The News- Today
Madness and Mayhem in BLAIRCRATIC BRITAIN
A doctor was denounced for not following lawful orders. His reason for not following them were that they were unlawful.
There is no one who believes that the War in Iraq is Legal. The torture and deaths of Soldiers and Civilians is not only illegal it is completely unjustifiable in any Global Democracy. To go to an illegal War with an ally that practices Rendition, and Torture, redefined in Guantanamo Bay is hardly a basis upon which to judge the ethics and morals of a man who does not share their views. The whole principle of the War Trials in the Hague, and the Trial of Saddam Huusein is that there is no legal argument to justify an illegal act, or personal involvement in an illegal act.There is clear documentary evidence to support Dr Kendall-Smith's claim. The decision to go to War is seriously flawed and so to is the assertion that British forces are there at the request of the democratically elected Government of Iraq.
If this were not enough, the actions of all Government Ministers who took this country to war is seriously compromised by the level of honesty shown whilst they have been in office, Peerages for money, NHS Service, Home Office breakdown, active support of Rendition, killing of Civilians in Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and Juan Carlos Mendes in London, Police armed raids and shootings/killings by Police.
There will be no jail sentences passed out to those who killed Juan Carlos Mendes, or to those people who were responsible for the Action, or the Government who intitated it.
If one of the officers who shot Juan Carlos Mendes had refused to shoot him, or had any reservations about the action, and had not carried it out, no further action would be taken, and the establishment would regroup and out any whistleblowers, and deny any knowledge of the act, just as Sir Ian Blair has done.
The RAF doctor Malcolm Kendall-Smith has been sentenced to eight months in jail.
The flight lieutenant was found guilty by a court martial today of failing to comply with lawful orders after refusing to serve in the Iraq war.
The 37-year-old, who has dual British and New Zealand citizenship, had denied five charges which relate to his deployment, training and equipment fitting.
Following the sentencing Kendall-Smith's solicitor read a statement on behalf of the doctor, saying: "Now, more than ever, I feel my actions were totally justified. I would not seek to do anything differently. To take the decision I did caused me great sadness but I felt I had no other choice. I still have a very long way yet to travel and more work yet to do."
He told a pre-trial hearing last month that he refused to go to Iraq because he believed the war was illegal.
Kendall-Smith told the military hearing that he refused to serve in Basra, Iraq, last July because he did not want to be complicit with an "act of aggression" contrary to international law.
He said: "I have evidence that the Americans were on a par with Nazi Germany with its actions in the Persian Gulf. I have documents in my possession which support my assertions.
http://www.questionableanswers.blogspot.com
"This is on the basis that on-going acts of aggression in Iraq and systematically applied war crimes provide a moral equivalent between the US and Nazi Germany."
Kendall-Smith, who tutored in philosophy at a New Zealand university, added that he refused to take part in training and equipment fitting prior to the deployment because he believed these were "preparatory acts which were equally criminal as the act itself".
David Perry, prosecuting, said the case against Kendall-Smith was that the orders were lawful and he had a duty to obey them as a commissioned officer.
He added that the question of the invasion of Iraq was irrelevant because it occurred prior to the charges which date back to last year.
And he said that at the time of the charges, the presence of coalition forces in Iraq was unquestionably legal because they were there at the request of the country's democratically-elected government.
RAF Wing Commander Ailsa Gough, staff officer from Strike Command, said outside court: "The MoD notes the court's verdict and its support for the position that, in accordance with the Air Force Act 1955, the orders given to Flt Lt Kendall-Smith were lawful and, therefore, should have been obeyed.
"As it is possible for Flt Lt Kendall-Smith to seek leave to appeal this verdict, it would be inappropriate to comment any further."
The charges faced by Kendall-Smith were that on June 1, 2005 he failed to comply with a lawful order to attend RAF Kinloss, Moray, for pistol and rifle training, failed on June 6, 2005 to attend a helmet fitting and between June 12 and 24, 2005 failed to attend a training course.
He also denied failing to comply with an order to attend a deployment briefing at RAF Lyneham on June 30, 2005 and failing to comply with an order to replace a squadron leader for Operation Telic in Basra, Iraq on July 12, 2005.
In court Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss said that Kendall-Smith would serve half of his sentence in custody and the remainder on licence.
He also ordered him to pay £20,000 towards his defence costs, which were paid by legal aid. Judge Advocate Bayliss said that the offences were so serious that only a custodial sentence was appropriate.
He added: "Obedience of orders is at the heart of any disciplined force. Disobedience of orders means it is not a disciplined force, it is a disorganised rabble.
"Those who wear the Queen's uniform cannot pick and choose which orders they obey and those who do so must face the consequences."
He added that the sentence would send a message to other members of the armed forces of the importance of obeying orders.
Sentencing Kendall-Smith, Judge Advocate Bayliss told him: "You have, in this court's view, sought to make a martyr of yourself. You have shown a degree of arrogance that is amazing."
He added that Kendall-Smith may have acted out of his moral viewpoint but his interpretation of the presence of British forces in Iraq as illegal was incorrect.
Speaking outside the court, Kendall-Smith's solicitor Mr Hugheston-Roberts said his client intended to appeal. He said: "At the moment the instructions are to appeal both convictions and sentence."
He added that after a period of "demilitarisation" Kendall-Smith, who was also dismissed from the RAF by the court martial panel, will serve his term of imprisonment in a civilian prison.
A spokesman for the Royal Air Force Prosecuting Authority said: "It is right that Ft Lt Malcolm Kendall Smith was prosecuted for disobeying legal orders. British troops are operating in Iraq under a United Nations mandate and at the invitation of the Iraqi government. The Judge Advocate ruled that the court would not accept his defence that the war was illegal and a panel of his peers have convicted him on that basis."
The price of Democracy
See link for the pictures resulting from Bush and Blair deciding to take Democratic action.
http://crisispictures.org/
Democratic Behaviour or Political Tactics talking out the Democratic Process.
The behaviour of Geoff Hoon in Government leaves much to be desired. He was the Secretary of State that allowed Tony Blair to take Britain to War against the wishes of the Government, and the electorate, and continues to support this indefensible act.
A BILL to force the government to give MPs powers to veto future wars was scuppered yesterday by Geoff Hoon, who was the defence secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion.
Mr Hoon, now the Leader of the Commons, provoked protests when he deliberately "talked out" the Armed Forces (Parliamentary Approval for Participation in Armed Conflict) Bill, denying MPs a chance to vote.
Clare Short, who resigned from the Cabinet over the war in Iraq, argued that both Houses of Parliament should see the case for war and its legal justification before giving the green light to future operations. Under her bill, a prime minister could still take urgent action without approval, but would have to recall troops if Parliament then rejected the move.
Family of soldier shot for cowardice in 1916 seeks pardon
LONDON: The family of a British soldier shot for alleged cowardice during the First World War told the High Court in London yesterday that his execution was a mistake and he should be granted a posthumous pardon.
Relatives of Private Harry Farr from the West Yorkshire Regiment argue that his refusal to fight in northern France was the result of shell shock rather than cowardice.
They are asking the court to overturn a decision last year by Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, not to grant a posthumous pardon.
The family's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, told the court that a year before his execution in October 1916, Farr was evacuated after being diagnosed with shell shock.
The case has been brought by Farr's granddaughter Janet Booth, 63, on behalf of her 91-year-old mother, Gertrude Harris, who is Farr's daughter.
"The accountability of the executive to Parliament is a very important democratic principle which should be extended to the making of war," Ms Short said.
"We owe it to our armed forces and the reputation of our country to put in place arrangements which will ensure that the decision to go to war is more thoroughly considered."
While the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, gave the Commons a vote on military action ahead of the war in Iraq, Mr Hoon said it did not create a precedent. He dismissed protests that his behaviour was "disgraceful".
Although there was little chance of it becoming law, high-profile MPs had backed Ms Short, including Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman.
Geoff Hoon, the then Defence Secretary,refusal in June last year to grant a pardon of any sort, or to consider any evidence or mitigation in the Governments execution of a soldier who clearly,like so many others should not have been executed nor court martialled and shot.
Cowardice soldier case adjourned
The High Court has adjourned a case brought by the family of First World War soldier executed for cowardice so the Ministry of Defence can consider new evidence in relation to their plea for a posthumous pardon.
Edward Fitzgerald, representing the family, had argued that, given the evidence that Pte Harry Farr suffered from shellshock, the death sentence should not have been carried out.
Pte Harry Farr
Pte Harry Farr had been treated for shell-shock
Mr Justice Walker agreed to a request from Jonathan Crow, acting for John Reid, the Defence Secretary, that the case should be adjourned so the minister could consider new submissions that there was "sufficient mitigation for something less than the death penalty to have been imposed".
Mr Crow said the Defence Secretary was keeping "an open mind" about the case and would welcome fresh representation from the family.
The October 1916 execution of Pte Farr, of the 1st Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, has from the time of his death generated indignation and sympathy.
His family is asking the court to overturn a refusal in June last year by Geoff Hoon, the then Defence Secretary, to grant a pardon of any sort.
Mr Fitzgerald said it was now known that on May 11, 1915, Pte Farr "was evacuated to Boulogne with shell shock".
There was "quite clearly a history of treatment for shell shock", he told the court, submitting that there was only one conclusion to draw from the evidence - that the soldier was "suffering from a psychiatric condition".
Outside court Gertrude Harris, Pte Farr's 91-year-old daughter from Harrow, Middlesex, said: "I am just pleased with the way it has gone.
"Hopefully the Secretary of State will reconsider and we don't have to come back to court again."
Byers rightly to face Commons inquiry over deliberately misleading Parlaiment.
Decision to Take us to war.
Whatever happened as a result of this memo.
Whatever happen to Matthew Rycroft???
Honest Open Government? Or democracy in the hands of a few who make the rules....
The Defence Secretary was there again. But did he walk out????
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT
Former cabinet minister Stephen Byers will face a standards and privileges inquiry into whether he deliberately misled parliament, MPs decided today.
The backbench MP apologised to the Commons on Monday for giving inaccurate evidence to the transport select committee back in 2001 over his role in the collapse of the privatised Railtrack company.This apology is not an acceptable way of avoiding carrying the full responsibility for deliberately misleading the democratic process, and simply reflects the long anticipated apology from those others who also have deliberately mislead Parliament over Iraq, administration and experimentation on soldiers of chemicals during the Gulf War, Public spending, Law, Education.
But today, after the Conservatives refused to accept the apology, MPs voted unanimously to refer the matter to the parliamentary watchdog.Byers should be impeached and removed from office. He has clearly evidenced by his actions that he is not a man to be trusted by Parliament, in which case why is he still allowed to be there?
PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE
MORE TALK THAN ACTION
NATO nations have sent far fewer helicopters to Pakistan for urgent earthquake relief efforts than the alliance initially stated, a NATO spokesman said on Tuesday.
After talks with the U.N. official coordinating aid efforts, NATO said on Friday that its 26 members already had some 40 helicopters in Pakistan, to which it would add a further four from Germany.
But NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the figure of 40 was incorrect and alliance members actually hoped to have 32 helping carry aid by the end of this week.
"This is a very complicated, multi-faceted international effort with aid from a variety of fronts, not just NATO nations, and it wasn't easy to quantify it on a day-to-day basis in the early days," he said in answer to questions.
"Based on our current assessment, we expect to have 32 helicopters in theatre by the end of the week," he said, acknowledging the current figure was lower than that.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had urged NATO countries and others to send more of the helicopters vital to supplying aid to the thousands of survivors of the Oct. 8 quake stuck in remote, mountainous regions without food, shelter or medicine.
But NATO commanders said last week that NATO's standing rapid reaction force was short of helicopters and warned that members had always been reluctant to contribute their own.
By far the largest contributor of helicopters to the aid effort is the United States, with 14 on the ground on Monday, according to U.S. officials. In addition, three British machines have arrived in the past few days.
Two German helicopters from the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in neighbouring Afghanistan arrived in the days after the quake, but are due to leave soon.
Four more German helicopters are expected by the end of the week and a NATO diplomat who requested anonymity said a further 19 U.S. machines were due to arrive soon.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Friday the alliance would send a 500-strong engineering battalion and a medical unit to boost relief efforts and would increase its existing airlift of aid supplies from Europe.
Two U.S. Marines were killed in Iraq when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, the military said on Tuesday, pushing the total U.S. military death toll since the 2003 invasion to 1,999.
A military statement said the Marines died on Friday near the town of Amariya outside Falluja, a focus of the Sunni Arab insurgency against the U.S.-backed Baghdad government.
The statement said the deaths were in addition to two other military personnel, a Marine and a sailor, who were earlier reported killed in the incident.
U.S. military casualties are now just one short of the headline-grabbing 2,000 figure -- which is expected to spur fresh calls for U.S. President George W. Bush to outline an exit strategy for the conflict in Iraq.
One U.S. soldier, Sergeant Keith Maupin, is listed as missing following his capture in an attack on a supply convoy in April last year. He was shown with armed men in video released by a militant group shortly afterward. His whereabouts are unknown, but a later insurgent video said he had been killed.
Reliable figures for the number of Iraqis killed since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion are not available but non-governmental organisations estimate at least 25,000 have died.
GAZA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Israel launched missile strikes in Gaza on Tuesday, targeting buildings it said were used by militants in response to renewed Palestinian rocket attacks on the Jewish state.
The flare-up of violence -- one of the worst since Israel quit the Gaza Strip last month -- followed Israel's killing of a top Islamic Jihad militant in the occupied West Bank and threatened to unravel an eight-month-old ceasefire.
The Palestinian Authority said it had deployed forces near launching sites overnight to stop rocket attacks.
Both Israeli and Palestinian security sources said firing by militants ultimately ceased.
Israel, whose Gaza pullout after 38 years of occupation raised Middle East peace hopes, launched its latest air strikes before dawn following similar strikes and artillery fire at militant targets late on Monday. The air strikes were the first since last month.
INTRODUCING THE DEMOCRACY OF BUSH AND BLAIR - SETTING THE PEOPLE FREE???
See http://questionableanswers.blogspot.com
BAGHDAD, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Car bombs hit Baghdad and the normally tranquil Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya on Tuesday, killing at least 11 as insurgents pressed a renewed offensive after a dramatic suicide strike on a hotel used by foreign journalists.
Body parts were still strewn outside Baghdad's Sheraton and Palestine hotels following Monday's triple bombing which police said killed at least 12 people and injured 22.
On Tuesday, police said a suicide car bomber targeted a U.S. military convoy in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, killing one civilian and injuring five, police said. Another roadside bomb exploded near one of Baghdad's children's hospitals,
killing one person and injuring another.
Hospital officials said nine people were killed when a car bomb exploded in the northern city of Sulaimaniya -- rarely troubled by violence that has racked the country in the past two years and magnet for investment in Kurdistan.
Monday's attack on the Baghdad hotel complex, which lies across the Tigris from the heavily-fortified government "Green Zone" and serves as the base for several foreign media organisations, shook much of central Baghdad and sent huge columns of smoke and dust into the sky.
The bombings, at dusk in front of rolling television cameras that guaranteed global media coverage, broke a relative lull in insurgent violence over the past two weeks.
The U.S. military said a first car detonated outside the hotels' perimeter wall on Firdous Square -- where in April 2003 U.S. soldiers and Iraqis pulled down a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in one of the most memorable images of the war.
Then, as now, the Palestine hotel was known throughout Iraq as a base for international journalists.
"About five minutes later a second car bomb approached the square and tried to manoeuvre through the breach but was engaged by civilian security forces," the military said in a statement.
It blew up on the far side of the square.
Seconds later, an explosives-laden cement truck pushed through the broken wall and headed for the hotel, coming under fire from a U.S. soldier, the military said. The truck then exploded, causing extensive damage to the Palestine hotel lobby and hurtling chunks of debris hundreds of metres (yards) away.
Several news photographers were wounded in the attack and taken to hospital for treatment. No foreigners or U.S. soldiers were reported killed in the incident.
The U.S. military death toll since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 stood at 1,997 -- just short of the 2,000 mark that is expected to prompt new calls on U.S. President George W. Bush to outline an exit strategy.
INSURGENTS ACTIVE
Iraq's National Security Adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said the bombings were designed to show that insurgents were active despite what he called successes by Iraqi security forces.
"The plan was to try to penetrate the defences of the Palestine hotel by blowing up cars and firing rocket-propelled grenades and light arms to occupy the hotel and kidnap the journalists," he said.
There was no sign of guerrilla forces on the ground.
U.S. officials warned of new attacks by Sunni Arab militants during this month's referendum on a U.S.-backed constitution and the trial of Saddam Hussein which began last week.
Another car bomb exploded on Tuesday in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, near a building housing officials who deal with Kurdish militia forces, police and witnesses said. Hospital officials said at least nine people were killed.
Iraq's Electoral Commission was due to release final results from the constitutional referendum on Tuesday, a potential spark for new violence among Sunni Arab militants who opposed the charter that both Washington and Baghdad hope will set Iraq on course to become a stable democracy.
On Monday, the commission confirmed that at least two of Iraq's 18 provinces voted "No" by huge majorities to the constitution, which under Iraqi law will be struck down if two- thirds of voters in three provinces reject it.
The focus now is on the northern province of Nineveh and its capital Mosul, which is mixed between Arab Sunnis, Kurds and other groups and is seen as being a potential "swing" vote which could veto the charter. Electoral officials have, however, already said they expect the constitution to be ratified.
A Palestinian woman and her two daughters were wounded in one of the Israeli strikes, medics said. The strikes destroyed two buildings linked to Islamic Jihad and militants from President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah party.
Islamic Jihad gunmen said they had fired 25 rockets into Israel to avenge Israel's killing on Monday of Loai Assadi, one of their commanders and the most senior militant killed since the start of the truce.
Israel had said after the rocket salvoes, which caused no casualties, it would respond to any militant attacks.
ROCKETS LANDED SHORT
Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa vowed authorities would no longer tolerate militant rocket fire, saying several rockets had fallen short, landing in Palestinian residential areas although no one was hurt.
"This act does not serve the interests of the Palestinian people, especially since there was a Palestinian agreement not to launch these actions from the Gaza Strip," he said.
Militant groups including Islamic Jihad, sworn to Israel's destruction, had said last month they would stop attacks from Gaza after Israel killed several militants.
The Jewish state has often targeted buildings in Gaza that it says were used by militants since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000.
Abbas said the killing of Assadi in the West Bank had undermined his efforts to maintain calm under a ceasefire he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February.
The Israeli army accused Assadi of masterminding two suicide bombings that killed 10 Israelis since the truce and said he was planning further attacks.
Abbas wants to ensure that violence does not disrupt legislative elections due in January. The leading militant group Hamas has also said it wants to ensure calm for the elections in which it is participating for the first time. It is expected to mount a serious challenge to Fatah.
LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Western military powers are being forced to rethink strategy because conflict in Iraq has shown the limits of their conventional armies, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said on Thursday. In its annual report on global military might, "The Military Balance", the London-based think-tank said strategists had hoped new technology would let them target enemies accurately from ships and planes, avoiding protracted ground battles.
But it said conventional armies have been sucked into messy conflicts, often in towns, where they face enemies invulnerable to the advanced gadgetry that was supposed to dissipate the fog of war and herald a new era in warfare.
"Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya demonstrate the limitations of modern conventional forces in complex environments that demand more of them than traditional warfighting," wrote Editor Christopher Langton in the introduction.
The United States has some 137,000 troops in Iraq more than two years after crushing Iraq's conventional army in a ground invasion. Nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since March 2003.
The Military Balance said that rather than winning "network-centric warfare" using electronic sensors to find targets and direct fire, Western forces were enmeshed in "netwars", based on "agile and adaptive human networks".
"The conflict environment of the early 21st century certainly does represent a new era in warfare: but not the era that Western military planners expected," it said in its handbook which lists the size and capabilities of the world's armed forces.
INERTIA IN U.S.
Using suicide bombers and roadside bombs, Iraqi insurgents have killed U.S. and British soldiers and thousands of civilians. U.S. campaigns to dislodge fighters embedded in Iraqi towns have also involved losses.
"Dealing with this new conflict environment has caused a rethink for many Western forces," the institute said.
It said British and Australian special forces and the U.S. Marines were adapting to the new era of "asymmetric" conflict used by non-state actors such as al Qaeda by creating smaller fighting groups.
But it said there was unlikely to be any major shift in U.S. strategy, or spending, for two reasons. First, because it feared the rise of large conventional armies in countries such as China and wanted to maintain air and sea supremacy.
"China's military is rapidly modernising. This is of concern to the U.S. and some countries in the Asia-Pacific region as the modernisation of the People's Liberation Army is no longer directed solely against Taiwan," Langton wrote.
The second reason was the immense inertia of the industrial groups that helped build U.S. military might and the fact that it would take time to move away from decades of strategic thought.
The institute said one bright spot for Western conventional armies was that they were still unrivalled in their ability to respond quickly to natural disasters, such as the TSUMANI,HURRICANES AND EARTHQUAKES, OR AT LEAST TALK ABOUT THEIR RESPONSE. THE ACTIONS OF CIVILIAN AND CHARITY RESOURCES HAVE BEEN MORE ACTIVELY RESPONSIVE TO HUMANITARIAN NEEDS THAN THEIR GOVERNMENT HAVE BEEN.
GOVERNMENT POLICE CRIME STATISTICS
Crime statistics show that crimes of violence, and violent crimes against persons have increased, whilst crimes against property, businesses, have reduced.
Judicial prosecutions against Companies, Directors and Non-resident wealthy individuals have decreased, whilst prosecutions of old infirm, mentally ill and addicted people have increased.
See http://jailingmetallilladdicts.blogspot.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff first learned about the CIA officer at the center of a leak investigation in a conversation with Cheney weeks before her identity became public in July 2003, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Notes of the conversation between chief of staff Lewis Libby and Cheney on June 12, 2003, put a spotlight on the vice president's possible role in the leak. The account also appears to run counter to Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he first learned about the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, from reporters.
Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor investigating the leak of Plame's identity, is said by lawyers involved in the case to be considering bringing charges against Libby for making false statements and possibly obstruction of justice.
Iraqi oil exports grind to a halt
Northern Oil Protection Force member secures attacked Iraqi pipeline
The latest attacks could take as long as a month to repair
Oil exports from Iraq have been completely halted by a combination of attacks and bad weather, reports say.
Four sabotage attacks brought exports from Northern Iraq to a halt on Sunday and officials warned the damage may take a month to repair.
The problem worsened on Monday when a pipeline carrying crude to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was hit in an attack.
Meanwhile, bad weather has prevented tankers from loading at terminals in the south, Agence France-Presse said.
Shut down
"Exports of crude oil have been stopped since Friday because of bad weather and high waves (in the Gulf) that prevent tankers from hooking up" to terminals in southern Iraq, an oil ministry spokesman told the news agency.
Ahead of the stoppage, exports from the south of the country had been as high as 1.6 million barrels a day.
In the north, Sunday's attacks hit a gathering centre for at least four wells in the country, around 40 miles west of the city of Kirkuk.
On Monday, three mortars hit a set of oil and gas pipelines that had already been hit on Thursday, setting at least 16 oil pipelines on fire, news agency AFP said.
Oil plays a vital part in Iraq's economy with crude exports making up 97% of the government's revenues.
Another possible target for indictment is Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser. Fitzgerald's announcement is expected later this week.
Plame's identity was leaked to the media after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence on Iraq. Wilson based the criticism in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to Africa in 2002 to check out an intelligence report that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.
Cheney's office had sought more information about the uranium deal, prompting the CIA to dispatch Wilson.
Eager to distance the vice president from Wilson's mission and findings, Cheney's office began looking into Wilson's background in May or June of 2003, after details of his mission began to appear in the press but well before he came out publicly in July 2003 with his criticisms, people close to the investigation said.
Libby's notes indicate that Cheney got his information about Plame from George Tenet, who was then the CIA director, according to the Times, which attributed its report to lawyers involved in the case.
According to the Times, the notes do not show that Cheney knew the name of Wilson's wife. But they do show that Cheney did know and told Libby that she was employed by the CIA and that she may have helped arrange her husband's trip.
Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald's spokesman, declined to comment.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride would only say, "We're cooperating fully, as the president and the vice president directed us."
A former intelligence official close to Tenet said the former CIA director has not been in touch with Fitzgerald's staff for over 15 months and was not asked to testify before the grand jury.
"Mr. Tenet does not wish to make any comments regarding an ongoing investigation," the former intelligence official said.
Why are oil prices so high?
Oil refinery in Colombia
No sign yet of oil prices dropping back to earth
Crude oil prices have risen by about 30% this year to levels not seen since the early 1980s.
The latest rises are causing worries in importing countries about the economic cost of higher energy prices.
Higher fuel prices can cause unwelcome rises in inflation, restrict economic growth and are unpopular with voters.
Major oil exporters are divided between those such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that favour lifting output in an attempt to ease prices, and those such as Venezuela that argue against conciliatory moves towards big consumers, principally the US.
The price of US-traded light, sweet crude rose in September to more than $50 a barrel while UK-traded Brent crude from the North Sea rose to $46 a barrel.
BBC News Online explains why prices are so high.
RISING DEMAND
Global economic expansion is driving what the International Energy Agency says is the biggest increase in oil demand for 24 years.
There is higher than expected demand in industrialised countries and China's rapidly expanding economy has created a huge demand boost.
US demand has risen because of strengthening economic recovery and greater need for higher grade crude oil suitable for processing into petrol (gasoline) for the fuel-hungry Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) popular with US drivers.
Chinese demand is up 20% over the past year. Traders are betting this rapid growth will continue for several years although there is some chance that the economy will "overheat" and oil demand growth will slacken.
Among suppliers only Saudi Arabia has significant spare capacity that it can make available to the market.
LOW STOCKS
Oil companies have tried to become more efficient in recent years and operate with lower stocks of crude oil.
This means there is less of a cushion in the market against supply interruptions.
Events such as violence in the Middle East, ethnic tension in Nigeria and strikes in Venezuela have had a greater effect on prices in the past year than might have been the case if stock levels were higher.
OPEC STRATEGY
The producers' cartel Opec accounts for about half of the world's crude oil exports and attempts to keep prices roughly where it wants them by trimming or lifting supplies to the market.
In the past, Opec ministers tended to wait for prices to dip before agreeing to cut output.
Chinese construction workers
China's booming economy is sucking in a huge amount of oil
But Opec is now acting more aggressively, announcing production cuts to pre-empt any weakening in prices.
International oil companies traditionally used times of seasonally weaker demand, when prices were lower, to rebuild stocks.
These windows now appear to have been closed.
Data error is an additional factor, some analysts say.
Consumption forecasts by market experts turned out to be too low. The result was that producers kept supplies even tighter than was needed to prevent rebuilding of stocks.
ACTION OF SPECULATORS
The combination of low stocks and Opec action to keep them low leaves the market exposed to the prospect of sudden price rises if supplies are threatened.
This has not gone unnoticed by professional market speculators.
Hedge funds and other speculators betting on the possibility of higher prices have themselves exacerbated price pressure in the market.
Opec officials tend to blame speculators for 2004's run-up in prices, ignoring the organisation's earlier role in preventing stock rebuilding.
Opec argues that its members are now pumping flat-out - which is largely true - and that it is powerless in a situation where factors other than mere supply and demand are at work.
VIOLENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The world's major oil consumers remain dependent on the Middle East for their oil. Recent violence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia has again raised fears about an interruption to supplies.
Iraqi exports have been cut by sabotage attacks on oil facilities. The reduction in supplies has been relatively modest but it has caused some doubts about Iraq's longer term prospects of becoming a large and stable oil exporter.
Attacks on foreign workers in Saudi Arabia by Al-Qaeda-inspired militants have also increased tensions.
Any substantial attack on Saudi oil facilities would be a major event for world oil markets. The country is the world's biggest oil producer and, by far, the biggest exporter.
OTHER POLITICAL TENSION
Analysts also view political tension in non-Middle East states Nigeria and Venezuela as having the potential to disrupt exports and drive up world prices.
And there have been worries that a dispute between Russia's government and the country's biggest oil company, Yukos, will lead to the shutdown of a good deal of Russia's production.
Yukos pumps a fifth of Russia's approximate 8.5 million barrel a day output but faces bankruptcy and/or dismantling over huge government demands for back-taxes.
INSUFFICIENT US REFINERY CAPACITY
Low US gasoline stocks and pressure on US refiners to increase production of new gasoline blends have also helped drive world crude oil prices.
Environmental regulations demand new grades of gasoline, which can vary from state to state.
But building processing facilities to serve so many different markets is expensive and environmental concerns can make planning permission difficult to obtain.
This means refiners are struggling to meet demand and are competing with each other, and with China, to secure supplies of the high quality, light, sweet crude needed for new gasoline blends.
Saudi Arabia's previously spare capacity, now being pushed into the market, is mostly of a heavier grade than is suitable for processing into gasoline.
It will not alter the supply-demand situation for high grade crude oil. At best, it will have a limited psychological impact, sending a message that the world's largest oil exporter will do what it can to cool price
War chief reveals legal crisis
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, who led Britain's forces to war in Iraq last year, has dramatically broken his silence about the legal crisis which engulfed the Government on the eve of battle.
In an extraordinary interview which will reignite the controversy over the run-up to the conflict, the former Chief of Defence Staff has revealed how Britain went to the brink of a constitutional crisis after he demanded 'unequivocal... legal top cover' before agreeing to allow British troops to fight.
His demand for a formal assurance that a war would be legal came on 10 March 2003, even as British forces massed on the Iraq border, and the advice finally giving the all-clear came on 15 March, only five days before fighting began.
Speaking to The Observer, Boyce, who was made a life peer after he retired last May, refused to rule out the possibility that he might have resigned over the issue, which he described as a 'crunch point'.
He said his concerns were 'transmitted' to the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith through the Prime Minister. This disclosure adds weight to a suggestion that Tony Blair pressed Goldsmith to change the legal advice at the last minute.
Boyce demanded an unambiguous, one-line note from the Attorney-General saying the war was legal to ensure military chiefs and their soldiers would not be 'put through the mill' at the International Criminal Court.
His comments will fuel pressure on Blair to release full details of how Goldsmith came to his decision. The fact that it still took several days during this critical period to give Boyce his assurance provides further evidence of uncertainty in Government about the legality of the war.
It emerged last week that an earlier draft of the advice, produced around 7 March , prevaricated on whether an invasion of Iraq was legal without a second United Nations resolution. The Attorney-General was then 'sitting on the fence', said a senior Government legal source. He was forced to redraft this advice as the countdown to war continued.
The Observer has discovered that Goldsmith flew to Washington in early February for a crisis meeting with his American counterpart, John Ashcroft, to discuss the war's legality. Their closed meeting on 10 February last year left the British Minister still undecided as he flew home.
In his first interview since he retired, Boyce said: 'My views were clear and made very formally both in Cabinet and in the view I had transmitted to the Attorney-General through Number 10. I required a piece of paper saying it was lawful... Now if that caused them to go back saying we need our advice tightened up, then I don't know.'
Boyce said he fully supported the ousting of Saddam Hussein and did not believe a second UN resolution was necessary. He still believed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq might have been 'squirrelled away or destroyed at the last moment'.
He said: 'The justification in my own mind was that I was convinced that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons. I knew he used them in the past and I believed he was capable of using them in the future. Given what happened since 9/11 it was even more likely.'
Yet he was concerned that, without the legal cover from Goldsmith, military personnel could be prosecuted for war crimes. Boyce hinted that if Goldsmith had not provided him with this, he might have resigned, which would have precipitated a major political and military crisis, with 60,000 British troops stationed in Kuwait prepared for war.
Boyce admitted the 'personal' difficulty he would have faced if such 'unequivocal' reassurance had not been forthcoming: 'It would have to be for people around me, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State [for Defence] to know what sort of person I was and draw their own conclusion about what I might have done if I didn't get what I wanted... I'm not prepared to say what that was because this is extremely personal.'
Asked if this meant he might have resigned, he said: 'I really am not prepared to say ... All I would say is that it was an important milestone.'
He said: 'I never said to anybody, not even to myself, "if I don't get this, this is what I am going to do"... and I'll tell you why, because I was reassured I would get what I asked for and I was prepared to take that at face value. '
Legal approval was needed to protect everyone involved: 'It would have been difficult for our people in the field, for the families of the troops and our commanders if we had not had the reassurance that what they were about to do was legal. Their doubts - if they had doubts - would have been exacerbated by the fact that we were signatories to the ICC [International Criminal Court].'
Last night, a senior Whitehall insider told The Observer that Ministers were reluctant to disclose the Attorney-General's advice, fearing that this would lead to 'a stream of lawsuits against the Government'.
Lawyers acting for Greenpeace activists on trial this week for alleged criminal damage to tanks on their way to the Gulf are to call Boyce as a witness. They claim his evidence could help prove their actions over a potentially illegal war were justified.
Boyce told The Observer he did not want a lengthy legal paper from the Attorney-General, but a simple yes or no if the proposed actions in Iraq would be legal. He said: 'If I had been presented with a 30-page document telling me the pros and cons and then a conclusion telling me it was lawful, certainly it would be of interest but it wasn't the crunch point.
'I asked for unequivocal advice that what we were proposing to do was lawful. Keeping it as simple as that did not allow equivocations, and what I eventually got was what I required... something in writing that was very short indeed. Two or three lines saying our proposed actions were lawful under national and international law.'
Last night Downing Street denied Boyce had raised concerns about the timing of the legal opinion before the beginning of the war. A Number 10 official said Boyce had made a formal request for a legal opinion between 10 and 11 March and that he received the advice four days later, on 15 March. Operations began on 20 March.
'He felt he got the advice in a timely fashion and he was perfectly content with that,' the official said.
What legal instruments have Blair and Goldsmith used to justify the War in Iraq.
There is not a single legal platform to justify their actions.
There are many clear breaches of International Laws and Conventions that have been breached, which are paradoxically now being used against which to convict Sadam Husain.
The War in Iraq is Illegal, unjust and unfair. Blair, Bush and every politician who supported them should be tried for War Crimes.
It is a little bit much to bear when one hears John Reid begging for support for the troops in Iraq, and not to discourage them from continuing in this pointless and futile War. This is not just the European and American View. It is the view of most Iraqi's. America and England continue to force their so called Christian Democracy on a Muslim culture that has never been able to accept it since the earliest conflicts.
This is just another Bloody Crusade, where the cross has taken been replaced with a twisted form of alleged democracy that continues to deny the rights of the majority.
Benjamin Griffin (b. 1978) is a former British SAS soldier who refused to fight in Iraq and left the Army citing illegal tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces. He expected to be court-martialled, but was instead let go with a glowing testimonial from his commanding officer.[1]
In an interview[2] for the Sunday Telegraph he told Defence Correspondent, Sean Rayment:
The Americans had this catch-all approach to lifting suspects. The tactics were draconian and completely ineffective. The Americans were doing things like chucking farmers into Abu Ghraib or handing them over to the Iraqi authorities, knowing full well they were going to be tortured.
The Americans had a well-deserved reputation for being trigger happy. In the three months that I was in Iraq, the soldiers I served with never shot anybody. When you asked the Americans why they killed people, they would say 'we were up against the tough foreign fighters'. I didn't see any foreign fighters in the time I was over there.
I can remember coming in off one operation which took place outside Baghdad, where we had detained some civilians who were clearly not insurgents, they were innocent people. I couldn't understand why we had done this, so I said to my troop commander 'would we have behaved in the same way in the Balkans or Northern Ireland?' He shrugged his shoulders and said 'this is Iraq', and I thought 'and that makes it all right?'
As far as I was concerned that meant that because these people were a different colour or a different religion, they didn't count as much. You can not invade a country pretending to promote democracy and behave like.
Commenting in similar vein to another former British SAS soldier,[3] Griffin also gives his account of how the Americans view Iraqis:
As far as the Americans were concerned, the Iraqi people were sub-human, untermenschen. You could almost split the Americans into two groups: ones who were complete crusaders, intent on killing Iraqis, and the others who were in Iraq because the Army was going to pay their college fees. They had no understanding or interest in the Arab culture. The Americans would talk to the Iraqis as if they were stupid and these weren't isolated cases, this was from the top down. There might be one or two enlightened officers who understood the situation a bit better but on the whole that was their general attitude. Their attitude fuelled the insurgency. I think the Iraqis detested them.
A doctor was denounced for not following lawful orders. His reason for not following them were that they were unlawful.
There is no one who believes that the War in Iraq is Legal. The torture and deaths of Soldiers and Civilians is not only illegal it is completely unjustifiable in any Global Democracy. To go to an illegal War with an ally that practices Rendition, and Torture, redefined in Guantanamo Bay is hardly a basis upon which to judge the ethics and morals of a man who does not share their views. The whole principle of the War Trials in the Hague, and the Trial of Saddam Huusein is that there is no legal argument to justify an illegal act, or personal involvement in an illegal act.There is clear documentary evidence to support Dr Kendall-Smith's claim. The decision to go to War is seriously flawed and so to is the assertion that British forces are there at the request of the democratically elected Government of Iraq.
If this were not enough, the actions of all Government Ministers who took this country to war is seriously compromised by the level of honesty shown whilst they have been in office, Peerages for money, NHS Service, Home Office breakdown, active support of Rendition, killing of Civilians in Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and Juan Carlos Mendes in London, Police armed raids and shootings/killings by Police.
There will be no jail sentences passed out to those who killed Juan Carlos Mendes, or to those people who were responsible for the Action, or the Government who intitated it.
If one of the officers who shot Juan Carlos Mendes had refused to shoot him, or had any reservations about the action, and had not carried it out, no further action would be taken, and the establishment would regroup and out any whistleblowers, and deny any knowledge of the act, just as Sir Ian Blair has done.
The RAF doctor Malcolm Kendall-Smith has been sentenced to eight months in jail.
The flight lieutenant was found guilty by a court martial today of failing to comply with lawful orders after refusing to serve in the Iraq war.
The 37-year-old, who has dual British and New Zealand citizenship, had denied five charges which relate to his deployment, training and equipment fitting.
Following the sentencing Kendall-Smith's solicitor read a statement on behalf of the doctor, saying: "Now, more than ever, I feel my actions were totally justified. I would not seek to do anything differently. To take the decision I did caused me great sadness but I felt I had no other choice. I still have a very long way yet to travel and more work yet to do."
He told a pre-trial hearing last month that he refused to go to Iraq because he believed the war was illegal.
Kendall-Smith told the military hearing that he refused to serve in Basra, Iraq, last July because he did not want to be complicit with an "act of aggression" contrary to international law.
He said: "I have evidence that the Americans were on a par with Nazi Germany with its actions in the Persian Gulf. I have documents in my possession which support my assertions.
http://www.questionableanswers.blogspot.com
"This is on the basis that on-going acts of aggression in Iraq and systematically applied war crimes provide a moral equivalent between the US and Nazi Germany."
Kendall-Smith, who tutored in philosophy at a New Zealand university, added that he refused to take part in training and equipment fitting prior to the deployment because he believed these were "preparatory acts which were equally criminal as the act itself".
David Perry, prosecuting, said the case against Kendall-Smith was that the orders were lawful and he had a duty to obey them as a commissioned officer.
He added that the question of the invasion of Iraq was irrelevant because it occurred prior to the charges which date back to last year.
And he said that at the time of the charges, the presence of coalition forces in Iraq was unquestionably legal because they were there at the request of the country's democratically-elected government.
RAF Wing Commander Ailsa Gough, staff officer from Strike Command, said outside court: "The MoD notes the court's verdict and its support for the position that, in accordance with the Air Force Act 1955, the orders given to Flt Lt Kendall-Smith were lawful and, therefore, should have been obeyed.
"As it is possible for Flt Lt Kendall-Smith to seek leave to appeal this verdict, it would be inappropriate to comment any further."
The charges faced by Kendall-Smith were that on June 1, 2005 he failed to comply with a lawful order to attend RAF Kinloss, Moray, for pistol and rifle training, failed on June 6, 2005 to attend a helmet fitting and between June 12 and 24, 2005 failed to attend a training course.
He also denied failing to comply with an order to attend a deployment briefing at RAF Lyneham on June 30, 2005 and failing to comply with an order to replace a squadron leader for Operation Telic in Basra, Iraq on July 12, 2005.
In court Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss said that Kendall-Smith would serve half of his sentence in custody and the remainder on licence.
He also ordered him to pay £20,000 towards his defence costs, which were paid by legal aid. Judge Advocate Bayliss said that the offences were so serious that only a custodial sentence was appropriate.
He added: "Obedience of orders is at the heart of any disciplined force. Disobedience of orders means it is not a disciplined force, it is a disorganised rabble.
"Those who wear the Queen's uniform cannot pick and choose which orders they obey and those who do so must face the consequences."
He added that the sentence would send a message to other members of the armed forces of the importance of obeying orders.
Sentencing Kendall-Smith, Judge Advocate Bayliss told him: "You have, in this court's view, sought to make a martyr of yourself. You have shown a degree of arrogance that is amazing."
He added that Kendall-Smith may have acted out of his moral viewpoint but his interpretation of the presence of British forces in Iraq as illegal was incorrect.
Speaking outside the court, Kendall-Smith's solicitor Mr Hugheston-Roberts said his client intended to appeal. He said: "At the moment the instructions are to appeal both convictions and sentence."
He added that after a period of "demilitarisation" Kendall-Smith, who was also dismissed from the RAF by the court martial panel, will serve his term of imprisonment in a civilian prison.
A spokesman for the Royal Air Force Prosecuting Authority said: "It is right that Ft Lt Malcolm Kendall Smith was prosecuted for disobeying legal orders. British troops are operating in Iraq under a United Nations mandate and at the invitation of the Iraqi government. The Judge Advocate ruled that the court would not accept his defence that the war was illegal and a panel of his peers have convicted him on that basis."
The price of Democracy
See link for the pictures resulting from Bush and Blair deciding to take Democratic action.
http://crisispictures.org/
Democratic Behaviour or Political Tactics talking out the Democratic Process.
The behaviour of Geoff Hoon in Government leaves much to be desired. He was the Secretary of State that allowed Tony Blair to take Britain to War against the wishes of the Government, and the electorate, and continues to support this indefensible act.
A BILL to force the government to give MPs powers to veto future wars was scuppered yesterday by Geoff Hoon, who was the defence secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion.
Mr Hoon, now the Leader of the Commons, provoked protests when he deliberately "talked out" the Armed Forces (Parliamentary Approval for Participation in Armed Conflict) Bill, denying MPs a chance to vote.
Clare Short, who resigned from the Cabinet over the war in Iraq, argued that both Houses of Parliament should see the case for war and its legal justification before giving the green light to future operations. Under her bill, a prime minister could still take urgent action without approval, but would have to recall troops if Parliament then rejected the move.
Family of soldier shot for cowardice in 1916 seeks pardon
LONDON: The family of a British soldier shot for alleged cowardice during the First World War told the High Court in London yesterday that his execution was a mistake and he should be granted a posthumous pardon.
Relatives of Private Harry Farr from the West Yorkshire Regiment argue that his refusal to fight in northern France was the result of shell shock rather than cowardice.
They are asking the court to overturn a decision last year by Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, not to grant a posthumous pardon.
The family's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, told the court that a year before his execution in October 1916, Farr was evacuated after being diagnosed with shell shock.
The case has been brought by Farr's granddaughter Janet Booth, 63, on behalf of her 91-year-old mother, Gertrude Harris, who is Farr's daughter.
"The accountability of the executive to Parliament is a very important democratic principle which should be extended to the making of war," Ms Short said.
"We owe it to our armed forces and the reputation of our country to put in place arrangements which will ensure that the decision to go to war is more thoroughly considered."
While the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, gave the Commons a vote on military action ahead of the war in Iraq, Mr Hoon said it did not create a precedent. He dismissed protests that his behaviour was "disgraceful".
Although there was little chance of it becoming law, high-profile MPs had backed Ms Short, including Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, and Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman.
Geoff Hoon, the then Defence Secretary,refusal in June last year to grant a pardon of any sort, or to consider any evidence or mitigation in the Governments execution of a soldier who clearly,like so many others should not have been executed nor court martialled and shot.
Cowardice soldier case adjourned
The High Court has adjourned a case brought by the family of First World War soldier executed for cowardice so the Ministry of Defence can consider new evidence in relation to their plea for a posthumous pardon.
Edward Fitzgerald, representing the family, had argued that, given the evidence that Pte Harry Farr suffered from shellshock, the death sentence should not have been carried out.
Pte Harry Farr
Pte Harry Farr had been treated for shell-shock
Mr Justice Walker agreed to a request from Jonathan Crow, acting for John Reid, the Defence Secretary, that the case should be adjourned so the minister could consider new submissions that there was "sufficient mitigation for something less than the death penalty to have been imposed".
Mr Crow said the Defence Secretary was keeping "an open mind" about the case and would welcome fresh representation from the family.
The October 1916 execution of Pte Farr, of the 1st Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, has from the time of his death generated indignation and sympathy.
His family is asking the court to overturn a refusal in June last year by Geoff Hoon, the then Defence Secretary, to grant a pardon of any sort.
Mr Fitzgerald said it was now known that on May 11, 1915, Pte Farr "was evacuated to Boulogne with shell shock".
There was "quite clearly a history of treatment for shell shock", he told the court, submitting that there was only one conclusion to draw from the evidence - that the soldier was "suffering from a psychiatric condition".
Outside court Gertrude Harris, Pte Farr's 91-year-old daughter from Harrow, Middlesex, said: "I am just pleased with the way it has gone.
"Hopefully the Secretary of State will reconsider and we don't have to come back to court again."
Byers rightly to face Commons inquiry over deliberately misleading Parlaiment.
Decision to Take us to war.
Whatever happened as a result of this memo.
Whatever happen to Matthew Rycroft???
Honest Open Government? Or democracy in the hands of a few who make the rules....
The Defence Secretary was there again. But did he walk out????
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT
Former cabinet minister Stephen Byers will face a standards and privileges inquiry into whether he deliberately misled parliament, MPs decided today.
The backbench MP apologised to the Commons on Monday for giving inaccurate evidence to the transport select committee back in 2001 over his role in the collapse of the privatised Railtrack company.This apology is not an acceptable way of avoiding carrying the full responsibility for deliberately misleading the democratic process, and simply reflects the long anticipated apology from those others who also have deliberately mislead Parliament over Iraq, administration and experimentation on soldiers of chemicals during the Gulf War, Public spending, Law, Education.
But today, after the Conservatives refused to accept the apology, MPs voted unanimously to refer the matter to the parliamentary watchdog.Byers should be impeached and removed from office. He has clearly evidenced by his actions that he is not a man to be trusted by Parliament, in which case why is he still allowed to be there?
PAKISTAN EARTHQUAKE
MORE TALK THAN ACTION
NATO nations have sent far fewer helicopters to Pakistan for urgent earthquake relief efforts than the alliance initially stated, a NATO spokesman said on Tuesday.
After talks with the U.N. official coordinating aid efforts, NATO said on Friday that its 26 members already had some 40 helicopters in Pakistan, to which it would add a further four from Germany.
But NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the figure of 40 was incorrect and alliance members actually hoped to have 32 helping carry aid by the end of this week.
"This is a very complicated, multi-faceted international effort with aid from a variety of fronts, not just NATO nations, and it wasn't easy to quantify it on a day-to-day basis in the early days," he said in answer to questions.
"Based on our current assessment, we expect to have 32 helicopters in theatre by the end of the week," he said, acknowledging the current figure was lower than that.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had urged NATO countries and others to send more of the helicopters vital to supplying aid to the thousands of survivors of the Oct. 8 quake stuck in remote, mountainous regions without food, shelter or medicine.
But NATO commanders said last week that NATO's standing rapid reaction force was short of helicopters and warned that members had always been reluctant to contribute their own.
By far the largest contributor of helicopters to the aid effort is the United States, with 14 on the ground on Monday, according to U.S. officials. In addition, three British machines have arrived in the past few days.
Two German helicopters from the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in neighbouring Afghanistan arrived in the days after the quake, but are due to leave soon.
Four more German helicopters are expected by the end of the week and a NATO diplomat who requested anonymity said a further 19 U.S. machines were due to arrive soon.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Friday the alliance would send a 500-strong engineering battalion and a medical unit to boost relief efforts and would increase its existing airlift of aid supplies from Europe.
Two U.S. Marines were killed in Iraq when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, the military said on Tuesday, pushing the total U.S. military death toll since the 2003 invasion to 1,999.
A military statement said the Marines died on Friday near the town of Amariya outside Falluja, a focus of the Sunni Arab insurgency against the U.S.-backed Baghdad government.
The statement said the deaths were in addition to two other military personnel, a Marine and a sailor, who were earlier reported killed in the incident.
U.S. military casualties are now just one short of the headline-grabbing 2,000 figure -- which is expected to spur fresh calls for U.S. President George W. Bush to outline an exit strategy for the conflict in Iraq.
One U.S. soldier, Sergeant Keith Maupin, is listed as missing following his capture in an attack on a supply convoy in April last year. He was shown with armed men in video released by a militant group shortly afterward. His whereabouts are unknown, but a later insurgent video said he had been killed.
Reliable figures for the number of Iraqis killed since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion are not available but non-governmental organisations estimate at least 25,000 have died.
GAZA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Israel launched missile strikes in Gaza on Tuesday, targeting buildings it said were used by militants in response to renewed Palestinian rocket attacks on the Jewish state.
The flare-up of violence -- one of the worst since Israel quit the Gaza Strip last month -- followed Israel's killing of a top Islamic Jihad militant in the occupied West Bank and threatened to unravel an eight-month-old ceasefire.
The Palestinian Authority said it had deployed forces near launching sites overnight to stop rocket attacks.
Both Israeli and Palestinian security sources said firing by militants ultimately ceased.
Israel, whose Gaza pullout after 38 years of occupation raised Middle East peace hopes, launched its latest air strikes before dawn following similar strikes and artillery fire at militant targets late on Monday. The air strikes were the first since last month.
INTRODUCING THE DEMOCRACY OF BUSH AND BLAIR - SETTING THE PEOPLE FREE???
See http://questionableanswers.blogspot.com
BAGHDAD, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Car bombs hit Baghdad and the normally tranquil Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya on Tuesday, killing at least 11 as insurgents pressed a renewed offensive after a dramatic suicide strike on a hotel used by foreign journalists.
Body parts were still strewn outside Baghdad's Sheraton and Palestine hotels following Monday's triple bombing which police said killed at least 12 people and injured 22.
On Tuesday, police said a suicide car bomber targeted a U.S. military convoy in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, killing one civilian and injuring five, police said. Another roadside bomb exploded near one of Baghdad's children's hospitals,
killing one person and injuring another.
Hospital officials said nine people were killed when a car bomb exploded in the northern city of Sulaimaniya -- rarely troubled by violence that has racked the country in the past two years and magnet for investment in Kurdistan.
Monday's attack on the Baghdad hotel complex, which lies across the Tigris from the heavily-fortified government "Green Zone" and serves as the base for several foreign media organisations, shook much of central Baghdad and sent huge columns of smoke and dust into the sky.
The bombings, at dusk in front of rolling television cameras that guaranteed global media coverage, broke a relative lull in insurgent violence over the past two weeks.
The U.S. military said a first car detonated outside the hotels' perimeter wall on Firdous Square -- where in April 2003 U.S. soldiers and Iraqis pulled down a huge statue of Saddam Hussein in one of the most memorable images of the war.
Then, as now, the Palestine hotel was known throughout Iraq as a base for international journalists.
"About five minutes later a second car bomb approached the square and tried to manoeuvre through the breach but was engaged by civilian security forces," the military said in a statement.
It blew up on the far side of the square.
Seconds later, an explosives-laden cement truck pushed through the broken wall and headed for the hotel, coming under fire from a U.S. soldier, the military said. The truck then exploded, causing extensive damage to the Palestine hotel lobby and hurtling chunks of debris hundreds of metres (yards) away.
Several news photographers were wounded in the attack and taken to hospital for treatment. No foreigners or U.S. soldiers were reported killed in the incident.
The U.S. military death toll since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 stood at 1,997 -- just short of the 2,000 mark that is expected to prompt new calls on U.S. President George W. Bush to outline an exit strategy.
INSURGENTS ACTIVE
Iraq's National Security Adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said the bombings were designed to show that insurgents were active despite what he called successes by Iraqi security forces.
"The plan was to try to penetrate the defences of the Palestine hotel by blowing up cars and firing rocket-propelled grenades and light arms to occupy the hotel and kidnap the journalists," he said.
There was no sign of guerrilla forces on the ground.
U.S. officials warned of new attacks by Sunni Arab militants during this month's referendum on a U.S.-backed constitution and the trial of Saddam Hussein which began last week.
Another car bomb exploded on Tuesday in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, near a building housing officials who deal with Kurdish militia forces, police and witnesses said. Hospital officials said at least nine people were killed.
Iraq's Electoral Commission was due to release final results from the constitutional referendum on Tuesday, a potential spark for new violence among Sunni Arab militants who opposed the charter that both Washington and Baghdad hope will set Iraq on course to become a stable democracy.
On Monday, the commission confirmed that at least two of Iraq's 18 provinces voted "No" by huge majorities to the constitution, which under Iraqi law will be struck down if two- thirds of voters in three provinces reject it.
The focus now is on the northern province of Nineveh and its capital Mosul, which is mixed between Arab Sunnis, Kurds and other groups and is seen as being a potential "swing" vote which could veto the charter. Electoral officials have, however, already said they expect the constitution to be ratified.
A Palestinian woman and her two daughters were wounded in one of the Israeli strikes, medics said. The strikes destroyed two buildings linked to Islamic Jihad and militants from President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah party.
Islamic Jihad gunmen said they had fired 25 rockets into Israel to avenge Israel's killing on Monday of Loai Assadi, one of their commanders and the most senior militant killed since the start of the truce.
Israel had said after the rocket salvoes, which caused no casualties, it would respond to any militant attacks.
ROCKETS LANDED SHORT
Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khoussa vowed authorities would no longer tolerate militant rocket fire, saying several rockets had fallen short, landing in Palestinian residential areas although no one was hurt.
"This act does not serve the interests of the Palestinian people, especially since there was a Palestinian agreement not to launch these actions from the Gaza Strip," he said.
Militant groups including Islamic Jihad, sworn to Israel's destruction, had said last month they would stop attacks from Gaza after Israel killed several militants.
The Jewish state has often targeted buildings in Gaza that it says were used by militants since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000.
Abbas said the killing of Assadi in the West Bank had undermined his efforts to maintain calm under a ceasefire he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February.
The Israeli army accused Assadi of masterminding two suicide bombings that killed 10 Israelis since the truce and said he was planning further attacks.
Abbas wants to ensure that violence does not disrupt legislative elections due in January. The leading militant group Hamas has also said it wants to ensure calm for the elections in which it is participating for the first time. It is expected to mount a serious challenge to Fatah.
LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Western military powers are being forced to rethink strategy because conflict in Iraq has shown the limits of their conventional armies, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said on Thursday. In its annual report on global military might, "The Military Balance", the London-based think-tank said strategists had hoped new technology would let them target enemies accurately from ships and planes, avoiding protracted ground battles.
But it said conventional armies have been sucked into messy conflicts, often in towns, where they face enemies invulnerable to the advanced gadgetry that was supposed to dissipate the fog of war and herald a new era in warfare.
"Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya demonstrate the limitations of modern conventional forces in complex environments that demand more of them than traditional warfighting," wrote Editor Christopher Langton in the introduction.
The United States has some 137,000 troops in Iraq more than two years after crushing Iraq's conventional army in a ground invasion. Nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since March 2003.
The Military Balance said that rather than winning "network-centric warfare" using electronic sensors to find targets and direct fire, Western forces were enmeshed in "netwars", based on "agile and adaptive human networks".
"The conflict environment of the early 21st century certainly does represent a new era in warfare: but not the era that Western military planners expected," it said in its handbook which lists the size and capabilities of the world's armed forces.
INERTIA IN U.S.
Using suicide bombers and roadside bombs, Iraqi insurgents have killed U.S. and British soldiers and thousands of civilians. U.S. campaigns to dislodge fighters embedded in Iraqi towns have also involved losses.
"Dealing with this new conflict environment has caused a rethink for many Western forces," the institute said.
It said British and Australian special forces and the U.S. Marines were adapting to the new era of "asymmetric" conflict used by non-state actors such as al Qaeda by creating smaller fighting groups.
But it said there was unlikely to be any major shift in U.S. strategy, or spending, for two reasons. First, because it feared the rise of large conventional armies in countries such as China and wanted to maintain air and sea supremacy.
"China's military is rapidly modernising. This is of concern to the U.S. and some countries in the Asia-Pacific region as the modernisation of the People's Liberation Army is no longer directed solely against Taiwan," Langton wrote.
The second reason was the immense inertia of the industrial groups that helped build U.S. military might and the fact that it would take time to move away from decades of strategic thought.
The institute said one bright spot for Western conventional armies was that they were still unrivalled in their ability to respond quickly to natural disasters, such as the TSUMANI,HURRICANES AND EARTHQUAKES, OR AT LEAST TALK ABOUT THEIR RESPONSE. THE ACTIONS OF CIVILIAN AND CHARITY RESOURCES HAVE BEEN MORE ACTIVELY RESPONSIVE TO HUMANITARIAN NEEDS THAN THEIR GOVERNMENT HAVE BEEN.
GOVERNMENT POLICE CRIME STATISTICS
Crime statistics show that crimes of violence, and violent crimes against persons have increased, whilst crimes against property, businesses, have reduced.
Judicial prosecutions against Companies, Directors and Non-resident wealthy individuals have decreased, whilst prosecutions of old infirm, mentally ill and addicted people have increased.
See http://jailingmetallilladdicts.blogspot.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff first learned about the CIA officer at the center of a leak investigation in a conversation with Cheney weeks before her identity became public in July 2003, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Notes of the conversation between chief of staff Lewis Libby and Cheney on June 12, 2003, put a spotlight on the vice president's possible role in the leak. The account also appears to run counter to Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he first learned about the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, from reporters.
Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor investigating the leak of Plame's identity, is said by lawyers involved in the case to be considering bringing charges against Libby for making false statements and possibly obstruction of justice.
Iraqi oil exports grind to a halt
Northern Oil Protection Force member secures attacked Iraqi pipeline
The latest attacks could take as long as a month to repair
Oil exports from Iraq have been completely halted by a combination of attacks and bad weather, reports say.
Four sabotage attacks brought exports from Northern Iraq to a halt on Sunday and officials warned the damage may take a month to repair.
The problem worsened on Monday when a pipeline carrying crude to the Turkish port of Ceyhan was hit in an attack.
Meanwhile, bad weather has prevented tankers from loading at terminals in the south, Agence France-Presse said.
Shut down
"Exports of crude oil have been stopped since Friday because of bad weather and high waves (in the Gulf) that prevent tankers from hooking up" to terminals in southern Iraq, an oil ministry spokesman told the news agency.
Ahead of the stoppage, exports from the south of the country had been as high as 1.6 million barrels a day.
In the north, Sunday's attacks hit a gathering centre for at least four wells in the country, around 40 miles west of the city of Kirkuk.
On Monday, three mortars hit a set of oil and gas pipelines that had already been hit on Thursday, setting at least 16 oil pipelines on fire, news agency AFP said.
Oil plays a vital part in Iraq's economy with crude exports making up 97% of the government's revenues.
Another possible target for indictment is Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser. Fitzgerald's announcement is expected later this week.
Plame's identity was leaked to the media after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence on Iraq. Wilson based the criticism in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to Africa in 2002 to check out an intelligence report that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.
Cheney's office had sought more information about the uranium deal, prompting the CIA to dispatch Wilson.
Eager to distance the vice president from Wilson's mission and findings, Cheney's office began looking into Wilson's background in May or June of 2003, after details of his mission began to appear in the press but well before he came out publicly in July 2003 with his criticisms, people close to the investigation said.
Libby's notes indicate that Cheney got his information about Plame from George Tenet, who was then the CIA director, according to the Times, which attributed its report to lawyers involved in the case.
According to the Times, the notes do not show that Cheney knew the name of Wilson's wife. But they do show that Cheney did know and told Libby that she was employed by the CIA and that she may have helped arrange her husband's trip.
Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald's spokesman, declined to comment.
Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride would only say, "We're cooperating fully, as the president and the vice president directed us."
A former intelligence official close to Tenet said the former CIA director has not been in touch with Fitzgerald's staff for over 15 months and was not asked to testify before the grand jury.
"Mr. Tenet does not wish to make any comments regarding an ongoing investigation," the former intelligence official said.
Why are oil prices so high?
Oil refinery in Colombia
No sign yet of oil prices dropping back to earth
Crude oil prices have risen by about 30% this year to levels not seen since the early 1980s.
The latest rises are causing worries in importing countries about the economic cost of higher energy prices.
Higher fuel prices can cause unwelcome rises in inflation, restrict economic growth and are unpopular with voters.
Major oil exporters are divided between those such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that favour lifting output in an attempt to ease prices, and those such as Venezuela that argue against conciliatory moves towards big consumers, principally the US.
The price of US-traded light, sweet crude rose in September to more than $50 a barrel while UK-traded Brent crude from the North Sea rose to $46 a barrel.
BBC News Online explains why prices are so high.
RISING DEMAND
Global economic expansion is driving what the International Energy Agency says is the biggest increase in oil demand for 24 years.
There is higher than expected demand in industrialised countries and China's rapidly expanding economy has created a huge demand boost.
US demand has risen because of strengthening economic recovery and greater need for higher grade crude oil suitable for processing into petrol (gasoline) for the fuel-hungry Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) popular with US drivers.
Chinese demand is up 20% over the past year. Traders are betting this rapid growth will continue for several years although there is some chance that the economy will "overheat" and oil demand growth will slacken.
Among suppliers only Saudi Arabia has significant spare capacity that it can make available to the market.
LOW STOCKS
Oil companies have tried to become more efficient in recent years and operate with lower stocks of crude oil.
This means there is less of a cushion in the market against supply interruptions.
Events such as violence in the Middle East, ethnic tension in Nigeria and strikes in Venezuela have had a greater effect on prices in the past year than might have been the case if stock levels were higher.
OPEC STRATEGY
The producers' cartel Opec accounts for about half of the world's crude oil exports and attempts to keep prices roughly where it wants them by trimming or lifting supplies to the market.
In the past, Opec ministers tended to wait for prices to dip before agreeing to cut output.
Chinese construction workers
China's booming economy is sucking in a huge amount of oil
But Opec is now acting more aggressively, announcing production cuts to pre-empt any weakening in prices.
International oil companies traditionally used times of seasonally weaker demand, when prices were lower, to rebuild stocks.
These windows now appear to have been closed.
Data error is an additional factor, some analysts say.
Consumption forecasts by market experts turned out to be too low. The result was that producers kept supplies even tighter than was needed to prevent rebuilding of stocks.
ACTION OF SPECULATORS
The combination of low stocks and Opec action to keep them low leaves the market exposed to the prospect of sudden price rises if supplies are threatened.
This has not gone unnoticed by professional market speculators.
Hedge funds and other speculators betting on the possibility of higher prices have themselves exacerbated price pressure in the market.
Opec officials tend to blame speculators for 2004's run-up in prices, ignoring the organisation's earlier role in preventing stock rebuilding.
Opec argues that its members are now pumping flat-out - which is largely true - and that it is powerless in a situation where factors other than mere supply and demand are at work.
VIOLENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The world's major oil consumers remain dependent on the Middle East for their oil. Recent violence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia has again raised fears about an interruption to supplies.
Iraqi exports have been cut by sabotage attacks on oil facilities. The reduction in supplies has been relatively modest but it has caused some doubts about Iraq's longer term prospects of becoming a large and stable oil exporter.
Attacks on foreign workers in Saudi Arabia by Al-Qaeda-inspired militants have also increased tensions.
Any substantial attack on Saudi oil facilities would be a major event for world oil markets. The country is the world's biggest oil producer and, by far, the biggest exporter.
OTHER POLITICAL TENSION
Analysts also view political tension in non-Middle East states Nigeria and Venezuela as having the potential to disrupt exports and drive up world prices.
And there have been worries that a dispute between Russia's government and the country's biggest oil company, Yukos, will lead to the shutdown of a good deal of Russia's production.
Yukos pumps a fifth of Russia's approximate 8.5 million barrel a day output but faces bankruptcy and/or dismantling over huge government demands for back-taxes.
INSUFFICIENT US REFINERY CAPACITY
Low US gasoline stocks and pressure on US refiners to increase production of new gasoline blends have also helped drive world crude oil prices.
Environmental regulations demand new grades of gasoline, which can vary from state to state.
But building processing facilities to serve so many different markets is expensive and environmental concerns can make planning permission difficult to obtain.
This means refiners are struggling to meet demand and are competing with each other, and with China, to secure supplies of the high quality, light, sweet crude needed for new gasoline blends.
Saudi Arabia's previously spare capacity, now being pushed into the market, is mostly of a heavier grade than is suitable for processing into gasoline.
It will not alter the supply-demand situation for high grade crude oil. At best, it will have a limited psychological impact, sending a message that the world's largest oil exporter will do what it can to cool price
War chief reveals legal crisis
Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, who led Britain's forces to war in Iraq last year, has dramatically broken his silence about the legal crisis which engulfed the Government on the eve of battle.
In an extraordinary interview which will reignite the controversy over the run-up to the conflict, the former Chief of Defence Staff has revealed how Britain went to the brink of a constitutional crisis after he demanded 'unequivocal... legal top cover' before agreeing to allow British troops to fight.
His demand for a formal assurance that a war would be legal came on 10 March 2003, even as British forces massed on the Iraq border, and the advice finally giving the all-clear came on 15 March, only five days before fighting began.
Speaking to The Observer, Boyce, who was made a life peer after he retired last May, refused to rule out the possibility that he might have resigned over the issue, which he described as a 'crunch point'.
He said his concerns were 'transmitted' to the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith through the Prime Minister. This disclosure adds weight to a suggestion that Tony Blair pressed Goldsmith to change the legal advice at the last minute.
Boyce demanded an unambiguous, one-line note from the Attorney-General saying the war was legal to ensure military chiefs and their soldiers would not be 'put through the mill' at the International Criminal Court.
His comments will fuel pressure on Blair to release full details of how Goldsmith came to his decision. The fact that it still took several days during this critical period to give Boyce his assurance provides further evidence of uncertainty in Government about the legality of the war.
It emerged last week that an earlier draft of the advice, produced around 7 March , prevaricated on whether an invasion of Iraq was legal without a second United Nations resolution. The Attorney-General was then 'sitting on the fence', said a senior Government legal source. He was forced to redraft this advice as the countdown to war continued.
The Observer has discovered that Goldsmith flew to Washington in early February for a crisis meeting with his American counterpart, John Ashcroft, to discuss the war's legality. Their closed meeting on 10 February last year left the British Minister still undecided as he flew home.
In his first interview since he retired, Boyce said: 'My views were clear and made very formally both in Cabinet and in the view I had transmitted to the Attorney-General through Number 10. I required a piece of paper saying it was lawful... Now if that caused them to go back saying we need our advice tightened up, then I don't know.'
Boyce said he fully supported the ousting of Saddam Hussein and did not believe a second UN resolution was necessary. He still believed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq might have been 'squirrelled away or destroyed at the last moment'.
He said: 'The justification in my own mind was that I was convinced that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons. I knew he used them in the past and I believed he was capable of using them in the future. Given what happened since 9/11 it was even more likely.'
Yet he was concerned that, without the legal cover from Goldsmith, military personnel could be prosecuted for war crimes. Boyce hinted that if Goldsmith had not provided him with this, he might have resigned, which would have precipitated a major political and military crisis, with 60,000 British troops stationed in Kuwait prepared for war.
Boyce admitted the 'personal' difficulty he would have faced if such 'unequivocal' reassurance had not been forthcoming: 'It would have to be for people around me, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State [for Defence] to know what sort of person I was and draw their own conclusion about what I might have done if I didn't get what I wanted... I'm not prepared to say what that was because this is extremely personal.'
Asked if this meant he might have resigned, he said: 'I really am not prepared to say ... All I would say is that it was an important milestone.'
He said: 'I never said to anybody, not even to myself, "if I don't get this, this is what I am going to do"... and I'll tell you why, because I was reassured I would get what I asked for and I was prepared to take that at face value. '
Legal approval was needed to protect everyone involved: 'It would have been difficult for our people in the field, for the families of the troops and our commanders if we had not had the reassurance that what they were about to do was legal. Their doubts - if they had doubts - would have been exacerbated by the fact that we were signatories to the ICC [International Criminal Court].'
Last night, a senior Whitehall insider told The Observer that Ministers were reluctant to disclose the Attorney-General's advice, fearing that this would lead to 'a stream of lawsuits against the Government'.
Lawyers acting for Greenpeace activists on trial this week for alleged criminal damage to tanks on their way to the Gulf are to call Boyce as a witness. They claim his evidence could help prove their actions over a potentially illegal war were justified.
Boyce told The Observer he did not want a lengthy legal paper from the Attorney-General, but a simple yes or no if the proposed actions in Iraq would be legal. He said: 'If I had been presented with a 30-page document telling me the pros and cons and then a conclusion telling me it was lawful, certainly it would be of interest but it wasn't the crunch point.
'I asked for unequivocal advice that what we were proposing to do was lawful. Keeping it as simple as that did not allow equivocations, and what I eventually got was what I required... something in writing that was very short indeed. Two or three lines saying our proposed actions were lawful under national and international law.'
Last night Downing Street denied Boyce had raised concerns about the timing of the legal opinion before the beginning of the war. A Number 10 official said Boyce had made a formal request for a legal opinion between 10 and 11 March and that he received the advice four days later, on 15 March. Operations began on 20 March.
'He felt he got the advice in a timely fashion and he was perfectly content with that,' the official said.
What legal instruments have Blair and Goldsmith used to justify the War in Iraq.
There is not a single legal platform to justify their actions.
There are many clear breaches of International Laws and Conventions that have been breached, which are paradoxically now being used against which to convict Sadam Husain.
The War in Iraq is Illegal, unjust and unfair. Blair, Bush and every politician who supported them should be tried for War Crimes.
It is a little bit much to bear when one hears John Reid begging for support for the troops in Iraq, and not to discourage them from continuing in this pointless and futile War. This is not just the European and American View. It is the view of most Iraqi's. America and England continue to force their so called Christian Democracy on a Muslim culture that has never been able to accept it since the earliest conflicts.
This is just another Bloody Crusade, where the cross has taken been replaced with a twisted form of alleged democracy that continues to deny the rights of the majority.
Benjamin Griffin (b. 1978) is a former British SAS soldier who refused to fight in Iraq and left the Army citing illegal tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces. He expected to be court-martialled, but was instead let go with a glowing testimonial from his commanding officer.[1]
In an interview[2] for the Sunday Telegraph he told Defence Correspondent, Sean Rayment:
The Americans had this catch-all approach to lifting suspects. The tactics were draconian and completely ineffective. The Americans were doing things like chucking farmers into Abu Ghraib or handing them over to the Iraqi authorities, knowing full well they were going to be tortured.
The Americans had a well-deserved reputation for being trigger happy. In the three months that I was in Iraq, the soldiers I served with never shot anybody. When you asked the Americans why they killed people, they would say 'we were up against the tough foreign fighters'. I didn't see any foreign fighters in the time I was over there.
I can remember coming in off one operation which took place outside Baghdad, where we had detained some civilians who were clearly not insurgents, they were innocent people. I couldn't understand why we had done this, so I said to my troop commander 'would we have behaved in the same way in the Balkans or Northern Ireland?' He shrugged his shoulders and said 'this is Iraq', and I thought 'and that makes it all right?'
As far as I was concerned that meant that because these people were a different colour or a different religion, they didn't count as much. You can not invade a country pretending to promote democracy and behave like.
Commenting in similar vein to another former British SAS soldier,[3] Griffin also gives his account of how the Americans view Iraqis:
As far as the Americans were concerned, the Iraqi people were sub-human, untermenschen. You could almost split the Americans into two groups: ones who were complete crusaders, intent on killing Iraqis, and the others who were in Iraq because the Army was going to pay their college fees. They had no understanding or interest in the Arab culture. The Americans would talk to the Iraqis as if they were stupid and these weren't isolated cases, this was from the top down. There might be one or two enlightened officers who understood the situation a bit better but on the whole that was their general attitude. Their attitude fuelled the insurgency. I think the Iraqis detested them.
 | This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith (b. 1968/1969) is unit medical officer with the British Royal Air Force, at RAF Kinloss in Moray and a philosopher.[1] He was born in Australia, raised in New Zealand and has dual British-New Zealand citizenship.[2]
He is the first British officer to face criminal charges for challenging the legality of the war against Iraq. On 5 October 2005 he was charged with five counts of disobeying a lawful command between 1 June and 12 July 2005.[1] Four of these relate to him refusing to carry out preparatory training with the final charge relating to his refusal to deploy to Iraq.[3]
In October 2005 his solicitor, Justin Hugheston-Roberts, told the Sunday Times "He is not arguing that he is a conscientious objector. He is arguing that the war is manifestly unlawful."[2]
Contents |
[edit]
Pre-trial hearing in a statement to the court martial at a pre-trial hearing in Aldershot, on 15 March 2006, Kendall-Smith said: "I am a leader. I am not a mere follower to whom no moral responsibility can be attached."[1]
"It seems to be the thrust of your argument that the initial invasion of Iraq was unlawful, and that nothing that was done subsequently has made the presence of British forces lawful," said presiding judge advocate Jack Bayliss. Kendall-Smith nodded.[4]
Philip Sapsford, QC, defending, told the court martial: "The flight lieutenant is entitled to advance before this tribunal that the use of force in Iraq was unlawful in international law," essentially reasoning that Kendall-Smith should be allowed to argue that any participation in the war effort was therefore unlawful.[1] Sapsford added that the defence team was prepared to produce expert evidence to show that UN Resolution 1546, relied upon by the UK and U.S. governments to justify the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, was no defence in international law.[3] Sapsford also said he was considering calling former SAS soldier Ben Griffin, who recently resigned because of his objections to the war, to give evidence.[3]
Prosecutors argued that the legal questions surrounding the invasion of Iraq were irrelevant and that the case should centre only around the official orders given to Kendall-Smith. Prosecutor David Perry argued that at the time Kendall-Smith refused to deploy, the invasion itself was over and British forces were in Iraq with the authority of U.N. Security Council resolutions passed after Saddam's fall.[4]
A ruling on 22 March 2006, by the judge advocate Jack Bayliss, concured. Bayliss dismissed Kendall-Smith's argument, ruling that he must face trial by court martial and will not be allowed to argue that the order to deploy was illegal.[5] Obviating Kendall-Smith's argument that any participation in the war effort was unlawful on the basis of an illegal invasion, Bayliss asserted that British forces had full justification under U.N. resolutions 1511 and 1546 to be in Iraq at the time the charges were filed against Kendall-Smith in June and July, 2005.[6]
Although Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles states that acting under orders of a "Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law," the judge advocate also rejected Kendall-Smith's claim that by serving in Iraq he could be complicit in a crime of aggression. Such a crime "cannot be committed by those in relatively junior positions such as that of the defendant. If a defendant believed that to go to Basra would make him complicit in the crime of aggression, his understanding of the law was wrong," Bayliss said.[6]
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Court-martial
A Court-martial in Aldershot acted from 11 April to 13 April 2006. Kendall-Smith was found guilty on all five charges of disobeying orders, and sentenced to a penalty of eight months in prison. As well as the jail sentence, which he serves in a civilian prison, Kendall-Smith was ordered to pay £20,000 towards his defence costs which were covered by legal aid. The court heard that he had personal savings of £20,000. Kendall-Smith will also be dismissed from the Service.
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Post-Trial Statement
Shortly after the Court-Martial passed sentence, Kendall-Smith made the following statement:
- "I have been convicted and sentenced, a very distressing experience. But I still believe I was right to make the stand that I did and refuse to follow orders to deploy to Iraq - orders I believe were illegal. I am resigned to what may happen to me in the next few months. I shall remain resilient and true to my beliefs which, I believe, are shared by so many others.
- Iraq was the only reason I could not follow the order to deploy. As a commissioned officer, I am required to consider every order given to me. Further, I am required to consider the legality of such an order not only as to its effect on domestic but also international law. I was subjected, as was the entire population, to propaganda depicting force against Iraq to be lawful. I have studied in very great depth the various commentaries and briefing notes, including one prepared by the Attorney General, and in particular the main note to the PM dated 7 March 2003. I have satisfied myself that the actions of the armed forces with the deployment of troops were an illegal act - as indeed was the conflict. To comply with an order that I believe unlawful places me in breach of domestic and international law, something I am not prepared to do.
- The invasion and occupation of Iraq is a campaign of imperial military conquest and falls into the category of criminal acts. I would have had criminal responsibility vicariously if I had gone to Iraq. I still have two great loves in life - medicine and the RAF. To take the decision that I did caused great sadness, but I had no other choice."
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Debate and comment
MPs said that the high-profile case illustrated the "legal quagmire" created by Tony Blair's decision to follow George Bush and take part in the conflict. Nick Harvey, Liberal Democrat spokesman on defence said "Hostility to the war is not just confined to the public at large, many members of the armed forces share their concern and have genuine moral objections to serving in Iraq. This case illustrates the legal quagmire that has developed over the Government's decision to go to war. The Government has repeatedly had to hunt around to find legal justification for this war."
At the centre of the debate on the Iraq war lies legality and the invasion's questionable basis in international law. Leading the argument for the British Government is Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General. He told the Prime Minister that UN Security Council Resolution 1441, which found Saddam Hussein to have failed to disarm, could be used to justify war without a second resolution being passed, if it could be shown that Iraq was still in direct breach.
It is now clear, however, that even Lord Goldsmith had his reservations about the Government's position because of worries that 1441 did not explicitly set out the conditions upon which military action could be taken.
During an earlier hearing, Assistant Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss had ruled the doctor could not use the defence that in refusing military orders he had acted according to his conscience. The judge maintained that the US and British forces were now in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government. Judge Advocate Bayliss accused Kendall-Smith, a former university tutor of moral philosophy, of "amazing arrogance" and seeking to be a "martyr". The sentence was intended to make an example of him and serve as a warning to others in the force, citing the importance of conformance to orders:
- "Obedience of orders is at the heart of any disciplined force. Refusal to obey orders means the force is not a disciplined force but a rabble. Those who wear the Queen's uniform cannot pick and choose which orders they will obey. Those who seek to do so must face serious consequences.
- We have considered carefully whether it would be sufficient to dismiss you from the Royal Air Force and fine you as well. We do not think that we could possibly be justified in taking such a lenient course. It would send a message to all those who wear the Queen's uniform that it does not matter if they refuse to carry out the policy of Her Majesty's government."
A spokeswoman for the Royal Air Force Prosecuting Authority said: "It is right that Flight Lieutenant Kendall-Smith was prosecuted for disobeying legal orders. British troops are operating in Iraq under a United Nations mandate and at the invitation of the Iraqi government."
He has been followed by the similar case of Trooper Ben Griffin.
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References
- ↑ a b c d RAF officer faces trial over 'illegal war' claim. The Daily Telegraph, 16 March 2006. URL accessed on 19 March 2006.
- ↑ a b RAF officer faces jail over ‘illegal war’. The Sunday Times (UK), 16 October 2005. URL accessed on 17 October 2005.
- ↑ a b c RAF doctor faces court martial over stand on Iraq. The Independent, 15 March 2006. URL accessed on 19 March 2006.
- ↑ a b Airman in court for refusing to go to Iraq. Reuters, 15 March 2006. URL accessed on 19 March 2006.
- ↑ Airman's Iraq order ruled legal. Reuters, 22 March 2006. URL accessed on 22 March 2006.
- ↑ a b British officer who refused to serve in Iraq to face court-martial. The Hindu, 22 March 2006. URL accessed on 22 March 2006.
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posted by Patrick at 4:24 PM
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