BBC News

The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and many Labour MPs oppose the change.

Dame Stella Rimington called it “a huge pity” the debate had become a political issue, saying security “was too serious a thing to play party politics with”.

For this reason, she told BBC Radio Nottingham, she would not express an opinion on the present limit, or proposed extensions to 42 or even 60 days.

“But I do think they should try and achieve some kind of consensus,” she added.

Police ‘backing’

A Commons vote is expected in mid-June on the matter, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown favouring a 42-day period.

He has said the change was needed to accommodate questioning after any “substantial terrorist incident” on British soil.

He has argued that this extension was backed by Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London and the most senior policeman in the UK.

But Conservative leader David Cameron has accused Mr Brown of trying to push through the extension to appear “tough on terror”, rather than because he believes in it.

Last week Mr Cameron claimed he had been sent a report which detailed the concerns of some Labour MPs on the issue, and suggested there might be a backbench rebellion when the vote was held.

The Liberal Democrats also oppose extending the 28 day limit. Enough Labour MPs appear to oppose the extension to suggest the government could be defeated.

By Jim Lobe |

Although the House of Representatives appears poised to approve an additional 163 billion dollars Thursday for military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the year, most observers believe that Congress will impose unprecedented conditions on Iraq-related spending. This could include requirements that the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pay substantially more in reconstruction and related costs than it has to date.

The argument that Baghdad must bear more of the burden gained momentum last week when the Pentagon’s Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported that Iraq’s oil revenue in 2008 should exceed 70 billion dollars, twice as much as had been forecast just a few months before.

That report, which comes amid growing concern here over the weak domestic economy, has fueled efforts by a bipartisan group of senators to halt virtually all U.S. funding for major reconstruction and infrastructure projects in Iraq.

Indeed, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted unanimously last week to approve a bill that would ban the Pentagon from funding any reconstruction or infrastructure project in Iraq that costs more than two million dollars. Similar legislation is expected to be taken up by the House.

“This is the first significant bipartisan change in our policy toward Iraq,” declared Republican Sen. Susan Collins, one of the sponsors of the legislation after last week’s vote, while the committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin said Iraq’s failure to pay reconstruction costs was “unconscionable (and) inexcusable” given the windfall it has received from the stunning rise in world oil prices.

Another provision of the same bill would require Iraq’s government to pay the salaries and training costs of the predominantly Sunni militias, or so-called “sahwa” or “Awakening” councils, on which the U.S. has been spending roughly 27 million dollars a month.

Despite U.S. pressure, the al-Maliki government has strongly resisted integrating the vast majority of the estimated 90,000 members of these militias — most of which were previously part of the Sunni insurgency — into the army or police for fear that they will eventually turn their guns on the regime.

The result has been growing frustration on the part of the militias, frustration that reportedly was significantly enhanced last month after al-Maliki enlisted thousands of members of the Badr Organisation into the government’s security forces during fighting with Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra and Sadr City in Baghdad. The Badr Organisation is the armed wing of the Shi’a Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), the strongest party in the coalition.

Both the intra-Shi’a conflict between the Sadrists and the government and the growing anger of the sahwa militias — most recently dramatised by a series of strikes and public protests and by an increasing number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in al-Anbar province and other Sunni strongholds where the militias have kept the peace for most of the past year — have resulted in a sharp rise in both Iraqi and U.S. casualties over the past two months, threatening the security gains made by the surge.

The surge, which was initiated in February 2007, was aimed at pacifying both al-Anbar province and the capital by adding some 30,000 U.S. troops to the 140,000 already deployed to Iraq to stop and reverse the drift to sectarian civil war between Sunnis and the various Shi’a militias. Its strategic aim was to foster a climate of peace and stability that would encourage all factions to make the political compromises necessary for national reconciliation.

While the surge made substantial headway in achieving its tactical goals of improving security — with the critical help of the sahwa militias which had mostly broken with al Qaeda in Iraq and allied themselves with the U.S. even before the surge got underway — its strategic goal of political reconciliation has been far more elusive.

Moreover, the surge’s tactical success has failed to translate into additional popular or Congressional support for the war at home. As a result, the Bush administration, which promised months ago to withdraw the 30,000 surge troops by the end of July, is adhering to its pledge, leaving fewer troops to ensure that a new round of violence does not break out.

At the same time, the Pentagon leadership is pressing the White House to continue the drawdown from Iraq beyond July so that it can deploy the three brigades — between 10,000 and 12,000 troops — it says it needs to cope with the Taliban and their allies in Afghanistan. While Bush has announced that there will be at least a 45-day pause to assess the impact of the surge withdrawal after July, the pressure on him to resume the process — not only from the Pentagon, but from Republican candidates in the November elections — is expected to be intense.

Republican backing for the Armed Services Committee bill banning additional spending on major reconstruction projects and support for the sahwa militias is clearly seen by both the administration and the promoters of the surge as a worrisome portent, and not only for maintaining the relative — albeit fragile — peace that has prevailed for much of the past year.

One of the surge’s architects, Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), said that legislation would “do catastrophic damage to our image in the world, particularly the Muslim world…The argument that Iraq should use its oil revenues to pay the United States sounds like the ultimate proof that we invaded Iraq for mercenary reasons.”

Ending U.S. funding for the sahwa militias, in particular, will pose a critical — and long overdue — test of the surge strategy, according to a number of observers, who see Maliki’s failure to integrate them as a critical stumbling block to national reconciliation.

“If the Awakenings are not integrated into the national security forces, then there is little hope for political accommodation or for lasting security and the U.S. is effectively trapped,” according to Marc Lynch, an expert at George Washington University whose blog, abuaardvark.com, is widely read here. “Since all other forms of persuasion seem to have failed, it’s time to give Maliki an ultimatum…If he gives in, then there may finally be some hope for political accommodation…”

“The downside is that if Maliki doesn’t go along…then things may well get ugly. But all signs suggests that they will get ugly anyway — and better that they get ugly while the U.S. is at the highest troop levels it will ever have,” Lynch wrote.

“If Maliki won’t do this now, when U.S. troop levels are high and security is relatively better, with the shadow of a new president who likely will not continue to offer an open-ended commitment, then he never will…and everyone should know this.”

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.

Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi and two other Kuwaitis are reported by their families to have taken part in an attack on Iraqi security forces in Mosul, a northern city that is the scene of intense fighting.

Although the families did not specify a date, seven people were killed in a suicide attack in Mosul on April 26.

Civil rights lawyers claim most of the detainees are innocent, while the US military claims they present a danger and would take up arms if released.

The US military opposed his release, saying there was a risk that he presented a continuing danger, but he was freed after being transferred to Kuwait.

A spokesman for the US central command, US navy commander Scott Rye, told the Associated Press he did not know the motives behind the suicide bombing.

Ajmi, aged 30, a former Kuwaiti soldier, was taken to Guantánamo as part of a general sweep in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

He was accused of fighting with the Taliban, a charge he repeatedly denied.

He was transferred from Guantánamo to Kuwait in 2005. Alleged evidence obtained at Guantánamo was not allowed in a Kuwaiti court, which acquitted him and four others on terrorist-related charges.

His cousin, Salem al-Ajmi, told al-Arabiya television last Thursday that a friend of Abdallah had informed the family that he had carried out an attack in Mosul.

“We were shocked by the painful news we received this afternoon … through a call from one of the friends of martyr Abdallah in Iraq,” Salem said.

Ajmi disappeared two weeks ago and his family learned he left Kuwait illegally for Syria, a regular transit point for jihadists travelling to Iraq.

He had sent messages to his wife from Iraq. He had a son after being released from Guantánamo.

Ajmi’s cousin said that he had given no indication that he was planning to leave Kuwait to join the insurgency in Iraq, though he had become more withdrawn recently.

The US military claimed he had deserted the Kuwaiti armed forces to fight with the Taliban for eight months in 2001 against the Northern Alliance, which after 9/11 was backed by the US.

As the Northern Alliance took Kabul with US help, Ajmi is alleged to have fled south to Tora Bora and was captured attempting to cross into Pakistan. He insisted he had gone to Pakistan to memorise the Koran, had never been in Afghanistan and had never heard of Tora Bora.

There are 275 detainees at Guantánamo, down from a high of 775. The US commander at the camp, Rear Admiral Mark Buzby, said in February that he expected about 80 to go on trial. Of the remainder, 80 have already been cleared for release but cannot find a country that will take them. The others are awaiting clearance.

The Democratic and Republican candidates to replace President George Bush in January next year have promised to close the camp.

The case against Ajmi in Kuwait collapsed after the court ruled that alleged testimony from Guantánamo was inadmissible because he had not signed it.

The presence of Kuwaiti foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq is rare. While 90% of suicide bombers have been foreigners, Kuwaitis have comprised less than 1% of foreign fighters in Iraq.

The first hearing at a new court complex at Guantánamo yesterday suffered a technical glitch. Journalists watching proceedings from behind a glass panel had no sound.

The case being heard was of a Yemeni, Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al-Bahlul, who is accused of serving Osama bin Laden as a bodyguard and al-Qaida recruiter.

The US military spent US$12m (£6m) on the new court complex. After the sound was sorted, there was a power failure and the lights went out. When sound and light was restored, Bahlul declined to enter a plea. He held up a sign saying he was boycotting the court and refused to distance himself from bin Laden and al-Qaida.

Charges are pending against 14 prisoners in the special court set up to try captives the US considers to be unlawful enemy combatants who do not merit trial in civilian and military courts.

“This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we’re not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do,” he said. “Then the ball would be in Iran’s court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.”

Mr Bolton, an influential former member of President George W Bush’s inner circle, dismissed as “dead wrong” reported British intelligence conclusions that the US military had overstated the support that Iran was providing to Iraqi fighters.

A US military spokesman revealed last week that the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had drafted in personnel from Lebanon’s Hizbollah to train fighters from Iraq’s Shia militias.

Colonel Donald Bacon, a spokesman for the coalition in Baghdad, said captured fighters had told interrogators that thousands of Iraqi fighters were undergoing training in the Islamic Republic.

The main camp is located near the town of Jalil Azad, near Tehran, according to coalition officials.

The capture of Qais Khazali, a major figure in the Shia insurgency alongside Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Lebanese Hizbollah guerilla, last year yielded a treasure trove of information on Hizbollah’s activities in Iraq.

“Ali Mussa Daqduq confirmed Lebanese Hizbollah were providing training to Iraqi Special Group members in Iran and that his role was to assess the quality of training and make recommendations on how the training could be improved,” said Col Bacon. “In this role, he travelled to Iraq on four occasions and was captured on his fourth trip.”

Five Britons kidnapped in Iraq are believed to have been put under the control of Quds Force agents after failed attempts to barter the men for Khazali and Daqduq’s freedom.

The importance of the Quds Force to stability in Iraq was demonstrated last week when a five-member Iraqi delegation was sent to Tehran to meet with its commander, General Ghassem Soleimani. The delegation was despatched by the Iraqi government to plead for an end to Iranian meddling in its enfeebled neighbour.

The question is a valid one. Throughout my travels in the United States, where I interact with people from progressive anti-war groups, I am often confronted with the seeming contradiction of my position. I rail against the war in Iraq (and the potential of war with Iran) and yet embrace, at times enthusiastically, the notion of military service. It gets even more difficult to absorb, at least on the surface, when I simultaneously advocate counter-recruitment as well as support for those who seek to join the armed services.

The notion that the military and citizens of conscience should be at odds is a critical problem for our nation. That confrontation only exacerbates the problems of the soldier and the citizen, and must be properly understood if it is to be defeated. Let us start by constructing a framework in which my positions can be better assessed.

First and foremost, I do not view military service as an obligation of citizenship. I do view military service as an act of good citizenship, but it can under no circumstance be used as a litmus test for patriotism. There are many ways in which one can serve his or her nation; the military is but one. I am a big believer in the all-volunteer military. For one thing, the professional fighting force is far more effective and efficient than any conscript force could ever be. 

There are those who argue that a draft would level the playing field, spreading the burdens and responsibilities associated with a standing military force more evenly among the population.  Those citizens whose lives would be impacted through war (namely those of draft age and their immediate relatives) would presumably be less inclined to support war. 

Conversely, the argument goes, with an all-volunteer professional force, the burden of sacrifice is limited to that segment of society which is engaged in the fighting, real or potential. Two points emerge: First, the majority of society not immediately impacted by the sacrifices of conflict will remain distant from the reality of war. Second, even when the costs of conflict become discernable to the withdrawn population, the fact that the sacrifice is being absorbed by those who willingly volunteered somehow lessens any moral outcry.

I will submit that these are valid observations, and indeed have been borne out in America’s response to the Iraq war tragedy. However, simply because something exists doesn’t make it right. The collective response to the Iraq war on the part of the American people is not a result of there not being a draft, but rather poor citizenship. An engaged citizenry would not only find sufficient qualified volunteers to fill the ranks of our military, but would also personally identify with all those who served so that the loss of one was felt by all. The fact that many Americans today view the all-volunteer force not so much as an extension of themselves, but more along the lines of a “legion” of professionals removed from society, illustrates the yawning gap that exists between we the people and those we ask to defend us. 

Narrowing this gap is not something that can be accomplished simply through legislation. Reinstating the draft is illusory in this regard. There is a more fundamental obstacle to the reunion of our society and those who take an oath in the military to uphold and defend the Constitution. Void of this bond, the inherent differences of civilian and military life will serve to drive a wedge between the two, regardless of whether the military force is drafted or volunteer. 

Lacking a common understanding of the foundational principles upon which the nation was built, a citizenry will grow to view military service as an imposition, as opposed to an obligation. Simply put, one cannot willingly defend that which one does not know and understand. The fundamental ignorance that exists in America today about the Constitution creates the conditions which foster the divide between citizen and soldier that permeates society today. America must take ownership of its military, not simply by footing the bill, but by assuming a moral responsibility for every aspect of military service. The vehicle for doing this has been well established through the Constitution: the legislative branch of government, the Congress, which serves to represent the will of the people. 

Congress, especially the House of Representatives, was never conceived of as separate and distinct from the people, but rather as one with the people, directly derived from their collective will via the electoral process. Unfortunately today, few Americans identify with Congress. An “us versus them” mentality pervades. This mentality creates the crack in the moral and social contract which exists regarding a citizenry and its military. Congress is responsible for maintaining the military. Congress is the branch of government mandated with the responsibility for declaring war. When the bond is strained between the people and Congress, the bond between citizen and soldier is broken. Congress, left to its own devices, will begin to view the military not as an extension of its constituents, but rather as a commodity to be traded and used in a highly politicized fashion. 

This is the reality we find ourselves in today (and indeed which has existed for some time). The 2006 midterm elections highlight this reality, where a strong anti-war sentiment upon the part of the voters resulted in a Democratic majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Having assumed the mantle of legislative power, however, those who were elected on the coattails of anti-war sentiment were able to shun their anti-war constituents. They did so by taking full advantage of the reality that the anti-war movement was in fact not a movement at all, but rather a concept pushed forward by a disparate mass without much political viability.

Where anti-war sentiment did in fact cross over from the ranks of the progressive left and into the mainstream of American society, it was quickly quashed through the dishonest logic that if one truly supported the troops (as most red-blooded Americans swear they do), then one must by extension support the mission. This flawed connectivity empowered Congress to sidestep the issue of withdrawing American forces from Iraq, and enabled it to continue rubber-stamping funding for a war which long ago lost any connection, perceived or otherwise, to the general security of the American people.

And so U.S. service members continue to fight and die in Iraq, a conflict which grows more unpopular with the American people each passing day. The question thus emerges: What is the appropriate response on the part of the American citizenry? While we insulate ourselves from political duplicity, the soldiers ultimately pay the price for the cowardice of those whom we elect to represent us in higher office. This seems to be the path taken by most Americans, who have grown numbly indifferent to the incessant stream of disappointment over the continued failure of Congress to truly represent the will of the people. We have therefore built a wall which separates we the people from the one aspect of republican governance which is, by design, supposed to give us voice. 

In doing so, we likewise create a buffer between citizen and soldier, as those who are constitutionally mandated to fund the care, equipping and utilization of the military now operate in ambiguity created by the vacuum of citizen apathy. Thus liberated from the moral compass provided by the people, Congress has lost its ability to defend its own role in governance, and over time has demeaned its constitutional mandate by transferring powers inherent to the legislative branch to an executive branch which has assumed the role of caretaker of the military. By vesting absolute power in the hands of the executive, Congress has all but assured that America has become a nation no longer governed by the rule of law, but rather the rule of man. This sort of tyranny is what Americans fought a revolution to free themselves from 233 years ago. 

An executive that operates in accordance with a unitary theory of governance is one that views the capacity to defend the state as being in fact the capacity to defend the realm. As such, one sees a gravitation of emphasis: Rather than focusing on external threats to the collective, the realm becomes obsessed with internal threats to its ability to retain power. The Patriot Act is a clear-cut example of how a unitary executive has undermined and corrupted the legitimate law enforcement mechanisms of the land by vesting the executive with powers normally associated solely with the legislative branch.  In this regard, we see the armed forces similarly abused, with the creation of military command structures (namely U.S. Northern Command) which exist not to protect the people, but rather protect the realm from the people. This is not a stated objective, but rather one inferred from the fact that, for the first time since the imposition of posse comitatus in 1876, the United States has positioned its armed forces so that they can participate in normal state law enforcement. In short, instead of serving as a force of protection for the American people from external threats, the military views the American people as the threat, “targets” which need to be investigated as potential threats to the military. 

An example of just how far off track the executive branch, facilitated by an all too complicit legislative branch, has strayed when it comes to the common defense is the Pentagon’s controversial Counterintelligence Field Activity, ostensibly created in a post-9/11 world to “… protect the [Defense] department by supporting the detection and neutralization of foreign espionage.” The CFA operates under the umbrella of U.S. Northern Command, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks to ostensibly safeguard the American homeland. A major aspect of the CFA’s work is something known as the Joint Protection Enterprise Network, or JPEN. 

The JPEN network enables the Defense Department to share unverified information with civilian police departments, the FBI and other government agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA). Originally dubbed Project Protect America, the JPEN system came into being in July 2003 with the full support of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The heart and soul of the JPEN system is the “Threat and Local Observation Notice,” or TALON report, the brainchild of then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In the conduct of its work, the CFA created and distributed thousands of TALON reports via the JPEN system on the activities of private U.S. citizens, with a particular focus of those engaged in anti-war protests.

The CFA is slated in the near future to be morphed into a larger Defense Intelligence Agency-run Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence activity. Far from limiting the scope and scale of the activities currently undertaken by the CFA, this new organization will simply increase the level of illegal and unconstitutional activities currently undertaken by the CFA against the American “target.” The fact that the U.S. military now views the American citizenry as its target, as opposed to the object of its defense, shows just how broken the circle of trust is between citizen and soldier. Additional TALON reports are being assembled on anyone deemed to be a potential threat to the U.S. military, including all who are involved in “counter-recruitment” activities designed to provide alternatives to military service for today’s youths. This myopic approach toward installation and facility security undertaken by the Pentagon is not only intellectually weak but constitutionally prohibited. The legislative branch, operating amid constituent apathy, continues to fail in its mission of upholding the rule of law. 

In similarly deplorable fashion, the Pentagon has allowed itself to be hijacked by the radical right wing of the Republican Party. The fact that Fox News has become the channel of choice for the U.S. military speaks volumes about the mind-set which has gripped those who lead it. The military has always been a conservative institution. Yet when wearing the uniform of the United States serves more as a front for defending a political ideology (a rabid one at that) rather than upholding and defending the Constitution, the military does itself a disservice. The disconnect between those who serve in the military and those whom they are sworn to protect can be fatal when one realizes the recruiting pool no longer identifies with the military as a legitimate expression of patriotism and citizenship.

The scope of this ideological hijacking is broad, yet barely recognized. One can glimpse just how deep and nefarious this ideological shift is when one considers the extent to which evangelical Christians have infiltrated the U.S. Air Force Academy, proselytizing their heavily politicized religion to the future officers and leaders of that service. The past comments of Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a decorated Army Special Operations veteran who described America’s post-9/11 “war on terror” as a conflict between “Christian” America and “radical Islam,” are widely embraced within the U.S. military. President Bush has echoed Boykin in his speeches and statements, and the military’s favorite presidential candidate, Republican Sen. John McCain, has become the embodiment of Boykin’s philosophy. The Constitution prohibits the notion that America be defined as a Christian nation.  To allow the military, sworn as it is to uphold and defend that document, to posture itself as Christian, becoming in effect the “sword of God,” is unthinkable and unforgivable. 

The implications of such posturing are far-reaching, especially from the military recruitment standpoint. The all-volunteer military succeeds when it attracts to its ranks those who have a sincere desire to serve their nation. It succeeds greatly when those it attracts come from the broadest possible cross section of the American demographic. There has always been an economic aspect to the all-volunteer force; service is not slavery, and the military has always promised the security of a middle-class lifestyle to those who choose to enlist. But military service, properly motivated, has never been solely about the money. It is about defending a greater good, the people of the United States of America and their values and ideals as defined by the Constitution. 

It has become increasingly difficult to motivate enough of today’s youths to serve in the armed services based upon the call of duty alone. One of the primary reasons for this shortfall is the unfortunate perception, not improperly derived, that military service is not in keeping with the concept of “doing the right thing.” This perception, born of an unpopular war and the dishonest foreign policies of successive administrations, is further exaggerated by the reality that the military not only operates as a separate and distinct part of American society (this has always been the case) but, due in large part to post-9/11 hysteria, has been positioned to view the American people as a threat. The inherent problems of the military trying to recruit from a population base which is under attack from the military are self-evident. Genuine patriotism was once a viable recruitment pitch. Now, economic incentives, false promises and pseudo-patriotism are used as the bait to lure the youths of today into America’s legions. Like the legions of the past, these new warriors march not on behalf of the citizens they are sworn to protect, but rather the emperor who commands them. This may be viewed as an overly harsh statement, but there is no other way to describe the abuses of a unitary executive who positions himself above the Constitution and Congress in a time of war.

Having described the current state of the military and military service in this manner, why would I ever encourage a citizen of military age to consider service in the armed forces? First and foremost, one needs to understand that the entire military system has not been corrupted. There are still men and women of honor who serve with dedication and pride. They are, in fact, in the majority. It takes only a few bad apples to spoil the lot, however, and our military today, thanks to a nebulous mission and lower recruiting standards, is full of bad apples. Likewise, to quote a Russian general, “a fish stinks from its head,” and nothing smells worse today than the “head” of the United States. Our commander in chief has disgraced the office he was entrusted with, and in doing so has severely damaged the foundation of American civil society as well as the institutions sworn to uphold and defend it.

The solution, however, cannot be “cut and run.” Simply identifying the problem and pointing a finger at the perpetrators will do nothing to resolve these critical issues. Our military cannot change unless we the people re-establish the link between ourselves and the legislative branch of government and rebuild the bond of trust between citizen and soldier. This cannot happen in stages, but rather must occur simultaneously. While the vast majority of America struggles to regain its moral and ethical compass through the re-establishment of the rule of law as set forth by the Constitution, we need to continue to maintain a military which is capable of defending us. 

This requires good people to serve, even if the conditions of their service are not ideal. Do I want to have an intelligent, morally grounded soldier on the front line in Iraq, making the decisions about the use of force in the framework of an illegal and unjust occupation, or do I want to relinquish that job to a former felon lacking even a high school diploma? Do I want the troops of today led by Bible-wielding zealots or Constitution-wielding patriots? While we struggle to re-establish the bond between citizen and soldier, we have an absolute requirement to ensure we continue to field a military composed of citizen soldiers. The only way to prevent our military from becoming the new Roman Legion is to staff it with citizens of principle who reject such an abominable label. We are a nation at war, not just abroad, but with ourselves. Now, more than ever, we need citizens of standing to answer the call to service, not in the name of a criminal president or an illegal war, but rather in defense of the Constitution and all that it stands for, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Feith’s account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country’s top military leaders.

Feith’s book, “War and Decision”, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W. Bush on Sep. 30, 2001 calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing “new regimes” in a series of states by “aiding local peoples to rid themselves of terrorists and to free themselves of regimes that support terrorism.”

In quoting from that document, Feith deletes the names of all of the states to be targeted except Afghanistan, inserting the phrase “some other states” in brackets. In a facsimile of a page from a related Pentagon “campaign plan” document, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes are listed as “state regimes” against which “plans and operations” might be mounted, but the names of four other states are blacked out “for security reasons”.

Gen. Wesley Clark, who commanded the NATO bombing campaign in the Kosovo War, recalls in his 2003 book “Winning Modern Wars” being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.

Clark writes that the list also included Lebanon. Feith reveals that Rumsfeld’s paper called for getting “Syria out of Lebanon” as a major goal of U.S. policy.

When this writer asked Feith after a recent public appearance which countries’ names were deleted from the documents, he cited security reasons for the deletion. But when he was asked which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, “All of them.”

Rumsfeld’s paper was given to the White House only two weeks after Bush had approved a U.S. military operation in Afghanistan directed against bin Laden and the Taliban regime. Despite that decision, Rumsfeld’s proposal called explicitly for postponing indefinitely U.S. airstrikes and the use of ground forces in support of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in order to try to catch bin Laden.

Instead the Rumsfeld paper argued that the U.S. should target states which had supported anti-Israel forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It urged that the United States “[c]apitalize on our strong suit, which is not finding a few hundred terrorists in caves in Afghanistan, but in the vastness of our military and humanitarian resources, which can strengthen the opposition forces in terrorist-supporting states.”

Feith describes the policy outlined in the paper as consisting of “military action against some of the state sponsors and pressure — short of war — against others”.

The Rumsfeld plan represented a Pentagon consensus that included the uniformed military leadership, according to Feith’s account. He writes that the process of drafting the paper involved consultations with the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry Shelton and the incoming Chairman Gen. Richard Myers.

Myers helped revise the initial draft, Feith writes, and Gen. John P. Abizaid, who was then director of the Joint Staff, enthusiastically endorsed it in draft form. “This is an exceptionally important memo,” wrote Abizaid, “which gives clear strategic vision.” In a message quoted by Feith, Abizaid recommended to Myers that “you support this approach”.

After the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Abizaid was promoted to become chief of CENTCOM, with military responsibility for the entire Middle East.

Neither Myers nor Abizaid, both of whom are now retired from the military, responded to e-mails asking for their comments on Feith’s account of their role in the process of producing the Rumsfeld strategy.

Rumsfeld’s aides had also drafted a second version of the paper, as instructions to all military commanders in the development of “campaign plans against terrorism”.

That instructions document was a joint effort by Feith’s office and by the Strategic Plans and Policy directorate of Abizaid’s Joint Staff. It followed the broad outlines of the paper for Bush, arguing that the enemy was a “network” that included states that support terrorism and that the Defence Department should seek to “convince or compel” those states to cut their ties to terrorism.

The Pentagon guidance document called for military commanders to assist other government agencies “as directed” to “encourage populations dominated by terrorist organizations or their supporters to overthrow that domination”.

That language was adopted because the campaign planning document was issued as “Strategic Guidance for the Defense Department” on Oct. 3, 2001 — just three days after the Rumsfeld strategy paper had gone to the president.

Bush had not approved the explicit aim of regime change in Iran, Syria and four other countries proposed by Rumsfeld. Thus Rumsfeld adopted the aggressive military plan targeting multiple regimes in the Middle East for regime change even though it was not White House policy.

The Defence Department guidance document made it clear that U.S. military aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to terrorism. The document said that the Defence Department would also seek to isolate and weaken those states and to “disrupt, damage or destroy” their military capacities — not necessarily limited to WMD.

The document included as a “strategic objective” a requirement to “prevent further attacks against the U.S. or U.S. interests”. That language, which extended the principle of preemption far beyond the issue of WMD, was so broad as to justify plans to use force against virtually any state that was not a client of the United States.

The military leadership’s strong preference for focusing on states as enemies rather than on the threat from al Qaeda after 9/11 continued a pattern of behaviour going back to the Bill Clinton administration (1993-2001).

After the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa by al Qaeda operatives, State Department counter-terrorism official Michael Sheehan proposed supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan against bin Laden’s sponsor, the Taliban regime. However, senior U.S. military leaders “refused to consider it”, according to a 2004 account by Richard H. Shultz, Jr., a military specialist at Tufts University.

A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State Department counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterised more than once by colleagues as a “small price to pay for being a superpower”.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.

Yoo’s memo, dated March 14, 2003, outlines legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al-Qaida and Taliban detainees overseas — so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captives.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and former Assistant Attorney General Dan Levin have also agreed to give testimony at a future hearing. Former CIA Director George Tenet is still in negotiations with the committee.

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Tuesday to compel David Addington, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, to testify.

AP

Phone messages left for Arlington, Va.-based CACI and New York City-based L-3 Communications, formerly Titan Corp., were not immediately returned Monday. There was no phone number listed for Stefanowicz at his Los Angeles address.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles because Stefanowicz lives there, seeks unspecified monetary damages.

The firms provided interrogators or interpreters to assist U.S. military guards at Abu Ghraib, which became notorious when photos made public in early 2004 showing U.S. soldiers abusing and humiliating detainees. Military investigators later concluded that much of the abuse happened in late 2003 — when CACI and Titan’s interrogators were at the prison.

CACI and L-3 were accused of abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners in earlier lawsuits. In November a federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed the suit against L-3 but allowed the one against CACI to proceed.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday in Istanbul, Turkey, al-Janabi said he hopes the lawsuit sheds light on what happened to him and other detainees.

“God willing the righteousness will emerge and God willing the criminal will receive his punishment,” al-Janabi said.

Al-Janabi, 43, said he was detained by U.S. troops during a late-night raid in which he and his family were beaten by their captors. He said he was taken to a military base where he was stripped naked, a hood was placed on his head and his hands and legs were chained.

“They (U.S. troops) did not tell me what was the reason behind my arrest … during the interrogation, the American soldier told me I was a terrorist … and I was preparing for an attack against the U.S. forces,” said al-Janabi, who denied the accusation and claims he was forced to give confessions under “savage” intimidation.

The lawsuit also claims the contractors conspired in a cover-up by destroying documents and other information, hid prisoners during periodic checks by the International Red Cross and misled military and government officials about what was happening at Abu Ghraib.

Al-Janabi was released in July 2004 and wasn’t charged with any crime, according to the lawsuit. He also was forced to form a human pyramid in the nude with other prisoners, according to the lawsuit, but his Philadelphia-based attorney Susan Burke said it wasn’t known if he was in the infamous photo that became public.

“Most of this conduct was repeated on more than one occasion,” Burke said.

At one point after passing out, al-Janabi said, he was told by an L-3 translator “welcome to Guantanamo.” He said he even asked a cellmate whether he could see the ocean from a window.

“I lost the sense of time after the prolonged hours of abusive interrogation and thought that I was transported to Guantanamo,” al-Janabi told the AP.

The Abu Ghraib photos drew international criticism about the way detainees were treated and damaged the U.S. military’s image in Arab countries. Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted of crimes at the prison, which was closed and transferred to Iraqi control.

    According to Alejandro Sanchez, an analyst at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a research center on Latin America based in Washington, “the reestablishment of the Fourth Fleet is more of a political than a military gesture, designed to confront the rise in power of left-leaning governments in the region.” The Pentagon does not trouble to camouflage its intentions: “the message is clear: whether local governments like it or not, the United States is back after the war in Iraq,” Sanchez explains.

    “New Threats”

    De facto,, Washington’s military influence in the region has diminished considerably since September 11, 2001, and the launch of the “war against terrorism.” Concentrated on the Middle Eastern arc of crisis, the Pentagon did not pay much attention to the political upsets in its own backyard. Leftist governments, now broadly in the majority in Latin America, reproach the United States with the support it gave the dictatorships that reigned over several decades and to the ultra-neo-liberal policies those dictatorships applied.

    While Washington assures that its sole interest in the region is combating “new threats” (terrorism, drug trafficking and the Maras gangs of Central America), Latin American people often see it as the pursuit of “imperialist” interests dictated by energy needs. The tensions between Washington and the radical presidents of the sub-continent’s main oil and gas producers (Venezuela, Equator and Bolivia) accentuate that perception.

    As a sign of defiance, almost all Latin American countries have refused to sign the American Serviceman Protection Act, a treaty that prevents legal pursuit of American soldiers for crimes committed abroad.

    The plan to install a military base in Paraguay, close to Bolivian gas fields, was denounced by Brazil and Argentina. Ecuador has made it known that the American military base installed in Manta until 2009 will not be allowed to renew its mandate. Worse still, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has relaunched the idea of a South American Defense Council, explicitly excluding all United States intervention.

    Washington’s sidelining comes at a time when new sources of conflict are arising in the region, as, for example, the one that pits Colombia on one side and Ecuador and Venezuela on the other, or that between Bolivia and Chile over sea access. An arms race is underway in the region, where governments have taken advantage of the economic revival to reequip their armies, neglected since the 1970s.

    American arms manufacturers are no longer alone in this market: some European countries, but especially China, Russia and Iran, are trying to get a footing in a region that also attracts them for its natural resource and energy potential.

Inter Press Service

Though the 2007 revamping of the counter-insurgency strategy, known as the “surge,” has markedly reduced violence, political turmoil and ethno-sectarian strife still plague Iraq.

The U.S. surge and its concurrent positive developments did create political space, but meaningful moves toward comprehensive political accords and reconciliation have yet to follow, said a pair of new Iraq reports from the International Crisis Group (ICG).

For example, the Sunni Awakening, or Sahwa movement, that helped to slow violence in much of Baghdad and Anbar province by bringing in former insurgents and incorporating them into U.S.-funded militias, for example, leaves a new Sunni political landscape.

But that landscape, with all of its advantages for bringing stability – and thereby aiding the U.S. occupation – has failed to transition into the politics of the Iraqi central government. Frustration with those failures creates a tense atmosphere that even U.S. officials acknowledge as being “fragile and reversible.”

“Tribal elements and former insurgents may become disillusioned with lack of political progress, inadequate steps toward economic and social inclusion, and what they perceive as continued dominance by Iran and its Shi’ite proxies,” said the first IGC report, “Iraq After the Surge I: The New Sunni Landscape.”

So while the larger insurgent-U.S. battles and wider Sunni-Shia fighting have abated, the new, smaller, more subdivided groups continue to bump heads. The U.S. policy of tending to choose between these groups with either economic or military support, said the report, does not constitute meaningful steps toward political reconciliation.

The IGC report notes that the U.S. “divide-and-rule tactics” reinforce the new fault lines in society, and by benefiting only one group, create resentment among the others.

“Ultimately, stability will require that such rivalries be mediated neither through violence nor buy-off, but by functional, legitimate state institutions,” said the report. That, in turn, requires the U.S. to support “a genuinely inclusive political system.”

Another incident of U.S. favoritism that could lead to sharp divides and potential large-scale violence is the intra-Shia power struggle for control of southern Iraq.

Backed by U.S. air power, an offensive by the two main power-sharing partners in the Iraqi central government, Da’wa and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, in the southern strongholds of militant anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was designed to cripple Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia ahead of provincial elections scheduled for this fall.

When the advance was thwarted by Sadrist fighters, the ruling Shia parties took up a piece of legislation that was aimed at scuttling Sadr’s bid in the elections by making it illegal for parties with militias to participate.

Council on Foreign Relations fellow Mohammad Bazzi wrote in the Washington Times that though Sadrists and the Mahdi Army were not named in the legislation, it is clearly a misguided attempt to isolate them – noting that other parties such as ISCI are not hampered though they, too, have militias.

“It’s virtually impossible to wipe out the Sadrist trend, which is a social, political, and military movement that enjoys wide support, particularly among young and poor Shi’ites,” wrote Bazzi.

“The consequences of trying to isolate Sheik al-Sadr and his political movement are profound,” said Bazzi, saying that the move would end a Sadr cease-fire and drastically increase violence aimed at both the U.S. and the central Iraqi government.

Noting the situation in the second report, “Iraq After the Surge II: The Need For a New Political Strategy,” ICG recommends that the Iraqi government hold provincial elections on the original schedule of Oct. 1, 2008, and “ensure that these are inclusive of all parties, groups and individuals that publicly accept nonviolence (rather than, at this stage, disband their militias).”

This runs contrary to the law before the Iraqi parliament, and would allow incorporation of Sadrists into above-board politics.

“If [the Sadrists are going to sweep the South], that needs to be allowed to happen – so long as it’s the result of a free and fair election and not at the barrel of a gun,” Jason Gluck of the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) told IPS.

“If you want to talk about political progress, there are many justifications for confronting the armed militias, particularly the Mahdi Army,” said Gluck. “But that confrontation must be coupled with political opportunity and engagement. The Sadrists need to be ensured that if they comply, there are going to be free and fair elections.”

“My criticism would be that there has not been this olive branch – this welcoming into the political process – that’s simultaneous with the military engagement,” continued Gluck, who is a rule-of-law adviser with USIP. “It has not been made clear that while Sadr and the Mahdi Army must disarm, or at the very least disavow violence [as with the ICG proposal], if they do that they will be welcomed into the political process.”

Gluck acknowledged that the dealings of Sadrist members of parliament – in line with the general Sadrist Iraqi nationalism – already show that they are capable of meaningful political engagement, most importantly across sectarian lines.

“We can promote that by encouraging Sadr to rely on the political process and not on the barrel of a gun,” he said.

The IGC report on the new politics needed in Iraq reinforced the importance of the provincial elections as a stepping stone toward true reconciliation.

“If genuinely free and fair and carried out in a secure environment, these hold the potential of beginning to alter the political landscape by bringing a new generation and class of political leaders to the fore,” it said.

Nearly all observers agree that action needs to be taken soon in the relative calm provided by the U.S. surge strategy.

“There is reason to fear this is only a temporary salve and that underlying issues will again come to the fore,” said the IGC report. “Whatever political space the surge tore open is likely to narrow once again.”