Politics and Religion
Why are Reservists, supervised by civilian "interogators" ,
doing guard duty and "interigation softening" in Iraq? Could it be lack of planning by the "Neocons" that post war would be a love-fest between the Iraqis and America. These are professional military duties, not the duty of weekend warriors.
Looking from the Iraqi side "Saddam was an asshole, but he was OUR asshole" Americans are occupiers, just as the British were in 1776 and European nations occupied the Middle East during the 20th century. Nobody likes occupiers, no matter how pious the selected Bush acts.
Actually, I think you have to look at the use of civillian interrogators in a broader context.
One of the big thrusts of George W. and the neocons has been the "privatization" of governmental functions. Their basic argument is that existing government agencies are too inefficient, corrupt and bureaucratic, and so they have systematically farmed out key government functions.
There are ~20,000 private contractors in Iraq, more than the total British military contingent. Although some are indeed performing industrial-type work, many of them work for private military firms (PMF's) and undertake classical military functions, such as guarding key US officials and also (as we now find out) interrogating Iraqi prisoners. There is now some question as to what jurisdiction will bring these civilian "interrogators" to trial, as they presently lie outside the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
If you want to establish rogue operations, which nicely circumvent the Geneva Convention, what better way than to subcontact your dirty jobs/wet work to mercenaries. After all, it was Rumsfeld who earlier declared that he didn't think that the Geneva Convention applied to Iraqi prisoners. And, by all accounts, it surely doesn't apply to the "enemy combatants" held in Guantanamo.
Of course, setting up rogue operations is par for the course with the George W. administration. After all, the key intelligence information that laid the groundwork for the war (i.e., bogus weapons of mass destruction) came from Ahmad Chalabi through a shadow Pentagon intelligence operation that circumvented both CIA and FBI.
... Accorting to Woodwards latest book (which goes into it in great detail). There was a large scale intellegence operation going on in IraQ in the build-up to the war that did NOT involve the dissidents and that was pretty successful doing a lot of things. If Woodward's description is complete and correct, then the CIA gave a realistic assessment of their capacity and delivered all (and more) than they promised in useful information for the military.
My recollection of a recent interview of Woodward is that he described a meeting between George W., key neocons and George Tenet, Director of the CIA. When queried by George W. whether weapons of mass destruction would be found, Tenet replied with a dramatic gesture that "...It was a slam dunk..." At the time Tenet made this statement, he had no such evidence.
No doubt lower levels of the CIA, and also the State Department, were producing quality intelligence information, and some of this was used during the war. Nevertheless, Tenet has already testified that the evidence of WMD wasn't there to support a preemptive invasion. The bogus information had to come from someone - and that someone was the neocon's pet Iraqi - Ahmad Chalabi, through the intelligence operation set up in the Pentagon.
Similarly, George Tenet signed off on the bogus Niger uranium "cake" reference that George W. made in his 2003 State of the Union address. This was done, even though Tenet was fully aware of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's memorandum clearly indicating that the underlying document was fraudulent. In retalliation for Wilson's candid revelations, Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was outed as an undercover CIA agent by the White House through Robert Novak.
Moreover, it was Dick Cheney, neocon-in-chief, who was continually visiting the CIA over this period, to make sure that the intelligence would go their "way".
In any event, the "causus bellis" for this war were bogus. If I had to assign blame, it would be a split between George Tenet (CIA) and the Pentagon intelligence operation run by neocons.
there was a big intellegence operation going on that you don't describe (and that Woodward discusses). It is worth reading about.
Thanks for the tip. So far, I've only watched the Woodward interviews and read the two book extracts that www.salon.com published on its website.
the role of the US military to provide security to companies performing such dastardly dark functions as rebuilding schools, electrical and water infrastructure.
As far as those involved in interrogations, it was explained before both a friendly and HOSTILE collection of Senators that there is simply a shortage of personel in the current military who are trained in interogation, proper or otherwise. It was explained that the private contractors involed in intel were former military officers.
This is the result of the much heralded downsizing we undertook in the 90's.
If there was something sinister about their presence in theater, you can bet the attackdogs would have been all over it like redmeat.
PS, they work directly under the command of the US military. I'm certain their legal status has been properly ironed out previous to them being employed.
-- Modified on 5/8/2004 9:22:18 PM
and no, there is a question of wether the U.S. can prosecute them. We only prosecute loyal reservists and foreigners in Iraq! Under this administration, the buck stops very low on the food chain. Listening to Bush's excuses, the buck stops anywhere other than the Presidents desk; the exact opposite of Harry Truman
-- Modified on 5/8/2004 9:38:29 PM
Sure, the laywers for them. I would'nt put too much stock in that though. It would be an outrage if they particpated in illegal activity and escaped prosecution but it happens all the time. Lawyers, gotta love em.
... under existing statues in US courts. US Civilains in military theatres who work for the government are subject to US law. These people aren't mercenaries.
and those contracting w/private concerns openly. What's the status of these?
Then there are those on a payroll that been run thru 15 differnt companies and 3 governments.........God only knows what they're doing.
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