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Tuesday, March 25, 2003 |
Death from smallpox vaccine
Wasn’t that such a great idea? Brought to you from the same people who wanted to inoculate the entire nation against the swine flu…
Md. Nurse Dies After Inoculation
CDC Changes Rules For Smallpox Vaccine
By Ceci Connolly and Avram Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 26, 2003; Page B01
Federal health officials said last night that they are investigating whether the death of a Maryland hospital worker was related to the smallpox inoculation she received this month.
Authorities also are investigating a second case in which a recently vaccinated woman, from an unidentified location, suffered a heart attack and is now on life support.
Historically, the smallpox vaccine has not been associated with heart failure, but officials said several recent heart attacks in people who have been immunized have prompted them to change their vaccination guidelines.
For now, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that any individual with a history of heart trouble not be inoculated, said two individuals who were briefed by the agency, which held an emergency conference call for health commissioners in all 50 states last night.
The cases come as federal officials struggle to rejuvenate a vaccination program that was intended to serve as a central element of the nation's safeguards against bioterrorism. Only 21,000 medical workers nationwide have responded to President Bush's December call for 500,000 volunteers to be inoculated against smallpox.
Many doctors and nurses have refused to participate, saying the risk of the vaccine outweighs the threat of a smallpox attack. The vaccine, made from live virus, has been known to cause severe, sometimes fatal, reactions in a small percentage of people inoculated.
For every 1 million people inoculated in the past, one or two people died and up to 52 suffered severe complications. More common side effects include rash, fever, malaise and in some instances blindness and encephalitis.
The unidentified Maryland woman was a nurse at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury who volunteered to be vaccinated, according to the hospital's chief executive, R. Alan Newberry.
Maryland health officials said she was inoculated March 18 and showed no signs of distress. She died Sunday while visiting Arlington County to attend a conference, Newberry said.
Arlington health officials performed an autopsy.
"There is nothing that suggests at this point anything other than a normal death," said Arlington County Health Director Susan Allan. Maryland's health secretary, Nelson Sabatini, also said there is no known connection between the woman's vaccination and her death.
"I feel terrible that a health care worker has died," he said. "My sympathy goes out to the family. Right now, there is no reason to believe there is any causal relationship between the smallpox immunization and her death."
But the CDC told state health officers it is calling in cardiologists from across the country to help investigate a possible link between the vaccine and heart failure. There have been seven reports of cardiac problems among those vaccinated so far, said CDC Director Julie Gerberding.
In a teleconference briefing with reporters last night, Gerberding said the administration has no intention of halting the vaccination program.
"This is still critically important to our preparedness capacity," she said. "The potential for terrorism has probably never been higher."
The United States halted routine vaccination for smallpox in 1971, and the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in 1980.
9:57:41 PM 
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A Change in Stratergery
Sounds like something finally got through to the politicos like Rumsfeld who have been trying to micromanage the war from DC.
Resistance by Militia Is Delaying Baghdad Battle, Officers Say
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
CAMP DOHA, Kuwait, March 25 — Allied forces have shifted the focus of their land campaign in Iraq to concentrate on defeating the fedayeen and other militia serving Saddam Hussein in the south before beginning the battle for Baghdad, senior officers said tonight.
The American strategy had been to bypass Iraq's southern cities and drive toward the capital to take on the Republican Guard and ultimately topple Mr. Hussein's government.
But the resistance from the militia groups to the rear of the advancing allies has been so stiff that commanders have concluded that this Iraqi threat has to be addressed first.
The attack on the Republican Guard will be delayed while American and British forces fight in and around Iraq's southern cities.
Allied commanders sought to dispel any suggestion that the delay would be long, suggesting that it would be measured in days, not weeks.
"We will go to where the enemy is," a senior American military official said tonight.
Indeed, today, while the British were moving to the outskirts of Basra, forces from the American Seventh Cavalry Regiment fought a fierce battle near Najaf with what was reported to be a mixture of fedayeen and regular troops.
As many as 450 Iraqis were killed. In Nasiriya, American marines captured about 170 paramilitary fighters in a hospital that they had turned into a outpost, and confiscated weapons caches and gear to protect against chemical weapons, American military officials said.
The marines also recovered a T-55 tank, over 3,000 chemical suits with masks, and Iraqi munitions and military uniforms, the United States Central Command said.
The forces available to attack the paramilitary groups include Special Operations forces, light infantry and mechanized units. American military officials said they intend to cut off the routes to the southern cities and, if necessary, send forces into those cities and towns to take the fight to the Iraqis.
The aim will be to avoid street-to-street fighting and to direct attacks against the command centers, weapon caches and hide-outs used by the fedayeen — a group of some 60,000 fighters said to be commanded by Mr. Hussein's son Uday — hard-core members of the ruling Baath Party and other Iraqi security forces.
That change of plan commits allied forces to some form of urban warfare in southern Iraq. Today, the British around Basra called in an air attack on the Baath Party headquarters. American satellite-guided JDAM bombs turned the building into a pile of rubble, allied officials said.
Allied military officials said the new approach is necessary to protect the long supply lines upon which the American military relies to support the advance of the Army and the Marines on Baghdad.
The shift in tactics is also of psychological importance: to demonstrate to Iraqis in the south — overwhelmingly Shiite Muslims — that allied forces are prepared to encourage and protect any rebellion against Mr. Hussein.
The Bush administration and the British government had hoped that allied troops would be hailed as liberators, a development that might mollify critics of the war, especially in the Arab world. But many Shiites have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting to see whether the Americans or Mr. Hussein will prevail.
Shiites in the south recall the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when the administration of President Bush's father called for the Iraqi people to get rid of their dictator but did not intervene when the Shiites began to rise up.
"We are going to prosecute this fight in a violent manner," Maj. Gen. J. D. Thurman, the chief operations officer for the land war command, said. "We must make the people know we are prepared to take care of them."
The new strategy was in evidence today. British forces, under the command of Maj. Gen. Robin Brims, moved to cut off Basra from other Iraqi forces by using air power to take out a bridge and repositioning ground forces.
The British moves came amid reports of rebellion in the Shiite-dominated city and harsh reprisals by security forces loyal to the Mr. Hussein's government.
A woman who waved to British forces on the outskirts of the city was later found hanged, an American officer said, and the Iraqis moved D-30 artillery in place to shell rebellious residents.
A cache of arms was found at Tallil air base, near Nasiriya. American officials said the fedayeen were retrieving the weapons from a bunker.
American officials had anticipated that they would have to confront the fedayeen, but the general assumption was that they would primarily be a problem in Baghdad.
The principal opposition in the south was thought to come from Iraq's regular army troops, whose role was thought to slow and weaken the Americans before they fought the Republican Guard around the capital.
In recent days, however, it became clear the paramilitary group was a far bigger problem than the United States had anticipated.
Other paramilitary groups are also operating, including hard-core Baath Party units and the Al Quds Army.
The size of forces in the south is hard to gauge, given the swirl of fighting and the civilian dress. Allied military officials said there may be 2,000 to 3,000 in each city and there were reports that Mr. Hussein was dispatching more.
The delay in moving on Baghdad has a silver lining because there were indications that the American forces could use more time to prepare for an onslaught on Baghdad, especially with the onset of ferocious sandstorms and bad weather.
There will be more time to bomb the Republican Guard units on the approaches to Baghdad. Today, American warplanes bombed the Medina Division, which is defending one approach. The weather was especially bad, with high winds, clouds and sand.
A delay will also give the Army time to move up men and supplies. Even now, units like the 101st Airborne Division are trying to get their units ready for the Baghdad fight.
The turn of events in Iraq is likely to raise questions about the influence of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on military planning. Mr. Rumsfeld had rejected the doctrine of overwhelming force promulgated by Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the current secretary of state.
Instead, Mr. Rumsfeld has favored the use of airpower, more joint operations among Army and Marine units and the use of Special Operations forces. As the spectacular bombing of Baghdad got under way on Friday, Mr. Rumsfeld suggested that Iraqis were eager to surrender.
The American military has considerable combat power, but it also has a multitude of tasks. These included moving to win the battle of Baghdad, protecting long supply lines, searching for Scud and other surface-to-surface missiles and caches of weapons of mass destruction, ensuring that civilians have food and water and preventing the breakup of the country.
Some former generals have said that for all its capability, the current force of more than 150,000 is too small to carry out all those tasks with confidence.
The backup force is a brigade or somewhat more of the 82nd Airborne, potentially swift, but light, forces. More units are on the way, including the Fourth Infantry Division, the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment and several additional armored divisions. But it will take weeks, if not longer, for all units to arrive and prepare for combat.
The Iraqis, for their part, have continued to harass the allies. Today, they launched two surface-to-surface missiles at the same time on Kuwait — one at the Ali Al Salem air base and one at Camp Doha. Both missiles were traced and shot down by three American and Kuwaiti Patriot batteries. It was the first time that the Iraqis have launched two missiles at the same time during the war.
9:42:19 PM
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Bob Graham (D-FL) takes on Bush regime’s war
What’s also interesting is the Graham is also planning to run for the Dem nomination for pres.
He hasn’t campaigned since he is recovering from heart surgery but if he is willing to take on Bush directly about the war he could gain support quickly.
This is particularly so since all the major candidates have endorsed the war in one way or another and even Dean announced Monday that he will soft-pedal any criticism.
Graham voted against the war resolution in the senate and his seat on the intelligence committee has made him privy to a lot of dirty laundry (but by no means all of it) as you can read below.
*Update: But he voted against the resolution because it was too “timid." He argued that al Qaeda represents the true threat, not Iraq and that a war on Iraq would make the US more vulnerable to terror attacks.*
I’ll vote for any Dem who has the courage to actually stand up to the blustering Bush bully-boys. The world has shown it can be done in the UN; now we need to do it here at home.
I particularly like how he points out how the Bushies played politics over an issue that is costing servicemen/women their lives. If this can’t wake some of them up, nothing will.
(thanks to agonist)
Senator: Bush cloaked likelihood of long, deadly war
By FRANK DAVIES
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration sold the American public on "the softest scenario" about the difficulty of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, even though military and intelligence officials warned about tough Iraqi resistance, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who chaired the Intelligence Committee until January, said military and CIA officials "were appropriately cautious" in developing war plans for several scenarios in Iraq, including "the potential for stiff resistance."
"But the political side of this administration gave a strong sell on the softest scenario, of `flowers on the tanks,' " said Graham, referring to administration expectations that Saddam Hussein's forces would crumble and Iraqis would welcome U.S. forces.
"There was not very much willingness to talk about the scenario that seems to be coming to pass - resistance leading to a longer war and, unfortunately, potentially greater U.S. casualties," Graham added in an interview with Knight Ridder newspapers.
On the eve of war last week, top officials began to warn about the costs of war. President Bush, on the night the invasion began, said the conflict "could be longer and more difficult than some predict."
Graham, who is gearing up for a presidential campaign, recalled that last fall the Intelligence Committee saw classified intelligence that covered several scenarios for war with Iraq, and many top officials shied away from predicting the swift collapse of Saddam's regime.
"The characterization (by the Bush administration) that this was going to be quick and easy with limited casualties and celebrating masses did not divert the military from its job, preparing for whatever eventuality," Graham said. "But it did affect the attitude of the American people about what kind of war to expect."
Last October, Graham voted against the resolution authorizing Bush to use force against Iraq, saying it was a "diversion" from more important targets in the war on terrorism.
Graham said that some of the reasons given for the war were based on "selective intelligence to justify a decision to go to war that had already been made."
He cited the administration's warning about Iraqi plans to buy uranium oxide from Niger, later shown to be based on forged documents, and the emphasis on a close connection between Iraq, al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I heard on TV a U.S. solider in the Gulf say `I'll do anything I can to avenge Sept. 11,' when there is no evidence of that connection," Graham said.
The Bush administration has said Saddam's government sheltered and helped train some terrorists and could supply terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction.
9:16:05 PM
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Pope: a scruffy sandal-wearer for peace?
Doubt this endorsement will halt the attempt to silence people however. In fact it probably makes the Bush regime all the more eager to silence any dissent from its policies.
Pope Endorses Antiwar Movement
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 25, 2003; 1:29 PM
VATICAN CITY -- The vast antiwar movement in the world shows that a "large part of humanity" has rejected the idea of war as a means of resolving conflicts between nations, Pope John Paul II said in a message released Tuesday.
The pope, a staunch opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, sent his message to Roman Catholic military chaplains attending a Vatican-organized course on humanitarian law.
He cited the "vast contemporary movement in favor of peace" around the world and said he took "comfort and hope" from the efforts for peace by various religions.
9:02:05 PM
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Attack on Baghdad put off till weekend
(via Agonist)
6:50 EST U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks has said that U.S. forces will wait to make a major push to Baghdad until March 29. Reasons given were weather, exhaustion -- particularly of the 3rd Infantry Division -- and the need for maintenance and repair of equipment. Franks says his staff fears the two bridges at Karbala are well-covered by Iraqi long-range and other artillery, and crossing there would be too dangerous. The plan instead is said to be to cross the Euphrates north of Karbala, about 20 to 25 miles outside of Baghdad. This point would be on the river between Karbala and Al Fallujah.
4:25:02 PM
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Must-Read Comic Relief
The Onion has released its Iraq war edition. Taking past records into account I’d say that this will give you a better view of the war than the “forecasts” the Bush regime have put out.
The articles include a point-counterpoint concerning the war and the founding of a new UN.
(thanks to tbogg)
4:11:34 PM
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Wrong-Way Cheney
Sounds like the kind of guy you want in Vegas – to learn what bets not to make.
Of course this is not the first time Cheney has f---ed up. Most punditeers steer clear of pointing out his poor track record for fear of retribution. For a historical perspective from one who didn’t let fear button his lip click here.
Cheney Forecast for Quick War May Not Pan Out
Tue March 25, 2003 06:15 PM ET
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Bush administration officials left the impression that a war on Iraq would be relatively brief as they prepared uncertain Americans for the possibility of conflict.
"I think it will go relatively quickly...Weeks rather than months," said Vice President Dick Cheney on CBS' "Face the Nation" on March 16, three days before the start of the war.
Only at the last minute did they say it could be a long one.
"A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict," President Bush said in a speech to Americans on March 19, the day the war started.
The message left before the conflict started was that Iraq's elite Republican Guards would crumble quickly like they did in the 1991 Gulf War.
Not only have they not crumbled, but the invasion forces are facing stiff resistance from Iraqi irregulars known as the Fedayeen, a militia force hardly talked about before the war.
Administration officials insist they never forecast a cakewalk and are emphasizing that Americans should guard against overconfidence.
They said Cheney's prediction could end up being right and that sufficient time has to pass before making a judgment on the weeks-not-months prediction.
"I assure you the vice president does not say things lightly. So when the vice president says something like that, he has good reason to say it and to think it, and therefore to say it," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
Cheney's forecast, echoed by various retired generals and admirals who have become military analysts for cable television networks, marked a departure from the administration's usual lowering of expectations ahead of uncertain outcomes.
It stood in contrast to the 1991 Gulf War, when the administration of Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, went out of its way to warn of a potentially costly war that ended up being relatively easy.
Presidential scholar Stephen Hess saw no advantage in predicting a quick conflict. "If it goes weeks as opposed to months, everybody cheers. If it goes months when they promised weeks, everyone is disappointed," he said.
Other forecasts have also not proven true.
Bush on Sunday said humanitarian aid would begin flowing into Iraq in 36 hours. It has not. Officials also predicted Iraqi civilians would cheer the Americans for toppling President Saddam Hussein, which has not happened to a great degree.
Officials blame Iraqi mining of a crucial waterway for the delay in humanitarian aid reaching the southern port of Umm Qasr and say Iraqis are guarding against welcoming the invaders for fear of reprisals from Saddam's supporters.
3:41:19 PM
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Another setback for Bush
Remember the GOP controls both houses of congress.
This vote required an “uprising” among moderate GOPers.
Senate slashes Bush's proposed tax cut
Setback for White House
Tuesday, March 25, 2003 Posted: 3:14 PM EST (2014 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate unexpectedly reversed itself Tuesday, voting to slash more than half of President Bush's proposed $726 billion tax cut and dealing a blow to the keystone of his economic recovery plan.
A week after refusing to do so, senators voted 51-48 to reduce the tax reduction's price tag to $350 billion through 2013. Bush has said his plan -- which would eliminate taxes on corporate dividends and reduce income taxes -- is needed to create jobs, boost investment and spur the slumbering economy.
Just Friday, the Senate voted 62-38 to reject a similar move to pare Bush's tax plan in half. That plan would have taken the additional money Bush wanted for tax cuts and used it for deficit reduction.
Both moderate Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-Rhode Island, and deficit hawk Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-South Carolina, had voted against making the tax cut smaller on that day.
But both voted Tuesday to shrink the size of the proposed tax cut. Tuesday's successful amendment was slightly different, saying it would take some funds that Bush wanted to use for the tax cut and use that money to either to overhaul Social Security or put toward deficit reduction.
The vote was a major victory for Democrats. These lawmakers -- joined by some GOP moderates -- have been arguing that a tax cut of the magnitude Bush wants makes no sense at a time when federal deficits are expected to surge to a record high and when U.S. troops are engaged in a war with Iraq.
It came on the same day that Bush formally sent Congress his request for $74.7 billion to pay the initial costs of the war and for other expenses in the war on terrorism.
<snip>
3:02:46 PM
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Something to look forward to?
These are Iran’s “Iraqis” but nonetheless this is not terribly encouraging about the future of the US occupation of “liberated” Iraq.
(via agonist)
Iraqi opposition gives warning
By Modher Amin
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
TEHRAN, Iran, March 25 (UPI) -- Head of the Iran-based Iraqi Shiite Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad-Baqer Hakim, Tuesday warned coalition forces to leave Iraq as soon as Saddam Hussein is toppled or face the military resistance of the Iraqi opposition.
"Foreign troops must exit Iraq at the earliest," Hakim told a news conference, adding that the "Iraqi nation will resist by any possible means" if the U.S.-led forces opt to stay in the country.
Hakim stressed that only a "national government" would be acceptable in post-Saddam Iraq.
"The world does not approve of any colonialism or occupation, and we will take peaceful measures in this respect at the beginning but we will use force later," the ayatollah said, urging the Iraqi nation and military to prevent a "foreign dominance" of the country and to safeguard the infrastructures of Iraq.
<snip>
(Anwar Iqbal in Washington contributed to this report.)
2:29:47 PM
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Land of the Free…
…as long as you don’t exercise those freedoms – because then you’re a terrorist!
These tendencies to demonize and deny liberties to those who make you uncomfortable or with whom you disagree are regrettably a human universal. It’s immature and warped but that’s how many people react. This is not meant to excuse such behavior - it serves to explain why the founders argued for and got a Bill of Rights. You don’t need the Bill of Rights when everything is hunky-dory – you need them when people disagree and hence when people are in a position to deprive other of their right to disagree.
One of the truly disgusting aspects of the Bush regime has been they way in which they have encouraged the worst in people and relied upon intimidation to silence criticism of their bumbling implementation of misguided policies.
Various voices of the regime – Ari Fleischer, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush – have sought to equate disagreement with “terrorism”: to paraphrase Bush “if you are not with us you’re with the terrorists.”
This encourages the very passions that the founders wanted to guard against. It would not be too extreme to call such divisive tactics a betrayal of the promise of America.
Now is the time when true leaders should be bringing out the best of America, not encouraging thought police and political thugs to intimidate and stifle free discussion in order to mask the political errors of the current regime.
Here is the link to Al Jazeera’s English language site. Take a look – it is well worth it – that is, if the thugs and enemies of liberty will allow it.
Stock Exchange Bars Al-Jazeera Reporters
The Arab media outlet complains that it was singled out because of its war coverage.
From Associated Press
The Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera said today that two of its reporters had their credentials revoked by the New York Stock Exchange because of the network's coverage of the war in Iraq.
The exchange said the decision was prompted by space constraints.
Based in Qatar, Al-Jazeera is an unusually independent and powerful voice in the Arab world whose broadcasts of U.S. prisoners and war dead has angered many Americans. The English-language version of the Al-Jazeera Web site carries pictures of dead U.S. soldiers.
The NYSE decision about the reporters came only hours before hackers attacked the Web site, rendering it intermittently unavailable, the site's host said.
The newly launched English-language page, which went live Monday, was hardest hit in a bombardment of data packets known as a denial-of-service attack.
Ayman Arrashid, Internet system administrator at the Horizons Media and Information Services, the site's Web host, said the attack began this morning.
Nabil Hegazi, assistant to the managing editor of the English Web site, denied that an attack was the reason the site was unavailable. He said it was difficult to access because of traffic that was almost four times more than expected.
The Web host is based in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. The servers that host the Al-Jazeera site are in France and the United States. Only the U.S. servers were under attack, said Arrashid, so the attackers were likely in the United States.
He said technicians were working to thwart the attack, but could not estimate when the site would be fully available again.
In denial-of-service attacks, hackers normally send a deluge of false requests to Web servers, overloading them and making them unavailable to surfers.
1:34:55 PM
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Coalition “building” Bush style – PR over substance
Here’s a humorous take on a serious issue: the fact that we are isolated in the world but that the Bush regime thinks it can paper this over with an inherently bogus PR campaign.
Sound a lot like the current budget process, no?
Milbank, although he has a talent for the funny image (Palau, Morocco’s monkeys), does miss an important point.
It is not necessary to offer “political support” in order to be included (this is implicitly evident in the case of Angola).
In fact many nations within the “coalition of the willing” explicitly refuse to support the war. What they have offered is help in reconstruction, humanitarian aid, or aid under certain circumstances (France has conditioned military aid on use of chemical or biological weapons).
That is how nations adamantly opposed to this war – like France – get included in the “coalition” inflating its numbers.
After a week in which the military has constantly been surprised by how inaccurate the political presuppositions behind this war have been it seems that PR is the only thing at which the Bush folks are any good.
White House Notebook: Many Willing, But Few Are Able
By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, March 25, 2003; Page A07
There must have been shock in Baghdad and awe in Paris last week when the White House announced the news that Palau had joined the "coalition of the willing."
Palau, an island group of nearly 20,000 souls in the North Pacific, has much to contribute. It has some of the world's best scuba diving, delectable coconuts and tapioca. One thing Palau cannot contribute, however, is military support: It does not have a military.
"It's rather symbolic," said Hersey Kyota, Palau's ambassador to Washington, of his country's willingness to be listed in the 46-member coalition of the willing engaged in the Iraq war. Kyota said the president of Palau, which depends on the U.S. military for its security, on a visit to Washington, "thought it was a good idea to write a letter of support, so he did." Kyota said Palau gamely offered its harbors and airports to the effort, but the offer was graciously declined, as Palau is nowhere near Iraq.
Palau is one of six unarmed nations in the coalition, along with Costa Rica, Iceland, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and the Solomon Islands. Then there's Afghanistan.
Asked if Iceland would be supplying troops, ambassador Helgi Agustsson gave a hearty Scandinavian guffaw. "Of course not -- we have no military," he said. "That is a good one, yes." In fact, Agustsson added, "we laid down weapons sometime in the 14th century," when the Icelandic military consisted largely of Vikings in pointy helmets. The true nature of Iceland's role in the coalition of the willing is "reconstruction and humanitarian assistance," Agustsson said, adding that this has not been requested yet.
Therein lies the peculiarity of the coalition of the willing. Some on the White House list, such as Turkey, have been critical of the war and uncooperative. Many of those on the list, such as the unarmed nations above, will do far less than countries such as Germany, which adamantly opposed the war but is defending Turkey from Iraqi missiles. To join the coalition of the willing, a nation need do nothing more than offer "political support" -- essentially, allow its name to be put on the list.
Administration officials have furnished the list to demonstrate, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld argued, that the current coalition "is larger than the coalition that existed during the Gulf War in 1991." But that 34-member group was an actual military coalition, with all members providing troops, aircraft, ships or medics.
By that standard, there are only about a half dozen members of the coalition in the current war. In addition to the 250,000 or so U.S. troops, there are 45,000 from Britain and about 2,000 from Australia. Denmark and Spain have sent a small number of troops, though not, apparently, for ground combat.
Still, it's not certain exactly who is participating. Poland, for example, had originally said it would help only in a non-combat role. But the country acknowledged some of its commandos had participated in the attack when the Reuters news agency produced photographs of masked Polish soldiers taking prisoners, scrawling graffiti on a portrait of Saddam Hussein and posing with U.S. Navy SEALs with an American flag.
Despite the contributions of Poland and the others, the firepower in the Iraq war is basically all American and British. The other countries involved spend a combined $25 billion a year on defense, less than Britain by itself and less than one-tenth of U.S. military spending.
That sounds less impressive than the way White House press secretary Ari Fleischer described it last week: "All told, the population of coalition of the willing is approximately 1.18 billion people around the world. The coalition countries have a combined GDP of approximately $21.7 trillion. Every major race, religion and ethnic group in the world is represented. The coalition includes nations from every continent on the globe."
Possibly. But the coalition remains a work in progress. After initially including Angola in the coalition of the willing last week, the White House removed the country without explanation, as first noted by Agence France-Presse. Angolan embassy officials didn't respond yesterday to phone calls. With luck, Angola can be replaced by Morocco, if a report yesterday by UPI is to be believed. According to the wire service, Morocco's weekly al Usbu' al-Siyassi claimed that Morocco has offered 2,000 monkeys to help detonate land mines.
An official at the Moroccan Embassy could not confirm the presence of monkeys in the coalition of the willing.
Staff researcher Brian Faler contributed to this report.
1:02:49 PM
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Sounds like “something” is hitting the fan
Despite all the revisionism coming out of the regime that they always anticipated resistance and casualties, it is pretty clear that the have totally underestimated what was required and lead the public to do the same.
I just heard Ari Fleischer trotting out all the weasel-words that speechwriters had “hedged” Bush’s claims of a quick liberation, for example “the US people know the costs of liberty.” In so doing he has – of course - totally misrepresented the context of such statements, which were throw-away lines in the larger litany of claims concerning Saddam’s evilness and the desires of the Iraqis for liberation.
Look no further than Cheney’s comments here to see who is to blame for notions that the war would be bloodless.
The military is none too happy either with the bag of snakes they’ve been handed: see below.
BTW note how quickly Rumsfeld reportedly told the military how long he expected the war to be: TWO DAYS!
Who is out of touch?
Rumsfeld's strategy under fire as war risks become increasingly apparent
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Five days into the war, the optimistic assumptions of the Pentagon's civilian war planners have yet to be realized, the risks of the campaign are becoming increasingly apparent and some current and retired military officials are warning that there may be a mismatch between Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's strategy and the force he's sent to carry it out.
The outcome of the war isn't in doubt: Iraq's forces are no match for America and its allies. But, so far, defeating them is proving to be harder, and it could prove to be longer and costlier in American and Iraqi lives than the architects of the American war plan expected.
And if weather, Iraqi resistance, chemical weapons or anything else turned things suddenly and unexpectedly sour, the backup force, the Army's 4th Infantry Division, is still in Texas with its equipment sailing around the Arabian peninsula.
Despite the aerial pounding they've taken, it's not clear that Saddam Hussein, his lieutenants or their praetorian guard are either shocked or awed. Instead of capitulating, some regular Iraqi army units are harassing American supply lines. Contrary to American hopes - and some officials' expectations - no top commander of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard has capitulated. Even some ordinary Iraqis are greeting advancing American and British forces as invaders, not as liberators.
"This is the ground war that was not going to happen in (Rumsfeld's) plan," said a Pentagon official. Because the Pentagon didn't commit overwhelming force, "now we have three divisions strung out over 300-plus miles and the follow-on division, our reserve, is probably three weeks away from landing."
Asked Monday about concerns that the coalition force isn't big enough, Defense Department spokesperson Victoria Clarke replied: "... most people with real information are saying we have the right mix of forces. We also have a plan that allows it to adapt and to scale up and down as needed."
Knowledgeable defense and administration officials say Rumsfeld and his civilian aides at first wanted to commit no more than 60,000 American troops to the war on the assumption that the Iraqis would capitulate in two days.
Intelligence officials say Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and other Pentagon civilians ignored much of the advice of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of reports from the Iraqi opposition and from Israeli sources that predicted an immediate uprising against Saddam once the Americans attacked.
The officials said Rumsfeld also made his disdain for the Army's heavy divisions very clear when he argued about the war plan with Army Gen. Tommy Franks, the allied commander. Franks wanted more and more heavily armed forces, said one senior administration official; Rumsfeld kept pressing for smaller, lighter and more agile ones, with much bigger roles for air power and special forces.
"Our force package is very light," said a retired senior general. "If things don't happen exactly as you assumed, you get into a tangle, a mismatch of your strategy and your force. Things like the pockets (of Iraqi resistance) in Basra, Umm Qasr and Nasariyah need to be dealt with forcefully, but we don't have the forces to do it."
"The Secretary of Defense cut off the flow of Army units, saying this thing would be over in two days," said a retired senior general who has followed the evolution of the war plan. "He shut down movement of the 1st Cavalry Division and the1st Armored Division. Now we don't even have a nominal ground force."
He added ruefully: "As in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, we are using concepts and methods that are entirely unproved. If your strategy and assumptions are flawed, there is nothing in the well to draw from."
In addition, said senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, Rumsfeld and his civilian aides rewrote parts of the military services' plans for shipping U.S. forces to the Persian Gulf, which they said resulted in a number of mistakes and delays, and also changed plans for calling up some reserve and National Guard units.
"There was nothing too small for them to meddle with," said one senior official. "It's caused no end of problems, but I think we've managed to overcome them all."
Robin Dorff, the director of national security strategy at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., said three things have gone wrong in the campaign:
_A "mismatch between expectations and reality."
_The threat posed by irregular troops, especially the 60,000 strong Saddam Fedayeen, who are harassing the 300-mile-long supply lines crucial to fueling and resupplying the armor units barreling toward Baghdad.
_The Turks threatening to move more troops into northern Iraq, which could trigger fighting between Turks and Kurds over Iraq's rich northern oilfields.
Dorff and others said that the nightmare scenario is that allied forces might punch through to the Iraqi capital and then get bogged down in house-to-house fighting in a crowded city.
"If these guys fight and fight hard for Baghdad, with embedded Baathists stiffening their resistance at the point of a gun, then we are up the creek," said one retired general.
Dr. John Collins, a retired Army colonel and former chief researcher for the Library of Congress, said the worst scenario would be sending American troops to fight for Baghdad. He said every military commander since Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, has hated urban warfare.
"Military casualties normally soar on both sides; innocent civilians lose lives and suffer severe privation; reconstruction costs skyrocket," Collins said, adding that fighting for the capital would cancel out the allied advantages in air and armor and reduce it to an Infantry battle house to house, street by street.
Another retired senior officer said the Apache Longbow helicopter gunships that were shot up badly Sunday had been sent on a deep strike against Republican Guard divisions guarding the approaches to Baghdad. He and others said the Apaches shouldn't have been used that way.
"They should have been preceded by suppression of enemy air defenses," the general said. "There should be a barrage of long-range artillery and MLRS (Multiple-Launch Rocket System) rockets before you send the Apaches in."
Reports from the field said virtually every one of the estimated 30 to 40 Apache Longbows came back shot full of holes, as the Iraqis fired everything they had at them. One did not come back, and its two-man crew apparently was taken prisoner.
"Every division should have two brigades of MLRS launches for a campaign like this," the general said. "They do not, and the question in the end will be why they don't."
He said the Air Force was bombing day and night, but its strikes have so far failed to produce the anticipated capitulation and uprising by the Iraqi people.
One senior administration official put it this way: "'Shock and Awe' is Air Force bull---!"
Dorff said: "Expectations were raised for something that might be quick and relatively painless. What we're seeing in the first few days probably ought to dispel that. Part of the problem is that expectations were raised that we would march in and everybody would surrender - sort of the four-day scenario of 1991."
Instead of streams of surrendering Iraqi soldiers, the American and British forces report that they are holding around 2,000 enemy prisoners.
11:59:48 AM
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Better than Woodward
Bob Woodward that is, the guy who’s career was made by deepthroat and who has spent the many years since then providing “insider” views of government institutions, including fawning coverage of “Bush at war.”
Well this is another side of “Bush at war” and it seems destined to be the image that the rest of the world will forever remember. Think of “Dan Quayle” and you’ve pretty much got the version of Bush that the rest of the world has of our fearless leader.
(thanks to atrios)
Forbidden Video Spreads!
It looks like that unauthorized video of President Bush primping and practicing on the teleprompter before last Wednesday's war speech is destined to become a cult classic. White House officials cried foul after the BBC broadcast 97 seconds of the not-ready-for-prime-time president, but we hear that broadcast outlets in Portugal and Italy aired a full 10 to 15 minutes of the scene, mistakenly made available by the CBS crew pulling pool duty for the speech.
Allentown, Pa., viewer Bob Agonis tells us he caught Bush's speech-prep on Portugal's public broadcasting network RTP (for Radioteleviso Portuguesa). Bush could be heard practicing the speech, repeating the same lines over and over, while the Portuguese anchor provided the occasional snickering commentary. Agonis and his wife Sharon "at first figured the White House had given permission early to all the other networks as well," he said. "Then as we flipped and didn't see Bush on American channels, we realized, 'This isn't supposed to be here!'" As for the commentary, "Who knows what they were saying, but it was easy to detect their laughs. The worst part is that it wasn't just an accidental feed strictly to Allentown, but it's going to Portugal, Brazil. Altogether it's not good!'
An American expatriate in Italy, meanwhile, emailed that he caught the video of Bush, "looking rather jumpy," on a satiric half-hour show that airs nightly after the Canale 5 evening news program in Rome. "It was hilarious, and I won't bore you by telling you what an American who has lived in Italy for many years thinks of this whole mess," he wrote. "Some clips are used endlessly, and I suspect that will be the fate of Bush's clip -- and I doubt very much that anybody from here will apologize."
11:36:54 AM
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Civil war in Basra?
British forces are closing in on the city
A "popular civilian uprising" is reported to be taking place in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, according to British military intelligence officials.
A spokesman in Kuwait has said there appeared to be some form of civilian revolt taking place, but as yet there is no independent confirmation of the report.
According to military intelligence officials, Iraqi troops in the city have turned mortar fire on their own civilians in an attempt to crush the unrest.
Journalist Richard Gaisford, who is with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards just outside Basra, says the British troops are bombarding the mortar positions in an effort to support the uprising.
He told the BBC he could hear a number of large explosions inside the city.
Update: via Agonist
5:01 EST BBC reports 2 British soldiers killed in friendly fire at Basra. BBC is now saying the uprising in Basra has not been confirmed.
Update: via Agonist
5:09 EST BBC reports that there are no reports of a GENERAL uprising in Basra.
5:08 EST A US warplane has dropped 1,000-pound (500 kilogram) satellite-guided J-Dam bombs on military sites hidden in civilian buildings in Basra, British officers say.
11:15:55 AM
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A sign of things to come?
Iraqi commits first suicide attack: army
An Iraqi committed a suicide attack in the southern region of Fao overnight and destroyed a tank of the US-British alliance, an Iraqi military spokesman said Tuesday.
"The first suicide attack was carried out this night," Hazem al-Rawi told a press conference in Baghdad.
The attack was carried out in the Faw peninsula which British forces say they have secured.
An Iraqi civilian "penetrated behind enemy lines and destroyed a tank", the spokesman said, without giving details.
There was no immediate confirmation of the report.
11:06:14 AM
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They still haven’t learned
Bushies are still trying to strong–arm and bully sovereign nations - the way they do the media and Democrats – with vague threats of retribution.
And how dare Canadians allow their citizens to voice displeasure or criticism of the Bush regime! That is certainly a punishable offense. They must be terrorists!
This is especially laughable coming from Cellucci, a GOP party hack (former governor) from Massachusetts. Those who know of him certainly can’t believe he said that "there may be short-term strains here" when he most assuredly said “theh may be shawt-tahm strains heya.”
Meanwhile the Bush campaign to erode the standing of the US both at home and abroad continues undeterred.
U.S. ambassador chides Canada
By GLORIA GALLOWAY
Globe and Mail Update
Toronto — Washington delivered a stern message to Canada on Tuesday, saying Americans feel disappointed and betrayed by the Canadian decision to stay out of the war in Iraq.
At breakfast speech to the Economic Club of Canada, U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci said "there is a lot of disappointment in Washington and a lot of people are upset" about Canada's refusal to join the United States in its efforts to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Although the relationship between the two countries will endure in the long-term, he said, "there may be short-term strains here."
When asked what those strains will be, Mr. Cellucci replied: "You'll have to wait and see." But he cryptically added that it is his government's position that "security trumps trade," implying possible ramifications for cross-border traffic.
The United States believes that the war is a necessary step in the global war on terrorism, said the ambassador, arging that any nation such as Iraq that possesses weapons of mass destruction that could be given to terrorists poses a direct threat to the people of the United States.
So Americans are hurt and upset that Canada would not join in the fight against that threat, he said.
"There is no security threat to Canada that the United States would not be ready, willing and able to help with. There would be no debate, there would be no hesitation," Mr. Cellucci said. "We would be there for Canada, part of our family, and that is why so many in the United States are disappointed and upset that Canada is not fully supporting us now."
He said recent displays of anti-Americanism had not helped the Canada-U.S. relationship. The labelling of Americans as "bastards" by Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, the booing of the U.S. national anthem at a hockey game in Montreal, and the suggestion by Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal that U.S. President George W. Bush is a failed statesman have all received much press south of the border.
"When (Alberta Premier Ralph) Klein issues strong support for the United States, the Canadian government comes down hard on him. When Mr. Dhaliwal makes totally inappropriate remarks about the President of the United States, they kind of ignore it," Mr. Celluci said.
It would help the relationship, he said, if Prime Minister Jean Chrétien would address that problem.
10:48:22 AM
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POWs and Precedents
Unfortunately the chickens of Afghanistan are coming home to roost. Fortunately the has only meant the televising of POWs – so far.
The snippets below (from DailyKos) make an open and shut case for Bush regime hypocrisy on the issue of captured combatants (POWs).
Click on the link to the original article to read charges of far worse violations by US and/or allies in Afghanistan. It’s not pretty but it shapes how the rest of the world views Bush and his “divine mission.”
US in violation of international law
Read this article.
Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them".
The article then lists, in great deal, the 15 articles of the third Geneva convention violated by the US in its Afghanistan conflict, including:
The US government broke the first of these (article 13) as soon as the prisoners arrived, by displaying them, just as the Iraqis have done, on television ... They were then interned in a penitentiary (against article 22), where they were denied proper mess facilities (26), canteens (28), religious premises (34), opportunities for physical exercise (38), access to the text of the convention (41), freedom to write to their families (70 and 71) and parcels of food and books (72).
They were not "released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities" (118), because, the US authorities say, their interrogation might, one day, reveal interesting information about al-Qaida. Article 17 rules that captives are obliged to give only their name, rank, number and date of birth. No "coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever".
As to arguments that the Taliban are "enemy non-combatants" and not POWs, there's this:
The US government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva conventions, as they are not "prisoners of war", but "unlawful combatants". The same claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding the US soldiers who illegally invaded their country. But this redefinition is itself a breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which people detained as suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a volunteer corps (al-Qaida) must be regarded as prisoners of war.
So seriously, Rumsfeld and Bush and the rest of the Chickenhawk Brigades need to quit their whining. The Pentagon brass opposed the Guantanamo prison for precisely this reason -- it undermined their own efforts to pressure enemy opponents to adhere to the Geneva Conventions.
We've lost all moral ground on the issue.
10:34:30 AM
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And now for something completely different
PRESIDENT BUSH REASSURES JITTERY NATION: "THE WAR SHOW WILL GO ON. SO NUKE UP SOME CHEEZ WHIZ, KICK BACK & ENJOY THE BLOODLETTING!"
Statement by the President
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Last night, while our innocent American soldiers were dying while attempting to deliver my personal heat-seeking tongue kiss of death to Saddam Hussein, America's Hollywood elite gathered for that gaudy orgy of masturbatory liberalism known as The 75th Annual Academy Awards.
Fortunately, this morning's Neilsen ratings tell us that most True Americans were too busy doing their duty of consuming – no questions asked – unbiased victory coverage on FOX News to bother joining the coastal fruitcake crowd that tunes in to that gaudy Los Angeles fleshpit of weak-willed narcissism. Indeed, True Americans know that if you want the biggest bang for your entertainment buck, you don't hand it over to the liberal box office, you put it in the campaign coffers of the GOP – because WE know how to produce a Grade-A, populace-anesthetizing circus of genuine carnage and destruction!
I of course did not watch the Oscars myself, opting instead to wait for Karl Rove's trademark breathless recounting of the evening's most egregious fashion faux pas. And while I want to tepidly commend 99% of the celebrities in attendance for being scared enough of blacklists to keep their jellyfish traps shut, I would be remiss in my role of a pillar of modern-day fascism were I not to delicately suggest that our swelling ranks of the self-deputized Patriotism Gestapo start cracking the skulls of the half-dozen capitalism-hating limousine liberals who dared to question my motives and brilliance last night.
As such, all True Americans stand hereby directed to not only boycott the films of the following persons, but also to overwhelm their online fan clubs with violently threatening e-mail denouncements. In lieu of the works of these traitorous whores, you are also hereby commanded to absorb the real-life documentaries of liberation: Saving Private Ryan, The Guns of Navarone, and John Wayne's The Green Berets.
BOYCOTT THESE AMERICA-HATING LIBERALS
· Michael Moore: "Fictitious President," eh? Way to look like a Loony Liberal, Throat-Beard! Too bad that slothful pig-beast heart of yours will be imploding under its own weight any day now.
· Pedro Almodovar: Who knew David Lynch had a Hispano-Rican cousin? Not me. But who cares what he thinks anyway? Everyone in his dumb movies speaks Mexican.
· Susan Sarandon: Hey Carrot Top! Nice sign-language for "Let's shit on the flag!" Dead Man Walking would have been a hell of a comedy if it wasn't for your bony bummer ass!
· Barbra Streisand: OK, so Yentl zipped it and censored herself. Boycott her anyway. It'll make her madder than when that colored albino freak "Jujyfruit" won the music Oscar.
· Adrien Brody: Sure, he may not have been directly critical, but this squirrelly little New York fruit bat still had the GALL to shed girly tears and utter the traitorous word "peace."
· Tim Robbins: So what if he didn't speak this year. Just holding up those two filthy stink-fingers of his is reason enough to unleash a world of pain on Mr. Jolly Pinko Giant here.
12:47:01 AM
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Fog of war still covers vital port
Still unable to get consistent reports about Umm Qasr, as you can see below.
How many times has this place been “captured” now?
Conflicting reports of Umm Qasr fighting
There appears to be conflicting information coming out of Britain about the state of play in the fighting around the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.
According to an unnamed British military spokeswoman, the United States and British forces have still not secured the port because of fierce Iraqi resistance.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said four days ago that US forces had established control over the town, which is very near the Kuwaiti border.
"Umm Qasr is not yet secured. There are still people running around shooting at anything and everything," the spokeswoman told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
She said the British supply ship HMS Galahad was due to arrive at the port on Tuesday evening or Wednesday, with urgently needed aid for the civilian population of the area.
But British Brigadier Jim Dutton says Umm Qasr has been basically secured.
"I don't think we're quite at the stage where we can say there is absolutely nobody left in this area who is hostile, but it's certainly mission accomplished," he said.
"The mission remember was to secure the oil infrastructure before it could be destroyed, that's accomplished and to secure the port of Umm Qasr for humanitarian aid, that's accomplished, although as I say there are still some people in there who are not entirely friendly."
Meanwhile, US military officials say Polish special forces will join operations in Umm Qasr.
12:23:56 AM
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