Johann Hari: The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling

Taken from The Independent, Monday, 29 December 2008

The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.

To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave.

They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.

There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.

The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."

Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine.

So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.

Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.

It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.

The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.

Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.

The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.

The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."

Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.

The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court – it is in ours."

Rice tops US 'official gift list'

Taken from BBC News, Wednesday, 24 December 2008

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has topped the list of US officials for the number of gifts received in 2007, a state department report shows.







Ms Rice received $312,000 (£211,000) worth of jewels from the king of Saudi Arabia - worth three times more than his gifts to President George W Bush.

Among the presents listed for First Lady Laura Bush were "nuts and dried fruit" from the Dalai Lama - worth $6.

However, all gifts remain public property in keeping with US law.

In January 2007, Saudi King Abdullah presented Ms Rice with a diamond and emerald set - including a necklace, bracelet, earrings and a ring - worth $147,000 (£100,000), according to the list.

In July 2007, he gave Ms Rice a set of diamond and ruby jewellery valued at $165,000.

The inventory also includes a $170,000 flower petal necklace he gave Ms Rice in 2005, which the department says was not previously disclosed.

Earlier, the state department reported erroneously that the jewellery valued at $147,000 had been given to Ms Rice by King Abdullah II of Jordan, not the Saudi monarch.

Fitness machines
Mr Bush's wife, Laura, also received a diamond and sapphire set from the Saudi monarch, but hers was worth just half that given to Ms Rice at $85,000.

From the same Arab leaders, President Bush received just over $100,000 in gifts in 2007, the list shows.

Among the more offbeat gifts, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrick Reinfeldt honoured the US leader with a $570 made-in-Sweden power saw equipped "with comfort grip handles", presumably for use at his Texas ranch.

And the prime minister of Singapore gave Mr Bush $450 worth of fitness equipment, including a uSurf Wave Action Exerciser and an iGallop Core and Abs Exerciser.

The wife of Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave Mrs Bush two hand-embroidered pillows with the names and images of first dogs Barney and Miss Beazley worth $100.

Unfortunately for the recipients, the gifts must be turned over to the General Services Administration in accordance with US law, which bars politicians and officials from accepting personal presents in almost all circumstances.

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If these were the official gift from states - I wonder what the unofficial gifts might be - i.e hidden in Swss bank accounts etc. It's no surprise that the Saudi & other Arab Monarchs waste money offering jewels when they know fully well that it will eventually go to the state rather than to the individual. It must be even hurtful for Muslims around the world to see money wasted when it could have been used to feed the poor etc.

Ahmadinejad gives Christmas Speech

Channel 4 of the U.K. broadcasted an alternative to the Queens Speech - this one by Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran giving a short message of hope and prosperity for Christmas.



Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, delivered Channel 4's alternative Christmas address yesterday, sending a message of "happiness, prosperity, peace and brotherhood for humanity" which immediately ignited a furious row.

The speech by Mr Ahmadinejad, whose nuclear ambitions and views on Israel and homosexuality have strained relations between Iran and the West, was moderate, with none of the harsh rhetoric for which he has gained notoriety. God, he said, had created "every human being with the ability to reach the heights of perfection". He also urged Muslims and Christians to work together towards a world of "love, brotherhood and justice".

Speaking in Farsi with English subtitles, Mr Ahmadinejad sent his congratulations to "the followers of Abrahamic faiths, especially the followers of Jesus Christ, and the people of Britain".

He said the world's ills had come about through nations failing to follow the teachings of the Prophets, including Jesus. He also made a thinly-veiled attack on the US, claiming Christ would have been against "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers" and would have opposed "warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over".

Israel called the message a "sick and twisted irony". Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to Britain, said: "In Iran, converts to Christianity face the death penalty."

The full text of a Christmas message - Click Here!
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The fact of the matter is that this was the best Christmas Message i have ever heard - It was a religious message - much better than the usual message from the Queen which is probably written by 10 Downing street and is more political. I would be happy to hear more messages like this in future. As for the Israeli ambassador - he seems to stay silent on the plight of Palestinian Christians that have been forced out of Bethlehem, West Bank and those that continue to live there face oppression by the Israeli government. No mention of the wall dividing the Jews against Muslims & Christians, that is causing economic hardship, business to go bust, high unemployment rates between Muslim and Christian Arabs, checkpoints all over Palestine causing further hardships – no mention of the dwindling numbers of Christians in place where many believe Christianity began.

Madoff made off with the mother of all hedge funds scams

Ex-chairman of Nasdaq is charged over £33bn 'Ponzi' scam

Taken from Daily Mail, UK, 12th December 2008
By Bill Condie

Former Nasdaq chairman Bernard Madoff has been charged with running a $50billion (£33.7billion) fraudulent investment scam.

Madoff, a long-time powerful Wall Street figure, told staff at his investment firm that a hedge fund he ran was 'all just one big lie' and that it was 'basically, a giant Ponzi scheme' with estimated investor losses of about $50billion, according to a criminal complaint against him.

A Ponzi scheme is a pyramid-type scam in which very high returns are promised to early investors, who are paid off with money put up by later ones.





The $50billion allegedly lost by investors would make Madoff's fund one of the biggest frauds in history.

When Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, one of the largest at the time, it had $63.4billion in assets.

Prosecutors charged Madoff, 70, with a single count of securities fraud, for which he faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $5million if convicted.

Lev Dassin, acting Attorney General for the Southern District of New York, said: "Madoff stated that the business was insolvent, and that it had been for years."

His lawyer, Dan Horwitz, said outside the manhattan court where Madoff was charged: "He is a longstanding leader in the financial services industry. We will fight to get through this unfortunate set of events."

Madoff stared at the ground as reporters asked questions. He was released after posting a $10million bond secured by his Manhattan flat.

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Well you couldn't make this up. So much for the American regulators of financial markets.


Below is list of the banks and financial institutions affected so far (taken from Telegraph, UK, 19.12.08), all information had been sourced from company statements and agency reports:

Access International Advisors said some of its funds were invested with Bernard Madoff. The New York-based investment firm said it was working with counsel to assess the situation, describing it as "a shocking development".

Insurer Axa said that it faced losses because of the Madoff scandal, but said that its exposure amounted to less than €100m (£90m).

Spain's Banco Santander, which owns Abbey and Alliance and Leicester, said its hedge fund unit invested €2.33bn (£2bn) of client funds with Bernard Madoff.

The Geneva-based Banque Benedict Hentsch Fairfield Partners SA said its exposure is 56m Swiss francs (£32m) of client assets.

Spain's second-largest bank, BBVA, said it could potentially lose €300m (£270m) in the alleged scam run by New York trader Bernard Madoff.

Boston philanthropist Carl Shapiro’s charitable foundation - $145m (source Boston Globe).

Bramdean Alternatives Ltd - 9.5pc of its assets, according to a company statement.

BNP Paribas, France's biggest listed bank, said it could face a potential €350m (£313) loss from an exposure to Bernard Madoff's investment activities.

EIM Group - $230m (£153m) (source Reuters, citing Le Temps Newspaper).

EFG International, the Swiss private bank whose largest shareholder is the Latsis family, said some of its clients have investments worth $130 million in funds managed by Bernard Madoff’s investment-advisory business.

Elise Wiesal Foundation for Humanity - undetermined ( source Wall Street Journal).

Fairfield Greenwich Group - $7.5bn, according to a company statement.

Fix Asset Management - $400m (£266m), according to a company statement.

GMAC chairman Jacob Ezra Merkin's Ascot Partners - Most of its $1.8bn (£1.2bn) of assets (Wall Street Journal).

Harel Insurance Investments and Financial Services - $14.2m (£9.5m), according to a company statement.

HSBC said it has a potential exposure of about $1bn (£688m) in loans provided to a small number of institutional clients who invested in funds with Madoff.

Julian J. Levitt Foundation - $6m (£4m) (source Washington Post).

Kingate Management Ltd - $3.5bn (£2.3bn) (source Bloomberg).

Korea Life Insurance - $50m (£33m) (source Yonhap news).

Korea Teachers' Pension - $9.1m (£6m), according to a company statement.

Man Group said that its institutional fund of funds business RMF has approximately $360m (£239m) invested in two funds that are directly or indirectly sub-advised by Madoff Securities and for which Madoff Securities acts as broker/dealer executing the investment strategy.

Madoff Family Foundation - $19m (£13m) - (source Washington Post).

Maxam Capital Management - $280m (£186m) - (source Wall Street Journal).

Neue Privat Bank, a Zurich-based bank, said its clients may lose as much as $5m (£3m) invested in the fund linked to Bernard Madoff. The money was invested through Nomura Bank International, Neue Privat Bank said in a release.

New York Met's owner Fred Wilpon's Sterling Equities - undertermined, according to a company statement.

Nomura Holdings, Japan's largest brokerage, said it has 27.5 billion yen ($302 million) at risk linked to Bernard Madoff's investment funds

Norman Braman, former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles Football Team - undertermined (source Wall Street Journal).

North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System - $5m (£3.3m), according to a company statement.

Notz, Stucki & Cie - undertermined (source Reuters, citing Le Temps newspaper)

Pioneer Alternative Investments - almost all of its $280m (£187m) of assets (source Bloomberg).

Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation - $8m (£5.3m) (source Washington Post).

Royal Bank of Scotland said it had exposure through trading and collateralised lending to funds of hedge funds invested with Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities.If as a result of the alleged fraud the value of the assets of these hedge funds is nil, RBS's potential loss could amount to approximately £400m.

The Dutch pension fund of Royal Dutch Shell said it has a $45m exposure to the alleged $50bn fraud by prominent Wall Street trader Bernard Madoff.

Reichmuth and Co’s Reichmuth Matterhorn fund - $330m (£221m) (source letter to clients).

Societe Generale - less than €10m, according to a company statement.

Tremont Capital Management - undertermined (source Wall Street Journal).

Yeshiva University - undetermined (source Washington Post)

Abbas: Israel must free all 11,000 Palestinian prisoners

Taken from Haaretz, Israel, 15/12/2008
By Tomer Zarchin

Israel on Monday released 227 Palestinian prisoners as a gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to mark the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), which marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage.

Of the prisoners, 209 were transferred from Ofer Prison, near Jerusalem, to the Beituniya checkpoint in the West Bank. The remaining 18 prisoners were to be transferred from Shikma Prison in the Negev, to the Erez checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza border. At his office in Ramallah, Abbas greeted each of the 209 prisoners released to the West Bank individually with kisses on the cheeks, but said Israel should release all Palestinians it was holding.

"Our happiness will not be complete until all of the 11,000 prisoners are freed," he said. "We promise you we will work to free all prisoners from all factions."

Hundreds of relatives and supporters waited on the Palestinian side of the Beitunia checkpoint, waving Palestinian and yellow flags of Abbas' secular Fatah movement and carrying posters of late Fatah leader Yasser Arafat. The two Palestinian territories have divided leadership.

Gaza is ruled by the militant Hamas organization, which refuses to recognize Israel; the West Bank territories are largely under the control of Abbas and his Fatah organization, which is engaged in a sporadic peace process with Israel.

"We hope these releases will be seen as an important confidence-building measure designed to strengthen the trust and the confidence in the [peace] negotiations," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The Supreme Court gave a green light Monday morning for the release, hours after Justice Elyakim Rubinstein ordered that the state must first reply to a petition against it. The petitioners had argued that freeing jailed Palestinians placed the region at risk of renewed conflagration.

According to prosecutors, an examination of the prisoners listed for release showed that none had been charged with causing injury to Israelis, Army Radio reported. As a matter of general precedent, the courts rarely intervene with the government's decisions on matters of policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians. The prisoners being freed are a fraction of the 11,000 Palestinians held by Israel. Their release was originally due to take place last week, during Eid.

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So 11,000 prisoners held by illegal occupation. Innocent people help captive in Israeli cells, without trial, some abducted by the Israeli army not hust in Palestine but also from Lebanon - yet no one bats an eye lid on why they have been held captive and if they are so dangerous why have they been released as a gesture of goodwill. There rae not terrorist they are innocent people - the real terrorist are the illegal occupiers running the State of Israel.

WMD found in IRAQ!

Shoey to go W!

If Youtube video doesn't work then click here!

Don't shoe forget about me!

In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, Iraqi television journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi stood up and shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," before hurling a shoe at Mr Bush which narrowly missed him.

Showing the soles of shoes to someone is a sign of contempt in Arab culture.

With his second shoe, which the president also managed to dodge, Mr Zaidi said: "This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq."

Mr Zaidi, a correspondent for Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV, was then wrestled to the ground by security personnel and hauled away.

The World would like to thank Muntadar al-Zaidi - you sir have definitely left a rememberable event in the legacy of George W Bush's reign.

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A few updates...

(1) 15/12/08 - according to BBC news - Thousands of Iraqis have demanded the release of a local TV reporter who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference. Crowds gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City district, calling for "hero" Muntadar al-Zaidi to be freed from custody.

(2) 15/12/08 - according to Daily Mail - The Iraqi journalist was given a bravery award by a Libyan charity. The Waatassimou group gave Muntazer al-Zaidi the courage award because it said 'what he did represents a victory for human rights across the world'.

(3) 16/12/08 - According to the Guardian Newspaper - It was claimed by the brother of Muntadar al-Zaidi that he has been beaten in custody. Dargham, told the BBC today that al-Zaidi had suffered a broken hand, ribs, suffered internal bleeding and sustained an eye injury.
According to the BBC, after the incident, al-Zaidi was detained by Iraqi authorities under the command of national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, who also said the 28-year-old will be prosecuted under Iraqi law.

(4) 17/12/08 - According to Reuters - An Egyptian man said he was offering his 20-year-old daughter in marriage to Iraqi journalist Muntazer. The daughter, Amal Saad Gumaa, said she agreed with the idea. "This is something that would honor me. I would like to live in Iraq, especially if I were attached to this hero," she told Reuters by telephone. Her father, Saad Gumaa, said he had called Dergham, Zaidi's brother, to tell him of the offer. "I find nothing more valuable than my daughter to offer to him, and I am prepared to provide her with everything needed for marriage," he added. Amal is a student in the media faculty at Minya University in central Egypt. Zaidi's response to the proposal was not immediately clear.

(5) 22/12/08 - according to BBC news- Muntadar al-Zaidi is due to face trial on 31 December accused of "aggression against a foreign head of state", which carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years.

(6) 22/12/08 - according to BBC news - Istanbul-based Baydan Shoes claims it made the shoes that the journalist threw at President Bush. They say that they have tens of thousands of orders from around the world - including from the US and Iraq. The shoe was called Model 271 but has been renamed Bush shoe, the firm said. However, the brother of shoe-throwing journalist Muntader al-Zaidi says he believes the shoes were Iraqi-made. Durgham al-Zaidi criticised people he said were trying to exploit his brother's actions for commercial gain. "The Syrians claim the shoes were made in Syria and the Turks say they made them. Some say he bought them in Egypt. But as far as I know, he bought them in Baghdad and they were made in Iraq," he told the AFP news agency.

Official History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders

Taken from The New York Times, December 13, 2008
By JAMES GLANZ and T. CHRISTIAN MILLER

BAGHDAD — An unpublished 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.

(for original PDF Document - Click here!)

The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures.

WATER Students used water from a faucet at the Khulafa al-Rashideen school in Baghdad in October. Access to potable water plummeted after the 2003 invasion.

In one passage, for example, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! ‘We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.’ ”

Mr. Powell’s assertion that the Pentagon inflated the number of competent Iraqi security forces is backed up by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former commander of ground troops in Iraq, and L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004.

Among the overarching conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale.
The bitterest message of all for the reconstruction program may be the way the history ends. The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed.

COMMUNICATION Landline phone service plunged after the invasion, forcing Iraqis to rely on cellphone companies, above.

By mid-2008, the history says, $117 billion had been spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, including some $50 billion in United States taxpayer money.

The history contains a catalog of revelations that show the chaotic and often poisonous atmosphere prevailing in the reconstruction effort.

When the Office of Management and Budget balked at the American occupation authority’s abrupt request for about $20 billion in new reconstruction money in August 2003, a veteran Republican lobbyist working for the authority made a bluntly partisan appeal to Joshua B. Bolten, then the O.M.B. director and now the White House chief of staff. “To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the President,” wrote the lobbyist, Tom C. Korologos. “His election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt.” With administration backing, Congress allocated the money later that year.

In an illustration of the hasty and haphazard planning, a civilian official at the United States Agency for International Development was at one point given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would need to be reopened and repaired. The official searched through the agency’s reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan. Whatever the quality of the agency’s plan, it eventually began running what amounted to a parallel reconstruction effort in the provinces that had little relation with the rest of the American effort.

Money for many of the local construction projects still under way is divided up by a spoils system controlled by neighborhood politicians and tribal chiefs. “Our district council chairman has become the Tony Soprano of Rasheed, in terms of controlling resources,” said an American Embassy official working in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood. “ ‘You will use my contractor or the work will not get done.’ ”

A Cautionary Tale
The United States could soon have reason to consult this cautionary tale of deception, waste and poor planning, as troop levels and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are likely to be stepped up under the new administration.

The incoming Obama administration’s rebuilding experts are expected to focus on smaller-scale projects and emphasize political and economic reform. Still, such programs do not address one of the history’s main contentions: that the reconstruction effort has failed because no single agency in the United States government has responsibility for the job.

Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the history concludes, “the government as a whole has never developed a legislatively sanctioned doctrine or framework for planning, preparing and executing contingency operations in which diplomacy, development and military action all figure.”

ELECTRICITY A new generator in Baghdad in 2007. Electricity output is now only slightly higher than it was before the war.

Titled “Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” the new history was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., a Republican lawyer who regularly travels to Iraq and has a staff of engineers and auditors based here. Copies of several drafts of the history were provided to reporters at The New York Times and ProPublica by two people outside the inspector general’s office who have read the draft, but are not authorized to comment publicly.


OIL The production of oil at Iraqi fields, like the one above, 370 miles southeast of Baghdad, has been below prewar levels.

Mr. Bowen’s deputy, Ginger Cruz, declined to comment for publication on the substance of the history. But she said it would be presented on Feb. 2 at the first hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, which was created this year as a result of legislation sponsored by Senators Jim Webb of Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, both Democrats.

The manuscript is based on approximately 500 new interviews, as well as more than 600 audits, inspections and investigations on which Mr. Bowen’s office has reported over the years. Laid out for the first time in a connected history, the material forms the basis for broad judgments on the rebuilding program.

In the preface, Mr. Bowen gives a searing critique of what he calls the “blinkered and disjointed prewar planning for Iraq’s reconstruction” and the botched expansion of the program from a modest initiative to improve Iraqi services to a multibillion-dollar enterprise.

Mr. Bowen also swipes at the endless revisions and reversals of the program, which at various times gyrated from a focus on giant construction projects led by large Western contractors to modest community-based initiatives carried out by local Iraqis. While Mr. Bowen concedes that deteriorating security had a hand in spoiling the program’s hopes, he suggests, as he has in the past, that the program did not need much outside help to do itself in.

Despite years of studying the program, Mr. Bowen writes that he still has not found a good answer to the question of why the program was even pursued as soaring violence made it untenable. “Others will have to provide that answer,” Mr. Bowen writes.

“But beyond the security issue stands another compelling and unavoidable answer: the U.S. government was not adequately prepared to carry out the reconstruction mission it took on in mid-2003,” he concludes.

The history cites some projects as successes. The review praises community outreach efforts by the Agency for International Development, the Treasury Department’s plan to stabilize the Iraqi dinar after the invasion and a joint effort by the Departments of State and Defense to create local rebuilding teams.

But the portrait that emerges over all is one of a program’s officials operating by the seat of their pants in the middle of a critical enterprise abroad, where the reconstruction was supposed to convince the Iraqi citizenry of American good will and support the new democracy with lights that turned on and taps that flowed with clean water. Mostly, it is a portrait of a program that seemed to grow exponentially as even those involved from the inception of the effort watched in surprise.

Early Miscalculations
On the eve of the invasion, as it began to dawn on a few officials that the price for rebuilding Iraq would be vastly greater than they had been told, the degree of miscalculation was illustrated in an encounter between Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, and Jay Garner, a retired lieutenant general who had hastily been named the chief of what would be a short-lived civilian authority called the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.

“What do you think that’ll cost?” Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expansive plan.

“I think it’s going to cost billions of dollars,” Mr. Garner said.

“My friend,” Mr. Rumsfeld replied, “if you think we’re going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken.”

In a way he never anticipated, Mr. Rumsfeld turned out to be correct: before that year was out, the United States had appropriated more than $20 billion for the reconstruction, which would indeed involve projects across the entire country.

Mr. Rumsfeld declined to comment on the history, but a spokesman, Keith Urbahn, said that quotes attributed to Mr. Rumsfeld in the document “appear to be accurate.” Mr. Powell also declined to comment.

The secondary effects of the invasion and its aftermath were among the most important factors that radically changed the outlook. Tables in the history show that measures of things like the national production of electricity and oil, public access to potable water, mobile and landline telephone service and the presence of Iraqi security forces all plummeted by at least 70 percent, and in some cases all the way to zero, in the weeks after the invasion.

Subsequent tables in the history give a fast-forward view of what happened as the avalanche of money tumbled into Iraq over the next five years.

Dashed Expectations
By the time a sovereign Iraqi government took over from the Americans in June 2004, none of those services — with a single exception, mobile phones — had returned to prewar levels.

And by the time of the security improvements in 2007 and 2008, electricity output had, at best, a precarious 10 percent lead on its levels under Saddam Hussein; oil production was still below prewar levels; and access to potable water had increased by about 30 percent, although with Iraq’s ruined piping system it was unclear how much reached people’s homes uncontaminated.

Whether the rebuilding effort could have succeeded in a less violent setting will never be known. In April 2004, thousands of the Iraqi security forces that had been oversold by the Pentagon were overrun, abruptly mutinied or simply abandoned their posts as the insurgency broke out, sending Iraq down a violent path from which it has never completely recovered.

At the end of his narrative, Mr. Bowen chooses a line from “Great Expectations” by Dickens as the epitaph of the American-led attempt to rebuild Iraq: “We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us.”

Blackwater court battle looms

Taken from Al-Jazeere News Agency, 08 Dec 2008

Five security guards accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad are expected to hand themselves over to federal authorities in the United States.

Exact details of the charges against the employees of the Blackwater private security firm are expected to be made public on Monday after they have surrendered.

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However, it is known that the five military veterans were indicted for manslaughter offences in Washington DC on Thursday.

On Sunday they were given 24 hours to surrender themselves to the FBI.

The Associated Press news agency reported that the men would hand themselves over in the US state of Utah on Monday, possibly sparking a legal battle over where the trial should be heard.

Any dispute over where the trial should be held would delay proceedings and further frustrate the relatives of the Iraqis killed in Baghdad's al-Nisoor Square in September 2007.

'Fair judgment'

Mohammed Al-Kinani, whose son was killed in the shooting, said: "We hope to see a fair judgment that will impose the maxium penalty for them, not only the guards but the director who gave them the authority, weapons, vehicles and immunity."

But Dr Haythem Al-Rubaie, who lost his wife and son in the al-Nisoor Square shootings, said there was "no credibility" in the US judiciary.

"But let me be optimistic and I hope that the judge will be a fair one since there are many innocent people who were killed in the attack and there should be a fair judge who will not respond to pressures.

"We hope that his word is a fair word, the result will show us credibility," he said.

The five men's identities and the nature of the charges against them had been kept secret for more than a year, but were also released on Sunday.

They were named as Evan Liberty and Donald Ball, both 26-year-old former marines, Dustin Heard, a 27-year-old ex-marine, Nick Slatten, 25, an ex-army sergeant, and Paul Slough, a 29-year-old army veteran.

The men are all decorated war veterans who were contracted to protect US diplomats in Iraq.

A sixth guard, who has not been named, has reached a plea bargain deal with prosecutors to avoid a mandatory 30-year prison sentence.

'Unjustified deaths'

Blackwater said that the guards were returning fire after their convoy was shot at in Baghdad's al-Nisoor Square.

The head of Blackwater appeared before the US Congress shortly after the incident, saying that the men acted responsibly.

However, FBI investigators found in late 2007 that most of the 17 deaths had been unjustified.

Steven McCool, a lawyer for Ball, confirmed that his client would surrender in his home state of Utah.

"Donald Ball committed no crime,'' McCool said. "We are confident that any jury will see this for what it is: a politically motivated prosecution to appease the Iraqi government."

The incident created a furore about the perceived ability of private guards to act with impunity in Iraq.

An Iraqi government spokesman has said that they believed that the attack were tantamount to deliberate murder.

Ali Al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, told Al Jazeera that Baghdad would maintain the victims' right to a fair trial and would not accept anything less than "normal standards available in such cases".

The case has also been complicated because, at the time of the attack, private contractors like Blackwater operated without any clear legal oversight and it could be argued they did not have to answer either to Iraqi or US laws.

Under the deal Blackwater had with the US government, it was allowed to repair the vehicles involved in the attack before investigators saw them, taking away key forensic evidence.

UN accuses Israel of punishing aid workers

Taken from The Independent, UK, 1 December 2008
By Anne Penketh

The UN official responsible for the welfare of 4.6 million Palestinian refugees has accused Israel of extending its punishment of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip to include international humanitarian staff.

Karen AbuZayd, who is based in Gaza City, said that Israeli authorities have within the past month stopped UN staff based in Gaza from using the diplomatic pouch. They gave no reason for the move, which is a clear breach of international law.

“We can’t send the mail out or get any mail in. I don’t think they could give a reason because there is no way they could justify it,” said Mrs AbuZayd, an American who is commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA is the main provider of basic services – such as education and health – to registered Palestine refugees, including 1.1 million in Gaza.

Two weeks ago the Israelis issued for the first time a written list of goods that cannot be sent into Gaza for UN humanitarian needs, she said. The list, which has baffled UN officials, includes spices, kitchenware, glassware, yarn and paper.

“They are punishing the international community that’s inside,” said Mrs AbuZayd. “For our own office, we are having trouble in keeping it going, because we’re not allowed to bring in spare parts,” she added. UN cars are lying idle for lack of tyres and oil, office photocopiers cannot be mended and computers are not allowed into Gaza. “And we’re supposed to have privileges and immunities,” she added.

As the restrictions have been extended, the international press has been barred from entering Gaza for the past month, and is challenging the Israeli decision in the Supreme Court.

The UNRWA chief officer is to meet the new Israeli co-ordinator, General Amos Gilad, next week to discuss the latest developments. It will be their first meeting since his appointment in September. Until now, the United Nations has privately protested against the decisions but Mrs AbuZayd’s decision to speak out publicly about the crisis is a sign of the level of frustration within the UN.

The Israeli blockade has caused an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza since it was imposed after the election of Hamas in January 2006. But Israel has refused to ease the measures on the ground that Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets on Israel from the territory.

The spokesman for London’s Israeli embassy, Lior Ben-Dor, today said that the restrictions were due to safety concerns. “We can’t operate the checkpoints because we are not willing to risk the lives of Israelis,” he said.best wishes,

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If Israel left the occupied Palestine then there would not be any security issues to ponder about. Palestinians have been suffering for decades, generation after generation by the aggressive Israeli state (who pretends to be the aggrieved). On the same day this story was written, Israel blocked a Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Palestinians from docking in Gaza. The voyage of the Marwa, which carried food, blankets and powdered milk, was intended to challenge Israel's economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has tightened in recent weeks. But as the ship approached Gazan waters at dawn an Israeli naval ship ordered it to turn back.

Bush: My biggest regret is false intelligence on Iraq WMDs

Taken from Haaretz, Israel
By Reuters, 01/12/2008

U.S. President George W. Bush said the biggest regret of his presidency was flawed intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Bush told ABC "World News" in an interview scheduled to air on Monday that he was unprepared for war when he took office.

Bush leaves the White House on Jan. 20 with public approval ratings near record lows partly due to the unpopular Iraq war that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. More than 4,200 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.

"It was a tough call, particularly, since a lot of people were advising for me to get out of Iraq, or pull back in Iraq," he said.

There are 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 32,000 in Afghanistan.

In his final months at the White House, Bush said he was required to take bold action on the financial crisis to ward off another Great Depression.

He was asked whether it scared him that government actions to address the financial crisis amounted to about $9.5 trillion, equivalent to about half the U.S. economy.

"What scared me is not doing anything, which would have caused there to be a huge financial meltdown and the conceivable scenario that we'd have been in a depression greater than the Great Depression," Bush said.

He told ABC: "I will leave the presidency with my head held high."

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On the centenary, he will leave office o be known as one of the worst and most hated Presidents of the United States. This war monger has blood on his hands – people will be glad that he is going very soon.