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Panorama asks why the British Army in Iraq used interrogation techniques that were banned over 30 years ago. 全景问，为什么英国陆军在伊拉克使用的审讯技术被禁止在30多年前。

Panorama: On Whose Orders? 全景：谁的命令？ BBC One 8.30pm on Monday 25 February 2008 BBC的一个晚上八时三十分于周一2008年2月25日

In 1972 the techniques - hooding, stress positions, constant noise, sleep deprivation and being starved of food and water - were banned by the Heath government which said they would never be used again. 1972年，技巧-戴头罩，强调立场，不断的噪音，剥夺睡眠和被饿死的食物和水-被禁止，由希思政府表示，他们将永远不会被再次使用。 Their reintroduction in 2003, whether official or unofficial, could have had serious consequences.他们回复原来在2003年，无论是官方或非官方的，可有严重的后果。 Now solicitors are launching claims for compensation on behalf of Iraqis alleging mistreatment.Ministry of Defence (MoD) rules now specifically state the five techniques should never be used.现在律师正在发起追讨赔偿代表伊拉克人的指控mistreatment.ministry国防部（ MOD ）的规则，现在特别说明五个技术应该永远不再使用。 However, immediately after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 British soldiers witnessed Iraqi prisoners hooded and made to stand for hours with no food or sleep.不过，后，立即进行了2003年入侵伊拉克英军士兵目睹伊拉克战俘戴头罩，并提出要站好几个小时没有食物或睡眠。

The Attorney General is responsible for setting the rules under which the British Army operates. 总检察长是负责制定规则，而英国军队的运作。 Lord Goldsmith held this position during the Iraq war and the resulting occupation. 戈德史密斯勋爵举行的这一立场在伊拉克战争期间以及由此而来的占领。

When we asked him how it was that the ban had been side-stepped, he told Panorama:当我们问他，它是怎么说，这项禁令已经副作用加强，他告诉全景：

“There is no question of anyone in my office, let alone me, advising me that it was legitimate to interrogate whilst hooding or using sleep deprivation or any of those techniques. "这是毫无疑问的人在我的办公室里，更何况是我，向我说，它是合法的讯问，而戴头罩或使用剥夺睡眠或任何这些技巧。 Full stop.”句号" 。

When asked why it was happening despite this, he said:当问及为何有发生，虽然如此，他说：

“I think the Ministry of Defence are probably the responsible department to understand with the army what actually took place, to learn the lessons from it to make sure it never happens again.” "我认为，内政部，国防部很可能是负责的部门，以了解与陆军现在究竟发生了，找教训，从它，以确保它永远不会再发生" 。

In response to the allegations of prisoner abuse in Iraq which went beyond the five techniques and included beatings and in the case of hotel worker Baha Mousa, death, the then Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Michael Jackson commissioned a report.在回应这些指控的虐俘在伊拉克，这超出了五个技术，其中包括殴打，并在案件酒店工作者巴哈穆萨，死亡，当时的国防参谋长，一般索马雷杰克逊委托的一份报告。

Brigadier Robert Aitken’s findings were published last month and said that abuse was not widespread.准将罗伯特埃特金得出的结果，在上月公布了，并说虐待并不普遍。

General Sir Michael Jackson told Panorama:一般索马雷杰克逊告诉全景：

“Robert Aitken makes the point in his report that he would need another look at why that statement by the Heath government appears to have gone into a black hole… I don’t know the answer to that.” "罗伯特埃特金，使该点在他的报告中说，他将需要再看看为什么该声明由希思政府似乎已经变成了一个黑洞… …我不知道答案。 "

Jackson continued:杰克逊续说：

“There was no evidence whatsoever on any endemic behaviour of that nature.” "没有证据显示，任何地方性的行为，这种性质" 。

Allegations 指控

The programme goes on to weigh the evidence from the Battle of Danny Boy, that is at the centre of the latest legal challenge.该方案的推移权衡证据，从战役，丹尼男孩，这是在该中心的最新法律上的挑战。

Iraqi prisoners have made serious allegations of abuse against the British Army that the MoD is now re- investigating despite previous inquiries that found nobody to be at fault.伊拉克战俘都进行了认真的有关虐待的传闻，对英国军队，英国国防部现正重新调查，尽管先前的调查发现，没有人可以加以过错。

Iraqi prisoners captured by the army on 14 May 2004 and taken back to Camp Abu Naji claim other prisoners taken alive with them off the battlefield were killed that night by the British in Camp Abu Naji.伊拉克战俘的俘虏，由军队， 2004年5月14日，并带返营阿布纳吉声称其他囚犯采取了勃勃的将它们赶走在战场上被杀害这天晚上，由英国文化协会在难民营阿布纳吉。

Iraqi medical staff who received the bodies returned by the army the next day say some of the bodies show signs of torture.伊拉克医务人员接受团体经由陆军第二天说，有些尸体显示，受虐待的迹象。

They claim that there is evidence that people died later in Camp Abu Naji and not in the battlefield.他们宣称，有证据表明，人死亡后，在营阿布纳吉而不是在战场上。

Battlefield injuries 战场伤亡

The MoD deny the allegations.英国国防部否认上述指控。

They say the injuries are consistent with modern battlefield injuries and that the claims of deaths at the camp may have arisen from an unusual decision to remove bodies from the battlefield and take them to the base. 他们说，受伤的都是一致的，与现代战场上受伤，并索赔死亡，在营可能产生的一个不寻常的决定，以消除尸体从战场，并带他们到基地。 A full statement from the MoD is available above. 正式声明，由国防部提供以上。

Panorama has spent over a year talking to battlefield survivors, medical staff, and Iraqi former prisoners in Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.全景花了超过一年的交谈战场上的幸存者，医疗人员，以及伊拉克前囚犯在伊拉克，土耳其和约旦。

The programme critically examines claims made by lawyers who are representing the Iraqis in their action against the British Government and who held a press conference last Friday.该方案严格审查索赔所作出的律师，他们是代表伊拉克人民，在他们的行动对英国政府和世卫组织举行了一个记者招待会上周五。

Panorama has seen no proof that prisoners died at the hands of their captors and concludes that the case being brought by solicitors Phil Shiner and Martyn Day represents the most extreme interpretation of a troubling but confusing incident.全景并未见到证明囚犯死在手中，他们绑架并得出结论，认为此案所带来的律师菲尔shiner和马丁一天，代表了最极端的诠释了一个令人不安的，但混乱的事件。 They are asking for the bodies to be disinterred and evidence to be handed to Scotland Yard.他们要求该机构将disinterred和证据交给苏格兰场。

General Sir Michael Jackson, speaking generally and not about this incident specifically, says that the army’s best defence is the law:一般索马雷杰克逊来说，一般并没有关于这一事件的具体说，军队的最好的防御就是法律：

“I would look… what are the facts? "我会去了解一下… …什么都是事实吗？ If they make an allegation the allegation gets investigated, people don’t always say truthfully as they might such things as I’m afraid some of the court cases revealed but I would say that any allegation of ill treatment should be investigated and the due process of law must take place.”如果他们提出指控的指控得到查处，人们不总是说，如实反映，因为他们可能这样的事情，因为我担心一些法院的案件显示，但我会说，任何指称的虐待，应进行调查和正当程序法律必须发生" 。

Whatever the outcome of any potential court case it maybe that bringing back the five techniques - banned as inhuman in 1972 - would appear to have made the army’s position more difficult.无论结果如何，任何潜在的法庭案件中，它也许是带回了5个技巧-禁止不人道的，在1 972年-似乎已作出了军队的立场变得更加困难。

Panorama: On Whose Orders? 全景：谁的命令？ BBC One 8.30pm on Monday 25 February. BBC的一个晚上八时三十分于周一2月25日。

Up to 10,000 Turkish troops launch an incursion which threatens to destabilise the country’s only peaceful region 多达10000名土耳其部队发动的入侵威胁要破坏该国的，只有和平区

By由 Patrick Cockburn帕特里克科伯恩

A new crisis has exploded in Iraq after Turkish troops, supported by attack planes and Cobra helicopters, yesterday launched a major ground offensive into Iraqi Kurdistan.新的危机已经引爆，在伊拉克之后，土耳其军队的支持下攻击机和眼镜蛇直升机，昨天展开了大规模的地面攻势，伊拉克库尔德斯坦。

The invading Turkish soldiers are in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas hiding in the mountains.入侵的土耳其士兵是在追求库尔德游击队躲藏在山上。 They are seeking to destroy the camps of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) along the border between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan.他们正在寻找摧毁难民营内的库尔德工人党（库尔德工人党）之间边界沿线土耳其和伊拉克库尔德斯坦。 “Thousands of troops have crossed the border and thousands more are waiting at the border to join them if necessary,” said a Turkish military source. "几千名士兵已经越过边界，成千上万的人守候在边境加入他们的行列，如果有必要，说： "土耳其军方的消息。

“There are severe clashes,” said Ahmed Danees, the head of foreign relations for the PKK. "有严重冲突， "一位名叫艾哈迈德danees ，总行的外交关系，为库尔德工人党。 “Two Turkish soldiers have been killed and eight wounded. "两名土耳其士兵被打死， 8人受伤。 There are no PKK casualties.” Turkish television said that the number of Turkish troops involved was between 3,000 and 10,000, and they had moved 16 miles inside Iraq.有没有PKK的伤亡" 。土耳其电视台说，土耳其部队的人数，涉及3000和10000 ，他们已搬迁16英里内的伊拉克。

But the escalating Turkish attacks are destabilising the Kurdish region of Iraq which is the one peaceful part of the country and has visibly benefited from the US invasion.但日益升级的土耳其攻击破坏库尔德地区的伊拉克是一个和平国家的一部分，并已明显得益于美国的入侵。

The Iraqi Kurds are America’s closest allies in Iraq and the only Iraqi community to support fully the US occupation.伊拉克库尔德人是美国的亲密盟友，在伊拉克和唯一的伊拉克社会全力支持美国的占领。 The president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, said recently he felt let down by the failure of the Iraqi government in Baghdad to stop Turkish bombing raids on Iraqi territory.总统自治区库尔德斯坦地区政府，巴尔扎尼说，最近他觉得让下跌的失败，伊拉克政府在巴格达，以阻止土耳其空袭伊拉克境内。

The incursion is embarrassing for the US, which tried to avert it, because the American military provides intelligence to the Turkish armed forces about the location of the camps of Turkish Kurd fighters.这次入侵是尴尬的对美国来说，试图以避免它，因为美国军方提供的情报，以土耳其武装部队约位置营地的土耳其库尔德战士。 Immediately before the operation began, the Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, called President George Bush to warn him.立即开始运作前就开始，土耳其总理埃尔多安，呼吁总统布什，以警告他。

The US and the Iraqi government are eager to play down the extent of the invasion.美国和伊拉克政府都渴望保持低调程度的入侵。 Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a US spokesman for Iraq, said: “We understand [it] is an operation of limited duration to specifically target PKK terrorists in that region.” The Iraqi Foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, claimed that only a few hundred Turkish troops were in Iraq.海军少将格雷戈里史密斯，一位美国发言人伊拉克，说： "据我们所知， [它]是一个经营期限，以专门针对库尔德工人党恐怖分子在该地区" ，伊拉克外长霍希亚尔兹巴里声称只有几百土耳其语部队在伊拉克。

But since last year Turkey has succeeded, by making limited incursions into Kurdistan, in establishing a de facto right to intervene militarily in Kurdistan whenever it feels like it.但自去年以来，土耳其已成功，使有限的侵入库尔德斯坦，在建立一个事实上的权利，以军事介入库尔德斯坦每当它感到喜欢它。

Many Iraqi Kurdish leaders are convinced that a hidden aim of the Turkish attack is to undermine the Kurdish region, which enjoys autonomous rights close to statehood.许多伊拉克库尔德领导人确信，一个隐藏的目的，土耳其攻击，以破坏库尔德地区，享有自主的权利，接近建国。 Ankara has always seen the semi-independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Kurds’ claim to the oil city of Kirkuk, as providing a dangerous example for Kurds in Turkey who are also demanding autonomy.安卡拉一直看到了，半独立的伊拉克库尔德地区，和库尔德人的索赔，以石油城市基尔库克，提供了一个危险的例子，为库尔德人在土耳其的人，也强烈要求实现自治。

Many Turkish companies carrying out construction contracts in the region have already left.许多土耳其公司进行建造工程合约，在该地区已经离开。 And businesses that remain are frightened that Ankara will close Iraqi Kurdistan’s lifeline over the Harbour Bridge into Turkey.和企业仍然是害怕说，安卡拉将关闭伊拉克库尔德地区的生命线超过海港大桥到土耳其。

During the 1990s the Turkish army carried out repeated attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan with the tacit permission of Saddam Hussein, but this is the first significant offensive since the US invasion of 2003.在1990年代，土耳其军队进行了多次袭击，在伊拉克库尔德斯坦与默许萨达姆政权，但是，这是一次具有重要意义的攻势，自美国入侵2003 。 “A land operation is a whole new level,” said the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, adding that the incursion was “not the greatest news”. "土地经营是一个全新的水平， "说，美国副助理国务卿马修bryza补充说，这次入侵是"不是最大的新闻" 。

The Turkish army is unlikely to do much damage to the PKK, which has some 2,500 fighters hidden in a mountainous area that has few roads, with snow drifts making tracks impassable.土耳其军队是不可能做很多破坏库尔德工人党，其中有2500名战斗人员隐藏在山区有少数道路，积雪漂移，使铁轨不可逾越的。

The Turkish ground offensive was preceded by bombing.土耳其地面进攻之前，轰炸。 “We were certain yesterday after this bombing that a military operation would take place and we got ready for it,” said Mr Danees, adding that bombing and artillery had destroyed three bridges on the Iraq-Turkish border as well as a PKK cemetery. "我们一定昨天经过这次轰炸行动的一项军事行动，将采取地方，我们准备为它说： " danees补充说，轰炸和大炮摧毁了三座桥梁对伊拉克-土耳其边界以及作为库尔德工人党的坟场。

Another reason why Turkey has launched its offensive now has as much to do with Turkish internal politics as it does with any threat posed by the PKK.另一个原因是土耳其发起了进攻，现在已为很多事要做，与土耳其国内政治的，因为它与任何威胁所构成的库尔德工人党。 The PKK launched a military struggle on behalf of the Kurdish minority in eastern Turkey in 1984 which lasted until the PKK’s leader Abdullah Ocalan was seized in Kenya in 1999 and later put on trial in Turkey.库尔德工人党发动了军事斗争中，代表库尔德人在土耳其东部，在1984年，一直持续到库尔德工人党领导人阿卜杜拉奥贾兰被检获肯尼亚在1999年和以后经审讯，在土耳其。 The PKK has been losing support ever since among the Turkish Kurds, but at the end of last year it escalated guerrilla attacks, killing some 40 Turkish soldiers.库尔德工人党一直在流失，支持自其中土耳其库尔德人，但在去年年底最后升级游击队袭击，打死大约40名土耳其士兵。

Limited though the PKK’s military activity has been, the Turkish army has used it to bolster its waning political strength.虽然有限的库尔德工人党的军事活动，一直是，土耳其军方已用它来强化其式微的政治力量。 For its part, the mildly Islamic government of Mr Erdogan is frightened of being outflanked by jingoistic nationalists supporting the military.就其本身而言，温和的伊斯兰政府的埃尔多安先生是害怕被outflanked由jingoistic民族主义者支持军方。 Mr Erdogan has pointed out that previous Turkish army incursions into Kurdistan in the 1990s all failed to dislodge the PKK.埃尔多安先生曾指出，以往的土耳其军队侵入库尔德斯坦在20世纪90年代都未能取出库尔德工人党。

The area which the Turkish army has entered in Iraqi Kurdistan is mostly desolate, with broken terrain in which bands of guerrillas can take refuge.该地区土耳其军队已经进入伊拉克库尔德斯坦大多是荒凉，破碎的地形中阶的游击队可以采取避难。 The PKK says it has left its former bases and broken up into small units.库尔德工人党称，它已经离开其原基地和破碎成小单位。 The main bases of the PKK are along Iraq’s border with Iran, notably in the Kandil mountains, to the south of where the Turkish troops entered.主要基地的库尔德工人党是沿着伊拉克的伊朗边境的问题，特别是在坎迪尔山脉，南何处土耳其军队进入。 At this time of year the villagers, many of them herders and shepherds, leave their houses and live in the towns in the plain below the mountains until the snow melts.在每年的这个时候，村民，他们中的许多牧民和牧羊人，离开自己的房子和生活在城镇，平原低于山区，直到冰雪融化。

The New Statesman新政治家

In July 2003, in the week following the death of David Kelly, a reader contacted the New Statesman and suggested that the media were missing the obvious. 2003年7月，在一周内死亡后，大卫凯利，一位读者接触新政治家 ，并建议媒体人失踪，是显而易见的事实。 The Commons foreign affairs committee had just cleared the government of “sexing up” the September 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - a claim, first made by Andrew Gilligan on the BBC’s Today programme, for which Dr Kelly may or may not have been the source.下议院外交事务委员会刚刚清理政府的"三千宠爱"于二零零二年九月和谐社会对伊拉克大规模杀伤性武器-索赔时，首先发了言，郑家富g illigan对英国广播公司的节目， 今天，其中博士，凯利可能或不可能已源头。

Our caller pointed out that although the Commons committee had said it was satisfied the “first” draft dossier, produced on 10 September for a meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), was the unspun work of intelligence, it had missed the true significance of a meeting the day before, chaired by Alastair Campbell.我们来电指出，虽然下议院委员会曾表示，这是满意的是"首家"草案卷宗，产生于9月10日在某次会议上的联合情报委员会（专营） ，是这unspun的工作，情报，它已失去了真正的意义一个会议的前一天，主持了由坎贝尔。

Our caller was Chris Ames, whose name will for ever be etched on the memory of all those in government, particularly in the Foreign Office, who have resisted making public what has become known as the Williams draft (after John Williams, the Foreign Office press officer who wrote it).我们来电者是克里斯艾姆斯，他的名字将永远被镌刻在纪念所有那些在政府，特别是在外事办公室，他们的抵制使公众已经成为众所周知的，因为威廉姆斯草案（后约翰威廉斯，外交部新闻干事的人写的） 。 Using the Freedom of Information Act, Ames has doggedly pursued the evidence that he believed would show that the September dossier was the work not of intelligence experts, but of spin doctors whose intention was to “sex up” the known intelligence.利用资讯自由法，埃姆斯曾锲而不舍地追求的证据，他相信将表明9月份卷宗是不是工作的情报专家，但自旋医生，其原意是为了"性"已知的情报。

From denying that the document existed, to seeking to have it withheld because publication threatened government confidentiality, to claiming that the Williams draft was an uncommissioned activity by a bored press officer (who just happened to come up with conclusions similar to those of the JIC), the government has ducked and dived and done its utmost to obstruct Ames in his pursuit of the truth.从不可否认的是，该文件存在，以谋求把它隐瞒，因为出版威胁政府保密性，并声称这将草案是一个uncommissioned活动，由一钻孔新闻官（人偏偏来了，与结论相类似，这些利益集团为JIC ） ，政府回避和俯冲和已尽了最大努力来阻挠埃姆斯在他的真理的追求。

Now, almost five years after he first contacted us, Ames’s efforts have borne fruit.现在，将近5年后，他第一次与我们接触，艾姆斯的努力已见成效。 On 18 February, just two days before the deadline set by the Information Tribunal, the Foreign Office released the Williams draft. 2月18日，仅两天规定的截止日期之前，由资讯债审裁处，外事办公室公布威廉姆斯草案。

Interpretations of its contents will differ, but on many counts the document speaks for itself.表述的内容，将会不同，但对许多罪状文件不言自明的。 From it we learn that the draft was, without question, intended as part of a process of producing a dossier that would persuade the British people and parliament of the case for war.从我们了解，该草案是，毫无疑问，作为整个进程的一部分的生产档案，这将说服英国民众和议会的情况，为战争。 And, importantly, it shows us how much of the final dossier was the work of a spin doctor. ，重要的是，它向我们表明，有多少是最后的档案是工作的一个附带的医生。 Let’s not forget that the Blair government lied repeatedly about this.让我们不要忘记，布莱尔政府一再说谎，这方面的问题。 The draft also reveals the extent to which Williams reworded and rewrote - and occasionally invented - intelligence assessments that were later presented to the public as the work of intelligence experts and “judgements of the JIC”.草案还显示，在何种程度上威廉斯改写，并重写-偶尔发明-情报评估说，后来被提交给市民的工作，情报专家和"判决对专营"。

We have also learned how raw intelligence was pumped up to make a strongly worded “executive summary”.我们也学会了如何原料情报许久作出措辞强硬的"内容提要" 。 Thus, a draft report from the JIC which claimed that Iraq had “sought to develop” mobile facilities to produce a biological agent becomes, in Williams’s draft, “has developed transportable laboratories”.因此，报告书草稿，由专营声称，伊拉克已"寻求发展"流动设施，以生产生物制剂成了，在威廉斯的草稿" ，开发了移动式实验室" 。 The strengthened Williams version fed into the 10 September dossier (still being claimed as the unspun work of intelligence) and the final document.加强了威廉姆斯版反馈到9月10日的档案（仍被称作为unspun的工作，情报） ，并在最后文件。 Williams does not attempt to disguise the fact that his task is to produce a document which will persuade.威廉斯并不试图掩盖这一事实，他的任务是要制定一个文件，这份文件会说服。 Judge for yourself whether the following is driven by spin or intelligence:法官对于自己是否以下是驱动旋转或情报：

The bombs that fell on Halabja that Friday morning were equipped with (what chemical?).炸弹落在哈莱卜杰周五上午配备（什么化学？ ） 。 (what does the chemical do to the body - how does it kill? Sorry to be grisly, but this will have real impact on real people, not journalists who take it as read). （什么是化学做身体-它是怎样杀人吗？对不起被可怕的，但这样做将有实质的影响，真正的人，而不是记者们，是否可以作为阅读） 。

As our political editor, Martin Bright, argues on page 10, the release of the Williams draft leaves no room for doubt that the Blair government set out to deceive us.因为我们的政治主编马丁光明的，辩称在第10页，释放威廉姆斯草案叶毫不怀疑，布莱尔政府列出来欺骗我们。 Cynics may shrug.冷眼旁观者可能就此屈服。 Governments lie.政府的谎言。 But the consequences of this deception have been catastrophic and tragic.但后果这一欺骗手段已灾难性和悲剧性的。 The roll-call of victims runs into tens of thousands and includes that early casualty in July 2003, the government scientist whose suicide started an angry debate over whether the case for war had been “sexed up”.唱名表决的受害者遭遇数以万计，其中包括去年初，伤亡在2003年7月，政府科学家的自杀开始，愤怒的争论事件是否为战争已被"添油加醋" 。

Thanks to Chris Ames, we at last have an unequivocal answer.感谢克里斯艾姆斯，我们终于有一个明确的答案。 And it shames all those involved in the process.它shames所有参与这一进程。

The saints stop marching in圣徒停止游行

You can’t get to heaven,” went the old song, “in a limousine,/ ‘Cause the Lord don’t sell no gasoline.” Perhaps not, but under the last pope some felt that transport to the upper echelons of heaven was a little too swift.你无法到天堂" ，却老调重弹"在一辆豪华轿车， / '事业主不卖，没有汽油" ，也许不能，但根据过去教宗有些人认为，运输到上层的天堂是一个有点过于迅速的。 So many saints were created by John Paul II that it did seem as though he was running some form of celestial limo service, or “saint factory”, as others put it: 482 people were canonised and 1,338 beatified (the first stage to sainthood) by the pontiff - more than all his predecessors put together since the current procedures were laid down in 1588.这么多的圣人创造的教宗若望保禄二世说，它看起来的确，仿佛他是运行某种形式的天体，豪华轿车服务，或所谓"圣人工厂"的，正如其他人所说的： 482人canonised和1338宣福（第一阶段以圣人）由教宗-超过了所有前任放在一起，因为目前的程序，订定在1 588年。

So news that Benedict XVI is to tighten the rules is to be welcomed by those who take such matters seriously.所以消息说，教宗本笃十六世是严谨的规定是值得欢迎的，由那些采取这些问题严重。 It may also be a relief, however, that the new rigour is not to be applied retrospectively.也可能是一种救济，但是，这种新的严谨作风，是不追溯适用。 It is just possible that not all the “miracles” performed by or attributed to some saints would withstand modern scientific scrutiny.这只是可能的是，并非所有的"奇迹"的演出或归功于某些圣人将经受现代科学审议。

What, say, are we to make of the Belgian shrine to the 11th-century St Godeliva?是什么，也就是说，是我们作出的比利时靖国神社，到11世纪的圣godeliva ？ Drinking from her well is said to have a powerful, yet curiously specific, effect on sore throats.饮酒从她的好，这是说，有一个强大的，可是很奇怪具体，对喉咙发炎。 Or the 15th-century St Francis of Paola?或十五世纪的圣方济各的paola ？ Fame of his miracles spread in his own lifetime, yet they were occasionally of a rather prosaic nature.名利的他的神迹蔓延，在他自己的一生，但他们偶尔的一个比较平淡的性质。 One involved setting a pot of broad beans boiling: handy if you’d run out of kindling, no doubt, but surely a power more appropriate to a domestic goddess than a holy man.其中包括制定了一盆蚕豆沸腾：得心应手，如果你一发不可收拾点燃，毫无疑问的，但肯定是电力更为恰当国内女神比一个神圣的人。 What next - St Nigella?下一步怎么办-圣n igella？ Not under the new rules, thank goodness.不能根据新规则，感谢上天。

Up to 20 Iraqi civilians may have been executed by British troops in southern Iraq, it has been claimed.多达20名伊拉克平民可能已被处决，美英军队在伊拉克南部，它一直声称。

Lawyers published a dossier of evidence from men taken captive after a gun battle near the southern Iraqi town of Majat-al-Kabir in May 2004, which also suggested prisoners were tortured and mutilated by UK military.律师出版了一本卷宗的证据，由男子被捕后，发生枪战附近的伊拉克南部城市majat -铝-卡比尔在2004年5月，其中还有人建议，囚犯在监狱中被折磨和残害，由英国军队。

The allegations were first reported within weeks of the incident, known as the Battle of Danny Boy after a checkpoint where it took place, but lawyers for five Iraqis have issued detailed witness statements, photographs of corpses and death certificates of the men who died.有关指控是首次报道在数周内对这一事件，被称为战场的丹尼男孩经过一个检查站，当它发生，但律师五名伊拉克人已经发布了详细的证人陈述，照片的尸体和死亡证书的男子证实死亡。

The claims - which the Ministry of Defence (MoD) strongly denies - are among the most serious yet levelled against British soldiers who served in Iraq.索赔-财政部国防部（ M OD）强烈否认-是其中最严重的，但对英国士兵在伊拉克服役。

Solicitor Phil Shiner said of the dossier: “We would be very surprised if it did not shock the nation.”律师菲尔shiner说，在卷宗说： "我们会很惊讶，如果它没有震撼民族" 。

However, a spokesman for the BBC’s Panorama programme, which has spent a year examining the claims, said the evidence did not prove Iraqis had died at the hands of British captors, but that prisoners may have been “mistreated”.不过，发言人BBC的全景方案，其中已经花了一年时间研究债权说，没有证据证明伊拉克已经死在手中的英国人质，但就是囚犯可能已被"虐待" 。

Lawyers Mr Shiner and Martyn Day suggested that prisoners captured after the three-hour gun battle may have been taken to a British base at Abu Naji and killed.律师先生shiner和马丁一天建议犯人抓获后， 3个小时的枪战，可能已被带到英国基地的阿布纳吉和杀害。

Detailed witness statements from the five men - Hussein Jabbari Ali, Hussain Fadhil Abass, Atiyah Sayid Abdelreza, Madhi Jassim Abdullah and Ahmad Jabber Ahmood - described what they heard while in detention, when they were cuffed and forced to wear blacked-out goggles.详细的证人陈述书，由五男-侯赛因贾巴里阿里，侯赛因f adhil阿巴斯， a tiyahs ayida bdelreza，马齐贾西姆阿卜杜拉和艾哈迈德的J abbera hmood-描述的是什么，他们曾听到在被拘留期间，当他们撤离，并被迫戴上涂黑出护目镜。

The statements described how they heard other men screaming, moaning in pain and choking and also the sound of gunfire.声明形容，他们曾听到其他男子凄厉的惨叫，喉咙堵在痛苦和哽塞，又响枪声。

The lawyers are bringing a damages claim in the UK courts, and say the five witnesses are labourers who have lived all their lives in Majar and had “absolutely nothing” to do with the insurgent Mehdi army, which engaged British troops at the Battle of Danny Boy.该律师是带来了损害赔偿的要求，在英国法庭，并说，五名证人都是劳动者，他们没有辜负所有生活在majar了， "绝对没有" ，难道与反叛民兵，其中从事英国军队在战斗中的丹尼男童。

The Irish Times爱尔兰时报

Four million Iraqis are struggling to feed themselves, and 40 per cent of the country’s 27 million people have no safe water, the UN said today. 4000000伊拉克人正在挣扎能够养活自己，而百分之四十的国家的2700多万人没有安全的饮用水，联合国今天说。

Iraq has annual economic growth of around 7 per cent, according to UN estimates, and a national budget of €33 billion, buoyed by oil exports of 1.6 million barrels per day.伊拉克有经济年均增长7 ％左右，据联合国的估计，和一个国家的预算€ 33亿元，提振出口石油160万桶。

But insurgency and sectarian attacks have displaced more than two million people and left nearly twice as many hungry.但叛乱和教派攻击流离失所， 200多万人，并留下了近两倍，许多处于饥饿状态。

“Four million Iraqis cannot guarantee they’re going to have food on their table tomorrow,” the United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq, David Shearer, said as he unveiled a €182 million appeal to donor governments for 2008. " 400万伊拉克人并不能保证他们不会有食物，他们的表明天， "联合国人道主义统筹伊拉克，大卫希勒说，因为他推出了€ 1.82亿呼吁捐助国政府在2008年投产。

The United Nations says the number of displaced people has roughly doubled since 2006 to nearly 2.5 million.联合国说，有多少流离失所的人已几乎翻了一倍，自2006年以将近250万美元。 High unemployment has left many others unable to feed themselves.失业率高企，留下了许多别人无法养活自己。

The Iraqi government said it would for the first time give €27.5 million from its own coffers to the aid appeal.伊拉克政府表示，它将为第一次给予€ 27500000从自己的库房，以援助呼吁。

Matthew Weaver and agencies |马修Weaver和机构| guardian.co.uk guardian.co.uk

The planned reduction in the number of US troops in Iraq is to be put on hold, the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, indicated today.计划减少驻伊美军数量在伊拉克被暂时搁置，美国国防部长罗伯特盖茨表示，今天的。

Under a plan set out by General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, Washington had planned to withdraw five of the 20 brigades in the country by July.根据一项计划中列出了由一般大卫彼得雷乌斯说，最高指挥官，美国在伊拉克，华盛顿曾打算撤回五年的20旅，在该国7月底。

More recently, however, Petraeus called for “period of evaluation” to assess the impact of such a move – a proposal that has now been backed by Gates.然而，最近以来，彼得雷乌斯呼吁， "在一段评价"的影响进行了评估，如此举动-提出建议，现在已经后盾盖茨。

“A brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense,” the defence secretary said, adding that the length of the evaluation was “one of the things we are still thinking about”. "简短的一段时间的巩固和评价大概确实会使意义上说， "拉姆斯菲尔德说，他补充说，这么长的评价是"的事情之一，我们仍然在思考" 。

His caution contrasted with remarks he made to troops in Baghdad yesterday.他告诫对比与他的言论作出了部队在巴格达昨天。

“What a difference you made – al-Qaida routed, insurgents co-opted, levels of violence of all kinds dramatically reduced,” he told them. "有什么不同，你做-基地组织单线，反叛分子增选，各级的各种暴力行为大幅度减少了， "他告诉他们。

“The situation in Iraq continues to remain fragile, but the Iraqi people now have an opportunity to forge a better, more secure, more prosperous future.” "伊拉克局势继续仍然是脆弱的，但伊拉克人民现在有机会建立一个更美好，更安全，更繁荣的未来" 。

Last year, the US president, George Bush, ordered five additional army brigades to Iraq as part of a “surge” in troop numbers.去年，美国总统乔治布什下令增设五个陆军旅，以伊拉克作为一个组成部分， "风"在部队人数。

One of those brigades left in December.其中一人左旅在12月。 The other four are due to withdraw by July, leaving 15 brigades – around 130,000 troops — the same number as pre surge levels.其他四个都是由于撤回7月底，留下15个旅-大约有1 3万军队-数字相同预潮水平。

Yesterday, Gates said Iraq’s political leaders faced hard choices about how to stabilise the country, but praised them for showing recent signs of progress towards reconciliation.昨天，盖茨说，伊拉克的政治领袖面临着艰难的选择，如何以稳定国家，但也称赞他们为显示最近取得进展的迹象走向和解。

“They seem to have become energised over the last few weeks,” he added. "他们似乎已成为注入动力在过去数星期， "他补充说。

He said he would ask Iraqi politicians to assess the prospects for other measures including a law that would spell out power-sharing between the provinces and the national government.他说，他将要求伊拉克政界人士，以评估前景等措施，其中包括一项法律，这将列明之间分享权力的省份及全国政府。

Yesterday, insurgent attacks killed at least 50 people across northern Iraq.昨天，叛乱分子的袭击，造成至少50人，整个伊拉克北部。

Today, Reuters reported that two car bombs had exploded in southern Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding five others.今天，路透社报道说，两起汽车炸弹爆炸，在巴格达南部，造成至少2人死亡， 5人受伤。

MATT TAIBBI | 马特塔伊比| Rolling Stone 滚石

Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends 当选为结束战争，民主党人有自首布什对伊拉克的背叛和平运动，为自己的政治目的

Quietly Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. 静静悄悄地，而希拉里克林顿和巴拉克奥巴马都令人振奋，到处同盟与他们的滚动bitchfest ，国会superduo里德和佩洛西已经完成了其中一个最令人敬畏的政治倒塌以来，内维尔张伯伦。 At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.在长期上，民主党领导的国会已经公开宣布投降，伊拉克战争刚刚一年后，被扫进电源，用坚定的任务是结束这种现象。

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in US political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party’s energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn’t fit Iraq into his busy schedule.巩固自己的声誉，作为一个最大的pussies在美国政治史上，里德解释说，他决定重新把他的党的主要精力放在课题以外的结束战争，说他当时还是无法适应伊拉克变成了他在百忙中。 “We have the presidential election,” Reid said recently. "我们有总统大选， "瑞德说，最近。 “Our time is really squeezed.” "我们的时间实在是挤" 。

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again.有不少市民脱落的眼泪当中，民主党领导作用，因为里德，佩洛西和其他国会重量级人物表示深切悲痛，他们的英勇收取了山的变化已经挫败了他们无法控制的情况-即，尽管他们会喜欢继续努力，以结束伊拉克的灾难性处理，他们现在必须等到，哦， 2009年，以再次尝试。 “We’ll have a new president,” said Pelosi. "我们将有一个新总统上任后，说： "佩洛西。 “And I do think at that time we’ll take a fresh look at it.” "而且我不认为在那个时候我们会重新考虑它" 。

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal.佩洛西似乎是打破了约不得不交出对伊拉克，听起来就像上周教练在postgame压，试图以板着一张脸，以解释他为什么punted对第一代和目标。 “We just didn’t have any plays we liked down there,” said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "我们只是一直没有扮演我们喜欢的存在，他们说： "教练的0-15机电工程署署长。 “Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game….” "有时候你一定要发挥实地位置的游戏… … " 。

In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving.在现实中，虽然，佩洛西和民主党其实是从事着一些严重点剃。 Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation’s leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war.工作在幕后，民主党人有系统地接管了反战运动，打包全国的工作领导小组，党顾问公司更热衷于攻击共和党比从而结束了第二次世界大战。 “Our focus is on the Republicans,” one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "我们的重点是对共和党的， "一个民主apparatchik负责反战联盟宣布。 “How can we juice up attacks on them?” "我们怎样才能汁了攻击他" ？

The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what’s to come if they win the White House.这个故事是如何民主党人终于背叛了选民的人交给美国国会参众两院在一年前是一个令人沮丧的预览什么的来，如果他们赢得白宫。 And if we don’t pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there’s still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years.如果我们不加以注意，这对不起，现在的故事，而有的还有时间可以改变主意谁提名，我们可能会忍受这同一群spineless讨厌的家伙，为4年。 With no one but ourselves to blame.没人，但我们自己的责任。

The The controversy over the Democratic “strategy” to end the war basically comes down to whom you believe. 有关的争议，民主党的"策略" ，以结束战争，基本上可以归结为其中你相信。 According to the Reid-Pelosi version of history, the Democrats tried hard to force President Bush’s hand by repeatedly attempting to tie funding for the war to a scheduled withdrawal.据该里德-佩洛西版的历史中，民主派人士极力迫使布什总统的手，一再企图以配合资金，用于战争，一定撤回。 Last spring they tried to get him to eat a timeline and failed to get the votes to override a presidential veto.去年春天，他们试图让他吃一张时间表，并没有得到他们的选票来推翻总统的否决。 Then they retreated and gave Bush his money, with the aim of trying again after the summer to convince a sufficient number of Republicans to cross the aisle in support of a timeline.然后他们退守，并送给布什他的钱，其目的是试图再次夏天过后，以说服足够数量的共和党人穿过走道支持的时间表。

But in September, Gen. David Petraeus reported that Bush’s “surge” in Iraq was working, giving Republicans who might otherwise have flipped sufficient cover to continue supporting the war.但在9月，将军大卫彼得雷乌斯报道说，布什的"冲劲" ，在伊拉克工作，使共和党有可能已经翻了足够的掩护，继续支持战争。 The Democrats had no choice, the legend goes, but to wait until 2009, in the hopes that things would be different under a Democratic president.民主党人已别无选择，传说有云，但要等到2009年，在希望事情会有所不同，根据民主党总统。

Democrats insist that the reason they can’t cut off the money for the war, despite their majority in both houses, is purely political.民主派人士坚持认为，他们之所以不能切断资金用于战争，尽管它们多数在这两个房子，纯粹是政治性的。 “George Bush would be on TV every five minutes saying that the Democrats betrayed the troops,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "乔治布什将在电视上每五分钟一班，称该同盟背叛了部队，说： "参议员伯尼桑德斯佛蒙特州。 Then he glumly adds another reason.然后他glumly增加的另一个原因。 “Also, it just wasn’t going to happen.” "同时，并没有问题，只是要发生什么" 。

Why it “just wasn’t going to happen” is the controversy. 为什么 "没有问题，只是要发生什么" ，是争议。 In and around the halls of Congress, the notion that the Democrats made a sincere effort to end the war meets with, at best, derisive laughter.在靠近大厅的国会，概念，即民主派作出了真诚的努力，以结束战争会见，在最好的，嘲弄的笑声。 Though few congressional aides would think of saying so on the record, in private many dismiss their party’s lame anti-war effort as an absurd dog-and-pony show, a calculated attempt to score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home.虽然少数国会幕僚会认为这样说是对的纪录，在许多私人解雇党的跛脚反战努力，作为一个荒谬的狗和小马显示，计算，企图以政治分数从来没有被认真地把部队回家。

“Yeah, the amount of expletives that flew in our office alone was unbelievable,” says an aide to one staunchly anti-war House member. "是啊，这个数额expletives飞往在我们的办公室仅是难以置信，说： "一个幕僚之一，坚决反对战争的众议院议员。 “It was all about the public show. "这是所有对公众查看。 Reid and Pelosi would say they were taking this tough stand against Bush, but if you actually looked at what they were sending to a vote, it was like Swiss cheese.里德和佩洛西会说，他们采取这一强硬立场，对布什，但如果你其实看什么，他们派进行了表决，它像瑞士奶酪。 Full of holes.”充满漏洞" 。

In the House, some seventy Democrats joined the Out of Iraq caucus and repeatedly butted heads with Reid and Pelosi, arguing passionately for tougher measures to end the war.在众议院中，一些七十民主党人加入进出伊拉克的核心小组，并多次对接元首与里德和佩洛西，慷慨激昂地争论，为更严厉的措施，以结束这场战争。 The fight left some caucus members bitter about the party’s failure.扑灭留下一些党团成员忧伤党的失败。 Rep. Barbara Lee of California was one of the first to submit an amendment to cut off funding unless it was tied to an immediate withdrawal.众议员芭芭拉李的加利福尼亚州是第一个提出一项修正案，以切断资金，除非它是绑立即撤出。 “I couldn’t even get it through the Rules Committee in the spring,” Lee says. "我不能，甚至通过规则委员会今年春天， "李说。

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a fellow caucus member, says Democrats should have refused from the beginning to approve any funding that wasn’t tied to a withdrawal.众议员林恩伍尔西，研究员党团成员表示，民主党人应该拒绝从一开始就批准任何资金，这不是绑撤离。 “If we’d been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that’s why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we’d been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice.” "如果我们自己被大胆分钟，我们得到控制众议院-这也是为什么我们会得到大多数人，因为这个国家的人民希望我们走出伊拉克-如果我们自己被大胆的，即使我们失去了票，我们会得到我们的声音" 。

An honest attempt to end the war, say Democrats like Woolsey and Lee, would have involved forcing Bush to execute his veto and allowing the Republicans to filibuster all they wanted.一个诚实的尝试，以结束战争，民主党人说，像伍尔西和利，将有涉及迫使布什向他的否决权，并允许共和党人拉布所有他们想要的。 Force a showdown, in other words, and use any means necessary to get the bloodshed ended.武力摊牌，换句话说，用任何必要的手段来获得流血结束。

“Can you imagine Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert taking no for an answer the way Reid and Pelosi did on Iraq?” asks the House aide in the expletive-filled office. "你能想象汤姆迪莱和Denny哈斯特尔特不采取这个答案的方式里德和佩洛西当时对伊拉克" ，要求众议院助手在expletive填充办公室。 “They’d find a way to get the votes. "他们帆船方式获得选票。 They’d get it done somehow.”他们锁存这样做有点" 。

But any suggestion that the Democrats had an obligation to fight this good fight infuriates the bund of hedging careerists in charge of the party.但任何暗示民主派有责任打好这一良好扑灭愤怒外滩套期保值careerists负责的党。 In fact, nothing sums up the current Democratic leadership better than its vitriolic criticisms of those recalcitrant party members who insist on interpreting their 2006 mandate as a command to actually end the war.事实上，没有什么总结了目前民主党的领导优于硫酸批评那些顽抗的党员，他们坚持对诠释其2006年的任务，作为一个指挥，真正结束这场战争。 Rep. David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee and a key Pelosi-Reid ally, lambasted anti-war Democrats who “didn’t want to get specks on those white robes of theirs.” Obey even berated a soldier’s mother who begged him to cut off funds for the war, accusing her and her friends of “smoking something illegal.”众议员大卫服从，主持会议的众议院拨款委员会和一个关键佩洛西-里德的盟友，强烈抨击反战同盟的人"不想让斑点那些白色长袍，他们的"绝对服从，甚至们对军人的母亲恳求其切断资金用于战争，指责她和她的朋友们的"吸烟一些非法的" 。

Rather Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that “anti-war activism” became synonymous with “electing Democrats.” Capitalizing on America’s desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. 而不是利用广大的权力，他们为了结束战争，民主党人奉献能源，以确保"反战争行动主义"的代名词，成为与"选举民主派" ，利用美国的愿望，以结束战争，他们劫持了反战运动本身，灌装的行列和平团体与忠诚的党棍。 Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.反战组织基本上已成为一种政治工具，为民主党人-一个班次，由内绕城和主要讨论对象的共和党人。

This supposedly grass-roots “anti-war coalition” met regularly on K Street, the very capital of top-down Beltway politics.这理应基层的"反战联盟" ，定期举行会议，对K街时，很资本的自顶向下绕城政治。 At the forefront of the groups are Thomas Matzzie and Brad Woodhouse of Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, the leader of the anti-war lobby.在全国前列的群体是托马斯matzzie和布拉德伍德豪斯的美国人对不断升级的伊拉克，这位领导人的反战游说。 Along with other K Street crusaders, the two have received iconic treatment from The Washington Post and The New York Times , both of which depicted the anti-war warriors as young idealist-progressives in shirtsleeves, riding a mirthful spirit into political combat — changing the world is fun!随着其他K街十字军，两国已收到标志性待遇，由华盛顿邮报和纽约时报等 ，都表现反战勇士作为年轻的理想主义者-进步人士在shirtsleeves ，骑欢快的精神，使之成为政治作战-改变世界是好玩！

But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for?但究竟这些年轻的理想主义者竞选？ At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi “squeezed for time” mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats.在其最近的会议上，专家组的炮火呼应里德-佩洛西"挤时间"的口头禅：从务虚的任何企图，以结束战争，并重点就选民主党。 “There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans,” a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.

What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group’s leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group’s leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC ） 。 In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same US senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.

Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look — and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse — would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. “No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq,” boasted the future “anti-war” activist Woodhouse.

With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. David Sirota, a former congressional staffer whose new book, The Uprising , excoriates the Democrats for their failure to end the war, expresses disgust at the strategy of targeting only Republicans. “The whole idea is based on this insane fiction that there is no such thing as a pro-war Democrat,” he says. “Their strategy allows Democrats to take credit for being against the war without doing anything to stop it. It’s crazy.”

Justin Raimondo, the uncompromising editorial director of Antiwar.com, regrets contributing twenty dollars to Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq. “Not only did they use it to target Republicans,” he says, “they went after the ones who were on the fence about Iraq.” The most notorious case involved Lincoln Chafee, a moderate from Rhode Island who lost his Senate seat in 2006. “Not only did they use it to target Republicans,” he says, “they went after the ones who were on the fence about Iraq.” The most notorious case involved Lincoln Chafee, a moderate from Rhode Island who lost his Senate seat in 2006 。 Since then, Chafee has taken shots at Democrats like Reid, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, all of whom campaigned against him despite having voted for the war themselves.

“Look, I understand partisan politics,” says Chafee, who now concedes that voters were correct to punish him for his war vote. “I just find it amusing that those who helped get us into this mess now say we need to change the Senate — because we’re in a mess.”

The The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it’s now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidential campaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they’ve made to the contrary, in the end they’ve done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they’ve been asked to give, every step of the way. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they’ve made to the contrary, in the end they’ve done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they’ve been asked to give, every step of the way.

Even beyond the war, the Democrats have repeatedly gone limp-dick every time the Bush administration so much as raises its voice. Most recently, twelve Democrats crossed the aisle to grant immunity to phone companies who participated in Bush’s notorious wiretapping program. Before that, Democrats caved in and confirmed Mike Mukasey as attorney general after he kept his middle finger extended and refused to condemn waterboarding as torture. Democrats fattened by Wall Street also got cold feet about upsetting the country’s gazillionaires, refusing to close a tax loophole that rewarded hedge-fund managers with a tax rate less than half that paid by ordinary citizens.

But the war is where they showed their real mettle. Before the 2006 elections, Democrats told us we could expect more specifics on their war plans after Election Day. Nearly two years have passed since then, and now they are once again telling us to wait until after an election to see real action to stop the war. In the meantime, of course, we’re to remember that they’re the good guys, the Republicans are the real enemy, and, well, go Hillary! Semper fi ! Yay, team!

How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting , deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing?

Look, fuck your hearts, OK? Just get it done. Because if you don’t, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in ‘08, but it’ll be soon. Even Americans can’t be fooled forever.

By Ahmed Ali

The violence around the continuing US military operations in this city has robbed children of their childhood.

Only two provincial schools and one private kindergarten school are functioning in this city of 280,000, located 50 km north of Baghdad. Only two provincial schools and one private kindergarten school are functioning in this city of 280000, located 50 km north of Baghdad. Most children know neither school nor play.

Or even the food they want. “We parents can hardly meet the basic requirements of food,” Mahdi Hassan, a father of four, told IPS.

“Nobody even mentions chocolate or pastries or anything else because Iraqis know they are not important,” Baquba resident Wissam Jafar told IPS. “Children eat what the other members of the family eat. Toys and games are offered only at festivals and on special occasions.”

Baquba city, capital of Diyala province, has been at the centre of major US military operations to fight al-Qaeda like forces. People have suffered from the violence from both sides.

By now Iraq has seen a generation of children pass with just survival a major issue. During the period of economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, more than half a million children died, according to the United Nations.

In 1996, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright was asked by Lesley Stahl on the CBS ླྀ Minutes’ show if she thought the price of half a million dead children was worth it. She replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”

One in eight children in Iraq died during that period of malnutrition, disease, and lack of medicine.

The US-led invasion of Iraq during March 2003 brought hope that things might change, but that change has only been for the worse.

“During the nineties, they were malnourished but they could find a place to play in the streets,” Khalid Ali, a local economist, told IPS. “Nowadays, they cannot even get out of their home because of the violence. And a large number of children have been killed through the violence.”

There is one park in Baquba with some basic swings for children; another was recently renovated by an Iraqi NGO. Both get overcrowded on festivals and holidays. Parents feel obliged to take their children out on these days, despite the risk.

On other days, no more than two or three families visit the parks.

Sajid Asim who earns 175 dollars a month from his job in the water department says the money is barely enough for food for the family. “Surely, there won’t be any extra money to bring the children special food or clothes, or games, or even taking them to picnics.” For those without work — and there are many — the situation is worse.

Schoolteachers and managers spoke to IPS of the problems facing children who do manage to go to school.

“Teaching has been hit by the political situation in Iraq,” said Salma Majid, manager of a local primary school. “Children can often not get to the school, and we may have more than three days off in a week. The whole academic year may be delayed because the violence has been so extreme this year.”

Schools can provide children a chance to play but sometimes it is not safe,” she said. “A number of school buildings have been hit by mortar.”

According to an Oxfam report on Iraq released Jul. 30, “92 percent of children had learning impediments that are largely attributable to the current climate of fear. Schools are regularly closed as teachers and pupils are too fearful to attend. Over 800,000 children may now be out of school, according to a recent estimate by Save the Children UK — up from 600,000 in 2004.” Over 800000 children may now be out of school, according to a recent estimate by Save the Children UK — up from 600000 in 2004.”

The Oxfam report also said that child malnutrition rates in Iraq have risen from 19 percent before the invasion in 2003, to 28 percent. “More than 11 percent of newborn babies were born underweight in 2006, compared with 4 percent in 2003.”

Scarcity has brought all sorts of difficulties for children. “I put a sandwich in the bag for my son to take to school,” said a mother who declined to give her name. “When he got back home, he said he could not have it because his classmates do not bring their own sandwiches; their parents do not give them sandwiches.”

A local primary school teacher, Ali Abbas, said it is common now for students to arrive at school without breakfast.

“One day, one of the children suddenly passed out,” Abbas said. “We immediately took her to the administration room. When she regained consciousness, I asked her why she fainted. She told me that she did not have breakfast because there was no breakfast at home.”

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq’s Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our US-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)

Xinhua

The US forces allegedly killed three people and wounded a fourth from one family in a town in Salahudin province, north of Baghdad, on Tuesday, a source from the US and Iraqi liaison office said.

The incident took place at dawn in the town of al-Dowr, 30 km north of the provincial capital of Tikrit, the source from the provincial Joint Coordination Center (JCC) told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

He said that an interpreter working for the US troops informed the branch of the JCC in the town of the killing and asked them to collect two bodies in a house in one of the town’s neighborhoods.

An Iraqi police force headed to the scene and found three bodies–those of a man and his wife in their 40s as well as their18-year-old son. All of the three were killed with gunshots in the head, he said.

The police also found many spent cartridges of weapons used by US troops at the scene, he added.

Residents at the neighborhood told the police force that they heard gunshots at dawn and saw US military vehicles leaving the neighborhood later, the source said.

He also said that a 16-year-old daughter of the family made a call with a mobile phone for help as she was injured and taken by the US troops to a medical facility in a US base in the province.

The three bodies were transported to the main hospital of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, he said.

The US military did not confirm the incident yet.

On Monday, the US military conceded in a statement that its troops had killed accidentally nine Iraqis and wounded three others, including two children, in a military operation against al-Qaida, near the town of Iskandariyah, about 50 km south of Baghdad.

AFP

When Saad Tawfiq watched Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on February 5 2003 he shed bitter tears as he realised he had risked his life and those of his loved ones for nothing.

As one of Saddam Hussein’s most gifted engineers, Tawfiq knew that the Iraqi dictator had shut down his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes in 1995 — and he had told his handlers in US intelligence just that.

And yet here was the then US secretary of state — Tawfiq’s television was able to received international news through a link pirated from Saddam’s spies next door — waving a vial of white powder and telling the UN Security Council a story about Iraqi germ labs. And yet here was the then US secretary of state — Tawfiq’s television was able to received international news through a link pirated from Saddam’s spies next door — waving a vial of white powder and telling the UN Security Council a story about Iraqi germ labs.

“When I saw Colin Powell I started crying. Immediately. I knew I had tried and lost,” Tawfiq told AFP five years later in the Jordanian capital Amman.

Now in his fifties, a round-faced man with a small moustache and lively eyes behind delicate spectacles, Tawfiq described how the CIA set up an elaborate operation to recruit Iraqi weapons scientists and then ignored the results.

From the end of 2002 the US spy agency had sources inside Iraq’s weapons plants telling them clearly what the whole world now knows — that Saddam had ended efforts to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Nevertheless in March 2003 the United States and Britain invaded Iraq to disarm Saddam of this non-existent arsenal and in the process triggered the effective collapse of the Iraqi state, plunging it into chaos and bringing thousands of deaths.

Saad Tawfiq’s role in this drama began in June 2002 with calls from his sister Sawsan, a doctor who lives with her husband Ali in Moreland Hills, a pleasant suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid-western United States.

“Our Abu Mahmuds are putting pressure on me,” she told him, using the nickname they shared for Saad’s secret police minder as a makeshift code for the US intelligent agent who had contacted her, “Chris.”

“Chris was very nice, very polite,” Sawsan, a small energetic woman, told AFP. Chris wanted Sawsan’s help to discover the status of Saddam’s weapons programme, and in particular his efforts to build a nuclear bomb.

She joined one of the most successful attempts by the CIA to penetrate Saddam’s Iraq, a programme dreamt up by agency veteran Charlie Allen to target Iraqi weapons technicians through their relatives.

The scientists were well known to the UN weapons inspectors who had been keeping tabs on Iraq’s arms plants since 1991, and the Americans were able to draw up a list of 30 who had relatives in the United States.

The American relatives were to be sent to Iraq and ask about weapons.

“I was nervous, and we even discussed with Ali what to do if something happened to me,” Sawsan said. “It was a very emotional visit back home, because I had not been there for years and I had not seen my brother for years.”

Sawsan was right to be nervous. Saddam’s notorious secret police dealt with spies mercilessly. She was taking a risk with her life and that of her brother, but was determined to help rid her original homeland of a tyrant.

The CIA provided her with a detailed questionnaire about Iraq’s weapons programmes. Fearing she would forget it, Sawsan disguised it in sketches and crosswords in a kind of homemade code.

Tawfiq picked his sister up from Baghdad airport on September 9, 2002. Her homecoming was emotional, but the pair had work to do. They met secretly at night in the family garden and took walks together in the city.

The weapons engineer was astonished by the CIA’s questions, which he thought showed the depths of the agency’s ignorance about events in his country.

“I went crazy. The questions were dumb. She was telling me: ‘They know you have a programme,’ and I was saying: ‘There is nothing. Tell them there is nothing, absolutely nothing. They have left us with nothing’,” Tawfiq said.

“She was taking notes. There were 20 major questions, and to all of them the answer was: ‘No, no, no…’ I kept swearing on the grave of my mother.”

According to Tawfiq, Saddam Hussein gave the order to dismantle Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programmes in 1995, after his brother-in-law and arms chief Hussein Kamel defected and briefed the UN inspectors.

“I was Saddam’s scientist,” Tawfiq declared, with an ironic smile. “In 1991 if you exposed something you were killed. In 1995 if you hid something you were killed!”

Sawsan dutifully gathered this information and returned to the United States to pass it on to her handlers. But the CIA was unimpressed.

“Saad told me there was nothing left,” she told AFP. “That everything had been either destroyed or dismantled by the UN and the regime has abandoned its nuclear programme. And he begged me to explain all that back in the States.

“I went back and I reported what he had told me in full detail. I even went personally to Washington. In the beginning they listened to me but then they told me that my brother was lying,” she said.

Of course Tawfiq and other colleagues approached by the CIA were telling the truth, as the United States would discover after it had launched a bloody war that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Paul R. Pillar, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia at the time of the operation to question Tawfiq, said weapons scientists had not been ignored, but had been contradicted by other sources.

“To the extent that the debriefings did not have more of an effect in Washington, it probably was not because the effort came too late but instead because there were other indications that seemed to contradict what the individuals were saying, and that suggested Iraqi unconventional weapons programmes were continuing,” he told AFP. “To the extent that the debriefings did not have more of an effect in Washington, it probably was not because the effort came too late but instead because there were other indications that seemed to contradict what the individuals were saying, and that suggested Iraqi unconventional weapons programmes were continuing,” he told AFP.

But as Saddam’s scientist lamented five years later: “You don’t have to destroy a country for that.”

Research conducted by a leading British polling group shows that more than one million Iraqis have died as a result of war in their country.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household because of the conflict, rather than natural causes, Reuters reported. The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household because of the conflict, rather than natural causes, Reuters reported.

The survey has been conducted in August and September 2007 with a 1.7 percent margin of error.

The research covered 15 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Those not covered included two of Iraq’s more volatile regions — Karbala and Anbar — and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work.

The director of the ORB, Allan Hyde, said it had no objective other than to record as accurately as possible the number of deaths among the Iraqi population as a result of the invasion and ensuing conflict.

MGH/RA

Bush and his top officials waged a campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the US invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq ’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war:

• On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney’s assertions went well beyond his agency’s assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, “Our reaction was, ‘Where is he getting this stuff from?’ “
• In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . 。 . 。 . 。 This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.” A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — an analysis that hadn’t been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn’t requested it. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.” A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — an analysis that hadn’t been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn’t requested it.
• In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: “Sure.” In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.” What’s more, an earlier DIA assessment said that “the nature of the regime’s relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear.” In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: “Sure.” In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.” What’s more, an earlier DIA assessment said that “the nature of the regime’s relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear.”
• On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories.” But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial , days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team’s final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.
• On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement “probably is a hoax.” Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement “probably is a hoax.”
• On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.” As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named “Curveball,” whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had “decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government].”

The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion.

(click for larger version)

In addition to their patently false pronouncements, Bush and these seven top officials also made hundreds of other statements in the two years after 9/11 in which they implied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or links to Al Qaeda. Other administration higher-ups, joined by Pentagon officials and Republican leaders in Congress, also routinely sounded false war alarms in the Washington echo chamber.

The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, “independent” validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq.

The “ground truth” of the Iraq war itself eventually forced the president to backpedal, albeit grudgingly. In a 2004 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press , for example, Bush acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: “It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of UN weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”

Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual “ground truth” regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who’s Who of domestic agencies. Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual “ground truth” regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who’s Who of domestic agencies.

On the other hand, a growing number of critics, including a parade of former government officials, have publicly — and in some cases vociferously — accused the president and his inner circle of ignoring or distorting the available intelligence. In the end, these critics say, it was the calculated drumbeat of false information and public pronouncements that ultimately misled the American people and this nation’s allies on their way to war.

Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the US government’s pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.

Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the US war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.

Above all, the 935 false statements painstakingly presented here finally help to answer two all-too-familiar questions as they apply to Bush and his top advisers: What did they know, and when did they know it?

Time magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel discussed a new Pentagon report that says “1 in 5 American servicemen and women who have been in Iraq are coming back with brain injuries.” Stengel called it the “real toll” of the war, adding that “the legacy of that will last all of our lifetimes and it’s incalculable.” Time magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel discussed a new Pentagon report that says “1 in 5 American servicemen and women who have been in Iraq are coming back with brain injuries.” Stengel called it the “real toll” of the war, adding that “the legacy of that will last all of our lifetimes and it’s incalculable.”

In total, according to Stengel, “more than 250,000 people” are affected by “mild traumatic brain injuries” sustained in Iraq. In total, according to Stengel, “more than 250000 people” are affected by “mild traumatic brain injuries” sustained in Iraq.

John Tirman

The warmongers who got us into Iraq are blaming everyone but themselves for the humanitarian disaster they created.

Now I know what Hillary Clinton meant, first hand, by that “vast right-wing conspiracy.” When the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Sunday Times in London are going after you — along with about 100 right-wing bloggers — rest assured you’ve hit a nerve. Now I know what Hillary Clinton meant, first hand, by that “vast right-wing conspiracy.” When the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Sunday Times in London are going after you — along with about 100 right-wing bloggers — rest assured you’ve hit a nerve.

Or is it just Soros Derangement Syndrome at work?

More than two years ago, I commissioned a household survey of Iraq to learn how many people had died in the war. This topic had been virtually ignored by the news media and the US government. It was important to know for at least three reasons. The first was to try to understand the nature of the violence there, which was steadily growing and creating a humanitarian crisis, possibly a regional conflagration. Second, it might tell us something about how and when to exit. Third, we needed to know for the sake of our national soul. What had we wrought?

So I contacted the people who had done a previous, largely ignored survey-top public health professionals at Johns Hopkins University. They had published a survey in October 2004 that showed 98,000 had died in the first 18 months of the war, which was greeted with disbelief and charges of politicizing science, and quickly dismissed. They had published a survey in October 2004 that showed 98000 had died in the first 18 months of the war, which was greeted with disbelief and charges of politicizing science, and quickly dismissed.

I said: ‘do a bigger survey to improve the accuracy, and I will make sure it gets the proper attention in the news media.’ They did do a bigger survey, and I managed a public education campaign that permitted the results to be considered more broadly, results that estimated total deaths at 600,000 by violence after 40 months of war. I said: ‘do a bigger survey to improve the accuracy, and I will make sure it gets the proper attention in the news media.’ They did do a bigger survey, and I managed a public education campaign that permitted the results to be considered more broadly, results that estimated total deaths at 600000 by violence after 40 months of war. The survey was published in The Lancet, the British medical journal. And get attention it did, roundly disbelieved and scorned by war supporters, but spurring a brief but intense debate about the human cost of the war.

Dozens of statisticians and other professionals scoured the study and its data to see if the methods and implementation were proper; a special committee at the World Health Organization was convened to review it, and the Lancet had also subjected it to rigorous peer review. The survey held up to this scrutiny, with quibbles and some lingering “should have done this” and “might have done that.” But virtually every competent person agreed that the study provided the best estimate we have.

Then, earlier this month, the National Journal , a Capitol Hill “insider” weekly, ran a cover story titled “Data Bomb” by Neil Munro and Carl Cannon. In a note by Munro published by the National Review blog, he asserts:

George Soros funded the survey. The US authors played no role in data-collection, and did not apply standard anti-fraud measures. The chief Iraqi data-collector had earlier produced medical articles to help Saddam’s anti-sanctions campaign in the 1990s, and said Allah guided the prior 2004 Lancet/Johns Hopkins death-survey. Some of the field surveyors were employed by Moqtada Sadr’s Ministry of Health. The Iraqis’ numbers contain evidence of fakery, and the Lancet did not check for fakery.

It’sa neat summary of their allegations, which include dozens of unfounded charges, promiscuous innuendo, misquoting of the principals, and misunderstanding statistics, and relies on two disgruntled critics. It was a hatchet job, pure and simple. Not a sentence of Munro’s summary is truthful, and that goes for much of the NJ article, too, which I have demolished elsewhere ( PDF ). The principal author, Gilbert Burnham, MD, Ph.D., and his colleagues have taken time from their clinics in Afghanistan and Jordan and Africa to answer the charges on the John Hopkins website, too ( with a letter here , and a FAQ here ).

But lies have a way of proliferating on the Internet, and so it was with this set of schoolyard bully brickbats. What seemed most to get under the skin of the right-wing media was a small grant for public education funded by the Open Society Institute, a foundation created by George Soros.

The charges of fraud that NJ clumsily made but never came close to proving were of course a tonic to the war supporters who were shamed by the estimate of 600,000 fatalities. The charges of fraud that NJ clumsily made but never came close to proving were of course a tonic to the war supporters who were shamed by the estimate of 600000 fatalities. There is nothing as devastating to the increasingly discredited case for war as the specter of the US invasion having caused, directly and indirectly, more deaths than were attributed to the bloody reign of Saddam Hussein.

But it was news that “Soros” was a donor, and the wingnuts went berserk. The line that Munro and Cannon took was that “Soros” was somehow behind the survey from the start, which was timed to affect the 2006 elections. It was not only fraud, they contend, but the perversion of science for political ends backed by the disgruntled, Bush-hating billionaire.

It’s classic right-wing defamation, and of course none of it is true. Munro and Cannon were painstakingly walked through the chronology and donors, but deliberately ignored it to fashion their paranoid fairy tale, and the Wall Street Journal et al lapped it up.

We commissioned the survey on October 25, 2005, hoping to get it done as quickly as it could be done professionally, and perhaps have the results out in the spring. Why wait? But Iraq quickly became too violent to permit teams of questioners go out to 1,000 randomly chosen households. But Iraq quickly became too violent to permit teams of questioners go out to 1000 randomly chosen households. So it was not until late spring that they did begin the door-to-door work-still very perilous-and completed the survey in early July. It took another two months to enter the data, have biostatisticians at Johns Hopkins analyze it, and write up the article. The Lancet then took weeks to peer review. It was released when ready. There was no political agenda; there didn’t need to be. The results spoke for themselves.

The Open Society Institute came late to the process, announcing to me that a grant had been made for public education on May 4, 2006. That is six and a half months after the survey process began. We had already paid for the survey out of internal funds. Less than half of the cash needs of the survey, the analysis, and the public education effort was paid for by OSI. (If the real cost of the effort were totaled-to include salaries of Burnham, myself, and many others who were not compensated directly-then the OSI contribution would have offset about 10 percent of the cost.) I doubt very much whether George Soros himself was ever aware of the grant. (If the real cost of the effort were totaled-to include salaries of Burnham, myself, and many others who were not compensated directly-then the OSI contribution would have offset about 10 percent of the cost.) I doubt very much whether George Soros himself was ever aware of the grant. OSI is a very large, humanitarian foundation, and their $46,000 grant to MIT is small by their standards. OSI is a very large, humanitarian foundation, and their $46000 grant to MIT is small by their standards.

And, needless to say, OSI and “Soros” had no influence over the initiation, conduct, or findings of the survey. Neither Burnham and his colleagues nor the Lancet editors knew OSI was one of the donors. The contract was with MIT.

I carefully told this to Munro on the telephone, and Burnham’s colleague Les Roberts emailed the same information to Cannon last autumn. Munro had asked, among other hostile questions, whether any Muslims or Arabs were supporting the survey, a racism reflected in his remark about Allah above and a charge in the NJ piece that the survey teams lacked American oversight and were thereby suspect. But he was emotionally fixated on Soros, and asked about his role repeatedly. When I tried to offer corroborating evidence for the survey, he screamed at me that none of that mattered. I could see where this was going.

Of course, Munro himself has been a rabid supporter of the war from the start. In the tradition of former NJ editor Michael Kelly, who called opponents of the war traitors, Munro agitated for the “destruction of Iraq” as early as November 2001. He had elsewhere insisted that the peace in Northern Ireland was the result of the British Army’s iron fist. His sentiments were on display through the hatchet job on us, not least in alleging that The Lancet article was a spur to jihadists.

So the headlines-”Soros Underwrites Osama’s Talking Points,” and “$oros Iraq Death Claim was a Sham” are typical. The Soros Derangement Syndrome derives, I suspect, from his special status as a traitor to his class, as the right used to refer to FDR. Someone so intelligent, articulate, actively compassionate, and rich cannot be tolerated.

In an odd twist, a new mortality survey-approvingly mentioned by the NJ piece-appeared earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine . 。 Conducted by the Iraqi Ministry of Health, it found 151,000 deaths by violence as of June 2006, about the same period as the Lancet article. Conducted by the Iraqi Ministry of Health, it found 151000 deaths by violence as of June 2006, about the same period as the Lancet article. Newspaper coverage duly noted that their estimate was only one-quarter that of the Lancet. But a little digging would have revealed much more: the total deaths attributable to the war, non-violent as well as violent, was about 400,000 for that period, now 19 months ago. But a little digging would have revealed much more: the total deaths attributable to the war, non-violent as well as violent, was about 400000 for that period, now 19 months ago. If the same trends continued, that total today would be more than 600,000. If the same trends continued, that total today would be more than 600000.

The deaths-by-violence in that latter survey remained the same from year-to-year, however, which is not plausible-all observers agree that violent deaths were rising sharply in 2005 and 2006. The discrepancy is found in how the survey was conducted: interviewers identified themselves as employees of the Ministry of Health, then under the control of Shiite cleric Moktada al Sadr. Those interviewed, therefore, would be wary of saying a brother or son or husband had been killed by violence, fearing retribution. And, indeed, there are non-violent categories in the survey that suggest just such equivocation: “Unintentional injuries” would equal about 40 percent of the death-by-violence toll, for example. Road accidents were ten times their pre-war totals-if someone is run off a highway by a US convoy, is that a “non-violent” death?

The researchers, to their credit, acknowledge that their estimate is likely too low due to several factors. They did not go into dangerous neighborhoods, which made up 11 percent of the sample, and could not accurately estimate the death toll in those, which would of course have been high. Still, the survey is revealing on the non-violent mortality, too: deaths by kidney failure, cancer, diabetes, and others rose by several times, signaling the near-collapse of the health care system.

The MoH survey is the fifth trying to measure mortality during the war, and there is significant congruence among all. (The Lancet estimate is not actually the highest; that belongs to the private British polling firm, Opinion Research Business, which found that as of August 2007, 1.2 million Iraqis were dead due to the war.) But all the surveys point to one thing: a colossal amount of killing and dying has been going on, far more than numbers used in most discussions of the issue in the fleeting instances when concern for Iraqis appears. (The Lancet estimate is not actually the highest; that belongs to the private British polling firm, Opinion Research Business, which found that as of August 2007, 1.2 million Iraqis were dead due to the war.) But all the surveys point to one thing : a colossal amount of killing and dying has been going on, far more than numbers used in most discussions of the issue in the fleeting instances when concern for Iraqis appears.

And that, of course, should be the real issue here, not whether George Soros is interested in the issue. The NJ calumny and the many gleeful references to it are a sign that the pro-war legions are really at wit’s end. The catastrophe they created and supported must be blamed on others-the conveyors of bad news, the quisling liberals, and the Iraqis themselves.

But the dead in Iraq cannot be silenced as long as we have courageous researchers who will go into the warzone to gather data and tell us the truth. That’s what five surveys-against perilous of odds-have done, and the findings should haunt us every day.

Sen. John McCain may have stunned some Americans with his projection that the US occupation of Iraq could last 100 years or more. But the political pressures in Washington sometimes make ending a war more difficult than starting one.

In this guest essay, the Independent Institute’s Robert Higgs discusses what it might take to bring the troops home:

By Robert Higgs

On Oct. 19, 2001, in speaking about the new government controls and heightened surveillance already being clamped on the American people in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney said that the new war “may never end. At least not in our lifetime. . 。 . 。 .  The way I think of it is, it’sa new normalcy.”

We should have taken his grim forecast more seriously.

The US attack on and occupation of Iraq, represented by the Bush administration as a critical element in the larger Global War on Terror, began nearly five years ago, and it shows no signs of ending soon.

Indeed, if John McCain is elected president and (with help from his successors) carries out the not-so-veiled threat to keep US troops in Iraq for a hundred years, then we can confidently expect that the war will not end in our lifetime. Indeed, if John McCain is elected president and (with help from his successors) carries out the not-so-veiled threat to keep US troops in Iraq for a hundred years, then we can confidently expect that the war will not end in our lifetime 。 Such a prospect is so seemingly preposterous, however, that one’s mind does not readily assimilate it.

It is difficult enough to absorb the reality that the United States has now been at war against the Iraqis for almost five years. An engagement sold to the public as a “cakewalk” and represented just six weeks after it began as a “mission accomplished” has now (as I write) continued for 1,760 days. An engagement sold to the public as a “cakewalk” and represented just six weeks after it began as a “mission accomplished” has now (as I write) continued for 1760 days.

Compare this duration with the time the United States was formally engaged in World War I (589 days) or World War II (1,365 days). Compare this duration with the time the United States was formally engaged in World War I (589 days) or World War II (1365 days). In the 1940s, the US forces (with important allies, to be sure) defeated two major economic and military powers in a globe-circling war in less time than the US forces have been engaged in Iraq.

And after all this time, where does the US venture stand? Evidently it is no closer to the “victory” the president has repeatedly said he seeks than it was immediately after the occupation began.

The 901 US troops who lost their lives in Iraq during 2007 were the largest number in any calendar year since the war began.

As 2008 begins, we read reports of a US air strike on the outskirts of Baghdad in which B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives, an attack described by Major Alayne Conway as “one of the largest airstrikes since the onset of the war.” As 2008 begins, we read reports of a US air strike on the outskirts of Baghdad in which B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters dropped 40000 pounds of explosives, an attack described by Major Alayne Conway as “one of the largest airstrikes since the onset of the war.”

The attack came only a day after six US soldiers participating in a major ground offensive were reported killed in the “biggest one-day loss in Iraq since May.” These events do not epitomize minor “mopping up” activities. The war obviously has no end in sight.

Notwithstanding these inauspicious developments and Sen. McCain’s bizarre pronouncement, we might well think in a more focused way about what will ultimately bring the war to an end, because it almost certainly will end someday.

Given its nature, it cannot be ended as each of the world wars was ended, by the formal capitulation of an  enemy state. Loosely organized insurgents and guerrillas do not stop fighting in that fashion.

In view of the particulars on the ground in Iraq, it would seem that no complete cessation of armed hostilities can occur there until the United States withdraws its military forces. So the question becomes:  What will induce a future US president or a future US Congress to act decisively to bring the troops home?

In the abstract, the answer is easy:  US authorities will extract their occupation force when they perceive that doing so is in their interest. Note well that I said, “in their interest.”

Whether a US withdrawal serves my interest, or yours, or that of 95 percent of the American people is not necessarily important, because government leaders do not act to serve other people’s interests.

Anyone who has advanced beyond infancy in his understanding of political affairs knows that despite all the dutiful claptrap that political leaders and their functionaries spout in public, they invariably pursue their own interests. Those interests may be material, political, institutional, or ideological, but in any event they are their own interests, not yours or mine.

It follows directly that up to this point the continued prosecution of the war has served the leaders’ interests. They may say they are trying to end the war. They may have secured their election or reelection, as many of the Democrats now serving in Congress have, by promising to do whatever they can to end the war. Yet the truth is that they’ve sold the public a bill of goods.

When the leaders have considered all the personal consequences they expect to follow from acting to end the war, they have concluded that, all things being considered, doing so does not serve their interest, and therefore they have refrained from doing so.

After all, it’s not as though the US war effort has a mind of its own. Whenever the president wants to remove the troops, he can do so; he has the power. Whenever the members of the majority in Congress want to remove the troops, by stopping the funding to support them there, they can do so; they have the power.

The posture of powerlessness that our leaders often affect―my goodness, what can I do? my hands are tied―is a disingenuous pose. They can stop the US engagement in the war whenever they want to do so. Thus far, they simply have not wanted to do so.

What might cause them to reach a new conclusion about what serves their personal interest? Several developments might turn the trick. Nearly all of them work by heightening the public’s anger with their leaders’ decisions.

Historically, the decisive development in similar instances has been the cumulation of public costs, especially the costs in life and limb. In both the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the public’s disfavor of the engagement closely tracked the cumulation of casualties.

As political scientist John Mueller showed in his book War, Presidents, and Public Opinion , “every time American casualties increased by a factor of 10, support for the war dropped by about 15 percentage points” in the polls.

One reason the public has continued to tolerate their leaders’ continued prosecution of the war in Iraq is that the casualties have not been nearly so great, by an order of magnitude, as they were in Korea and Vietnam.

So far, not quite 4,000 US military personnel have been killed in Iraq. So far, not quite 4000 US military personnel have been killed in Iraq. That’s only one death for every 75,000 persons living in the United States, and therefore the loss of life has not cut deeply into the public psyche―most Americans have not been personally acquainted with anyone killed in the war. That’s only one death for every 75000 persons living in the United States, and therefore the loss of life has not cut deeply into the public psyche―most Americans have not been personally acquainted with anyone killed in the war.

(The vastly greater loss of Iraqi lives seems to have made even less impression.)

Sad to say, the public may not turn decisively against their leaders’ continued prosecution of the war until many more American soldiers have died.

Economic costs have also mounted, and they have loomed relatively much larger in this war than in the earlier wars in Korea and Vietnam.

Who says the military leaders never learn? They’ve certainly learned how to increase hugely the financial costs of fighting a war.

Estimates of the costs to date vary widely, depending on how one accounts for various joint, indirect, and implied costs, but a total cost to date in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars is not implausible, and later costs, including those associated with decades of care for the war’s legions of physically and mentally disabled, will add enormously to the total. Estimates of the costs to date vary widely, depending on how one accounts for various joint, indirect, and implied costs, but a total cost to date in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars is not implausible, and later costs, including those associated with decades of care for the war’s legions of physically and mentally disabled, will add enormously to the total.

In earlier wars, even though the costs were relatively greater in blood than in dollars, the public eventually wearied of the economic sacrifices entailed by the financial expenses of continued fighting.

Economist Hugh Mosley concluded that the Johnson administration “was reluctant to resort to increased taxes to finance the war for fear of losing public support for its policy of military escalation.”

Historian Stephen Ambrose wrote that President Richard Nixon “realized that for economic reasons (the war was simply costing too much) and for the sake of domestic peace and tranquility he had to cut back on the American commitment to Vietnam”; the retrenchment was “forced on [him] by public opinion.” Historian Stephen Ambrose wrote that President Richard Nixon “realized that for economic reasons (the war was simply costing too much) and for the sake of domestic peace and tranquility he had to cut back on the American commitment to Vietnam”; the retrenchment was “forced on [him] by public opinion.”

As the recession that has just begun deepens, the public may well object more strenuously to the government’s squandering of such vast amounts of tax money on a senseless continuation of the war in Iraq.

When their purses are not so full, people may resent every additional dollar spent on the war more than they did previously. Ultimately, they may become so angry that they will take actions to punish severely the political leaders who continue to support the war.

Serious political challengers may attract a mass following by embracing the example of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who promised in the 1952 campaign to end the enormously unpopular war in Korea and, after he took office, kept his promise expeditiously.

When substantial negative feedback begins to jeopardize the personal job security, not to speak of the respect and fawning, the electorate affords incumbents, they will begin to take notice, and to discount more heavily the contributions from defense contractors, big financial establishments, petrochemical companies, and other high rollers who have encouraged them to stay the hopeless course―though not hopeless for these special interests, of course; for them it has been a bonanza. When substantial negative feedback begins to jeopardize the personal job security, not to speak of the respect and fawning, the electorate affords incumbents, they will begin to take notice, and to discount more heavily the contributions from defense contractors, big financial establishments, petrochemical companies , and other high rollers who have encouraged them to stay the hopeless course―though not hopeless for these special interests, of course; for them it has been a bonanza.

George W. Bush parlayed a campaign of fear-mongering into his reelection in 2004, but unless another major terrorist attack occurs in the United States, the public will grow increasingly resistant to such appeals and more eager to throw the rascals out as the war’s costs continue to mount. George W. Bush parlayed a campaign of fear-mongering into his reelection in 2004, but unless another major terrorist attack occurs in the United States, the public will grow increasingly resistant to such appeals and more eager to throw the rascals out as the war’ s costs continue to mount.

It is extremely unfortunate that escalating costs in blood and money are the only proven means of bringing the general public to resist strongly their political leaders who are committed to a continuation of unnecessary, unwise, and immoral war.

Some of us wish that rational argument, cogent evidence, and humane sentiment would persuade a preponderance of the public to demand an end to the war. History suggests, however, that only personal grief and economic pain will induce the American public to act against their perfidious leaders.

Needless to say, if the public remains as passive and as easily bamboozled as it has been during the past seven years, the war will continue, maybe even for the hundred years in which Senator McCain declares that a US occupation of Iraq would be “fine with me.” Needless to say, if the public remains as passive and as easily bamboozled as it has been during the past seven years, the war will continue, maybe even for the hundred years in which Senator McCain declares that a US occupation of Iraq would be “fine with me.”

Robert Higgs is a Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He is the author of many books, including Depression, War, and Cold War . 。

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