters who were, in fact, "paid with federal funds through a contractor to report the message." The GAO found that the news segments were "not strictly factual news stories as HHS [the Department of Health and Human Service] contends," and, just like their multi-million dollar advertising campaign, contained "notable omissions and weaknesses." The fake news segments were broadcast, in whole or in part, on 40 stations in 33 markets across the country. When the investigation was launched, Bush administration spokesman Kevin Keane mocked the allegations that the fake news segments were illegal. Keane said "The use of video news releases is a common, routine practice in government and the private sector. Anyone who has questions about this practice needs to do some research on modern public information tools." The GAO concluded, however, that the conduct Keane was defending violated two federal laws and improperly expended at least $44,000 of taxpayer money. Nevertheless, the Bush administration has indicated it is unlikely it would comply with the GAO ruling. The latest incident is part of a pattern of deception and deceit which the Bush administration has employed to pass and promote its $500 billion Medicare legislation.
posted by chris at 5:46 PM
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Credit where credit's not due
Like many of its predecessors, the Bush White House has used the machinery of government to promote the re-election of the president by awarding federal grants to strategically important states. But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply.
For example, Justice Department officials recently announced that they were awarding $47 million to scores of local law enforcement agencies for the hiring of police officers. Mr. Bush had just proposed cutting the budget for the program, known as Community Oriented Policing Services, by 87 percent, to $97 million next year, from $756 million.
The administration has been particularly energetic in publicizing health programs, even ones that had been scheduled for cuts or elimination.
Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced recently that the administration was awarding $11.7 million in grants to help 30 states plan and provide coverage for people without health insurance. Mr. Bush had proposed ending the program in each of the last three years.
The administration also announced recently that it was providing $11.6 million to the states so they could buy defibrillators to save the lives of heart attack victims. But Mr. Bush had proposed cutting the budget for such devices by 82 percent, to $2 million from $10.9 million.
Whether they involve programs Mr. Bush supported or not, the grant announcements illustrate how the administration blends politics and policy, blurring the distinction between official business and campaign-related activities.
Amazing the nerve of these people.
posted by chris at 2:39 PM
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Tuesday, May 18, 2004
What's behind the Bush announcement about AIDS drugs?
This week, the FDA announced it was fast-tracking approval of AIDS drugs for use in places like Africa and the Caribbean. Sounds great, but it's not as altruistic as it sounds.
Africa and AIDS activists are assailing the proposal not only as a new attempt to delay the delivery of desperately needed, low-cost generic drugs to needy AIDS victims in Africa and the Caribbean, but also as an effort to undermine the World Health Organization's (WHO) own expedited approval process which has already authorized the use of generics by the World Bank, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
"WHO was asked by its member states to establish an international standard called the pre-qualification process so that it could play the role of honest broker for both the global North and the global South (in certifying medications for use), said Paul Zeitz, director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "Now the U.S. is undermining the credibility of that international program."
Critics also charged that the administration's new FDA program appeared designed to give U.S. and western pharmaceutical companies a leg up on their competitors in developing countries whose generic drugs generally cost far less than their brand-name equivalents manufactured by "Big Pharma."
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"The concern we have about the 'fast-track' FDA approval is that there already is a recognized process which includes many of the exact same steps that the FDA uses," he told OneWorld. "Instead of reinforcing the (WHO's) pre-qualification process, they are slowing things down by creating a redundant and parallel U.S.-led review process."
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But they also charged that Bush appears determined to protect Big Pharma from competition by the generic manufacturers and they pointed to announcements shortly after Thompson's by major U.S. and western drug companies that they intended to introduce FDCs as well as evidence that the administration is doing the companies' bidding.
Three big U.S. pharmaceutical companies - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Gilead Sciences Inc. and Merck & Co, Inc. - announced Sunday night that they are jointly pursuing development of their own one-dose-a-day anti-AIDS drug, while British-based GlaxoSmithKline and Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim Corp. said they were also considering a co-packaging deal for FSCs.
posted by chris at 4:50 PM
Introducing strollers to Africa
Across Africa, women can be seen carrying sleeping or sometimes giggly babies on their backs, swathed in cloth. The babies move to the sway of their mothers' hips, synchronized throughout the day, bending with them as they collect water or sweep the floor and rising again when the women stop to rest. They hang on as their mothers sell food in the market or pray at a church or mosque.
The introduction of strollers and baby carriages, both known here by the British word "pram", horrifies traditionalists, even someone such as Wambui, who sells them. The stroller is appearing in major cities around Africa, but so far has not been a hit.
"It's not so wonderful. In Africa, we just carry our children or let them roam. They can't sit like lumps," said Wambui, 24. "Besides our roads aren't even good enough for these devices. If everyone had a pram it would cause jam-ups in traffic. Then we would be bad to our children and bad to our roads."
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The stroller has sparked debate among African pediatricians who think the device -- first crafted as a labor-saving tool for the European middle class -- may damage the relationship between a mother and a child.
"The pram is the ultimate in pushing the baby away from you," said Frank Njenga, a child psychiatrist in Nairobi, Kenya's bustling capital. "The baby on the back is actually following the mother in warmth and comfort. The baby feels safer, and safer people are happier people."
In the United States and Europe, strollers have long been controversial. Recently, some doctors and child psychologists have blamed them for everything from pediatric obesity to low self-esteem later in life.
After living in Africa for two years, one of the things I noticed when I returned to the U.S. was exactly this. It seemed like people in the U.S. kept their babies at arm's length, while in Africa, the babies were literally attached to the mother most of the day. African babies also seemed calmer, perhaps from having that constant human contact. It seems like such a simple idea: babies like and need to be touched. Yet we spend all this money on contraptions that essentially isolate the baby from its surrounding environment. What does that possibly do to the young child?
posted by chris at 1:43 PM
Who is the White House consulting on Middle East policy?
It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.
But now we know.
"Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice.
The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.
Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."
Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel'sdisengagement from the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with the Voice, Upton denied having written the document, though it was sent out from an e-mail account of one of his staffers and bears the organization's seal, which is nearly identical to the Great Seal of the United States. Its idiosyncratic grammar and punctuation tics also closely match those of texts on the Apostolic Congress's website, and Upton verified key details it recounted, including the number of participants in the meeting ("45 ministers including wives") and its conclusion "with a heart-moving send-off of the President in his Presidential helicopter."
Much, much more. (via Atrios.)
posted by chris at 1:08 PM
What a difference a couple years makes
GONZALES SAYS ADMINISTRATION IS A 'STRONG SUPPORTER OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS: "At the same time, President Bush recognized that our nation will continue to be a strong supporter of the Geneva treaties. The president also reaffirmed our policy in the United States armed forces to treat Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantánamo Bay humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in keeping with the principles of the Third Geneva Convention."
- Alberto Gonzales, 5/15/04 (NYT Op-Ed)
VERSUS
GONZALES SAYS GENEVA RESTRICTIONS ARE OBSOLETE: "The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians...In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
- Alberto Gonzales, 1/25/02 (Memorandum to the President, as reported in Newsweek 5/16/04)
Link.
posted by chris at 12:51 PM
Regulation by the regulated
When Environmental Protection Agency officials addressed the National Pork Producers Council last year about a proposed farm-pollution monitoring program, they brought along a slide show to explain and promote the new rules.
Although the audience had no way of knowing it, the slide show was prepared not just by EPA staff but largely by the meat industry, which backed the new rules over the objections of environmentalists.
Internal EPA documents show that the proposed program to monitor air pollution at livestock farms--a contentious topic in rural America--was largely conceived and heavily influenced by lobbyists for the livestock industry. The program is to be officially unveiled in coming months.
The documents also show a relationship between some EPA officials and industry lobbyists that was so close that one EPA official working on farm issues quit in frustration, and state and local government representatives walked out of negotiations.
More.
posted by chris at 10:19 AM
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Monday, May 17, 2004
Irony
The Ohio manufacturing plant that George Bush used last year as a backdrop for his tax cut and job growth program has shut down.
Timken is Canton's biggest employer, and it is reported that 1,300 jobs are to be cut. Former Mayor Richard Watkins, who led the city for 12 years, knows how enormous the impact of such a downsizing can be.
"It isn't just about Timken," said Watkins. "Other jobs are affected. If (people) can't spend money, the smaller entrepreneur won't be able to stay in business."
Ironically, it was a little more than a year ago when President George W. Bush visited Timken's world headquarters heralding his tax cut and job creation plan. Now this very company's job cuts will be a major blow to the economy in Canton.
Via Atrios.
posted by chris at 9:05 PM
The Geneva Convention doesn't apply here
Newsweek reports that, as a way to prevent a repeat of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, “Bush, along with Defense Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods.”
Within months of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales reportedly wrote Bush a memo about the terrorism fight and prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Conventions.
“In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions,” Newsweek reports in its May 24 issue, quoting an excerpt from the Gonzales memo.
“It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war," Newsweek reports. “In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers —and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places.”
America: We don't follow international law, we define it for ourselves.
posted by chris at 10:18 AM
How much has the Iraq war cost YOUR state?
The National Priortites Project has created a state by state report, analyzing how much the Iraq war has cost taxpayers in every state. They've also provided some comparisons to other federal programs for which each state receives money.
posted by chris at 10:07 AM
An arbitrary date, chosen for political reasons
For weeks, the American occupation authority in Iraq has been updating the timetable leading to the day it is supposed to go out of business, on June 30, declaring on its Web site on Sunday that there were "46 days until Iraqi sovereignty."
Yet nowhere on the Web site, or anyplace else in official American statements, can be found the identity of the new Iraqi leadership or the precise powers of the new Iraqi government over many important matters, including the full authority over Iraqi armed forces.
Those forces will continue to operate under American command, but the Americans have said they will consult the new government on deployment and other issues.
Other subjects that remain unclear include to what extent Iraq will have a say in the practices of American-run prisons that hold Iraqi suspects, some of whom are not charged with any crimes, and over the Iraqi criminal justice system that might prosecute Americans for crimes against Iraqis.
More.
posted by chris at 10:00 AM
Too little, too late
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said for the first time on Sunday that he now believes that the Central Intelligence Agency was deliberately misled about evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing unconventional weapons.
He also said, in his comments on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," that he regrets citing evidence that Iraq had mobile biological laboratories in his presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003.
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Taken with past admissions of error by the administration or its intelligence agencies, Mr. Powell's statement on Sunday leaves little room for the administration to argue that Mr. Hussein's stockpiles of unconventional weapons posed any real and imminent threat.
"Basically, Powell now believes that the Iraqis had chemical weapons, and that was it," said an official close to him. "And he is out there publicly saying this now because he doesn't want a legacy as the man who made up stories to provide the president with cover to go to war."
Maybe this was something they would have liked to investigate . . . oh, I don't know . . . BEFORE the war?!??
posted by chris at 9:42 AM
The highest levels
The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, personally authorised the expansion of a special programme which ultimately led to the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison, the New Yorker magazine claims today.
The operation, which encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation to obtain intelligence, was known to President George Bush and fewer than 200 operatives. It was approved by the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, according to the report. The programme was governed by the rules: "Grab who you must. Do what you want," a former intelligence officer told the magazine.
Story here and the New Yorker article here.
posted by chris at 8:43 AM
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