Консервативный руководитель Дэвид Cameron обвинял правительство «ломать воинский covenant» по мере того как он запустил комиссию для того чтобы draw up предложения для того чтобы улучшить поддержку для вооруженных силы страны Британии.

Г-н Cameron сказанные министры препятствовал войскам вниз на оборудовании, healthcare, наличие семьи и вмещаемость и пообещали просмотрению обороны для того чтобы обеспечить что будущее правительство Tory будет сопрягать требования, котор оно сделало на воискаах с ресурсами оно обеспечило их.

Но он просклонял к мнению будет сопрягать ли он pledge правительства обороны £7.7bn дополнительной фондируя к 2011 в просмотрении траты last year всестороннем.

Работа обвиняет руководителя Tory «damaging morale войск» путем требовать covenant между вооруженными силы страны и правительством был сломленно.

Военныйа министр Bob Ainsworth сказал он было «за кривым», по мере того как правительство уже запустило бумагу команды конструированную для того чтобы улучшить поддержку для войск, семей и ветеранов.

Г-н Cameron был соединен на старте лондона новой комиссии героем Simon Weston Falklands, который сидит на панели, и автором Freddie Forsyth, который будет предводительствовать ее. И усилено что их рапортом, должным в сентябре, будет независимо и non-партии политическим.

Руководитель Tory сказал: «Я верю воинский covenant хорош и поистине сломленн, и я обусловлен которому консервативная партия исправит он.

«Эта комиссия посмотрит как правительство и общество могут более лучше выполнять наши под воинским covenant. Оно посмотрит все вопросы влияют на наши вооруженные силы страны, от тренировки и рекуперирование к благосостоянию их семей и их более широкое отношение с обществом.»

Г-н Cameron, который не будет прыгнут рекомендациями комиссии, обвиняет правительство траты обороны вырезывания к своему самому низкому уровню с 1930s, оставляя вооруженные силы страны 5.500 под прочность. Войска принудились пойти в действие без обязательно оборудования как goggles ноч-зрения, пока министерство обороны потратило £2 миллиард приводя свой HQ Whitehall, он сказали.

Он выделил жалобы войск frontline' о лимитированном телефоне и контакте email с их семьями, так же, как политикой подсчитывать разрешение от дня, котор они уходят их столбы, rather than день они приезжают домой в Великобританию.

Afghan military operations and the Iraqi war have forced the US army to recruit soldiers without high school diplomas to fill its ranks.

National Priorities Project, a research group that analyzes federal data, found that the percent of Army recruits with a high school diploma dropped last year.

According to the CBS News, in a report released Tuesday the research group said that nearly 71 percent of Army recruits graduated from high school in the 2007 budget year.

All troops must have a high school diploma or an equivalent degree. The military prefers that they have a high school diploma because its studies have shown they are more likely to finish an enlistment term.

The Army’s goal is 90 percent high school graduates, which it hasn’t met since 2004. Each year since, the number of recruits with at least a high school diploma has steadily declined.

The Army has been under growing pressure to strengthen recruiting as part of an ongoing effort to increase its size.

RB/RA

U.S. Navy report undermines Bush’s drive to isolate Iran

TEHRAN: The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet has released a statement saying it cannot say with any certainty that threats to blow up its vessels actually came from Iranian Navy speedboats in Sunday’s Straits of Hormuz incident.

The revelation tacitly supports the Iranian version of events, in that it was a normal challenge by Iranian naval officials for the American vessels to identify themselves, and at no time was there any serious danger of an escalation or any hostile action.

According to the commander of the Iranian naval forces, the patrol boats were on a regular patrol when they challenged the three American vessels to identify themselves and declare any helicopter activity in the area.

The U.S. quickly released a video showing Iranian speedboats in close proximity to the warships, with audio that the Iranians claimed was fake.

On Thursday the Iranian Navy released its own footage, taken on board one of the speedboats, showing a radio operator making clear requests in English for identification and activity reports.

One of the American vessels can be heard to reply; “This is coalition warship 73, I am operating in international waters.”

Shortly after the challenge and the response, the Iranian speedboats left the area.

The incident came as President George W. Bush began his first ever visit to Israel, where he frequently cited the Hormuz incident as further evidence of Iran’s belligerence.

The latest U.S. Navy report, however, appears to suggest quite the opposite, and undermines current efforts by Bush to isolate Iran and build an anti-Tehran alliance among its Arab neighbours.

But the question is; Did naval commanders opposed to escalating tension in the Persian Gulf deliberately rob their Commander-in-Chief of a timely stick to beat the Iranians with?

“There may have been tendency among the command levels to assume that those radio messages came from the Iranian boats, and their initial reports were based on their assumptions rather on what their equipment actually told them,” said Carl Osgood, a Washington-based writer and political analyst.

“I think one possible reason why the admission was made is because there is concern in the American military command about going to war by accident,” he said.

There is resistance among the highest levels of the United States military against a war with Iran, Osgood said, “and that could be the source, or a source, of that admission.”

He pointed out that Admiral William Fallon, head of the U.S. Central Command, had expressed his opposition to escalating tension with Iran.

Fallon told al-Jazeera television in September, “This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful.

I expect there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for.”

In February 2007, Fallon had expressed strong opposition to the deployment of a third carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf.

According to an article written by respected analyst Gareth Porter and published in May 2007, Fallon had once confided that “there would be no war with Iran while I am head of Central Command.”

The electronic warfare and signals intelligence teams on the American warships should, at the very least, have been able to instantly identify the direction and relative distance from source of each and every signal coming in.

Therefore, it is fair to assume that they knew the Iranians were not responsible for the threats even as the first U.S. Navy reports of the incident were being released.

The U.S. Navy’s subsequent admission would suggest that rather than being a correction to a report that was made in haste, in the heat of the moment; an order had come down the line to release the real facts of the incident, whether or not they damaged or contradicted statements being made by the President of the United States.

So is Bush, the Commander-in-Chief, losing control of the U.S. military?

Perhaps, given the growing opposition in the armed forces to expanding the war, and the fact that Bush’s rhetoric against Iran is frequently at odds with reality.

“What we have to keep in mind is the intention of the Bush administration, particularly from Vice President Dick Cheney that for at least the past two years their intention has been to trigger another war in the region, this time targeting Iran,” said Osgood, “and that’s the background for this latest incident.”

Osgood noted the historical precedents, such as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident that broadened America’s involvement in South East Asia and the Vietnam War.

“In the United States there is definitely a political faction that is very concerned that this administration is looking for any pretext for war, and it is one of the elements of an impeachment resolution that was introduced into the House a couple of months ago in November, calling for the impeachment and removal from office of Vice President Dick Cheney,” Osgood said, “so there are political splits over the question of war with Iran.”

Article based on interviews conducted by author and first broadcast on PressTV, Friday, 11 January 2008

http://chrisgelken.blogspot.com/2008/01/is-bush-losing-control-of-military.html

By Jonathan Owen and Andrew Johnson

British soldiers are under investigation over the theft of a weapons cache in Iraq. The Ministry of Defence launched an inquiry after troops attempted to smuggle the weapons back to Britain.

The discovery of the weapons, stolen from an Iraqi police station and believed to be one of the largest hauls uncovered, has fuelled growing concerns that weapons confiscated by British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are being brought back illegally to the UK and could get into the hands of criminals.

Fears that weapons from war zones could inflame Britain’s growing gun crime problems have prompted high-level talks between the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. Customs and MoD police have stepped up inspections of military bases and convoys, with RAF bases and military ports being targeted as part of a fresh attempt by the Government to restrict the supply of guns.

Troops are permitted to bring back deactivated weapons as trophies for regimental museums and messes but not as individual mementoes.

Despite this, searches at UK bases have already uncovered live weapons hidden in the petrol tanks of military vehicles and even in the gun barrels of tanks and artillery pieces. Live ammunition including shells and mortar rounds has also been confiscated.

The new security measures are part of a package of policies implemented by a ministerial task force to tackle the problem of gangs and gun crime set up after the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Liverpool in August. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, are being personally briefed on a weekly basis by Deputy Chief Constable Jon Murphy, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ serious and organised crime co-ordinator, who heads the task force.

“There have been recent incidents where weapons have been stolen by military personnel in Iraq that have left Iraq, and we know that for a fact… unfortunately some of those weapons do leak back into the criminal market,” said Mr Murphy.

The number of guns involved in the latest investigation is understood to run into double figures, with several soldiers suspected of involvement. Mr Murphy admitted that it is a “live investigation with the MoD” which could result in courts martial.

He warns that while one shipment of guns has been stopped, others may have got through. “It is generally accepted that some military weapons are being brought back to Britain and ending up in the hands of criminals,” he said. “We are not really clear what the scale of that problem is and we are trying to get to the bottom of that by working with the Ministry of Defence. We’ve had meetings with them to try to get a handle on how big a problem it is.”

There has long been a culture of soldiers wanting to bring back personal souvenirs from war zones, which the MoD allows. But a worrying trend has developed in recent years with some military personnel seeking to profit from the thousands of pounds that a smuggled military weapon can fetch on the black market. Soldiers are even resorting to hiding weapons in the barrels of tanks, oil drums, or underneath vehicles, according to senior customs officials.

“You have to remember that these guys have lived with their guns for six months in theatre, and these things are bound to happen,” a MoD spokesman said. The RAF carried out routine searches of equipment and personnel as they come in, he added. “Everyone’s equipment at the port of embarkation is searched in the same way security at normal airports would take place. There is no evidence of illegal weapons being brought out through RAF air bases. We have no evidence that illegal weapons have been imported and none has been found during searches… but I have to accept that we have had a number of cases where soldiers have been caught in possession of firearms.”

Two soldiers who had smuggled stolen guns out of Iraq were jailed at a court martial last month. Prosecution evidence said the soldiers, from The Yorkshire Regiment, were part of a nine-man smuggling ring that served in Basra between October 2004 and April 2005. The weapons were discovered after some were sold on to fellow soldiers.

In September, Private Christopher Trussler, of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, was jailed for three years after he admitted stealing and possessing British Army 9mm ammunition which he attempted to sell to an undercover police officer. The court heard that Trussler also told the officer he could obtain an AK-47 but there was a wait for the weapon to be obtained and reactivated. The trial judge criticised military accounting procedures after hearing the ammunition came from a live firing exercise in Northern Ireland and was not returned.

In 2005 a Royal Marine from Lanarkshire, Scotland, was jailed for two years in December 2005 after bringing a captured Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle back from Iraq. A rocket-propelled grenade launcher, rifles and even a 60mm mortar are among the weaponry that has been brought back to Britain since the start of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pat Elder

A ninth grader in a suburban Washington DC classroom is delighted to be excused from Algebra class to spend a half hour shooting a life-like 9 MM pistol and lobbing explosive ordinance from an M1A2 Abrams tank simulator. At the same time 3,000 miles away in La Habra, California, a 15 year-old girl is released from English class to squeeze off rounds from a very real looking M-16 rifle. The kids thoroughly enjoy the experience, especially the part about getting out of class.

The two students have experienced the Army’s Adventure Van, a 60-foot, 30-ton 18-wheeler with several interactive exhibits that bring an adrenaline rush and glorify weaponry and combat.  The Army’s 19 vans frequent various community events and two thousand schools a year, generating more than 63,000 recruiter leads. In addition to the Adventure Van, the Army has three other 18-wheelers for recruiting purposes. The Aviation Recruiting Van contains an AH 64 Helicopter flight simulator and an interactive air warrior and weapons display.

The American Soldier Adventure Van has an interactive air/land warrior display and a future warrior display. The Army Marksmanship Trainer has an interactive rifle range.

In addition to the fleet of 18-wheelers, the Army has four RockWalls, the popular rock climbing wall for youth. The Army also brings machine gun toting humvees, tanks and other military vehicles on high school campuses to enhance their recruiting efforts. Both the Army and Air Force have their own recruiting motorcycles.

The interactive theatrical weapons simulators provide a mesmerizing experience for many teens, captivated by the awesome accuracy and power of the Army’s killing machines. The banter between adolescent and Army recruiter is empowering for the Maryland teenager as he holds an absolutely frightening replica of the cold, metallic 8.5 pound M-16-A-2. “This is awesome!” The recruiter explains, “The weapon is a 5.56 mm caliber, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed rifle, with a rotating bolt. It is constructed of steel, aluminum and composite plastics.”

Firing the simulator produces a minor kick to the weapon and a small red dot is projected on a bull’s eye target about 20 feet away. The shooter is accurate from left to right on the target, but he’s hitting it a few inches below bull’s eye. His recruiter explains that soldiers shooting the M-16-A-2 must aim high in order to place shots on the desired target, especially at close range. “Cool!” is the reply.

Despite protests by parents and civic groups across the country, the Army defends its right to enter high school campuses with their high-tech mobile cinemas. Kelly Rowe, public affairs officer for the Baltimore Recruiting Battalion, compared the Army Adventure Van to efforts by colleges to recruit students. “I don’t think it’s any different from an athlete who gets 10 letters saying, ‘Come play for us,’ ” Rowe said.

Of course, these military vehicles go beyond the access required by Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act, which states that military recruiters are to have the same access as college and career recruiters.

The Air Force and the Navy also have fleets of trucks and vans that visit high schools. The Air Force has a Raptor Trailer, with a miniature replica of the Air Force’s newest fighter aircraft and two video game stations that put children behind the joystick piloting an F-22 fighter that’s coming to the aid of a friendly F-4 under attack by hostile MiG-29s. Five Navy Exhibit Centers include a “Nuclear Power Van,” and an “America’s Sea Power Van.”

Some school districts, like the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Montgomery County, Maryland Public Schools have policies that forbid military vehicles on public school campuses.

If you see a military vehicle at your high school, let your local school officials know of your concerns. These vehicles don’t belong in our schools.

Pat Elder is a member of the Coordinating Committee of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led Congress, trying to make up for its tardiness in passing essential bills to fund the government, approved more than $1 trillion on Thursday for the military, veterans’ health care and popular domestic social programs.

By passing a $600 billion bill that exceeds President George W. Bush’s request by about $10 billion, Democrats ignored a White House veto threat but fulfilled a campaign promise made last year to boost health, education and labor programs, many of which benefit the poor.

Still unclear, according to the White House’s budget office, is whether Bush will sign a second measure passed on Thursday that would give the Pentagon about $460 billion for the fiscal year that began on October 1, which is $3.5 billion less than the president wanted.

In a disappointment for the Bush administration, the military funds do not include any of the additional $196 billion Bush is seeking for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Congress will consider later.

The Pentagon bill also contains up to $2.9 billion for veterans’ health care that Bush demanded Congress approve by Sunday, the Veterans’ Day national holiday.

In San Antonio, where he visited injured soldiers, Bush said, “Congress needs to take prompt action on measures that will send a clear signal that we support our troops in the field, and we support them when they’re coming off the field.”

Recognizing it will be at least several more weeks before Congress and Bush settle their differences on spending for an array of programs ranging from food aid to the poor to domestic security efforts, Congress also approved a new stopgap measure.

It will keep government running, mostly at last year’s levels, through December 14. The current temporary funds expire on November 16.

Bush has veto threats against nine other funding bills for fiscal 2008. Altogether, the Democrats’ bills, which many Republicans have supported, would spend about $22 billion over Bush’s proposed budget.

‘FISCAL DISCIPLINE’

The Republican president did not veto any spending bills during his first six years in office, drawing criticism he permitted federal deficits to soar. But since Democrats took control in January, he has been tightfisted.

Bush sought to cut labor, health and education programs by a total of about $3 billion from last year’s levels as part of a plan to balance the budget by 2012.

House Republican leaders said they were confident they could block any Democratic attempt to overturn a Bush veto on this bill.

Democrats defended the $10 billion in higher spending, saying initiatives such as medical research, early childhood education and community development were essential investments that had to keep pace with inflation and a growing population.

They also contrasted the additional domestic funding with the huge request Bush has submitted to fight the war in Iraq, now in its fifth year.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, complained during the Senate debate: “$4.5 billion for education — that gets the veto — $158 billion for the war with Iraq gets the signature.”

Even some Republicans, such as Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, refuted the White House’s portrayal of the bill as “irresponsible and excessive level of spending.” Specter said the legislation, which has broad bipartisan support, contained “some very modest increases in very important programs.”

In a warning to Congress this week, the White House said, “The president is committed to fiscal discipline” and Bush would not tolerate spending that breeches a limit he set in February.

Those remarks came the same week U.S. government debt surpassed $9 trillion, up from the $5.6 trillion level when Bush took office in 2001.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria in San Antonio)

MoD begins study amid fears that up to 20,000 soldiers may be affected

Matthew Taylor and Esther Addley
The Guardian

The Ministry of Defence is conducting a major study into brain injury in troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan amid fears that thousands of soldiers may have suffered damage after being exposed to high-velocity explosions.The US army says as many as 20% of its soldiers and marines have suffered “mild traumatic brain injury” (mTBI) from blows to the head or shockwaves caused by explosions. The condition, which can lead to memory loss, depression and anxiety, has been designated as one of four “signature injuries” of the Iraq conflict by the US department of defence, which is introducing a large-scale screening programme for troops returning from the frontline.

Defence officials were reluctant to extrapolate directly from the US experience, arguing that the science is still inconclusive and that the US and UK experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has been different. But the Guardian has learned that the government has put in place a series of measures - including a comprehensive screening process - to deal with what could be a 20-fold increase in troops with mTBI. If the most alarming US predictions are accurate, as many as 20,000 UK troops could be at risk.

Kit Malia, a cognitive rehabilitation therapist who will oversee the programme to treat TBI at Headley Court military rehabilitation centre in Surrey, said: “I think the issue is that we don’t know whether the Americans are correct. But if the American figures are correct, this is massive. Absolutely massive.”

Surgeon commodore Lionel Jarvis, director of medical policy at the MoD, said the UK is doing all it can to improve diagnosis and treatment of the condition and is “running very, very much in parallel” with the US. He added: “The only significant difference is that there is a much higher political profile on this in the US.”

He said the MoD had drawn up a list of measures to help deal with mTBI that included circulating information to all ranks in the field on what symptoms to look out for; plans to screen all service personnel when they return from combat; a four-stage treatment programme at Headley Court; and research into body armour to improve protection for the brain.

Liam Fox, the Conservative defence spokesman, said: “It is a dereliction of duty, a failure of duty of care. They are already well behind the US in terms of identifying this disease. We have to ask again why should US troops be getting better care than British troops?”

The mTBI injury can occur when a soldier gets a blow on the head or is in close proximity to an explosion. The increased use of improvised explosive devices (IEDS) - roadside bombs - in Iraq and Afghanistan means more troops are at risk than in previous conflicts, and experts say that even the most advanced helmets cannot protect the brain from the shock waves.

A US neurologist and former doctor at the US department of veterans affairs, P Steven Macedo, said: “The enemy combatants are not trying to put missiles or bullets into our troops - they are trying to blow up their vehicles with IEDs. But the vehicles and the men wear heavy armour so what goes through them in many cases is the blast wave and we are beginning to see the impact this is having on the neurological make-up of our troops. This is the first war since the first world war where the major cause of injuries is blasts.”

Advances in brain scanning have revealed that soldiers can sustain bruising and blood clots on the brain, even if there is no visible injury. If the condition is not diagnosed it can lead to long-term problems - from depression and anxiety to violence and relationship break-up.

Dr Macedo said US army doctors are reporting that up to 20% of soldiers coming home from Iraq have “blast injuries”, with 15% of those never recovering. “Someone suffering from this will still be able to use a knife and fork, still be able to talk and walk but they may struggle with bad moods, memory problems or become easily agitated. It is like a computer which is not running programmes properly: you can function but not as quickly or effectively as before.”

The U.S. Navy will redesign a base that resembles a swastika from the air.

The Anti-Defamation League, which had complained about the suggestive shape formed by the four L-shaped buildings that make up the San Diego naval installation, said this week that military authorities agreed to order $600,000 worth of landscaping and architectural changes.

“The Navy came to realize that this is a symbol that thousands of people died to defeat and it was inappropriate to have that shape on a military base,” said ADL regional director Morris Casuto.

The base was built in the 1960s but theories about its shape were spawned only recently by the advent of easily accessible satellite imagery from Google Earth.

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/104398.html

By Susan Cornwell

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday asked Congress to approve nearly $190 billion (94.3 billion pounds) more in spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In prepared testimony to a Senate committee, Gates said the Bush administration sought the money for more training and equipment for the U.S. military, including new armoured vehicles that give extra protection to troops against bomb blasts. The funds were for the 2008 fiscal year beginning October 1.

More money was also needed to train and equip Iraqi security forces as well as to improve U.S. facilities in the region and “consolidate our bases in Iraq,” Gates said. Reuters obtained a copy of his remarks in advance of his testimony on Wednesday.

In asking for the money, Gates said he was aware of the controversy surrounding the unpopular war. Since September 2001, Congress has appropriated $602 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“I know that Iraq and other difficult choices America faces in the war on terror will continue to be a source of friction within the Congress, between the Congress and the president, and in the wider public debate,” Gates said.

But he said U.S. troops had done far more than had been asked of them, and “like all of you, I always keep our troops — their safety and their mission — foremost in my mind every day.”

The administration had already asked Congress to approve

$147 billion for the war effort in the coming fiscal year. Gates said it was seeking another $42 billion more, bringing the total war funding request for fiscal 2008 to $189 billion.

The biggest chunk of the new request would go for force protection, including $11 billion for fielding about 7,000 more of the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, which have V-shaped hulls to disperse the impact of bomb blasts. This amount is being sought in addition to 8,000 MRAPS already funded or requested, Gates said.

By Thomas Harding in Basra

The split between the UK and the US over Iraq was further inflamed last night after a senior British officer claimed troops could have withdrawn from Basra Palace five months ago if America had not issued a plea for them to stay.

	Brigadier James Bashall says it is time for Iraqi military leaders to be ‘self reliant’

The Army’s commander in Iraq said American pressure caused them to stay in the exposed outpost, after which 11 soldiers were killed and 62 wounded in months of intense fighting.

British forces were finally pulled out of the palace and back to Basra airport a week ago.

But Brigadier James Bashall, the commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, told The Daily Telegraph that the force could have come out of Basra Palace in April “but politics prevented that”.

The senior officer’s comments come during a trans-Atlantic spat in which American officials have accused Britain of accepting defeat in southern Iraq and watching Basra descend into “all-out gangland warfare”. Brig Bashall said Washington’s request for British forces to stay in Basra came after a security operation codenamed Operation Sinbad had brought relative calm to the city.

”In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that,” he said. “The Americans asked us to stay for longer.”

The decision to remain in Basra was a consequence of “political strategy being played out at highest level”.

As a result of the continued British presence, the last remaining barracks at Basra Palace came under assault, with soldiers fighting close quarter battles in some of the most intense urban warfare experienced since the Second World War.

British officers say that at the end of the six-month Operation Sinbad in April, the military conditions were right to pull out of the city.

Some order had been restored to Basra as British and Iraqi troops “surged” through the city district by district, rooting out corrupt police and bringing vital water and electricity reconstruction projects.

But Washington deemed the political conditions were not right for a withdrawal. Also, with no American headquarters or consulate physically established at Basra airport and with the CIA still keen to monitor Iranian activities, the Americans were extremely reluctant to leave the city under Iraqi control. Brig Bashall’s comments come as Gen David Petraeus, the head of coalition forces in Iraq, reports to Congress today on the results of the US troop “surge” in Baghdad.

The general could only report Basra as a success story, said Brig Bashall, because “down here we are ahead of the rest of country in transition to local control”.

The 44-year-old former Parachute Regiment officer, who has experienced three tours of Iraq and one in Afghanistan, gave a pointed response to American critics. “They are not down here, they don’t know,” he said.

It was “nonsense” to suggest Britain had been defeated militarily. “We have fought for last three months a very violent campaign against insurgents and we left on our own terms. We were definitely not defeated.”

The British strategy had been right because it was now time for Iraqi politicians and military leaders to be “self reliant”.

The Observer

Fragments of bomb timer that helped to convict a Libyan ex-agent were ‘practically carbonised’ before the trial, says bankrupt Swiss businessman

The key piece of material evidence used by prosecutors to implicate Libya in the Lockerbie bombing has emerged as a probable fake.
Nearly two decades after Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland on 21 December, 1988, allegations of international political intrigue and shoddy investigative work are being levelled at the British government, the FBI and the Scottish police as one of the crucial witnesses, Swiss engineer Ulrich Lumpert, has apparently confessed that he lied about the origins of a crucial ‘timer’ - evidence that helped tie the man convicted of the bombing to the crime.

The disaster killed 270 people when the London to New York Boeing 747 exploded in mid-air. Britain and the US blamed Libya, saying that its leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, wanted revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986. At a trial in the Netherlands in 2001, former Libyan agent Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for life.

He is currently serving his sentence in Greenock prison, but later this month the Scottish Court of Appeal is expected to hear Megrahi’s case, after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled in June that there was enough evidence to suggest a miscarriage of justice. Lumpert’s confession, which was given to police in his home city of Zurich last week, will strengthen Megrahi’s appeal.

The Zurich-based Swiss businessman Edwin Bollier, who has spent nearly two decades trying to clear his company’s name, is as eager for the appeal as is Megrahi. Bollier’s now bankrupt company, Mebo, manufactured the timer switch that prosecutors used to implicate Libya after they said that fragments of it had been found on a Scottish hillside.

Bollier, now 70, admits having done business with Libya. ‘Two years before Lockerbie, we sold 20 MST-13 timers to the Libyan military. FBI agents and the Scottish investigators said one of those timers had been used to detonate the bomb. We were shown a fuzzy photograph and I confirmed the fragments looked as though they came from one of our timers.’

However, Bollier was uneasy with the photograph he had been shown and asked to see the fragments. He was finally given permission in 1998 and travelled to Dumfries to see the evidence.

‘I was shown fragments of a brown circuit board which matched our prototype. But when the MST-13 went into production, the timers contained green boards. I knew that the timers sold to Libya had green boards. I told the investigators this.’

Back in Switzerland, Bollier’s company was in effect bankrupt, having faced a lawsuit from Pan Am and having lost major clients, such as the German federal police to which Mebo supplied communications equipment.

In 2001, Bollier spent five days in the witness box at the Lockerbie trial at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands. ‘I was a defence witness, but the trial was so skewed to prove Libyan involvement that the details of what I had to say was ignored. A photograph of the fragments was produced in court and I asked to see the pieces again. When they were brought to me, they were practically carbonised. They had been tampered with since I had seen them in Dumfries.’

Few people apart from conspiracy theorists and investigative journalists working on the case were prepared to believe Bollier until the end of last month, when Lumpert, one of his former employees, walked into a Zurich police station and asked to swear an affidavit before a notary.

The Times

The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.

Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.

President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust”. He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran “before it is too late”.

One Washington source said the “temperature was rising” inside the administration. Bush was “sending a message to a number of audiences”, he said to the Iranians and to members of the United Nations security council who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on sanctions against Iran for flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week reported “significant” cooperation with Iran over its nuclear programme and said that uranium enrichment had slowed. Tehran has promised to answer most questions from the agency by November, but Washington fears it is stalling to prevent further sanctions. Iran continues to maintain it is merely developing civilian nuclear power.

Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but thinks Iran is moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to one well placed source, Washington believes it would be prudent to use rapid, overwhelming force, should military action become necessary.

Israel, which has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, has made its own preparations for airstrikes and is said to be ready to attack if the Americans back down.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which uncovered the existence of Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, said the IAEA was being strung along. “A number of nuclear sites have not even been visited by the IAEA,” he said. “They’re giving a clean bill of health to a regime that is known to have practised deception.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, irritated the Bush administration last week by vowing to fill a “power vacuum” in Iraq. But Washington believes Iran is already fighting a proxy war with the Americans in Iraq.

The Institute for the Study of War last week released a report by Kimberly Kagan that explicitly uses the term “proxy war” and claims that with the Sunni insurgency and Al-Qaeda in Iraq “increasingly under control”, Iranian intervention is the “next major problem the coalition must tackle”.

Bush noted that the number of attacks on US bases and troops by Iranian-supplied munitions had increased in recent months “despite pledges by Iran to help stabilise the security situation in Iraq”.

It explains, in part, his lack of faith in diplomacy with the Iranians. But Debat believes the Pentagon’s plans for military action involve the use of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and would seriously stretch resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I.P.O. Information Service
flamesong

On 4 August 2007 Dr. Hans Koechler received from Mr. Edwin Bollier, head of the Swiss-based company MEBO AG, a copy of the German original of an Affidavit, dated 18 July 2007 and signed by Mr. Ulrich Lumpert, former employee (electronics engineer) of MEBO AG, Zurich, related to the Lockerbie case.

In a statement released today, Dr. Hans Koechler, who has followed the Lockerbie proceedings since the beginning of the trial in the Netherlands in May 2000, highlighted basic aspects and questions of this new revelation that appear to be of relevance not only in connection with the upcoming second appeal of the convicted Libyan national, but also for new prosecutorial action ex officio by the Scottish authorities.

In his affidavit Mr. Lumpert implicitly admits having committed perjury as witness No. 550 before the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. He states (Par. 2) that he has stolen a handmade (by him) sample of an “MST-13 Timer PC-board” from MEBO company in Zurich and handed it over, on 22 June 1989 (!), to an “official person investigating the Lockerbie case.” He further states (in Par. 5) that the fragment of the MST-13 timer, cut into two pieces for “supposedly forensic reasons,” which was presented in Court as vital part of evidence, stemmed from the piece which he had stolen and handed over to an investigator in 1989. He further states that when he became aware that this piece was used for an “intentional politically motivated criminal undertaking” (vorsätzliche politisch kriminelle “Machenschaft”) he decided, out of fear for his life, to keep silent on the matter.

The rather late admission of Mr. Lumpert is consistent with an earlier revelation in the British and Scottish media according to which a former Scottish police officer (whose identity has not yet been disclosed to the public) stated “that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan” for the bombing of the Pan Am jet (Scotland on Sunday, 28 August 2005).

Upon receipt of the document, Dr. Koechler informed the owner of MEBO AG on 7 August 2007 that Mr. Lumpert will have to submit his affidavit under oath before the competent judicial authorities of Scotland. In the meantime (22 August 2007), the owner of MEBO AG has requested the Scottish judicial authorities – by way of the Swiss Prosecutor’s office and on the basis of the agreement on mutual judicial assistance between the UK and Switzerland – to investigate the alleged criminal manipulations referred to in Mr. Lumpert’s statement.

In his capacity as UN-appointed observer of the Lockerbie trial, Dr. Hans Koechler has repeatedly raised the issue of the timer fragment and expressed his amazement at the Defense team’s refusal to look into the matter during Mr. Megrahi’s appeal when questions as to the reliability of forensic evidence had already been raised. (See Dr. Koechler’s appeal report, Par. 10 [c] of 26 March 2002; his statement of 23 August 2003, Par. 10; and his statement of 14 October 2005, Par. 2.)

It is to be recalled that, as witness before the Lockerbie court, Mr. Edwin Bollier had raised the issue of the manipulation of the timer fragments, but was brusquely interrupted in his testimony by the presiding Judge and prevented from giving further information in this matter.

In the meantime (information received on 26 August 2007), Mr. Lumpert has revised part of his Affidavit (Par. 5); he now states that the letter “M” on the timer fragment (supposedly for the German word Muster: sample), unlike previously stated, has been engraved by himself. In view of this and earlier statements, Mr. Lumpert’s credibility will have to be assessed very carefully by the competent judicial authorities and he will have to be made aware of the consequences, in terms of criminal law, of lying to the Court.

At the same time, the credibility of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is also at stake. In its News Release of 28 June 2007, in which it had announced the referral of Mr. Al-Megrahi’s case to the Scottish High Court for a second appeal, the SCCRC found it necessary to “absolve” the investigating authorities of any suspicion of wrongdoing. Should Mr. Lumpert’s confession be proven to be true, the SCCRC’s statement – “The Commission undertook extensive enquiries in this area but found nothing to support that allegation or to undermine the trial court’s conclusions in respect of the fragment” – will appear highly questionable, even dubious. The public will have to ask why a supposedly independent judicial review body would try to exonerate “preventively” officials in a case which is being returned to the High Court for a second appeal because of suspicions of a miscarriage of justice.

If it is indeed the rule of law that governs the Scottish polity, the Scottish judicial authorities will have to deal with this new revelation ex officio – independently of how the appeal court in Mr. Megrahi’s case will evaluate this witness’s confession of perjury.

Those responsible for the midair explosion of PanAm flight 103 will have to be identified and brought to justice. If there was any wrongdoing, criminal and/or due to incompetence, of the judicial authorities in the investigation and prosecution of the Lockerbie case, this will also have to be dealt with through proper procedures of criminal law. A continuation of the rather obvious cover-up which we have witnessed up until now is neither acceptable for the citizens of Scotland nor for the international public, Dr. Koechler stated.

By Frances Gibb

The families of soldiers killed by American “friendly fire” will never get to see those who may have been responsible for the deaths questioned at inquests, The Times has learnt.

In an official document seen by this newspaper, the Ministry of Defence makes clear that all requests for US service personnel to give evidence at British inquests will be turned down. The new rules will cover the deaths of the three soldiers killed last week in Afghanistan.

“The US have confirmed categorically that they will not provide witnesses to attend UK inquests,” the document sent to every coroner in England and Wales states. “While coroners may continue to ask for US witnesses to attend . . . they should be aware that there will in all cases be a refusal.”

The Ministry of Defence’s “revised arrangements” for its support of inquests into the death of Armed Forces personnel also states that the Americans will in future hand over confidential information for use only in British military boards of inquiry.

The MoD will not be allowed to retain any of the US-owned material after its investigations are completed, or hand it over to an inquest without specific permission from the American authorities, the document says.

The document, recently sent to all 115 coroners in England and Wales by the Ministry of Justice, says that the new “mutually agreed” processes are designed to clarify procedures.

But it has infuriated coroners who are required by law to conduct inquests into the deaths of Armed Forces personnel abroad and who say they will be denied material previously released to them.

They have demanded a response from ministers and given warning that they may have to lodge a challenge in the courts over the legality of the new arrangements, saying that these could prevent families receiving justice and a “full and fair” inquiry.

The document has been drawn up after previous friendly-fire incidents, such as that of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull, of the Household Cavalry, who was killed when an American A10 aircraft attacked a British armoured convoy in Iraq in 2003.

A spokesman for the MoD insisted that the document did not represent new policy or a change of position. Nor was the intention to hamper the coroners’ investigations, the official said. The aim was to try to find ways to help coroners to obtain the information they needed.

However, the document – sent out by the MoD policy director, Desmond Bowen – says that the US “has reviewed its approach to how such material will be released to the UK Government in future” and confirmed its intent to only provide its classified reports to military investigations. After that, the information “should be returned . . . with no copies retained”.

The document outlines ways that coroners can still request relevant nonclassified information. It says that the MoD will still forward coroners’ requests for US material but cautions that unless these are lodged early, and in writing, the US authorities are unlikely to be able to respond. The MoD also says that it will provide the reports from its own military inquiries and if US witnesses cannot be provided, it will work to find a British expert to help the coroner on a specific point.

Coroners who have handled the inquests have already been highly critical over the apparent lack of cooperation from the Americans over inquests into the deaths of service personnel.

Andrew Walker, the Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner, berated the Pentagon in April for failing to send witnesses for the inquest of Lance Corporal Hull.

Last night the families of the three soldiers killed by a US bomb dropped by an F15 aircraft last week in Afghanistan called on the Americans to release all available evidence on the latest friendly-fire incident for the inquest.

Private Robert “Fozzy” Foster, 19, was killed alongside Aaron McClure, 19, and John Thrumble, 21, all from 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, when a 500lb bomb was dropped from a US F15 aircraft.

Steve Foster, Private Foster’s uncle, told The Times last night: “As a family we want to find out what happened to Robert – why he was killed by an allied bomb. We can not see why the American pilot and those who provided the intelligence or gave commands from the ground cannot give evidence at the inquest. We need to know what happened so it can be prevented from happening again.

“We need to know if the pilot was feeling hyped up, if he was calm, what he had been told before the operation, what happened on the day. Why is it that our closest ally is refusing to provide the evidence that might explain what happened to Robert? I am sure that if an American was killed in a British attack then those involved would give evidence.

Fatal errors

2007 Three soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment killed when a US F15 bombed their position while they were fighting in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan.

2003 Lance Corporal of Horse Matty Hull of the Household Cavalry was killed when a US A10 attacked his convoy in Iraq. The pilot mistook British identification panels for Iraqi rockets

2003 Flight Lieutenants Kevin Main and David Williams were killed while returning from a mission in Iraq when a US Patriot missile unit opened fire, believing the Tornado to be an Iraqi missile