THE WAR DRAGS ON: 2004-2006

CONTENTS

13. THE MOUNTING COST OF THE WAR

1. CHAOS AND VIOLENCE IN 2004

As Bush’s war dragged on, it became clearer that the Bush administration did not always receive honest intelligence reports.

In 2004, case officers in Baghdad said they were frequently ordered to revise intelligence reports that were considered “negative” about Iraq. In addition, a new CIA station chief in Iraq reported on the deadly conditions in Iraq. He was immediately questioned by the White House. Subsequently, the NSC was determined to know whether the official was a Republican or a Democrat.

The largest single day death toll occurred on February 1. Sixty-seven people were killed and 247 wounded in the bombings, 10 minutes apart, at the Erbil headquarters of the two leading Kurdish parties. Casualties included the deputy prime minister, the mayor of Erbil, a police chief, and a top political boss. (New York Times, February 2, 2004)

According to a “Top Secret” No 10 memo, Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station Al Jazeera in Qatar. Bush and Blair met on April 16, 2004 when the American president made his comment. But Blair talked him out of it. In defending the president, Bush administration officials suggested he was “humorous, not serious.” (London’s Daily Mirror, November 22, 2005)

In April alone, 130 American troops were killed, the bloodiest month for the United States since the invasion of Iraq more than one year ago. More serviceman were killed in this month than in the first six weeks of the war after which Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1, 2003.

Bush received more bad news in April. Support for his war eroded substantially beginning in the spring of 2004, as Americans became increasingly critical of the way Bush handled the conflict. In a New York Times/CBS News Poll in April, those polled were asked whether the United States had done the right thing in taking military action against Iraq. Forty-seven percent said it had; that was down from 58 percent a month earlier and 63 percent in December 2003. Forty-six percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq; that was up from 37 percent the month before and 31 percent in December 2003. (New York Times, April 29, 2004)

American support for Bush’s policy began dropping rapidly. By mid-May, 80 percent of Iraqis reported a lack of confidence in the Coalition Provisional Authority. And 82 percent disapproved of the United States and allied militaries in Iraq. (Washington Post, May 13, 2004)

In the United States, Bush’s overall approval rating continued to plummet. On April 9, 51 percent of Americans approved of his presidency. On May 1, it had dropped to 46 percent. And on May 12, it fell even more to 44 percent – the lowest in his presidency. (CBS, May 12, 2004)

For the first time, a clear majority of Americans disapproved of Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and believed the United States was not in control of Iraq. They said American troops should turn over power to Iraq as soon as possible, even if the country remained unstable. (CBS, May 12, 2004)

The highest figure ever recorded -- 64 percent -- said the result of the war in Iraq had not been worth the cost in lives or money. Only 29 percent, the lowest figure ever, believed the war had been worth it. And just 31 percent of Americans believed the United States was winning the war. (CBS, May 12, 2004)

On May 17, the head of the Iraqi Governing Council and six others were assassinated in a bombing near a United States checkpoint in Baghdad today. Abdel-Zahraa Othman, also known as Izzadine Saleem, was the second and highest-ranking member of the Governing Council to be assassinated. The assassination of Salim compounded the disarray surrounding plans to hand over sovereignty to an interim government on June 30. (Financial Times, May 18, 2004; New York Times, May 18, 2004)

At first, the Bush administration hailed the news as a victory. But upon analyzing the improvised Explosive device (IED), a study showed that the explosive was the same as those used during the Iraq-Iraq war in the 1980s. Garth Whitty, a former United Nations chemical weapons inspector, likened the find to the 12 chemical warheads -- 11 of them empty -- discovered by United Nations inspectors at a storage depot south of Baghdad two months before Bush launched his war.

As the June 30 hand-over neared, insurgents not only increased the number of attacks. And at the same time, Bush saw his ratings slowly continue to drop. Two months earlier in April, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 63 percent of Americans approved of the way Bush was managing the war on terrorism. Then in June, that figure dropped 13 points to just 50 percent. (Washington Post, June 21, 2004)

A CNN/USA Today poll conducted on June 6 showed that a majority of Americans – 54 percent -- supported Bush’s decision to go to war. But after the increased attacks by insurgents in the latter part of the month, the number of Americans supporting the president’s war had plummeted to 41 percent. (CNN, June 25, 2004)

The insurgents focused primarily on high-ranking members in Iraq’s interim government. In mid-May, a car bomb killed Ezzedine Salim, the head of the Governing Council, and six others at an entrance to the American headquarters in Baghdad. Ten days later, gunmen ambushed a convoy carrying Salama al-Khafaji, a council member, and killed her 18-year-old son and her chief bodyguard.

In mid-June, insurgents shot Kamal al-Jarrah, the cultural affairs director at the education ministry, at Baghdad home. One day later, gunmen killed Bassam Salih Kubba, a deputy foreign minister. The same day, two senior police officers escaped ambush when insurgents sprayed a two-car convoy carrying General Hussein Mustafa Abdul-Kareem. (New York Times, June 14, 2004)

In October, the Bush administration announced it would ask for another $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That pushed total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The average cost for one month of the war in Iraq increased from $4 billion to $5.8 billion. Bush’s request for an additional $82 billion in the Fall of 2004 exceeded his combined 2006 funding request for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Housing and Urban Development. It equaled nearly five times the savings he is seeking through cuts to those and other domestic programs in the name of spending restraint. (Washington Post, October 26, 2004; CNN, November 20, 2004; Washington Post, February 14, 2005)

Besides the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tsunami relief in Asia, the emergency request included money for “revamping” the Army which should have been included in the base budget. (Washington Post, October 26, 2004; CNN, November 20, 2004; Washington Post, February 14, 2005)

November brought the highest death toll for United States troops. A record-breaking 135 Americans perished that month. On November 7, the Iraqi government declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout the country except for the Kurdish areas. On the same day, insurgents escalated a wave of violence that killed more than 50 people. (New York Times, November 7, 2004)

The state of emergency failed to curtail the number of insurgent attacks across Iraq. In fact, there were more outbreaks of violence, particularly after the United States siege of Fallujah.

In November, the Pentagon extended by three months the tour of duty of military personnel who already had served their 12-month stint in Iraq. The Army also informed more than 4,000 former soldiers that they would return to active duty. More than 1,800 of those had already requested exemptions or delays. Over 2,500 soldiers were ordered to report to military bases for refresher training by November 7. However, 733 refused to report. (New York Times, November 16, 2004)

Many of these former soldiers -- some of whom said they had not trained, held a gun, worn a uniform, or even gone for a jog in years -- objected to being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan after they thought they were through with life on active duty. They sought exemptions, filed court cases, and some even refused to report for duty. (New York Times, November 16, 2004)

With the national elections approaching, violence continued to increase in Iraq. Bush broke his promise that he would not increase the number of United States troops in Iraq. In December, 1,500 soldiers, from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division at Fort. Bragg, were deployed to Iraq. In addition, 10.400 troops had their tour of duty extended. That brought the total number of United States military personnel to 150,000. (Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2004)

After Bush’s re-election in November 2004, the biggest personnel concern was whether Rumsfeld should stay. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. Approached Powell with caution. (Bob Woodward, State of Denial)

Powell told Card, “If I go, Don should go.” Bush had decided to replace Powell with Rice, but it was unclear whom he wanted at Defense. (Bob Woodward, State of Denial)

Card’s list of possibilities for the DOD included Joe Lieberman and John McCain. But card thought the best replacement would be former Secretary of State James Baker.

Laura Bush was distressed about the war and was worried that Rumsfeld was hurting her husband. Card knew that Laura Bush and Rice often took long walks together on the Camp David weekends.

December 20th marked the bloodiest day in over six months. Only days into Iraq’s six-week election campaign, insurgents killed 60 people and wounded 120 others in car bombings in Iraq’s two holiest Shi’ite cities, Najaf and Karbala. In Baghdad, a group of about 30 insurgents hurling hand grenades and firing machine guns pulled three election officials from their car in the midst of morning traffic and executed them in the road with shots to the head. (New York Times, December 21, 2004)

The number of Americans killed in Iraq climbed to over 1,300. Rumsfeld acknowledged that he used automated signature machines to sign letters sent to the families of soldiers who were killed in combat. The Bush administration supported Rumsfeld’s impersonal and callous method of dealing with grieving families. (Los Angeles Times, December 20, 2004)

Over 1,000 Iraqi policemen were killed in 2004. And 50,000 of the country’s 130,000 police officers refused to show up to work for fear of being targeted by insurgents. (MSNBC, December 6, 2004)

2. CHAOS AND VIOLENCE IN 2005

United States military fatalities from hostile acts had risen from an average of about 17 per month just after Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, to an average of 82 per month by the end of 2004.

The average number of United States soldiers wounded by hostile acts per month had spiraled from 142 to 808 during the same period. Iraqi civilians suffered even more deaths and injuries.

Attacks on the United States-led coalition since November 2003, when statistics were first available, increased from 735 a month to 2,400 in October 2004. By the end of 2004, attacks were running at 75 a day, about 2,300 a month.

The average number of mass-casualty bombings grew from zero in the first four months of the American occupation to an average of 13 per month by the end of 2004.

On March 1, the deadliest single bombing took the toll of 122 Iraqis. A suicide bomber steered a sedan full of explosives into a thick crowd of Iraqi police and army recruits. The bombing in Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, occurred in a crowd of several hundred recruits who were waiting for required checkups at a medical clinic across from the mayor’s office and a large outdoor market. (New York Times, March 1, 2005)

By March 1, 200 foreigners had been kidnapped in Iraq. After one month and one day in captivity, one of the more prominent journalists, captured by terrorists, was released. Liberal Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was freed on March 5. Many leveled serious accusations at United States troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate. She had reported the truth about the Iraq war and obviously was seen as an obstacle by the Unite4d States military.

There were claims that the Americans and Italians knew her car was approaching a checkpoint that might have never existed. The car was 700 yards from the airport, which meant that the Italians would have passed all checkpoints. Then a hail of bullets rained down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad airport, along with three secret service agents, killing one of them. (Common Dreams, March 5, 2005)

The United States Army claimed the Italians’ car was speeding toward towards the checkpoint and failed to heed the Americans’ hand signals and other warnings telling it to stop. (Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2005)

The Italians claimed there was no checkpoint and no signals, and the car was traveling about 25 mph. It had slowed to that speed, because of puddles in the road and a sharp curve, and the Italians had left on the lights inside the car to better identify them. (Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2005)

In a detailed reconstruction of the incident presented to Parliament, Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said the troops focused a searchlight on the car and immediately began firing for 10 or 20 seconds. They then stopped and approached the vehicle. They took the driver out, walked him several feet away, forced him to kneel on the ground, and then apparently realized their mistake. (Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2005)

After a one-month investigation, the Pentagon concluded that its soldiers had followed their rules of engagement and should therefore face no charges of dereliction of duty. (Reuters, April 26, 2005)

The Italian government branded the report a whitewash, denying that the Italian car had been speeding. In a 52-page report, government officials claimed the American soldiers at the checkpoint were nervous and inexperienced. The report said the Americans had set up a haphazard checkpoint. Finally, the Italian government disputed American charges that the car had been speeding. (New York Times, May 3, 2005)

March 18 signified the second anniversary of the war. Over 1,500 American soldiers had been killed. There still was no exit strategy for United States troops. There was no standard for determining when Iraqi security forces would be ready to take over responsibility for their own security. Corruption remained rampant. Reconstruction was way behind.

In early 2004, insurgents carried out an average of 14 attacks against United States troops per day. By March 2005, that number increased to more than 70 per day. (Brookings Institute)

Yet, nearly half of the American public still supported Bush’s war. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 53 percent of Americans said the war was not worth fighting, and 70 percent said the number of United States casualties is an unacceptable price.

Prior to Bush’s invasion, the White House claimed United States troops would be greeted as liberators by an overjoyed Iraqi people. In July 2003, an estimated 5,000 insurgents were fighting against United States troops. In March 2005 -- two years after the invasion -- that estimate was about 18,000 (Brookings Institute)

In the three months following the national elections, the number of insurgent attacks per day plummeted, averaging between the low 30s and mid-40s. They escalated in May, hitting an average of about 70 a day. Hostile fire killed more United States soldiers than during each of the three previous months. Insurgents killed 750 people in May; 56 were American troops. In May and June, over 1,100 Iraqi civilians and nearly 100 United States soldiers were killed. Suicide attacks outpaced car bombings almost 2-to-1 in May. (Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2005; New York Times, June 22, 2005)

In May alone, insurgents carried out about 700 attacks against American forces using “improvised explosive devices” (IEDs). That was the highest number since the invasion of Iraq two years earlier. The next highest two-month period was in January and February, around the time of the Iraqi elections when 54 Americans were killed by bombs. (New York Times, June 22, 2005)

At first, insurgents planted IEDs on or alongside roads, where they were detonated by garage door openers. (NBC News, June 16, 2005)

When United States intelligence officials developed ways to prevent such explosions, insurgents used more efficient infrared lasers as a detonating device. This innovation was aimed at bypassing electronic jammers used to block radio-wave detonators. (NBC News, June 16, 2005; New York Times, June 22, 2005)

Insurgents began using “shaped” charges that concentrated the blasts, giving them a better chance of penetrating armored vehicles and causing higher casualties.

With violence on the increase and with Bush’s ratings sliding, the president went on the offensive to show the world that his war was justified. He ranked Saddam’s ouster from power with the fall of the Berlin Wall and said changes in Iraq may herald a “global democratic revolution.” In a speech to United States soldiers, he said, “As the Iraq democracy succeeds, that success is sending a message from Beirut to Tehran that freedom can be the future of every nation.” (New York Times, April 12, 2005)

By June, 12,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by insurgents. According to Iraq’s Interior Ministry, Iraqi civilians and police officers died at a rate of more than 800 a month between August 2004 and May 31, 2005. 8,175 Iraqis were killed by insurgents in that 10-month period. (New York Times, July 14, 2005)

Even though the war was not going their way, Cheney and Rumsfeld continued to paint an optimistic picture of the situation. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 23, Rumsfeld echoed Cheney’s claims that the “insurgents are in the last throes.” Then Rumsfeld was contradicted by General John Abizaid who conceded that the number of terrorist attacks had not diminished over one year. In fact, he said, they might have slightly increased. (New York Times, June 24, 2005)

When Abizaid was asked to respond directly to Cheney’s assessment, he distanced himself from the remarks and would only say, “I don’t know that I would make any comment about that, other than to say that there's a lot of work to be done on the insurgency. I’m sure you’ll forgive me from criticizing the vice president.” (New York Times, June 24, 2005)

Rumsfeld insisted on keeping things as vague as possible by simply repeating the White House line: “Our troops will return when the mission is complete.” And when Cheney was asked if he wanted to offer an assessment of how much longer this insurgency would continue, his reply was “No. No, I can’t say that.” (New York Times, June 24, 2005)

After Cheney claimed the “insurgents were in the last throes,” Rumsfeld said it would take up to 12 years to end the insurgency. To further indicate the divisiveness, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari predicted the insurgency would end within two years. (New York Times, June 27, 2005)

When asked about the gap between the administration’s rhetoric and military leaders’ reality, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan proved incapable of answering the question. It was obvious that there was quite a difference of opinion between military officers, who battled the intractable insurgency every day, and Pentagon officials intent on accentuating the progress in Iraq. (New York Times, June 24, 2005)

The war in Iraq going the way for Bush senior adviser Karl Rove. So he went back to his biggest strength of political mudslinging. On June 22, he attacked the left, saying “liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. (New York Times, June 23, 2005)

Bush’s approval rating reached an all-time low of 46 percent. That was lower than any president in the first one-half year of his second term. His approval rating was just one point higher than that of President Nixon during the first six months of his second term. That was after the Watergate scandal had broken. . (The Guardian, June 29, 2005; Washington Post, June 29, 2005)

With his dismal ratings, Bush went on national television on June 29 to try to drum up more support for his war. He circumvented the real problems facing United States forces in Iraq by attempting to inspire imagery of another attack on our homeland. He exploited the sacred ground of 9/11 as he made frequent references to the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on American soil. He called on Americans to “remember the lessons of September 11th.” Yet, he never once mentioned that there was no connection between 9/11 and Saddam. (The Guardian, June 29, 2005; Washington Post, June 29, 2005)

As Bush’s ratings continued to plummet in the fall of 2005, he handed Karen Hughes the position of Undersecretary of State for the Middle East in an attempt to repair America’s deteriorating relations with the Arab community.

But when Hughes toured the Middle East, she actually created more tensions between the United States and the Arab community. Hughes spoke of Americans being “people of faith,” and she was immediately met with sharp criticism from the Muslim community.

Months later, Hughes traveled to Indonesia where she once again received a hostile reception. A group of women Muslim students expressed anger at the United States invasion of Iraq and attacked the Bush administration’s foreign policies. (Reuters, October 21, 2005)

While Hughes’ mission was failing, Bush’s advisors set up a dialogue with United States troops in Iraq. On October 13, Bush spoke via teleconference with a “handpicked” group of American troops.” Bush asked questions that were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and the country’s referendum. Following the event, Pentagon communications aide Allison Barber insisted to reporters that questions “were not rehearsed,” and that no “specific questions” were prepared. (New York Times, October 13, 2005)

Unfortunately, Barber was caught on tape prepping the soldiers and acknowledging just the opposite -- that she had drilled through all six of the questions that Bush was going to ask. (New York Times, October 13, 2005)

Nevertheless, the Bush administration still refused to admit the teleconference was simply a choreographed photo-op. Asked by a reporter whether the questions to the president were in any way pre-screened, White House spokesman McClellan said, “No. ... This is a back-and-forth.” (New York Times, October 13, 2005)

Violence intensified. Ninety-five American service men and women were killed in October. This was the highest monthly fatality rate since January 2005 when 107 Americans died. By the fall of 2005, the number of insurgent attacks continued to rise with an average of 100 per day – an increase from 50 attacks six months earlier. (CNN, November 4, 2005)

Bush’s approval rating continued to spiral downward. In November, he hit an all-time low of 35 percent. As Bush launched a new effort to gain public support for the Iraq war, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found nearly six in 10 Americans said United States troops should not be withdrawn from Iraq until certain goals were achieved. Just 35 percent wanted to set a specific timetable for their exit, as some critics of the war have suggested. One month later, Bush crept ahead in the polls to a 40 percent approval rating. (CNN, December 3, 2005; ABC News, December 8, 2005)

In December, Bush claimed that Iraqi security forces “primarily led” the assault on Tal Afar. He highlighted it as an “especially clear” sign of the progress Iraq security forces were making in Iraq. (Daily Kos, December 1, 2005)

The progress of the Iraqi forces was especially clear when the anti-terrorist operations in Tal Afar were compared with the 2004 assault in Fallujah. In Fallujah, the assault was led by nine coalition battalions made up primarily of United States Marines and Army -- with six Iraqi battalions supporting them. (Daily Kos, December 1, 2005)

But at Tal Afar, it was a very different story. The assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces -- 11 Iraqi battalions, backed by five coalition battalions providing support. (Daily Kos, December 1, 2005)

However, the Iraqi military was not improving as Bush administration officials had boasted. In the last half of 2005, the training of Iraqi security forces suffered a severe “setback.” The Iraqi army and other forces began making political gains, according to Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim. (Associated Press, December 5, 2005)

Al-Yawer said Shi’ite-dominated Interior Ministry security forces tortured Sunni detainees were evidence that many forces were politicized and sectarian. Some of the new Iraqi forces focused on settling scores and other political goals -- rather than maintaining security.

Al-Yawer also said some Iraqi military commanders were dismissed for political reasons, rather than judged on merit. He said the army -- also dominated by Shiites – conducted raids against villages and towns in Sunni and mixed areas of Iraq, rather than targeting specific insurgents. (Associated Press, December 5, 2005)

The insurgents’ ability to mount attacks on American and Iraqi forces and civilians steadily grew between 2003 and the end of 2005. In February 2006, Joseph Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office, testified before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on Iraq stabilization and reconstruction. (New York Times, February 9, 2006)

The number of attacks in December 2005 -- nearly 2,500 -- was almost 250 percent of the number in March 2004. But the trend line began even before March 2004, when the number of attacks was already nearly double what it had been in July or August 2003. Attacks against Iraqi security forces grew faster than the overall count; by December 2005 they had grown more than 200 percent since March 2004. (New York Times, February 9, 2006)

Violence continued to be a way of life in Iraq. Almost every day, a group of Shi’ite police were hit in a Sunni suicide attack or ambush. Regularly, a militiaman in the Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi security services arrested, tortured, and killed a suspected Sunni insurgent. And frequently, a Kurdish official in the new government was gunned down between his home and office.

*Mosques continued to be bombed and hit with rockets.

*Civilians and government officials were still kidnapped.

*Mixed Baghdad districts such as Ghazaliya and Doura were slowly “cleansed” of Shi’ites through intimidation and violence.

Similar “cleansing” was carried out on Sunnis in villages in the Shiite-dominated south and on Arabs and Turkmens in Kirkuk. . (Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2006)

Bush continued to claim that civil war would not erupt after the December parliamentary elections. He was wrong. By the end of 2005, the battle lines were more definitively drawn between the Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds:

*Sunni factions maneuvered to regain power in Iraq against Shi’ite militiamen who were intent on protecting the new government.

*The Shi’ites avenged the violence that they had instilled at the hands of Sunnis.

*The Kurds were also targeted by the Sunnis. Their goal of independence or strong autonomy, and their wish to add the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to their region, put them on a collision course with the rest of the country. (Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2006)

Until the latter part of 2005, the White House only invited loyal constituents to carefully orchestrated public appearances where high-level officials were invited to speak. The president himself was never allowed to speak without a script. Administration officials feared he would either be inarticulate or he would misspeak. Then embarrassed White House officials would be called in to explain what the president really meant to say.

But as Bush began flailing in the polls in late 2005 and in 2006, advisors realized the staged and phony atmosphere was not working to their benefit. Subsequently, the White House elected to place Bush on the stump without prepared notes. And administration officials chose to relax the strict regulations on which people would be invited to attend.

As a result, high-level administration officials heard negative -- and legitimate remarks -- from members of the audience who previously had been denied entrance.

In May 2006, Rumsfeld was sharply questioned by about his 2003 claims about WMD in Iraq. Ray McGovern, a CIA veteran of 27 years, confronted Rumsfeld, saying the secretary of defense had said, “We know where they are.” Rumsfeld made that claim on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on March 30, 2003 near the beginning of the war.

But Rumsfeld lied when he responded to McGovern. Rumsfeld falsely claimed he never said it. He was left nearly speechless: He said, “My words -- my words were that -- no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute.” (New York Times, May 4, 2006)

The addition of thousands of Kurds into the Iraqi Army indicated that the Bush administration’s plan -- to bring unity to Iraq before withdrawing American troops by training and equipping a national army -- was failing. (Knight Ridder, December 28, 2005)

The Kurds continued in their goal of founding an autonomous state. Kurdish leaders placed over 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi Army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city. That could secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan. (Knight Ridder, December 28, 2005)

The Kurds positioned their men in Iraqi Army units on the western flank of Kirkuk, in the area that included Irbil and the volatile city of Mosul. In addition, they placed soldiers on the eastern flank in the area that includes the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. The Iraqi Army’s 2nd Division, which oversaw the Irbil-Mosul area, had 12,000 soldiers, and at least 90 percent of them were Kurds. (Knight Ridder, December 28, 2005)

Of the 3,000 Iraqi soldiers in Irbil, 2,500 were together in a Peshmerga unit previously based in the city. An entire brigade in Mosul, about 3,000 soldiers, consisted of three battalions that were transferred almost intact from former Peshmerga units, with many of the same soldiers and officers in the same positions. Mosul’s population was split between Kurds and Arabs, and any movement by Peshmerga units to take it almost certainly would lead to an eruption of Arab violence. (Knight Ridder, December 28, 2005)

The Kurdish soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga - the Kurdish militia - and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they would not hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted. (Knight Ridder, December 28, 2005)

As the war dragged on, Iraqis became more and more agitated with conditions. In February 2006, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said Iraqi “people are doing the same as (in) Saddam’s time and worse. … Unfortunately, there are lots of atrocities being committed and are happening, and if this is allowed to continue, then Iraq would be thrown back again to the darkness of the evil forces that Saddam led in Iraq.” (CNN’s Late Edition, February 15, 2006)

More Iraqis began turning against the United States occupation. In an August 2005 opinion poll commissioned by Britain’s Minister of Defence:

*Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believed attacks against British and American troops were justified -- rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province.

*82 per cent were “strongly opposed” to the presence of coalition troops.

*Less than one per cent of the population believed coalition forces were responsible for any improvement in security.

*67 per cent of Iraqis felt less secure because of the occupation.

*43 per cent of Iraqis believed conditions for peace and stability had worsened.

*72 per cent did not have confidence in the multi-national forces. (London’s Sunday Telegraph, October 23, 2005)

Three years into the war, tensions escalated in Basra. The combination of sectarian violence, the smuggling of oil, and the lack of water and electricity increased anxiety. Residents in Basra blamed the governor and the 8,000-man strong British military that occupied the city. (Inter Press Service, May 26, 2006)

The International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said that 14,302 families had been displaced since the February 22, 2006 bombing of the shrine in Samarra. (Inter Press Service, May 26, 2006)

3. CIVIL WAR IN 2006

Despite optimistic reports from the Bush administration, violence escalated in 2006. The Bush administration claimed otherwise. The Pentagon claimed that the number of insurgent attacks dropped from about 100 a day in mid-2005 to 70 a day in early 2006. Also, the Pentagon claimed the size and scale of attacks against civilians declined. (Los Angeles Times, February 19, 2006)

But those “facts” did not jive with the reality of events. For example, the number of murders in Baghdad alone increased from 50 to 100. Over one dozen civilians a day were yanked off Baghdad streets and kidnapped. It appeared that United States forces were deployed only to protect themselves, as they failed to maintain order between countless militias that emerged in nearly every city and town.

The “Iraqi Army” was a misnomer. The government’s military consisted of Iraqi units integrated into the United States-commanded occupation army. These units relied on the Americans for intelligence, logistics, and artillery, tanks, and airpower. The Iraqi “Air Force” typically consistsed of fewer then 10 planes with no combat capability. The government had no real control over either personnel or strategy.

Violence in largely Sunni areas of Iraq began to spread to Shia cities that had previously been insulated from the devastation of American pacification attempts. This led to more problems involving economic, religious, and militia connections between local Shia governments and Iran, and with the growing power of the anti-American Sadrist movement.

All three governments -- Kurdish, Shia and Sunni -- showed they were capable of maintaining their own law and harsh order. There was little or no resistance from the local population. Though often severely limited by the lack of resources from a paralyzed national economy and a bankrupt national government, they do collect the garbage, direct traffic, suppress the local criminal element, and perform many of the other duties expected of local governments.

SHI’ITES:

*Shi’ite urban areas maintained autonomy in their local areas. Religio-political group such as notably the Sadrists and the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) – Da’wa and Fadhila -- battled for local control.

*Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and his network of political clerics controlled the Shi’ite slum of Sadr city.

*In the major city of the Shia south, Basra, local clerics led a government that alternately ignored and defied the central government on all policy issues from oil to women’s rights.

SUNNIS:

*Like Shi’ites, Sunnis also maintained autonomy except when the United States occupation was actively trying to pacify them. When there was no fighting, local governments dominated by the religious and tribal leaders of the resistance established the laws and maintained semi-order, relying for law enforcement on guerrilla fighters and militia members.

*In Sunni cities like Tal Afar and Ramadi, where major battles were waged between the Americans and insurgents, the government simply had no presence whatsoever.

KURDS:

*In the north, the three Kurdish provinces are ruled by a stable Kurdish government without any outside presence. They maintained full control of all local governments.

Administratively, the Iraqi government had existence outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone -- and little presence within it. Iraq was led by local leaders who usually had little or no loyalty to the central government.

In February 2006, Iraq took another step to being further embedded in civil war as sectarian violence escalated. Insurgents attacked 90 Sunni mosques, destroying two of them.

The Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the country’s four holiest shrines, was infiltrated by insurgents disguising themselves as police. Two of Shi’ite Islam’s 12 venerated Imams were buried there. Hundreds of worshipers were killed and scores more were injured. (New York Times, February 22, 2006)

Tens of thousands of protesters immediately took to the streets, as Shi’ite leaders lashed out at the United States as partly to blame. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani made a rare appearance. He called for protests but urged restraint, forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques. He later suggested, as did Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel-Mehdi, that religious militias could be given a bigger security role if the government was not capable of protecting holy shrines. (New York Times, February 23, 2006)

Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr blamed Sunni Arab militants for the bombing and vowed revenge. He and the influential Sunni cleric Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi joined with Iran in blaming the United States. Al-Sadr’s Armed Mehdi Army militiamen took up positions on streets in Baghdad and Shi’ite cities in the south, clashing in Basra and elsewhere with Sunnis. (BBC News, February 23, 2006; Associated Press, February 23, 2006)

Further outrage towards the Bush administration came when Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said that the United States would cut off aid to Iraq if it formed a sectarian government. He said, “We are not going to invest the resources of the American people to build forces run by people who are sectarian.” (Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2006)

Two weeks later, Khalilzad warned that ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon. He said the “potential is there” for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war. (Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2006)

The Iraqi government announced a daytime curfew in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces in a bid to help maintain order around the period of prayers. As usual, Bush played down the violence.

After the surge of violence in February, the Defense Intelligence Agency painted a gloomy assessment of the insurgencies. The agency said the Iraqi elections appeared to have contributed to the rising sectarian violence. (Washington Post, February 28, 2006)

If the internal sectarian rivalries were not enough, Egyptian President Mubarak angered Iraqi leaders by saying Shi’ites in Iraq were more loyal to Iran than to their own country. (Washington Post, April 9, 2006)

General Michael Maples, the DIA director, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the insurgents in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan were remarkably resilient. But John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, gave the Bush party line description of the conditions in Iraq. Negroponte described told the committee that Iraq was making “encouraging developments” and meeting the “challenges” from insurgents. (Washington Post, February 28, 2006)

With Iraq moving deeper into anarchy, more and more United States troops were becoming unhappy with the course of events in Iraq. A Zogby poll conducted in February 2006 found that:

*Almost 90 percent of troops incredibly thought the war was for Saddam’s role in 9/11.

*72 percent said the war should end within ten months -- by the end of 2006.

*20 percent believed Bush should stand behind his promise to stay “as long as they are needed.”

*58 percent said the mission was clear.

*42 percent said the United States role was hazy.

*A plurality believed Iraqi insurgents were mostly homegrown.

*A majority opposed use of harsh prisoner interrogation

*A plurality were pleased with their armor and equipment

In March, Iraqi police accused American troops of mass murder. The Iraqi official report said: “The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 persons, including five children, four women and two men. Then they bombed the house, burned three vehicles and killed their animals.” (Knight Ridder, March 20, 2006)

A local police commander, Lieutenant Farooq Hussain said autopsies at the hospital in Tikrit “revealed that all the victims had bullet shots in the head and all bodies were handcuffed.” (Knight Ridder, March 20, 2006)

United States forces had lost control over key areas of Iraq in 2006. Insurgent attacks escalated on a daily basis in Haditha, Ramadi, Fallujah, and al-Qa’im in Ramadi province. American forces also lost control of al-Anbar province that bordered Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Attacks were conducted daily from al-Qa’im on the Syrian border to Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad, all the way through Haditha, Hit, Ramadi, and Fallujah. Long stretches of the 550-kilometer Baghdad-Amman highway that crossed al-Anbar fell under the control of highway looters. (Inter Press Service, September 5, 2006)

In 2006, the average number of weekly attacks jumped to almost 800, almost double from the number in 2005. Iraqi casualties increased 51 percent from the first to the second quarter of 2006. Deaths among Iraqi civilians and security forces reached nearly 120 a day, up from about 80 a day in the previous quarter. In 2004, approximately 30 Iraqis were killed each day. (New York Times, September 1, 2006)

According to the Pentagon quarterly report on Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq, Iraqi casualties rose 51 percent during the summer of 2006. Between May 20 and August 11, the average number of weekly attacks rose to nearly 800, almost double the number of the attacks in early 2004. (Inter Press Service, September 5, 2006)

Casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces averaged nearly 120 a day during the period, up from 80 a day reported in the previous quarterly report. Two years ago they were averaging roughly 30 a day. (Inter Press Service, September 5, 2006)

By the spring of 2006 and after three years of war, the death counts continued to rise. More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of 2006 than at any time since the toppling of Saddam ‘s regime in March 2003. (Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2006)

Over 3,800 and many of them found hog-tied had been shot execution-style. Others were strangled, electrocuted, stabbed, garroted, or hanged. Some died in bombings. Many bore signs of torture such as bruises, drill holes, burn marks, gouged eyes or severed limbs. (Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2006)

Every day, about 40 bodies arrived at the central Baghdad morgue. Statistics showed a steady increase in the number of shooting deaths and other types of targeted killings over 2005, with a stunning surge in March 2006, after the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra one month earlier. (Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2006)

After three years of war, the expenditures almost doubled. The cost of the war increased from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to $94 billion in 2006. (The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, April 2006)

The annual war costs in Iraq -- in 2006 American dollars -- was $61 billion more than in Vietnam from 1964 to 1972. (San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2006)

World-wide opposition to the Iraq war continued to increase. After Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi assumed office in May 2006, he called the war a “grave error.” Prodi said, “We consider the war in Iraq and the occupation of the country a grave error. … It has not resolved, but complicated, the situation of security. Terrorism has found a new base in Iraq and new excuses for terror attacks both inside and outside the country.” (New York Times, May 19, 2006) Italy announced that it would pull out its 3,500 troops by the end of 2006. (New York Times, June 7, 2006)

After being named prime minister, al-Juburi said 29 Iraqis were killed in May 2006 in separate incidents in the towns of Latifiyah and Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, and in the capital itself. (Agence France Presse, June 7, 2006)

Al-Juburi claimed:

*On May 13, United States forces launched an air assault on a civilian car in Latifiyah and killed six people.

*Also on May 13, United States aircraft attacked the house of a civilian, Saadun Mohsen Hassan, and killed seven members of his family.

*United States forces carried out another air strike the next day on the house of Sheikh Yassin Saleh Shallal in Yusifiyah, killing 13 people -- including women and children.

*Three other Iraqis were killed in United States raids in Baghdad. (Agence France Presse, June 7, 2006)

Not only did al-Juburi castigate the United States military for murdering numerous Iraqi civilians across Iraq, but he released 2,500 detainees in a gesture to promote national reconciliation. (Agence France Presse, June 7, 2006)

In the summer of 2006, thousands of residents of Ramadi, a city of 400,000 people, fled their homes in anticipation of a United States military offensive. They left to escape an imminent crossfire between insurgents and United States forces. But thousands of others were trapped in the city, since they did not have the money or the transportation to leave. Food and medical supplies ran low, gas prices soared, and municipal services stopped. (Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2006)

United States and Iraqi forces had cordoned off the city in June. Airstrikes on several residential areas escalated, and troops took to the streets with loudspeakers to warn civilians of a fierce impending attack. (Los Angeles Times, June 11, 2006)

Violence continued to increase in British-controlled Basra. Finally in June 2006, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared a state of emergency in British-controlled Basra, as civilians with any money or hope of escape tried to escape. (London’s The Independent, June 1, 2006)

As Bush continued to boast that improvements were being made in Iraq, violence continued to escalate during the summer. The number of murders reached an all-time high -- from 50 per day to over 100.

In July, a record 3,348 Iraqis country were killed. At least 1,815 bodies were delivered to Baghdad’s morgue, the highest number since the February 2006 bombing of a Shi’ite shrine that sparked a wave of sectarian killings. (NBC, August 20, 2006) With violence at a peak in the Baghdad, Bush ordered more United States soldiers reassigned from outlying areas into the capital city. (Washington Post, July 27, 2006)

While meeting privately, Bush made clear that he was concerned about the lack of progress in Iraq and frustrated that the new Iraqi government. He also was disgusted with the Iraqi people for not giving greater public support for the United States war. (New York Times, August 16, 2006)

On May 1, 2006, Rumsfeld circulated a six-page SECRET memo entitled “Illustrative New 21st Century Institutions and Approaches.” In the memo, Rumsfeld said, “The charge of incompetence against the U.S. government should be easy to rebut if the American people understand the extent to which the current system of government makes competence next to impossible.”

Three weeks later on May 24, the intelligence division of the Joint Staff, the J-2, circulated an intelligence assessment, classified SECRET, that showed that the forces of terror in Iraq were not in retreat. It indicated that terrorist attacks were steadily increasing as the insurgency was gaining. Attacks were averaging 700 to 800 a week. Every IED that was discovered -- whether it detonated and caused damage or casualties or was identified and disarmed before it could do any damage -- was still counted as an attack. A graph measuring attacks from May 2003 to May 2006 showed some significant dips, but the current number of attacks was as high as they had ever been.

During one week in May 2006, enemy-initiated attacks soared to 900, a new record. I n June, attacks went down to about 825 one week but then spiked up again. By July it was over 1,000 a week, again a new record. It was even worse considering the level of violence existed after two years spent training, equipping and funding 263,000 Iraqi soldiers and police. The cost had been $10 billion, and American teams had been embedded with most of the Iraqi units for over a year. At an equivalent time in 1971, after several years of Vietnamization, the trend lines of insurgent violence had been down, not up.

In August, Baghdad recorded more than 1,500 violent deaths, according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. That was nearly three times the preliminary figure the same ministry had released one week earlier.

Also in the same month, 21 former generals and high-ranking national security officials called on Bush to reverse his foreign policy. They urged him to negotiate with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. The generals were appalled that it was a foregone conclusion that Bush opted for war against Iraq and that he was unprepared for the consequences. (www.OneWorldNet.com, August 18, 2006) In fact, Bush never asked questions, such as if and how Sunnis and Shi’ites would end centuries of resentment once Saddam was gone. (Newsweek, April 24, 2006)

General Abizaid said, “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.” General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, envisioned the present situation “devolving to a civil war.” (New York Times, August 3, 2006)

As the insurgency mounted, several high-ranking United States commanders painted a bleaker picture of Iraq. In August, Colonel Peter Devlin -- stationed in Anbar province -- issued an assessment that said the political and security situation in western Iraq was grim and would continue to deteriorate unless the region received a substantial amount of aid. Devlin’s report said: “There is nothing MNF-W can do to influence the motivation of the Sunni to wage an insurgency.”

The following month, General Richard Zilmer conceded that only 30,000 United States forces could not control Sunni-controlled Anbar province in western Iraq. (Washington Post, September 12, 2006)

Despite upbeat assessments from the Bush administration, Bush continued to deny that Iraq was either headed towards civil war or that it already had fallen into civil war. The battle for Fallujah never ended. In 2006 – two years after the American invasion -- one Fallujah resident said, “They destroyed our city twice and they are threatening us a third time.” Another who had lost 32 relatives when his father’s house was bombed by a United States aircraft during the April 2004 attack on the city. (Inter Press Service, September 11, 2006)

Yet, Bush continued to deny that Iraq was either headed towards civil war or that it already had fallen into civil war.

As Bush’s war dragged on, more and more Iraqis became disenchanted with their country’s dilemma as well as disgusted with the occupation of United States troops.

In June, Maliki shunned Bush by canceling a luncheon with the American president and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Yet publicly, the Bush administration praised Maliki. Bush said Maliki is the “right guy” for Iraq and that “we’re going to help him and it’s in our interest to help him.” (New York Times, November 29, 2006)

A September 2006 study by the University of Maryland’s Program of International Policy Attitudes showed:

1. 61 percent of Iraqis supported attacks on United States military forces and favored Americans being killed.

2. 58 percent said that, if United States forces withdrew in six months, violence would decrease.

3. 71 percent want United States troops to withdraw within one year.

4. 79 percent said the United States had a negative influence on the situation in Iraq.

5. 53 percent said setting a timeline for withdrawal "would strengthen the government."

6. 80 percent said the United States military force in Iraq provoked more violence than it prevented.

7. An overwhelmingly majority of Iraqis had a negative opinion of bin Laden.

8. More than half, 57 percent, disapproving of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

9. 75 percent said they believed the United States would keep military bases in Iraq permanently.

10. 72 percent said they thought Iraq would be one state within five years. Shi’ite Iraqis were most likely to feel that way, though a majority of Sunnis and Kurds also believed that would be the case.

(Source: Program of International Policy Attitudes, September 27, 2006)

Meanwhile, the civil war intensified. Al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army seized total control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah in one of the boldest acts The Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations, planting explosives that flattened the buildings. About 800 militiamen with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers patrolled city streets in commandeered police vehicles. Other fighters set up roadblocks on routes into the city and sound trucks circulated telling residents to stay indoors. (New York Times, October 20, 2006)

In Amara, the Mahdi Army seized several police stations and clamped a curfew on the city in retaliation. Continued to control Amarah, the provincial capital of the southern province of Maysan. The militiamen summoned local government officials for meetings at their offices, and they roam the city with their weapons, manipulate the local police, and set up checkpoints at will. (New York Times, October 20, 2006)

Showing that he would not be a pawn of the Bush administration, Maliki ordered the lifting of joint United States-Iraqi military checkpoints around the Shi’ite militant stronghold of Sadr City and other parts of Baghdad. Once again, Maliki asserted his authority with the Americans and appealed to his Shi’ite support base. (New York Times, October 30, 2006)

When Maliki issued the statement on October 29, United States forces disappeared from the checkpoints. Celebrations erupted among civilians and members of the Mahdi Army in and around Sadr City. (New York Times, October 30, 2006)

Iraqi troops loaded coils of barbed wire and red traffic cones onto pickup trucks, while small groups of men and children danced in circles chanting slogans praising al-Sadr, who earlier had ordered the area closed to the Iraqi government until United States troops lifted what he called their “siege” of the neighborhood. (New York Times, October 30, 2006)

In the fall of 2006, insurgents carried out 3,836 insurgent and sectarian attacks against American and Iraqi targets every week in Iraq. That was an average of 939 attacks each week.

In October, Bush conceded for the first time that America might have reached the equivalent of a Tet offensive in Iraq. The following day, the Pentagon admitted defeat in its strategy of securing Baghdad. (The Guardian, October 20, 2006)

In November, Maliki further antagonized the Bush administration by canceling a meeting with the American president. The cancellation cam on the day that a White House memo expressed doubts about Maliki and after Iraqi officials loyal to al-Sadr said they were suspending participation in the Maliki government.

The price of black market weapons continued to soar across Iraq. By the end of 2006, the price of a handgun was several times higher than when the war broke out in March 2006. The most popular American issued weapons included Glock and Walthier 9-millimeter pistols and the Eastern European Kalashnikovs. (New York Times, December 10, 2006)

At the same time, NSC Advisor Stephen Hadley doubted that Maliki had the capacity to lead Iraq. (New York Times, November 30, 2006) One week later, United Nations Secretary-General Annan suggested an international conference on Iraq. In addition, Maliki announced he would send envoys to neighboring countries in order to discuss options in bringing peace to Iraq. (New York Times, December 6, 2006)

In December, hundreds of British and Iraqi soldiers assaulted a police station in Basra, killing seven gunmen, rescuing 127 prisoners from what the British said was almost certain execution, and ultimately reducing the facility to rubble. The military action was one of the most significant undertaken by British troops since the 2003 invasion, adding that it was an essential step in any plan to re-establish security in Basra. (New York Times, December 25, 2006)

More than 100 men were crowded into a single cell, 30 feet by 40 feet, with two open toilets, two sinks and just a few blankets spread over the concrete floor. A significant number showed signs of torture. Some had crushed hands and feet while others had cigarette and electrical burns and a significant number had gunshot wounds to their legs and knees. (New York Times, December 25, 2006)

In late 2006, American officers condemned Iran for providing training and deadly explosives to insurgents in Iraq. On December 21, United States troops raided the compound of the most powerful political party in the country, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. American forces seized two men they claimed were officers in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. (New York Times, January 19, 2007)

The 3,000th American soldier was killed on New Year’s Eve 2006, the number of United States troops. The number of injured far outstripped the dead, with the Veterans Administration reporting that more than 150,000 veterans of the Iraq war are receiving disability benefits. (Inter Press Service, January 4, 2007)

Bush administration officials and United States military personnel continued to boast about progress that the United States was making in Iraq. The idea was, ‘As they stand up, we’ll stand down.’ But as the war continued, that notion was vanishing. High-level United States military officials assessed conditions more realistically, rejecting the Bush administration’s insistence that progress was continuing to be made in the war. Top military officials even said that Iraq’s elections in December 2005 only deepened sectarian divides and contributed to the outbreak of a civil war. (Washington Post, June 9, 2007)

In the fall of 2006, a Joint Chiefs of Staff planning group – along with Army commander General David Petraeuss secretly projected various scenarios:

1. The United States could keep 20,000 soldiers assigned to guarantee the security of the Iraqi government and to assist Iraqi forces or their American advisers if they get into battles they could not handle.

2. A training and advisory force of close to 10,000 troops would work with Iraqi military and police units.

3. The United States military could maintain a small but significant Special Operations unit focused on fighting al Qaeda insurgents.

4. The headquarters and logistical elements to command and supply such a force would total more than 10,000 troops, plus some civilian contractors.

4. ESTABLISHING PERMANENT BASES IN IRAQ

The Pentagon foresaw enlarging and keeping four heavily fortified air bases in Iraq. They would provide “logistical support and quick reaction capability where necessary to Iraqis.” In May 2005, the Pentagon acknowledged that United States bases would be located in Tallil in the south; Al Asad in the west; Balad in the center; and either Irbil or Qayyarah in the north. (The Guardian, May 22, 2005)

An independent panel headed by headed by former National Security Advisors concluded that chaos in Iraq was due in part to inadequate postwar planning. Brent Scowcroft had been advisor to Republican Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush, and Sandy Berger to President Clinton. (Associated Press, July 27, 2005)

The panel said that after two years of war, the United States and Iraqi military forces had been unable to secure and rebuild the country, and reconstruction had fallen victim to a lack of security. The report contradicted the Bush administration that always had maintained there had been significant postwar planning. (Associated Press, July 27, 2005)

The United States already had 890 military installations in foreign countries, ranging from major Air Force bases to smaller installations such as radar facilities. United States engineers planned to construct 14 “enduring bases” in Iraq. (Christian Science Monitor, September 30, 2004)

The bases included Camp Victory, the Baghdad airfield, and Camp Renegade in Kirkuk. Military commanders said they eventually planed to consolidate these bases into four large airbases at Tallil, Al Asad, Balad, and either Irbil or Qayyarah. (Graham, Bradley, “Commander’s Plan Eventual Consolidation of U.S. Bases in Iraq,” May 22, 2005)

An April 2003 report said “the United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the emerging government of Iraq, one that would grant the Pentagon access to military bases and project American influence into the heart of the unsettled region.” (Shanker, Thom and Eric Smith., “Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq,” New York Times. April 20, 2003)

In May 2005, Bush signed a bill that provided funds for the construction of bases for United States forces that were described as “in some very limited cases, permanent facilities.” (John Pike, GlobalSecurities.org; Christian Science Monitor, September 30, 2004)

By mid-2005, the United States military had 106 forward operating bases in Iraq, including what the Pentagon calls 14 “enduring” bases. These included:

1) Green Zone (Baghdad)

The Green Zone in central Baghdad included the main palaces of Saddam. The area at one time housed the Coalition Provisional Authority. Then it housed the offices of major United States consulting companies and the United States embassy facilities.

2) Camp Anaconda (Balad Airbase)

3) Camp Taji (Taji)

4) Camp Falcon-Al-Sarq (Baghdad)

In late September 2003, the 439th Engineering Battalion delivered over 100,000 tons of gravel and assisted with building roads, walls, guard towers, and buildings for Camp Falcon. Camp Falcon housed 5,000 soldiers.

5. Camp Freedom (Mosul)

Saddam’s former palace in Mosul became home to the 101st Airborne Division.

6) Camp Victory- Al Nasr (Baghdad Airfield)

Camp Victory was an Army base situated on airport grounds about 5 kilometers from Baghdad International Airport. The base housed 14,000 troops. Al Faw Palace on Camp Victory was surrounded by a man-made lake and served as an unofficial conference center for the Army.

7) Camp Marez (Mosul Airfield)

Located at an airfield southwest of Mosul, Camp Marez had a tent dining capacity for 500. In December 2004, a suicide bomber killed himself and 13 United States soldiers at the base’s dining tent.

8) Camp Renegade (Kirkuk)

Strategically located near the Kirkuk oil fields and the Kirkuk refinery and petrochemical plant, Camp Renegade included a dormitory that housed up to 1,664 airmen in 13 buildings with six to eight people to a room.

9) Camp Speicher (Tikrit)

Named after F/A-18 pilot Michael Speicher who was shot down during the first Gulf War in 1991, Camp Speicher was located near Tikrit in northern Iraq, approximately 170 kilometers north of Baghdad.

10) Camp Fallujuh

The exact whereabouts and name of this base were unknown. Analysts believed that the United States built the base in Fallujah, a large town forty miles west of Baghdad. Fallujah has proved to be the most violence prone area in Iraq. Between early April 2004, when Marines halted their first offensive against the city, and November 2004, when the city was from insurgents, Fallujuh was a no-go area with numerous murders and bombings.

11) Unknown name (Nasiriyah)

The exact whereabouts and name of this base were unknown. Analysts believed that the United States built the base near Nasiriyah, a provincial capital of South-East Iraq on the Euphrates River.

12) Unknown name (between Irbil and Kirkuk)

13) Unknown

14) Unknown (Chicago Tribune, March 23, 2004)

In January 2006, General Mark Kimmitt, the Central Command deputy commander for planning and strategy in Iraq, claimed the United States would not maintain permanent United States bases in Iraq. (www.democracynation.org, June 11, 2006)

The following month, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes was asked if the United States planned to keep permanent military bases in Iraq. She likewise responded, “No.” Hughes said, “We want to bring our people home as soon as possible.” (www.democracynation.org, June 11, 2006)

However, when asked if United States forces could be in Iraq five or even 10 years down the road, Secretary of State Rice did not deny the possibility. (www.democracynation.org, June 11, 2006)

Bush administration officials began looking at the costs of maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops indefinitely in Iraq. That was about the same size of the American presence maintained in the Philippines and Korea for decades after those conflicts. The administration reportedly planned on earmarking $1.1 billion in military construction. (New York Times, June 11, 2006; Newsweek, June 19, 2006)

In 2007, more evidence indicated that United States bases were in Iraq to stay. More than 20 American military officers and others -- including senior commanders, strategists, and analysts -- made that assertion. (Washington Post, June 9, 2007)

In January 2007, the United States military gambled and moved its troops off large isolated bases and into 60 small, relatively vulnerable outposts across Baghdad. However, the risk-taking also included reaching out to people once declared enemies of the United States, such as al-Sadr. In addition, commanders were forced to lean heavily on Iraqi security forces, who failed to maintain security. (Washington Post, June 9, 2007)

Despite the Bush administration’s obvious objective of remaining permanently in Iraq, the Baghdad government said it would never allow the United States to have permanent military bases on its soil. (Reuters, December 11, 2007)

In December 2007, Iraq’s national security advisor, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said, “We need the United States in our war against terrorism, we need them to guard our border sometimes, we need them for economic support and we need them for diplomatic and political support. … But I say one thing, permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi.” (Reuters, December 11, 2007)

Iraq did formally ask the United Nations on Monday to renew the mandate to maintain United States bases in Iraq for one year. However, the Iraqi government made it clear that it would not extend the mandate beyond one year and the mandate could be revoked sooner at Iraq’s request. (Reuters, December 11, 2007)

In June 2008, high-ranking Iraqis said Bush broke two key pledges that his administration would not seek “permanent bases” or the use of bases to attack Iran or any other neighboring countries were deliberately misleading. The wording used by the Bush administration appeared to have been chosen to obscure its intention to have both long-term access to Iraqi bases and complete freedom to use them to launch operations against Iran and Syria. (New York Times, June 19, 2008)

Six months earlier, Defense Secretary Gates renounced the aim of “permanent bases” in Iraq. Gates said the United States-Iraq agreement “would not involve -- we have no interest in permanent bases.” (New York Times, June 19, 2008)

The same day, State Department spokesman Tom Casey, asked if the agreement would include any reference to “permanent bases”, replied, “We’re not seeking permanent bases in Iraq. That’s been a clear matter of policy for some time. … No, the agreement is not a basing agreement.” (New York Times, June 19, 2008)

In Congressional testimony April 8, Ambassador Ryan Crocker said the agreements “will not establish permanent bases in Iraq and we anticipate that it will expressly foreswear them.” (New York Times, June 19, 2008)

During the spring of 2008, the United States issued a statement whereby refuting the maintenance of permanent bases. Iraqi officials claimed that the real significance was that the United States draft contained neither a time limit on access to Iraqi bases nor any restrictions on the United States to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security.” Authorization for such operations was called “temporary,” but the absence of any time limit makes that seemingly reassuring term meaningless as well. (New York Times, June 19, 2008)

However, Iraqi lawmakers said the Bush administration demanded 58 bases as part of a proposed “status of forces” agreement that would allow American troops to remain in the country indefinitely. (McClatchy Newspapers, June 10, 2008)

Leading members of the two ruling Sh’iite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another United States demand that would have effectively handed over to the United States the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they feared this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran. (McClatchy Newspapers, June 10, 2008)

Other conditions sought by the United States included control over Iraqi air space up to 30,000 feet and immunity from prosecution for United States troops and private military contractors. The agreement would run indefinitely but be subject to cancellation with two years notice from either side. (McClatchy Newspapers, June 10, 2008)

5. USING NAPALM IN IRAQ

The Bush administration said it had not used MK-77s in Iraq at any time despite claims by The Iraq Analysis Group, which campaigned against the war, that the United States did use the incendiary bombs. More than two years into the war -- in June 2005 -- the Bush administration only admitted the use of the weapons after the evidence from reporters had become irrefutable. (The Independent, June 17, 2005)

Approximately 30 MK-77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between March 31 and April 2, 2003. The MK-77s were 500-pound firebombs that contained a thin layer of fuel gel designed for use against dug-in troops, supply installations, wooden structures, and land convoys. MK-13 Mod 0 igniters were used to ignite the fuel gel mixture upon impact. The MK-77 evolved from the M-47 incendiary bombs that were used during the Korean and Vietnam wars. (The Independent, June 17, 2005)

On November 10, 2004, the Islam Online website wrote: “U. S. troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein's alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988.” The website quoted insurgent sources as saying: “The US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally banned chemical weapons.” (Britain’s The Independent, November 8, 2005)

Some news accounts have claimed that United States forces had used “outlawed” phosphorus shells in Fallujah. “Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. U.S. forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. “… They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.” (Britain’s The Independent, November 8, 2005)

Nevertheless, in December 2004, the Bush administration government formally denied the reports, describing them as “widespread myths.” (Britain’s The Independent, November 8, 2005)

However, more powerful evidence emerged on November 6, 2005 that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with appalling burns. (Britain’s The Independent, November 8, 2005)

In addition, two former American soldiers who fought at Fallujah told how they had been ordered to prepare for the use of the weapons. (Britain’s The Independent, November 23, 2005)

In a documentary televised on the Italian station RAI, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah said, “I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it’s known as Willy Pete. Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone. … I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for.” (Britain’s The Independent, November 8, 2005)

Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster’s 24-hours news channel, www.rainews24 showed strange corpses found after the city’s destruction, many with their skin apparently melted or caramelised so their features were indistinguishable. More than 100 bodies were described as “anomalous corpses.” (Britain’s The Independent, November 23, 2005)

The Studies Center of Human Rights in Fallujah showed dozens of high-quality, color close-ups of bodies of Fallujah residents. Some were still in their beds with clothes largely intact but whose skin had been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells. (Britain’s The Independent, November 8, 2005)

6. SECRET ARMS SHIPMENTS

For one year -- from July 2004 to mid-2005 -- the Pentagon secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq using a web of private companies. According to Amnesty International, private corporations, arms brokers, and freight firms were behind the transfer of the guns, as well as millions of rounds of ammunition, to Iraq at “bargain basement prices.” At least one was a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the United Nations. (The Guardian, May 11, 2006)

The Moldovan air firm Aerocom, operating without a license, flew at least four missions in August 2004 that originated at the United States American Eagle Air Base at Tuzla, Bosnia. Aerocom allegedly transported 99 tons of Bosnian weaponry that included at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004 and 2005. (The Guardian, May 11, 2006)

Aerocom was investigated in 2003 by the United Nations for involvement in diamonds-for-guns trade in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The flights were made after the Moldavan government had revoked Aerocom’s license because of “safety and security concerns.” (The Guardian, May 11, 2006)

7. PROSECUTING SADDAM HUSSEIN

Former Army Sergeant. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, stated Hussein was actually captured Friday, December 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the Bush administration.

Interviewed by the Saudi daily al-Medina while in Lebanon, Rabeh said, “I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced. Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam’s capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well.” (Saudi daily al-Medina, March 9, 2005)

The Bush administration was adamant on keeping Saddam in Iraq and not turning him over to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for prosecution. In doing so, the White House could manipulate the court proceedings in Baghdad. Furthermore, the ICJ could never order the death penalty against Saddam.

On June 29, 2004, Allawi announced that the new Iraqi government would take over legal custody of Hussein. Yet the American military continued to keep Hussein in custody.

Salem Chalabi, nephew of Pentagon protégé and discredited INC leader Ahmad Chalabi, was put in charge of Saddam’s trial by the Bush administration, creating what appeared to be a show trial. Also a member of the INC, Salem Chalabi was picked by National Security Advisor Rice in a secret directive issued in January 2004. The story was leaked to the public in March. Rice authorized a delegation of 50 lawyers, prosecutors and investigators to be sent to Iraq to prepare for Saddam’s trial. (Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2004)

On July 1, charges against Hussein and 11 of his top associates were officially filed in a special Iraqi court set up to try members of the ousted government. Proceedings during Saddam’s arraignment were not only censored for television, but microphones were not allowed into the courtroom. (New York Times, July 1, 2004)

However, Hussein was denied legal counsel in the courtroom, despite the acknowledgment from the Iraqi judge that he was entitled to an attorney. A defiant Hussein refused to sign legal papers that contained a list of seven charges against him.

Additionally, The defense lawyers could not testify that the Reagan administration sold poison gas to the Saddam regime in the 1980s.

Saddam was incarcerated for one year plus four days before he was allowed to meet with counsel. Finally, on December 15, chief lawyer Ziad Khasawneh was permitted to speak with Hussein.

The general charges included the killing of religious figures in 1974; gassing of Kurds in Halabja in 1988; killing the Kurdish Barzani clan in 1983; killing members of political parties in the last 30 years; the 1986-88 “Anfal” campaign of displacing Kurds; the suppression of the 1991 uprisings by Kurds and Shi’ites; and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. (New York Times, July 1, 2004)

Saddam said he knew of the Halabja massacre -- where thousands were killed by gassing -- only from the newspapers. The British government gathered evidence that the United States in fact armed Saddam to counter the Iranians chemicals for chemicals. (New York Times, January 31, 2005)

CIA officer Stephen Pelletiere was the agency’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf, Pelletiere headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States. The classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair. (New York Times, January 31, 2005; Stephen Pelletiere, A War Crime or an Act of War?)

Pelletiere said the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report following the Halabja gassing, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need- to-know basis. He said, “That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.” (New York Times, January 31, 2005; Stephen Pelletiere, A War Crime or an Act of War?)

Pelletiere said the United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) investigated and produced a classified report following the Halabja gassing. He said, “That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas. … The DIA did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja.” (New York Times, January 31, 2005; Stephen Pelletiere, A War Crime or an Act of War?)

In 2005, a United States Army unit in Baquba found 450 people, including a few women and children, living in hot, fetid cells built for 150. The Iraqis seemed to have little idea where the detainees had come from and had no means to adjudicate their cases. Colonel. Robert Risberg, an officer in the unit, said they discovered that roughly one-third of the prisoners had originally been captured by the Americans.

In May 2005, a London tabloid printed photographs of Saddam in his cell. Some photos showed him in his underwear. Only United States military personnel could have released the pictures. When this news hit the Arab world, more anti-American fervor was ignited. When Bush was questioned, he attributed the demonstrations to “barbaric and backward” Muslims.

Prosecutors said Hussein could have faced up to 500 charges, but instead they brought 12 documented cases against him. They included the gassing of thousands of Kurds in the Kurdish town of Halabja, where an estimated people were killed and another 10,000 injured on March 16, 1988. (New York Times, June 5, 2005)

After Saddam had been incarcerated for one and one-half years, the Iraqi Special Tribunal levied its first charge – that he was involved the Anfal campaign of the late 1980s, in which as many as 150,000 Kurds were killed.

Other charges against Hussein were brought later. The tribunal claimed he was responsible for:

*Chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988 that killed about 5,000.

*The repression of a Shi’ite rebellion in southern Iraq in 1991, in which 150,000 people were believed to have been killed.

*The execution of more than 200 Ba’athist Party leaders after he had seized power in 1979.

*The killings of 146 Shi’ites in the Iraqi town of Dujail. Saddam’s convoy was fired upon in Dujail in July 1982. In the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt, some townspeople were shot dead, but 143 -- 9 of them ages 13 through 15 -- were executed three years later by Hussein’s revolutionary court. Charges were also brought against Saddam’s half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, deputy head of the Mukhabarat secret police in 1982; Taha Yasin Ramadan, a deputy prime minister and later Baath Party vice chairman; and Awad Hamad al-Bandr al-Sadoon, former chief judge of the revolutionary court. (New York Times, July 17, 2005)

In early August, a decree authorizing the execution was signed by Iraqi vice-president Adel Abdel Mehdi after president Jalal Talabani refused on moral grounds. The death penalty presumably was reintroduced in Iraq because of the upcoming trial of Saddam.

Ashraf Qazi, the United Nations envoy to Iraq, strongly opposed the reintroduction of the death penalty. He even asked that the three prisoners due to be hanged in the central city of Kut should be spared. Qazi said the death penalty had “a very poor recognized effect in deterring crimes.” (Scotland’s Sunday Herald, August 21, 2005)

In early September, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani reported that Saddam had confessed to crimes committed during his regime -- including killings. (New York Times, September 7, 2005)

Saddam’s trial finally began nearly two years after his capture. On October 20, Hussein and the other defendants were charged with the first crime -- the revenge killings of 146 people in Dujayl. Saddam appeared before the court where he sparred repeatedly with the chief judge and challenged the legitimacy of the Iraqi court. He said, “I am the president of Iraq. … I will not answer to this so-called court.”

Saddam and seven former aides then pleaded not guilty and won a 40-day postponement of the proceedings.” (Washington Post, October 20, 2005)

Iraq's bar association urged lawyers to stop working with the special court trying Saddam until the murder of Saadoun Janabi, a member of the defense team, was solved. It also called for a one-day strike in protest at the killing of Janabi, who was abducted from his Baghdad office by heavily armed men a day after he was seen on television challenging the legitimacy of the court. He was later found dead of gunshot wounds. (Britains’s Guardian, October 24, 2005)

Three weeks later, gunmen shot two more defense attorneys, killing one and seriously wounding the other. Attorney Adil Zubeidi was killed and his colleague, Thamer Hamoud Kuzaie , was injured in the attack. The two men were representing defendants Barzan Ibrahim, Hussein’s half-brother and former head of Iraq’s intelligence service, and former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan. (Washington Post, November 8, 2005)

Several factors indicated that Saddam was not given due process:

1. Saddam was held by the United States since December 2003. Under international law, a defendant facing a criminal prosecution must be brought before a court as quickly as possible. But his first appearance before the Iraqi tribunal was not until July 2004, seven months after his capture.

2. The death penalty was not prohibited under international law. But it was outlawed in Europe for 50 years, and Britain was one of more than 40 countries that were signatories to the protocol of the European Convention of European Rights that outlawed the death penalty. A death sentence would mean his execution would be seen as a stain on international justice.

3. International human rights groups claimed Saddam’s trial was not about guilt or innocence. In their attempts to justify the invasion of Iraq, Blair and Bush had made inflammatory statements about Saddam. Contempt of court rules -- that should restrict prejudicial coverage of a criminal trial -- had been ignored. Pictures of the crime scene of the village of Dujail, accompanied by assertions of Saddam’s guilt, had been broadcast around the world long before the case opened.

4. The Iraqi Special Tribunal that tried Saddam was established under the Coalition Provisional Authority. But many believed the United States State Department, the Pentagon, and the United States Department of Justice had been guiding it behind the scenes.

5. Questions remained over the selection, experience, and impartiality of the five judges. Only the presiding judge was identified. Then he was pressured into resigning. At least two of the others had never sat as judges before. All of the five judges were Kurdish and Shia Muslims. None was Sunni -- the nationality of Saddam.

6. Not all the witnesses were identified -- which might, given the security threats to them, be a proportionate response. However, it could have handicapped the defense. Saddam’s legal team also claimed it had been denied time and resources to examine the case against him.

7. The charges came down to Saddam signing death warrants in his capacity as president, raising the question of whether the tribunal could legally convict him for an offence of obedience to Iraqi law.

8. The standard of proof in British courts and many other European jurisdictions was “beyond reasonable doubt.” But the Iraqi court rules were silent on the standard of proof to be adopted in this case. The judges could have convicted Saddam on a much lower standard of proof.

9. Unlike the United Nations war crimes tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, the Iraqi court had no international representatives, undermining its authority to hear such heinous crimes.

10. The murders of defense lawyers undermined assurances from the coalition and the Iraqi government that they could guarantee the security of participants. It also led to a temporary boycott of the trial by the lawyers and strengthened calls for the trial to take place outside Iraq. (London’s The Independent, November 28, 2005)

The trial was placed on hold for over one month. Once it resumed in early December, Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin struggled to keep control of the proceedings. Lawyers for Hussein -- led by former United States attorney general Ramsey Clark and Najeeb Nuaimi, a former justice from Qatar -- demanded that they be allowed to present oral arguments that the court was illegal and that their client could not receive a fair trial. Judge Amin denied the request. (Washington Post, December 5, 2005)

The defense team walked out of the courtroom to protest the judge’s refusal. This forced Amin to reverse his previous ruling and listen to their oral arguments. Hussein’s counsel argued that the trial was unfair because the defense lawyers were in danger and that two had been killed. They also charged that the tribunal, which was planned by American officials, was illegally formed. (Washington Post, December 5, 2005)

Ahmed Mohammed was the first called to the stand. He described how he and others in Dujail were imprisoned for more than three years after gunmen shot at Hussein’s motorcade in July 1982. (Washington Post, December 5, 2005)

In January 2006, pressure from the Bush administration led to the resignation of Judge Amin who regularly had allowed defendants’ outbursts to dominate the court sessions. The White House made sure that the new appointee, Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, would run a tough courtroom.

Abdel Rahman’s first day at first was filled with insults, profanity, shouting matches, shoving, and gavel-pounding. It took him more than one-half hour to gain control of the proceedings. He warned that he would permit no “political speeches” and threatened to expel any defendants “who cross the line.” (Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2006)

Abdel Rahman ousted a co-defendant and a defense attorney from the courtroom and provoked a walkout by the rest of the defense team. Subsequently, Saddam refused the court-appointed counsel and was escorted out, followed by two more co-defendants who joined him in protest. (Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2006)

The trial proceeded without four of the eight defendants and any of their original 13 lawyers. Then Abdel Rahman’s assertive tactics paved the way for three hours of uninterrupted testimony by alleged victims of the deposed regime. (Los Angeles Times, January 30, 2006)

Days later, Hussein his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim Hasan and former judicial chief Awad Hamed Bandar began a jailhouse hunger strike to protest their trial, while the judge adjourned the trial for two weeks without giving any reason for the recess. (Washington Post, February 14, 2006)

An additional count was brought against Saddam in April. The court charged him with genocide for attempting to annihilate the Kurdish race through military operations in 1988 that killed at least 50,000 civilians and destroyed thousands of villages.

Judge Juhi said, “It was during this campaign that thousands of women, children and men were buried in mass graves in many locations.” At least 2,000 villages allegedly were razed, and families who escaped death squads or were allowed to live were forced to relocate into the hinterlands or in neighboring countries. (New York Times, April 4, 2006)

In June, gunmen killed Khamis al-Obaidi, Saddam’s deputy chief lawyer. He was Saddam’s third attorney to be murdered in seven months. (Washington Post, June 21, 2006; Al-Jazeera, July 9, 2006)

Saddam began a 17-day hunger strike in July. But physicians were ordered to force-feed him. Once he returned to the courtroom, he asked that he not be hanged but that he be killed by a firing squad.

In August, Saddam and seven fellow defendants, among them his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid -- known as “Chemical Ali” -- refused to enter a plea at the hearing to charges of genocide and war crimes. (London’s The Independent, August 22, 2006)

Judge Abdullah al-Amiri declared: “This trial is on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Are you innocent or guilty.” The judge then ordered a plea of “not guilty” to be entered. Al-Majid, who allegedly led operation Anfal, also refused to enter a plea. (London’s The Independent, August 22, 2006)

In September, Maliki removed Judge Amiri from the trial because he had hurt the feelings” of Kurds and many other Iraqis with comments that seemed to support Saddam. Al-Amiri was replaced with Mohammed al-Uraibiy, another member of the five-judge panel that has been hearing the case. One month later, Saddam was convicted and sentenced to be hanged. American commanders and diplomats fought to halt the execution until midnight six hours before he was to be hanged. (New York Times, September 19, 2006; New York Times, January 7, 2007)

HANGINGS GONE ARRAY. American soldiers woke Daddam in his cell near Baghdad airport at 3:55 a.m. on December 30 and told him to dress for a journey to Baghdad. While he was being transferred to Iraqi custody, he immediately indicated that he knew the execution would soon follow. (New York Times, January 1, 2007)

As he left the detention area, he thanked the guards and medics for the treatment he had received. At 5:05 a.m., he boarded a Black Hawk helicopter for a 10-minute flight to the old Istikhbarat prison in northern Baghdad, where a party of Iraqi officials awaited him at the gallows. (New York Times, January 7, 2007)

At 5:30 a.m., the Iraqis took over. An American official who watched said Saddam’s demeanor “changed in the Iraqi prison when the Iraqi governor assumed control of him.” Saddam was still dignified, but he was scornful. (New York Times, January 7, 2007)

Saddam stepped into the execution block, an ill-lighted concrete structure behind the main prison building where thousands of hangings took place under Saddam. He still stayed composed. (New York Times, January 7, 2007)

One official said, “He made some joking remarks. He said to me, ‘Don’t be afraid,’ as if I was going to be hanged. I didn’t reply, but one of the guards shouted, ‘ You did bad things to Iraq.’ And he said, ‘I made this backward country into an advanced and prosperous nation.’ ” (New York Times, January 7, 2007)

Shi’ites began a refrain at one point of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!” -- the name of a volatile cleric whose private militia had spawned death squads that had made an indiscriminate industry of killing Sunnis. Saddam replied smiling contemptuously. “Is this how real men behave? (New York Times, January 1, 2007)

Saddam got halfway through the most sacred of Muslim prayers. “There is no God but God, and Muhammad. ...” The trapdoor clanged open. It was 6:10 a.m.

The hanging spread wide dismay among the Americans. Aides said American commanders were deeply upset by the way they were forced to hand Saddam over. Commanders saw as motivated less by a concern for justice than for revenge. (New York Times, January 1, 2007)

One week later, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former head of Iraq’s secret police Saddam’s half-brother, was hanged. It ended the hangman’s noose decapitating him after he dropped through the gallows trapdoor. (New York Times, January 10, 2007)

Another condemned man, Awad Hamad al-Bandar, the former chief judge of Saddam’s revolutionary court, was also hanged. But the hangmen’s calculations of weight, gravity, and the momentum needed to snap their necks. (New York Times, January 10, 2007)

8. PROSECUTING AND CENSURING GEORGE W. BUSH

PROSECUTING THE PRESIDENT. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Bush was warned by a group of United States law professors in December 2005 that he and senior government officials could be prosecuted for war crimes if military tactics violated international humanitarian law. The group was led by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. (Global Policy Forum, January 28, 2003)

In a letter to Bush and Rumsfeld, the group said, “Our primary concern ... is the large number of civilian casualties that may result should U.S. and coalition forces fail to comply with international humanitarian law in using force against Iraq. The group cited the particular need for United States and coalition forces to abide by humanitarian law requiring warring parties to distinguish between military and civilian areas, use only the level of force that is militarily necessary, and to use weaponry that is proportionate to what is being targeted. (Global Policy Forum, January 28, 2003)

United States officials were not the only ones targeted by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Government officials in Britain and Canada could be investigated by the new International Criminal Court in The Hague, if it was determined that international laws had been broken in war. The Bush administration refused to cooperate with the court and has withdrawn its signature from the treaty establishing it. (Global Policy Forum, January 28, 2003)

The January 2005 letter to Prime Minister Blair from Public Interest Lawyers said that if Britain’s actions in Iraq were deemed possible war crimes. It stated: “We, and others, will take steps to ensure that you, and other leaders of the U.K. government are held accountable.” (Global Policy Forum, January 28, 2003)

2. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Powell from 2002 to 2005, said Cheney would be guilty of a war crime over the abuse of prisoners. A former army colonel, Wilkerson said that in an internal administration debate over whether to abide by the Geneva conventions in the treatment of detainees, Cheney led the argument “that essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions.” (The Guardian, November 30, 2005)

3. In a January 25, 2002 memo, Alberto Gonzales, the White House’s top lawyer, warned that United States officials could be prosecuted for “war crimes” as a result of new measures used by the Bush administration in Afghanistan. In the memo, Gonzales focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes. Gonzales told Bush that the act defined “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applied to “U.S. officials” and that punishments for violators “include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that “it was difficult to predict with confidence” how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions -- such as that outlawing “outrages upon personal dignity” and “inhuman treatment” of prisoners -- was “undefined.” (Newsweek, May 19, 2004)

The Gonzales memo urged Bush to declare all aspects of the war in Afghanistan -- including the detention of both al Qaeda and Taliban fighters -- exempt from the strictures of the Geneva Convention. In the memo, Gonzales described the war against terorrism as a “new kind of war.” He added: “The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians.” (Newsweek, May 19, 2004)

4. Canadian politicians considered prosecuting Bush under the Crimes and Humanity and War Crimes Act. It was passed in 2000 to bring Canada's ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. The law laid out sweeping categories under which a foreign leader like Bush could face arrest. In particular, the Crimes and Humanity and War Crimes Act held that anyone who committed a war crime, even outside Canada, could be prosecuted by its courts. (The Toronto Star, November 16, 2004)

According to the statute, “war crimes” were explained as any conduct defined by “customary international law” or by conventions that Canada has adopted. War crimes also specifically included any breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, such as torture, degradation, willfully depriving prisoners of war of their rights “to a fair and regular trial,” launching attacks “in the knowledge that such attacks will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians,” and deportation of persons from an area under occupation. (The Toronto Star, November 16, 2004)

The United States violated international laws in several areas:

*The mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

*The deportation of selected prisoners to camps outside of Iraq.

*CIA prisons operating in Jordan where suspects were routinely tortured.

*An estimated civilian death toll of 100,000 contravened the Geneva Accords prohibition against the use of excessive force.

*The Bush administration claimed detainees at Guantanamo Bay did not fall under the Geneva accords. Yet in 1946, Japanese defendants explained their mistreatment of prisoners of war by noting that their country had never signed any of the Geneva Conventions. The Japanese were convicted anyway. (The Toronto Star, November 16, 2004)

5. Eight leading international lawyers and professors of law formed an independent group known as “Peacerights.” They issued a report in December 2005, stating their case against the illegality of the way British and United States troops fought the war.

The eight law experts from four countries: Britain, Ireland, Canada, and France. They gathered evidence from a wide range of sources, and also spoke directly to witnesses over two days in London in November 2005. Evidence was gathered from witnesses on the ground such as Spanish medical teams and from weapons experts. (InterPressService, January 20, 2005

The report focused particularly on cluster bombs used by the British. The Ministry of Defence in London admitted to dropping 70 cluster bombs from the air, each of them containing 147 ‘bomblets.’ In addition, British artillery fired more than 2,000 shells, each containing about 40 smaller bombs. (InterPressService, January 20, 2005

In January 2006, Peacerights presented its report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

In the summer of 2006, the chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg said Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam. Benjamin Ferenccz who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than one million people. He said both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting “aggressive” wars --Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq. (www.OneWorldNet.com, August 25, 2006)

Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime. He said the United Nations charter, which was written after World War II, contained a provision that no nation could use armed force without the permission of the Security Council. (www.OneWorldNet.com, August 25, 2006)

Ferenccz said that after Nuremberg the international community realized that every war results in violations by both sides, meaning the primary objective should be preventing any war from occurring in the first place. He said the atrocities of the Iraq war -- from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of dozens of civilians by United States forces in Haditha to the high number of civilian casualties caused by insurgent car bombs -- were highly predictable at the start of the war. (www.OneWorldNet.com, August 25, 2006)

CENSURING THE PRESIDENT.

The first resolution asked Congress establish a select committee to investigate whether members of the administration made moves to invade Iraq before receiving congressional authorization, manipulated pre-war intelligence, encouraged the use of torture in Iraq and elsewhere, and used their positions to retaliate against critics of the war.

The second resolution asked that Congress to censure the president “for failing to respond to requests for information concerning allegations that he and others in his administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of his administration, for failing to adequately account for specific misstatements he made regarding the war, and for failing to comply with Executive Order 12958. (Executive Order 12958, issued in 1995 by former President Clinton, sought to promote openness in government by prescribing a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national security information.)

The third resolution censured Cheney for a similar set of complaints.(New York Times, December 21, 2005)

9. PROSECUTING DONALD RUMSFELD

As Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld was charged five times with criminal offenses.

The first case was filed in 2004 by CCR, FIDH, and an attorney in Berlin. That case was dismissed in February 2005 in response to official pressure from the United States, in particular from the Pentagon. (One World, October 29, 2007)

The second case was filed last fall by the same groups as well as dozens of national and international human rights groups, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and the former UN special rapporteur on torture. (One World, October 29, 2007)

Two criminal complaints were filed in Germany under its universal jurisdiction statute, which allowed Germany to prosecute serious international crimes regardless of where they occurred or the nationality of the perpetrators or victims. (One World, October 29, 2007)

In the winter of 2006, Germany’s top prosecutor filed a 220-page international lawsuit against Rumsfeld, Attorney General Gonzales, former CIA director Tenet, and other senior United States civilian and military officers for sanctioning torture and for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo. (Time, November 13, 2006; Agence de France, November 14, 2006)

The suit was filed to Germany's federal prosecutor Monika Harms at her offices in Karlsruhe, Germany whose country allowed the pursuit of war crimes cases regardless of where they originated in the world. (Agence de France, November 14, 2006)

One witness for the prosecution was General Janis Karpinski, who operated Abu Graib Prison. She said, “It was clear the knowledge and responsibility (for what happened at Abu Ghraib) goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.” (Time, November 13, 2006)

The 2006 complaint was presented on behalf of 12 Iraqi citizens who had been held and abused in Abu Ghraib and one Saudi citizen held at Guantanamo. That case was dismissed in April 2007, although it was appealed. The fifth charge against Rumsfeld came in October 2007. (One World, October 29, 2007)

The fifth charge against Rumsfeld was filed by a French court in October 2007. A French court charged Rumsfeld with criminal charges for ordering the torture of prisoners in Iraq and at Guantanamo. The complaint was registered at the office of the prosecutor of the Court of First Instance in Paris when Rumsfeld was in the city for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine. (One World, October 29, 2007)

In filing the complaint against Rumsfeld, full support came from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the French League for Human Rights, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). (One World, October 29, 2007)

The charges against Rumsfeld were brought under the 1984 Convention against Torture, ratified by both the United States and France, which has been used in France in previous torture cases. The criminal complaint stated that because of the failure of authorities in the United States and Iraq to launch any independent investigation, it was the legal obligation of states such as France to take up the case. (One World, October 29, 2007)

The plaintiffs contended that Rumsfeld and other top United States officials were subjected to criminal trial because there was sufficient evidence to prove that they had authorized the torture of prisoners held on suspicion of involvement in terrorist acts. (One World, October 29, 2007)

10. THE KURDS SIGN A CONTRACT TO DRILL FOR OIL

The Kurdistan Democratic Party controlled a portion of the semiautonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. Refusing to seek government approval, officials from the KDP signed a contract with Norway’s DNO company in 2004 to drill for oil in Kurdistan. (Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2005)

On November 29, 2005, DNO began drilling for oil near the border city of Zakho Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish northern region, vowed, “There is no way Kurdistan would accept that the central government will control our resources.” (Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2005)

Iraq's draft constitution, approved in an October 15, 2005 national referendum, stipulated that “the federal government with the producing regional and governorate governments shall together formulate” energy policy. However, the constitution made ambiguous reference to providing compensation for “damaged regions that were unjustly deprived by the former regime.” (Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2005)

The Iraqi government as well as neighboring countries feared the possibility of Kurds using revenue generated by oil wells to fund an independent state that might lead the roughly 20 million Kurds living in Turkey, Iran, and Syria to revolt. (Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2005)

The eastern administrative half of the Kurdish region also sought to sign energy deals with foreign companies without Baghdad’s approval. The government of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, based in the city of Sulaymaniya, signed an electricity agreement with a Turkish company and explored a possible oil deal with a foreign partnership near the city of Chamchamal, the site of several dormant oil wells. (Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2005)

11. THE U.S. EMBASSY’S DISMAL REPORT ON CONDITIONS IN IRAQ

While Bush and his lieutenants continued to paint a rosy picture of the conditions in Iraq, the United States embassy in Baghdad released a report on January 31, 2006 that indicated just the opposite. The 10-page report, entitles “Provincial Stability Assessment,” reflected the seriousness of the country’s political, economic, and security situation. (New York Times, April 8, 2006)

The report, the first of its kind, was written over a six-week period by a joint civilian and military group in Baghdad that wanted to provide a baseline assessment for conditions that new reconstruction teams would face as they were deployed to the provinces. (New York Times, April 8, 2006)

It rated the overall stability of 6 of the 18 provinces “serious” and one “critical.” It underscored the shift in the nature of the Iraq war three years after the toppling of Saddam. Warnings of sectarian and ethnic frictions were raised in many regions, even in those provinces generally described as nonviolent by American officials. (New York Times, April 8, 2006)

According to the “Provincial Stability Assessment”:

1. Ethnic and religious schisms were entrenched across much of the country, even as monthly American fatalities decreased. Those indications, taken with recent reports of mass migrations from mixed Sunni-Shi’ite areas, showed that Iraq was undergoing a de facto partitioning along ethnic and sectarian lines. Clashes were sometimes political and violent, taking place in those mixed areas where different groups convened.

2. Iranian-backed religious Shi’ite parties were growing in strength. The United States helped put several of them into power. Moreover rival militias in the south were increasing.

3. The province of Anbar, the wide swath of western desert that is the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, was rated “critical.” Eight provinces were rated “moderate.” The six provinces categorized as “serious” included Basra, Baghdad, Diyala. The three Kurdish provinces were depicted as “stable.”

4. There was growing violence in the Arab-Kurdish fault line in the north where two ethnic groups were vying for power in Mosul. The report also singled out Kirkuk, whose oil fields were critical for jump-starting economic growth in Iraq.

5. The oil-rich Basra Province, where British troops patrolled, was considered calm for the first three years of the war. At the end of 2005, its condition was rated “serious.”

6. British fatalities increased in Basra since 2005, with attacks attributed to Shi’ite insurgents. The report said there was a “high level of militia activity including infiltration of local security forces. Smuggling and criminal activity continues unabated. Intimidation attacks and assassination are common.” The report also stated that economic development in the region, long one of the poorest in Iraq, was “hindered by weak government.”

7. The city of Basra was reported as devolving into a mini-theocracy, with government and security officials beholden to Shi’ite religious leaders who enforced bans on alcohol and mandated head scarves for women. Police cars and checkpoints were often decorated with posters or stickers of al-Sadr or Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, both of whom commanded powerful militias.

12. THE MOUNTING COST OF THE WAR

Between 2002 and 2008, Bush’s two wars – in Afghanistan and Iraq – cost American taxpayers an estimated of $1.6 trillion - roughly double the amount the Bush administration had requested. (Congress’ Joint Economic Committee; Associated Press, November 13, 2007)

The $1.6 trillion included “hidden” costs such as interest payments on the money borrowed to pay for the wars, lost investment, the expense of long-term health care for injured veterans, and the cost of oil market disruptions. (Congress’ Joint Economic Committee; Associated Press, November 13, 2007)

he $1.6 trillion figure, for the period translated into a cost of $20,900 for a family of four. The Bush administration has requested $804 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. (Congress’ Joint Economic Committee; Associated Press, November 13, 2007)

For the Iraq war only, total economic costs were estimated at $1.3 trillion for the period from 2002 to 2008. That would cost a family of four $16,500, (Congress’ Joint Economic Committee; Associated Press, November 13, 2007)

When Congress approved $70 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in December 2007 that topped the spending for the Vietnam War that lasted over 10 years. Only World War I cost taxpayers the most.

By the beginning of 2007, Congress had approved nearly $700 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Washington D.C., December 21, 2007)

Using inflation-adjusted dollars, the total cost of those wars surpassed the total cost of the Vietnam War which ran to $670 billion. Bush’s wars also cost seven times more than the Persian Gulf War ($94 billion) and more than twice the cost of the Korean war ($295 billion). (Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Washington D.C., December 21, 2007)

Much of the money approved by Congress went to buy expensive new military equipment:

*$922 million was earmarked for purchase or alteration of 41 new Blackhawk, Apache, and Chinook Helicopters

*$813 million was spent on new Bradley Fighting Vehicles

*$455 million was appropriated for new Humvees

*$427 million went for new Heavy Tactical Vehicle

*$425 million was spent for M1 Abrams Tanks.