Lies for Iraq War

Douglass K. Daniel reports for the Associated Press (Jan 23, 2008, Study: False statements preceded war):

...in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.... The study counted 935 false statements.... It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

From the United Kingdom, the New Statesman reports (Jan 23, 2008, Another NS victory and 'Release dossier', ministry told):

The Information Tribunal has just rejected an appeal by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to stop the release, under the Freedom of Information Act, of an early draft of the now infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction dossier.

The September 2002 dossier formed part of the government’s spurious case for war in Iraq. The draft in question was produced by John Williams, the FCO’s Head of News at the time. Its existence tore apart the government’s assertion, to the Hutton and Butler inquiries, that the dossier was the work of the intelligence services.

The Tribunal criticised inconsistencies in the Foreign Office’s account. It noted that the FCO’s chief witness and Director of International Security, Stephen Pattinson, "was not involved at the time and volunteered no information about the source of his information".

The decision follows a three-year battle by Chris Ames, a charity researcher from Surrey, who persisted in his quest for the truth....

From Chris Ames:

...the Tribunal has allowed a handwritten note to be redacted which the Foreign Office claimed would be damaging to international relations.

The FCO has said that it is studying the Tribunal decision and declined to name the authors of the handwritten comments....

...The tribunal also reveals that the draft was “annotated in two different persons’ handwriting, suggesting that at least one person other than the author had reviewed and commented on it despite Mr Pattison’s statement that it was put aside the moment it was first presented.” Again here, the tribunal can be seen to be skeptical of the government’s claim that Williams’ work was not taken forward.

However, the tribunal has ordered that one of the handwritten notes should be redacted from the draft when it is published. It is clear that the Foreign Office has claimed that disclosure of this comment would be damaging to international relations, a claim that it did not make at the time of its initial refusal. The decision notice states that this issue is covered in a confidential annexe.

On the content of the draft itself, the Tribunal reveals that some intelligence-related sections of the published dossier bear a resemblance to parts of the Williams draft, although this does not “lead on easily to the conclusion that one had been based on the other”. The dossier was finally published on 24 September 2002, two weeks after Scarlett’s “first draft”, and was central to the case it made to Parliament for war in Iraq.

Responding to the Information Tribunal decision, Conservative MP John Baron said: "This decision lifts the lid on government efforts to cover-up the role played by spin doctors in producing the Iraq Dossier.

"I am now pressing the Foreign Secretary immediately to make public the Williams draft, so that we can assess for ourselves the significance of this document in the run up to war – a war which we should never had been party to.

"The Tribunal agrees that the Williams draft could have played a greater part in influencing the drafting of the dossier than the Government has so far admitted - even to the Hutton Inquiry. The Government cannot hide this document any longer."

US-British forces blood donations

Michael Evans, Defence editor for the Times (UK, January 11, 2008, US may have given injured British forces infected blood transfusions) reports:

The medical records of hundreds of British servicemen seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 have had to be investigated by the Ministry of Defence after the Americans admitted that they may have given some of the injured infected blood transfusions.

The Pentagon revealed at a meeting in Washington in early November that, according to its records, 11 British servicemen had received life-saving blood transfusions from American volunteer donors at US military centres in Iraq and Afghanistan over the six-year period. None of the donors had been pre-screened to detect for any sign of HIV, hepatitis C, syphilis or other blood diseases.

However, MoD officials discovered that the US military medical record-keeping was “so poor”, according to one source, that Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, ordered an immediate search of British records to check whether the Americans had treated other wounded servicemen. After weeks of trawling through all the records of those who had been wounded and might have received blood transfusions, the MoD discovered that there were seven more who had received on-the-spot blood donations from American military personnel, giving a total of 18. Two of them had left the Armed Forces. Six British civilian security contractors working for the US military in Iraq had also received emergency blood transfusions after being wounded....

...The Pentagon said the American donors who provided the blood had now tested negative for hepatitis and HIV.

However, there are blood diseases that still have to be eliminated, and none of the 24 Britons involved will know if they are free of contamination for another three weeks. One official said it took three weeks to check for any sign of Chagas disease, a blood infection that can be picked up from insects in South America....

...Although British officials could barely suppress their anger and frustration over the delay by the Americans in informing them of the potential medical crisis, it was acknowledged that the fresh blood provided by the volunteer donors almost certainly saved the lives of the 24 Britons.

Professor Stan Urbaniak, a consultant at the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service in Aberdeen, said that fresh blood,for life-threatening wounds, was the only realistic source to stop massive haemorrhaging and give a chance of survival. “It’s a question of making a judgment between risk and benefit,” he told The Times.

What angered the MoD, however, was that under British procedures, even the emergency blood donors have to be prescreened for contamination. “When there’s an emergency, donors are called for from a panel of servicemen who have been checked. But the US doesn’t do this, they do the checking after the blood has been donated,” one official said....

Antigua vs the US - WTO ruling on block of online gambling

James Kanter and Gary Rivlin report on the International Herald Tribune on the repercussions of the US's blocking Antigua's online gaming operators:

In an unusual ruling Friday at the World Trade Organization, the tiny Caribbean nation of Antigua won the right to violate copyright protections on goods like films and music from the United States - worth up to $21 million - as part of a dispute between the two countries over online gambling.

The award comes after a WTO decision that Washington had wrongly blocked online gaming operators on the island from the American market at the same time it permitted online wagering on horse racing....

...Yet the ruling is significant in that it grants a rare form of compensation: the right of one country, in this case, Antigua, to violate intellectual property laws of another - the United States - by allowing them to distribute copies of American music, movie and software products, among other items.

"That has only been done once before and is, I believe, a very potent weapon," said Mark Mendel, a lawyer representing Antigua, after the ruling. "I hope that the United States government will now see the wisdom in reaching some accommodation with Antigua over this dispute."

Though Antigua is best known for its pristine beaches and tourist attractions, the dozens of online casinos now based there are vital to the island's economy, serving as its second-largest employer.

By pressing its claim, trade lawyers said, Antigua could set a precedent for other countries to sue the United States for unfair trade practices, potentially opening the door to electronic piracy and other dubious practices around the world....

...A WTO panel first ruled against the United States in 2004, and its appellate body upheld that decision one year later. In April 2005, the trade body gave the United States one year to comply with its ruling, but that deadline passed with little more than a statement from Washington that it had reviewed its laws and decided it has been in compliance all along....