https://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/keytopics/Iraq.html
Texto:
IMPERIAL AMERICA ON THE MARCH
Americans used to scoff with confidence at Soviet and Chinese Cold War propaganda during the Vietnam era, that charged America with imperialistic intentions in Southeast Asia. The propagandists were wrong. America had no intentions of occupying or colonizing these areas. The McNamara “whiz kids” and CFR insiders had only one prime intention in jumping into the quagmire of that guerrilla war, which was exacerbated by rules of engagement favorable to the enemy and prolonged by allowing Russia and China to feed unlimited supplies of war materiel into the theater of operations. The Vietnam debacle was designed, among other smaller goals, to eradicate any current or future desire by the American public to directly confront Communism’s subversion of third world nations. It served its purpose. America got its fingers burned trying to “make the world safe for democracy,” and a period of isolationism reigned in the USA - until the George H. W. Bush administration reversed the course of American foreign policy and began a deliberate and calculated series of wars of intervention in order to reengage Americans in global conflict.
The same old verbiage about opposing tyranny and saving democracy was there, but this time the globalist insiders would trumpet their vaunted New World Order to the world – openly. They obviously had something bigger in mind than mere nation building via non-coercive, helpful means. Neither were they targeting the larger threat of Communist Russian, still feigning weakness after allowing a “spontaneous” uprising of the former Soviet states. In this new round of intervention, the US would exclusively target smaller tyrants who couldn’t fight back, almost as if their goal was to antagonize the post Soviet world with American hegemony. The change in tactics was also notable in its different approach to war and its commensurate justification. In earlier wars, the US simply played soft with Communism and waited for the inevitable domino effect of small revolutions that would justify US intervention. Coup d’etats were often facilitated by small hints from the US State Department that the US would not intervene to support the “corrupt” pro-Western regime being threatened.
But with the initiation of more directly controlled conflict in the 90’s, the small circle of globalist planners used, more than ever before, behind-the-scenes provocations and agent provocateurs to falsify the appearance of war crimes in Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, and otherwise manufacture justifications for intervention that could be trumpeted by the media. It is obvious in the aftermath that US intentions of managing the news had the full cooperation of the heads of all establishment media outlets. The vaunted fourth estate was clearly unwilling to acknowledge, much less publish, the obvious contradictions brought forth by a minority of foreign journalists.
Today, we hear renewed charges from the left of US imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time the charges are justified. The US is clearly acting as conqueror rather than liberator of Iraq. While the Bush administration continues to pretend that the Iraqi people are free, and that this whole exercise is about allowing for self-determination, the facts speak otherwise. The US is obviously determined to control any potential “democratic” outcome in Iraq, just as they do in the US. Their manipulations have been so transparent as to invite international distain for US pretensions. Despite fostering great expectations internationally for an Iraqi “interim governing council,” the US quickly disbanded the council when insufficient servility to US whims was manifest. Talk of imminent elections was quieted soon thereafter. Later, a smaller, more hand-picked and controllable council was selected, but still no elections. As a tide of criticism arose from the emerging Iraqi free press, the US quickly shut down any newspapers espousing anti-US views. That’s imperialism—not democracy, nor freedom.
A few key quotes in the news have hit upon the growing colonial and paternalistic sentiment among American administrators in Iraq. Time magazine caught administrative Tsar Paul Bremer referring to Iraq as if it were his own personal fiefdom: “We’ve got oil, we’ve got water, we’ve got fertile land, we’ve got wonderful people.” “We’ve got?” Why not “They’ve got?” Whose country is Iraq, anyway? Along the same lines, the Associated Press quoted an unnamed source in the Pentagon (most likely a political appointee) enthusing on US intentions in Iraq, “You have to go in and tell them: ‘We’re gonna do what we did in Germany and Japan. We’re gonna write your constitution. We’re gonna install your government. We’re gonna write your laws.’”
Far from being idle statements of arrogance, these statements hint at the real purpose behind US continued presence in Iraq. With big name corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel maneuvering to justify their huge no-bid contracts, Americans think US contractors are solely engaged in rebuilding essential utilities and infrastructure in Iraq. But there is a large contingent of smaller contractors tasked to completely change the social and legal structure of Iraq. I don’t recall the administration ever getting a mandate from Congress to engage in this kind of change. The administration is clearly no longer a servant of the people, but a change agent of its own.
Arizona Republican Jim Kolbe sounded a clear warning when he said, “They are going to lose their credibility with the Iraqi people if we don't get services up…But they are going to lose their credibility with the American people if they are not up front and tell us what the cost is, what we can expect.” This is even more true as the American people find out that only a tiny part of the billions being doled out in Iraq are going toward getting essential services up and running.
The US is busy revamping Iraqi judicial system, the education system, the agricultural sector, the tax structure, pension systems, social security and the medical system. The Observer (UK) reports, “An American law firm with ties to the Bush administration has been hired to help set up a legal system in Iraq. The firm, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, has been drafted in by USAID to advise on privatizing former government-held industries, structuring government economic and regulatory agencies, and developing a tax structure. The legal deal is part of a larger package worth up to $79.6 million taken on by Bearing Point, formerly called KPMG consultants, to advise on the restructuring of Iraq. The deal is expected to lead to several million dollars of work for Squire, Sanders, effectively as sub-contractor. It was also announced on Friday that the administration in Iraq has appointed a JP Morgan-led consortium that includes France's Credit Lyonnais to set up and manage a trade bank for Iraq.”
Who authorized this kind of reform? Certainly not Congress. Aside from the patent illegality of such interference, whether or not such revisions are necessary or proper depends on exactly what kinds of legal structures are envisioned and implemented. The reason Japan and Germany rebounded so quickly following their own American-led restructuring was that the socialist system within both nations was to a large extent dismantled. While the legal and constitutional structures and laws imposed upon Japan and Germany were by no means perfect in free-market terms, they did unleash sufficient entrepreneurial spirit to cause both countries to make tremendous gains in economic growth and stability - before the inevitable reversion to democratic socialism took place.
In contrast, In Iraq the US has no pretense of creating a real broad-based free-market economy. It will build a “privileged” economy whereby only compliant businessmen and corporations get sufficient economic liberty to prosper. Opposition forces will be denied prosperity—mostly by being denied access to American aid, and the necessary permits to do business.
All of this meddling in non-essential infrastructure will be costly and politically unpopular both in Iraq and with the American public as US citizens see domestic spending being cut at home while Iraqi social programs are being given priority over American needs. It is little wonder that the Bush administration is very cryptic and evasive about what Iraqi operations are costing. It seems the Bush administration throws out low ball figures on Iraq and then waits for more scrupulous watchdogs to ferret out better figures. Only after a couple of months does the administration admit to the higher figures. By then the real expenditures have climbed higher still. Thus far, the Bush administration’s cost analysis has gone from $2 billion per month to $4 billion, and the numbers are still rising. All this is on top of the ongoing expenditures of a billion dollars a month in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other lingering quagmires – none of which get much press any more. Some analysts are predicting costs in Iraq will reach $10 billion per month, and for good reason—as the US tries to alter Iraq’s judicial, educational, and medical systems to mimic US controlled systems, it creates a constant and growing need for more funding - never less. Such is the nature of benefit-corruption in socialism, and government mandated standards of quality.
Let me return briefly to the subject of US imperialism in Iraq. It is not, as the left assumes, a mere exercise in power and greed, a manifestation of “Capitalism gone bad.” US warmongering and colonial paternalism in Iraq has a higher globalist purpose—that of using conflict and the appearance of peaceful resolution to slowly accustom the America people to constant globalist intervention. Even the apparent bungling of US efforts in Iraq may have some perverse purpose to the globalists. After bashing the UN about its failure to attack Iraq, the US is notably eager (as always) to lead American public opinion back to the premise that we must keep going back to the UN to establish legitimacy. Indeed, US heavy handedness makes people forget how corrupt and incompetent UN peacekeeping efforts have been in times past.
As both the US and UN jockey for control of the New World Order, each plays off the evils and excesses of the other in order to make themselves look like the Saviors of the world. And yet, neither have any other intent but to dominate and subject the world to their brand of international control.
The tactics of the US negotiators at the UN are telling. It is obvious they want a larger UN role in Iraq at almost any price – except loss of control. Thus, the core demand prevails that all UN peacekeeping forces be under a US commander, just like in Kosovo and Afghanistan. The reasons for US insistence on a UN presence have nothing to do with saving US taxpayers any expense. The US can’t get any allies to send more than token forces into this sniper’s den without offering to bribe them with direct or indirect payments. If the UN joins, the costs and inefficiencies will also rise, and Americans will pay later through increased UN dues.
The key to understanding the dual personality of the US in foreign policy (its love-hate relationship with the UN) is that US globalist leaders are trying to simultaneously foster antagonism towards the US and respect for globalist institutions. The antagonism is meant to lead to the ousting of the US as the reigning knight in shining armor, policeman of the world. Meanwhile, the world is quickly and predictably being lured into accepting the UN as benevolent, despite its bloody history. It’s the old “good cop, bad cop” routine on an international scale.
THE US IN TROUBLE IN IRAQ
The guerrilla movement is growing as Islamic Jihad fighters stream in from neighboring countries, eager to have a go at the “great Satan.” Bush may not regret his “bring ‘em on” challenge, but his troops highly resent it. They are the intended targets. Syria is actively recruiting “liberators” for Iraq via its surrogate “minaret network” of fundamentalist cells. The Saudis allow similar networks to operate under the umbrella of the burgeoning Wahabi movement—despite that nation’s eager appearance to be a partner in the war on terror. All of the Middle Eastern nations know they have to play up to the US, but each is eager to stab us in the back. Sadly, it is not the front-line, heavily armed US forces that are taking the brunt of the ambushes and sniper attacks – it’s the rear echelon columns of truck drivers and other “non-combatants,” many of whom are women.
US casualties have risen to an average of ten killed and wounded per day. The Washington Post reported, “The number of those wounded in action, which totals 1,124 since the war began in March, has grown so large, and attacks have become so commonplace, that US Central Command usually issues news releases listing injuries only when the attacks kill one or more troops. The result is that many injuries go unreported… Although Central Command keeps a running total of the wounded, it releases the number only when asked - making the combat injuries of U.S. troops in Iraq one of the untold stories of the war... Since the war began, more than 6,000 service members have been flown back to the United States. The number includes the 1,124 wounded in action, 301 who received non-hostile injuries in vehicle accidents and other mishaps, and thousands who became physically or mentally ill.”
US troops are growing wearing and angry as the promised short war turns into an indefinite deployment. A “stop loss” order is in effect, whereby no one is allowed to leave the military (with certain exceptions such as that of General Tommy Franks, who decided he’d seen enough of this boondoggle and wanted out). Extensive use of National Guard units is wreaking havoc in an uncertain employment market as employers of guardsmen are required to hold their jobs open for them during their deployment. In desperation, Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld is now considering activating three reserve divisions to relieve troops in Iraq. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the Pentagon cannot continue to keep current troop levels deployed past a year without destroying morale and negatively impacting future recruitment. Enlistments are already drying up. According to the CBO, to sustain a suitable rotational deployment schedule for the long-term, with existing manpower, the US can only maintain a maximum of 64,000 troops in Iraq. Watch out for the draft. While there is little support for a draft considering the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq, a sudden flair up of terrorism or war in Korea or Syria could be conveniently used to suppress public resistance.
The killing of Ayatollah Hakim is a bad omen for the US occupiers. This Shiite cleric, recently returned from exile in Iran, was revered as perhaps the great unifier of Shiite political hopes in post war Iraq. His death has spawned many Shiite suspicions that the US may have had some hand in the deed. There is little evidence of that, but it is indicative of how surprise events can undermine the most carefully laid US plans for the pacification of the Shiite majority of fundamentalist Muslims.
US RECORD ON REGIME CHANGES IS MIXED
The American public has been led to believe that with this war in Iraq, the US is engaging in compelling a "regime change" in another nation for the first time. This is only nominally true, in the overt sense of using direct military force to accomplish such a change. However, if we count the employment of covert actions to overthrow other governments, the US has a long history of such practices. US involvement in regime changes in other nations, for good or for ill, has always been a little complex because of two major factors:
First, the takeover of the American Republic by socialists and globalists has been gradual. During the first half of the twentieth century, these agents of influence were a minority in government and had to hide many of their motives for championing "progressive" changes. At the same time, they had to deal with the anti-Communist sentiment that prevailed among the American public, in Congress, and among most government employees (including the military). There were active and contending ideological factions in the media, the public, the military, in universities and Congress. There were even multiple factions within the secret world of US intelligence (OSS, ONI, DIA, CIA, FBI, etc.) whose dark-side operations, which ran counter to US best interests, had to be hidden from the many loyal and patriotic agents who would not have approved.
Second, even as socialists and globalists gained effective control of all facets of the federal government (including Congress) during WWII and the 1950’s, they still had to play as if they were "centrists" and moderates-hiding the more radical NWO agenda that has as its main goal the demise of US Constitutionally derived sovereignty. The public had to be prepped for the globalist transition, cleansed of residual awareness of and loyalty for our Constitutional Republic and indoctrinated with the principles of raw democracy. This took time. It also took time to gain more comprehensive control of the media and public education institutions which would be the prime indoctrinators. In sum, the domestic and foreign policy of the US involved playing two simultaneous roles: 1) nominally defending legitimate US interests-mostly through hollow rhetoric, and 2) undermining those same interests, in secret, through collusion with third party socialists and Communists along with the selective use of their own covert teams (black ops).
To understand the conflicting record of US regime changes and government overthrows, one more key point is necessary to understand. There is a line of demarcation that occurred during the Carter administration that helps explain in part what happened before and after that era. Before the Carter administration, the CIA still had an active human intelligence (HUMINT) network of spies throughout the world, who were mostly interested in ferreting out Communists and other hostile double agents. James Angleton, the longtime CIA head of these operations, was targeted for removal by the leftist factions within government. The same was true of J. Edgar Hoover, longtime head of the FBI. Both men kept files on leftist political leaders to stave off reprisals from other leftist factions in government.
The US State Department and White House staff were the hotbed of Communist agents of influence beginning with the Roosevelt administration and continuing to the Carter era. Leftist sympathizers saw themselves at war with the "right wing" factions within the security and military services. It was the US State Department, in collusion with the Executive Department and controlled media, that actively attempted to overthrow pro-Western regimes and replace them with Communist revolutionaries masquerading as "reformers." This latter association was amply played up to the public by key leftist reporters such as Herbert Matthews, Drew Pearson, Edward R. Murrow, Walter Winchell, and Walter Lippman. The CIA and ONI, on the other hand, were primarily behind the attempts to overthrow Communist regimes in the pre-Carter years.
This explains why the US was at various times both installing and overthrowing Communist regimes before the Carter era. For instance, the US covertly worked to install Communist regimes in China, Cuba, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Angola, Mozambique and Nicaragua, among others. Hard as this is for most Americans to believe, there is in each case strong documentation published by patriotic witnesses who tried to stop these betrayals and who were consequently removed from government or otherwise sanctioned. Naturally, none of these testaments made their way into establishment histories. Two of the most detailed and accurate of the dissenting views are found in the following accounts: Foreign Policy Failures in Cuba by Mario Lazo (the US ambassador to Cuba at the time of US covert assistance to Castro) and Nicaragua Betrayed by Anastasio Samoza (the former President of Nicaragua who meticulously documented his conversations and dealings with leftist State Department officials as they systematically betrayed Nicaragua to the Communist rebels). Neither books are currently in print, but you can find them in used bookstores.
Let’s look at the other side of the equation. At the same time that socialist and globalist factions were working to install Communist regimes, other factions within the US government covertly overthrew various regimes, some democratically elected, that had significant secret ties to Communist movements and that presented a threat to indigenous anti-Communist leaders or American business interests (due to land confiscation policies, etc.). Notable examples that have enraged the liberal press ever since include: the 1953 attempt to overthrow Mohammad Mosaddeq in Iran and restore the shah; the 1954 coup to remove President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala; the 1961 Cuban Bay of Pigs attempt to remove Castro; and the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile by Augusto Pinochet. Each of these operations was planned and executed by anti-Communist factions within the CIA. The Cuban Bay of Pigs failed because the leftist elements of the State Department and White House were able to convince Kennedy to deny air support at the last minute.
Since the Carter administration, however, these conflicting factions have been for the most part eliminated or neutralized. Carter appointed leftist Stansfield Turner as CIA chief, and he eagerly purged some 800 espionage officers, many of whom were connected to James Angleton, chief of the CIA's counterintelligence from 1954 to 1974 and an ardent anti-Communist. (See http://edwardjayepstein.com/archived/whokilled2.htm.) Almost all other remaining anti-communist agents had been eliminated or withdrawn by the time the Aldrich Ames spy case blew open in 1994. According to the Senate investigating committee, "Ames had been an employee of CIA for 31 years, with most of his career spent in the Directorate of Operations, which is responsible for carrying out CIA clandestine operations around the globe. While the precise extent of Ames's espionage activities was unclear at the time of his arrest, Justice Department officials confirmed that Ames was believed to have caused the death or imprisonment of a number of Soviets who had been sources of the CIA and FBI."
Some conservatives have theorized that the dismantling of the anti-Communist spy sections was either attributable to US stupidity, or due to the control exercised by the many secret Communist agents that had infiltrated the State Department during and since WWII. However, it is my theory that this dismantling was intentional at some level to further globalist objectives which required, among other things, playing along with grand deception of the "collapse of Communism" in Russia. I believe that the globalist control system actively uses predictable socialists to further the leftist agenda, and facilitates Communist espionage to undermine US sovereign interests-while avoiding the prospect of getting caught doing so directly.
True, the US government has attacked and facilitated the overthrow of Communist governments since the purge of anti-Communism from government agencies, but it has done so for different reasons. No longer are operations like Kosovo and Bosnia the work of residual patriotic factions inside the CIA or military intelligence. Rather, the Communist leaders and regimes in Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq were targeted for globalist reasons - either because they resisted the transition to globalist control, or because their removal was necessary to serve other longer range globalist purposes (control of oil resources, antagonism of the Slavic and Muslim worlds towards the US, getting the US military used to acting as global cop, etc.). Eventually, all Communist regimes, even those brought to power with US influence, will be brought down by the globalists after they have served their usefulness.
The Newest Target: North Korea. According to leaked documents from the Pentagon, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is calling for a regime change in Pyongyang. This is not, in my analysis, because the Bush administration wants a truly disarmed or reformed Korea in the near future. Remember, the US has worked behind the scenes with the UN for years to preserve this ruthless Communist regime, which is a surrogate of China and Russia. Some evidence of these efforts: 1) The Truman administration established safe areas for Chinese troops and aircraft, thus prohibiting McArthur from winning the Korean war through hot pursuit; 2) The US failed to sanction Russia and China for turning N. Korea into an armed camp with WMD; 3) The US has known about N. Korean transfers of Scud missiles for years and has never intervened; and 4) The US has provided billions in food, oil, and nuclear power plant technology transfers, in spite of a constant flow of evidence of Korean non-compliance with non-proliferation issues.
In my analysis, it appears that the tensions between China and its neighbors Taiwan and N. Korea are being preserved to serve as future trigger events for the next World War. The other potential trigger is the Israeli-Arab conflict. Globalist planners may view it as necessary to avoid a confrontation with N. Korea now since that would force China and Russia to come to N. Korea’s aid, and trigger a World War neither side is ready for. Thus, both N. Korea and Syria are being encouraged to play moderate so the US has an excuse NOT to attack militarily. Syria is being compliant (for now), so Rumsfeld is focusing on N. Korea, pushing China to remove Kim Jong-il and replace him with someone more stable and compliant.
The talks this week in Beijing between the US, N. Korea, and China have broken down. Rather that be conciliatory, the Pyongyang representative Ri Gun bragged openly that N. Korea actually possesses operational nuclear weapons. He also claimed it has an ongoing program of reprocessing spent fuel rods, allowing it to increase production and export plutonium to other countries. This brash in-your-face boast was presented in order to provoke the US into a sense of urgency, hoping to force the US to accept N. Korea’s demand for direct one-on-one talks-a demand that Sec. of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice have rejected. The Bush administration wants first and foremost to push the international agenda of multilateral talks. The US only settles on a course of unilateral action when the UN refuses to go along with US intentions and the US doesn’t mind inflaming world opinion.
The US is quickly digging itself a hole in terms of world opinion as it continues to act unilaterally even after the collapse of Saddam’s regime.
Control Over Oil: The US has fallen into a legal quagmire of its own making. According to Reuters, "After extending until June 3 emergency arrangements for Iraq's oil-for-food plan, the UN Security Council faces contentious US demands that U.N. controls be struck entirely from the multibillion-dollar plan. President Bush has said several times he wants the sanctions, imposed in 1990, lifted entirely and diplomats said the United States was crafting a resolution that would guarantee that proceeds from future oil sales be held in trust for an interim Iraqi authority [US puppet regime] rather than the United Nations."
This, of course, would give the US direct access to all the oil revenues. Russia and France are teaming up to use their veto powers to stop the US from dismantling current UN authority over oil. No oil company is allowed to purchase Iraqi oil while sanctions are in place, and the US has no legal standing to sell Iraq’s oil.
Weapons Inspections. The biggest charge of hypocrisy has been in response to US refusal to allow UN weapons inspectors into the country. Bill O’Reilly and former US weapons inspector Scott Ritter have correctly pointed out that this looks very suspicious. The US is short on manpower, and should welcome all the help they can get. Suspicions run high that the US is desperate to find something major that can be used to justify the war-even if they have to bring something in. This is what Ritter had to say in a recent interview:
"The Bush Administration is desperate at this point in time to find evidence of retained prohibited capability, because this would in one fell swoop legitimize the entire invasion. People have to take a step back and understand that the Bush Administration fabricated and misrepresented information going into this conflict about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. If they don't find it, there is every reason to believe that they will fabricate and misrepresent information to legitimize the other end of the conflict.
"I would recommend that everybody take a long hard look at the people involved in this [inspections] process. Charles Duelfer, the former deputy executive chairman of UNSCOM. He is a State Department employee who served with the weapons inspectors from 1993 to 1999. As a state department employee, he implemented unilateral American policy of regime removal - containment, destabilization, and removal through intelligence collection, using the weapons inspections process to achieve this. He was not there to disarm Iraq. This is a man who leaked film images to the media in 1996 of burning leaves claiming to be burning documents. This is a man, whom in the presence of myself and others, said to a senior CIA official out of frustration of not finding weapons, ‘Why don't you put a missile in Iraq for us to find?’ This is a man who deliberately misrepresented the body of data held by the weapons inspectors in their final report to the Security Council so as to achieve American political objectives. This is the man now - a senior participant in this effort with this exploitation team that they are ready to send into Iraq. Why should I trust Charles Duelfer? Why should any American trust him? If the U.S. is serious about legitimizing any potential weapons of mass destruction, they should have the U.N. weapons inspectors go in and do the work, with an independent objective and an implementation of a Security Council mandate." [End of Ritter quote.]
UN Weapons Chief Inspector Hans Blix has correctly warned that any US finds of WMD would be suspect unless confirmed by international inspectors. The US has even demanded that Syria return weapons it was hiding on behalf of Saddam Hussein, quietly admitting that the US has known all along where the bulk of Saddam’s weapons went. Will the American public put two and two together and see the duplicity here? I doubt it.
Any Kind of Democracy You Want-Except Religious. The US is very clear that it does not intend to allow the Iraqis to choose a leader or government if that government is Muslim fundamentalist in orientation. "If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen," Donald Rumsfeld told the AP in a recent press conference. Notice the pejorative manner in which he rephrased the question to make it look undemocratic: "a few clerics running everything."
This kind of selective democracy is actually typical of what the US government sets up every time it intervenes formally or informally in a nation. I have personal experience of this from working in Latin America as a political advisor to emerging political parties, and can assure my readers that the US never allows any nation to install a type of government modeled after the US Constitution, or anything close to it.
The Shiite majority is demonstrating loudly against the US occupation of Iraq. Not only have they been underrepresented relative to their population percentage (above 60%), but they know that the US is intending to exclude them from power. The US said as much when it issued public warnings to Iran not to "interfere" in Iraq-meaning sending in political organizers to help the fundamentalist cause. Iran already has a fundamentalist government.
US Puppet Regime Will Never Be Accepted by Most. Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi is being touted as the future leader in Iraq. But if the Bush administration thinks that all Shiites will emulate Chalabi and come together under a future secular government, they are kidding themselves. The Bush administration is in a form of denial about the passion of the Iraqi Shiite community who have not had the freedom to express themselves for years. They are doing so now, and the US is treating them as if they are loud minority. They are not admitting that the rising anti-Bush sentiment is causing many Iraqis, Shiites and Sunnis included, to form alliances that were impossible before. These alliances won’t last for the long term, but they do guarantee tough going for the US if it tries to impose its will for long. As for Chalabi, Iraqis view him as a nobody or as a Western lackey, and they particularly distrust the fact that he was allowed to arrive with a small army of trained mercenaries. No other leader has been allowed his own private army. It has not been lost on the Iraqis that Chalabi and his men still carry foreign passports and don’t intend to give up their escape plans, should things not work out. In other words, they aren’t in it for the long haul, unless they are propped up by US power.
US Occupation of Military Bases. When I watched Defense Secretary Rumsfeld deny any US intention to maintain a long-term military presence in Iraq, I sensed he was lying. He gets a disturbed look on his face when he is being less than honest, and he was looking very troubled as the media peppered him with questions. He even got angry at one point, realizing he wasn’t being believed despite his absolute verbal assurances that reports of US long-term intentions to stay were "inaccurate and unfortunate." When he said, "I have never heard the subject of a permanent base in Iraq discussed," he was probably thinking in Clintonian terms-"That depends on the meaning of ‘permanent.’" He definitely began to get uncomfortable when probed about "how long." He grabbed at three or four excuses, all of which were quite open-ended. It would depend on "how rapidly an interim Iraqi government evolves and how successful external influences might be in destabilizing the country." Well, that says it all-it wouldn’t be hard to imagine those criteria lasting forever!
US Soldiers Caught Stealing Millions and Robbing Artifacts. Photos taken of US soldiers prying archeological artifacts off the wall of a museum to keep as souvenirs have been circulating on the internet, causing outrage among viewers, as they should. Causing similar outrage are reports that troops from the 4th Battalion of the 64th Army Division found millions in US bills and cached some of it away to smuggle back to the States for personal enrichment.
We expect better of our troops. This is one of the reasons why I refrain from showing unconditional support of our troops-as if they were all homogeneous. I cringe when I hear of self-serving generals praising our troops as if all are the greatest people in the world. Many individuals are truly outstanding, especially in the elite units, but most show a real lack of motivation, or are motivated by swaggering bravado and other dangerous macho attitudes. Having been a Marine officer myself, I have wide experience handling enlisted men. Only a small minority are really sharp and faithful to the high standards the Marines set. Drug and alcohol problems are common, especially among those who enlist for lack of anything better to do back home. I am actually surprised there are not more incidents such as these. In a longer term war involving much more discouraging conditions, there probably would be. Morality problems are in the military are epidemic. The new policies of intermixing women and men in military units is a disaster. Since the military never preaches anything but a pragmatic "don’t get caught" form of sexual morality, it is no wonder that thousands of single males on board a ship mixed with a few females don’t control themselves. A lot of women in the navy end up pregnant.
In terms of the artifacts incident, a larger issue here is the refusal of the Pentagon to forestall looting of Iraq’s archeological museums. The looting was preplanned and systematic-done by professionals. The Iraqi archeological community had forewarned the US through various sources and on more than one occasion that they expected theft and specifically requested the US prepare to protect these museums and artifacts. How does it look to the world that the US prepared special teams to secure all oil infrastructure and even oil related administrative buildings and did nothing to protect the museums?
MEETING OF 300 IRAQI LEADERS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF IRAQ
In Baghdad, retired US General Jay Garner, the interim administrator in charge of Iraq’s reconstruction, organized his second conference to prepare to name a provisional government within the next 30 days. The first conference was two weeks ago at Ur and was poorly attended by around 60 Iraqi representatives. Monday’s attendance was nearly 300 due to the return of so many Iraqi exiles, who have little support within the country. The US clearly intends to install many of the exiles in the new government. The Shiites have generally boycotted these meetings protesting the obvious US intent to exclude the majority Shiites from governing in post war Iraq. However, they did place a few representatives in this meeting in order to keep track of what Garner is promoting.
These tactics are in stark contrast to President Bush’s televised claims that "we aren’t going to impose any form of government on Iraq. They are going to be free to choose who they really want." No one believes Bush on that one. One thing Bush said was actually true: "We aren’t going to impose our form of government." Too bad-a constitutionally restricted Republic with guarantees against majoritarian tyranny would be just the thing to keep one Iraqi group from imposing its will on another. But it won’t happen because such restrictions also preclude a socialist redistribution schemes, which all politicians use to buy votes.
American soldiers are not being trained in how to maintain good fire discipline when confronted by civilian demonstrators. Two times now, agent provocateurs have shot at American troops under the cover of civilian demonstrations. In a third this last week, soldiers opened fired on the crowd when no shots were fired-only when a youth threw a shoe and hit a soldier. In response to all these cases, some justified and one not, US troops have open fire with automatic weapons on the unarmed crowds, leaving many dead and wounded.
The US cannot afford to continue to feed the Iraqi people’s growing hatred of American occupation by responding in this manner. In 2 out of the 3 recent cases, Americans were in protected buildings where they could have taken cover and determined where the shots were coming from. Instead they blasted the crowds in an over-reaction to the perceived need to "return fire" with maximum force. That’s what they are taught in training. In contrast, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) is carefully trained on how to avoid firing on civilians merely throwing rocks, sticks or shoes, and to target the few with rifles hiding behind the crowds. Yes, some rock throwers occasionally get hit, but civilian casualties are kept to a minimum. The US will no longer be able to chastise the IDF for civilian casualties after our own soldiers’ poor use of fire discipline. I’m not blaming the soldiers as much as our military officers for not preparing them on how to handle these kinds of situations. There is much the US did not do to properly prepare its troops to attack a country and keep order in the aftermath.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced this week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that the US would withdraw its forces from the nation, now that the military mission of the Iraq war is ended. This is only partially true. The US is only putting the its facilities at Prince Sultan Air Base in mothballs and will keep it operationally ready for a quick return when the next Middle East crisis arises. To this end, 400 to 500 military personnel will remain to keep the facilities operational. I view the withdrawal as only a token move to appease the Saudi regime. US forces have long been a thorn in the side of this fundamentalist Muslim nation. There are thousands of other Americans in numerous operations through the Saudi Kingdom-many working with corporate/government partnership deals. However, the need for a fully staffed military base in Saudi Arabia has been lessened since the US invasion of Iraq. Having four new airbases in Iraq under US control has allowed this gesture to the Saudis to go forward. I fully expect the US to maintain a very substantial military presence in Iraq for future intervention in the region.
The High Energy Access Tools (H.E.A.T) company has been indicted on charges of unlicensed exportation of defense services and use of explosive materials-a felony. The company had contracts with government anti- terrorism teams, many foreign, to train them in the use of explosives. Bob Gorence, the attorney for H.E.A.T's president David Hudak, told reporters this week that it was Halliburton Corporation which solicited Hudak to purchase the 2,400 warheads-an illegal transaction for both Halliburton and H.E.A.T. Hudak says Halliburton offered the warheads as demolition charges and not as government-owned military items which are illegal to possess. Frankly, I find this hard to believe given that these finned warheads are not easily dismantled or detonated outside of their normal use. This looks like an illegal weapons transfer to me. So guess who is taking the rap? It’s not Halliburton, VP Dick Cheney’s company, and a prime contractor in the Iraq reconstruction.
BUSH’S 3-ZONE OCCUPATION PLAN FOR IRAQ-OR IS IT 4 ZONES?
There are reports that Iraq is to be divided into three or perhaps four sectors patrolled by troops led by the United States, Britain and Poland. The Warsaw government says the United States is planning to divide Iraq up into four military sectors, each patrolled by a force of between 7,000 and 9,000 soldiers from one of the three nations. Who will occupy the fourth area - which probably encompasses Baghdad proper - has not yet been determined.
Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said back on April 29 that the US gave Poland assurance of large grants of money if it would take part in the occupation. The US did make it very clear to Poland that the US would be inoverall control of all occupation forces. This is not surprising given US desires to control everything in Iraq, including the next government and Iraq’s oil. So far Poland claims to be ready to put 3,000 troops on the ground, and perhaps as many as 4,000 if other countries will pony up more funds. Germany and Denmark just reported this week that they are refusing Poland’s requests to add their own troops to the mix-unless the US steps down and allows the UN to manage the occupation and reconstruction.
Why Poland? Poland has been very much a bit player in this war, with only 200 soldiers in Iraq and a mere 50 who engaged in actual combat. The Polish language barrier will only add to the friction of occupation as hardly any Iraqis speak Polish. Why should Poland get such a big stake in the prestige contest of being a team player with the US? On one hand, the inclusion of Poland might be a US attempt to play up the new Eastern Block nations just approved for joining NATO. The US Senate formally approved NATO's newest expansion, voting 96-0 to add seven Eastern European nations to NATO: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania. Poland had been previously approved for membership in the first expansion.
Another possibility might be related to Poland’s recent contract to pay $3.5 billion for 48 American-made Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters. These kinds of deals with supposedly "reformed" Communist countries typically include"offset" deals on the side that indicate such contracts are merely a cover for technology transfers to the buyer. In this case, in exchange for buying the fighters, Poland extracted a commitment from Lockheed and other American companies to build a factory in Poland to construct GE engines for the Lockheed F-16s as well as factories for GM cars and Motorola telecommunications gear. This is the kind of deal China finagles all the time, to ensure that US military technology stays when the next World War begins-when the world discovers that Communism really wasn’t dead after all in Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, China, and many other "reformed" nations.
I’m not surprised by the US move to create different semi-autonomous zones of occupation. The potential of ethnic dissatisfaction with any centralized control in Baghdad is high. If the US wants a successful outcome, it will allow Iraq to separate into three smaller autonomous regions, corresponding to Iraq’s natural ethnic groups: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Turkey is violently opposed to a Kurdish state, or even autonomous region, as this would enliven the hopes of the insurgent Kurds trapped in Turkey to break loose and secede from Turkish control.
The public has been fed the line that Paul Bremer has been appointed as the "civil administrator" of Iraq in deference to the wishes of Sec. of State Collin Powell. Reconstruction Tsar Jay Garner (a Rumsfeld man) will fall under Bremer’s jurisdiction. Frankly, I don’t think it is a turf battle at all, but rather a consolidation of control of Iraq in the hands of a globalist trained protégé of Henry Kissinger-necessitated by the increasing complexity of the emerging political unrest in Iraq, which is clearly out of Garner’s league.
Bremer has all the right credentials. He was ambassador-at-large for Counterterrorism during the Reagan Administration (when the CIA was busy funding numerous terrorist groups like the IRA). He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the CFR, a recent Managing Director of Kissinger and Associates, and a speaker at the globalist World Affairs Council. He also served as an advisor for Americans for Victory over Terrorism (AVOT), a project of the neoconservative www.empower.org and www.globalsecurity.org organizations that promote the interventionist vision of US hegemony around the world, supposedly for the sake of democracy.
In an interview on PBS Frontline, Bremer candidly said, "We're going to be on the ground in Iraq as soldiers and citizens for years. We're going to be running a colony almost." He’d better hope the Iraqis don’t hear that.
CBS National Security Correspondent David Martin reports, "CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks. … That's according to notes taken by aides who were with Rumsfeld in the National Military Command Center on Sept. 11 - notes that show exactly where the road toward war with Iraq began." [See www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml]. Rumsfeld was overruled, however, by others in the administration who (in collusion with Russia) had been planning to attack Afghanistan for over a year. Obviously, the 9/11 attack provided the excuse to move ahead on the Afghanistan offensive, and Iraq had to wait till the Taliban were replaced by Hamed Karzai, a US lackey.
Despite the US victory in Iraq, the rest of the world is still suspicious that US motives for the intervention are very much different than those stated publicly. As Peter Preston of The Guardian (UK) proclaims, "Victory in the desert hasn't made a blind bit of difference," Preston writes. "The rest of the world is neither forgiving nor forgetting. Its rulers may, or may not. …Mr. Putin, [may] be trying to change the record, but the people they rule have elephants' memories and a view which mere outcomes do not affect." Preston cites, in particular, the sudden loss of US interest in finding any large stocks of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq-the supposed evidence needed to prove why Iraq was such a threat to US interests. Yes, a few remnants of WMD’s have been found, but nothing of any significant magnitude-especially since none of these chemical weapons were launched at US or British troops during the war.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of former military intelligence types, has issued the following warning to the Bush administration concerning the importance of not looking devious in the eyes of the world:
"Prominent pundits (and, quite probably, some of your own advisers) are now saying it does not matter whether so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ are ever found in Iraq. Don’t let them fool you. It matters a great deal. The Wall Street Journal had it right in its page-one lead article on April 8: ‘Officials Debate Involving the UN in Verification. American forces in Iraq are rapidly confronting two other tasks (besides hunting down Saddam Hussein) of enormous importance: finding any weapons of mass destruction and convincing the world the finds are real. The weapons search is a critical one for the Bush administration, which went to war charging that the Iraqi leader had hidden huge amounts of chemical and biological weapons and could pass them on to terrorists. If the US doesn’t make any undisputed discoveries of forbidden weapons, the failure will feed already-widespread skepticism abroad about the motives for going to war’ … And the controversy has now become acute, since you have been backed into the untenable position of assuming the former role of Saddam Hussein in refusing to cooperate with UN inspectors." [End of VIPS quote.] Perhaps this explains why Bush came out this week, more adamant than ever, vowing that "we will find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq." Not a few expect this kind of decree to lead to the planting of weapons, or the making of small finds into large issues.
TRANSITION IN IRAQ - THE LATEST DECEPTION
Coalition Provisional Administrator Paul Bremer has announced that the US is giving up on its December 15 deadline for the Iraqi Council to form a new constitution and set a date for elections. Bremer also gave the impression that US forces would remain in Iraq, with a different mandate. "Our presence here will change from an occupation to an invited presence." The "invitation" will no doubt be courtesy of the slavishly compliant regime that the Bush administration has announced will be installed in a "temporary" capacity by June. Undoubtedly the new leader will be Ahmed Chalabi, currently the US-installed chairman of the Iraqi Governing Council. Bremer enthused, "I’m sure the Iraqi government is going to want to have coalition forces here for its own security for some time." Given the growing instability from guerrilla attacks and the continued antagonism by US forces who are now resorting to major air strikes against mere "suspected" insurgent targets, I’m sure this will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Bremer also said, "Iraqi leaders should write a constitution first, then hold elections." That’s what he said about the 15 December election. By announcing the "change," US leaders have used sleight of hand to merely give the whole process another half a year. Keep in mind that the 15 December deadline was supposedly a major concession to France, Germany and Russia to gain their agreement on the recently passed US resolution on Iraq. Somehow I find it strange these three "partners" are not complaining about the US defaulting on its promise. Could it be that each of the three already have what they want? A secret US agreement to pay off their outstanding Iraqi military loans?
Earlier this week, while in Japan, Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld said that American troops will not be withdrawing from Iraq under an accelerated timetable even with provisional Iraqi self-rule. He made it a point to emphasize that political transition does not mean military needs will change. I fully suspect that the US will find every pretense to stay in Iraq for years to come. The central location of Iraq’s major military bases would provide the US massive leverage in any future Arab-Israeli conflict, and allow the US a safe haven when other bases in Saudi Arabia become untenable due to the growing hostility of the Saudis to the US presence.
All of this must be put in context and compared to EU Foreign Minister Javier Solana’s surprising statement this week that "US forces will quickly come under international control" in order to avoid humiliating confrontations with Europe in the handover of power. Obviously Solana, a rabid Marxist, would not have made this kind of presumption without some grounds. His position is bolstered by the fact that Sec. of State Powell is visiting NATO this week to hammer out details of some form of US-NATO cooperation in Iraq.
According to the NY Times, "Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, arrives in Brussels tonight for talks with EU ministers, which he will combine with a meeting with the retiring NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen [also a Marxist]. Diplomats say that Mr. Powell is expected to ‘test the water’ about the involvement of the transatlantic alliance in Iraq. The litany of setbacks, growing US casualties and the recent killing of 18 Italian servicemen has brought intense domestic and international pressure on the Bush administration to give the occupying force more legitimacy." Such continued danger for foreign troops will make it just that much harder for NATO to take over the tough job the US wants relief from. My best guess is that the US will have to give NATO some very big financial inducement to take over day to day patrolling responsibilities in Iraq. The US is hoping to convince them that the Iraqi opposition won’t target UN troops as badly as they have US occupiers. All this is far from proven. But if the handover were to take place, such a strategy would allow American troops to retreat behind the high security barriers of their major military bases, and save face at home.
IRAQ: CAPTURE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN RAISES MANY QUESTIONS
US claims regarding this week’s capture of Saddam Hussein leave many questions unanswered. Here’s a synopsis of the official story: Saddam was discovered in a sealed pit close to a shack on a farm located in the town of Adwar, 10 miles from Tikrit. The US military claimed they had an informant from Saddam’s elite Special Security Organization (who is yet to be identified) telling them where Saddam was hiding. Soldiers, part of a 600 man sweep, say they were drawn to the hiding place by the sight of two men running away from a small walled compound. They cordoned off the area. There was a carpet on the dirt, out in the open, which they removed and then began to dig in the spot it had been covering. After removing earth and bricks, they found a foam lid which opened to the hole in which Saddam was lying down, with a gun nearby. He made no attempt to use the gun and readily identified himself. This was on a Saturday night.
By Sunday afternoon American military officials were claiming DNA confirmation as well as visual confirmation by Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi Foreign Minister who is now cooperating with US officials. The two room hut next to the hiding place had a bed, a chair, a sink and some clothes. Soldiers also found two rifles, a pistol, and a suitcase with $750,000 US dollars. Saddam was reported to be subdued and compliant, but unwilling to admit to any wrongdoing under conditions of secret interrogation. His beard showed many months of growth, and his face showed signs of small abrasions or wounds.
Now, let’s examine the anomalies of this story and what is absent from US claims:
1. The Hole: I find it very hard to believe that this was a real hiding place for Saddam. A ruler of a nation who had built dozens of bunkers for various purposes certainly would have had access to progressive levels of secret hide-outs far more sophisticated than this hole. The hole had no secondary escape route, no food, no light, no water supply. Even rudimentary Vietcong tunnels had all of these contingencies, including numerous secondary concealed exits. In contrast this hole obviously was not intended for even short-term habitation. Neither would the location have acted as a suitable hideout to be used only for short-term threats, as we are led to believe. The only entrance was out in the open, instead of inside a building or among bushes, where the considerable effort of covering and uncovering the entrance could have been suitably concealed from view. The entrance was marked by a carpet-why? It only served to give away the location. A carpet out in the open on the dirt is not smart concealment. Clearly this carpet was meant to mark a cell of captivity-not a hiding hole-to which the supposed ransom seekers could direct the Americans.
2. The Fake Photograph: A photograph was released to the press of two American soldiers standing beside a date palm tree with the foam lid, close to the site of the hole. We are supposed to believe that the photo was taken on the day of Saddam's capture. But the biology of date palms places the time of the photo in question. As the NY Village Voice pointed out, "unharvested dates fall off the tree before December, and even if they don't, they are brown and dry, not yellow, as they are in the photo." Obviously, this hole was known to the Americans much earlier.
3. Saddam’s Appearance: The unbathed, unkempt condition of Saddam tends to indicate he was a prisoner, not simply on the run. The US claims he was moving every day. This is improbable. Once a person has a good hideout, with secondary concealed exits, the best policy is to stay put and avoid movements, which only serve to dramatically heighten the probability of discovery. As for using the hole as a hideout, even Saddam’s facial abrasions and disheveled appearance are not proof of his having remained in that hole for long periods. With no food and water and no easy access to the outside, he could not have been in there very long. Neither would he have been stupid enough to use the crude and labor intensive open-surface entrance on a daily basis to go back and forth between the hole and the hut. Besides, the conditions of the hut hardly correlate with the financial resources he had sitting in the suitcase. Nothing here makes sense if you ask the right questions.
To bring up another anomaly, Saddam’s hair and eyebrows had been dyed so recently that no gray roots were showing. At 65 years old, Saddam Hussein had lots of gray hair which he dyed regularly. The recently dyed hair and eyebrows indicate he had not been in that hole for a long period of time. Nor were any dye bottles found in the hut. In reality there wasn’t any reason for continuing to die the hair, if he had wanted to change his appearance. A better disguise would have been to let the gray hair grow out. The undyed, graying beard mixed with the dyed hair and eyebrows indicates something very conflicting. It doesn’t give evidence of a savvy leader looking for a consistent disguise.
4. The Entire Security Operation: Why did they only cordon off the area after seeing the two men run away? The US had searched this area many times before, they said. Why did they not cordon off the area before beginning the search? With 600 soldiers, they obviously had the manpower. In addition, the US had information that Saddam had several look-alike doubles. Why, if the US has been diligently searching for Saddam Hussein, do we not have a record of them having arrested any of these doubles? Certainly, the doubles would have had no reason to be hiding, and would have attracted attention everywhere they went.
5. The Continued Secrecy: If this really is Saddam, why not put him before the cameras and let reporters and the Iraqi people question him publicly? Instead, just like supposed "mastermind of 9/11" Sheik Khalid Mohammed, Saddam is whisked away to a secret location for months of interrogation and we are left only with periodic leaks about juicy things the US claims their captive has revealed. There has been zero independent corroboration about any of these claims. Actually, the US has good reason to be reluctant to put their captive on trial. A phony Saddam would likely be found out, and the real Saddam could well attempt to tell all, including his secret collusion with US leaders over the years, just as Milosevic tried to do at the Hague. So, whatever War Crimes venue the US chooses to subject Saddam to, you can bet it will be secret and closed to the public.
6. The DNA Claims: The US claims to have made the match in less than 18 hours, an inordinately fast turnaround for DNA analysis. Wired News reports, "In routine practice, a commercial lab that is handling thousands of DNA samples develops a DNA profile from a given sample in a month or so… For an extra fee, that can be hurried up to five days." Of course, the US has dedicated and unlimited resources, so we can assume they could have done the job. However, we have been given no evidence that they had a provable sample of Hussein’s actual DNA to start with.
Is this really Saddam Hussein? I don’t know. We are denied sufficient information. It certainly could be, but the evidence so far raises so many questions about the US story that I have my doubts. If it is Saddam, I would be expecting the US to offer him a deal in order to get him to admit to the locations of WMDs. The US is desperate to extricate itself from the growing reputation that they falsified the evidence - especially on the heels of this week’s report that the US Senate was assured in secret session by US intelligence officials that Iraq had the means of threatening the US directly with their WMDs. The US is also leaking the story that they want to find out from Saddam whether or not he shipped his WMDs to Syria. But this is disinformation. They already know this and are attempting to make out as if they are unsure. They want "new" corroboration so they can justify going after Syria more than a year after they really found out.
The bottom line, however, is that Saddam’s capture will only serve to accelerated hatred toward the US occupiers - especially if the US stays in Iraq as long as it intends (a long time). With Saddam supposedly out of the way, the US has even less reason to delay its withdrawal. Other Iraqis, who dislike the US, but heretofore have not wanted to be seen siding with pro-Saddam forces, will now feel free to join in the opposition.
QUESTIONABLE US TRACK RECORD ON DNA ANALYSIS
US claims to have achieved a DNA match for Saddam Hussein brings up more credibility questions. In fact, the US has a track record of claiming phony DNA evidence. After the Pentagon crash, which supposedly caused a fire so hot that almost all the aluminum skin of the Boeing airliner was consumed, the US claimed to have recovered parts of every person’s body and matched it to their DNA (though the names of the supposed hijackers are conspicuously absent). But no one is asking how a 100% success rate is possible given the level of destruction. They also neglect one crucial part of the DNA puzzle. You can’t do a DNA match unless you have a certified sample of the person. That’s very hard to do once the person is gone. The US made no claims that they went back to the homes of each of the relatives and collected DNA samples. Even if they did, it’s difficult sorting out hair or skin flake samples from different members of the family. So when dealing with multiple false samples of "original DNA" and comparing it to DNA from thousands of burned body parts in the wreckage, I am inclined to believe you couldn’t get 100% matches in less than two years of work. Maybe 20%, but the US claims too much.
The FBI lab has already gained a reputation for falsifying reports to meet government prosecutorial requirements. I’ll quote from a CNN story from February 2003: "The FBI provided the [NY] medical examiners' office with DNA profiles of the 10 hijackers, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the New York Medical Examiner's office. Examiners ‘a few days ago’ matched two of the profiles to remains collected after the twin towers' collapse, she told CNN. Examiners could not say which of the hijackers' remains had been discovered because the FBI did not identify which of the DNA samples belonged to which hijacker, she said. The samples [according to the FBI] came from items recovered from locations such as the scene of the crashes, a hotel or other places where the hijackers stayed, said a law enforcement official."
The FBI’s admissions have the telltale signs of fraud. The matching samples the FBI provided could even have come from two known victims, since the FBI mentions collecting samples "at the scene of the crash." The FBI couldn’t verify the identities of the samples because either they were false, or because they had no certified original samples from the real hijackers. How would they know any body part at the crash site belonged to the hijackers? The government’s claim to have found the intact passport of one of the hijackers is equally improbable. We know now that the FBI grabbed the names of the hijackers out of their computer systems. Several are still alive, even according to admissions of Director Mueller. If the FBI doesn’t know which hijacker’s DNA corresponds to what human debris they found in the hotel rooms, then what are the chances out of thousands of victims, the medical examiner is going to find a match, especially given that many of the victims bodies were not intact? There were probably 5,000 body parts collected-and the FBI was doing some of the collecting. Perhaps that’s the source of the "original" DNA they presented to the lab.
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