2008 June 07

Socialist Worker | Revealed: George Bush’s plan to impose ‘security accords’ that will mean 400 permanent military bases and US personnel given green light to kill. George Bush is ending the pretence that Iraq is a “democratic state”. He is imposing new “security accords” that will strip the country of its sovereignty and allow it to be used as a platform to launch more wars.

This is the thrust of a secret treaty – known as the Status of Forces Agreement – that is being imposed on the country.

Even the puppet Iraqi parliament and its pro-occupation allies have found it difficult to stomach.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets last week as the provisions in the “accords” were leaked to the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat.

Bush wants to establish 400 permanent military installations, including bases near the Turkish, Iranian and Syrian borders.

According to one pro-US Kurdish leader these bases will “exist for the next 15 or 20 years”.

Included in the treaty is the right for the US to launch wars on “third countries” from Iraqi soil.

This is a direct threat against Iraq’s neighbours and another step towards a war on Iran.

But for many Iraqis, the biggest insult in the new treaty is that all US troops, citizens and mercenaries – the so-called contractors – will be immune from Iraqi law.

Under these terms, occupation forces can use deadly force under any conditions, giving them a green light to arrest, imprison or kill any Iraqi with no fear of prosecution or regard for the country’s institutions.

Also included in the treaty is a provision that all deals and undertakings for reconstruction contracts negotiated since the occupation began will become null and void. This clears the way for a US monopoly over the economy.

The US previously agreed to share these contracts with Iraqi firms in an attempt to draw them into co-operating with the occupation. But this strategy failed to quell resistance to the occupation. So now the US wants unlimited access to, and control over, the country’s wealth.

Britain and the US repeatedly said in the run-up to the invasion that they would respect Iraq’s sovereignty, end repression and build a democracy. Now they no longer bother with that lie.

A broad spectrum of Iraqis have condemned the deal, which is due to be signed by prime minister Nuri al-Maliki before the end of July.

Rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has led three uprisings against the occupation, denounced the accords as “a project of humiliation”.

The Association of Muslim Scholars, the mouthpiece of the mainly Sunni Muslim sections of the resistance, said the deal would pave the way for total “military, economic and cultural domination” of the country.

Tariq al-Hashimi, Iraq’s vice‑president and a stalwart of the occupation, said the country’s sovereignty is a “red line” which the US is attempting to cross.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest Shia Muslim authority in Iraq, is demanding a popular referendum. He said he would not allow Iraq to sign such an accord “as long as he was alive”.

Faced with this growing opposition, US ambassador Ryan Crocker threatened to strip Iraq’s puppet regime of any authority if it refused to rubber stamp the accords.

The latest US plan for Iraq confirms the worst fears of the anti-war movement in the run‑up to the invasion.

We warned then that behind the talk of “humanitarian intervention” and “democracy” lay a plan for total subjugation and endless war.

The fight is still on to stop US and British warmongering in the Middle East and around the world. For this reason we have to turn out in massive numbers to protest against George Bush’s visit to Britain on 15 June.

Chavez Revamps His Intelligence Services: The Corporate Media React

By Stephen Lendman - RINF | Reports keep surfacing about new threats against Hugo Chavez. Given past ones, they can’t be taken lightly. Chavez is alerted and reacts accordingly. Case in point: revamping Venezuela’s decades old intelligence services. It’s long overdue and urgently needed given the Bush administration’s tenure winding down and its determination in its remaining months to end the Bolivarian project and crush its participatory democracy.

CIA, NED, IRI, USAID and other US elements infest the country and are more active than ever. Subversion is their strategy, and it shows up everywhere. Violence is being encouraged. Opposition groups are recruited and funded. So are members of Venezuela’s military. Student groups as well and anti-Chavista candidates for November’s mayoral and gubernatorial elections.

The dominant media are on board in Venezuela and America. They assail Chavez relentlessly and are on the warpath again after his May 28 announced intelligence services changes. The Interior and Justice Ministries will oversee a new General Intelligence Office and Counterintelligence Office in place of the current Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP). Similar military intelligence and counterintelligence components will replace the Military Intelligence Division (DIM) and will be under the Defense Ministry. Why was it done and why now? To counter stepped up US espionage and destabilization efforts when it’s most needed.

New tools will be used and current personnel retrained and vetted for their Bolivarian commitment. DISIP and DIM are outdated. They’ve been around since 1969 to serve the “capitalist vision” of that era. Ever since, they’ve been “notoriously repressive” and closely aligned with the CIA. Therein lies the problem. Chavez intends to fix it. The dominant media reacted. They’re hostile to change and showed it their reports.

The New York Times’ Simon Romero has trouble with his facts. He headlined “Chavez Decree Tightens Hold on Intelligence.” He referred to the new Law on Intelligence and Counterintelligence that passed by presidential decree under the legislatively-granted enabling law. He failed to explain that the 1969 law passed the same way, and that Venezuela’s Constitution then and now permit it.

Instead, he noted a “fierce backlash here from (mostly unnamed) human rights groups and ‘legal scholars’ who say the measures will force citizens to inform on one another to avoid prison terms….The new law requires (them) to….assist the agencies, secret police or community activist groups loyal to Mr. Chavez. Refusal can result in prison terms of two to four years (and up to) six years for government employees.”

Once again, Romero falls short on credibility. Hyperbole substitutes for truth as in all his reports. No country more respects human rights than Venezuela, and Chavez is committed to them. To the rule of law as well and social justice. The country’s Constitution mandates it, and government officials are bound by it. Appointed officials with other aims have no place in it. They need to be exposed and replaced but need fear no recrimination unless they violate the law.

The new one won’t create “a society of informers” as one of Romero’s sources stated. Nor will it imprison Venezuelan citizens or let Chavez “assert greater control over public institutions in the face of political challenges following a ’stinging’ defeat in December(’s) constitutional (referendum) that would have expanded his powers.”

It will insure greater “national security” and protect against “imperialist attacks” as Chavez explained. It’s to preserve Bolivarianism against persistent attempts to destroy it. It’s to serve all Venezuelans, advance a new 21st century vision, and put people ahead of privilege. It’s to counter Bush administration efforts to restore neoliberalism, return the old order, and destroy social justice in the region’s most model democracy.

Without explaining Venezuelan law or its legislative process, Romero states that the “law (was drafted and passed) behind closed doors, without exposing it to….public debate (and that) contributed to the public uproar and suspicion.” His “public,” of course, are elitists. They target Chavez for removal, denounce all his beneficial changes, and falsely accuse him of governing dictatorially.

“They” claim “justice officials, including judges, are required to actively collaborate with the intelligence services rather than serve as a check on them.” According to Americas director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), Jose Miguel Vivanco: “This is a government that simply doesn’t believe in the separation of powers….(It requires) the country’s judges (to) serve as spies for the government.” Vivanco knows better and damages HRW’s credibility with comments like these. Romero uses them with relish to aid the imperial project.

Venezuela’s internal threat is unmentioned. Rogue elements infest the government and military. They oppose democracy and social justice. Washington supports them. They must be found and removed. Venezuelans demand it. Better intelligence will help. Romero won’t report it. Instead, he inverts truth and sides with forces trying to destabilize and undermine a government of, by and for the people.

He quotes “a prominent legal scholar” (in fact, right wing lawyer Rocio San Miguel) saying “This is the most scandalous effort to intimidate the population in the 10 years this government has been in power. Under the new law (information I have) could be considered a threat to national security and I could be sent immediately to jail.” Indeed she could if she violates the law or tries to subvert the government. Otherwise, she’s entitled to all benefits and protections Venezuelan law affords everyone. No comment from Romero.

AP echoed The New Times in its headlined May 31 report: “Venezuelan intelligence law draws protests, seen as potential tool against dissent.” Again, it’s false and misleading and part of the imperial plot against Chavez. AP unfairly equates the new law to the USA Patriot Act, when, in fact, it’s totally dissimilar. The US law violates constitutional civil liberties. Venezuela’s respects them, but it’s easy for protesters to claim otherwise.

Justice Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin explained the difference. US law spies on Americans and denies them legal protection. Venezuela’s law enlists responsible citizen participation in preserving their government. They have a stake in “state security and resolving crimes. If (they) witness (wrongdoing and) hide it, then (they) are an accomplice to that crime.” It doesn’t require people to spy. It wants them to cooperate and be engaged in preserving Bolivarianism and to report threats against it. It’s to make them responsible citizens united for their common self-interest.

That’s not how BBC sees it as part of its anti-Chavez agenda. Its June 3 online report highlighted: “Venezuela ’spy’ law draws protest….among groups who say it threatens civil liberties.” One of them is HRW’s Vivanco again voicing the same false and misleading statements about “judges serving as spies.” Another source, with a clear anti-Chavez agenda, says the “law may be used as a weapon to silence and intimidate the opposition.”

In fact, Chavez champions free expression in all forms unlike in America post-9/11. Repressive laws and presidential executive orders stifle it. Activists are targeted, harassed and imprisoned. Illegal spying is institutionalized. So are repression, torture and disdain for the rule of law. Where are BBC, AP, The New York Times and other dominant media voices? Why aren’t they exposing police state justice? Instead they denounce democracy, ally with despotism, and acknowledge no hint of hypocrisy.

Chavez is mirror opposite his media critics and counters them correctly. He calls the USA Patriot Act “dictatorial law.” In contrast, the new Venezuelan one upholds freedom, seeks to preserve it, and is within “a framework of great respect for human rights.” It will combat US subversion that dominant media sources ignore. They blame victims instead and are willing co-conspirators against Venezuela’s model democracy. Their latest efforts show why Chavez needs all the defense he can marshal against them, and for all the right reasons.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Senate Intelligence Report: Can You Say “Impeachment”?

The Progressive | With the release of the Senate Select Committee Report, impeachment is more urgent than ever. Here we have the proof that the President and the Vice President repeatedly misled the nation into war.

They failed to acknowledge uncertainties within the intelligence community over Saddam’s alleged nuclear weapons program and his biological and chemical weapons.

They fast-forwarded the timeline when Saddam could actually acquire a nuclear weapon, and Cheney himself at one point prior to the war said Saddam had actually already “reconstituted” nuclear weapons.

Their claims that Iraq and Al Qaeda had a partnership and that Iraq was providing weapons training to Al Qaeda “were not substantiated by the intelligence.”

And their claims that Saddam was prepared to hand off WMD to terrorists for an attack against the United States “were contradicted by available intelligence information.”

“In the push to rally public support for the invasion of Iraq, Administration officials often failed to accurately portray what was known, what was not known, and what was suspected about Iraq and the threat it represented to our national security,” wrote

Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV at the back of the report. “The President and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the [9/11] attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the Nation to war on false premises.”

Taking a country into war on false premises certainly rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Rockefeller should send a copy of his report directly over to the offices of Representative John Conyers, head of the House Judiciary Committee, who has an obligation under our Constitution to initiate impeachment proceedings immediately.

After more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 30,000 wounded, after hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died for Bush and Cheney’s lies, after $600 billion has been squandered, will we not have accountability in this country?

US Walks Away from UN Human Rights Council

Human Rights Watch | A decision by the United States to disengage from the UN Human Rights Council amounts to an abandonment of human rights defenders and victims, Human Rights Watch said today.

The United States announced today at its daily State Department briefing that it will only participate in debates at the council when absolutely necessary and it feels compelled to do so by “matters of deep national interest.” The United States failed to take the floor today in a council discussion on Burma, indicating the broad scope of its withdrawal. Although not a member of the Human Rights Council, the United States had participated as an observer at the council since its inception in 2006. “The US decision to walk away from the Human Rights Council is counter-productive and short-sighted,” said Juliette de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Whatever the council’s problems, this decision is a victory for abusive states and a betrayal of those fighting for their rights worldwide.”

The council remains a critical institution for protecting human rights throughout the world, despite some substantial weaknesses, Human Rights Watch said. The council’s system of human rights monitors, for example, provides crucial reporting on abuses such as torture, violence against women and extrajudicial executions, and on countries with ongoing human rights crises, such as Burma, Somalia and Sudan. In its first two years, however, the Human Rights Council has failed to address more than 20 human rights situations that require its attention, eliminated human rights monitoring in places desperately in need of such scrutiny, and adopted a long stream of one-sided resolutions on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories which failed to consider the roles and responsibilities of the Palestinian authorities and armed groups.

Given its failure to engage fully at the council, the United States was ill-placed to confront those problems. “Washington’s hands-off approach to the Human Rights Council undermined it from the start,” said de Rivero. “It’s ironic that the US shares responsibility for the shortcomings it’s now using to justify further distancing itself from the council.” The US decision was also ill-conceived, Human Rights Watch said, given the absence of viable alternatives to the council. Human Rights Watch also questioned the timing of the US decision. On May 21, the General Assembly held elections for membership of the Human Rights Council. In those elections, following a campaign by human rights defenders in Sri Lanka and worldwide, Sri Lanka’s bid for a seat was defeated. Sri Lanka has a track record of enforced disappearances and torture. That defeat, and the defeat of Belarus in the previous year, demonstrated the potential for building a stronger council with a membership truly committed to fighting human rights abuses.

Human Rights Watch noted that the human rights record of the US, particularly abuses in its counterterrorism efforts, undermined its credibility in defending human rights at the council. The US failed to cooperate with human rights experts from the council who sought to investigate its Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Despite those concerns, states with a record of supporting human rights at the council stressed that having the US at the table was very important to building a stronger, more effective Human Rights Council. In March 2006, the United States was one of only four states that voted against the UN General Assembly Resolution establishing the new Human Rights Council. That year, and in two subsequent elections of members to the council, the United States did not seek a seat on the body.

“Instead of ceding the field to those who want to shield abusers from scrutiny, the US should have redoubled its efforts to make the council work as it should,” de Rivero said.

Blackwater opens California training center under court order

AP | A new counterterrorism training facility operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the largest private security company in Iraq, echoed with the grunts of Navy sailors, a day after a judge ordered the city to let classes begin.The 24 trainees batted and punched each other Thursday as they learned basic strike tactics in a corner of the 61,000-square-foot (5,665-square-meter) converted warehouse in an industrial area near the U.S.-Mexico border.

For the next three weeks, they’ll practice shooting inside a 25-meter indoor firing range and learn to wear sidearms safely while wriggling through ship hatches and up narrow ladders installed in white metal cargo containers stacked along one wall of the building to simulate a ship. Trainers from Blackwater will quiz them on distinguishing small boats carrying cargo from those carrying bombs.

The military contractor sued last month because city officials refused to issue final occupancy documents without a vote by the planning commission, after building inspectors had already signed off on the necessary permits. Blackwater said it faced a Navy contract deadline and accused the city of caving to political pressure.

The company has been targeted by anti-war activists and U.S. Congressman Bob Filner, a California Democrat, who opposed its proposed training camp for law enforcement in a remote mountain community east of San Diego.

That project was dropped after firing ranges failed to satisfy noise restrictions, but Filner and others have raised concerns that Blackwater is simply seeking a foothold near the border that could serve as a base for providing private migrant or drug interdiction services to federal agencies.

Blackwater insists the warehouse was built to provide the Navy’s “ship reaction force basic” training course as part of a $400 million contract. The program is part of an initiative to train sailors in counterterrorist defense tactics after the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in a Yemeni port.

“This facility supports our oldest customer,” said company Vice President Brian Bonfiglio, referring to the military.

Blackwater trains sailors from eastern U.S. bases at its headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina, where it offers an advanced course using model ships floating in a private lake. It developed the California warehouse to offer the introductory program to sailors from San Diego, Guam, Japan and other Pacific bases.

Bonfiglio acknowledged that Blackwater would gladly host other agencies, including the Border Patrol or Coast Guard, at the warehouse, located in an unmarked building within sight of the U.S.-Mexico border fence and the Tijuana, Mexico, airport control tower beyond.

“If we had a bunch of Border Patrol vehicles parked outside, they’d accuse us of trying to take over the border,” he said, only half-joking. “But I’d open up our doors to any law enforcement that needed training, if I could do it.”

The company has been expanding its domestic law enforcement training business, opening an 80-acre (32-hectare) police training center in Mount Carroll, Illinois, in 2007 to complement its 7,000-acre (2,835-hectare) complex in North Carolina.

At the same time, Blackwater has come under increased scrutiny for its work abroad. Its guards are under investigation by a federal grand jury in Washington for their involvement in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians. The company is also under investigation for possible weapons smuggling, allegations Blackwater denies.

Democratic activist Raymond Lutz said those inquiries can’t be ignored when it comes to Blackwater’s domestic operations.

“To put training in the hands of private profiteers means that you’re giving up your ability to oversee what they’re doing and when you give it up you lose control,” Lutz said. “Why doesn’t the Navy train its own people?”

Bonfiglio said his five trainers offer students a depth of counterterrorism experience the Navy couldn’t match without pulling its own experts from other duties.

“What we do overseas needs to be separated from what we do in the United States,” he said. “Here we put all of our effort into developing training facilities that are unmatched.”

City lawyers had tried to block the new facility, saying the company misled inspectors by applying for permits piecemeal and under the names of affiliated companies instead of making a single application to open a training center with firearms. District Court Judge Marilyn Huff ruled Wednesday that the company did not need to seek special approval because the area is already zoned for vocational school use.

U.N. panel criticizes U.S. war crimes charges for Gitmo minors

AP | A UN committee on child rights criticised the US yesterday for filing war crimes charges against Guantanamo Bay detainees who were picked up as minors. The detainees were recruited to fight while they were children and should therefore be treated as victims rather than unlawful enemy combatants, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said.US officials say two men who were juveniles when they were first detained remain at the island base. Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, and Mohammad Jawad, an Afghan who the military says is about 23, face charges of murder and attempted murder respectively for allegedly attacking US troops in 2002.

“The committee is seriously concerned that children who were recruited or used in armed conflict … have been charged with war crimes and subject to prosecution by military tribunals, without due account of their status as children,” the committee said in a nine-page report.

US officials in Geneva said they were unable to comment immediately on the report.

Last month, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence Sandra Hodgkinson said she would review how many juveniles were detained at the military prison in Guantanamo after official documents cast doubt on the figures Washington has provided to the UN panel.

A lawyer who has reviewed the cases of several Guantanamo inmates says at least one detainee still being held at the prison was never recognised as a juvenile by the US despite official records showing he was only 16 when he arrived there.

The UN committee also expressed concern about the number of juveniles being held at US facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

European court threat to British DNA database

By Sean O’Neill | Murder, rape and child abuse investigations will be hampered if a European court rules that more than 500,000 DNA samples should be removed from Britain’s National DNA Database, a senior police chief has told The Times.

In his first interview since standing down as chairman of the database, Tony Lake gave warning that serious crimes would go undetected if judges barred police from storing the DNA of people who had been arrested but not subsequently convicted of an offence.

Mr Lake, Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, urged ministers to consider all possible options if the court’s ruling went against Britain. “The law is the law. We have signed up to the European principles and I appreciate that it is very difficult for any government, but we must understand the level of risk that is created automatically when you start to filter and purge your DNA database,” he said.

Ministers’ options are limited because the case is being heard by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, the rulings of which are binding and impossible to challenge. The case was brought by two men from Sheffield who were arrested in 2001 and had their fingerprints and DNA samples taken. They argue that, because they were not convicted of any crime, the samples should now be destroyed. Their case has been rejected in the British courts but was heard by the European Court of Human Rights in February. A judgment is expected later this year.

Mr Lake, 57, who retires next week, said that the case was the most pertinent issue in forensic science and he dismissed the debate about creating a universal DNA database as a red herring. “You could argue that this is a manifesto issue. If there is a debate about expanding the database, then there should be a national debate about the consequences of cutting it. The country must understand that there will be an increased risk to our ability to solve crime.

“It would be potentially devastating. Without a doubt, it would prevent the detection of a variety of crimes, including some of the most serious.”

More than 8,000 people who were on the database because they had been arrested, but not convicted, have been found guilty of subsequent offences after their DNA was recovered from crime scenes. The cases have involved about 14,000 offences, including 114 murders, 55 attempted murders and 116 rapes.

The database holds 4.5 million samples and is by far the largest in Europe. About 60,000 personal samples are added to it every month and further unknown profiles are loaded from crime scenes. DNA samples, which are always supported in court by other corroborating evidence, played a key role in the conviction of Steve Wright, who killed five prostitutes in Ipswich, and Mark Dixie, the killer of the model Sally Anne Bowman. It has also helped police to solve “cold cases” including rape cases dating back decades. Mr Lake said: “There have been spectacular results in cases where lives have been shattered, where women have been afraid to walk out their front doors for fear of bumping into the man who raped them 10, 15 or 20 years before.”

The greatest unforeseen benefit of DNA advances, however, has been in solving so-called volume crime, such as burglaries, assaults and car thefts. Mr Lake said: “The public expectation now is that crime will be solved, not by the presence of witnesses, but because there will be DNA. It has stolen the limelight but we get more convictions through finding fingerprints. Other areas of forensic science are opening.”

His fear is that an adverse ruling would not only hurt the DNA database but also restrict the use of fingerprints and other intelligence databases. “The question would quickly become. ‘To what extent does the ruling apply to other databases?’.”

The key issue for Mr Lake is whether the court will consider the rights of victims properly. “People will accuse me of playing the emotional card. Well, I don’t do emotional blackmail. You have to think the unthinkable. I would not like to be the officer who has to look a parent in the eye and say, ‘We could have prevented this’.”

The future of the world’s most sophisticated DNA database is being considered by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, which draws its members from the nations of the Council of Europe.

The 17-judge panel trying the DNA case includes some with limited or no experience of DNA technology.

The complainants, Michael Marper, 45, and a 19-year-old man from Sheffield referred to only as S, are relying on article 8 (right to private life) and article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the convention.

The teenager had his DNA taken when he was arrested in 2001 and charged with attempted robbery. He was acquitted. Mr Marper, 45, was charged with harassing his partner but the case was later dropped. They argue “that as people without convictions who are no longer suspected criminals, they should be treated in the same way as the rest of the unconvicted population of the UK”.

Labour is stealing our civil liberties

By Cath Elliott | It seems incredible now, but on the May 3 1997 I actually celebrated Labour’s election victory. After 18 years of a Conservative government that had cosied up to dictators and murderous regimes around the globe; that had overseen the destruction of the country’s manufacturing and mining industries; that had driven 3 million people out of work and on to the dole, and that had seen the affable Dixon of Dock Green transformed into a brutal and vicious agent of the state, I, like many other people at the time, truly believed that with New Labour in power, things could only get better.

A few days later, when Robin Cook delivered his speech outlining the new administration’s commitment to an ethical foreign policy, I relaxed, breathed a sigh of relief, and watched with joy as the old guard retreated, licking their wounds after such a thorough and well-deserved trouncing.

Or to paraphrase slightly: “In order to preserve civil liberties, we need to sacrifice civil liberties.”

In cahoots with an equally distasteful American regime, the New Labour government has masterminded and overseen an erosion to individual freedoms and liberties that both Thatcher and Reagan, even in the darkest days of their rule, could only have dreamed of. Not content with removing all ethics from our foreign policy, they are doing their damnedest to make sure that before we know it, civil liberties and human rights at home will soon be nothing more than a distant memory. ID cards, “Sus” laws, 42-days detention, extraordinary rendition, waterboarding, torture, juryless trials, secret prison ships, a hidden network of “black sites” where suspects are interrogated and who-knows-what-else away from prying eyes and ears: these are all the stuff of fiction, of spy novels and sci-fi. They’re the stuff of nightmares, the grimmest of fairy tales brought to life, with our government firmly in the role of bogeyman.

When the left marched in the 1980s against Pinochet, and when we stood in solidarity with the mothers and sisters of the disappeared, little did we know that our government would one day be capable of the same; that 20 years down the line the British and the Americans would be snatching people away in the dead of night, surveilling their own citizens around the clock, and intercepting both their phone calls and their correspondence. Little did we know that the excesses of which we accused the old Soviet regime would soon be employed against us.

When the iron curtain fell we looked on in fascination as the Stasi and the KGB opened up their files to public scrutiny, stunned that states would keep such meticulous records on their own people. We’re now trying to work out how big a vault will be needed when the government gets its way and starts logging our every key stroke, collecting details about every second we spend on the internet. We’re left wondering how many years it will be before these secret records are opened up for scrutiny, if indeed they ever are. Perhaps the so-called war on terror will never end, and we’ve finally arrived at Orwell’s perpetual war.

For 18 long years I campaigned to help get a Labour government back into power, but I never signed up for any of this; the loss of our civil liberties was never a part of the game plan. And if Brown’s now wondering why his ratings are so low, why his party’s nearly bankrupt and his defeat at the next election is all but assured, then he needs to think carefully about those of us who have been sold so short by 11 years of New Labour mismanagement. He needs to think about those who helped this government into power, and who can now only look on in horror as slowly but surely, brick by brick, they dismantle everything we hold precious.

Liam Byrne can wax lyrical about Britishness all he likes; his government lost sight of what that means many years ago. Whether it happens on St George’s Day or on the August bank holiday, when they finally start enforcing their mass celebrations and dictating to the populace how best to commemorate our illusory freedom, I’ll be staying inside my house with my doors and windows firmly locked and I’d advise everyone else to do the same. As Alan Paton said:

Spying and the abuse of data

By Christopher Caldwell | Setting up cameras and monitoring employees’ toilet breaks, as the supermarket chain Lidl did; keeping a “black money” fund for kickbacks to officials in developing countries, as Siemens allegedly did; diverting money to pay for call girls for refractory board members, as Volkswagen did … German executives have not been at their best lately. But nothing has so shocked the public as allegations over the past two weeks that Deutsche Telekom, the largest telephone group in Europe, used a private investigator to spy on journalists and board members.

Germany has had, in general, an admirable system for protecting privacy. It is crumbling not because its elite has made a few mistakes, but because of new economic and social pressures that businesses in all countries face.

What Telekom did is emerging in dribs and drabs. In January 2005 – when Kai-Uwe Ricke, its chief executive, was trying to right the company’s finances by cutting 45,000 jobs – the German business magazine Capital published an article based on top-level Telekom documents. Mr Ricke and the chairman of the supervisory board, Klaus Zumwinkel, believed the leak was coming from the board. They decided to plug it. A company called Network Deutschland was hired. It is alleged to have monitored hundreds of thousands of phone calls in an effort to find the mole. It may have traced individuals’ whereabouts with mobile phone data and even kept tabs on Blackstone, the US investment group, which bought a stake in the company in 2006.

Earlier this year, Ralf Kühn, the head of Network Deutschland, faxed an invoice for several hundred thousand euros for services rendered. He offered “a controlled termination of our business relationship protected against indiscretion”, as Der Spiegel’s account put it. The current Telekom chief, René Obermann, who took over from Mr Ricke in November 2006, contacted prosecutors. Mr Ricke, Mr Zumwinkel and six others are now under investigation. (Mr Obermann is not.) Telekom’s former security chief has said that neither the chief executive nor the chairman was informed of the means used to investigate the leaks.

The US computer giant Hewlett-Packard had a similar scandal in 2006 involving leaks from the board and private investigators hired to uncover them. Why has this one struck a nerve? For one thing, German politics has lately been focused on data security. This year Germany came into compliance with European Union directives calling for phone records to be stored for at least six months. Wolfgang Schäuble, the interior minister, has asked for broader powers to monitor telecommunications, the better to fight terrorism.

Corporate leaders have very good reasons to treat boardroom leaks as emergencies. Responsibilities to shareholders can be compromised by the loss of business plans and trade secrets. There are moral responsibilities, too. Leaks can be a sign of insider trading. If they are not curbed, the likelihood that they will lead to some kind of market manipulation will grow. Against that, what is it to take a peek at a few phone calls? If you raise freedom of the press, a hard-headed executive can reply – in good conscience – that he is not against it; he is interested only in rooting underhanded conduct out of his boardroom.

But here a line may have been crossed – because it is alleged that Telekom monitored not just its employees but its customers, private citizens. It may have done so with the help of data the company collected on them in the course of ordinary business. If that is the case, then this was less a matter of fiduciary responsibility or “quality control” than a privatised espionage operation.

After these revelations, Financial Times Deutschland reported that in 2000 its own reporter, Tasso Enzweiler, had been tailed, filmed and investigated by Control Risks, a company hired by Telekom. At one point, according to a report filed by Control Risks and cited by FTD, two teams run by a second company called Desa were tailing Mr Enzweiler around the clock, tactics reminiscent of East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi. Desa, as it happens, was founded by former Stasi agents.

That is what is unsettling. When we talk about the “power” of corporations we usually mean they have money and influence. But the allegations against Telekom describe a company exercising the kind of power we associate with states. Of course, Telekom, in which the German government still owns a 32 per cent stake, is a hybrid company.

But Telekom’s state-like power comes from its operation in telecommunications, its trade in data. The power that data offer is of a peculiar kind. Why has Facebook’s market been estimated at $15bn? Not because of any “product” Facebook “sells” to its members. The value comes from the window it offers on the consumer preferences of its millions of members. Personal data are to the new economy what oil reserves are to the old one – the core commodity. Is it realistic to expect a company that controls a lot of data to feign ignorance of their political uses forever?

Mr Schäuble would like to establish some code of self-regulation for telecom companies. Renate Künast, a prominent Green parliamentarian, does not think that is possible. She told the Frankfurter Rundschau that the only real way of protecting data is to keep as little as possible. Ms Künast’s approach would do economic harm, because it would destroy a valuable commodity. But she has a point. Maybe personal data are a man-made equivalent of what economists call the “resource curse”. Just as there is a correlation between oil wealth and autocracy, there appears to be some link – hard to define but getting easier – between the growth of our information wealth and a dwindling of our liberties.

US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,092

The Associated Press | As of Friday, June 6, 2008, at least 4,092 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,332 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

The AP count is one more than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.

Three soldiers died Wednesday in Tikrit of wounds suffered from small arms fire and explosives in Sharqat. All were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y. Killed were:

John Major to speak against 42 day terror law

By Rosa Prince | Sir John Major, the former Prime Minister, is preparing to make a rare intervention into domestic policies by speaking out against Government plans to increase detention without trial to 42 days.

In private, Sir John has been telling friends for some time that he believes the plans to be profoundly illiberal and counter productive in the campaign to stamp out home-grown terrorism.

He plans to go public with his concerns, in what will be one of his first forays into current political debates since he was swept from power in 1997.

As a respected elder statesman, Sir John’s words are likely to provide a significant boost to those opposing the Government’s attempts to force the 42 day increase through the Commons next week.

His experiences as a broker of the early stages of the peace process in Northern Ireland give him a unique insight into governing in the face of an on-going terrorist threat.

A friend of the former Prime Minister told The Daily Telegraph: “Sir John has always been very reluctant to stray into domestic politics, but the 42 day proposals are so clearly unjust that he feels the time has come to speak up.

“He knows exactly what it is like to sit at Number 10 and worry that innocent citizens could fall victim to a terrorist bomb plot at any time.

“In fact, unlike Gordon Brown, he has actually been the victim of an attempted assassination, when the IRA mortared Downing Street.

“But Sir John feels that if we compromise with our civil liberties, particularly over something as crucial as detention without trial, then the terrorists will have won the battle.

“He hopes that MPs from all political parties will have the courage to stand firm on this, and not give the terrorists a boost by sacrificing this important aspect of the British way of life.”

Sir John’s intervention comes as the Government does everything possible to apply pressure on reluctant Labour MPs to back the 42 day legislation, which comes before the Commons on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, won over a number of potential rebels with a persuasive speech to the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The Daily Telegraph understands that she closed her address with an appeal to party loyalty, telling MPs: “I need you.”

One minister who supports the legislation said: “We have not won the argument in any way, but we will still win the vote, ironically because the Government is in so much trouble in other ways.

“Jacqui’s speech really had an impact, and the backbenchers are openly saying that they will hold their nose and vote for it because Gordon can’t take any more rebellions.”

Meanwhile, leaders of the Church of England have written to MPs saying they remain opposed to the extension of detention without charge to 42 days, despite the concessions given by the Government earlier this week.

In a letter, the Church said: “We believe that a convincing case for the extension of the maximum period of detention without charge beyond 28 days has not been made out. This central point has not been addressed in the various “concessions” or adjustments to the proposal offered by the Government in recent weeks. We believe that any extension beyond 28 days will unacceptably disturb the balance between the liberty of the individual and the needs of national security.”

Hunger strike as protest to Guantánamo charges

By Andy Worthington | This has been a disturbing week for British resident and Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed, who endured two and a half years of torture at the hands of Pakistani agents, the CIA, and the United States’ proxy torturers in Morocco, before being transferred to Guantánamo in September 2004.

Last Friday, it was revealed that he was to face a trial by Military Commission at Guantánamo — the “terror courts” invented by Dick Cheney and his advisers in November 2001, which are empowered to conceal classified information from the defendants and, at the judge’s discretion, to accept “evidence” obtained through coercion. This is, of course, particularly worrying in Binyam’s case, as every shred of the so-called evidence against him appears to have been extracted through torture, and would be inadmissible in a courtroom on the US mainland.

There was some brighter news for Binyam on Tuesday, when a judge, Mr. Justice Saunders, responded positively to his lawyers’ request for a judicial review, which, they hope, will require the British government to drop its claim that it is “under no obligation under international law to assist foreign courts and tribunals in assuring that torture evidence is not admitted” and that “it is HM Government’s position that … evidence held by the UK Government that US and Moroccan authorities engaged in torture or rendition cannot be obtained” by Binyam’s lawyers. His lawyers also hope that a favourable decision in the judicial review will compel the government to reveal whatever information it has regarding British knowledge of Binyam’s rendition to torture in Morocco, and information regarding his life in London, which, Binyam says, was presented to him by his Moroccan torturers.

Today, however, the Independent reports that Binyam is so distressed by the announcement of the charges against him that he has embarked on a hunger strike. In a letter to foreign secretary David Miliband, his lawyers at Reprieve, the legal action charity that provides legal assistance to over 30 Guantánamo prisoners, explain that Binyam “began not eating food on May 2, 2008, when he was 146 lbs (10 stone 6 lbs),” but that this went unnoticed, because “the US military does not count it as a ‘hunger strike’ if the prisoner does not actually refuse the tray.” On May 18, therefore, when his weight had already dropped to 128 lbs (9 stone 2 lbs), Binyam began refusing the trays.

Binyam stopped his strike temporarily, when Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s director, and Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, his military lawyer, persuaded him to eat during the three days of their visit, but announced that he would resume on May 24. Stafford Smith explained, “Under the illegal procedures used by the US military in Guantánamo … they will consider him a ‘hunger striker’ and start force-feeding him when he reaches about 120 lbs (8 stone 8 lbs). Stafford Smith thought that this might be on June 4 or 5.

From almost the moment that Guantánamo opened, in January 2002, hunger strikes have been used by the prisoners as the only way to protest the lawless conditions of their confinement — held without charge, with no family contact, with little or no social interaction, and with no inkling of when, if ever, their imprisonment will come to an end.

Persistent hunger strikers, however, are made to suffer even more, and are punished by being force-fed, a procedure that is monstrously cruel. Prisoners are strapped into a restraint chair using 16 separate straps — three across the head alone — and fed, twice a day, through a tube that is inserted into the stomach through the nose.

As well as being shockingly painful — and frequently unhygienic, as the tubes are not always cleaned after each use — force-feeding is also illegal, as the World Medical Association made clear in its Declaration of Tokyo in 1975: “Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially.”

The US administration ignores this requirement, as it is unwilling to let prisoners secure what it would regard as a PR victory if they starved themselves to death. Perhaps as a result, four long-term hunger strikers – three in June 2006, and another last May — took the only other action that was available to them, and committed suicide.

Binyam has not yet reached this state of desperation — although in a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on May 22, he wrote, “I have been next to committing suicide this past while. That would be one way to end it, I suppose.” Nevertheless, as Clive Stafford Smith points out, “The need for humanitarian intervention on behalf of Mr. Mohamed grows ever more urgent. Because no US court will hear his case, I am powerless to secure him the humane treatment that he needs. The British government is not powerless. It is crucial that this be top of the government’s agenda.”

Adviser Says McCain Backs Bush Wiretaps

By CHARLIE SAVAGE | A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.

In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance.

Mr. McCain believes that “neither the administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the A.C.L.U. and trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin wrote.

And if Mr. McCain is elected president, Mr. Holtz-Eakin added, he would do everything he could to prevent terrorist attacks, “including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.”

Although a spokesman for Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, denied that the senator’s views on surveillance and executive power had shifted, legal specialists said the letter contrasted with statements Mr. McCain previously made about the limits of presidential power.

In an interview about his views on the limits of executive power with The Boston Globe six months ago, Mr. McCain strongly suggested that if he became the next commander in chief, he would consider himself obligated to obey a statute restricting what he did in national security matters.

Mr. McCain was asked whether he believed that the president had constitutional power to conduct surveillance on American soil for national security purposes without a warrant, regardless of federal statutes.

He replied: “There are some areas where the statutes don’t apply, such as in the surveillance of overseas communications. Where they do apply, however, I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is.”

Following up, the interviewer asked whether Mr. McCain was saying a statute trumped a president’s powers as commander in chief when it came to a surveillance law. “I don’t think the president has the right to disobey any law,” Mr. McCain replied.

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said that while the language used by Mr. McCain in his answers six months ago was imprecise, the recent statement by Mr. Holtz-Eakin “seems to contradict precisely what he said earlier.”

Mr. McCain’s position, as outlined by Mr. Holtz-Eakin, was criticized by the campaign of his presumptive Democratic opponent in the presidential election, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Greg Craig, an Obama campaign adviser, said Wednesday that anyone reading Mr. McCain’s answers to The Globe and the more recent statement would be “totally confused” about “what Senator McCain thinks about what the Constitution means and what President Bush did.”

“American voters deserve to know which side of this flip-flop he’s on today, and what he would do as president,” Mr. Craig said in a phone interview.

Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, said Mr. McCain’s position on surveillance laws and executive power “has not changed.”

“John McCain has been an unequivocal advocate of pursuing the radicals and extremists who seek to attack Americans,” Mr. Bounds wrote in an e-mail message, adding that Mr. McCain’s “votes and positions have been completely consistent and any suggestion otherwise is a distortion of his clear record.”

Asked whether the views Mr. Holtz-Eakin imputed to Mr. McCain were inaccurate, Mr. Bounds did not repudiate the statement. But late Thursday Mr. Bounds called and said, “to the extent that the comments of members of our staff are misinterpreted, they shouldn’t be read into as anything otherwise.”

Neither Mr. McCain nor Mr. Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office who primarily advises the campaign on economic issues, was available for comment, Mr. Bounds said.

Mr. McCain has long distanced himself from the Bush administration on legal issues involving detention and interrogation in the fight against terrorism, an approach that has sometimes aroused suspicion among conservative supporters of the Bush administration.

But more recently, as Mr. McCain has worked to consolidate his party’s base, he has taken several positions that have won him praise from his former critics while drawing fire from Democrats.

In February, for example, Mr. McCain voted against limiting the Central Intelligence Agency to the techniques approved in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation, which complies with the Geneva Conventions. Mr. McCain said the C.I.A. needed the flexibility to use other techniques so long as it did not abuse detainees.

He also voted for legislation that would free telecommunications companies from lawsuits alleging that they illegally allowed the N.S.A. to eavesdrop on their customers’ phone calls and e-mail without a warrant. The legislation would also essentially legalize a form of surveillance without warrants going forward.

But Mr. McCain had previously stopped short of endorsing the view that Mr. Bush’s program of surveillance without warrants was lawful all along because a president’s wartime powers can trump statutory limits.

Andrew C. McCarthy, a National Review columnist who has defended the administration’s legal theories, wrote that Mr. Holtz-Eakin’s statement “implicitly shows Senator McCain’s thinking has changed as time has gone on and he has educated himself on this issue.”

And Glenn Greenwald, a Salon columnist and critic of the Bush administration’s legal claims, wrote that the statement was a “complete reversal” by Mr. McCain, accusing the candidate of seeking “to shore up the support of right-wing extremists.”

The reaction to Mr. Holtz-Eakin’s statement is the latest link in a chain of disputes over Mr. McCain’s positions on surveillance over the past two weeks.

On May 23, the McCain campaign sent a volunteer lawyer, Chuck Fish, to be the candidate’s surrogate at a conference on computer policy. Mr. Fish spoke at a panel discussion on whether phone and Internet companies should be granted immunity from lawsuits for having helped Mr. Bush’s surveillance program.

Mr. Fish suggested that Mr. McCain wanted to impose conditions — like Congressional hearings — that would ensure that such “forgiveness” would not signal that the telecoms should feel free to disregard communications privacy laws in the future if a president tells them to.

After Wired magazine wrote about Mr. Fish’s remarks on its blog, raising the question of whether Mr. McCain’s position had become more skeptical about immunity, the McCain campaign put out a statement saying that Mr. Fish was mistaken. Mr. McCain supported ending the lawsuits without conditions and his position had not changed, the campaign said.

On May 29, The Washington Post quoted Mr. Holtz-Eakin as saying that Mr. McCain did not want the telecoms “put into this position again” and that “there must be clear guidelines for their participation and sufficient vetting” in any future situation.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin’s comments in turn drew fire from Mr. McCarthy. In a blog posting on the National Review Web site, he demanded to know whether Mr. McCain believes the Constitution authorizes a president to lawfully go “arguably beyond what is prescribed in a statute” during a national security crisis.

Mr. Holtz-Eakin laid out Mr. McCain’s position on the president’s claimed constitutional powers to bypass surveillance laws in a letter to Mr. McCarthy, who this week called the statement “extremely significant” and said it “marks a welcome evolution on the senator’s thinking about executive power.”

Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials?

By John Walcott | Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have “been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service … to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government,” a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday.A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials’ activities after only a month, and the Defense Department’s top brass never followed up on the investigators’ recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said.

The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator.

Iran, which was a mortal enemy of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq during his reign, has been the primary beneficiary of U.S. policy in Iraq, where Iranian-backed groups now run much of the government and the security forces.

The aborted counterintelligence investigation probed some Pentagon officials’ contacts with Iranian exile Manucher Ghorbanifar, whom the CIA had labeled a “fabricator” in 1984. Those contacts were brokered by an American civilian, Michael Ledeen, a former Pentagon and National Security Council consultant and a leading advocate of invading Iraq and overthrowing Iran’s Islamic regime.

According to the Senate report, the Pentagon’s Counterintelligence Field Activity unit concluded in 2003 that Ledeen “was likely unwitting of any counterintelligence issues related to his relationship with Mr. Ghorbanifar.”

The counterintelligence unit said, however, that Ledeen’s association with Ghorbanifar “was widely known, and therefore it should be presumed other foreign intelligence services, including those of Iran, would know.”

Stephen Cambone, then the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, shut down the counterintelligence investigation after only a month, the Senate report said.

The Senate report said that Pentagon officials never followed up on the investigators’ recommendation for a comprehensive analysis of whether Ghorbanifar or his associates tried “to directly or indirectly influence or access U.S. government officials.”

The counterintelligence investigators recommended that U.S. officials attempt “to map Ghorbanifar’s relationship within Iranian elite social networks and, if possible, his contacts with other governments and/or intelligence organizations,” but that effort was never undertaken.

The Senate committee also found that Pentagon officials concealed the contacts with Ghorbanifar from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department. Pentagon officials also provided Senate investigators with an inaccurate account of events and, with support from two unnamed officials in Cheney’s office, continued meeting with Ghorbanifar after contact with him was officially ordered to stop.

The first meetings with Ghorbanifar, which were disclosed in August 2003 by the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper Newsday, took place in Rome in December 2001. They were attended by two Pentagon Iran experts, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin; by an Italian military intelligence official, and by Ledeen.

On the Iranian side were Ghorbanifar, an unidentified Iranian exile from Morocco and an alleged Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps defector.

Franklin, who, in an unrelated matter, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison in 2006 for providing classified information on Iran policy to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, passed the information about the alleged Iranian hit squads to a U.S. Special Forces commander in Afghanistan. Although a DIA analyst told the Senate committee that he couldn’t speculate on whether the information had been “truly useful,” Ledeen and Pentagon officials claimed it saved American lives, the committee said.During the Rome meetings, Ghorbanifar also laid out a scheme to overthrow the Iranian regime on a napkin during a late night meeting in a bar. “The plan,” said the Senate committee, “involved the simultaneous disruption of traffic at key intersections leading to Tehran that would create anxiety, work stoppages and other disruptive measures” in a capital city famous for its traffic congestion.

Ghorbanifar asked for $5 million in seed money, Franklin told the committee, and indicated that if the traffic jam plan succeeded, he’d need additional money.

“The proposed funding for, and foreign involvement in, Mr. Ghorbanifar’s plan for regime change were never fully understood,” the Senate committee said.

Nevertheless, Ghorbanifar’s proposals grew more ambitious — and expensive. A February 2002 memo from Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman referred to an unnamed foreign government’s support for a Ghorbanifar plan that would cost millions of dollars. A later summary referred to contracts “that would assure oil and gas sales in the event of regime change”. The U.S. ambassador to Italy said that DOD officials “were talking about 25 million for some kind of Iran program.”

After Franklin and Rhode returned from the Rome meetings, the Senate report said, two series of events began to unfold in Washington that were typical of the gamesmanship that plagued the Bush administration’s national security team.

“First,” the report said, “State Department and CIA officials attempted to determine what Mr. Ledeen and the DOD representatives had done in Rome, and second, DOD officials debated the next course of action.”

When the CIA and the State Department discovered that Ledeen and Ghorbanifar were involved, they opposed any further contact with the two. Ledeen’s contacts, the Defense Human Intelligence Service concluded, were “nefarious and unreliable,” the Senate committee reported.

According to the report, Ledeen, however, persisted, presenting then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith with a new 100-day plan to provide, among other things, evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that supposedly had been moved to Iran — Saddam Hussein’s archenemy. This time, the report said, Ledeen solicited support from former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich and from three then-GOP senators, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

Rhode and Ghorbanifar met again in Paris in June 2003 with at least the tacit approval of an official in Cheney’s office, the Senate report said.

He reported back to officials in the Pentagon and the vice president’s office, but “there is no indication that the information collected during the Paris meeting was shared with the Intelligence Community for a determination of potential intelligence value,” the report said.

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

10 reasons why organic can feed the world

Switching to organic farming would have different effects according to where in the world you live and how you currently farm.

Studies show that the less-industrialised world stands to benefit the most. In southern Brazil, maize and wheat yields doubled on farms that changed to green manures and nitrogenfixing leguminous vegetables instead of chemical fertilisers.1 In Mexico, coffee-growers who chose to move to fully organic production methods saw increases of 50 per cent in the weight of beans they harvested. In fact, in an analysis of more than 286 organic conversions in 57 countries, the average yield increase was found to be an impressive 64 per cent.2

The situation is more complex in the industrialised world, where farms are large, intensive facilities, and opinions are divided on how organic yields would compare.

Research by the University of Essex in 1999 found that, although yields on US farms that converted to organic initially dropped by between 10 and 15 per cent, they soon recovered, and the farms became more productive than their all-chemical counterparts.3 In the UK, however, a study by the Elm Farm Research Centre predicted that a national transition to all-organic farming would see cereal, rapeseed and sugar beet yields fall by between 30 and 60 per cent.4 Even the Soil Association admits that, on average in the UK, organic yields are 30 per cent lower than non-organic.

So can we hope to feed ourselves organically in the British Isles and Northern Europe? An analysis by former Ecologist editor Simon Fairlie in The Land journal suggests that we can, but only if we are prepared to rethink our diet and farming practices.5 In Fairlie’s scenario, each of the UK’s 60 million citizens could have organic cereals, potatoes, sugar, vegetables and fruit, fish, pork, chicken and beef, as well as wool and flax for clothes and biomass crops for heating. To achieve this we’d each have to cut down to around 230g of beef (½lb), compared to an average of 630g (1½lb) today, 252g of pork/bacon, 210g of chicken and just under 4kg (9lb) of dairy produce each week – considerably more than the country enjoyed in 1945. We would probably need to supplement our diet with homegrown vegetables, save our food scraps as livestock feed and reform the sewage system to use our waste as an organic fertiliser.

Currently, we use around 10 calories of fossil energy to produce one calorie of food energy. In a fuel-scarce future, which experts think could arrive as early as 2012, such numbers simply won’t stack up. Studies by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs over the past three years have shown that, on average, organically grown crops use 25 per cent less energy than their chemical cousins. Certain crops achieve even better reductions,including organic leeks (58 per cent less energy) and broccoli (49 per cent less energy). When these savings are combined with stringent energy conservation and local distribution and consumption (such as organic box schemes), energy-use dwindles to a fraction of that needed for an intensive, centralised food system. A study by the University of Surrey shows that food from Tolhurst Organic Produce, a smallholding in Berkshire, which supplies 400 households with vegetable boxes, uses 90 per cent less energy than if non-organic produce had been delivered and bought in a supermarket.

Far from being simply ‘energy-lite’, however, organic farms have the potential to become self-sufficient in energy – or even to become energy exporters. The ‘Dream Farm’ model, first proposed by Mauritius-born agroscientist George Chan, sees farms feeding manure and waste from livestock and crops into biodigesters, which convert it into a methane-rich gas to be used for creating heat and electricity. The residue from these biodigesters is a crumbly, nutrient-rich fertiliser, which can be spread on soil to increase crop yields or further digested by algae and used as a fish or animal feed.

Despite organic farming’s low-energy methods, it is not in reducing demand for power that the techniques stand to make the biggest savings in greenhouse gas emissions.

The production of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, which is indispensable to conventional farming, produces vast quantities of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential some 320 times greater than that of CO2. In fact, the production of one tonne of ammonium nitrate creates 6.7 tonnes of greenhouse gases (CO²e), and was responsible for around 10 per cent of all industrial greenhouse gas emissions in Europe in 2003.6

The techniques used in organic agriculture to enhance soil fertility in turn encourage crops to develop deeper roots, which increase the amount of organic matter in the soil, locking up carbon underground and keeping it out of the atmosphere. The opposite happens in conventional farming: high quantities of artificially supplied nutrients encourage quick growth and shallow roots. A study published in 1995 in the journal Ecological Applications found that levels of carbon in the soils of organic farms in California were as much as 28 per cent higher as a result.7 And research by the Rodale Institute shows that if the US were to convert all its corn and soybean fields to organic methods, the amount of carbon that could be stored in the soil would equal 73 per cent of the country’s (would-be) Kyoto targets for CO² reduction.8

Organic farming might also go some way towards salvaging the reputation of the cow, demonised in 2007 as a major source of methane at both ends of its digestive tract. There’s no doubt that this is a problem: estimates put global methane emissions from ruminant livestock at around 80 million tonnes a year,9 equivalent to around two billion tonnes of CO²,10 or close to the annual CO² output of Russia and the UK combined.11 But by changing the pasturage on which animals graze to legumes such as clover or birdsfoot trefoil (often grown anyway by organic farmers to improve soil nitrogen content), scientists at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research believe that methane emissions could be cut dramatically. Because the leguminous foliage is more digestible, bacteria in the cow’s gut are less able to turn the fodder into methane. Cows also seem naturally to prefer eating birdsfoot trefoil to ordinary grass.

Agriculture is officially the most thirsty industry on the planet, consuming a staggering 72 per cent of all global freshwater at a time when the UN says 80 per cent of our water supplies are being overexploited.12,13

This hasn’t always been the case. Traditionally, agricultural crops were restricted to those areas best suited to their physiology, with drought-tolerant species grown in the tropics and water-demanding crops in temperate regions.14 Global trade throughout the second half of the last century led to a worldwide production of grains dominated by a handful of high-yielding cereal crops, notably wheat, maize and rice. These thirsty cereals – the ‘big three’ – now account for more than half of the world’s plant-based calories and 85 per cent of total grain production.15

Organic agriculture is different. Due to its emphasis on healthy soil structure, organic farming avoids many of the problems associated with compaction, erosion, salinisation and soil degradation, which are prevalent in intensive systems.16 Organic manures and green mulches are applied even before the crop is sown, leading to a process known as ‘mineralisation’ – literally the fixing of minerals in the soil. Mineralised organic matter, conspicuously absent from synthetic fertilisers, is one of the essential ingredients required physically and chemically to hold water on the land.

Organic management also uses crop rotations, undersowing and mixed cropping to provide the soil with near-continuous cover. By contrast, conventional farm soils may be left uncovered for extended periods prior to sowing, and again following the harvest, leaving essential organic matter fully exposed to erosion by rain, wind and sunlight. In the US, a 25-year Rodale Institute experiment on climatic extremes found that, due to improved soil structure, organic systems consistently achieve higher yields during periods both of drought and flooding.17

The globalisation of our food supply, which gives us Peruvian apples in June and Spanish lettuces in February, has seen our food reduced to a commodity in an increasingly volatile global marketplace. Although year-round availability makes for good marketing in the eyes of the biggest retailers, the costs to the environment are immense.

Friends of the Earth estimates that the average meal in the UK travels 1,000 miles from plot to plate.18 In 2005, Defra released a comprehensive report on food miles in the UK, which valued the direct environmental, social and economic costs of food transport in Britain at £9 billion each year. In addition, food transport accounted for more than 30 billion vehicle kilometres, 25 per cent of all HGV journeys and 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2002 alone.19

The organic movement was born out of a commitment to provide local food for local people, and so it is logical that organic marketing encourages localisation through veg boxes, farm shops and stalls. Between 2005 and 2006, organic sales made through direct marketing outlets such as these increased by 53 per cent, from £95 to £146 million, more than double the sales growth experienced by the major supermarkets.20 As we enter an age of unprecedented food insecurity, it is essential that our consumption reflects not only what is desirable, but also what is ultimately sustainable. While the ‘organic’ label itself may inevitably be hijacked, ‘organic and local’ represents a solution with which the global players can simply never compete.

It is a shocking testimony to the power of the agrochemical industry that in the 45 years since Rachel Carson published her pesticide warning Silent Spring, the number of commercially available synthetic pesticides has risen from 22 to more than 450.21

According to the World Health Organization there are an estimated 20,000 accidental deaths worldwide each year from pesticide exposure and poisoning.22 More than 31 million kilograms of pesticide were applied to UK crops alone in 2005, 0.5 kilograms for every person in the country.23 A spiralling dependence on pesticides throughout recent decades has resulted in a catalogue of repercussions, including pest resistance, disease susceptibility, loss of natural biological controls and reduced nutrient-cycling.24

Organic farmers, on the other hand, believe that a healthy plant grown in a healthy soil will ultimately be more resistant to pest damage. Organic systems encourage a variety of natural methods to enhance soil and plant health, in turn reducing incidences of pests, weeds and disease.

First and foremost, because organic plants grow comparatively slower than conventional varieties they have thicker cell walls, which provide a tougher natural barrier to pests. Rotations or ‘break-crops’, which are central to organic production, also provide a physical obstacle to pest and disease lifecycles by removing crops from a given plot for extended periods.25 Organic systems also rely heavily on a rich agro-ecosystem in which many agricultural pests can be controlled by their natural predators.

Inevitably, however, there are times when pestilence attacks are especially prolonged or virulent, and here permitted pesticides may be used. The use of organic pesticides is heavily regulated and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) requires specific criteria to be met before pesticide applications can be justified.26

There are in fact only four active ingredients permitted for use on organic crops: copper fungicides, restricted largely to potatoes and occasionally orchards; sulphur, used to control additional elements of fungal diseases; Retenone, a naturally occurring plant extract, and soft soap, derived from potassium soap and used to control aphids. Herbicides are entirely prohibited.

Farmland accounts for 70 per cent of UK land mass, making it the single most influential enterprise affecting our wildlife.27 Incentives offered for intensification under the Common Agricultural Policy are largely responsible for negative ecosystem impacts over recent years. Since 1962, farmland bird numbers have declined by an average of 30 per cent. During the same period more than 192,000 kilometres of hedgerows have been removed, while 45 per cent of our ancient woodland has been converted to cropland.28

By contrast, organic farms actively encourage biodiversity in order to maintain soil fertility and aid natural pest control. Mixed farming systems ensure that a diversity of food and nesting sites are available throughout the year, compared with conventional farms where autumn sow crops leave little winter vegetation available.29

Organic production systems are designed to respect the balance observed in our natural ecosystems. It is widely accepted that controlling or suppressing one element of wildlife, even if it is a pest, will have unpredictable impacts on the rest of the food chain. Instead, organic producers regard a healthy ecosystem as essential to a healthy farm, rather than a barrier to production.

In 2005, a report by English Nature and the RSPB on the impacts of organic farming on biodiversity reviewed more than 70 independent studies of flora, invertebrates, birds and mammals within organic and conventional farming systems. It concluded that biodiversity is enhanced at every level of the food chain under organic management practices, from soil micro-biota right through to farmland birds and the largest mammals.30

While an all-organic farming system might mean we’d have to make do with slightly less food than we’re used to, research shows that we can rest assured it would be better for us.

In 2001, a study in the Journal of Complementary Medicine found that organic crops contained higher levels of 21 essential nutrients than their conventionally grown counterparts, including iron, magnesium, phosphorus and vitamin C. The organic crops also contained lower levels of nitrates, which can be toxic to the body.31

Other studies have found significantly higher levels of vitamins – as well as polyphenols and antioxidants – in organic fruit and veg, all of which are thought to play a role in cancer-prevention within the body.32

Scientists have also been able to work out why organic farming produces more nutritious food. Avoiding chemical fertiliser reduces nitrates levels in the food; better quality soil increases the availability of trace minerals, and reduced levels of pesticides mean that the plants’ own immune systems grow stronger, producing higher levels ofantioxidants. Slower rates of growth also mean that organic food frequently contains higher levels of dry mass, meaning that fruit and vegetables are less pumped up with water and so contain more nutrients by weight than intensively grown crops do.33

Milk from organically fed cows has been found to contain higher levels of nutrients in six separate studies, including omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E, and beta-carotene, all of which can help prevent cancer. One experiment discovered that levels of omega-3 in organic milk were on average 68 per cent higher than in non-organic alternatives.34

But as well as giving us more of what we do need, organic food can help to give us less of what we don’t. In 2000, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that organically produced food had ‘lower levels of pesticide and veterinary drug residues’ than non-organic did.35 Although organic farmers are allowed to use antibiotics when absolutely necessary to treat disease, the routine use of the drugs in animal feed – common on intensive livestock farms – is forbidden. This means a shift to organic livestock farming could help tackle problems such as the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Seeds are not simply a source of food; they are living testimony to more than 10,000 years of agricultural domestication. Tragically, however, they are a resource that has suffered unprecedented neglect. The UN FAO estimates that 75 per cent of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost over the past 100 years.36

Traditionally, farming communities have saved seeds year-on-year, both in order to save costs and to trade with their neighbours. As a result, seed varieties evolved in response to local climatic and seasonal conditions, leading to a wide variety of fruiting times, seed size, appearance and flavour. More importantly, this meant a constant updating process for the seed’s genetic resistance to changing climatic conditions, new pests and diseases.

By contrast, modern intensive agriculture depends on relatively few crops – only about 150 species are cultivated on any significant scale worldwide. This is the inheritance of the Green Revolution, which in the late 1950s perfected varieties Filial 1, or F1 seed technology, which produced hybrid seeds with specifically desirable genetic qualities.37 These new high-yield seeds were widely adopted, but because the genetic makeup of hybrid F1 seeds becomes diluted following the first harvest, the manufacturers ensured that farmers return for more seed year on year.

With its emphasis on diversity, organic farming is somewhat cushioned from exploitation on this scale, but even Syngenta, the world’s third-largest biotech company, now offers organic seed lines. Although seedsaving is not a prerequisite for organic production, the holistic nature of organics lends itself well to conserving seed.

In support of this, the Heritage Seed Library, in Warwickshire, is a collection of more than 800 open-pollinated organic varieties, which have been carefully preserved by gardeners across the country. Although their seeds are not yet commercially available, the Library is at the forefront of addressing the alarming erosion of our agricultural diversity.

Seed-saving and the development of local varieties must become a key component of organic farming, giving crops the potential to evolve in response to what could be rapidly changing climatic conditions. This will help agriculture keeps pace with climate change in the field, rather than in the laboratory.

There is no doubt British farming is currently in crisis. With an average of 37 farmers leaving the land every day, there are now more prisoners behind bars in the UK than there are farmers in the fields.38

Although it has been slow, the decline in the rural labour force is a predictable consequence of the industrialisation of agriculture. A mere one per cent of the UK workforce is now employed in land-related enterprises, compared with 35 per cent at the turn of the last century.39

The implications of this decline are serious. A skilled agricultural workforce will be essential in order to maintain food security in the coming transition towards a new model of post-fossil fuel farming. Many of these skills have already been eroded through mechanisation and a move towards more specialised and intensive production systems.

Organic farming is an exception to these trends. By its nature, organic production relies on labour-intensive management practices. Smaller, more diverse farming systems require a level of husbandry that is simply uneconomical at any other scale. Organic crops and livestock also demand specialist knowledge and regular monitoring in the absence of agrochemical controls.

According to a 2006 report by the University of Essex, organic farming in the UK provides 32 per cent more jobs per farm than comparable non-organic farms. Interestingly, the report also concluded that the higher employment observed could not be replicated in non-organic farming through initiatives such as local marketing. Instead, the majority (81 per cent) of total employment on organic farms was created by the organic production system itself. The report estimates that 93,000 new jobs would be created if all farming in the UK were to convert to organic.

Organic farming also accounts for more younger employees than any other sector in the industry. The average age of conventional UK farmers is now 56, yet organic farms increasingly attract a younger more enthusiastic workforce, people who view organics as the future of food production. It is for this next generation of farmers that Organic Futures, a campaign group set up by the Soil Association in 2007, is striving to provide a platform.

1 Andre Leu, ‘Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World’ in Organic Farming, Winter 2007, citing Jules Pretty, 2001

6 EEA data for EU-15, 2003, for nitric acid production cited by Soil Association

7 Drinkwater LE et al. ‘Fundamental differences between conventional and organic tomato agroecosystems in California’, Ecological Applications 1995, 5(4), 1098-1112.

11 Russia annual CO2 emissions: 1,524,993,000 tonnes; UK annual CO2 emissions: 587,261,000 tonnes.

12 Weis, T. (2007) The global food economy: the battle for the future of farming, Zed Books, London.

14 Alteiri, M. (1987) Agroecology: The Scientific Basis of Alternative Agriculture, Westview Press, Boulder.

15 FAO (1997) The State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome.

19 Defra (2005) The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development: Final report, Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

20 Soil Association (2006) Organic Market Report 2006, Executive Summary, Soil Association, Bristol.

21 Whitehead, R. (1999) UK Pesticide Guide, British Crop Protection Council, CABI Publishing, Cambridge.

22 World Health Organisation (1990) The Public Health Impact of Pesticides Used in Agriculture, WHO, Geneva

23 Pesticide Action Network UK (2007) Pesticides on a Plate, A consumer guide to pesticide issues in the food chain, PAN UK, London

24 Sustain (2003) Myth and Reality, Organic vs. non-organic: the facts, Sustain, London.

25 Francis, C. A. & Clegg, M. D. (1990) Crop Rotations in Sustainable Production Systems, Sustainable Agriculture Systems 107-122

26 International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (1998) Basic Standards for Organic Production and Processing, IFOAM, Germany

27 Soil Association (2006) How does organic farming benefit wildlife? Soil Association 2006.

28 Spencer, J. & Kirby, K. (1992) An inventory of ancient woodland for England and Wales, Biological Conservation 62, 77-93.

29 IFOAM (2003) Organic Agriculture and Biodiversity information sheet, International Federation of Organic Agriculture and Management.

30 Hole, A. G., Perkins, A. J., Wilson, J. D., Alexander, I. H., Grice, P. V., Evans, A. D. (2005) Does Organic Farming Benefit Biodiversity? Biological Conservation, 122, 113-130.

31 Worthington V. Nutritional quality of organic versus conventional fruits, vegetables, and grains. Journal of Complimentary Medicine 2001; 7 No. 2: 161–173

33 Gundual Azeez, Policy Manager, Soil Association, Personal Communication 01/2008.

35 Food and Agriculture Organisation, Food Safety & Quality as Affected by Organic Farming, Report of the 22nd regional conference for Europe, Portugal, 24-28 July 2000.

36 FAO (1997) The State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Food Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome.

37 Shiva, V. & Gitanjali, B. (2002) Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security, The Impact of globalisation, Sage Publications, London.

38 Soil Association (2006) Organic Works Report: An investigation into employment on organic farms conducted by University of Essex 2005.

39 ISEC (2002) Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness, Zed Books, London.