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Headlines from Democracy Now

- UN Threatens to Pull Out of Afghanistan
- Supreme Court To Rule On Cheney Documents
- Sen. Thurmond Had Baby w/ Black Maid 80 Years Ago
- NYC Unions Blast Halliburton For Working In Iran
- Panel Urges Bush To Set Up Civil Liberties Board
- Comcast Hires Ex-Pentagon PR Head Victoria Clarke


UN Threatens to Pull Out of Afghanistan

The Observer of London is reporting that the United Nations is threatening to pull out of Afghanistan if the U.S. and foreign troops can not provide more security for aid workers. According to the Observer, 15 aid workers have now been killed in Afghanistan.

Baker Heads To France As Presidential Envoy

Presidential envoy James Baker is in Paris today to meet with president Jacques Chirac in an attempt to persuade France to forgive billions of dollars in debt to Iraq. Ahead of the meeting, France announced it would forgive about $3 billion in debt. The former Secretary of State will continue on his five-day trip with stops in Germany and Russia. This marks Baker's first official trip since he joined the Bush administration two weeks ago. Baker remains a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts, which is deeply involved in the fight for the oil and gas of the Caspian Sea. Among the clients of Baker Botts is the Saudi government in the suit filed by family members who lost relatives on 9/11. Baker is also a senior counselor to the powerful investment firm the Carlyle Group.

Supreme Court To Rule On Cheney Energy Task Force

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the Bush administration must publicly release the names of the members who comprised Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy policy task force. Cheney has refused to disclose what members of the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries helped to rewrite the nation’s energy policy. Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club have sued for the list of advisors.

Strom Thurmond Fathered Girl With Black Maid 80 Years Ago

The family of the late South Carolina Republican Senator Strom Thurmond acknowledged on Monday that Thurmond, who died in June at the age of 100, secretly had a child with his 16-year-old black maid almost 80 years ago. The family admitted this after a 78-year-old school teacher in Los Angeles came forward to say that Thurmond, who was a longtime supporter of segregation, was her father. The woman, Mae Washington Williams, said the Senator remained close to her and provided her financial support but they agreed to never disclose their relationship. The Rev. Jessie Jackson compared Thurmond to Thomas Jefferson who is said to have children with one of his slaves named Sally Hemings. Jackson said "By day they are bullies. By night they manipulate race to their advantage." During the 1950s Thurmond ran for president on a pro-segregationist ticket.

NYC Unions Blast Halliburton For Working In Iran

Halliburton is coming under criticism from the office of the New York City Comptroller for doing business in Iran. This according to a report in Crains New York. Acting on behalf of the Police and Fire Department pension funds, city comptroller William Thompson said Halliburton has reneged on an agreement to release a full report detailing the company’s oil-related businesses in Iran. Iran is on the State Department’s list of states that sponsor terrorism. Halliburton originally agreed to file the report after the pension fund threatened to pull its money out of Halliburton. The city made similar requests to General Electric and ConocoPhillips.

Pentagon Awards Halliburton $222 Million More In Iraq

In other Halliburton news, Reuters is reporting that the Pentagon allocated $222 million in new Iraq contracts last week to the company at the same time that a Pentagon audit had found Halliburton may have overbilled the U.S. government by $60 million. To date Halliburton has received $2.25 billion in no-bid contracts in Iraq.

Ex Inmate Tries to Go From Death Row to the State House

In Illinois former death row inmate Aaron Patterson has announced he is running for office in the Illinois State House. Patterson served 17 years on death row before being pardoned in January. He received over $160,000 settlement from the state for his faulty murder conviction.

Powell Has Surgery, Armitage Temporarily in Charge of State

On Monday Secretary of State Colin Powell had surgery for prostate cancer and is expected to be recovering for the next month during which time Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage will be in charge of the State Department.

Gov't Panel Urges Bush To Set Up Civil Liberties Board

A federal commission examining Washington’s so-called war on terror yesterday called on the Bush administration to form an independent board to ensure that new anti-terror efforts do not infringe on the civil liberties of Americas. Former Virginia governor and Republic Party chairman James Gilmore headed the commission. Gilmore said, "We are expressing concern and a simple warning that this must be constantly thought about. We should not fall into the pattern of suggesting that the freedoms of the American people should be traded off for their security."

Italian President Vetoes New Media Ownership Bill

Italy's president refuses to sign pro-Berlusconi media bill In Italy, the country’s president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi has vetoed a new media bill that would have further consolidated the nation’s media into the hands of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister and main media mogul. While the bill goes back to Parliament for further debate, Berlusconi will be forced to sell off one of his three free network channels.

Comcast Hires Ex-Pentagon PR Specialist Victoria Clarke

Cable giant Comcast has hired former Pentagon public relations specialist Victoria Clarke to be a top lobbyist in Washington. Since leaving the Pentagon after the invasion, Clarke has also worked as an on-air analyst for CNN. According to the Washington Post, Clarke’s new job at Comcast will allow her to keep working for CNN and what the paper described as volunteering for the Pentagon.

Sen. Breaux (D-LA) to Resign in 2004

Democratic Senator John Breaux of Louisiana has announced he will not seek re-election next year becoming the fifth Southern Democrat Senator who will be retiring next year.

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Who Will Judge Saddam? Former British MP Tony Benn Discusses the Prosecution of Iraq's Former Leader

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British Intelligence Leaker Facing Prison Time For Exposing U.S.-UN Surveillance Scandal

Former British intelligence employee Katharine Gun is facing up to two years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act when she disclosed a top-secret NSA memo in March outlining a U.S. surveillance operation directed at UN Security Council members ahead of the vote on Iraq.

In the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, the British newspaper The Observer exposed a highly secret and aggressive surveillance operation directed at United Nations Security Council members by the U.S. ahead of the vote on Iraq.

The Observer obtained a top-secret NSA memorandum that outlined a surveillance operation involves intercepting home and office telephone calls and emails of UN delegates focusing “the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises."

The target of the surveillance were the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations, including Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan, who could swing a Security Council vote on Iraq.

In a story that has received almost no media coverage in the U.S., the former British intelligence employee who leaked the memo, Katharine Gun, is now facing up to two years in prison for violating the Official Secrets Act.

We speak with Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy about the case of Katharine Gun. His article “For Telling the Truth” published in the Baltimore Sun is one of the few U.S. accounts of the story.

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Former Jordanian Ambassador Discusses Saddam's Capture, WMDs and the U.S. Occupation of Iraq

We go to Amman to speak with former Jordanian Ambassador to the United Nations Hassan Abunimah. He recently returned from Cairo, Egypt where he met with Arab officials from across the Middle East.

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Wesley Clark Testifies Against Milosevic in War Crimes Trial That Could Serve As Model For Saddam’s Prosecution

Democratic presidential candidate and former NATO commander Wesley Clark testified in the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Clark said authorities should consider a similar court to prosecute former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. We go to The Hague to speak with Serbian columnist Ljiljana Smajlovic.

Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark ended his first day of testimony in the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic yesterday. Clarke is the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and the man who led the 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

Milosevic is officially charged with genocide and crimes against humanity in a number of indictments spanning from the wars in Croatia and Bosnia to the fighting in Kosovo. He is a candidate for the Socialist Party in Serbia's parliamentary elections on 28 December.

In an unprecedented agreement between the court and the United States, Washington will be allowed to review Clark's testimony before it is made public. The U.S. will have two days to apply for parts of the testimony to be removed from the public record if it considers them harmful to US national interests. An edited recording is due to be made public on Friday.

Clark said before testifying that he expected to give information on more than 100 hours of meetings over four years with Milosevic during the 1990s.

Speaking outside the court afterwards, Clark told reporters that authorities should consider a similar court to prosecute former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein: "It's the rule of law, it's closure. It's a very important precedent for what may be happening later with another dictator from another part of the world,"

Regarding an eventual punishment for Hussein, Clark later told an audience in a speech: "I don't believe that any form of punishment should be off the table . . . including the death penalty."

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Musharraf Escapes Assassination Attempt

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escaped an assassination attempt Sunday. He was returning home near the capital Islamabad when a bomb went off seconds after his convoy drove over a bridge. No one was hurt in the blast. President Musharraf said he was certain he was the target. No group has said they carried out the attack and a high-level investigation has been launched. It is the second serious attempt on the Pakistani president's life since he ordered a crackdown on Islamic militants nearly two years ago.

Bush Signs Syria Sanctions Bill

President Bush signed a bill late Friday approving economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria over its alleged terrorist links and purported efforts to obtain nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

The Syria Accountability Act was passed in October by large majorities in both chambers of Congress and calls for the administration to choose sanctions from a list of six proposed penalties, including flight restrictions on Syrian planes and the limitation of diplomatic contact between the two countries. The bill gives Bush the option of waiving penalties.

It also calls for Syria and Lebanon to “enter into serious unconditional bilateral negotiations” with Israel in order to secure “a full and permanent peace.” A Syrian minister told Al-Arabiya TV channel the law was passed because Damascus opposed Israeli occupation of Arab land and supported the Palestinian Intifada.

Bush on Halliburton: “We Expect That Money Be Repaid"

President Bush attempted to calm a political firestorm Friday over reports that a Halliburton subsidiary overcharged the U.S. government by 61 million dollars for fuel deliveries to Iraq. Bush told reporters the Pentagon was investigating the overcharge and that "If there's an overcharge, like we think there is, we expect that money be repaid."

Hours earlier, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld downplayed the allegations saying, "there was no overpayment to any company." Rumsfeld said it may simply be a disagreement between Halliburton and the Defense Department -- or between Halliburtion and the subsidiary, over what should be charged.

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Iraqi Americans Rejoice Capture of Hussein But Speak Out Against Occupation

U.S. forces say they have captured the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein after members of his extended family tipped off interrogators as to his whereabouts.

Hussein was found hiding in a tomb-like snakehole near a rural farmhouse near Tikrit. He was alone. He looked disheveled. He had grown a long gray beard. He had with $750,000 in cash and at least two AK-47s but U.S. forces say he did not put up a fight.

Hussein was captured at about 8:30 Saturday night Iraq time. But news didn’t break in the United States until Sunday morning. The head of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, Paul Bremer, held an early morning press conference. His first words were “Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him. The tyrant is a prisoner.”

Soon, pictures of the captured Saddam Hussein appeared around the world. A video released by the Pentagon showed an American medical officer checking Saddam’s head for lice and giving him a brief medical exam. The Pentagon later released a photo of Hussein after his beard was shaven off leaving just his trademark moustache.

Time Magazine reports that Saddam agreed to talk to U.S. interrogators.

When officials asked Saddam if Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He replied “No, of course not. The U.S. dreamed them up itself to have a reason to go to war with us.”

Hussein was also brought to meet with several members of the Iraqi Governing Council, including Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress. The council members questioned him about his past war crimes. They said he remained defiant.

Council member Adel Abdul Mahdi said “When we asked him about the mass graves, he said the people in them were Iranian agents and thieves.”

Chalabi said Hussein “would not apologize to the Iraqi people. He did not deny any of the crimes he was confronted with having done. He tried to justify them.”

During a four-minute address to the nation Bush vowed that Saddam Hussein “will face the justice he denied to millions.”

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Robert Fisk Reports From Near Tikrit After Visiting the Hole Where Hussein Was Found

In his latest article, London Independent’s chief Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk writes:

"So they got Saddam at last. Unkempt, his tired eyes betraying defeat; even the $750,000 in cash found in his hole in the ground demeaned him.

“Saddam in chains; maybe not literally, but he looked in that extraordinary videotape yesterday like a prisoner of ancient Rome, the barbarian at last cornered, the hand caressing the scraggy beard. All those ghosts - of gassed Iranians and Kurds, of Shias gunned into the mass graves of Karbala, of the prisoners dying under excruciating torture in the villas of Saddam's secret police - must surely have witnessed something of this. "Ladies and gentlemen - we got him," crowed Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq. "This is a great day in Iraq's history. For decades, hundreds of thousands of you suffered at the hands of this cruel man. For decades, this cruel man divided you against each other. For decades, he threatened to attack your neighbours. These days are gone for ever ... the tyrant is a prisoner," he said.

“Tony Blair said: "Saddam has gone from power, he won't be coming back. That the Iraqi people now know, and it is they who will decide his fate." It took just 600 American soldiers to capture the man who was for 12 years one of the West's best friends in the Middle East and for 12 more years the West's greatest enemy in the Middle East. In a miserable 8ft hole in the mud of a Tigris farm near the village of Ad-Dawr, the president of the Iraqi Arab Republic, leader of the Arab Socialist Baath party, ex-guerrilla fighter, invader of two nations, friend of Jacques Chirac and a man once courted by President Ronald Reagan, was found hiding, almost certainly betrayed by his own comrades and now destined - if the Americans mean what they say - to a trial for war crimes on a Nuremberg scale.”

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Dilip Hiro Predicts Resistance Against U.S. Occupation Will Now Increase

The capture of Saddam comes nearly 20 years to the date after now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met for the first time with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

Rumsfeld traveled to Iraq as Ronald Reagan's special presidential envoy. The date was December 20, 1983.

The impact of Saddam’s capture of the resistance movement in Iraq remains to be seen.

At a noon-time address to the nation, President Bush admitted “The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq.”

On the website Counterpunch, British journalist Patrick Cockburn recounts what the Foreign Minister of the interim Iraqi government recently told him. "Saddam is very isolated. That is the only way he can avoid being captured. He is not able to organize the resistance. He dare not communicate with other people because he is frightened they will betray him."

Toby Dodge, an analyst at The International Institute for Strategic Studies at Warwick University, estimates there are between 15 and 30 resistance groups in Iraq that have no direct contact with Saddam Hussein.

On Sunday morning – 12 hours after Hussein was captured – a car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi police station in the town of Khaldiya. At least 17 people died. 33 more were wounded. Today eight Iraqi policemen were killed in an attack north of Baghdad.

On the campaign front, Senator Joseph Lieberman used the capture to go after the Democratic frontrunner, Howard Dean. Lieberman said on Meet the Press “If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would be in power today, not in prison.”

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Should the Former Iraqi Dictator Be Tried Before An Iraqi or an International Court?

The New York Times is reporting that U.S. and Iraqi officials want Hussein to be tried before a new Iraqi tribunal that was formed last week to try crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Unlike most international tribunes, the Iraqi model allows for the judges to hand down a death sentence.
The Times reports the Bush administration does not want any direct United Nations roles in the trial process.

One Iraqi Governing Council member said Hussein could be tried "in the next few weeks.”

But several human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, warned against rushing ahead with an Iraqi tribunal and called for an international trial.

The government of Iran today called for Hussein to be tried in an international court for crimes committed during the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1980 to 1988. An estimated 300,000 Iranians died during the war.

The head of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth said “Iraq has no experience with trials lasting more than a few days. International expertise in prosecuting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity case must be utilized to ensure a fair and effective trial.”

Former British Labor Minister Tony Benn predicted that the U.S. would attempt to tightly control any judicial proceeding in order to prevent Saddam from discussing his close ties to Washington.

Benn told Reuters "Saddam might call on Donald Rumsfeld and say I met him in 1983 and he sold me chemical weapons to use against the Kurds.” Benn continued “of course the Americans don't want that. I think they may be very embarrassed."

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We are the ones who "got him," but lets not forget that we are also the ones who helped make him

The people in past and present U.S. administrations who were responsible for aiding and abetting Saddam Hussein's reign of terror over the Iraqi people need to also be brought to justice.

Congress allows U.S. corporations to war profiteer in Iraq

Congress strips profiteering penalties from $87.5 billion Iraqi occupation bill

Mother of U.S. soldier says "Bush Killed My Son"

Mother of US soldier: “Bush killed my son”

Guerilla war Spreading outside Sunni Triangle in Iraq

Despite Bush administration claims that things are improving in Iraq; the reality proves otherwise.

Guerrilla war in Iraq spreading

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Headlines from Democracy Now:

Free Speech Radio News Headlines by Randi Zimmerman
Hirosima Survivors Petition Smithsonian

Today the Japan Confederation of A and H Bomb Sufferers Organization handed in petitions to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum over a new display they say covers the real consequences of the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima. Keiko Ogura is the Director of Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace. She was eight years old and living in Hiroshima when Enola Gay dropped the bomb.
The director of the air and space museum has refused to meet with the group. The U.S. government just approved funding for the next generation nuclear weapons.

KBR Overcharges US Taxpayer in Iraq

A Pentagon audit finds the Halliburton subsidiary working for the U.S. military in Iraq is over-billing taxpayers for their work. From KPFT in Houston, Renee Feltz reports.

CA Strike Over Licenses

Latinos and Latinas in California are being urged to strike, boycott shops, and keep their children out of school today protesting a repeal of the short-lived law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Kellia Ramares has more.

Bio-tracking at the Border

A top U.S. official confirms that the government is working on developing a new technology that will keep track of foreign nationals while in the United States. Shannon Young reports from Miami Beach.

Protests in Haiti

Today the United States embassy in Haiti’s capital was reportedly closed a portion of the day until officials there could confirm calm in the city. Police fired tear gas and warning shots yesterday out side the Presidential Palace in Port au Prince at thousands of students calling for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step down.

Other Haitian nationals charge the protestors are funded by the U.S. government and represent the elite class who protest Aristides’ more populist policies. President Aristide has formally condemned the violence on both sides.

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Military Contracts to Universities?

Human Rights Watch said today that scores of Iraqi civilians were killed or injured needlessly, because Britain failed in its duty as an occupying power in its use of cluster bombs and by not securing Iraqi munitions dumps. This as the Bush administration has delayed the bidding process for the 18.6 billion dollars in reconstruction money for Iraq. It is unclear however, whether the delay is due to the international outrage that only corporations from countries that supported the invasion were eligible for primary
contracts. Yet even with the US there is outrage over the contracts, with residents of New Mexico wondering why the University of New Mexico, a self-described research university, is receiving money from military contracts. KUNM's Leslie Clark reports.

Peace Accords Update

A week after his meeting with the authors of the Geneva accord, US Secretary of State Colin Powell met yesterday with Palestinian intellectual Sarri Nusseibah, the co-author of the popular Campaign for Peace and Democracy, a peace petition that calls for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders and asks the Palestinians to give up the refugees right to return. Yesterday also marked the 55th anniversary of the passing of UN resolution 194 which affirmed the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes inside Israel. Mohammed Ghalayini has more from Gaza.

Peace at Last in South Asia?

It appears that grand overtures towards peace are being made in South Asia as this week the Pakistani Prime Minister assured Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee of a grand welcome when he lands in Islamabad on January 4 to attend a meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The friendly overtures between the nation’s leaders has also trickled down to the business elite, according to a Pakistani media report, entrepreneurs are buying land around an entry point between India and Pakistan which is expected to become part of a trading zone. This is seen as a clear sign that the normalization process between the two traditional enemies is leading towards durable peace in the region. Masror Hussain reports from Islamabad.

World Bank Development Lottery in DC

Hundreds of people from 27 countries arrived last week at World Bank headquarters, located in Washington, DC, to compete for funding of their development projects at the World Bank's Development Marketplace. Only 47 projects were picked to share more than 6 million dollars in grant money. EllieWalton reports from Washington DC.

Mumia on Nathanial Jones

22 years ago this week Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested for the fatal shooting of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Mumia remains on death row in Pennsylvania despite the fact that another man, Arnold Beverly, has confessed to the killing of officer Faulkner and has passed two lie detector tests regarding his testimony. The courts refuse to hear his testimony and will not arrest him. This weekend there will be mobilizations around the country calling for justice for Mumia Abu Jamal, and from his death row cell, Mumia calls for justice for Nathanial Jones who was beaten to death by police in Cincinnati.

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Headlines from Democracy Now:

- Bush: "International Law? I Better Call My Lawyer"
- Many Civilian Deaths In Iraq Were Preventable
- Iraq Suicide Bomber Infiltrates U.S. Base, Kills 1
- U.S. Predicts More Assassinations In Iraq
- Iraqis Oust Appointed Governor, Demand Election
- El Baradei to Israel: Give Up Nuclear Weapons

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Halliburton and Private Military Contractors Strike it Rich in Iraq

A Pentagon investigation has found evidence that a subsidiary of Halliburton Company overcharged the U.S. government by as much as 61 million dollars for gasoline delivered to Iraq. Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root, delivers fuel to Iraq under huge no-bid reconstruction contracts that have a potential value of $15.6 billion. Separately, Pentagon officials said they rejected a proposal submitted by KBR for cafeteria services that was inflated by 67 million dollars.

The allegations of overcharging are not the first against the company, which has billed the Army for questionable expenses in the past. Halliburton did not appear to have profited from the overcharging, but had instead paid a subcontractor too much for the gasoline in the first place. The company denied overcharging and called the inquiry a "routine audit."

Halliburton's former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney. He still receives about $150,000 in annual deferred payments from the company.

Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who has been a leading Congressional critic of the contract, said, "Halliburton has been gouging taxpayers and the White House has been letting them get away with it."

Separately, the weekly newsletter Inside the Pentagon is reporting that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfwoitz has placed highly restrictive rules on a newly formed inspector general's office at the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. The office was created to watch out for all manner of waste, fraud, abuse and price gouging by the CPA.

The Halliburton audit came as President Bush worked to justify his decision to bar non-coalition countries from competing for primary reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

Bush said, "It's very simple. Our people risk their lives. Coalition, friendly coalition folks risk their lives, and, therefore, the contracting is going to reflect that." The president added that he might issue exemptions for those countries that write off Iraq's debt.

When told Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's said that "international law must apply here," Bush responded, "International law? I better call my lawyer. I don't know what you're talking about, about international law."

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Kucinich & Braun Blast ABC For Reducing Campaign Coverage

ABC News announced it will stop having producers travel full time with the presidential campaigns of Carol Moseley Braun, Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton a day after ABC News’ Ted Koppel hosted the democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire.

The network says it's a routine coverage decision, but the move has angered Braun and Kucinich -- particularly after the Ohio congressman had a testy exchange with Koppel during Tuesday's debate. Kucinich criticized Koppel for beginning with a question about Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean. Later, he was angered when Koppel asked whether he, Braun or Sharpton are "in this as sort of a vanity candidacy."

We speak with Kucinich and Moseley-Braun and we hear from ABC News.

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Headlines from Democracy Now:

- Supreme Court Upholds Campaign Finance Law
- CIA Plans to Train Iraqi Intelligence Unit
- 10,000 Private Military Contractors Now In Iraq
- Report: U.S. Dropped 11,000 Cluster Bombs on Iraq
- Nobel Peace Prize Winner Condemns War on Terror
- ABC Drops Coverage of Kucinch, Sharpton, Braun

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"My Son Stepped on an American Cluster Bomb" – Father of U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq Speaks Out

A USA Today study has found that the U.S. dropped or fired nearly 11,000 cluster bombs or cluster weapons on Iraq during the invasion and Britain dropped 2,000 more. It is unknown how many Iraqis died from cluster bombs. One estimate puts the total at 370. And the attacks left behind thousands of unexploded bomblets. At least eight U.S. soldiers and an unknown number of Iraqis have been killed by unexploded bomblets.

USA Today reports that one of the soldiers killed may have been Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez del Solar. He died March 27 after stepping on some type of unexploded ordnance while on reconnaissance patrol outside Baghdad. He was 20 years old. A Marine investigation concluded that the "origin of the ordnance is unknown and really impossible to determine."

But the dead Marine's father, Fernando Suarez del Solar has a different account. He says he was contacted by one of his son's friends, who said the Army dropped cluster weapons on March 26 and not all of the submunitions exploded. He is now seeking an official explanation for his son's death.

Fernando Suarez del Solar joins in the studio today. He recently returned from Iraq where he joined eight other Americans, including veterans, activists and other parents of servicemen on a trip organized by Global Exchange and the International Occupation Watch Center. They spent a week traveling in Baghdad, Fallujah and Tikrit and talking with Iraqi civilians and American soldiers on patrol. They met with the U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and with military officials.

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Success Without Victory: Lost Legal Battles and The Long Road to Justice in America

Jules Lobel of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of the new book Success Without Victory joins us in our studio to discuss prominent cases in American legal history - from Susan B. Anthony’s trial for voting illegally to his own challenges to U.S. foreign policy during the 1980s and 1990s.

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Will He Run? Ralph Nader Discusses His Plans for 2004

The New York Times is reporting today that President Bush's political advisers are now all but certain that Howard Dean will be the Democratic presidential nominee and are planning a campaign that takes account of what they see as Dean's strengths and weaknesses.

This comes a day after the nine democratic presidential candidates debated each other in New Hampshire where the first primary takes place on Jan. 27. Also yesterday, Democrat Gavin Newsom narrowly beat Green Party candidate Matt Gonzalez in San Francisco’s mayoral race. If Gonzalez had won he would have become the nation's highest-ranking Green Party member.

Today we are joined on the phone by 2000 Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Last week he authorized the formation of a new presidential exploratory committee which could mark his first step in another bid for the presidency. Debate has already begun among Greens and Democrats over what role - if any - Nader should take in 2004.

Before we speak with him we turn to Ralph Nader speaking at the National Conference on Media Reform in Madison, Wisconsinn this past November. After Nader gave a major address on media issues, a member of the audience stood up and asked Nader not to run for president again. We hear Nader’s response.

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Headlines from Democracy Now:

- U.S. Bars Opponents of War From Iraq Contracts
- Six More Afghan Children Die In U.S. Raid
- Green Narrowly Loses SF Mayor Race
- Bush Strongly Warns Taiwan Over Referendum
- Iraqi Council Oks War Crimes Tribunal
- Bush Reduces AIDS Request By $2.5 Billion

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Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate in New Hampshire on Iraq, Domestic Policy Issues and Gore's Endorsement of Dean

The final democratic presidential debate of the year drew all nine candidates in New Hampshire last night where the first primary takes place on Jan. 27, 2004.

The debate got underway just hours after former vice president Al Gore announced his endorsement of former Vermont governor Howard Dean for president in a move that surprised many campaign observers. Gore, who ran for president in 2000 and won the popular vote, made his announcement in Harlem alongside Dean who is already seen as the frontrunner in the campaign. For Dean, the endorsement gives him the backing of one of the best-known establishment Democrats.

The debate, broadcast live on C-SPAN, turned immediately to Gore's move. Noting that Dean had had an "extraordinary day," moderator Ted Koppel of ABC News asked the nine candidates to raise a hand if they thought Dean could beat President Bush.

Dean was the only one to raise his hand.

Koppel began the debate by asking the other eight candidates why they did not raise their hands and went on to discuss U.S. policy in Iraq as well as domestic policy issues. We hear extended excerpts of the debate and speak with former Green Party California gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo and journalist John Nichols of The Nation. Read transcript of the debate.

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Headlines from Democracy Now:

- U.S. Launches Major Offensive In Afghanistan
- House OKs Overtime Cuts & Media Reg Laws
- Report: Wolfowitz May Soon Step Down
- 41 U.S. Troops Injured Iraq Car Bomb Blast
- UN Votes For Int'l Court Ruling On Israeli Wall
- NRA Seeks to Start "News" Outlet

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Manhunt in Iraq: Israel Trains U.S. Assassination Squads

In his latest article in the New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh writes:
“The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. In interviews over the past month, American officials and former officials said that the main target was a hard-core group of Baathists who are believed to be behind much of the underground insurgency against the soldiers of the United States and its allies. A new Special Forces group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled from Army Delta Force members, Navy seals, and C.I.A. paramilitary operatives, with many additional personnel ordered to report by January. Its highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.

“The revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has struggled for two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy of what he calls ‘Manhunts’ — a phrase that he has used both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications. Rumsfeld has had to change much of the Pentagon’s leadership to get his way. “Knocking off two regimes allows us to do extraordinary things,” a Pentagon adviser told me, referring to Afghanistan and Iraq.

“One step the Pentagon took was to seek active and secret help in the war against the Iraqi insurgency from Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East. According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq.”

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A Look At Wesley Clark and the Media's "Shameful" Coverage of Bush's Trip to Iraq

Former Vice President Al Gore is announcing today he is endorsing Howard Dean for president in a move that surprised many campaign observers. The Washington Post says that Gore's move gives "the insurgent candidate the establishment backing his campaign has been lacking."

Gore's decision is being viewed as a major blow to Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who ran as Gore's running mate in 2000. Earlier, Lieberman appearing on the Today show said of Gore's announcement, "I was caught completely off guard."

Lieberman went on to say, "What really bothers me is that Al is supporting a candidate who is so fundamentally opposed to the basic transform that Bill Clinton brought to the party in 1992."

Tonight, Dean will join most of the democratic candidates for a debate in New Hampshire where the first primary takes place January 27.

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Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs Accused of Using Honduras Sweatshops for Sean John Line

Workers rights activists have accused hip-hop mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs (formerly known as Puff Daddy) of using sweatshops in Honduras to produce his clothing line, which sells under the name Sean Jean.

In a press conference held in October, Lydda Elie Gonzalez, a former employee, said workers have to get passes before they could go to the toilet, are subjected to daily body searches and were forced to work overtime without pay: "We are totally slaves. We live inhumane lives."

Activists say Honduran workers receive 15 cents for the production of each Sean John long-sleeve shirt, which retails for about $40.

Gonzalez was brought to the U.S. last month by the National Labor Committee, a US labor rights group, to highlight what its director Charles Kernaghan calls the shocking conditions in the five central American countries now negotiating a free-trade agreement with the U.S.

The regional deal will be the first since the still-controversial North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico to open the US market fully to goods from much poorer countries.

Negotiators from the US and the five central American countries will meet in Washington next week to finalize details of the free-trade pact, known as CAFTA.

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22nd Anniversary of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Arrest for Fatal Shooting of Officer Danny Faulkner

22 years ago today Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested for the fatal shooting of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal was also gravely wounded. We speak with activist Pam Africa about Pennsylvania's most famous death row inmate.

Click here to watch, listen or read.

On DemocracyNow.org today

Headlines from Democracy Now:

- Copying Israeli Tactics, U.S. Tightens Grip in Iraq
- Citing Safety 60 S. Korean Engineers Leave Iraq
- Memo Reveals INC Fed Cheney Iraq Intel
- Congress Prepares to Give Iranian Dissidents $1.5M
- GOP Bribes Congressman Over Medicare Vote
- Queen Visits Mock Nigerian Village

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In depth reporting from Democracy Now:


Saving President Bush: Send in James Baker

Last week, President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James Baker as his envoy for restructuring Iraq’s more than $120 billion in foreign debt. Baker will be dispatched in his own U.S. government plane as a special presidential envoy to deal with heads of state in Asia, Europe and the Persian Gulf. He will report directly to President Bush.

Baker is a lawyer-politician who is a former White House Chief of Staff, Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State and various other things. He is a trusted friend of the Bush family and has been called up before in times of political need. He ran Bush Senior’s presidential campaigns and was President George W Bush’s man in Florida during the recount in 2000.

Baker is now a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts, which is deeply involved in the fight for the oil and gas of the Caspian Sea and is senior counselor to the powerful investment firm the Carlyle Group. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Baker was reportedly at a Carlyle investor conference with members of the bin Laden family in the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C. And his law firm Baker Botts is defending the Saudi government in a lawsuit filed by the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

This past July, Baker was sent out to Georgia to lecture its President, Eduard Shevardnadze, about the need to ensure that the upcoming parliamentary elections were "free and fair." Fast forward four months and Shevardnadze has been overthrown in a so-called “Velvet Revolution.”

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U.S. Air Strike Kills 9 Children in Afghanistan

Nine children were killed in southern Afghanistan when two U.S. warplanes fired rockets and bullets into a group of villagers sitting under a tree. The military claimed they were trying to assassinate a member of the Taliban. Local residents told the BBC, the man [Mullar Wazir] had left the area 10 days before. The UN said the incident was "profoundly distressing" and announced plans for an investigation. The BBC described their target as a low-ranking member of the Taliban who was suspected of overseeing the murders of two foreign contractors.

Last week Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Afghanistan where he met with rival warlords, Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Mohammed, and later held talks with President Hamid Karzai at his presidential palace.

Rumsfeld said the warlords whose forces collaborated with American ground troops to help topple the Taliban regime two years ago, are making progress toward disarmament.

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"It Really Is Unclear Where The Air Force Begins And Boeing Ends"

The Financial Times is reporting today that defense contractor Boeing had developed ties with at least six members of an influential civilian Pentagon advisory board as it attempted to win support for an $18 billion contact with the Air Force. Boeing gave millions to separate investment funds run by former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle and former CIA head James Woolsey. Perle is also coming under criticism for writing an editorial in the Wall Street Journal in support of the Boeing deal without disclosing his ties to the project.

The ties between Boeing and the Defense Policy Board mark the latest in an ongoing series of potential conflicts of interest that have emerged between Capitol Hill and the arms manufacturer.

In late November Boeing fired Darleen Druyun. She was allegedly recruited by Boeing while working for the Air Force as one of the chief architects of the Boeing contract. Along with Druyan, Boeing has fired its chief financial officer Mike Sears.

Boeing CEO’s Phil Condit resigned last week.

On Saturday, The New York Times revealed that Marvin Sambur, an Air Force acquisitions officer, shared inside Pentagon information with Boeing during negotiations. He also continued to urge the Pentagon to sign the Boeing deal even after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had expressed concern over the project.

And U.S. News and World Report is reporting today that the Sen. John McCain plans to call for a congressional investigation to examine the large number of governmental officials who have left Washington to work for Boeing.

Click here to watch, read or listen.

On DemocracyNow.org today

Headlines from Democracy Now:

- Transcript: Kissinger OK'd Argentina Dirty War
- Israel "Full Partner" with U.S. & UK Over Iraq Intel
- Richard Perle's Ties To Boeing Revealed
- Bush Critic Max Cleland To Leave 9/11 Panel
- Private Contractors Unveil New Ammunition in Iraq
- Paper: 1,700 U.S. Soldiers Have Deserted in Iraq

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In depth reporting from Democracy Now:


The Geneva Peace Accords: A Debate Between Rabbi Michael Lerner, AIPAC and Palestinian professor Naseer Aruri

The United Nations and the European Union endorse it. Some Israelis and Palestinians oppose it. And U.S. officials say they are still considering it.

The prototype peace plan known as the Geneva accord is creating a stir in the Middle East.

The peace plan was agreed to by unofficial Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in Geneva Monday. The main points of the accord include a division of Jerusalem along religious and cultural lines, a mutual recognition of statehood and for Israel to dismantle a majority of the settlements and return to its 1967 borders. Palestinians are to renounce their right to return to properties left in 1948.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfwitz have announced they will meet the architects of the accord - former justice minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. The decision was met with a quick rebuke from Israel who strongly opposes the plan.

Prime minister Ariel Sharon’s spokesman Raanan Gissin called the accord a “Swiss golden calf," and an assembly of rabbis said the authors should be "cast out from human society and brought to trial."

Meanwhile, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades denounced the Palestinian authors as collaborators and someone opened fire on Palestinian negotiator Abed Rabbo's home.

Separately in Cairo, Hamas representatives attending a summit meeting of Palestinian factions are resisting a comprehensive truce with Israel and are agreeing only to halt attacks only inside pre-1967 Israeli borders.

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Despite Increased Post-9/11 Need, Military Fires 37 Arabic Translators For Being Gay

A recent post in the Washington Post began:

Kathleen Glover was cleaning the pool at the Sri Lankan ambassador's residence recently when she heard the sound of Arabic drifting through the trees. Glover earned $11 an hour working for a pool-maintenance company, skimming leaves and testing chlorine levels in the backyards of Washington. No one knew about her past. But sometimes the past found her.
Glover recognized the sound instantly. It was the afternoon call to prayer coming from a mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. She held still, picking out familiar words and translating them in her head.

She learned Arabic at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), the military's premier language school, in Monterey, Calif. Her timing as a soldier was fortuitous: Around her graduation last year, a Government Accounting Office study reported that the Army faced a critical shortage of linguists needed to translate intercepts and interrogate suspects in the war on terrorism.

"I was what the country needed," Glover said.

She was, and she wasn't. Glover is gay. She mastered Arabic but couldn't handle living a double life under the military policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." After two years in the Army, Glover, 26, voluntarily wrote a statement acknowledging her homosexuality.

Confronted with a shortage of Arabic interpreters and its policy banning openly gay service members, the Pentagon had a choice to make.

Which is how former Spec. Glover came to be cleaning pools instead of sitting in the desert, translating Arabic for the U.S. government.

In the past two years, the Department of Defense has discharged 37 linguists from the Defense Language Institute for being gay. Like Glover, many studied Arabic. At a time of heightened need for intelligence specialists, 37 linguists were rendered useless because of their homosexuality.

To discuss this, we are joined by Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Click here to watch, listen or read.


New Study Faults Electronic Voting Machines in Ohio

A new report from the state of Ohio has found that electronic voting machines from the four biggest companies in the field have serious security flaws. The companies say the problems can be addressed but experts have raised questions if that is true.

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U.S. Uncovers Weapons of Mass Destruction... In Texas

This is a story of weapons of mass destruction. Chemical weapons. Domestic Terrorism. Forged Identifications. And media double standards.

In the Texan town of Tyler law enforcement officials found what hundreds of investigators in Iraq have been looking for months.

A Tyler man named William Krar with ties to white supramacists had built a sodium cynanide bomb. In the words of the Justice Department, the man had developed his own chemical weapons. In addition he had a well-stocked arsenal reportedly with 500,000 rounds of ammunition. He and his wife plead guilty two weeks ago to a series of weapons charges.

According to the Texas TV station CBS 11, this case lead federal officials to launch one of its most extensive investigations of domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City bombing. Hundreds of subpoenas have been reportedly sent out. Documents seized indicated there may be other co-conspirators across the country. And the threat was deemed great enough to appear in the President’s daily briefing.

But strangely the story is mostly unknown to almost anyone outside of Texas because the national media has all but ignored the story.

Click here to watch, listen or read.

On DemocracyNow.org today

Headlines from Democracy Now:

- Rwandan Journalists Sentenced For Role in Genocide
- U.S. Rejects Iraqi Plan to Conduct Census
- U.S. To Create Iraqi Paramilitary Force
- 70% of U.S. Says Iraq War Didn't Reduce Threat
- Coroner: Cincinnati Man’s Death Caused by Police
- GOP Congressman Sued For Anti-Islam Remarks

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In depth reporting from Democracy Now:


As Sentencing in the Lackawanna 6 Case Begins, A U.S. Court Rejects Law That Criminalizes Unknowingly Supporting a Terrorist Organization

A federal judge yesterday sentenced a Yemeni American to 10 years in prison for supporting a terrorist organization. Mukhtar al-Bakri is the first of the so-called "Lackawanna Six" members to be sentenced after pleading guilty earlier this year to providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization – a charge carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine.

All six have admitted to the FBI and intelligence officials that in 2001 they traveled to Afghanistan, received training at a camp run by the Al Qaeda terrorist network and heard speeches by Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden.

A lawyer for one of the men said they pleaded guilty only after prosecutors had dropped heavy hints that they would be declared 'enemy combatants' if they didn't. “It was a factor my client took into account. He was worried about it,” he said. Enemy combatant status places a detainee outside of the civilian justice system where access to legal counsel can be waived.

The other five defendants in the case are scheduled to be sentenced this month.

The prosecution has been hailed as a triumph for law enforcement by President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, but critics call it an example of America putting people in jail for "thought crimes" and "guilt by association." None of the six have been accused of planning or engaging in any act of terrorism.

This comes as the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rules part of the law the men are being charged under unconstitutional.

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Tariq Ali vs. Christopher Hitchens on the Occupation of Iraq: Postponed Liberation or Recolonisation?

It has been 8 months since the U.S. began its invasion of Iraq. In this time, U.S. forces have failed to produce any weapons of mass destruction in the country˜the stated reason for going to war against Baghdad.

According to the Pentagon's own figures, some 440 U.S. troops have died in Iraq. Thousands have been wounded. There are no solid estimates of the number of Iraqis who have been killed since the start of the invasion. November was the bloodiest month for U.S. forces in Iraq 79 soldiers died, 39 of them were killed in the downing of 4 military helicopters. Saddam Hussein remains at-large and the occupation forces face regular attacks throughout the country.

Today, we take a look at the U.S. occupation of Iraq with two renowned authors: Tariq Ali, author of Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq and Christopher Hitchens, jounalist and author of A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq.

Click here to watch, read or listen.

On DemocracyNow.org today

Headlines from Democracy Now:

- Pentagon To Start Paying Troop Travel Costs
- U.S. Fires Guantanamo Lawyers After Criticism
- Nader Sets up 2004 Exploratory Committee
- Nobel Prize Winner Criticizes U.S. Over Iraq
- Italians Protest New Media Ownership Laws
- Rumsfeld’s a Winner: Worst Mangler of English Language

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In depth reporting from Democracy Now:

Did the U.S Lie About What Happened in Samarra?

Widely differing accounts are emerging over a battle Sunday between U.S. troops and Iraqi resistance fighters in the northern Iraqi town of Samarra.

The U.S. Army said that either 46 or 54 guerillas were killed in the clashes and another 16 wounded in what it described as the bloodiest fire-fight since the official end of the war. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt later admitted that the U.S. figures are only estimates and that U.S. forces had not recovered a single body from the scene.

Iraqi accounts differ sharply. The director of the local hospitals says they received the bodies of only eight civilians, including those of a woman and child as well as 60 others wounded. U.S. military officials denied their forces had overreacted and fired indiscriminately, as charged by senior police, hospital and municipal officials in the Samarra.

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“We Have More Than One Guantanamo In Iraq” – British Anti-War Lawyer Representing Tariq Aziz Arrested After Charging Blair With War Crimes

A human rights lawyer representing Saddam Hussein’s former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz was arrested in London last week. Abdul Haq Al-Ani was arrested by Britain’s Customs and Excise and charged under Section 3C of the Iraq and Kuwait (United Nations Sanctions) Order 1990 which states that "no person shall do any act calculated to promote the supply or delivery of any goods to any person in Iraq or Kuwait or for the purpose of any business carried on in Iraq".

He was released on bond and ordered to return for further questioning in eight weeks. He is the first person in Britain to be arrested in connection with the Iraq sanctions. But international lawyers rights organizations say the arrest of Abdul Haq Al-Ani, who is a British barrister, is political. He has been an active opponent of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and was a vigorous campaigner against the more than decade of economic sanctions against Iraq. Shortly after the occupation began, Al-Ani traveled to Iraq to investigate US and British war crimes. Two weeks ago, shortly before his arrest, Al-Ani along with a number of other British lawyers had recently handed a petition to Scotland Yard asking the police to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of the cabinet.

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75 U.S. Soldiers Shout “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Outside Anti-War Priest’s House

In a recent article on CommonDreams.org, Father John Dear writes:

“I live in a tiny, remote, impoverished, three block long town in the desert of northeastern New Mexico. Everyone in town--and the whole state--knows that I am against the occupation of Iraq, that I have called for the closing of Los Alamos, and that as a priest, I have been preaching, like the Pope, against the bombing of Baghdad….Suddenly, at 7 a.m., the [soldiers’] shouting got dramatically louder. I looked out the front window of the house where I live, next door to the church, and there they were--all 75 of them, standing yards away from my front door, in the street right in front of my house and our church, shouting and screaming to the top of their lungs, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Their commanders had planted them there and were egging them on.”

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Irish Peace Accord In Jeopardy With Elevation of Hard-Line Unionist Ian Paisley

In Northern Ireland, the future of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement is in jeopardy following last week's elections. One of the hard-line Protestant parties that opposed the agreement, the Democratic Unionist Party, won the most seats in the power-sharing assembly in Belfast.

The party's head Ian Paisley has called for the renegotiation of the peace treaty. His son Ian Paisley Jr. said the peace agreement was “dead in the water.”

The impact of the elections remains unclear in part because Britain suspended home rule a year ago temporarily stripping the Belfast body of most of its power.

Ian Paisley has also ruled out working with Sinn Fein, the political party led by Gerry Adams which secured the most seats among the Catholic political parties. After the election Paisley told the BBC, “I don't accept the principle that we must sit down with armed terrorists who have enough weapons in their possession to blow up the whole of Northern Ireland.”

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke publicly about the election results for the first time. He described it as a "a difficult situation." Six months ago Blair predicted that if Paisley’s DUP came to power they would destroy the Good Friday Agreement.

Click here to watch, listen, or read.

On DemocracyNow.org today

Headlines from Democracy Now:

- Israelis & Palestinians Launch Unofficial Peace Plan
- U.S. Ends Immigrant Registration Program
- Cincinnati Police Beat to Death African-American Man
- Colorado Court Rules Redistricting By GOP Illegal
- Diebold Drops Cases Against Internet Sites
- School Punishes Boy For Saying “Gay”

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In depth reporting from Democracy Now:

A Debate on One of the Most Frequently Cited Justifications for the 1991 Persian Gulf War: Did PR Firm Hill & Knowlton Invent the Story of Iraqi Soldiers Pulling Kuwaiti Babies From Incubators?

We spend the hour with Lauri Fitz-Pegado, the woman who ran the PR campaign for Hill and Knowlton, and John Stauber, co-author of "Weapons Of Mass Deception."

On December 19, 1990, Amnesty International published an 84-page report on human rights violations in occupied Kuwait. The report stated that, “300 premature babies were reported to have died after Iraqi soldiers removed them from incubators, which were then looted.”

This allegation, which was widely reported by the global media, became one of the most often cited justifications for the 1991 Gulf War. On January 9 1991, President George HW Bush cited Amnesty’s report in a letter sent to campus newspapers across the country. In the Senate, six senators specifically cited the story in their speeches supporting the resolution to give Bush authorization to use American forces in Kuwait. That vote ultimately passed by a mere half-dozen votes.

But the most dramatic moment in this story came on October 10, 1990, when a 15 year old Kuwaiti girl, identified simply as Nayirah testified in front of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus that she had personally witnessed 15 infants taken from incubators by Iraqi forces who she said, “left the babies on the coal floor to die.” California Democrat Tom Lantos explained that her identity would be kept secret to protect her family.

What was not said at the time is that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, Saud Nasir al-Sabah. By March of 1991, Amnesty International took the unprecedented move of retracting its report, saying it had become clear that the allegations were baseless. [Includes transcript]

On October 17, Democracy Now! spoke with author and PR Watch co-founder John Stauber as well as retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner about the U.S. government’s use of psy-ops, propaganda and information warfare in the build up to the Iraq invasion.

Within that conversation John Stauber spoke about his findings that a new Jessica Lynch-related book is: “being promoted by … [the] Livingston Group’s Lauri Fitz-Pegado. She is infamous for her work at Hill & Knowlton PR in 1990 coaching the Kuwaiti girl called "Nayirah" in her shocking but phony testimony on Congressional hill that she'd seen Iraqi soldiers murdering Kuwaiti babies. That stunt helped propel the U.S. to war against Iraq in 1991. Fitz-Pegado's client was the ruling family of Kuwait and the baby-killing claims were later shown to be false.”

Click here to watch, read, and/or listen.

On DemocracyNow.org today

Headlines from Democracy Now:

- U.S. Kills 54 Iraqis In Bloodiest Battle Since April
- N. Irish Peace Accord In Jeopardy With Elevation of Ian Paisley
- Report: U.S. To Release 140 From Guantanamo
- Patriot Act Author Concerned Over Jose Padilla Detention
- Annan: Israel Wall Threatens Peace

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In depth reporting from Democracy Now:

World AIDS Day: Mandela Calls For More Help to Fight Disease; UN Plan to Provide AIDS Drugs to 3 Million

UNAIDS and the World Health Organization are announcing a program to provide life-saving, anti-retroviral drugs to about 3 million people infected with HIV/AIDS in poor countries by 2005.
The WHO called on countries to train and organize 100,000 health care and nonprofessional workers to carry out the plan.

The program is part of a larger 5 and a half billion-dollar emergency strategy aimed at preventing the disease from killing about 8,000 people in the world every day.

To mark World AIDS day, former South African President Nelson Mandela was joined by pop stars Bono, Beyonce Knowles and Bob Geldof at a Cape Town concert over the weekend in South Africa to call for more help to fight AIDS.

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U.S. Kills 54 Iraqis in Occupation's Bloodiest Weekend; Non-U.S. Coalition Forces Suffer 14 Deaths

U.S. forces killed up to 54 Iraqis Sunday in Samarra in one of the bloodiest battles since the fall of Baghdad. Pentagon officials claimed all of the Iraqis killed were fighters but Agence France Press reports that local medics said at least eight of the Iraqis were civilians including an Iraqi woman and child. The Los Angeles Times also reported that local residents said some of the victims worked at a pharmaceutical factory which was hit accidentally by U.S. tanks.

The U.S. said the killings came in response to Iraqi attacks on three U.S. convoys near Samarra.

It came at the end of a weekend that saw coalition forces suffer 14 deaths including seven Spanish intelligence agents, two Korean contractors, two Japanese diplomats, two US soldiers and a Colombian contractor. A total of 111 coalition forces died in November marking the deadliest month since the U.S. invaded Iraq.

In Spain, calls for the return of all Spanish troops increased. Polls show 85 percent of the country believe the war in Iraq was a mistake. The newspaper El Mundo editorialized "Nobody who saw the glee with which passersby trampled the corpses of our countrymen can still maintain that the majority of Iraqis consider coalition troops to be their liberators."

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“The White House Press Corps Has Turned Into a Full Time Press Agency For The President” – Harpers’ Rick MacArthur on Bush’s Secretive Thanksgiving Trip to Iraq

President Bush returned to the U.S. from Iraq early Friday morning, after spending Thanksgiving dinner with hundreds of soldiers in Baghdad in what is being described as one of the most secretive presidential trips in American history.

The trip was a tightly held secret among only a few aides until the very end. The administration did not announce it until Bush had left Baghdad and even Bush’s parents did not know about his trip beforehand. The president left his ranch in an unmarked car, not the usual presidential limousine and tried to disguise his appearance.

A total of 13 journalists accompanied Bush on the trip. They were instructed not to tell their families or editor where they were going. On the way, White House communications chief Dan Bartlett told reporters that if news of the trip leaked out before Air Force One landed in Iraq, the plane would turn around.

Air traffic controllers in Baghdad did not know the plane heading for the runway was Air Force One. It landed without its lights under cover of darkness.

Bush spent only two and a half hours in the secure area around Baghdad airport where he spent Thanksgiving dinner with some 600 soldiers. He also met with members of the Iraqi Governing Council, including Ahmad Chalabi, the exile leader who is close to senior officials at the Pentagon.

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The Strange Case of James Yousef Yee: From Army Muslim Chaplain to Suspected Spy to A Free Man Facing Porn Charges. Is Yee the New Wen Ho Lee?

Three months ago, news broke around the country that a Muslim chaplain who graduated from West Point had been charged with espionage and possibly treason.

The Washington Times broke the story on Sept. 20 in a front page exclusive. Unnamed military sources said the chaplain, James Yousef Yee had been detained on Sept. 10 and charged with espionage, aiding the enemy and spying.

The New York Daily News soon speculated that the New Jersey-born Yee could become the first West Point graduate to be charged with treason.

Yee would go on to be held for 76 days much of it in a maximum-security Naval brig in South Carolina. He was held among the most high profile suspects in the so-called war on terror including enemy combatant Jose Padilla, an alleged member of Al Qaeda.

Now it looks like the military’s case has fallen apart.

The Washington Times had prematurely reported that Yee had been charged. In fact at the time he had been detained as part of an investigation.

When charges were finally filed in October the charges had little to do with national security. The most serious was taking classified material to his home and wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security containers or covers.

Meanwhile on Saturday U.S. Army Col. Jackie Duane Farr was charged with the same crime as Yee -- "wrongfully transporting classified material without the appropriate locking container" as well as making a false statement during the course of the investigation. But according to the Los Angeles Times the military handled Farr’s case quite differently: he was charged with the crime but was not arrested or detained though he has agreed to remain at Guantanamo Bay where he works.

Last week Yee was released from detention. At the same time the military added two new charges that had nothing to do with espionage: downloading pornography on to a governmental computer and for committing adultery.

The New York Times reports that Yee has resumed working as a prison chaplain at Fort Benning in Georgia.

His case is now being compared to that of Wen Ho Lee, the nuclear scientist who was wrongfully accused of spying for the Chinese.

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