As we act, let us not become the evil who we deplore.
— Nathan Baxter (1948), Eulogy for the Victims of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, 14 September 2001.
Preventative war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy.
— George Orwell (1903 – 50), 1947.
And yet I doubt, if there be a more reprehensible human act than to lead a nation into an unnecessary war …
— Richard Cobden (1804 – 65), 8 August 1855.
The advantages of successful war are doubtful, but the disadvantages of unsuccessful war are certain.
— Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), Power, 1938.
The policy of my government … is regime change. …
A liberated Iraq could show the power of freedom to transform the Middle East, by bringing hope and progress to the lives of millions. …
The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
— George W Bush (1946)
If we have to use force, it is because we are America.
We are the indispensable nation.
We stand tall and … see further than other countries …
— Madeleine Albright (1937), US Secretary of State, 1998.
(Alex Gibney, Taxi to the Dark Side, 2007)Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001:
[The] President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those … he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 … in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States …
(107th United States Congress, 18 September 2001)
Barbara Lee (1946) [Member of the US House of Representatives from California]:
[The AUMF has] been used 41 times in about 19 countries not related at all to 9/11. …
That is unconstitutional.
It sets the stage for perpetual war. …
It's also been used for domestic spying in the United States.
(Graveyard of Empires, Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, Episode 5, 2021)
Colin_Powell (1937 – 2021) [US Secretary of State, 2001–5]:
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources.
These are not assertions.
What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
(Remarks to the United Nations Security Council, 5 February 2003)
War on Terror: Direct* Civilian War Deaths (2019)(Neta Crawford & Catherine Lutz) | |
| Iraq | 184,382-207,156 |
| Syria/ISIS | 49,591 |
| Afghanistan | 43,074 |
| Pakistan | 23,924 |
| Yemen | 12,000 |
| Total | 312,971-335,745 |
| *Several times as many have been killed indirectly as a result of … water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and war-related disease. | |
Kevin Power [Iraq War Veteran]:
The thing that is … most troubling to me [is that, the invasion of Iraq] doesn't seem to have been necessary. …
If I had to go through all that.
The people I was with, had to experience, what they experienced.
All the lives that were lost.
All the damage that was done:I wish that it had been necessary.
- to the country,
- to the local people
And I just can't find a way to accept the fact that it was.
I just don't think it was necessary.
It doesn't seem like we needed to be there.
(The Yellow Birds, ABC Big Ideas, 6 June 2013)
Francis Fukuyama (1952):
It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W Bush.
It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term.
But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come.
(The Right Choice?, The American Conservative, 3 November 2008)
(National Insecurity, While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government, Episode 4, Season 1, Vice, 2020)
(Greg Wilesmith, ABC Beyond The Towers, 2021)Ron Suskind (1959) [Journalist]:
Afghanistan's not big enough.
It’s not proportional.
It needs to be bigger.
The towers are burning, the Pentagon’s burning.
They attacked the United States, the response has to be proportional to what occurred to us. …
Cheney says [that] if there’s a 1 percent chance that terrorists have gotten their hands on weapons of mass destruction, we need to treat it as a certainty.
Richard Cheney (1941):
My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.
The read we get on the people of Iraq is [that] they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
(Barak Goodman, George W Bush, PBS American Experience, WGBH, 2020)
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use them(Greg Wilesmith, Fiasco, ABC Beyond The Towers, Episode 2, 2021)
- against our friends,
- against our allies, and
- against us.
Donald Rumsfeld (1932):
We know they have weapons of mass destruction.
We know they have active weapons programs.
There isn't any debate about it.
(Errol Morris, The Unknown Known, 2013)
Daniel Bartlett (1971) [Communications Director]:
We were all … continually stunned when week after week goes by and we haven’t found weapons of mass destruction.
It … felt like it was humanly impossible for us not to find anything. …
Barak Goodman & Chris Durrance:
[In] January 2004 … David Kay told Bush the intelligence reports had been wrong.
There were no WMD.
(Barak Goodman, George W Bush, PBS American Experience, WGBH, 2020)
11 September 2001:
2,996 killed (2,922 civilians, 55 military personnel and 19 hijackers) and 6,000+ wounded.
US Gun Related Casualties in 2010:
105,177 (31,672 killed, 73,505 wounded) — 3,000+ deaths every 5 weeks.
7 December 1941:
US killed/wounded — 2,335/1,143 military, 68/35 civilian; Japanese killed — 64.
Population of the United States: 313,933,954.
Soviet–Afghan War (1979-89):
Soviet fatalities: 14,453.
Mujahideen fatalities: 75,000–90,000.
Civilian (Afghan) fatalities: 562,000–2,000,000.
(Wikipedia, 15 October 2018)
Population of Afghanistan: 31,108,077.
For the period from 1994 to 2003 … the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society set the conservative estimate of death toll … at about 150,000 [to] 200,000 civilians, 20,000 to 40,000 Russian soldiers, and possibly the same amount of Chechen rebels.
(Wikipedia, 18 December 2011)
Would you like to know more?
Project for the New American Century
American foreign and defense policy is adrift. …
We aim to change this [by rallying] support for American global leadership …
As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power.
Having led the West to victory in the Cold War {[we] are in danger of squandering the opportunity} to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests …
Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world.
We … have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success:
- a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges;
- a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and
- national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.
Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. …
[Nevertheless, it] has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
The history of the 20th century should have taught us …
- to meet threats before they become dire
- to shape circumstances before crises emerge [and]
- to embrace the cause of American leadership …
Here are four consequences [of these lessons]:
- [We] need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future …
- [We] need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
- [We] need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
- [We] need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
[Military] strength and moral clarity [are what is necessary if we in] the United States [are to] ensure our security and our greatness …
Elliott Abrams(Statement of Principles, 3 June 1997)
Gary Bauer
William J Bennett
Jeb Bush [Governor of Florida, 1999‒2007]
Dick Cheney [Vice President of the United States, 2001‒2009]
Eliot A Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis ["End of History"] Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C Ikle
Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I Lewis ["Scooter"] Libby [Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States, Assistant to the President, 2001-2005.]
Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle [Vice President of the United States, 1989‒1993]
Peter W Rodman
Stephen P Rosen
Henry S Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld [Secretary of Defense, 1975‒1977 and 2001‒2006]
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz [Deputy Secretary of Defense, 2001‒2005]
Would you like to know more?
Contents
Project for the New American Century
Outrages Upon Human Dignity
Faith Based Intelligence
Donald Rumsfeld
Losing the Peace
Margaret Swieringa
Rudyard Kipling
Civilian Death and Injury in Iraq
Outrages Upon Human Dignity
[Justice] is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.
— Thrasymachus (c459 – c400 BCE).
[Right,] as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
— Thucydides (c460 – c400 BCE), The History of Peloponnesian War, Book V, 89.
[There] is a deep moral difference between democracy and Fascism, but if we go on the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth we simply cause that difference to be forgotten.
Moreover, in the matter of ruthlessness we are unlikely to compete successfully with our enemies.
— George Orwell (1903 – 50), Unpublished Letter to The Times, 12 October 1942.
Graham Greene (1904 – 91):
The long, slow slide into barbarism of the Western World seems to have quickened.
[These] photographs are of torturers belonging to [the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam — an army] that could not exist without the American aid and counsel.
Does this mean that American authorities sanction torture as a means of interrogation?
George W Bush (1946):
[The Supreme Court has] said that we must conduct ourselves under the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.
And that Common Article 3 says that … there will be no outrages upon human dignity.
It's, like, very vague — what does that mean, "outrages upon human dignity"?
(Excerpt From Bush’s Remarks, The New York Times, 16 September 2006)
George W Bush (1946):
Of course, our values as a nation, values that we share with many nations in the world, call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment. …
As a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.
(Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees, 7 February 2002, emphasis added)
Common Article 3:
Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely …
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever …(Conflicts not of an international character, Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, Geneva, 12 August 1949, emphasis added)
- violence to life and person, in particular … cruel treatment and torture …
- outrages upon dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment …
(The White House, Washington, 7 February 2002)
Dick Cheney (1941) [Vice President for Torture, 2001-9]:
We’ll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will.
We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world.
A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies — if we are going to be successful.
That's the world these folks operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.
(pp 9-10)
Salvador Allende (1908 – 73) [30th President of Chile, 1970-73]:
We find ourselves opposed by forces that operate in the shadows without a flag, with powerful weapons, from positions of great influence.
(UN General Assembly, December 1972)
Colin Powell (1937) [Secretary of State, 2001-5]:
[George W Bush] has these cowboy characteristics, and when you know where to rub him, you can really get him to do some dumb things.
You have to play on those swaggering bits of his self-image.
Cheney knew exactly how to push all his buttons.
(p 125, emphasis added)
Jane Mayer (1955):
[Cheney] had been chafing against the post-Watergate curbs that had been imposed on the president’s powers since the mid-1970s, when he had served as Gerald Ford’s chief of staff.
As Vice President, Cheney had already begun to strengthen the power of the presidency by aggressively asserting executive privilege …
Beginning almost immediately after September 11, 2001, Cheney saw to it that some of the sharpest and best-trained lawyers in the country, working in secret in the White House and the United States Department of Justice, came up with legal justifications for a vast expansion of the government’s power in waging war on terror.
As part of that process, for the first time in its history, the United States sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment U.S.-held captives, making torture the official law of the land in all but name.
The lawyers also authorized other previously illegal practices, including the secret capture and indefinite detention of suspects without charges.
Simply by designating the suspects “enemy combatants,” the President could suspend the ancient writ of habeas corpus that guarantees a person the right to challenge his imprisonment in front of a fair and independent authority.
Once in U.S. custody, the President’s lawyers said, these suspects could be held incommunicado, hidden from their families and international monitors such as the Red Cross, and subjected to unending abuse, so long as it didn’t meet the lawyers’ own definition of torture.
And they could be held for the duration of the war against terrorism, a struggle in which victory had never been clearly defined.
(The Dark Side: the Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, 2008)
John Yoo (1967) [Author of the Torture Memos, Office of Legal Counsel, US Justice Department]:
[Congress does not have the power to] tie the president’s hands in regard to torture as an interrogation technique.
It’s the core of the commander in chief function.
They can’t prevent the president from ordering torture.
[The only way to block a president from torturing is to impeach him.]
(Jane Mayer, The Dark Side, Scribe, 2008, p 153)
Barak Goodman & Chris Durrance:
To justify "working the dark side" without congressional approval, Cheney relied on a theory of executive power that placed the President beyond the oversight of Congress. …
Cheney urged Bush to suspend the Geneva Conventions for captured fighters in Afghanistan, so that an array of more extreme interrogation techniques, including harsh physical punishment, could be used against them.
Dana Priest (1957) [Journalist]:
The tactics included everything from slapping somebody in the face, pushing them up against a wall, denying them food, denying them liquids, putting someone in a confined space for a long period of time, rectal feeding, continuous sleep deprivation, and … waterboarding — where you simulate drowning somebody.
Lawrence Wilkerson (1945) [Chief of Staff to Colin Powell]:
The President said, "torture people".
That’s the message that went down from the highest power in America.
That’s [how it was] interpreted in the field.
(Barak Goodman, George W Bush, PBS American Experience, WGBH, 2020)
George Washington (1732 – 99):
[We must treat war prisoners] with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of us copying the brutal manner of the British Army …
While we are contending for our own liberty we should be very cautious of violating the rights of conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to Him only in this case, are they answerable.
Jane Mayer (1955):
[During] the Revolutionary War, George Washington and the Continental Army were regarded by the British as treasonous, "illegal combatants" undeserving of the protections of legitimate soldiers, the same category into which the Bush Administration was casting terror suspects.
As a result, the British freely brutalized and killed American prisoners of war …
[By] contrast, Washington ordered American troops to take a higher road, in keeping with the ideals of the new republic. …
[Such] superior treatment of enemy captives by American soldiers bolstered their morale and fomented desertion among the British and Hessian soldiers.
(p 84)
[When George W Bush] decided to nullify the Geneva Conventions on January 8, 2002 … America became the first nation ever to [sanction] violations of the Geneva Conventions.
(pp 9 & 123)
[In September 2002 military interrogators] held a series of brainstorming meetings in Guantánamo about how to crack through the resistance of detainees …
One source of ideas was the popular television show 24.
The fictional drama was written by a Hollywood conservative who had no military or intelligence expertise whatsoever.
But on Guantánamo, as everywhere else in America, its macho hero, Jack Bauer, who tortured his enemies until they talked, was followed with admiration.
On 24, torture always worked.
It saved America on a weekly basis. …
The other source of wisdom was the military’s [Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape] program …
(p 196)
[According to former FBI agent Daniel Coleman, the CIA essentially tortured Abu Zubayda] into telling them what they wanted to hear. …
[He] reportedly confessed to dozens of half-hatched or entirely imaginary plots to blow up American banks, supermarkets, malls, the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, and nuclear power plants.
Federal law-enforcement officials were dispatched to unlikely locations across the country in an effort to follow these false leads.
(The Dark Side, Scribe, 2008, p 178-9)
Peter Finn & Julie Tate:
President George W Bush described Abu Zubaida in 2002 as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations."
Intelligence, military and law enforcement sources told The Washington Post this year that officials later concluded he was a Pakistan-based "fixer" for radical Islamist ideologues, but not a formal member of al-Qaeda, much less one of its leaders.
(CIA Says It Misjudged Role of High-Value Detainee Abu Zubaida, Transcript Shows, The Washington Post, 16 June 2009)
Jim Haynes [General Counsel, Department of Defence]:
We can’t have acquittals!
We’ve got to have convictions!
If we’ve been holding these guys [in Guantanamo] for so long, how can we explain letting them get off?
(p 332)
Alberto Mora (1951) [Former General Counsel of the Navy]:
If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government.
It destroys the whole notion of individual rights.
(p 219)
Cruelty disfigures our national character.
It is incompatible with our constitutional order, with our laws, and with our most prized values. …
Where cruelty exists, law does not.
(p 236)
Jane Mayer (1955):
[In] the Middle Ages, when it was called tormentum insomniae, professional torturers eschewed sleep deprivation, recognizing that the illusions and delusions it caused were more apt to produce false confessions than real ones.
[By contrast,] it was the [torture of choice for] witch hunters, who believed it accurately revealed evidence of pacts with the devil.
For decades, it was defined in the United States as an illegal form of torture. …
But it became American policy in 2001, and continues to be.
(The Dark Side, Scribe, 2008, p 170)
Cofer Black (1950) [Director, Counterterrorism Center, CIA]:
Gentlemen, I want to give you your marching orders, and I want to make them very clear.
Your mission is to find Osama Bin Laden and his senior lieutenants, and kill them. …
I don’t want Bin Laden and his thugs captured.
I want them dead.
Alive and in prison here in the United States and they’ll become a symbol, a rallying point for other terrorists.
They have planned and carried out the murder of thousands of our citizens.
They must be killed.
I want to see photos of their heads on pikes.
I want Bin Laden’s head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice.
I want to be able to show Bin Laden’s head to the President.
I promised him I would do that.
Gary Schroen:
Perfectly clear, Cofer.
I don’t know where we’ll find the dry ice in Afghanistan, but I think we certainly can manufacture pikes in the field.
(Gary Schroen, First In, 2005, p 40)
Waleed Aly (1978):
[Resorting to torture and repression] is an erosion of the moral foundations … of Western civilisation. …
It is also [doomed to fail].
[It] proclaims to all a humiliating desperation and the intensity of Western fears.
[It is an admission by those] who reach for [it] that they have exhausted their ideas [and abandoned their values.]
[No] further deterrent [is] available.
[No] further philosophical triumph [is] to be sought.
They have spent their last resort …
These are not the responses of an assured people, upright and certain of victory. …
Revolutionary movements [rely] on the repressive action of those they seek to overthrow.
They cannot be fought on terrain bereft of ethics.
This merely … serves as potent recruitment propaganda [and] provides a steady stream of martyrs to inspire continued revolution.
(People Like Us, 2007, pp 205-6)
Faith Based Intelligence
Georg Hegel (1770 – 1831):
The state has … to make up its own mind concerning what is to be considered as objective truth.
(Philosophy of Right, 1821)
Karl Rove (1950):
[Those in the] reality-based community … believe that solutions emerge from [the] judicious study of discernible reality. …
That's not the way the world really works anymore.
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. …
(Ron Suskind, Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W Bush, The New York Times Magazine, 17 October 2004)
Michael Isikoff (1952) [Journalist]:
Cheney had an agenda.
He knew what he wanted the answer to be, he knew what he wanted the end result to be.
And they begin pressuring the intelligence community to find the evidence that supports their preconceived notions about the threat that Saddam posed to the world.
(Barak Goodman, George W Bush, PBS American Experience, WGBH, 2020)
Greg Thielmann [Proliferation Expert, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, US State Department]:
This administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude:We know the answers …[This] kind of attitude [quashes] the spirit of intellectual inquiry and integrity.
[Give] us the intelligence to support those answers.
(Peter Singer, The President of Good and Evil, 2004, p 119)
Kamal Habib [Founding Member, Islamic Jihad]:
… I was one [of the leaders of the jihadi movement, as] was Ayman Zawahiri:(Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, BBC, 2004)
- We spearheaded the jihadi state of mind, rather than the earlier more moderate ideas in the liberal era that simply accepted reality.
- [We] thought we were superior to reality.
- We despised the everyday vision of the world.
- [We] wanted to transform … this reality.
Glenn Carle [Former CIA Interrogator]:
I entered this Kafkaesque universe and the following thing would happen …
I asked questions, x, y and z as instructed, and his answers are, and my assessment … correct.
And there are certain questions he cannot answer.
Headquarters would send back its response to me … and they said:
The fact that he is not responding proves that he is withholding information.And I responded:
And therefore, you will pressure him more.Well no, it doesn't necessarily follow, that's not logically sensible at all, he's not answering because, in my assessment, he doesn't know.And they said:No.I thought, I am dealing with an imbecile at headquarters.
The fact that he's not answering proves that he's guilty, and you will pressure him more. …
[But] I was wrong [he was just] following his orders. …
It's literally no different to what my ancestors did, 300 years ago, with witches.
[If] you dunk someone in the water, and the person drowns, well she's innocent, she's not a witch.
[If] she survives, that proves she is guilty, and you therefore have to hang her.
(The Interrogator, ABC Big Ideas, 21 May 2012)
Jane Mayer (1955)
[After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in March 2003, the head of the Al Qaeda unit at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center in Langley, Virginia,] was so excited she flew at government expense to the black site where Mohammed was held so that she could personally watch him being waterboarded. …
Coworkers said she had no legitimate reason to be present during Mohammed’s interrogation. …
"She thought it would be cool to be in the room," a former colleague said.
[Ironically,] her presence during Mohammed’s ordeal … seemed to anger and strengthen his resolve, helping him to hold out longer against the harsh tactics used against him.
Afterward, [when] word leaked out about her jaunt and superiors at the CIA scolded her for treating the painful interrogation as a show.
(Chapter 11)
[In December 2003 Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman of Lebanese descent,] was stopped and separated from fellow passengers on a tourist bus by border guards at the Tabanovce border crossing between Serbia and Macedonia.
Apparently, his name was similar to that of a wanted Al Qaeda leader. …
He and his wife had been arguing, and in a huff he had taken off on his own for a cheap round-trip package holiday in Macedonia. …
His brand new German passport, however, was confiscated by the border guards.
Unfamiliar with a redesigned version just issued by Germany, they believed it to be a forgery. …
Back in Langley, the head of the Al Qaeda Unit … agitated for the CIA to take custody of Masri.
She had no proof, but she argued that he was probably a terrorist.
Having been in the Bin Laden Unit that failed to connect the dots before September 11, she was doubly determined to let no terrorist slip through the cracks again.
(p 282)
She wanted Masri rendered to one of the CIA’s black site prisons in Afghanistan for interrogation.
Doubters in the Agency suggested they should wait for German officials to establish first whether his passport was in fact a forgery. …
[However,] the Al Qaeda Unit’s chief was skeptical about the Germans’ trustworthiness because she regarded them all as soft on terrorism …
[So, after the Macedonians handed him over, the CIA] flew him to Afghanistan without evidence or charges, and without word to his family or anyone else outside, [and imprisoned him] for the next 149 days. …
[Almost from the start, some] Agency officials suspected that Masri was innocent.
Yet for months they subjected him to unsparing abuse anyway.
The CIA has maintained that its secret program was "careful," "legal," and "professional."
But without any procedure for independent judicial review, or any accountability for imprisoning an innocent victim, once a mistake was made there was [no mechanism] to correct it.
[The] rendition team had a strange feeling about Masri.
He wasn’t acting like a terrorist.
By the time their flight reached Afghanistan, the head of the rendition team sent word to the CIA station chief in Kabul that he thought something wasn’t right.
The Kabul station chief was incensed and sent a cable to the CTC accusing Langley of having sent him an innocent person.
But the CTC officials sent back word that the head of the Al Qaeda Unit wanted Masri held and interrogated.
(p 283)
She thought he seemed suspicious. …
As Masri wasted away [in the so-called 'Salt Pit',] being fed rotten chicken bones and suffering from chronic diarrhea, the chief of station in Kabul was saying, "I want this guy out" — but in Washington, the head of the Al Qaeda Unit kept insisting she had "a gut feeling he’s bad".
"She can’t admit a mistake," a former colleague said.
[Meanwhile the "Techs"] in Germany had, after several weeks, thoroughly analyzed Masri’s passport. …
There was nothing wrong with it.
It was legitimate. …
[Nevertheless, she] still wanted Masri held.
She just looked in her crystal ball and it said that he was bad,said another former colleague at the CIA in disgust.
(p 284)
She argued … that:
[Masri] had phone calls to people who were bad.
Or to people who knew people who were bad. …
By late March [2004,] the Al Qaeda Unit chief agreed to release him, but only if the German intelligence services would promise to follow him once he was free.
"They were still claiming he was bad," a CIA source recalled.She was told that if Masri wasn’t a terrorist, they couldn’t put him on a watch list.
He was a German citizen.
There were no charges against him.
They couldn’t just tap his phone for no reason and follow him around.
The Al Qaeda Unit head again was reluctant to let him out.
(p 285)
[Ultimately,] two officers in the European Division drew up a plan to release Masri in what they called a "reverse rendition."
The idea was to drive him around in circles for a few hours and then let him go.
But the Al Qaeda Unit chief was still arguing that he was a terrorist. …
One notion they discussed was giving Masri a large quantity of cash.
(p 286)
[Eventually, in May 2004, Masri was flown to Tirana, Albania, and dropped near] the border with Serbia and Macedonia, where he was told to start walking and not look back.
At the end of a path, three waiting men handed him a picnic lunch and drove him to the Tirana Airport from [where] he flew home.
He had lost so much weight, and looked so haunted and aged, the airport authorities accused him of using someone else’s passport.
When he arrived at his apartment, it was deserted and ransacked.
His wife and [four] sons … had assumed themselves abandoned and moved in with his in-laws in Lebanon. …
A former top Agency official … said in defense of the aggressive head of the Al Qaeda Unit, whose hunch had driven the mistaken rendition,
General Patton wasn’t popular either, but sometimes it takes a tough person to win a war.(p 287)
The CIA [has since] investigated seven or more allegedly mistaken renditions of innocent victims, and sent several homicide cases resulting from prisoner abuse to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, but not a single officer was charged.
Instead, President Bush gave George Tenet, who presided over the creation of the CIA’s interrogation and detention program, the Medal of Freedom.
The female officer who pushed to keep Khaled El-Masri imprisoned in Afghanistan after his mistaken rendition was promoted to a top post handling sensitive matters in the Middle East.
Masri, meanwhile, was denied the opportunity to bring a civil suit against the US government for his false imprisonment because the Bush Administration succeeded in arguing that simply addressing the subject of rendition in a US court would violate national security.
Back in Germany, he was reportedly beset by emotional problems.
(p 334)
(The Dark Side, Scribe, 2008)
Wikipedia:
[In December] 2012, the Grand Chamber for the European Court of Human Rights … awarded El-Masri €60,000 in compensation.
(2 September 2017)
Mesopotamia
They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave? …
Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?
Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour:
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
By the favour and contrivance of their kind?
— Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936), 1917.
Errol Morris (1948):
(The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara, 2003)
- Empathize with your enemy.
- Rationality alone will not save us.
- There’s something beyond one’s self.
- Maximize efficiency.
- Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
- Get the data.
- Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
- Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
- In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
- Never say never.
- You can’t change human nature.
Manfred Steger & Ravi Roy:
In determining whether there was a moral case for the international community to launch a military strike against a nation, the Blair Doctrine proposed that the following five questions had to be answered in the affirmative. …(Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2010, p 74)
- Are we sure of our case?
- Have we exhausted all diplomatic options?
- Are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake?
- Are we prepared for the long term?
- Do we have national interests involved?
Behaving Rationally
Donald Rumsfeld (1932)
US Secretary of Defense (2001–6)
What in the world [were the Iraqi leadership] thinking?
What else might the United States have done to … get them to behave rationally?
(26 September 2002)
There are known knowns.
There are known unknowns.
There are unknown unknowns.
But there are also unknown knowns [—] things that you think you know, that it turns out, you did not.
[Alternatively: things that you know, that you don't know that you know.]
(4 February 2004)
| Known | Known |
| Known | Unknown |
| Unknown | Unknown |
| Unknown | Known |
I picked up a newspaper today, and I couldn't believe it.
I read eight headlines that talked about:
Chaos!And it was just:
Violence!
Unrest!
Henny Penny, the sky is falling!I've never seen anything like it.
And here is a country that is being liberated.
(11 April 2003)
I don't do quagmires.
(24 July 2003)
(Errol Morris, The Unknown Known, 2013)
Losing the Peace
Deborah Nelson [Captain, US Army]:
Mr Secretary, none of us wants to win the war and lose the peace:
How can we create a stable transitional government in Iraq, should Saddam be replaced, that would improve world peace and not foster chaos and terrorism? …
Donald Rumsfeld (1932):
That is a tough question and we're spending a lot of time on it.
Let me assure you, we've spent two long sessions in the last week on looking at the management of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
(February 2003)
Paul Bremer (1941):
Shortly I will issue an order on measures to extirpate Ba'athists and Ba'athism from Iraq forever.
We have and will aggressively move to seek to identify these people and remove them from office.
We have hunted down and will continue to deal with those members of the old regime who are sabotaging the country and the coalition's efforts.
(May 2003)
(Ramadi: Strategy? There is no strategy, ABC Rear Vision, 7 June 2015)
Margaret Swieringa
Former Secretary, Intelligence Committee or ASIO, ASIS / Defence Signals Directorate Committee (2002-7)
The reason there was so much argument about the existence of weapons of mass destruction prior to the war in Iraq 10 years ago was that to go to war on any other pretext would have been a breach of international law. …
John Howard (1939):None of these [assertions were based on fact. …]
I couldn't justify on its own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime.
I've never advocated that.
Central to the threat is Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons and its pursuit of nuclear capability. …
Iraq has a usable chemical and biological weapons capability which has included recent production of chemical and biological agents …
Iraq continues to work on developing nuclear weapons.
All key aspects — research and development, production and weaponisation — of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program are active and most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War in 1991.
The parliamentary inquiry, Intelligence on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction [was conducted by the Intelligence Committee on the basis of information gathered] from Australia's two analytical intelligence organisations — the Defence Intelligence Organisation and the Office of National Assessment — from March 2001 until March 2003.
The inquiry found:
- The scale of threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was less than it had been a decade earlier.
- Under sanctions that prevailed at the time, Iraq's military capability remained limited and the country's infrastructure was still in decline.
- The nuclear program was unlikely to be far advanced.
Iraq was unlikely to have obtained fissile material. - Iraq had no ballistic missiles that could reach the US.
Most if not all of the few SCUDS that were hidden away were likely to be in poor condition. - There was no known chemical weapons production.
- There was no specific evidence of resumed biological weapons production.
- There was no known biological weapons testing or evaluation since 1991.
- There was no known Iraq offensive research since 1991.
- Iraq did not have nuclear weapons.
- There was no evidence that chemical weapon warheads for Al Samoud or other ballistic missiles had been developed.
- No intelligence had accurately pointed to the location of weapons of mass destruction. …
[There was evidence of] a limited stockpile of chemical weapon agents, possibly stored in dual-use or industrial facilities.
[But none to indicate that] Iraq had the capacity to restart its chemical weapons program in weeks [or] to manufacture in months.
The committee concluded:
[The] case made by the government was that Iraq possessed WMD in large quantities and posed a grave and unacceptable threat to the region and the world, particularly as there was a danger that Iraq's WMD might be passed to terrorist organisations.Howard would claim, no doubt, that he took his views from overseas dossiers. …
This is not the picture that emerges from an examination of all the assessments provided to the committee by Australia's two analytical agencies. …
However, all that intelligence was considered by Australian agencies when forming their views. …
[The] so-called "surge of new intelligence" after September 2002 relied almost exclusively on one or two entirely unreliable and self-serving individuals.
… Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid, who had defected in 1995, had told Western agencies that the nuclear program in Iraq had failed, that chemical and biological programs had been dismantled and weapons destroyed, largely as a result of the UNSCOM weapons inspections.
(Howard ignored advice and went to war in Iraq, The Age, 12 April 2013)
Civilian Death and Injury in Iraq (2003-11)
Neta Crawford: Professor of Political Science, Boston University.
We know the number of US soldiers killed in the war in Iraq.
We know their names and how they died. …
The US military … did not make a systematic account of Iraqi casualties in the early weeks of the war …
[Nor] did it make public many estimates or detailed accounts of civilian death unless in response to an undeniable tragedy such as the US bombing of Iraqi markets early in the war.
Iraq's Ministry of Health's statistics department was [reportedly] ordered to [abandon a survey of] civilian dead in late 2003 [— at a time when it was subject to] the Coalition Provisional Authority.
{Iraq's population has been estimated at 31 million people …}
[At] least 126,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a direct consequence of the war's violence.
This is an extremely conservative estimate based on what has been documented by public sources.
To understand the complete toll of the Iraq War, to this estimate of civilian killed from 2003, one must add:
- the … approximately 10,000 Iraqi military killed at the outset of the war,
- the approximately 19,000 insurgents killed from June 2003-September 2007,
- the more than 10,100 Iraqi military and police killed since June 2003 and
- the nearly 6,300 US and allied soldiers and US contractors killed in the war.
- about 165,000 Iraqis and
- 6,300 US and allied soldiers and contractors.
Many thousands more Iraqis have been wounded by bombs, bullets, and the fire that is often triggered by bombing.
Some additional number of people have also died due to the war's effect on Iraqi infrastructure and economy, in particular on the systems that provide health care and clean drinking water.
(p 1)
Why have we argued so much and so long about the human toll in Iraq?
The first reason that the numbers killed in Iraq have been so contested is politics.
The United States was at great pains to underscore its commitment to avoid harming civilians in Iraq during the invasion in 2003 and the subsequent occupation.
Before the invasion, the Pentagon invited reporters to hear how civilian casualties would be minimized in the air war. …
The use of precision weapons was emphasized, and when civilians were killed, the US military spokespersons tended to emphasize the great care that had been taken to minimize effects on civilians.
When violence grew in 2006, the United States emphasized that it was reducing civilian casualties by changing rules of engagement. …
Some years into the Iraq war, the RAND Corporation was asked by the US DOD to assess the questions and controversies related to counting casualties.
(p 2)
Katherine Hall & Dale Stahl:The second reason for the contentious debate about the death and injury toll in Iraq is that the way one counts the dead …
[It was not clear that] anyone in the US military or Coalition is systematically collecting and analyzing [data on Iraqi civilian fatalities. …]
Had there been a more robust effort to collect accurate information on Iraqi civilians, military strategists and political leaders might have acted more determinedly to secure the civilian population prior to the carnage of 2006. …
(An Argument for Documenting Casualties: Violence Against Iraqi Civilians 2006, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, 2008)
[The] ostensible differences often appear larger than they are because those who have been observing and measuring death and injury in Iraq have been counting different, though sometimes overlapping, events.
Trends in Direct War Related Civilian Death
[There] have been four main causes of civilian death due to the war:
- death due to injuries directly caused by combat;
- lawlessness, namely targeted killings, executions, or military atrocity;
- indirect death due to increased vulnerability; and
- an unknown number possibly killed due to the long term environmental effects of the war.
[Based on] Iraq Body Count records … for the first year of the war …
- Coalition force accounted for about 52% of recorded violent deaths [— 60%] due to air attack.
- Unknown perpetrators accounted for 41% [and]
- anti-coalition forces accounted for about 4% …
In the first five years of war in Iraq, more than 92,000 people were killed by armed violence.
[By] the end of the first five years of fighting in March 2008,
- unknown perpetrators had caused the most (74%) of all violent deaths …
- [about] 12% … could be attributed solely to US coalition forces [and]
- [anti-coalition] forces accounted for almost 11% …
Unknown perpetrators executed their victims or tortured them and then executed them.
These [included of] revenge killings, and clashes between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish groups escalated.
Iraqi soldiers and American soldiers killed some number as well. …
When Anti-coalition forces killed civilians it was primarily by suicide bombs, vehicle bombs, and roadside bombs. …
(p 6)
Wounding
By one estimate, perhaps about as many who have been killed by war have been wounded in various ways.
The US National Couterterrorism Center, which focuses only on "terrorist" events counted about 110,000 wounded Iraqis from 2004 through 2010.
(p 8)
According to a 2010 report by Handicap International, 13,000 cluster munitions, containing 1.8 to 2 million submunitions were used by the United States and Britain in 2003 in the first weeks of combat and Iraq remains one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world.
(p 9)
Haider Maliki:Acute malnutrition among children in Iraq doubled in the months after the US invasion and remains a serious problem.
28% of Iraqi children [ie more than 3 million] suffer some degree of PTSD, and their numbers are steadily rising.
(Central Pediatric Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, 2010)
In 2006 more about 1 in 4 children under five was classified as "stunted" by the World Health Organization.
(p 10)
Indirect Death
Acute malnutrition among children in Iraq doubled in the months after the U.S. invasion and remains a serious problem.
In 2006 more about 1 in 4 children under five was classified as "stunted" by the World Health Organization.
Media and Humanitarian Worker Deaths
… 22 United Nations staff [died in the Baghdad attack of] August 2003 [— 100] were injured …
[More] than 94 relief workers had been killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2007 and 248 were injured.
… 226 journalists and other media workers have been killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Of those, 53 were killed in crossfire, 93 were murdered and three were killed while on dangerous assignments.
When Soldiers "Snap"
Intentionally killing non-combatants is considered an atrocity for which actors are morally responsible and legally culpable.
These are war crimes. …
In the early morning of 19 November 2005 a twenty year old Marine, Lance Corporal TJ Miguel Terrazas, was killed by a roadside bomb.
In retaliation, over the course of about four hours, a group of US Marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha including children aged 14, 10, 5, 4, 3 and 1 over the course of about four hours as members of a thirteen man unit, the 1st Squad of Marine Company K, Third Battalion Marines, attacked people in three houses and a taxi carrying four college students.
(p 11)
Of the eight Marines charged for various offenses related to the killings, most charges, including those of unpremeditated murder, were dropped for all but one Marine, Frank Wuterich.
(p 12)
Fallujah, Iraq 2004
Fallujah, Iraq, a city of approximately 300,000 people before the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, was easily occupied in April 2003 by the United States military. …
(p 13)
On 31 March 2004, four private military contractors, working for Blackwater USA, driving through the city were killed by gunmen.
A crowd gathered, gasoline was poured into one of the vehicles, and it was set ablaze.
The charred and dismembered remains of two of the men were then hung over a bridge. …
President Bush ordered an assault on Fallujah, despite the fact that the Marine Commander of the area, Major General Mattis was not in favor of the attack. …
During a briefing by the US commander in Iraq, General Sanchez, Bush told Sanchez to "Kick ass!" in Fallujah.
The battle turned into a bloody stalemate and a public relations fiasco for the American forces.
After the bombing of a mosque and other incidents that were politically sensitive, the offensive was halted and control of the city was given to Iraqi forces on 28 April on the understanding that insurgents would be kept out of the city.
But insurgents remained and a decision was made to attack again.
(p 14)
In the days prior to the assault, the city was surrounded by US and other coalition forces and residents were told by the Marines to leave through checkpoints, or if they remained, to stay inside their homes.
At these checkpoints males between the ages 15 and 45 were turned back in to the city or detained.
The United Nations coordinated Emergency Working Group estimated on 11 November that approximately 200,000 people left Fallujah and were dispersed throughout Iraq while approximately 50,000 civilians remained in the city
(p 16)
[The] "shaping" of the battlefield began in the summer months …
The second assault by US and Iraqi forces on Fallujah, Operation Phantom Fury, officially began on 7 November 2004.
The assumption was that anyone who remained in the city was an insurgent.
(p 17)
The fighting in Fallujah was intense both day and night, moving house to house over the course of four weeks
[The] city was opened for the return of its residents on 23 December. …
(p 18)
Marine Corporal Michael Leduc described his briefing on the rules of engagement for Fallujah in 2004 …
[Battlion JAG Officer:](p 19)
You see an individual, who although may not be actually carrying anything or displaying any specific hostile action or intent running from, say, one building to another, running across the street or even running away from you …
[Assume] that he is maneuvering against you and kill him.
You see an individual with a white flag and he does anything but approach you slowly and obey commands, assume it's a trick and kill him. …
Burhan Fasa’a [Journalist, Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation]:
There were so many people wounded, and with no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans …
I saw so many civilians shot by them. …
Americans did not have interpreters with them …
They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and shot people because they didn’t obey their orders …
[The] people couldn’t understand a word of English.
95% of the people killed in the houses that I saw were killed because they couldn’t speak English.
I saw cluster bombs everywhere, and so many bodies that were burned, dead with no bullets in them.
So they definitely used fire weapons …
I saw an American sniper in a minaret of a mosque shooting everyone that moved. …
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable [Pentagon Spokesperson]:(p 20)
White phosphorus is a conventional munition.
It is not a chemical weapon.
They are not outlawed or illegal.
We use them primarily … for smokescreens or target marking in some cases.
However it is an incendiary weapon and may be used against enemy combatants. …
When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on … one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position …
[The] combined effects of the fire and smoke … will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives.
[An] NBC news video of a US soldier killing an unarmed prisoner in a Mosque on 13 November, raised questions about whether the practice of "dead checking" — where the wounded are killed — was widespread …
The Marine Corp investigated but chose not to prosecute …
(p 21)
Iraq Body Count recorded 1,874 civilian deaths in Fallujah for the period of 19 March 2003 to 19 March 2005.
[Hospital] workers had recovered 700 bodies from 9 of 27 neighborhoods in Fallujah [of which] 550 were women and children.
Many others had already been buried …
In November [there] were 540 air strikes and 14,000 artillery and mortar shells fired, as well as 2,500 main tank gun rounds.
Eighteen thousand of Fallujah's 39,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed.
(p 22)
In the November attack 70 Americans were killed and 609 wounded.
(p 23)
Documenting and Counting
Because the official estimates were for a long time lacking and are incomplete, for example, because they do not cover the entire period of the Iraq war, scholars concerned to understand the human toll of the war were left to use media accounts of individual incidents, occasionally supplemented by official statements.
Later, public health experts conducted sample surveys in Iraq and estimated the numbers killed by violence and the number of "excess deaths" by using sophisticated statistical methods. …
[Two] cluster sampling surveys, published in the Lancet [have been] highly criticized.
(p 25)
[The 2006 study] estimated about 655,000 excess deaths, of which … 601,000 were due to violent causes. [1] …
[Given] the problems associated with random sample surveys in a war zone [this study may be] the best that could be done given the extreme violence in Iraq at the time.
[Most importantly,] survey research and cluster sampling suggests that reliance on media reports of death undercount the true number of dead. …
… Iraq Body Count enumerates each incident of civilian killing, using publicly available data. …
John Tirman [Executive Director, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]:(p 26, emphais added)
IBC’s count … is accumulated by scanning mainly English-language news media reports.
It’s a crude method, given that not all deaths are reported in the news media, the number of reporters and their interests change over time, and most of the press was stuck in Baghdad during the most severe violence in 2004-07.
IBC itself acknowledges that they are probably low by a factor of two, meaning their count should be 200,000 and the new data [from WikiLeaks] would make that at least 215,000.
Even then, IBC does not count “insurgents” or security forces, or non-violent deaths that are attributable to the war.
(Wikileaks docs Underestimate Iraqi Dead, Global Research, 1 November 2010)
The Brookings Institution makes estimates based on the Iraq Body Count, but adjusts them to reflect figures released by the Iraqi and US governments.
[We separately studied the crime rate in Iraq for the period May 2003 to December 2005, and estimated that 23,000 murders occurred throughout the country.]
[However,] Iraqi officials at the Ministry of Health may have been systematically encouraged to under-report deaths.
One person who works at the Baghdad central morgue statistics office [was reported as saying:]
By orders of the minister's office, we cannot talk about the real numbers of deaths.Despite the potential for undercounting, the Iraq Body Count dataset is still the most transparent and comprehensive recording available of civilian deaths in Iraq since 2003.
This has been the case since 2004. …
I would go home and look at the news.
The minister would say 10 people got killed all over Iraq, while I had received in that day more then 50 dead bodies just in Baghdad.
It's always been like that — they would say one thing, but the reality was much worse.
Even less likely to be accurate is the count of the number of "insurgents" killed in the Iraq war.
(p 27)
(Civilian Death and Injury in Iraq, 2003-2011, Costs of War Project, September 2011)
Note
- Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts, "Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A cross-sectional Cluster Sample Survey," Lancet, vol 368 no 9545, (2006) 1421-8.
