Iraq One More Time !

[joseph parikian]

Bush's New, New Lie

 

By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet

May 7, 2004

 

Here's a pop quiz.

 

 

Question: Which of the following changes will take place in Iraq on June 30, as part of the "transfer of sovereignty"?

 

 

a. Iraqis will be given some or total control over their military.

b. Iraqis will be given some or total control over their nation's purse strings.

c. The United States will begin a phased withdrawal of its troops.

d. Iraqis will hold elections to decide who will govern the country.

e. None of the above.

 

 

Answer: None of the above.

 

 

June 30 simply marks the selection of yet another "governing council," picked by foreigners (some combination of the UN, U.S. and UK) to act as a front for the U.S.-led occupation army. It will be just business as usual, except for a new set of misleading titles. For example, the "Coalition Provisional Authority" will be renamed the "United States Embassy," staffed by some 2000 employees.

 

 

That's about it. Really.

 

 

For months we've been encouraged by spinmeisters in Washington to believe that there is something momentous about the so-called handover. The national media, too, has relentlessly trumpeted the event so often and so simple-mindedly as a watershed moment that it has taken on the hue of history in the making.

 

 

In reality, the United States plans to send new troops to Iraq. It is building 14 "enduring" bases in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins. And we have appointed tough-guy Reagan-era hatchet man John Negroponte to run the world's biggest embassy in the same building that currently houses the CPA. The United States will continue to control all the money, all the military forces (U.S., Iraqi, foreign mercenaries) and all the key political appointments in Iraq. To call this "limited" sovereignty is a bit like describing the situation in Iraq as "volatile."

 

 

So, it came as a relief when Colin Powell deigned to finally clarify this puzzling situation the other day. He said, "Some of [iraq's] sovereignty will have to be given back [after June 30], if I can put it that way, or limited by them."

 

 

Still confused? Wait, there's more.

 

 

 

"[some] of that sovereignty they are going to allow us to exercise on their behalf and with their permission. It is not as if we are seizing anything away from them. It is with the understanding that they need our help and for us to provide that help we have to be able to operate freely, which in some ways infringes on what some would call full sovereignty."

 

 

Got that? See, we invaded Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people. Then when it seemed like they were saying, "Thank you for getting rid of Saddam, now please leave," we promised to hand them back their country on June 30, 2004. But now it's painfully clear that Iraqis are not really ready to handle that kind of responsibility. So we are just going to borrow back their sovereignty – with their permission, of course. Sure, we'll give it back to them, but only when we're damn good and ready (namely, when they stop acting all Islamic and anti-American and stuff).

 

 

But all this business of defining "sovereignty" is really beside the point. The point, so to speak, is that nobody needs to worry about what's going down there in Iraq because everything's cool between us and the Iraqi people.

 

 

All that the "handover" amounts to is a road sign being waved at the world – and especially the American people – that says, in effect, "Nothing to see here, keep moving." The Bush administration is staging a "handover" so that potential voters will no longer view Iraq as "our problem," but instead think of it sort of like Afghanistan or Haiti, or all the other places where we have dabbled in nation-building-at-gunpoint in the past. Which is to say, not think of it at all.

 

 

In testimony on Capitol Hill two weeks ago, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman admitted as much when he noted that June 30 would provide "a very important Iraqi face" on the ground. Grossman also acknowledged that this veneer of independence would indeed be very thin. "The arrangement would be, I think as we are doing today, that we would do our very best to consult with that interim government and take their views into account," he said, adding that American commanders will "have the right, and the power, and the obligation" to use force whenever they see fit.

 

 

That is "sovereignty," done Bush administration style.

 

 

June 30 is also the Bush administration's attempt to hit the "redo" button on its pitifully inadequate Iraq plan. In just the month of April, a year after its initial march into Baghdad, the United States has been forced to reconquer the country (which has taken the lives of a hundred more dead soldiers and hundreds more Iraqi women and children); ask the United Nations for help; and bring in Baath Party thugs to keep a peace it cannot or will not secure.

 

 

As they watch the Bush administration backtrack on one policy after another, Iraqis probably feel like they're Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day" – except they're reliving not a single day but an entire bloody, violent, year, all over again.

 

 

But some things have changed. Everyone who died in the past 13 months is still, well, dead. Nearly all Iraqis (with the exception of the Kurds) that once trusted the Americans to act in good faith as occupiers have changed their minds; two-thirds of them recently told pollsters that they want the United States to leave within the next few months (and this before the instantly infamous torture photos were publicized).

 

 

What hasn't changed, sadly, is the Bush administration's immense capacity to lie about all things Iraq.

 

 

Last, I co-authored a book titled "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq," which argued that the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq was built on series of lies: Iraq was aligned with Al Qaeda and therefore involved in 9/11 (Lie #1); Saddam possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that threatened the U.S. and our allies (#2); he had a functioning nuclear weapons program (#3); the war would be a "cakewalk" (#4); and Iraq could easily be remade in our image as a secular, capitalist democracy (#5).

 

To this list of mega-whoppers, we can now add a sixth lie: The Bush administration truly planned to "liberate" Iraq. The neoconservative architects of this war were more blunt about the future of a post-invasion Iraq. Sure, Iraq would be a "free" country, but only if it agreed to pledge itself as an unquestioning ally of the United States, completely privatize its economy, open itself to foreign investment, and remain a secular state acceptable to the West.

 

 

Our actions immediately following the invasion made this agenda painfully clear.

 

 

No post-Saddam elections were scheduled, even as the United States-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority began make sweeping decisions privatizing entire industries and defining how oil-revenue would be spent. Construction quickly began on U.S. military bases that could replace those in Saudi Arabia. They included the creation of at least one massive airbase from which bombers could hit Iran or Syria in a matter of minutes.

 

 

The Iraqis appointed by the United States to the "governing" council were not granted the means or the power to do more than talk. The United Nations, with its considerable experience in building political and civic structures in ravaged nations, was stiffed in favor of U.S. generals and Republican political appointees without a clue.

 

If the Bush administration had truly wanted a quick exit strategy, then their priorities would have been different from day one of the occupation. The CPA would have focused instead on stability (more initial troops/MPs, greater UN involvement, better planning for potential problems), dialogue (i.e., getting Iraq's true powerbrokers – think Ayatollah Sistani not pretenders like Ahmed Chalabi – to draw up a plan for elections) and firm deadlines for both partial and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops, unless invited to stay by either Iraq's new government or the United Nations.

 

 

We are told repeatedly by the president that there is only one way forward in Iraq: "Get the job done right." For hawks in the Bush administration, however, that means staying right where we are, with the "permission" of a suitably friendly government in Iraq.

 

 

In other words, there is no exit strategy.

 

 

Christopher Scheer is a staff writer for AlterNet. He is co-author of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq.

 

 

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18626

 

My comment

Who thinks we are wining this war ????

Edited May 7, 2004 by joseph parikian

[Anonymouse]

Better To Be Children

 

by Charley Reese

 

We would do better if, instead of being sheep and complacently accepting the words of politicians as edicts from God, we were like children who always ask that innocent question, "Why?"

 

Over and over we hear the statement "The United States cannot afford to fail in Iraq." Even John Kerry says that.

 

Well, why? What bad things will happen to the American people if we told the Iraqis: "We knocked off your dictator. Here's a check for what's left of the $18 billion to cover the damage we did. Goodbye and good luck"?

 

And in the interest of the debate we never had when President George Bush took us to war under false pretenses (we must disarm Saddam, remember?), what will happen if we stay? It costs us nearly $5 billion a month, you know. And, more importantly, American lives, day in and day out, are lost. Perhaps both Kerry and Bush should answer the younger Kerry's famous question: "How do you order a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

 

Going to war was a mistake. The answer to that other political question, "Aren't we better off with Saddam in prison?" is no. The Iraqi people are – or at least will be if they can ever get us off their backs. But the American people are worse off. We've lost blood and treasure and credibility. There is more terrorism, not less, directed at us and our allies. The Middle East is in turmoil. North Korea and probably Iran are pursuing nuclear weapons. The budget is out of whack, and our civil liberties are threatened.

 

All this was to disarm a man who had already disarmed and was no threat to us. Incidentally, I haven't heard anyone apologize to the Iraqis for calling them liars every time they said – truthfully, it turns out – that they didn't have any weapons of mass destruction.

 

It's true that if we withdraw there might be a civil war. On the other hand, there might not be. Either way, it's no skin off our nose. It seems clear to me that it would better for us if the Iraqis were shooting each other rather than all of them shooting at us, which is likely to be the outcome of further wearing out our already-threadbare welcome.

 

But to suppose that the Iraqis cannot govern themselves unless we set up their government for them is, of course, racist and patronizing. Besides, wanting to establish democracy in Iraq is another lie. What we want is a puppet government that will give us permanent military bases, not mess with the contracts the occupational government has already handed out, make peace with Israel and reopen the oil pipeline to Haifa, Israel.

 

The Iraqi people are not stupid. Their civilization is lot older than ours. They know exactly what the game is. That they will go along with this scheme is another grossly mistaken assumption by the ideologues in the White House and at the Pentagon.

 

It's also claimed that if we leave prematurely, Iraq will become a haven for terrorists. That's not likely. The Sunnis and the Kurds have no great love for al-Qaida, and al-Qaida hates the Shiites. Once we exit, I predict that life spans will grow exceedingly short for any leftover terrorists.

 

But, the politicians say, we have to establish security. Well, my grandmother's doily – we've been there a year and have failed miserably to establish security. What makes the gods on the Potomac believe that we will suddenly be successful in the future? The fact is, the Iraqis, if left to themselves, can probably establish security much more quickly than we ever could. They have had zilch experience with democracy but lots and lots of experience with security.

 

The American people ought to wake up and realize that maintaining a world empire with the dopes and nerds we have elected is impossible and can lead only to national ruin. Running our own country is job enough.

[Armat]

But, the politicians say, we have to establish security. Well, my grandmother's doily – we've been there a year and have failed miserably to establish security. What makes the gods on the Potomac believe that we will suddenly be successful in the future? The fact is, the Iraqis, if left to themselves, can probably establish security much more quickly than we ever could. They have had zilch experience with democracy but lots and lots of experience with security.

 

Anon welcome back our Anti-Democrat resident Nice frank article without the usual real politik salt'n pepper.

Edited May 15, 2004 by Armat

[joseph parikian]

Exporting America's Prison Problems

 

By Dan Frosch, The Nation

May 13, 2004

 

In 1997, a 29-year-old schizophrenic inmate named Michael Valent was stripped naked and strapped to a restraining chair by Utah prison staff because he refused to take a pillowcase off his head. Shortly after he was released some sixteen hours later, Valent collapsed and died from a blood clot that blocked an artery to his heart.

 

 

The chilling incident made national news not only because it happened to be videotaped but also because Valent's family successfully sued the State of Utah and forced it to stop using the device. Director of the Utah Department of Corrections, Lane McCotter, who was named in the suit and defended use of the chair, resigned in the ensuing firestorm.

 

 

Some six years later, Lane McCotter was working in Abu Ghraib prison, part of a four-man team of correctional advisers sent by the Justice Department and charged with the sensitive mission of reconstructing Iraq's notorious prisons, ravaged by decades of human rights abuse.

 

 

While McCotter left Iraq shortly before the current scandal at Abu Ghraib began and says he had nothing to do with the MPs who committed the atrocities, his very presence there raises serious questions about US handling of the Iraqi prison system.

 

 

It's bad enough that the Justice Department picked McCotter – whose reputation in Utah was at best controversial and at worst disturbing. But further, the Justice Department hired him less than three months after its own civil rights division released a shocking 36-page report documenting inhumane conditions at a New Mexico jail, run by the company where McCotter is an executive. Here was a man whose prisons had been plagued by reports of inmate mistreatment for nearly a decade. "Lane McCotter's administration here had a horrifying record on human rights" said Carol Gnade, who was executive director of the ACLU in Salt Lake City between 1990 and 2002.

 

 

Indeed, around the same time Michael Valent died, Jensie Anderson, then a lawyer for the group, interviewed close to forty mentally ill inmates who had also been restrained in the chair. "We found out they were being kept there far longer than necessary," says Anderson. "There were cases where inmates ended up sitting in their own feces. They were being tortured."

 

 

Shortly after Valent's family went to court, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against three Utah DOC doctors, this time for binding a mentally ill man, naked save his underwear, to a stainless steel pallet called 'the board' for 85 straight days. The case was settled out of court, according to newspaper reports. "Generally, under McCotter's rule, human rights were not respected," notes Anderson. "After he left, things improved a great deal."

 

 

But they were soon to become worse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where county officials decided to hire Management & Training Corporation, a private, Utah-based corrections company, to run its jail. McCotter, as it happened, now worked as MTC's director of corrections business development. In August 2001 McCotter, once secretary of corrections in New Mexico, traveled to Santa Fe to finalize MTC's three-year contract to operate the Santa Fe County Detention Center.

 

 

Less than a year later, a team of Justice Department correctional experts was inside the Santa Fe jail investigating civil rights violations. In March 2003, their report concluded that certain conditions violated inmates' constitutional rights, and that inmates suffered "harm or the risk of serious harm" from, among other things, woeful deficiencies in healthcare and basic living conditions. The report documented numerous and horrifying examples, and threatened a lawsuit if things didn't get better. Amid the fallout, the Justice Department pulled its approximately 100 federal prisoners out of Santa Fe and MTC fired its warden and pressured its medical subcontractor, Physicians Network Association, to ax one of its medical administrators.

 

 

Then, on May 20, in a case of unfathomable irony, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that McCotter, along with three other corrections experts, had gone to Iraq. The very same day, Justice Department lawyers began their first negotiations with Santa Fe County officials over the extensive changes needed at the jail to avoid legal action.

 

 

The Justice Department won't comment on why it chose McCotter, whose company has been hounded by well-publicized and ongoing healthcare, security and personnel problems at many of the thirteen prisons it operates in the United States, Australia and Canada. Meanwhile, the Ontario provincial government is currently investigating an inmate death at MTC's Canadian prison on May 5, and inquests into three other mysterious deaths over the past year are expected, according to an article in the Barrie Examiner.

 

 

In a May 7 statement, McCotter emphasized that he was mainly in Iraq to oversee the structural renovation of Iraqi prisons and to train Iraqi citizens for correctional duties. He stated that there were no inmates at Abu Ghraib while he was there and that he never supervised military personnel.

 

 

According to Gary DeLand, also a member of the correctional team and McCotter's predecessor at the Utah DOC, the two of them worked along with embattled Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski and MPs from various battalions, but that "none of the faces on television look familiar."

 

 

DeLand says the Justice Department paid him $8,500 per month while he was in Iraq before bumping his salary up to $12,000 per month toward the end of the four-month trip. He defends McCotter as "one of the very best corrections administrators I've ever met."

 

 

Judy Greene, a prison reform consultant, disagrees. "There are any number of correctional administrators, active or retired, that have good records and whom I would have rather seen tapped by the Justice Department for this kind of assignment. McCotter is no expert on how prisoners should be treated or on how prison staff should be trained."

 

 

Interestingly, Chase Riveland, former secretary of corrections in Washington and Colorado, who Greene says is respected both by prison reformists and corrections administrators, turned down an offer to join the Justice Department's team. "The philosophies of the individuals that were going did not match mine," Riveland told The Nation.

 

 

While it seems unlikely Lane McCotter was involved in the unfolding abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, his hiring – given his troubled history and current employment at the equally troubled MTC – is yet another example of the unending and unabashed bumbling of the occupation. Perhaps most important, if this is the type of personnel decision we can expect from critical agencies like the Justice Department, there's probably more scandal to come.

 

 

Dan Frosch is a freelance journalist based in New York City.

 

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18682

[Anonymouse]

Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government'

 

By Paul Rockwell

The Sacramento Bee

5-18-4

 

"We forget what war is about, what it does to those who wage it and those who suffer from it. Those who hate war the most, I have often found, are veterans who know it." - Chris Hedges, New York Times reporter and author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"

 

For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.

 

The Iraq war changed Massey. The brutality, the sheer carnage of the U.S. invasion, touched his conscience and transformed him forever. He was honorably discharged with full severance last Dec. 31 and is now back in his hometown, Waynsville, N.C.

 

When I talked with Massey last week, he expressed his remorse at the civilian loss of life in incidents in which he himself was involved.

 

Q: You spent 12 years in the Marines. When were you sent to Iraq?

 

A: I went to Kuwait around Jan. 17. I was in Iraq from the get-go. And I was involved in the initial invasion.

 

Q: What does the public need to know about your experiences as a Marine?

 

A: The cause of the Iraqi revolt against the American occupation. What they need to know is we killed a lot of innocent people. I think at first the Iraqis had the understanding that casualties are a part of war. But over the course of time, the occupation hurt the Iraqis. And I didn't see any humanitarian support.

 

Q: What experiences turned you against the war and made you leave the Marines?

 

A: I was in charge of a platoon that consists of machine gunners and missile men. Our job was to go into certain areas of the towns and secure the roadways. There was this one particular incident - and there's many more - the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That's the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So we lit them up.

 

Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?

 

A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn't destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do anything wrong." That hit me like a ton of bricks.

 

Q: He spoke English?

 

A: Oh, yeah.

 

Q: Baghdad was being bombed. The civilians were trying to get out, right?

 

A: Yes. They received pamphlets, propaganda we dropped on them. It said, "Just throw up your hands, lay down weapons." That's what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up. They weren't in uniform. We never found any weapons.

 

Q: You got to see the bodies and casualties?

 

A: Yeah, firsthand. I helped throw them in a ditch.

 

Q: Over what period did all this take place?

 

A: During the invasion of Baghdad.

 

'We lit him up pretty good'

 

Q: How many times were you involved in checkpoint "light-ups"?

 

A: Five times. There was [the city of] Rekha. The gentleman was driving a stolen work utility van. He didn't stop. With us being trigger happy, we didn't really give this guy much of a chance. We lit him up pretty good. Then we inspected the back of the van. We found nothing. No explosives.

 

Q: The reports said the cars were loaded with explosives. In all the incidents did you find that to be the case?

 

A: Never. Not once. There were no secondary explosions. As a matter of fact, we lit up a rally after we heard a stray gunshot.

 

Q: A demonstration? Where?

 

A: On the outskirts of Baghdad. Near a military compound. There were demonstrators at the end of the street. They were young and they had no weapons. And when we rolled onto the scene, there was already a tank that was parked on the side of the road. If the Iraqis wanted to do something, they could have blown up the tank. But they didn't. They were only holding a demonstration. Down at the end of the road, we saw some RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) lined up against the wall. That put us at ease because we thought: "Wow, if they were going to blow us up, they would have done it."

 

Q: Were the protest signs in English or Arabic?

 

A: Both.

 

Q: Who gave the order to wipe the demonstrators out?

 

A: Higher command. We were told to be on the lookout for the civilians because a lot of the Fedayeen and the Republican Guards had tossed away uniforms and put on civilian clothes and were mounting terrorist attacks on American soldiers. The intelligence reports that were given to us were basically known by every member of the chain of command. The rank structure that was implemented in Iraq by the chain of command was evident to every Marine in Iraq. The order to shoot the demonstrators, I believe, came from senior government officials, including intelligence communities within the military and the U.S. government.

 

Q: What kind of firepower was employed?

 

A: M-16s, 50-cal. machine guns.

 

Q: You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken out?

 

A: Oh, yeah. Well, I had a "mercy" on one guy. When we rolled up, he was hiding behind a concrete pillar. I saw him and raised my weapon up, and he put up his hands. He ran off. I told everybody, "Don't shoot." Half of his foot was trailing behind him. So he was running with half of his foot cut off.

 

Q: After you lit up the demonstration, how long before the next incident?

 

A: Probably about one or two hours. This is another thing, too. I am so glad I am talking with you, because I suppressed all of this.

 

Q: Well, I appreciate you giving me the information, as hard as it must be to recall the painful details.

 

A: That's all right. It's kind of therapy for me. Because it's something that I had repressed for a long time.

 

Q: And the incident?

 

A: There was an incident with one of the cars. We shot an individual with his hands up. He got out of the car. He was badly shot. We lit him up. I don't know who started shooting first. One of the Marines came running over to where we were and said: "You all just shot a guy with his hands up." Man, I forgot about this.

 

Depleted uranium and cluster bombs Q: You mention machine guns. What can you tell me about cluster bombs, or depleted uranium?

 

A: Depleted uranium. I know what it does. It's basically like leaving plutonium rods around. I'm 32 years old. I have 80 percent of my lung capacity. I ache all the time. I don't feel like a healthy 32-year-old.

 

Q: Were you in the vicinity of of depleted uranium?

 

A: Oh, yeah. It's everywhere. DU is everywhere on the battlefield. If you hit a tank, there's dust.

 

Q: Did you breath any dust?

 

A: Yeah.

 

Q: And if DU is affecting you or our troops, it's impacting Iraqi civilians.

 

A: Oh, yeah. They got a big wasteland problem.

 

Q: Do Marines have any precautions about dealing with DU?

 

A: Not that I know of. Well, if a tank gets hit, crews are detained for a little while to make sure there are no signs or symptoms. American tanks have depleted uranium on the sides, and the projectiles have DU in them. If an enemy vehicle gets hit, the area gets contaminated. Dead rounds are in the ground. The civilian populace is just now starting to learn about it. Hell, I didn't even know about DU until two years ago. You know how I found out about it? I read an article in Rolling Stone magazine. I just started inquiring about it, and I said "Holy s---!"

 

Q: Cluster bombs are also controversial. U.N. commissions have called for a ban. Were you acquainted with cluster bombs?

 

A: I had one of my Marines in my battalion who lost his leg from an ICBM.

 

Q: What's an ICBM?

 

A: A multi-purpose cluster bomb.

 

Q: What happened?

 

A: He stepped on it. We didn't get to training about clusters until about a month before I left.

 

Q: What kind of training?

 

A: They told us what they looked like, and not to step on them.

 

Q: Were you in any areas where they were dropped?

 

A: Oh, yeah. They were everywhere.

 

Q: Dropped from the air?

 

A: From the air as well as artillery.

 

Q: Are they dropped far away from cities, or inside the cities?

 

A: They are used everywhere. Now if you talked to a Marine artillery officer, he would give you the runaround, the politically correct answer. But for an average grunt, they're everywhere.

 

Q: Including inside the towns and cities?

 

A: Yes, if you were going into a city, you knew there were going to be ICBMs.

 

Q: Cluster bombs are anti-personnel weapons. They are not precise. They don't injure buildings, or hurt tanks. Only people and living things. There are a lot of undetonated duds and they go off after the battles are over.

 

A: Once the round leaves the tube, the cluster bomb has a mind of its own. There's always human error. I'm going to tell you: The armed forces are in a tight spot over there. It's starting to leak out about the civilian casualties that are taking place. The Iraqis know. I keep hearing reports from my Marine buddies inside that there were 200-something civilians killed in Fallujah. The military is scrambling right now to keep the raps on that. My understanding is Fallujah is just littered with civilian bodies.

 

Embedded reporters Q: How are the embedded reporters responding?

 

A: I had embedded reporters in my unit, not my platoon. One we had was a South African reporter. He was scared s---less. We had an incident where one of them wanted to go home.

 

Q: Why?

 

A: It was when we started going into Baghdad. When he started seeing the civilian casualties, he started wigging out a little bit. It didn't start until we got on the outskirts of Baghdad and started taking civilian casualties.

 

Q: I would like to go back to the first incident, when the survivor asked why did you kill his brother. Was that the incident that pushed you over the edge, as you put it?

 

A: Oh, yeah. Later on I found out that was a typical day. I talked with my commanding officer after the incident. He came up to me and says: "Are you OK?" I said: "No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians." He goes: "No, today was a good day." And when he said that, I said "Oh, my goodness, what the hell am I into?"

 

Q: Your feelings changed during the invasion. What was your state of mind before the invasion?

 

A: I was like every other troop. My president told me they got weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world, that he had all this might and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into the whole thing.

 

Q: What changed you?

 

A: The civilian casualties taking place. That was what made the difference. That was when I changed.

 

Q: Did the revelations that the government fabricated the evidence for war affect the troops?

 

A: Yes. I killed innocent people for our government. For what? What did I do? Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've had a hand in some sort of evil lie at the hands of our government. I just feel embarrassed, ashamed about it.

 

Showdown with superiors Q: I understand that all the incidents - killing civilians at checkpoints, itchy fingers at the rally - weigh on you. What happened with your commanding officers? How did you deal with them?

 

A: There was an incident. It was right after the fall of Baghdad, when we went back down south. On the outskirts of Karbala, we had a morning meeting on the battle plan. I was not in a good mindset. All these things were going through my head - about what we were doing over there. About some of the things my troops were asking. I was holding it all inside. My lieutenant and I got into a conversation. The conversation was striking me wrong. And I lashed out. I looked at him and told him: "You know, I honestly feel that what we're doing is wrong over here. We're committing genocide."

 

He asked me something and I said that with the killing of civilians and the depleted uranium we're leaving over here, we're not going to have to worry about terrorists. He didn't like that. He got up and stormed off. And I knew right then and there that my career was over. I was talking to my commanding officer.

 

Q: What happened then?

 

A: After I talked to the top commander, I was kind of scurried away. I was basically put on house arrest. I didn't talk to other troops. I didn't want to hurt them. I didn't want to jeopardize them.

 

I want to help people. I felt strongly about it. I had to say something. When I was sent back to stateside, I went in front of the sergeant major. He's in charge of 3,500-plus Marines. "Sir," I told him, "I don't want your money. I don't want your benefits. What you did was wrong."

 

It was just a personal conviction with me. I've had an impeccable career. I chose to get out. And you know who I blame? I blame the president of the U.S. It's not the grunt. I blame the president because he said they had weapons of mass destruction. It was a lie.

 

Copyright © The Sacramento Bee http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/stor...-10241546c.html

[joseph parikian]

New details of prison abuse emerge

 

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200405/2...521_144016.html