Secret draft of Iraq war dossier to be revealed

The secret first draft of the notorious Iraq dossier that helped to take Britain to war is expected to be released tomorrow, in a victory for freedom of information campaigners.

The early version written by John Williams, then director of communications at the Foreign Office, has been the subject of a three-year legal wrangle amid hopes that it could reveal whether the supposedly intelligence-led dossier was actually based on a press officer’s script – and whether it was subsequently ’sexed up’ by Alastair Campbell.

The draft is understood not to contain the infamous claim that Saddam Hussein could launch a strike with ‘weapons of mass destruction’ within 45 minutes, a claim that was central to the final ‘dodgy dossier’.

Yesterday Williams attacked the decision to withhold the document for so long. ‘If the government withholds a piece of paper, it immediately makes it significant; it almost doesn’t matter what it says,’ he argued. ‘That’s what I said at the time: why are we withholding it?’

A former journalist, who left Whitehall in May, Williams said the row was particularly frustrating as he had never wanted the government to produce a dossier. He had argued, he said, that rather than attempting to prove that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction, the government should have challenged him to prove he did not: ‘I was against the idea of a dossier because I thought it was wrong.’

The Hutton inquiry into the road to war on Iraq identified the existence of an early draft by Williams, but was told by Campbell that it had become ‘redundant’ when John Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee linking Downing Street to the security services, took charge of the process. However, an information tribunal last month ruled that the Williams draft should be disclosed. Anti-war campaigners regard it as key evidence of who introduced the most contentious material into the final draft, and whether Scarlett was too heavily influenced by aides with an interest in making a case for war.

Williams said that critics of the war were likely to find significant similarities between his draft and Scarlett’s version, but insisted that should not be surprising since both were working with ‘the same assumptions, the same policy, with much of the same material’.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, is expected to confirm in a statement to the Commons tomorrow that the government will bow to the information tribunal’s ruling, rather than exercising ministerial powers to veto it or challenge it in court. Ministers had argued that the draft should not be disclosed because it jeopardised the confidentiality – and therefore candour – of advice given to them by civil servants.

The release is in response to pressure by Chris Ames, a former charity worker from Surrey, who began pursuing the document early in 2005.

The government will hope that the publication finally draws a line under the sorry saga of the dossier, which led indirectly to the suicide of scientist David Kelly after he was identified as the apparent source of BBC reports that the dossier had been ‘overspun’ by Campbell.

Rice Was ‘Uninterested In Advising The President’ Before 9/11, Wanted To Be His ‘Closest Confidante’

Tomorrow, New York Times reporter Philip Shenon will release his book The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, revealing “failure at the highest levels of the United States government.”Shenon singles out Condoleezza Rice as inept, more interested in being President Bush’s buddy than securing the nation. Newsweek editor Evan Thomas writes a preview of the book:

The official ineptitude uncovered by the commission is shocking. Dubbed “Kinda-Lies-a-Lot” by the Jersey Girls, Ms. Rice comes across as almost clueless about the terrorist threat. “Whatever her job title, Rice seemed uninterested in actually advising the president,” Mr. Shenon writes. “Instead, she wanted to be his closest confidante — specifically on foreign policy — and to simply translate his words into action.”

An example of this incompetence is the fact that on July 10, 2001 — two months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks — then-CIA director George Tenet met with Rice and warned her about a threat from al Qaeda that “literally made [his] hair stand on end.” Rice was polite, but gave them the “brushoff.”

The 9/11 commission, however, heard about this meeting only after it completed its report. Shenon reveals that commission executive director Philip Zelikow, a close friend of Rice, stopped staffers from submitting a report depicting Rice’s performance prior to 9/11 as “amount[ing] to incompetence.”

Another particularly bumbling figure in Shenon’s book is John Ashcroft. On July 17, 2001, the then-Attorney General “received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target.” While Rice was interested in cozying up to Bush, Ashcroft was focused on protecting gun owners:

Attorney General John Ashcroft appears more interested in protecting gun owners from government intrusion than in stopping terrorism, and dismissively tells [acting FBI director Thomas] Pickard that he doesn’t want to hear any more about threats of attacks.

UPDATE: According to Shenon, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was intent on placing blame on the Clinton administration. When Ashcroft “unveiled a memo that seemed to cast the antiterror record of the Clinton Justice Department in an unflattering light, Gonzales and his aides high-fived each other.”

UK and US accused of hypocrisy over despots

The US, UK and other western nations are ignoring flawed or rigged elections in some countries for the sake of political convenience, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today in its annual round-up of rights abuses around the world.While publicly espousing the cause of democracy, Washington, London and others were happy to deal closely with “despots masquerading as a democracy”, such as Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, the group said.

HRW singled out the UK government as a concern for its policy of deporting terrorism suspects to countries with repressive regimes if assurances are given the detainees will not be tortured or otherwise mistreated. This “handy device” had now been borrowed by the US to justify renditions, while Russia and other nations were also happily trying it out, the group said.

The report detailed abuses in more than 75 countries and territories, covering perennial rights pariahs such as North Korea, Burma and China as well as the US and EU. It criticised Israel for blockading Gaza in response to rocket attacks, describing this as “collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population in violation of international humanitarian law”.

But HRW’s primary target this year was what it views as the hypocrisy of western nations condemning democratic violations only when expedient.

“Rarely has democracy been so acclaimed yet so breached, so promoted yet so disrespected, so important yet so disappointing,” HRW’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, said in an introduction to the 569-page document. This “pseudo democracy” had seen leaders in countries such as Egypt, Nigeria and Ethiopia recognised abroad for their popular mandates despite elections plagued by fraud, intimidation or other flaws.

“It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the ‘victor’ is a strategic or commercial ally,” Roth said, calling the promotion of democracy “a softer and fuzzier alternative to defending human rights”.

President Bush had even praised Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, for placing Pakistan “on the road to democracy”, Roth noted.

Roth said the current violence in Kenya, prompted by the seemingly rigged election on December 27 which returned President Mwai Kibaki to power, could be traced back to overseas reluctance to challenge a similarly flawed poll in Nigeria 10 months earlier. “Nigeria’s leader came to power in a violent and fraudulent vote, yet he’s been accepted on the international stage,” he said. He said it led Kenya to believe fraud would be tolerated in the presidential election.

The report castigated the UK for its policy of allowing terrorism suspects to be transferred to the care of brutal regimes on receipt of what the group termed “empty promises of humane treatment”.

At a glance

Among the countries highlighted by Human Rights Watch for particularly poor human rights records were:

· North Korea Human rights were summed up simply as “abysmal”

· Burma A “deplorable” record with a “denial of basic freedoms”

· Zimbabwe “Torture in police custody is common”

· China The government “continues to deny or restrict its citizens’ fundamental rights”

· Afghanistan More than six years after the US invasion, life for the average inhabitant “remains short, miserable, and brutal”

Blair stabs Hillary Clinton in the back’ after supporting Republicans

Tony Blair is accused of betrayal last night as he waded into the American Presidential campaign to support George Bush’s Republican world view.As the former PM recommended Mr Bush’s policies to 400 millionaire bankers in Las Vegas, former ally Bill Clinton was campaigning in Nevada for his wife Hillary, who hopes to be the Democratic candidate for the White House and is an arch Bush critic.

In a move liable to be interpreted as a stab in the back for Hillary’s campaign, Mr Blair – who was paid 175,000 for his 35-minute speech – said: “George Bush is an amazingly strong and steady President…which is what America and the world needs.”

Last night Labour backbencher Jeremy Corbyn said: “A week ago Mr Blair travelled to France to praise the Right-wing President of France and this week he travels to the USA to support the Republicans.

“Is there no end to the extremes he will go to?” No,  He’ll do anything to hitch the money train of Bushie’s military industrial complex’s…Blood Sucker!

Mr Blair’s office denied that his comments were an attack on Mrs Clinton.

Al Jazeera and Abu Ghraib scuttled US war in Fallujah

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld launched the failed April 2004 assault on the Iraqi town of Fallujah before marines were ready because it had become “a symbol of resistance that dominated international headlines” and similar considerations eventually destroyed the operation — both according to a highly classified U.S. intelligence report into the defeat.

“During the first week of April, insurgents invited a reporter from Al Jazeera, Ahmed Mansour, and his film crew into Fallujah where they filmed scenes of dead babies from the hospital, presumably killed by Coalition air strikes. Comparisons were made to the Palestinian Intifada. Children were shown bespattered with blood; mothers were shown screaming and mourning day after day.”

Coalition air strikes were conducted during the three week cease-fire, which was a “bit of a misnomer” and the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal contributed to the politically driven final peace settlement. The settlement left Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer “furious”.

By the end of April, 600-700 Iraqis and 18 marines had been killed inside the town with 62 marines killed in the broader operational area and 565 wounded in action.

Fallujah’s defenders were diverse but united to oppose the U.S. offensive. They included former regime soldiers, “nationalists, local Islamic extremists, foreign fighters and criminals” together comprising not so much a military organization, but “an evil Rotary club”.

The revelations come from a highly classified report on the attack released today by the open government group Wikileaks, which has in the past month released a number of sensitive U.S. documents including manuals for Guantanamo Bay, Camp Bucca prison and Department of Defense detainee operations.

The report was penned last year by the U.S Army National Ground Intelligence Center and is classified “SECRET/NOFORN” — meaning the report was not to be shared with Coalition partners.

The Fallujah assault was initiated when on March 31 2004 four private military personnel from the U.S firm Blackwater were killed in the town and photos of their burnt bodies received international coverage.

The report said the coverage had prompted Rumsfeld, General Abizaid and the then Coalition Provisional Authority Chief Paul Bremer to order an “immediate military response”.

The report not only blames media driven political pressures for launching the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force before it was ready, but states similar political considerations led to a cease-fire five days later.

The three week official cease-fire was “a bit of a misnomer”, with Coalition air strikes continuing and snipers on both sides making movement hazardous. On the town’s resistance, the report claims the number one “enemy strategy” was “to gain media attention and sympathy” in-order to push political pressure “to a boiling point.”

Contributing to the peace settlement at the end of the month was British opposition to the battle, an Iraqi Shia uprising over the forced closure of the newspaper “al-Hawza” and Abu Ghraib.

Paul Bremer was “furious when he found out about it, but he was in little position to overturn it since he had insisted on the cease-fire in the first place. Complicating matters was the fact that the Abu Ghraib scandal broke on 29 April, consuming the attention of senior leaders in the U.S. government. Bremer could not organize a consensus to overturn the Fallujah decision.”

During the battle U.S. psychological operations loud speakers “blasted rock music or taunted the insurgents into attacking with insults about their marksmanship.”

Marines used the M1A1 Abrams tank as bait, to lure defenders out into the open, however this ruse didn’t work for long as “The enemy.. would initiate an ambush with small-arms fire on one side of a tank in order to get the tank crew to turn its armor in the direction of fire. They would then fire a coordinated 5 or 6 RPG [rocket propelled grenade] salvo into the exposed rear of the tank”.

The report states “Approximately 150 air strikes destroyed 75 buildings, including two mosques” and that the operation “stirred up a hornets nest across the Al Anbar provence”.

Concluding, the report states “Information operations are increasingly important in a 21st Century world where cable television runs 24 hours a day..the Iraqi government was nascent and weak and they offered no political cover for U.S. commanders to finish the operation in a reasonable time period… Abu Ghurayb.. and the Shia uprising further enflamed a politically precarious situation and could not have happened at a worse time for Coalition forces.”

U.S. forces retook Fallujah during November 2004 in what was to be the most bloody battle of the occupation.

Media Bias…MY ASS!

Former Bush communications director Dan Bartlett gives his views on the political press:

TM: Do you think the press corps is responsible for putting that word out—that the president was lying [about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq]?

BARTLETT: I don’t think they’re purposely doing it. Look, I get asked the question all the time: How do you deal with them when they’re all liberal? I’ve found that most of them are not ideologically driven. Do I think that a lot of them don’t agree with the president? No doubt about it. But impact, above all else, is what matters. All they’re worried about is, can I have the front-page byline? Can I lead the evening newscast? And unfortunately, that requires them to not do in-depth studies about President Bush’s health care plan or No Child Left Behind. It’s who’s up, who’s down: Cheney hates Condi, Condi hates Cheney.

This seems like a shockingly reasonable assessment of the situation. One might add that a huge amount of the problem is lock-in. If the incentives facing the people who do this kind of coverage point in the direction of pointless, dumb stories then people who are strongly averse to doing that kind of work tend to get out of the business. Those who succeed are the ones who not only understand the incentive structure but who embrace it, thus further re-inscribing it.

David Gregory has FAILED!

He’s abdicated his responsability as a part of the  fourth estate. I remember him a year ago on stage rapping with Karl Rove at a press club event. That cosy relationship denies us unbiased…the consumer, real reporting because of his closeness to the administration and it’s enablers.  SIR, HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

The reason blogs thrive is because people like Gregory fail to report

From Think Progress:

At a National Press Club event earlier this week, NBC White House correspondent David Gregory argued that, because is so much polarization in politics today, “people try to divine or assign our motives” for asking certain questions at the White House press briefings. When Helen Thomas asked Gregory what was responsible for the polarization, Gregory answered:

I think it’s because of the internet largely. The polarized atmosphere in the internet and blogs and whatnot have been a major contributor to that.

In February — at a similar event at the Press Club — Gregory pointed the finger at blogs for the reason that “politics and political coverage has become so polarized.” Glenn Greenwald wrote at the time:

The reality, of course, is that most media-criticizing bloggers do not want journalists to be “political advocates.” They want them to do what journalists are supposed to do — which is not…sit around with their good, trustworthy, nice-guy friends in the White House and simply “ask questions” and “get information,” but instead to scrutinize that information, treat it with doubt, investigate it before passing it along to determine whether it’s true.

And the reason bloggers want them to do that, the reason that bloggers demand more of journalists…is not because bloggers are enraged, confused, unreasonable partisans. It’s because bloggers are American citizens who are deeply concerned about what has happened to their country over the last six years.