Deep Blade Journal

Blogger translates leaked copy, scoops the New York Times

This should be a major story. Iraq-born blogger Raed Jarrar has obtained a leaked copy of Iraq’s new oil law. You also can get a look at this document here. Today on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman interviewed Raed Jarrar along with the important Iraq oil policy researcher, Antonia Juhasz.

New Iraq Oil Law To Open Iraq’s Oil Reserves to Western Companies

RAED JARRAR: The document was leaked by Professor Fouad Al-Ameer and published on a website called al-ghad.org. And then it was leaked to other important websites like niqash.org and other places. There are different ways of — different copies of it. Some of it are scanned, and others of the original document, but it just hit the internet last week.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what it says, now that you’ve finished translating it.

RAED JARRAR: It said so many things. I don’t think we can summarize it this short, because it’s a very long document, around thirty pages. But majorly, there are three major points that I think we should talk about. Financially, it legalizes very unfair types of contracts that will put Iraq in very long-term contracts that can go up to thirty-five years and cause the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars from Iraqis for no cause.

And the second point is concerning Iraq’s sovereignty. Iraq will not be capable of controlling the levels — the limits of production, which means that Iraq cannot be a part of OPEC anymore. And Iraq will have this very complicated institution called the Federal Oil and Gas Council, that will have representatives from the foreign oil companies on the board of it, so representatives from, let’s say, ExxonMobil and Shell and British Petroleum will be on the federal board of Iraq approving their own contracts.

And the third point is the point about keeping Iraq’s unity. The law is seen by many Iraqi analysts as a separation for Iraq fund. The law will authorize all of the regional and small provinces’ authorities. It will give them the final say to deal with the oil, instead of giving this final say to central federal government, so it will open the doors for splitting Iraq into three regions or even maybe three states in the very near future.

To me, it is very clear that what the Iraq oil law seeks to preserve is the ability of hyrocarbon-connected elites in Washington to make fundamental decisions about development and distribution of profits from Iraq’s oil. It will keep the Iraqi public in the dark and at bay while very, very costly decisions about oil are made below the table. The basic effect of the law will be to ensure that, according to Antonia Juhasz,

ultimate decision making on contracts rests with a new council to be set up in Iraq, and sitting on that council will be representatives — executives, in fact — of oil companies, both foreign and domestic. In addition, it does maintain the Iraq National Oil Company, but gives the Iraq National Oil Company almost no preference.

Whatever oversight the Iraqi people may have, foreign oil executives will be responsible for all decisions and all accounting concerning Iraq’s oil.

Blogger scooped the New York Times
It is difficult to recognize and interpret the complex, clandestine methods Bush administration officials and their collaborators in the Iraqi government are using to insure Iraq will pay a heavy price for development of its key resource with the boot of Washington on its neck. To misdirect public scrutiny officials give lip service to the claim that the new law will be a great thing for Iraq. According to yesterday’s story by regular New York Times Iraq oil correspondent James Glanz, “the law is considered an essential element of creating a stable and functioning government.”

The way Glanz sources his knowledge of the draft law seems to me to be pathetic, “Earlier drafts of the law” were “described to The New York Times”. With all the resources of the Times no actual text of the law could be published. But a mere blogger has been able to issue the whole thing.

There is some disconnect between the Times interpretation and Raed’s. Raed notes that the law empowers regions the “final say to deal with the oil”, while Glanz reports that under the law, “Iraq’s central government in Baghdad would retain substantial control over oil revenues and the right to review the contracts that regional governments sign with Iraqi and international companies to develop the fields and to pump oil.”

And that,

Negotiations had snagged because of the insistence by the Kurds that they maintain a degree of autonomy in managing their northern fields. But two members of the negotiating committee confirmed that a draft had been sent to the cabinet, indicating that a compromise might be in sight.Neither of those negotiators — Hussain al-Shahristani, the current oil minister, and Thamir Ghadban, a former oil minister — provided details of the compromise. But a senior official in the Kurdish regional government also said that a deal was near and hinted that the Kurds had received concessions on how the law would affect existing contracts with oil companies that agreed to work in the north.

My question to Raed would be, at what stage of this “compromise” does the available version of the document reflect? I guess it will be important to follow Raed’s blog.

Iraqi opposition to the oil law
In a speech two weeks ago, Hasan Jum`ah `Awwad al-Asadi, head of the Federation of Oil Unions gave called on the international community to, “Open the way to Iraqis to manage their own oil affairs.”

He disputes the notion that there should be a rush to invite foreign companies into the country while giving them such dominant, long-term control.

They [Iraqis] are able to do that [manage their own oil affairs]; they have the experience in the field and the technical training, have overcome hardships and proven to the world that they can provide the best service to Iraqis in the oil industry. The best proof of that is how after the entry of the occupying forces and the destruction of the infrastructure of the oil sector the engineers, technical staff and workers were able to raise production from zero to 2,100,000 barrels per day without any foreign expertise or foreign capital. Iraqis are capable of further increasing production with their present skills. The Iraqi state needs to consult with those who have overcome the difficulties and to ask their opinion before sinking Iraq into an ocean of dark injustice. Those who spread the word that the oil sector will not improve except with foreign capital and production-sharing are dreaming. They must think again since we know for certain that these plans do not serve the sons and daughters of Iraq.

The crux of the matter behind the US occupation of Iraq is denial by the US of what al-Asadi clearly states Iraqis want—control of their own affairs. A permanent military occupation is the only way the US will be able to hold this new oil law in force. Otherwise, Iraqis would be able to develop their oil in their own best interests.

Iraq embassy memo refutes Bush, Republicans

Full of it

I spent too much time last week listening to the House speeches concerning the non-binding Iraq war continuation/Terror war resolution. President Bush and his drop-in propaganda trip to Iraq and the rest of the pro-war side struck me as giving an awesome dose of un-reality. For example, I watched on C-SPAN while Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) explained how the American invasion was just the cat’s meow for the women of Iraq.

Rep. Deborah Pryce: If I were asked to give one good reason why we should stay in Iraq, I would tell you to stay. We need to stay for the women. Well, I saw women of diverse ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic classes. They were empowering each other with education, with hope, with friendship, just like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony….

Then as if it was on cue, right after passage of the resolution, a devastating cable sent straight from the horse’s mouth at the US Embassy in Baghdad was leaked to the Washington Post, ripping the slimy intestines out of the Republican case for continuing the war as is.

Juan Cole has posted text of the cable here. The document is marked “sensitive” and begins,

1. (SBU) Beginning in March. and picking up in mid-May, Iraqi staff in the Public Affairs Section have complained that Islamist and/or militia Groups have been negatively affecting their daily routine. Harassment over proper dress and habits has been increasingly pervasive. They also report that power cuts and fuel prices have diminished their quality of life. Conditions vary by neighborhood, but even upscale neighborhoods such as Mansur have visibly deteriorated….

It should no longer be so hard to see that it is the American war that causes deterioration.

Rep. Pryce must have missed on her tour what is described by this note in the cable about the lives of Iraqi women who are collaborators with the occupation:

Two of our three female employees report stepped up harassment beginning in mid-May. One, a Shiite who favors Western clothing, was advised by an unknown woman in her upscale Shiite/Christian Baghdad neighborhood to wear a veil and not to drive her own car. Indeed, she said, some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative.3. (SBU) Another, a Sunni, said that people in her middle-class neighborhood are harassing women and telling t h em to cover up and stop using cell phones (suspected channel to licentious relationships with men). She said that the taxi driver who brings her every day to the green zone checkpoint has told her he cannot let her ride unless she wears a headcover. A female in the PAS cultural section is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats in May. She says her neighborhood, Mhamiya, is no longer permissive if she is not clad so modestly.

The cable goes on to mention that an “Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province , as political parties and their militias are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq”.

Complaints about the lack of electric power and day-long gas lines are transmitted in the cable. The widespread threat of kidnapping is reported. And this incredible item:

In April, employees began reporting a change in demeanor of guards at the green zone checkpoints. They seemed to be more militia-like, in some cases seemingly taunting. One employee asked us to explore getting her press credentials because guards had held her embassy badge up and proclaimed loudly to nearby passers-by “Embassy” as she entered Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people.

Wow. The palace guards are willing to out collaborators at the gate! This says to me that this war is totally lost by the Americans already, unless they take a decision to just destroy the entire population. Otherwise, the country will never willingly be governed by American puppets.

Naturally, the corporate media beyond the Post has been completely unwilling to take any action to fact check Republican claims against the revelations presented by the cable. Media Matters has a very good post on this media non-response here.

Republicans want the choice to be between war (“victory”) and “defeat”

Forcefully opposing H. Res. 861

The Republicans have resisted debating the Iraq war in Congress. Until now. They suddenly seem to think they have an irresistable political force, “victory”. They are betting the farm that the American people will see their war in Iraq in just this way–stay in it for victory or withdraw for “defeat”. For those American voters in a Congressional or presidential election who perceive the choice that way, how many would select “defeat”?

Facing weak-kneed, divided Democrats, the Republicans may well prevail in the November Congressional elections on just this counterintuitive, pro-war strategy. Frank Rich argues as much in a Sunday New York Times oped. (“Karl Rove Beats the Democrats Again”, June 18, 2006). Unfortunately, I fear he is right.

To underscore the point, the Republican House leadership has rammed through a resolution (HR 861) containing a mythos so profound that voting against it would be equivalent to voting against victory, hence freedom, and by implication even God himself.

The resolution in part, “declares that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.” It does not bother to explain how we are going to know when we have “prevailed.” I can only guess. Will the US have prevailed after its military has attacked and destroyed every population on the planet that might contain individuals who might be able to engage in attacks of their own? Prevailing, then, would be the point at which the US military is the only force left able to kill, as is its God-given right.

Reviewing the Republican arguments reveals what can only be described as myth, on par with how they promoted the belief that Saddam Hussein possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. It’s must be a very busy Pentagon & White House psy-ops operation against the American people to keep this panic button pressed while driving support for war through use of fear. A recently-unleashed Karl Rove seems to be producing with the utmost zeal.

Here is the shorter version of the pro-war narrative: America failed to recognize the signs from the bombing of Khobar Towers, our East African embassies, the USS Cole, and the World Trade Center (in 1993) that we were up against a powerful, highly organized, evil, global force called Terror. We made the mistake of thinking that a justice system that survived for 800 years since the Magna Carta was up to the task of victory against Terror. Then came the day on 9/11 when Terror really slapped us in the face, jerking our blue skies into a stark reality of balls of fire, ash, and choking soot. On that day, everything changed and we realized that only Heroes would be able to defeat Terror. Heroism began on Flight 93 on 9/11 and continues today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam was an evil cancer on the world and was a threat to us because we thought he had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Iraq is better off today because Saddam Hussein is answering for crimes he committed against humanity while our brave troops deliver apple pie and kill Terror, after sorting it out from the population. The Iraqis and Afghanis are thrilled with their liberation.

Man oh man, such delusion. I’ll have more to say on the amazing pro-war rhetoric in future posts.

On Friday, the House passed HR 861 with a 256-153 vote. This is not too far off of the numbers that voted in favor of the war in 2002, with many Democrats voting with the majority. The majority for funding the war was even bigger, 351-67. As John Nichols writes in The Nation, Congress has given Bush “another blank check for perpetual war”. Is it not clear that Congress will never stop this war without millions of people on their doorsteps calling for an end to the war, continuously for months?

That is what Rep. Dennis Kucinich said in one of the best anti-war speeches during Thursday’s debate:

MR. KUCINICH: Thank you, Mr. MURTHA, and the Out of Iraq Caucus.The President will not bring an end to this war. He says it is a decision for the next President. But he is building permanent bases in Iraq, and he is determined to keep 50,000 troops in Iraq into the distant future. This Congress may not bring an end to this war because the real power to end the war is in a cutoff of funds. Congress keeps appropriating funds in the name of the troops, and the troops will stay in Iraq instead of coming home.

Only the American people can bring an end to this war as they brought an end to the Vietnam War. Let this be a time of stirring of civic soul. It is a time for a reawakening of civic conscience. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but there are WMDs in DC. Lies are weapons of mass destruction. 2,500 soldiers dead. Over 10,000 Iraqis, innocent Iraqis have died.

It is time for an end to our national sleepwalk to the graveyard of the Iraq war. It is a time for truth, a time for clarity, a time for action, a time for teachins, for meet-ups, for marches, for rallies about the war to begin at college campuses, at churches, at labor halls, at libraries. It is time to gather in civic centers, in town halls, to discuss the truth about this war and to plan civic action to end it, time for the American people to exercise their first amendment right to stand up and speak out, time to redirect the policies of this country, time to learn and practice peaceful, nonviolent conflict resolution, time to believe in our capacity to evolve beyond war, to believe and act under the belief that war is not inevitable and peace is inevitable if we are ready to commit to the daily work of peace building everywhere.

The global war on terror has become a global war of error: attacking or threatening countries which did not attack us, bombing neighborhoods to save neighborhoods, committing atrocities in the name of stopping atrocities, losing our vision, losing our way in theworld, sacrificing our children and their future, giving up their future resources for education, for health care, for housing, piling it all high on the altar of war and worshipping a false god of destruction.

When we begin these proceedings with this remembrance, Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, we are not talking about any nation. We are talking about a force which is above all of us. The world is not ours to conquer. There is no glory in the abuse of power. This President will not bring an end to this war after the Murtha resolution, this Congress may not bring an end to this war, but the American people certainly will bring an end to this war. They will do it in the streets, and they will do it at the ballot box, and the American people will become the Out of Iraq Caucus.

Unfortunately, as long as a great swath of public operates on delusions supported by the rhetorical flourish of the pro-war operation, the killing will continue. Dennis has said what needs to happen if we want to stop the killing.

We’ve heard about oil trust for the Iraqi people before. It was a lie then and it is a lie now.

War council has oil plans

Back in January 2003, Colin Powell sought to quell rampant speculation about America’s plans for Iraqi oil. He said that Iraq’s oil, “will be held for and used for the people of Iraq. It will not be exploited for the United States’ own purpose,” and he assured us that, “it will be held in trust for the Iraqi people, to benefit the Iraqi people.”

For the first years of the US occupation of Iraq, these statements by Colin Powell turned out to be totally false. Iraq’s oil revenue simply vanished under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority. In one of the best articles on the subject, CIA veteran Philip Giraldi wrote in the October 24, 2005 issue of The American Conservative:

The American-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority [CPA] could well prove to be the most corrupt administration in history, almost certainly surpassing the widespread fraud of the much-maligned UN Oil for Food Program. At least $20 billion that belonged to the Iraqi people has been wasted, together with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Exactly how many billions of additional dollars were squandered, stolen, given away, or simply lost will never be known because the deliberate decision by the CPA not to meter oil exports means that no one will ever know how much revenue was generated during 2003 and 2004.

Now, news coming out of the White House war council and the president’s stealth visit to Iraq sounds vaguely similar to those falsehoods Powell spoke in 2003. On Monday, the New York Times published a story by David Sanger quoting President Bush’s remarks that, “Iraq ought to think about having a tangible fund for the people so the people have faith in the central government.”

About this remark, Sanger makes totally apropos observations, suggesting that Bush is talking about Iraq’s oil as if the last 39 months never happened.

Mr. Bush did not elaborate, and he said nothing about the insurgent attacks on pipelines and pumping plants that have kept production to levels below what Iraq produced under Mr. Hussein’s rule, and the rampant corruption that has diverted oil revenues from the Iraqi government.This is not the first time that Mr. Bush and his aides have suggested that oil could be a solution to many of Iraq’s problems: Before the war, Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense, suggested that oil revenues could pay for Iraqi reconstruction. So far, that has not happened.

Usually President Bush speaks about Iraq as if oil does not even exist there. But on Monday during his war council at Camp David, he issued a slightly expanded statement, containing more information about oil in Iraq than the oilman had ever given before.

PRESIDENT BUSH: We spent a lot of time in talking about energy and oil. The oil belongs to the Iraqi people. It’s their asset. It is one of the — the capacity to generate wealth from the ground distinguishes Iraq from Afghanistan, for example. It’s something that I view as a very positive part of Iraqi future. And we talked about how to advise the government to best use that money for the benefit of the people.
Secondly, obviously, we spent time figuring out how to help strategize with the new ministries as to how to get oil production up. And recently, they’ve had oil production as high as a little over 2 million barrels a day, which is extremely positive. The oil sector is very much like the rest of the infrastructure of Iraq. Saddam Hussein let it deteriorate. There wasn’t much reinvestment, or not much modernization. After all, he was using the money for his own personal gain and he wasn’t spending the people’s money on enhancing the infrastructure. And the oil infrastructure collapsed and deteriorated. And as a result, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done on, for example, work-overs — that is to help oil wells become revitalized, just a standard maintenance procedure. So there’s a maintenance program on to help the Iraqi people get their production up.
There’s some unbelievably interesting exploration opportunities. And the new government is going to have to figure out how best to lease the people’s lands in a fair way. My own view is, is that the government ought to use the oil as a way to unite the country and ought to think about having a tangible fund for the people, so the people have faith in central government.

The stuff about Saddam stealing from and ruining Iraq’s oil industry contains truth, but Bush fails to mention that the scale of theft during the period his own CPA was in charge. There is a sense of salivation in this statement, as Bush certainly understands the riches available. And let’s just assume that the crap about “the people’s lands” and “tangible fund for the people” is nonsense recitation required for the consumption of Iraqis well aware of the history of the CPA theft, and window dressing for the American media.

Tuesday, Bush dropped into the central palace of his energy colony. I could speculate that one of the messages he brought with this show of body was that he was very, very serious about getting the right result out of the new government’s early deliberations on the hydrocarbon law.

What the clue? Back in DC, Bush made a statement on this during the Wednesday press conference. Can’t be sure, but this very much sounds like code, a warning to Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and the Parliament to tread very carefully where US oil interests are concerned:

I’ve directed the Secretary of Energy to travel to Iraq to meet with his counterpart and identify ways we can provide additional support. It’s up to the Iraqis to pass a hydrocarbon law, which they’re now debating. It’s up — for the Iraqi government to decide what to do with the people’s asset. Our advice is to be careful, and to develop it with the people’s interest in mind. [emphasis added]

So what might be the content of this “hydrocarbon law” the Iraqis are supposedly designing for the benefit of “the people’s interests”? I wrote about the move toward PSAs or Production Sharing Agreements for Iraq’s oil last December. The top-level reason the US will stay in Iraq indefinitely is US-centered international oil companies getting PSAs, amounting to concessions for new oil exploration and a significant stake in producing and marketing oil from the existing fields. Control of this incredibly important asset in Iraq will only grow in strategic importance as oil markets tighten over the next few years. The US has not had direct control of spare oil production capacity, or the ability to influence market prices, since the Texas Railroad Commission lost leverage after US peak oil in the early 1970s.

Citing a report called Crude Designs from PLATFORM/www.carbonweb.org, an organization related to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), I wrote:

“What the Bush `Victory’ outline forgets to mention is that currently there are highly secretive negotiations being pushed for oil production sharing agreements or PSAs. A stunning new report from a UK group associated with the Institute for Policy Studies explains in great detail how a massive theft of control of Iraq’s oil is being planned and executed as the touted `democratic’ elections are being used to legitimate US `gains’ from the process:

In October 2005, a new Constitution was accepted in a referendum of the Iraqi population. Like much of the Constitution, the oil policy section is open to some interpretation. Apparently referring to fields not currently in production, it states: “The federal government and the governments of the producing regions and provinces together will draw up the necessary strategic policies to develop oil and gas wealth to bring the greatest benefit for the Iraqi people, relying on the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment”…

…The debate over oil “privatisation” in Iraq has often been misleading due to the technical nature of the term, which refers to legal ownership of oil reserves. This has allowed governments and companies to deny that “privatisation” is taking place. Meanwhile, important practical questions, of public versus private control over oil development and revenues, have not been addressed.

The development model being promoted in Iraq, and supported by key figures in the Oil Ministry, is based on contracts known as production sharing agreements (PSAs), which have existed in the oil industry since the late 1960s. Oil experts agree that their purpose is largely political: technically they keep legal ownership of oil reserves in state hands (3), while practically delivering oil companies the same results as the concession agreements they replaced.

Running to hundreds of pages of complex legal and financial language and generally subject to commercial confidentiality provisions, PSAs are effectively immune from public scrutiny and lock governments into economic terms that cannot be altered for decades.

In Iraq’s case, these contracts could be signed while the government is new and weak, the security situation dire, and the country still under military occupation. As such the terms are likely to be highly unfavourable, but could persist for up to 40 years.

Furthermore, PSAs generally exempt foreign oil companies from any new laws that might affect their profits. And the contracts often stipulate that disputes are heard not in the country’s own courts but in international investment tribunals, which make their decisions on commercial grounds and do not consider the national interest or other national laws. Iraq could be surrendering its democracy as soon as it achieves it.

“There should be no doubt about why the US faces an insurgency in Iraq.”

An article just posted at Dar al-Hayat covers some of this ground suggesting how the most consequential decisions Iraq will make for decades–if Bush is to be taken seriously about the “people’s asset”–should be considered. This document is quite difficult to sort out. But go there and try to read it carefully. It explains the serious rifts that are being created by the carve-up of existing fields and prospective fields, demanding changes to the Constitution rammed through last fall. Most important, it recommends that,

In order to have efficient development of the oil industry “ensuring highest benefit to the nation” it is necessary that a reference be made in the constitution to legislate a hydrocarbon law which endorses, among others, the allocation of the upstream and down operations and related commercial aspects, to a national oil company (INOC)

In other words, control of the oil industry should not be farmed out to international companies, but rather held by the national company.

It will be interesting to see how Bush and the Americans react if the Iraqis try to write law and set up their oil industry truly “to benefit the Iraqi people.” My bet is that Bush is lying. The US will tolerate nothing short of total behind-the-scenes control of Iraq’s oil.

Developing massacre, information blackout

Except for a small article published in the Los Angeles Times last Sunday, we are getting no news about a major escalation in the US attack against the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

LA Times: The image pieced together from interviews with tribal leaders and fleeing families in recent weeks is one of a desperate population of 400,000 people trapped in the crossfire between insurgents and U.S. forces. Food and medical supplies are running low, prices for gas have soared because of shortages and municipal services have ground to a stop.U.S. and Iraqi forces had cordoned off the city by Saturday, residents and Iraqi officials said. Airstrikes on several residential areas picked up, and troops took to the streets with loudspeakers to warn civilians of a fierce impending attack, Ramadi police Capt. Tahseen Dulaimi said.

Smashing of the city over the last week was described further in a posting at Free Iraq, a website sympathetic to Iraqi anti-colonial resistance, past and present:

Islam Memo: (Saturday June 10, 2006, 9 at morning) “A full scale American attack on Ramadi has commenced and fierce fighting is taking place in most districts of Ramadi. American helicopters withdrew from the area after one of them was hit by Resistance fire but was not downed. American fighter planes are now taking part in the offensive.”

Flashpoints carried an interview yesterday evening with Rana, an independent Iraqi journalist now in Amman, Jordan and who was in Falluja during its destruction in late 2004.

Rana: [In second siege of Falluja in 2004] …the Americans were shooting everywhere… they were shooting not at specific things, but everything that was moving in the streets. And the signs… It’s similar, the same signs that we did have at this stage before they started the siege of Ramadi. First, they start with the airstrikes that destroy more houses and more buildings… And what they did at Falluja, the first thing they did at Falluja General Hospital… [they] arrested the doctors and patients, even some people who had surgery at this time. The entered the operation room and arrested them.

Rana goes on to describe the continuing and totally unreported humanitarian disaster that continues to this day concerning the internally displaced people from Falluja. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of people from Ramadi now face this fate.

Good hearted folks trying to help Iraq, these Americans are, eh? That is what you may think after reading the shameless propaganda piece on the White House website. It does say more about Ramadi than nearly the sum total of the entire world media beyond what the LA Times has reported. Here’s how the White House describes the Ramadi operation.

Securing Ramadi: Terrorists/insurgents have been focusing on destabilizing Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, both to undermine the government in that province and as a transfer point and staging ground for attacks elsewhere.

Coalition Action: Coalition forces are working with the Iraqi Government to stabilize the city by keeping the pressure on terrorists/insurgents while recruiting, training, and fielding Iraqi army units to serve in and around Ramadi. A locally recruited police force is also being built.

It all sounds so benign, so justified. But these are lies of the state. As in Falluja in November 2004, it looks like we can expect a whole new episode of rampant war crimes–like the destruction of medical facilities and denial of care for injured persons–as an entire Iraqi city of 1/2 million is razed and its population displaced. The policy appears to be collective punishment. The Americans have taken a decision that widespread resistance to occupation must be met with sacking of an entire city. America has decided that the entire population is America’s enemy–including all the men, the women, and the children. What better definition of tyranny is there? America outdoes Saddam’s Anfal campaign with its actions. Ramadi pays the price.

“Bloodbath Beyond the Green Zone”

Patrick Cockburn is truly indispensable for learning the truth about Iraq. No US news sources present the situation in terms anything like this:

The Shia, 60 per cent of the Iraqi population, won two elections last year but the US has fought to deny them complete control of the Iraqi state. ‘So far,’ one high ranking US official was quoted as saying, ‘the Shia have not demonstrated that they can govern, and they have to demonstrate that now.’

Cockburn goes on to describe the realities making Iraq ungovernable after the US invasion not only removed the regime of Saddam Hussein, but unleashed a security nightmare for the great majority of the Iraqi population–from brutal occupation practices, from indiscrimminant bombings carried out by some of the anti-occupation resistance, from criminals, and from marauding militias conducting ethnic cleansing.

He writes of a bomb killing 19 set off in the Baghdad Shia district of Sadr City, “in retaliation for attacks by black-clad Shia gunmen, probably from the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, on two Sunni districts in west Baghdad the previous day.

Cockburn now reports from Arbil in the Kurdish region. In a town called Khanaqin in this northern part of Iraq, Cockburn writes about “refugees who are desperately seeking refuge here as Sunni Arab death squads and assassins drive out Kurds and Shia Arabs from the rest of Diyala” Province.

Cockburn quotes a police lieutenant about people arriving in Khanaqin who were forced to leave their homes in other parts of Iraq after, “They all got warnings telling them to go within 24 hours, or be killed.”

“Baghdad is paralysed by terror. In Basra one person is being murdered every hour according to an adviser to the Defence Ministry,” writes Cockburn.

Meanwhile, as I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, Tony Blair and George W. Bush live in an Orwellian world of delusion, where up is down, black is white, and war is peace:

Tony Blair arrived the day after Maliki announced his cabinet. Blair’s statements at a press conference were useful only as a check list of what is not happening in Iraq.He praised the formation of ‘a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries and divides.’ But that is precisely what it does not do….

As government, US, and UK control over Iraq deteriorate, the almost totally unreported response of Iraq’s neighbors is stunning:

Intervention by neighbours of Iraq is generally invisible, often taking the shape of money flowing to favoured parties and militias. But high up in the snow-streaked Kandil mountains on the Iraq-Iran border in north-east Kurdistan it is easier for Iran to send cruder signals to Baghdad and Washington without provoking a military response. Here, on the night of 31 April to 1 May Iranian artillery fired 2,000 shells into Iraq signaling to the US and its Kurdish allies that Tehran is not intimidated by any threats against it.

Here we begin to see why the Bush propaganda offensive against Iran and its nuclear program is rather toothless. Iran is in a position to increase greatly the misery of the US occupation.

Cockburn concludes by arguing persuasively that the occupation has increased, not suppressed, the level of violence in Iraq.

Note: This posting was delayed by problems with Blogger.

US military can’t stand to admit there are more atrocities than one on its hands

I blogged the Haditha massacre story here in March when Time magazine first published it. Not only that, I pointed out the nature of the intentional “rampage” of the whole US military operation in west-central Iraq during many months of 2005. The idea, it seems, was to break the infrastructure and break the back of the entire population in order to exact a “cost” for it’s widespread support of armed opposition to the American invaders and their domination of Iraq’s constitutional and electoral process.

Now the US military has exonerated itself for yet another war crime that I discussed–the March 15 massacre of a family in the town of Ishaqi, near Balad, north of Baghdad. Photos showed dead children with bullets in their brains, killed execution style. Later, Knight Ridder reporters dug up an extensive police report detailing the horrific nature of the massacre:

The villagers were killed after American troops herded them into a single room of the house, according to a police document obtained by Knight Ridder Newspapers. The soldiers also burned three vehicles, killed the villagers’ animals and blew up the house, the document said.

Contradicting the plain evidence found in the police report and accompanying video, the US now wants to say that,

Allegations that the troops executed a family living in this safe house, and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an airstrike, are absolutely false.

Furthermore, the raid was legitimate under the “rules of engagement” because troops had tracked a “cell leader for Al Qaeda” to the home.

That’s handy. If the military can say it was looking for “Al Qaeda”, anything goes, even the slaughter of a 6-month-old child, as was one of the Ishaqi victims. It’s little wonder that Iraqi reaction to this US self-exoneration has been outrage:

Issa Hrat Khalaf, whose brother was killed in the ensuing air strike, demanded an independent investigation and said the U.S. forces responsible for the killings should be executed.“Where are the terrorists? Are they the old lady or the kids?” he said in a telephone interview, referring to the fact that women and children were among the victims. “It looks like the lives of the Iraqis are worthless.”

The role of oil

It is patently obvious that nothing U.S. President George W. Bush or any other administration figure says in public about its reasons for going to war can be accepted as stated by a person who is thinking critically. Presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is irrelevant. Otherwise possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons would be a basis for attacking North Korea, or India, Pakistan, or Israel, or even now-hostile France.

U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice belied this point in a March 9 interview with ABC’s This Week host George Stephanopolous. Stephanopolous asked her if the attack on Iraq would be called off if Saddam did disarm. She was taken aback, as if she would never consider allowing that to happen. Apparently war would go ahead even if the Iraqis turned over their kitchen knives.

As a corollary, since a weapons threat from Iraq is not really operative, present or even future security has little to do with this war. In fact it is likely to make the United States and many other countries less secure for a very long time.

Amongst those of us convinced the administration is not motivated by a weapons threat, speculation is brisk about what is really driving the march to war. Three related areas in which the search for reasons should be concentrated are (1) control of oil; (2) demonstration of U.S.power; and (3) transformation of the political landscape.

The anti-war movement has been consistent to point out that blood should not be spilt for oil. This is a good sentiment. It on some level the best issue we have in helping people understand the real reasons why the war is happening. But I do depart company, slightly, with many in the peace movement that the war is simply about a desire to seize Iraqi oil. In fact, the U.S. could control all of the Iraqi oil it wanted to without a war simply by allowing sanctions to be lifted and cozying up with Saddam Hussein again. Furthermore, division of the oil spoils clearly will not be an easy way for U.S. and U.K. corporations to make a quick buck, though they may be helped in the long run after French and Russian concessions are displaced.

Furthermore, oil can’t be seen as an immediate total solution for Iraq’s humanitarian and financial needs. See, for example, a Washington Post dialog on the topic found here. (This material is among the best business-oriented pooh-poohings of the oil motivation behind the war.)

But, this war is indeed about oil in another sense, as oil has a key role in strategic planning. In that regard, the war is a major piece of the puzzle for a long-term project being executed by a small group of ultra-hawks now installed in the White House, the highest levels of the Pentagon, and the State Department. Iraq will become a hub of U.S. bases. The oil reserves will guarantee that the military will have plenty of fuel far into the future. And it will become a lot easier for the U.S. to influence the political landscape through oil allocation and the threat of force.

Whether or not some profits from Iraqi oil are placed in a U.N. trust and accrue to the Iraqi people as Colin Powell rightly suggests they should, it is the decision-making power about the oil that is most important to U.S. planners. The installation at first of a U.S. military viceroy and then a U.S. client government, democratic or not as long as it is U.S.-compliant, is now seen as a key component in achieving some very significant over-arching policy goals.

Re-alignment of the political landscape of the Middle East and the significant demonstration effect this will have on the world do have a lot to do with the underlying reasons for this war. The underscore value of waging it without direct provocation from Iraq will send a message that will be read loud and clear in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and throughout the world. This message is that force might be a quick reply to any nation that runs afoul of U.S. desires. Through war waged on this basis, the United States will demonstrate for the first time in a major action the quite explicit military doctrine known as “full spectrum dominance,’ as it asserts its hegemony over land, sea, air, and space, as well as information. We should not diminish the demonstration effects this war would have on the ability of the U.S. to preempt future potential competitors.

To further understand the administration’s political goals, we ought to pay attention to the speech Bush gave before the American Enterprise Institute on February 26, 2003. Here he discussed liberating the people of Iraq and inspiring regional democracy. Taking Bush literally on his desire to eliminate the tyrant Saddam in order to bring the joys of American political freedom is difficult to do given that American is fixing to drop an awesome arsenal on top of millions of Iraqi civilians. What kind of liberation follows incineration of a half-million to a million people? Would America turn Iraq over to an Islamist government that would be the likely post-war electoral result in the majority-Shiite country? Doubt it! So Bush’s message here really is a coded statement of hawk-preferred speculative political transformations, behavioral presumptions that could go badly wrong thus requiring continued application of force, and what will be critical support for the brutal solution Israel’s Sharon government appears to be pursuing with regard to the Palestinian question.

Clues about how to read this code may be found in the opinions and writings of administration officials. There is a whole series of chain reactions that the ultra-hawks are hoping for: a crackdown on and maybe an eviction of the Palestinians that Israel will conduct with impunity during and after the war, a breakdown of Syrian and Jordanian support for the Palestinians as vital Iraqi oil will go to those countries with new and different strings attached, and a decrease in Saudi influence as Iraqi oil will now be in the U.S.-friendly domain. Iran could very likely be the next target of force.

In a published article (“After Iraq: The plan to remake the Middle East,” The New Yorker, February 17-24, 2003), Nicholas Lemann interviews and reviews the work of a number of officials. In it, he describes policy considerations in the writings of key State Department adviser, David Wurmser, who wrote an influential book called “Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein.” [note 2/25/07: Tyranny’s Ally, 196-pg pdf available here]

Lemann presents Wurmser’s views on the effect crushing Saddam will have on Iran: “‘Launching a policy and resolutely carrying it through until it razes Saddam’s Ba’thism to the ground will send terrifying shock waves into Teheran.’ In Wurmser’s scenario, a post-Saddam government in Iraq that includes meaningful participation by Iraq’s Shiite majority will remove the Iranian mullahs’ most powerful claim to legitimacy, which is that they represent the only regional power center for Shiites.”

Lemann continues,

One can easily derive from Wurmser’s book a crisp series of post-Saddam moves across the chessboard of the Middle East. The regime in Iran would either fall or be eased out of power by an alliance of the radical students and the more moderate mullahs, with the United States doing what it could to encourage the process. After regime change, the United States would persuade Iran to end its nuclear-weapons program and its support for terrorists elsewhere in the Middle East, especially Hezbollah. Syria, now surrounded by the pro-American powers of Turkey, the reconfigured Iraq, Jordan, and Israel, and no longer dependent on Saddam for oil, could be pressured to cooperate with efforts to clean out Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. As Syria moved to a more pro-American stand, so would its client state, Lebanon. That would leave Hezbollah, which has its headquarters in Lebanon, without state support. The Palestinian Authority, with most of its regional allies stripped away, would have no choice but to renounce terrorism categorically. Saudi Arabia would have much less sway over the United States because it would no longer be America’s only major source of oil and base of military operations in the region, and so it might finally be persuaded to stop funding Hamas and Al Qaeda through Islamic charities.

Here emerges a risky strategy that seems to address in a totally convoluted manner the terrible terrorism that mostly affects Israel. But beyond Wurmser’s circumspect presentation of the effect of this war is a more sinister possible future for the Palestinians. And the peace movement has been too quiet about the Palestinian issue as it relates to the war.

On this matter, former CIA political analyst Bill Christison writes,

[Current] absence of discussion makes it easier for Israel to slip its new proposal for large-scale aid from the U.S. through Congress while continuing its harsh and unjust actions in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, talk is continuing to mount in Israel of ‘transfer,’ that is, expelling the Palestinians in the West Bank to Jordan, leaving the West Bank open to total takeover by the Israelis. This transfer is an integral part of the Middle East transformation that the peace movement seems not to want to talk about. If the war comes, the peace movement’s present silence on the subject will also make it easier for Israel actually to carry out the process of “transfer”.

In summary, strategic military basing and fuel supply, consolidated Middle East political leverage through decision making about oil allocation, demonstration of aggressive doctrines of preemption and global dominance, chain reaction political realignment especially affecting Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and a brutal Israeli crackdown and possible eviction of the Palestinians are all effects of this war that have been weighed in policy circles. Weapons of mass destruction that may or may not be in Iraq are irrelevant by comparison. The result of these considerations by Bush and his administration has been a decision to deploy of an awesome force now ready to strike Iraq. Most of these considerations have been reported in various media, but are absent from the headlines and front-page drumbeat war coverage. As a result, the American people are woefully uninformed about underlying motivations for the war.

In the short term, some Americans, informed or not but usually not, like to feel powerful because of the fact that we can dominate and destroy Iraq while changing its government, occupying its lands, and rebuilding it in our image at our president’s will. Many of these fine Americans unfortunately swallow the pretexts hook line and sinker. They are unaware of or willfully ignore the war’s underlying motivations and potentially disastrous consequences.

Will it dawn on us some day that we have allowed another disingenuous administration write yet another sorry entry for the annals of U.S. history to be filed with Vietnam and the human tragedy for civilians and soldiers alike that that war represented? If the war can be stopped, this can be prevented. Otherwise, I cry for my country.

Note: When this entry was ported into the new blog on 2/25/2007, a couple of very minor misspellings were corrected and links to original 2003 articles were verified still to be working and either corrected from the original post or added today.

Powell’s credibility collapse leads to diplomatic disaster

Secretary of State Colin Powell traveled to the UN February 5 to give evidence of Iraq’s refusal to fully disclose its weapons. His exposition was impressive and breathtaking. The picture he painted indeed was a scary one: Iraq has trucked out its weapons ahead of the UNMOVIC inspectors, lied in its declaration, maintained mobile bio-weapons labs, sought components necessary for the construction of nuclear bombs, and consorted with and provided camps for poison-spreading al-Qa’ida terrorists in an alleged desire to conduct unspecified attacks. Powell’s bottom line conveys yet again that the United States cannot take the chance that some of these scary weapons will be used in or against America. Could any listener to these formidable complaints fail to conclude that a major U.S. war against Iraq is therefore justified?

On February 14, Powell returned to the Security Council to attempt a belittling of the UNMOVIC weapons reports given by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. But by this time, Powell’s credibility had been shattered. Shortly after Powell’s first presentation, it had been discovered that a major MI6 intelligence report from the U.K., on which part of the presentation was based, was cribbed directly off of the internet from a decade-old graduate student’s paper concerning confiscated 1980s Iraqi documents (that described a period of heavy U.S. support). This disclosure had an enhancing influence on the massive worldwide anti-war demonstrations held on February 15.

Discovery of hijinks continued when a piece by John Barry in Newsweek detailed the debriefing of Saddam’s son-in-law, Gen. Hussein Kamel. He defected in the mid-1990s with extensive documentation of Saddam’s destruction of biological and chemical weapons.

Kamel has been repeatedly cited as a credible source by George Bush, Tony Blair and leading administration officials. He was cited by Powell in his February 5 presentation to the UN Security Council:

“It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX… The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein’s late son-in-law.”

But Kamel, who was killed after returning to Iraq in 1996, actually told UN inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq has always claimed.

Those disclosures seemingly have had no effect on weeks of parading administration figures droning on about how “Saddam must disarm immediately.” Then on March 7, Hans Blix threw more of Powell’s case out the window:

”Intelligence authorities have claimed that weapons of mass destruction are moved around Iraq by trucks. In particular, that there are mobile production units for biological weapons. The Iraqi side states that such activities do not exist. Several inspections have taken place at declared and undeclared sites in relation to mobile production facilities. Food testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops have been seen, as well as large containers with seed processing equipment. No evidence of proscribed activities has so far been found.”

In other words, Colin Powell probably lied. The only other explanation is that he misinterpreted the intelligence. But there is a problem with the latter charitable explanation — if he wanted real mobile weapons facilities discovered, why was UNMOVIC never provided with the intelligence in real time?

There really is no charitable explanation concerning forged documents about Iraqi uranium imports from Niger. ElBaradei reported on March 7 that his agency had determined that documents said by the United States and Britain to support the allegations, and trumpeted during the fall of 2002 by Bush and Blair, were fraudulent.

“Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents — which formed the basis for the reports of these uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger — are, in fact, not authentic,” he said.

Even if the fabrications in Powell’s exposition are set aside and we assume Powell is 100% correct about all of the deceptions by Iraq, that only would show Iraq is under extreme scrutiny. Any escalation of its weapons development or attempt to use the weapons would presumably not escape U.S. notice. Powell’s faulty case, even if taken on its own terms, argues against a war if you believe war is a last resort.

Looking at Iraqi weapons in a different way, and getting beyond all of the hand-wringing about Iraqi non-cooperation, it emerges that the U.S. has completely obstructed Iraqi compliance with the Security Council. The excellent analyst, Glen Rangwala (who broke the internet cribbing story), has posted a counter-dossier and an extensive, up-to-the-minute evaluation of claims concerning Iraqi weapons.

Here, Rangwala provides clear analysis supporting the case that the United States in fact has deceived the world with its claims about Iraqi weapons and has failed to fulfill its own responsibilities under U.N. Security Council resolutions. The U.N. weapons inspection regime and Iraqi cooperation with it in reality has gone a long way towards disarming Saddam Hussein, an interpretation of events that is the polar opposite of the usual line found in the U.S. media. Yes, there are officially unresolved issues concerning chemical and biological agents that could be locally very dangerous. And full credence should be given to the possibility that Hussein Kamel correctly reported the destruction of these agents. Above all, there is no way these issues add up to war in the absence of a direct threat from Iraq.

Rangwala writes, “Iraq has repeatedly asked for a clear timetable for the lifting of economic sanctions to be coupled with the weapons inspections system. This is not an unreasonable demand: in fact, it was the agreement made in the ceasefire that ended the Gulf War, and which the U.S. in particular has done so much since 1991 to obscure. The ceasefire agreement - Security Council resolution 687 laid out a political settlement: the weapons inspectorate, an end to the threat of war, a clear timetable to lifting economic sanctions, and the creation of a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East (entailing the need for the end of Israel’s nuclear arsenal).”

In other words, a solution short of war has always been possible—lifting of sanctions and permanent in-country inspections coupled with region-wide peace initiatives. We probably will never know if present day Iraq can cooperate with the international community and heal itself from decades of tyrannical rule because the U.S. will not allow it.

Administration officials are now well-rehearsed in delivering lines like, “Saddam Hussein is a practiced liar, there is no doubt about it. We should take everything he says very skeptically.”

Apparently, the same holds true for Colin Powell and our own administration. Other countries see this clearly as their citizens line up at 80%+ rates against the war. Notwithstanding posturing of the U.S. administration that failure to vote along lines of U.S. will renders the U.N. “irrelevant,” the U.S. still faces three likely vetoes of a war resolution from China, France, and Russia; teetering of the Blair government in the U.K. as it desperately seeks cover for war; even withdrawal of support for the U.S. position in third-world countries like Pakistan and Cameroon. These are no small measures of how badly Powell’s diplomatic disaster has turned out.