Sunday, September 19, 2004

Guard Unit to Deploy from Lockdown to War Zone

By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post

Sunday 19 September 2004

FORT DIX, N.J. -- The 635 soldiers of a battalion of the South Carolina National Guard scheduled to depart Sunday for a year or more in Iraq have spent their off-duty hours under a disciplinary lockdown in their barracks for the past two weeks.

The trouble began Labor Day weekend, when 13 members of the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment went AWOL, mainly to see their families again before shipping out. Then there was an ugly confrontation between members of the battalion's Alpha and Charlie batteries -- the term artillery units use instead of "companies" -- that threatened to turn into a brawl involving three dozen soldiers, and required the base police to intervene.

That prompted a barracks inspection that uncovered alcohol, resulting in the lockdown that kept soldiers in their rooms except for drills, barred even from stepping outside for a smoke, a restriction that continued with some exceptions until Sunday's scheduled deployment.

The battalion's rough-and-tumble experience at a base just off the New Jersey Turnpike reflects many of the biggest challenges, strains and stresses confronting the Guard and Reserve soldiers increasingly relied on to fight a war 7,000 miles away.

This Guard unit was put on an accelerated training schedule -- giving the soldiers about 36 hours of leave over the past two months -- because the Army needs to get fresh troops to Iraq, and there are not enough active-duty or "regular" troops to go around. Preparation has been especially intense because the Army is short-handed on military police units, so these artillerymen are being quickly re-trained to provide desperately needed security for convoys. And to fully man the unit, scores of soldiers were pulled in from different Guard outfits, some voluntarily, some on orders.

As members of the unit looked toward their tour, some said they were angry, or reluctant to go, or both. Many more are bone-tired. Overall, some of them fear, the unit lacks strong cohesion -- the glue that holds units together in combat.

"Our morale isn't high enough for us to be away for 18 months," said Pfc. Joshua Garman, 20, who, in civilian life, works in a National Guard recruiting office. "I think a lot of guys will break down in Iraq." Asked if he is happy that he volunteered for the deployment, Garman said, "Negative. No time off? I definitely would not have volunteered."

A series of high-level decisions at the Pentagon has come together to make life tough for soldiers and commanders in this battalion and others. The decisions include the Bush administration's reluctance to sharply increase the size of the U.S. Army. Instead, the Pentagon is relying on the National Guard and Reserves, which provide 40 percent of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Also, the top brass has concluded that more military police are needed as security deteriorates and the violent insurgency flares in ways that were not predicted by Pentagon planners.

These soldiers will be based in northern Kuwait and will escort supply convoys into Iraq. That is some of the toughest duty on this mission, with every trip through the hot desert bringing the possibility of being hit by roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire.

The drilling to prepare this artillery unit for that new role has been intense. Except for a brief spell during Labor Day weekend, soldiers have been confined to post and prevented from wearing civilian clothes when off duty. The lockdown was loosened to allow soldiers out of the barracks in off hours to go to the PX, the gym and a few other places, if they sign out and move in groups.

"There's a federal prison at Fort Dix, and a lot of us feel the people in there have more rights than we do," said Spec. Michael Chapman, 31, a construction worker from near Greenville, S.C.

Some complaints heard during interviews with the soldiers here last week centered on long hours and the disciplinary measures -- both of which the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Van McCarty, said were necessary to get the unit into shape before combat.

Sgt. Kelvin Richardson, 38, a machinist from Summerville, S.C., volunteered for this mission but says he now wishes he had not and has misgivings about the unit's readiness. Richardson is a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which he served with the 1st Cavalry Division, an active-duty "regular" unit. This battalion "doesn't come close" to that division, he said. "Active-duty, they take care of the soldiers."

Pfc. Kevin Archbald, 20, a construction worker from Fort Mill, S.C., who was transferred from another South Carolina Guard unit, also worries about his cobbled-together outfit's cohesion. "My last unit, we had a lot of people who knew each other. We were pretty close." He said he does not feel that in the 178th. Here, he said, "I think there's just a lot of frustration."

The daily headlines of surging violence in Iraq -- where U.S. forces crossed the 1,000-killed threshold last month -- were also part of the stress heard in soldiers' comments.

"I think before we deploy we should be allowed to go home and see our families for five days, because some of us might not come back," said Spec. Wendell McLeod, 40, a steelworker from Cheraw, S.C. "Morale is pretty low. . . . It's leading to fights and stuff. That's really all I got to say."

McCarty, the commander, disagrees with those assessments. Overall, he said, the unit's morale is not poor. "The soldiers all have their issues to deal with, and some have dealt with it better than others," he said in an interview in his temporary office.

The problem, he said, is that he has to play the hand dealt him -- of assembling a new unit and getting it to work together while following a training schedule that has kept them going from dawn to long after dark, seven days a week, since mid-July.

"We are not here for annual training and then go home" -- that is, the typical schedule for National Guard units in the past -- said McCarty, assistant deputy director of law enforcement for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources in civilian life. "We are here to prepare to go into a combat zone."

Some military leaders like to say that the best quality of life is having one -- a view to which McCarty appears to subscribe. "It is not my objective to win a popularity contest with my soldiers," he said. "My objective is to take them out and back home safely to their families."

As for the barracks lockdown, he said, "I am not going to apologize. . . . I did what I felt was necessary."

In the past, McCarty noted, members of Guard units usually had years of service together. That has enabled Guard units to compensate somewhat, using unit cohesion -- that is, mutual understanding and trust -- to make up for having less training time together than do active-duty units. But that was not the case with this battalion. "We didn't have that degree of stabilization to start with," he said.

He also contends that his case is hardly unusual nowadays. "Other units have similar problems," he said. "Ours just make more headlines." The disciplinary measures were covered by some soldiers' hometown newspapers, perhaps because it is one of the largest mobilizations of the South Carolina Guard since Sept. 11, 2001.

Sgt. Maj. Clarence Gamble, who as the top noncommissioned officer for the battalion keeps a close eye on morale and discipline, said he does not see any big problems. "I get out and see troops every day," he said. "From my talking to the troops, morale is good right now."

Indeed, some members of the unit agree with this view. "Overall, morale's good," said Sgt. John Mahaffey. "But of course you're going to have some who, no matter if you gave them their food on a gold platter, they'd still . . . whine." A car salesman from Spartanburg, S.C., Mahaffey, 41, said he volunteered to go to Iraq and is glad he did. "I'm looking forward to it," he said. The unit is essentially ready to go, he said. "If you wait till everything's perfect, you'll never get anything accomplished."

Gamble defended the lockdown that followed the fighting. "I think that what we did at the time was something that we needed to do to make sure that we had command and control of the battalion," he said. He added, "I don't think it was a detriment to morale, because it was short-lived."

He also says that unit cohesion is developing. "We knew it was going to take some time to develop the chemistry. And it's working."

As for volunteers who say they now regret it, "I think when our deployment is over, people will have different opinions."

Gamble, who at age 51 is a 33-year veteran of the Guard, said he is not worried about putting an already stressed unit into the cauldron of Iraq duty. "I haven't ever been deployed before, myself," he said. But, he concluded, "I feel like this unit will handle this well. Once we get in-country and get into missions, I think the stress will level off."





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Go to Original

Attacks Disillusion Marines
By Mike Dorning
The Chicago Tribune

Sunday 19 September 2004

RAMADI, Iraq — Marine Cpl. Travis Friedrichsen, a sandy-haired 21-year-old from Denison, Iowa, used to take Tootsie Rolls and lollipops out of care packages from home and give them to Iraqi children. Not anymore.

"My whole opinion of the people here has changed. There aren't any good people," said Friedrichsen, who says his first instinct now is to scan even youngsters' hands for weapons.

The subtle hostility extends to Iraqi adults, evidence some U.S. troops have second thoughts about their role here.

"We're out here giving our lives for these people," said Sgt. Jesse Jordan, 25, of Grove Hill, Ala. "You'd think they'd show some gratitude. Instead, they don't seem to care."

When new troops rotated into Iraq early in the spring, the military portrayed the second stage of the occupation as a peacekeeping operation focused at least as much on reconstruction as on mopping up rebel resistance.

Even in strongholds of the Sunni insurgency such as Ramadi, a restive provincial capital west of Baghdad, the Marine Corps sent in its units with a mission to win over the people as well as smite the enemy. Commanders worked to instill sympathy for the local population through sensitivity training and exhortations from higher officers.

Marines were ordered to show friendliness through "wave tactics," including waving at people on the street.

Few spend much time waving these days as the hard reality of frequent hit-and-run attacks, roadside bombs and exploding mortars has left plenty of Marines, particularly grunts on the ground, disillusioned and bitter.

Since the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, deployed in the area six months ago, 34 of its members have died and more than a quarter of the 1,000-member unit has been wounded.

Along with the heavy toll, the Marines cite other sources of frustration. High among them is the scarcity of tips from Iraqis on the locations of the roadside bombs that kill and maim Marines, even though the explosives frequently are placed in well-trafficked areas where bomb teams probably would be observed.

Sgt. Curtis Neill remembers a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his platoon as it passed some shops one hot August day. When the Marines responded, the attacker fled, but they found that he had established a comfortable and obvious position to lie in wait.

There, in an alleyway beside the shops, was a seat and ammunition for the grenade launcher — along with a pitcher of water and a half-eaten bowl of grapes, said Neill, who was so amazed that he took photos of the setup.

"You could tell the guy had been hanging out all day. It was out in the open. Every single one of the guys in the shops could tell the guy was set up to attack us," said Neill, 34, of Colrain, Mass. "That's the problem. That's why I'm bitter toward the people."

Then there are the hostile glares that adults in the community give to passing U.S. military patrols, and treachery from high-profile allies, such as the provincial police chief who was arrested last month amid strong suspicions that he was working with the insurgency.

"We're not taking any chances: Shoot first and ask questions later," said Lance Cpl. David Goward, 26, a machine gunner from Cloquet, Minn. "We're a lot more dangerous now. I'm not going home in a body bag, and neither is the person next to me."

Some Marines say the sense that their presence is unappreciated calls into question the entire mission in Iraq, which they consider a liberation that should be welcomed. But other Marines said their support for the intervention is undiminished, as direct contact with the enemy strengthens their conviction that the United States faces threats that require decisive action.

Commanders acknowledge a shift in attitude toward Iraqis among troops but insist it makes little difference in accomplishing their mission.

The Marines are a disciplined fighting force and under orders to treat Iraqis "with dignity," said Maj. Mike Wylie, the battalion executive officer.

The acts of friendship that Marines undertook when they arrived in Ramadi now in some cases heighten their resentment toward the city's residents.

After a series of ambushes one April day that killed a dozen Marines, Cpl. Jason Rodgers saw a familiar face among a group of slain attackers. The dead Iraqi, who was lying inches from a grenade, was a shopkeeper Rodgers had called on several times during foot patrols, he said.

"I felt like I'd been betrayed, personally," said Rodgers, 22, of Susanville, Calif. "I'd stood there, talking to him, shaking his hand, giving his kid candy. And he'd been studying our moves the whole time."


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Jump to TO Features for Monday September 20, 2004

Guard Unit to Deploy from Lockdown to War Zone

By Thomas E. Ricks
The Washington Post

Sunday 19 September 2004

FORT DIX, N.J. -- The 635 soldiers of a battalion of the South Carolina National Guard scheduled to depart Sunday for a year or more in Iraq have spent their off-duty hours under a disciplinary lockdown in their barracks for the past two weeks.

The trouble began Labor Day weekend, when 13 members of the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment went AWOL, mainly to see their families again before shipping out. Then there was an ugly confrontation between members of the battalion's Alpha and Charlie batteries -- the term artillery units use instead of "companies" -- that threatened to turn into a brawl involving three dozen soldiers, and required the base police to intervene.

That prompted a barracks inspection that uncovered alcohol, resulting in the lockdown that kept soldiers in their rooms except for drills, barred even from stepping outside for a smoke, a restriction that continued with some exceptions until Sunday's scheduled deployment.

The battalion's rough-and-tumble experience at a base just off the New Jersey Turnpike reflects many of the biggest challenges, strains and stresses confronting the Guard and Reserve soldiers increasingly relied on to fight a war 7,000 miles away.

This Guard unit was put on an accelerated training schedule -- giving the soldiers about 36 hours of leave over the past two months -- because the Army needs to get fresh troops to Iraq, and there are not enough active-duty or "regular" troops to go around. Preparation has been especially intense because the Army is short-handed on military police units, so these artillerymen are being quickly re-trained to provide desperately needed security for convoys. And to fully man the unit, scores of soldiers were pulled in from different Guard outfits, some voluntarily, some on orders.

As members of the unit looked toward their tour, some said they were angry, or reluctant to go, or both. Many more are bone-tired. Overall, some of them fear, the unit lacks strong cohesion -- the glue that holds units together in combat.

"Our morale isn't high enough for us to be away for 18 months," said Pfc. Joshua Garman, 20, who, in civilian life, works in a National Guard recruiting office. "I think a lot of guys will break down in Iraq." Asked if he is happy that he volunteered for the deployment, Garman said, "Negative. No time off? I definitely would not have volunteered."

A series of high-level decisions at the Pentagon has come together to make life tough for soldiers and commanders in this battalion and others. The decisions include the Bush administration's reluctance to sharply increase the size of the U.S. Army. Instead, the Pentagon is relying on the National Guard and Reserves, which provide 40 percent of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Also, the top brass has concluded that more military police are needed as security deteriorates and the violent insurgency flares in ways that were not predicted by Pentagon planners.

These soldiers will be based in northern Kuwait and will escort supply convoys into Iraq. That is some of the toughest duty on this mission, with every trip through the hot desert bringing the possibility of being hit by roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire.

The drilling to prepare this artillery unit for that new role has been intense. Except for a brief spell during Labor Day weekend, soldiers have been confined to post and prevented from wearing civilian clothes when off duty. The lockdown was loosened to allow soldiers out of the barracks in off hours to go to the PX, the gym and a few other places, if they sign out and move in groups.

"There's a federal prison at Fort Dix, and a lot of us feel the people in there have more rights than we do," said Spec. Michael Chapman, 31, a construction worker from near Greenville, S.C.

Some complaints heard during interviews with the soldiers here last week centered on long hours and the disciplinary measures -- both of which the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Van McCarty, said were necessary to get the unit into shape before combat.

Sgt. Kelvin Richardson, 38, a machinist from Summerville, S.C., volunteered for this mission but says he now wishes he had not and has misgivings about the unit's readiness. Richardson is a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which he served with the 1st Cavalry Division, an active-duty "regular" unit. This battalion "doesn't come close" to that division, he said. "Active-duty, they take care of the soldiers."

Pfc. Kevin Archbald, 20, a construction worker from Fort Mill, S.C., who was transferred from another South Carolina Guard unit, also worries about his cobbled-together outfit's cohesion. "My last unit, we had a lot of people who knew each other. We were pretty close." He said he does not feel that in the 178th. Here, he said, "I think there's just a lot of frustration."

The daily headlines of surging violence in Iraq -- where U.S. forces crossed the 1,000-killed threshold last month -- were also part of the stress heard in soldiers' comments.

"I think before we deploy we should be allowed to go home and see our families for five days, because some of us might not come back," said Spec. Wendell McLeod, 40, a steelworker from Cheraw, S.C. "Morale is pretty low. . . . It's leading to fights and stuff. That's really all I got to say."

McCarty, the commander, disagrees with those assessments. Overall, he said, the unit's morale is not poor. "The soldiers all have their issues to deal with, and some have dealt with it better than others," he said in an interview in his temporary office.

The problem, he said, is that he has to play the hand dealt him -- of assembling a new unit and getting it to work together while following a training schedule that has kept them going from dawn to long after dark, seven days a week, since mid-July.

"We are not here for annual training and then go home" -- that is, the typical schedule for National Guard units in the past -- said McCarty, assistant deputy director of law enforcement for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources in civilian life. "We are here to prepare to go into a combat zone."

Some military leaders like to say that the best quality of life is having one -- a view to which McCarty appears to subscribe. "It is not my objective to win a popularity contest with my soldiers," he said. "My objective is to take them out and back home safely to their families."

As for the barracks lockdown, he said, "I am not going to apologize. . . . I did what I felt was necessary."

In the past, McCarty noted, members of Guard units usually had years of service together. That has enabled Guard units to compensate somewhat, using unit cohesion -- that is, mutual understanding and trust -- to make up for having less training time together than do active-duty units. But that was not the case with this battalion. "We didn't have that degree of stabilization to start with," he said.

He also contends that his case is hardly unusual nowadays. "Other units have similar problems," he said. "Ours just make more headlines." The disciplinary measures were covered by some soldiers' hometown newspapers, perhaps because it is one of the largest mobilizations of the South Carolina Guard since Sept. 11, 2001.

Sgt. Maj. Clarence Gamble, who as the top noncommissioned officer for the battalion keeps a close eye on morale and discipline, said he does not see any big problems. "I get out and see troops every day," he said. "From my talking to the troops, morale is good right now."

Indeed, some members of the unit agree with this view. "Overall, morale's good," said Sgt. John Mahaffey. "But of course you're going to have some who, no matter if you gave them their food on a gold platter, they'd still . . . whine." A car salesman from Spartanburg, S.C., Mahaffey, 41, said he volunteered to go to Iraq and is glad he did. "I'm looking forward to it," he said. The unit is essentially ready to go, he said. "If you wait till everything's perfect, you'll never get anything accomplished."

Gamble defended the lockdown that followed the fighting. "I think that what we did at the time was something that we needed to do to make sure that we had command and control of the battalion," he said. He added, "I don't think it was a detriment to morale, because it was short-lived."

He also says that unit cohesion is developing. "We knew it was going to take some time to develop the chemistry. And it's working."

As for volunteers who say they now regret it, "I think when our deployment is over, people will have different opinions."

Gamble, who at age 51 is a 33-year veteran of the Guard, said he is not worried about putting an already stressed unit into the cauldron of Iraq duty. "I haven't ever been deployed before, myself," he said. But, he concluded, "I feel like this unit will handle this well. Once we get in-country and get into missions, I think the stress will level off."





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go to Original

Attacks Disillusion Marines
By Mike Dorning
The Chicago Tribune

Sunday 19 September 2004

RAMADI, Iraq — Marine Cpl. Travis Friedrichsen, a sandy-haired 21-year-old from Denison, Iowa, used to take Tootsie Rolls and lollipops out of care packages from home and give them to Iraqi children. Not anymore.

"My whole opinion of the people here has changed. There aren't any good people," said Friedrichsen, who says his first instinct now is to scan even youngsters' hands for weapons.

The subtle hostility extends to Iraqi adults, evidence some U.S. troops have second thoughts about their role here.

"We're out here giving our lives for these people," said Sgt. Jesse Jordan, 25, of Grove Hill, Ala. "You'd think they'd show some gratitude. Instead, they don't seem to care."

When new troops rotated into Iraq early in the spring, the military portrayed the second stage of the occupation as a peacekeeping operation focused at least as much on reconstruction as on mopping up rebel resistance.

Even in strongholds of the Sunni insurgency such as Ramadi, a restive provincial capital west of Baghdad, the Marine Corps sent in its units with a mission to win over the people as well as smite the enemy. Commanders worked to instill sympathy for the local population through sensitivity training and exhortations from higher officers.

Marines were ordered to show friendliness through "wave tactics," including waving at people on the street.

Few spend much time waving these days as the hard reality of frequent hit-and-run attacks, roadside bombs and exploding mortars has left plenty of Marines, particularly grunts on the ground, disillusioned and bitter.

Since the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, deployed in the area six months ago, 34 of its members have died and more than a quarter of the 1,000-member unit has been wounded.

Along with the heavy toll, the Marines cite other sources of frustration. High among them is the scarcity of tips from Iraqis on the locations of the roadside bombs that kill and maim Marines, even though the explosives frequently are placed in well-trafficked areas where bomb teams probably would be observed.

Sgt. Curtis Neill remembers a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his platoon as it passed some shops one hot August day. When the Marines responded, the attacker fled, but they found that he had established a comfortable and obvious position to lie in wait.

There, in an alleyway beside the shops, was a seat and ammunition for the grenade launcher — along with a pitcher of water and a half-eaten bowl of grapes, said Neill, who was so amazed that he took photos of the setup.

"You could tell the guy had been hanging out all day. It was out in the open. Every single one of the guys in the shops could tell the guy was set up to attack us," said Neill, 34, of Colrain, Mass. "That's the problem. That's why I'm bitter toward the people."

Then there are the hostile glares that adults in the community give to passing U.S. military patrols, and treachery from high-profile allies, such as the provincial police chief who was arrested last month amid strong suspicions that he was working with the insurgency.

"We're not taking any chances: Shoot first and ask questions later," said Lance Cpl. David Goward, 26, a machine gunner from Cloquet, Minn. "We're a lot more dangerous now. I'm not going home in a body bag, and neither is the person next to me."

Some Marines say the sense that their presence is unappreciated calls into question the entire mission in Iraq, which they consider a liberation that should be welcomed. But other Marines said their support for the intervention is undiminished, as direct contact with the enemy strengthens their conviction that the United States faces threats that require decisive action.

Commanders acknowledge a shift in attitude toward Iraqis among troops but insist it makes little difference in accomplishing their mission.

The Marines are a disciplined fighting force and under orders to treat Iraqis "with dignity," said Maj. Mike Wylie, the battalion executive officer.

The acts of friendship that Marines undertook when they arrived in Ramadi now in some cases heighten their resentment toward the city's residents.

After a series of ambushes one April day that killed a dozen Marines, Cpl. Jason Rodgers saw a familiar face among a group of slain attackers. The dead Iraqi, who was lying inches from a grenade, was a shopkeeper Rodgers had called on several times during foot patrols, he said.

"I felt like I'd been betrayed, personally," said Rodgers, 22, of Susanville, Calif. "I'd stood there, talking to him, shaking his hand, giving his kid candy. And he'd been studying our moves the whole time."


-------

Jump to TO Features for Monday September 20, 2004

stop him now....

good site for environmental articles

Halliburton Is a Handy Target for Democrats

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
The Washington Post

Saturday 18 September 2004

Ties to secret deals, Cheney keeps issue alive.
In the fall of 2002, a group of Pentagon advisers assessing the condition of Iraq's oil fields saw the need for a plan to repair damage from the impending war. The effort had to be secret, because the government had not publicly committed itself to fighting, and it had to be done by trustworthy experts.

The Energy Infrastructure Planning Group turned to a familiar resource: Halliburton Co., the global oil services company where Dick Cheney was chief executive until a couple of weeks after he was nominated for vice president.

It was a small project, worth $1.9 million to a company that brought in $12.6 billion in revenue that year. But it turned out to be the bridge to something much larger. Four months later, Pentagon officials granted Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., Halliburton's engineering and construction subsidiary, one of the contracting plums of the war: a classified no-bid deal worth up to $7 billion to do the restoration work.

Details about the genesis of those secret contracts have become part of an intensifying election-year effort by Democrats in Congress and the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry to question whether Halliburton became one of the Defense Department's favorite contractors because Cheney is vice president.

No one has presented evidence that Cheney made as much as a phone call on behalf of his former company in the run-up to the war, or since. But Halliburton's repeated missteps and legal troubles, the surge in its government business, and apparent contradictions in statements by Cheney and other administration officials have kept the issue alive.

Political analysts said that many voters may have no idea what services Halliburton provides to the government but that they know Cheney once ran the company.

John J. Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College who once served as a fellow in Cheney's congressional office, said Halliburton inflames administration critics.

"For people who disapprove of the administration, Halliburton provides a handle," he said. "It summons up images of corporate connections and Big Oil."

Kerry campaign officials said swing voters in the Southwest indicated in recent focus groups that questions about Halliburton and Cheney had become a "top of the mind" and "flashpoint" issue.

Yesterday, the Kerry campaign introduced a television ad suggesting a connection between deferred pay Cheney received from Halliburton and the contracts awarded in Iraq.

"As president, I will stop companies like Halliburton from profiting at the expense of our troops and taxpayers," Kerry said in a speech in Albuquerque. "I will stop companies from receiving no-bid contracts from the government when the president or vice president is still receiving compensation from that company."

There's no question that Halliburton has done well as a wartime contractor, providing food, fuel, housing and other troop support. Its logistical contract for work in Iraq, Kuwait and elsewhere, won in a competitive bid, is the largest of its kind, worth more than $5.6 billion through May, according to the Government Accountability Office. That contract was a major step in making Halliburton the largest contractor in Iraq.

The company also was paid more than $2.5 billion under the sole source contract it secured to reconstruct Iraqi oil fields - before the government decided to hold a competitive bid. Halliburton's KBR won part of the second oil fields contract through a competitive bidding process, a share worth up to $1.2 billion more.

As a measure of Halliburton's growing relationship with the Pentagon, income from government projects rose last year from $320 million in the second quarter to more than $2 billion in the fourth quarter. In all, the company reported $4.2 billion in revenue from the U.S. government last year, or more than a quarter of the company's total. In 2002, Halliburton relied on the government for less than 10 percent of its sales.

As a result, Halliburton moved from No. 19 on the Army's list of its top 50 contractors in fiscal 2002 to No. 1 in 2003.

During its ascent as a contractor, the company became entangled in a variety of investigations. Government investigators and Defense Department auditors have accused KBR and its subcontractors of overcharging for fuel, food and other services in Iraq under its large contract for logistics support, called LogCAP. In response to audits that said Halliburton had not properly justified many bills, Army officials are weighing whether to withhold some payments on future claims.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, is investigating allegations of profiteering in the Balkans, from the time when Cheney was chief executive, as well as the company's business activities in Nigeria and Iran. And a Securities and Exchange Commission probe of a change in Halliburton's accounting practices under Cheney, which the SEC said enabled the company to inflate profit reports, ended in early August. The company paid a $7.5 million settlement, while one former executive paid a fine and another was sued.

Cheney declined requests for an interview for this story.

His successor at Halliburton, chief executive David J. Lesar, described the probes as a function of the company's size and the fact that Cheney led it from 1995 to 2000, not that it was engaged in profiteering or prone to shady dealings. "There's no company in corporate America today that is as scrutinized as Halliburton," Lesar said in an interview.

But statements by Cheney and others in the Bush administration have served to stoke criticism, especially from Democrats. "Every time we turned around, things we were told at the beginning weren't the full story," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who has led the questioning.

For example, Cheney said in a television interview last September that he was not involved in awarding contracts while he was secretary of Defense, had never lobbied the Pentagon while head of Halliburton and had severed all ties to the company since becoming vice president. The Kerry campaign features the interview in its new television ad. "I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now for over three years," Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press.

Yet Cheney has reported on his financial disclosure statements that he continues to receive money from Halliburton. The payments are part of a deferred compensation contract that pays him for work he performed in 1999. It provides for five payments, the last one in January. Cheney reported receiving $147,579 in 2001, $162,392 in 2002, and $178,437 in 2003 in deferred salary.

Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems said the amount of the deferred pay is unaffected by any Halliburton business because Cheney had purchased an insurance contract that guarantees he will receive the full amount owed.

Cheney also had options to buy more than 400,000 shares of the company stock, according to financial disclosure records filed in May 2003. Cheney said he has committed to donate to charities any proceeds from the sale of that stock and cannot personally benefit in any way from the holdings.

Though not mentioned in the Kerry ad, Cheney added in the same television interview last year, "As vice president, I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts led by the Corps of Engineers or anybody else in the federal government."

Details about the activities of the Energy Infrastructure Planning Group, which helped the Pentagon prepare for the war, do not provide a direct link to Cheney. The Army Corps of Engineers chief counsel has said Halliburton's first secret Iraq contract "was done by career civil servants." But details unearthed about the workings of that planning group showed that at least two political appointees, not just career civil servants, were involved.

The head of the group, Michael H. Mobbs, was a senior political appointee. Mobbs played a decisive role in granting the first oil field work to KBR in November 2002, and again just before the war began in the spring of 2003, according to statements he made to lawmakers in a closed-door meeting in June.

Mobbs said at that meeting, according to a summary released by Waxman that hasn't been challenged, that he chose KBR over two other companies because it was already working with Army war planners, an apparent reference to the company's existing LogCAP contract. In doing so, Mobbs, backed by other department officials, overruled objections from a career Army attorney who argued the new work was not "within the scope" of that contract, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The GAO agreed the initial contract didn't fit under LogCAP.

Mobbs acknowledged in a memo that the $1.9 million task order would uniquely position KBR to win the far larger sole-source contract to actually do the restoration work to Iraqi oil fields, GAO investigator William T. Woods said at a recent House oversight hearing.

Mobbs also described his intention to use KBR at an October 2002 meeting of the Deputies Committee, made up of senior officials from the White House and other agencies, including Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Mobbs said he did so to ensure the officials had no objections to his plans to use KBR, according to Waxman's summary of the congressional briefing.

Mobbs declined several requests for an interview.

Libby declared after that meeting that he would not tell Cheney anything about the decision to use KBR and didn't, according to Cheney spokesman Kellems and another official who attended the meeting.

Kellems said Cheney has never been told about any decisions about contracts for Halliburton or other companies.

"Vice presidents don't do contracting," Kellems said. "Some Democrats have alleged that somehow the vice president has been responsible for securing contracts. That is a lie."

Cheney's sensitivity to the criticism flashed in a June 22 confrontation with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), a leader in what the Democrats called "Halliburton Week," when Democrats made an effort to link Cheney to the company's activities in Iraq. When Leahy approached Cheney on the floor of the Senate, Cheney's response was immediate and rough: He cursed Leahy.

In a July hearing about Halliburton at the House Committee on Government Reform, Waxman described the company's efforts as a "boondoggle" at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. He repeatedly invoked Cheney's name, stopping shy of accusing him of any wrongdoing. Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) described Waxman's investigations of the company as a "witch hunt" for material to embarrass the vice president.



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Noam Chomsky

The Resort to Force
By Noam Chomsky
TomDispatch

As Colin Powell explained the National Security Strategy (NSS) of September 2002 to a hostile audience at the World Economic Forum, Washington has a "sovereign right to use force to defend ourselves" from nations that possess WMD and cooperate with terrorists, the official pretexts for invading Iraq. The collapse of the pretexts is well known, but there has been insufficient attention to its most important consequence: the NSS was effectively revised to lower the bars to aggression. The need to establish ties to terror was quietly dropped. More significant, Bush and colleagues declared the right to resort to force even if a country does not have WMD or even programs to develop them. It is sufficient that it have the "intent and ability" to do so. Just about every country has the ability, and intent is in the eye of the beholder. The official doctrine, then, is that anyone is subject to overwhelming attack. Colin Powell carried the revision even a step further. The president was right to attack Iraq because Saddam not only had "intent and capability" but had "actually used such horrible weapons against his enemies in Iran and against his own people" - with continuing support from Powell and his associates, he failed to add, following the usual convention. Condoleezza Rice gave a similar version. With such reasoning as this, who is exempt from attack? Small wonder that, as one Reuters report put it, "if Iraqis ever see Saddam Hussein in the dock, they want his former American allies shackled beside him."

In the desperate flailing to contrive justifications as one pretext after another collapsed, the obvious reason for the invasion was conspicuously evaded by the administration and commentators: to establish the first secure military bases in a client state right at the heart of the world's major energy resources, understood since World War II to be a "stupendous source of strategic power" and expected to become even more important in the future. There should have been little surprise at revelations that the administration intended to attack Iraq before 9-11, and downgraded the "war on terror" in favor of this objective. In internal discussion, evasion is unnecessary. Long before they took office, the private club of reactionary statists had recognized that "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." With all the vacillations of policy since the current incumbents first took office in 1981, one guiding principle remains stable: the Iraqi people must not rule Iraq.

The 2002 National Security Strategy, and its implementation in Iraq, are widely regarded as a watershed in international affairs. "The new approach is revolutionary," Henry Kissinger wrote, approving of the doctrine but with tactical reservations and a crucial qualification: it cannot be "a universal principle available to every nation." The right of aggression is to be reserved for the US and perhaps its chosen clients. We must reject the most elementary of moral truisms, the principle of universality - a stand usually concealed in professions of virtuous intent and tortured legalisms.

Arthur Schlesinger agreed that the doctrine and implementation were "revolutionary," but from a quite different standpoint. As the first bombs fell on Baghdad, he recalled FDR's words following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, "a date which will live in infamy." Now it is Americans who live in infamy, he wrote, as their government adopts the policies of imperial Japan. He added that George Bush had converted a "global wave of sympathy" for the US into a "global wave of hatred of American arrogance and militarism." A year later, "discontent with America and its policies had intensified rather than diminished." Even in Britain support for the war had declined by a third.

As predicted, the war increased the threat of terror. Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges found it "simply unbelievable how the war has revived the appeal of a global jihadi Islam that was in real decline after 9-11." Recruitment for the Al Qaeda networks increased, while Iraq itself became a "terrorist haven" for the first time. Suicide attacks for the year 2003 reached the highest level in modern times; Iraq suffered its first since the thirteenth century. Substantial specialist opinion concluded that the war also led to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

As the anniversary of the invasion approached, New York's Grand Central Station was patrolled by police with submachine guns, a reaction to the March 11 Madrid train bombings that killed 200 people in Europe's worst terrorist crime. A few days later, the Spanish electorate voted out the government that had gone to war despite overwhelming popular opposition. Spaniards were condemned for appeasing terrorism by voting for withdrawing troops from Iraq in the absence of UN authorization - that is, for taking a stand rather like that of 70 percent of Americans, who called for the UN to take the leading role in Iraq.

Bush assured Americans that "The world is safer today because, in Iraq, our coalition ended a regime that cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction." The president's handlers know that every word is false, but they also know that lies can become Truth, if repeated insistently enough.

There is broad agreement among specialists on how to reduce the threat of terror - keeping here to the subcategory that is doctrinally acceptable, their terror against us - and also on how to incite terrorist atrocities, which may become truly horrendous. The consensus is well articulated by Jason Burke in his study of the Al Qaeda phenomenon, the most detailed and informed investigation of this loose array of radical Islamists for whom bin Laden is hardly more than a symbol (a more dangerous one after he is killed, perhaps, becoming a martyr who inspires others to join his cause). The role of Washington's current incumbents, in their Reaganite phase, in creating the radical Islamist networks is well known. Less familiar is their tolerance of Pakistan's slide toward radical Islamist extremism and its development of nuclear weapons.

As Burke reviews, Clinton's 1998 bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan created bin Laden as a symbol, forged close relations between him and the Taliban, and led to a sharp increase in support, recruitment, and financing for Al Qaeda, which until then was virtually unknown. The next major contribution to the growth of Al Qaeda and the prominence of bin Laden was Bush's bombing of Afghanistan following September 11, undertaken without credible pretext as later quietly conceded. As a result, bin Laden's message "spread among tens of millions of people, particularly the young and angry, around the world," Burke writes, reviewing the increase in global terror and the creation of "a whole new cadre of terrorists" enlisted in what they see as a "cosmic struggle between good and evil," a vision shared by bin Laden and Bush. As noted, the invasion of Iraq had the same effect.

Citing many examples, Burke concludes that "Every use of force is another small victory for bin Laden," who "is winning," whether he lives or dies. Burke's assessment is widely shared by many analysts, including former heads of Israeli military intelligence and the General Security Services.

There is also a broad consensus on what the proper reaction to terrorism should be. It is two-pronged: directed at the terrorists themselves and at the reservoir of potential support. The appropriate response to terrorist crimes is police work, which has been successful worldwide. More important is the broad constituency the terrorists - who see themselves as a vanguard - seek to mobilize, including many who hate and fear them but nevertheless see them as fighting for a just cause. We can help the vanguard mobilize this reservoir of support by violence, or can address the "myriad grievances," many legitimate, that are "the root causes of modern Islamic militancy." That can significantly reduce the threat of terror, and should be undertaken independently of this goal.

Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and often does. Inciting terror is not the only illustration. Others are even more hazardous.

In February 2004, Russia carried out its largest military exercises in two decades, prominently exhibiting advanced WMD. Russian generals and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that they were responding to Washington's plans "to make nuclear weapons an instrument of solving military tasks," including its development of new low-yield nuclear weapons, "an extremely dangerous tendency that is undermining global and regional stability,... lowering the threshold for actual use." Strategic analyst Bruce Blair writes that Russia is well aware that the new "bunker busters" are designed to target the "high-level nuclear command bunkers" that control its nuclear arsenal. Ivanov and Russian generals report that in response to US escalation they are deploying "the most advanced state-of-the-art missile in the world," perhaps next to impossible to destroy, something that "would be very alarming to the Pentagon," says former Assistant Defense Secretary Phil Coyle. US analysts suspect that Russia may also be duplicating US development of a hypersonic cruise vehicle that can re-enter the atmosphere from space and launch devastating attacks without warning, part of US plans to reduce reliance on overseas bases or negotiated access to air routes.

US analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration's militancy and aggressiveness. Putin and Ivanov cited the Bush doctrine of "preemptive strike" - the "revolutionary" new doctrine of the National Security Strategy - but also "added a key detail, saying that military force can be used if there is an attempt to limit Russia's access to regions that are essential to its survival," thus adapting for Russia the Clinton doctrine that the US is entitled to resort to "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources." The world "is a much more insecure place" now that Russia has decided to follow the US lead, said Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution, adding that other countries presumably "will follow suit."

In the past, Russian automated response systems have come within a few minutes of launching a nuclear strike, barely aborted by human intervention. By now the systems have deteriorated. US systems, which are much more reliable, are nevertheless extremely hazardous. They allow three minutes for human judgment after computers warn of a missile attack, as they frequently do. The Pentagon has also found serious flaws in its computer security systems that might allow terrorist hackers to seize control and simulate a launch - "an accident waiting to happen," Bruce Blair writes. The dangers are being consciously escalated by the threat and use of violence.

Concern is not eased by the recent discovery that US presidents have been "systematically misinformed" about the effects of nuclear war. The level of destruction has been "severely underestimated" because of lack of systematic oversight of the "insulated bureaucracies" that provide analyses of "limited and 'winnable' nuclear war"; the resulting "institutional myopia can be catastrophic," far more so than the manipulation of intelligence on Iraq.

The Bush administration slated the initial deployment of a missile defense system for summer 2004, a move criticized as "completely political," employing untested technology at great expense. A more appropriate criticism is that the system might seem workable; in the logic of nuclear war, what counts is perception. Both US planners and potential targets regard missile defense as a first-strike weapon, intended to provide more freedom for aggression, including nuclear attack. And they know how the US responded to Russia's deployment of a very limited ABM system in 1968: by targeting the system with nuclear weapons to ensure that it would be instantly overwhelmed. Analysts warn that current US plans will also provoke a Chinese reaction. History and the logic of deterrence "remind us that missile defense systems are potent drivers of offensive nuclear planning," and the Bush initiative will again raise the threat to Americans and to the world.

China's reaction may set off a ripple effect through India, Pakistan, and beyond. In West Asia, Washington is increasing the threat posed by Israel's nuclear weapons and other WMD by providing Israel with more than one hundred of its most advanced jet bombers, accompanied by prominent announcements that the bombers can reach Iran and return and are an advanced version of the US planes Israel used to destroy an Iraqi reactor in 1981. The Israeli press adds that the US is providing the Israeli air force with "'special' weaponry." There can be little doubt that Iranian and other intelligence services are watching closely and perhaps giving a worst-case analysis: that these may be nuclear weapons. The leaks and dispatch of the aircraft may be intended to rattle the Iranian leadership, perhaps to provoke some action that can be used as a pretext for an attack.

Immediately after the National Security Strategy was announced in September 2002, the US moved to terminate negotiations on an enforceable bioweapons treaty and to block international efforts to ban biowarfare and the militarization of space. A year later, at the UN General Assembly, the US voted alone against implementation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and alone with its new ally India against steps toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. The US voted alone against "observance of environmental norms" in disarmament and arms control agreements and alone with Israel and Micronesia against steps to prevent nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - the pretext for invading Iraq. A resolution to prevent militarization of space passed 174 to 0, with four abstentions: US, Israel, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. As discussed earlier, a negative US vote or abstention amounts to a double veto: the resolution is blocked and is eliminated from reporting and history.

Bush planners know as well as others that the resort to force increases the threat of terror, and that their militaristic and aggressive posture and actions provoke reactions that increase the risk of catastrophe. They do not desire these outcomes, but assign them low priority in comparison to the international and domestic agendas they make little attempt to conceal.



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Noam Chomsky is a Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. In addition to Hegemony or Survival, America's Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books), he is the author of numerous books on linguistics and on U.S. foreign policy.
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Jump to TO Features for Sunday September 19, 2004

Seymour Hersh on his new book

Seymour Hersh's Alternative History of Bush's War
By Mary Jacoby
Salon.com

Saturday 18 September 2004

The crack investigative reporter tells Salon about a disastrous battle the U.S. brass hushed up, the frightening True Believers in the White House, and how Iran, not Israel, may have manipulated us into war.


Seymour Hersh
(Photo: Michael Schmelling / AP Photo)

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Seymour Hersh has written more than two dozen stories for the New Yorker magazine on the secret machinations of the Bush administration in what the White House calls the "war on terrorism." His revelations, including an investigation of a group of neoconservatives at the Pentagon who set up their own special intelligence unit to press the case for invading Iraq, have consistently broken news.

Arguably his most important scoop came last spring, when the legendary investigative reporter received the now infamous photos of prisoner abuse by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq, as well as the explosive report on the abuse by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. The story Hersh published in the New Yorker, followed by a report by CBS's "60 Minutes," created an international scandal for the Bush administration and led to congressional hearings.

In a new book, "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib," Hersh expands upon his work in the New Yorker to contribute new insights and revelations. He discloses how a CIA analyst's report on abuses against captured Taliban prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, made its way to the White House in 2002, putting National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on notice two years before the Abu Ghraib scandal that human rights violations were taking place in U.S.-run prisons abroad.

In March 2002, Hersh writes, a military action against al-Qaida, known as Operation Anaconda, was botched in Afghanistan's mountainous border with Pakistan. Billed at the time as a success story by the Pentagon, it was in fact a debacle, plagued by squabbling between the services, bad military planning and avoidable deaths of American soldiers, as well as the escape of key al-Qaida leaders, likely including Osama bin Laden.

Hersh's story is well known. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1969 exposé of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, in which American soldiers killed more than 500 civilians. He is the author of eight books, including 1983's "The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House." And, since 1998, he's been a staff writer for the New Yorker

I visited with Hersh this week in his tiny, unadorned two-room office in downtown Washington, where he works amid a whirring fax machine, a constantly ringing phone and delivery men knocking on the door with packages. A map of the world, slightly off-kilter, is taped to the wall behind his desk, which is piled high with papers.

He speaks quickly, answering questions before the sentences can be completed, and hopscotches through conversational topics, as if everything's a race against time. "I have some Brazilians coming in. You know, just to talk about ... wait! Turn it off for a second," he says, gesturing at my recorder. He shares with me a lead he's working on. He flashes me a look at an intriguing document before stealing it away. "OK, let's talk about the book. I've gone over the top here. I'm not pimping anymore. I'm now a full-fledged whore, with red paint," he says, pretending to smear rouge on his cheeks. He loosens his tie. "Let's get on with it!"

What is new in the book, and what is based on your published work?

I'd say about 35 percent of the opening material on Abu Ghraib is new, maybe about 15,000 words, altogether about, I don't know what percentage. Maybe about a third, maybe a little less, is either new or revised or significantly changed. But the bulk of the book is the articles I did, put in a different form and combined in a different way by a very competent editor of mine. This book was edited by the New Yorker and fact-checked by the New Yorker. Everything that is new in the book was fact-checked by the New Yorker.

Who was the editor?

Her name is Amy Davidson. She's a senior editor, and she's great. A man named John Bennet, who is a wonderful editor, was my editor for the first couple of years, and then Amy came on because John's good that way. John is very avuncular, and he wants other people to start editing significant stuff, because among other things, he's always stuck with the big pieces. It was fact-checked by the same people, and the publisher paid for it. And Remnick, to his everlasting credit, David Remnick the editor, agreed that even though there's a very good story at the beginning - the whole Condi Rice meeting issue - he said publish it in your book and go make some money. It was sort of nice of them. It reflects well on the New Yorker. His point was, your being out there reflects well on the New Yorker. We all fight for making a living.

To talk about the new revelations ...

Let me tell you the one I like the most; aside from the obvious stuff about Abu Ghraib, there was a story I didn't write two years ago about Operation Anaconda. I didn't write it because, oh, a lot of complicated reasons. One, it was very hostile to our soldiers, and the military, and General [Tommy] Franks, and [Major Gen. Frank] Hagenbeck, a very nasty story. And then secondly, there was bad blood between the Marine Corps, and General Franks, and CentComm and the Air Force, and it just didn't, uh ... it's one of those stories. The real reason in a funny way is that even though my sources were angry in talking about it, it's one of the stories they really would have regretted, because you're talking about internecine warfare among the services. It's about boys ... anyway.

They would have regretted it?

They would have regretted talking to me about that. In there is an account of the Marines insisting that General Franks sign an MOU, a memorandum of understanding, of how the Marines would be used. We're talking about in combat, this kind of war going on between the services. And, you know, I probably guess it was the right decision, because I had to do obviously an alternate history of the war. And obviously there were certain people talking to me. People on the inside know what's going on. And so, I probably agree it was OK to do it. But I felt bad when I saw [former Gen. Wesley] Clark later. I had talked to Clark about the story at the time. Then two years later I ran into him when he was running for president, or right before, and he said, "Whatever happened to that story?" I said, "Well, I just decided not to write it." And he said, "Well, you should have. It's your job."

He's an amazingly straight guy. A difficult guy. "You should have." He basically told me, "Punk kid. You didn't know what you were doing." I also respect him because ...

Let's talk about some of these revelations.

Oh, so that was the one I liked the most.

But why didn't you write it at the time? You thought it would be too hostile?

No! There was, you know, it was a tough story about troops running from the battlefield, you know; it was just a tough story. [Hersh is referring to the lost battle of Anaconda.] I was writing a lot of other tough stories, and, uh ... it just didn't work. Let's put it that way.

Isn't that what a lot of the mainstream press get accused of - certainly not you - but holding back important information out of sensitivity for the feelings of the nation?

Ain't none of us perfect. It just seemed at the time, some of the people who were talking to me at the time, it would cause a big stink, and some of the Marines who were talking to me would not talk anymore. I also know, in order to do the story right, I would have had to go find some of the guys who were in the mission ... There was a lot of reporting to do, and I don't know, I just didn't do it.

But now you've gone back and revisited it in the book?

Oh yeah. Give me the book. I'll show you right where it is. So I'm not backing off. It was a story that should have been written. Of course I should have written it.

Let's talk about this anecdote about Vice President Cheney saying there would be no resignations [over the Abu Ghraib scandal]. Your publisher emphasized this in the press release, and I wanted to know ...

Now, wait a minute. Are you asking about a press release? Excuse me. That's like asking me about a headline.

Just tell me why you feel it's important.

What? Tell me why I feel it's important that Cheney called up?

What does it reveal?

It's more complicated than you think. For one thing, it reveals that they're all as one. The notion that they're going to fire [Donald] Rumsfeld, as people actually entertained, is comical. After 9/11 he gets in this swaggering mode and says we're going to smoke those terrorists out of their snake holes. And then it's clear there's prisoner abuse and torture going on. But does Cheney call up and say, "Oh, my God! What's going on over there, Don? What kind of craziness are you doing to those prisoners? This is devastating to our campaign. What's going on?" I don't hear that. What I hear is, "Let's all pull together and get past it." Very interesting.

You're an expert on Henry Kissinger. Is there someone who ...

I'm an expert on the side of Henry Kissinger that lied like most people breathed.

Is there someone who is the Henry Kissinger in this administration?

Oh, believe me, I pray for one [clasps his hands and looks beseechingly upward]. Wouldn't it be great if the reality was that they were lying about WMD, and they really didn't believe that democracy would come when they invaded Iraq, and you could go to war with 5,000 troops, a few special forces, a few bombs and a lot of American flags, and Iraq would fold, Saddam would be driven out, a new Baath Party would emerge that's moderate? Democracy would flow like water out of a fountain. These guys believe it. They believe WMD. There's no fallback with these guys. These guys are utopians. They're like Trotskyites. They believe in permanent revolution. They really believe. They believe that they could go in with few forces. They believed that once they went in it would happen quick. Iran would get the message. What they call occupied Lebanon would get the lesson. Even the Saudis would change.

They thought it would happen quickly?

Very quickly. I don't have any empirical basis for it, but if I had to bet, the plan was to go right into Syria. That's why the fourth division was hanging for so long in the desert out there right on the border with Syria. In the early days of the war, before this government figured out how much trouble they were in - which took them a long time - they would drive practice runs, somebody told me. Again, I'm just saying what was told to me; this is not something I reported, but I was told pretty reliably, they were doing practice runs that amounted to the distance from the border to Damascus. It's my belief always - again this is not empirical, it's sort of my heuristic view - that the real reason [Paul] Wolfowitz and others were mad at [Gen. Eric] Shinseki when he testified before the war about [the need for] 200 or 300 troops - it wasn't about the numbers - was, "Didn't he get it? What had he been listening to in the tank? Didn't we explain to him in the tank what we told the chiefs? This is the way it's going to be. Didn't he understand what it's all about?" He didn't get it. He hadn't understood what they meant. This was all going to fall down. It was all going to be peaches and cream. And Shinseki just didn't get it! It wasn't about the numbers. He wasn't a member of the clan. He didn't join the utopia crowd.

You've answered one of my questions. Let's elaborate on it. Clearly there's very little that's, well, in touch with reality in these policies.

Ha, ha, ha. It's so easy for you to say that!

But it's not so clear actually. Many Americans ...

I think I used actually ... I'll get you this word [grabs book from my lap and begins flipping through it] ... there was a "fantastical" quality to the White House's deliberations. Fantastical. That was the phrase I used.

Yes, I read that. And that was my next question. With Kissinger, there were lies, and he knew exactly what he was doing ...

Yes, one of his aides was assigned - literally assigned on one of the secret flights they made to China - to keep track of the lies, who knew what. I think they used to describe it as keeping track of what statements were made, but essentially it was who was being told what, because so many different people were being told different things. But these guys, do you realize how much better off we would be if they really were cynical, and they really were lying about it, because, yes, behind the invasion would be something real, like support for Israel or oil. But it's not! It's not about oil. It's about utopia. I guess you could call it idealism. But it's idealism that's dead wrong. It's like one of the far-right Christian credos. It's a faith-based policy. Only it wasn't a religious faith. It was the faith that democracy would flourish.

So you don't think that this is some Machiavellian, cynical, manipulative ...

I used to pray it was! We'd be in better shape. Is there anything worse than idealism that doesn't conform to reality? You have an unrealistic policy.

It seems that they are very selective not only about what kind of information they present to the public but even in what they decide to believe in themselves.

I think these guys in their naiveté and single-mindedness have been so completely manipulated by - not the Israelis - but the Iranians. The Iranians always wanted us in. I think there's a lot of evidence that Iran had much to do with [Ahmed] Chalabi's disinformation [about nonexistent Iraqi WMD]. I think there were people in the CIA who suspected this all along, but of course they couldn't get their view in. I think the Senate Intelligence Committee's report's a joke, the idea this CIA was misleading the president. They get some analysts in and say, "Were you pressured?" And they all say, "No, excuse me?" Is that how you do an investigation? The truth of the matter is, there was tremendous pressure put on the analysts [to produce reports that bolstered the case for war]. It's not as if anybody issued a diktat. But everybody understood what to do.

Talk about the ...

Wait. You're missing something now. The Iranian stuff. I think Iran probably had more to do with Chalabi's information than people know.

We know that Chalabi had Iranian agents on his payroll.

Yeah, but, well, he admits to that. He had a villa in Tehran. But basically I think Iran was very interested in getting us involved. We get knocked down a peg; they become the big boys on the block.

Are you working on this now?

Yeah, I'm thinking about it. I'm reporting on it. But I'm not working on it. I'm just - it's too cosmic.

Was Chalabi the conduit?

I think Chalabi thought he could handle the Iranians. They were helping him all along with disinformation and documents he could give to the White House. Don't forget, once the neocons decided to go to Iraq in the face of all evidence, they were like a super-reverse suction machine, and anything in the world that furthered the argument that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction was hot. I call it stove-piping, because it's a technical work of art. But it was much more than that. It was anything - vavoom! - into the president's [office]. It was so amateurish, it was comical. How hard was it to get some crapola into the White House about WMD without the CIA looking at it?

Do you have any idea of the origin of the forged Niger documents that Bush cited in his January 2003 State of the Union address as proof that Iraq was seeking uranium to make nuclear weapons?

I don't really know. I know that they think it was an inside job. And my idea is that there were people in the government who knew that you could give these guys [the neoconservatives] anything, and within three days, if it said the right thing, there would be a principals meeting [of the senior foreign policy officials] at the White House on it. And one idea would be to get them in a position where they really walked on their dongs, in a way. Give them some bad stuff. They'd have a big meeting about it and [the neocons] would finally be exposed as ludicrous. Nobody anticipated that [the forged documents] would end up in the State of the Union address. I mean, it's beyond belief. I don't believe in these conspiracy theories, about [Michael] Ledeen [a neocon operative] and these things. He's too smart for that. Because it was designed to be caught.

Do you think the responsibility for Abu Ghraib goes directly up to Rumsfeld?

I think they [Rumsfeld and senior administration officials] had a chance in the fall of 2002 to set the limits, and they chose not to. I don't think the CIA analyst who did the report was very explicit in his written document about the abuses. That isn't the way to get ahead. But he certainly told his peers there was a real mess there, so they know it. All she [Rice] had to do was put the word out there. The chain of command is very responsive. If you put out the word that you're not going to tolerate this crap, it's not going to happen. But that's not the word they put out.

Nobody would have countenanced in his right mind Abu Ghraib. But then again, if you think a bunch of kids from West Virginia understood the way to the soul of an Arab man is to take off his clothes and photograph him ... they didn't know that. Somebody told it to them. And that's the thing about the military. In loco parentis. They have an obligation to take our children and protect them, not only from land mines but from doing stupid things that could land them in jail.

The book is filled with reporting that shows how newspapers either got it wrong, or simply accepted the official version of events. What do you think of the performance of the main newspapers people look to as sources of information?

Well, so here I am, I'm busy trying to peddle a book and you're asking me to commit self-immolation! (Laughs). Well, all I'll say is, it speaks for itself.

"Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib"
By Seymour M. Hersh
HarperCollins
416 pages
Nonfiction



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Jump to TO Features for Sunday September 19, 2004