The Iraq thread 4

[Messiah 2]

I'll hold my breath on the authenticity and the context of these videos... like the private security tapes, and the last batch of UK iraq abuse tapes its veryy easy to jump onto the high horse bandwagon before anything is actually made clear.

must say though, that they look authentic compared to the staged abuse videos the mail printed last time.

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

Video seems authentic but i'm not sure about the voice over though.

[Mr_Tea 0]

It looks authentic, iraqis says "UK troops attacked iraqi people".

But what happened was, UK soldiers overreact after beeing attacked by iraqis.

As always, western troops react on an attack by a crowd of people, than they get blaimed that they had attacked.

[LennyD 0]

But what happened was, UK soldiers overreact after beeing attacked by iraqis.

As always, western troops react on an attack by a crowd of people, than they get blaimed that they had attacked.

Overreaction? Naaa....If they attacked the executive authority (that's what the forces are there) they earned the few sticks on their backsides they recieved.

Problem is that (as usual) it is turned around 180° by some idiots in offices, who never had to stand infront of a mob

Non-leathal punishment is totaly conform with human rights as a method of riot-control or penalization in trouble areas...

Have you ever watched riot-controls at football games??? If that is torture what the squadies did, then you will see a lot of "torture" during the woldcup here in germany.

I can link a police video from a nuclear-transport which demonstrants tried to stop by force. There was more batting involved there...but this may offend s.o. or what?

[Messiah 2]

considering a grenade had gone off moments earlier, you could argue that the brits were withstrained in their reply - another army in Iraq would probally have gone in guns blazing.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Overreaction? Naaa....If they attacked the executive authority (that's what the forces are there) they earned the few sticks on their backsides they recieved.

Problem is that (as usual) it is turned around 180° by some idiots in offices, who never had to stand infront of a mob

Non-leathal punishment is totaly conform with human rights as a method of riot-control or penalization in trouble areas...

Have you ever watched riot-controls at football games??? If that is torture what the squadies did, then you will see a lot of "torture" during the woldcup here in germany.

I can link a police video from a nuclear-transport which demonstrants tried to stop by force. There was more batting involved there...but this may offend s.o. or what?

Have you ever heard about something stupid like Rules of engagement ?

If you take someone prisoner like the guys did here obviously there is no justification to pull them out of sight first and then beat them up in the way they did. That´s just against all set of rules a soldier has. Those were juveniles, not terrorists. They were captured and as a legal matter that has to be it. Beating them up like shown in the movie is beyond any legal justification.

Get your facts straight.

An SAS veterans thoughts on the incident:

Quote[/b] ]THIS appalling footage filled me with revulsion —and every professional British soldier would agree.

Seeing supposedly highly-trained troops beating defenceless teenagers to a pulp—and laughing about it in a brutal home video— made me sick to my stomach.

It is something I have never experienced in 20 years of soldiering—and something I hope never to see again.

This small group of men have at a stroke trashed the reputation of our forces around the globe.

The backlash may be fearsome. How can we ever win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people if we behave like the brutal dictatorship we were sent to remove?

And how can they—or any other population that British troops are entrusted to protect—ever put their faith in us again?

I can only pray this is an isolated incident because it makes a mockery of all the good work and sacrifices our servicemen and women have made in Iraq.

Now they face months, if not years, of increased danger, rebuilding the damage this senseless minority has caused.

And it terrifies me that these men have become so de-sensitised that they can behave like this.

Make no mistake, this incident will be jumped upon by our enemy as a recruiting call for terrorists and will escalate hatred everywhere.

But there is no doubt in my mind that it must be exposed and stamped on, hard. It must never happen again. In the short term things will get a lot tougher for us—this could fuel the fires of insurgency in Iraq and around the world.

But long-term, exposing and stamping out this behaviour is the only way to regain respect and trust for the British Army.

These men must be drummed out, and quickly, before their behaviour can influence others.

I hesitate to call them soldiers —because their actions are so far removed from the exemplary standards we expect of our troops.

They have betrayed their comrades, their training and everything British forces have traditionally stood for—their overriding sense of duty and decency.

In the military we have something called Conduct After Capture—how you should behave if you've been captured and, more importantly, how you conduct yourself with enemy prisoners.

The Geneva Convention—which governs the actions of every single serving British soldier—makes it crystal clear that prisoners deserve humane treatment.

There was an outcry after the first Gulf War at the way Iraq treated our prisoners of war. No one can forget those pictures of our captured fliers, beaten and paraded on TV.

But how can we expect the Iraqis, or anyone else, to treat captured or kidnapped British troops and civilians with dignity now? These aren't even enemy combatants. Even in a hardened society like Iraq they're still children. There is no doubt Iraq is the most dangerous place on Earth right now. And peacekeeping missions are every bit as dangerous and stressful as open war. More British troops have died since the war ended than were killed in action.

In this case a few bad apples have clearly let things get out of hand.

Psychologically the pressure of seeing comrades and friends killed and injured has an enormous impact.

Things have been spiralling out of control in Iraq for some time.

As a young soldier serving out there you are dealing with fear on a daily basis. You don't know when you wake up if it could be your last day on Earth. Roadside bombs, snipers, suicide bombers—these are all daily occurrences. Soldiers are only human so tempers do fray, people get tired and angry. But nobody has the right to react like this—no matter what they've seen or done. That's when the training, discipline and good command should take over.

Here it's gone out of the window and the body language of these soldiers is terrifying because it's so calm and natural.

This was a textbook operation to snatch troublemakers from the crowd—until they enter the compound and the beating starts.

These guys are clearly relaxed—judging by the way they are behaving, they're not expecting to be shot at or bombed. In fact they're so casual it's chilling.

This is something I fear they've experienced before—and the cameraman certainly knows what's going to happen next. When the voiceover tells us, "You're going to get it", he knows what he is talking about. His comments are just sickening, almost sexual, as he revels in the beatings.

His job up there is to observe the crowd, passing information down to the guys on the ground. Instead he's making a home video for his own gratification.

It's a frenzy of gratuitous violence, pure and simple—the vilest and most destructive form of vengeance.

As other members of the team arrive back they stroll past with barely a glance. The clear implication is they've seen this before.

And while they might not be taking part they are as complicit as the men dishing out the beating.

When I was in the SAS during the first Gulf War the lads would go across the border in snatch squads.

But there were NEVER any beatings of PoWs. Even during the hostilities these guys were begging to come HOME with us. That's victory in the vital battle for hearts and minds. We'd won them over and we'd won their respect.

The only thing this horrifying video will win is condemnation from all right-thinking people.

No direct link can be provided as images coming with the article do violate forum rules.

[LennyD 0]

Just to

Quote[/b] ]Get your facts straight.

, m8t:

First of all according to the Geneva Convention non-leathal force is legal to put down riots..or as form of mob control. But that's b****t here, cos these guys "captured" where NOT pow's at any time. They where prisoners in terms of executive-duties the forces commit. And the convention clearly states what actions are allowed to contain law and order among the non-combatants in a warzone. Read it!

The men arrested where part of a riot and (as you can see if you look propaly) still tried to resist the arresting. Do I have to quote the "stupid rules of engagement" (let's take the ones used by KFOR in former juguslavia)? You clearly are allowed to use force as long as there is resistance. Please read them before you refer to them. If you take these rules by the word the answer to stones and incendiary material is teargas or rubber projectiles. Stones are one step beond the phase of "deescalation"....use of force is clearly allowed (even recomended to split up the riot).

Non of the men taken was beaten handcuffed ot tortured. That would have been totaly different.

Look again and you will see, that they stoped hitting the one lieing on the floor and NOT resisting...the others seem to still trie to get away. They where not searched yet and could have even pulled out a consealed weapon

I don't want to say that it was the right reaction...but it wasn't a totaly wrong one (if you take the laws). Abart from this bloke holding the camera and making fun out of it...

There wasn't any torture what so ever. Clearly the force involved could have been less....but again this is similar to nearly every demonstration we know. Just think of the singer "campino" who got the good news from a pliceman a few jears ago...there was less reason for the use of force involved there.

Or december 05 in paris... how many footage of this kind can you find via googel?

C'mon...

Don't stop forgetting that these soldiers hat been ATTACKED

Don't compare riot controll in a small town in the hills of god knows where to the situation in a (more or less) warzone like iraq.

Rules of engagement where followed to a certain point...do you relly want to argue about 2 or 3 hits more or less??? These "boys" tried to harm the soldiers first.

Clearly the squadies could have stoped batting them...but the mob could have stopped trieing to stone the soldiers to death.

The british forces still have (had) the law enforcement role...and clearly the right to use force against a riot and in terms of controlling arrested persons.

We had more serious stuff going on while arresting albanians who where smuggeling guns 6 years ago in kosovo....but the problem is that all the wiseguys screaming "tortue" loudest never ever get out of their chair and feel what is going on in those situations

I bet if 100 or more people trie to stone you to death or set you on fire you wouldn't be able to contain you self at all...don't want to know how many of you would rather just shoot.

The reactions might well have been a little to much...but nothing against the human rights bill (see police- and lawenforcementrules).

EDIT: WATCH the video....the one in the sandcolored pants is on the floor and soldiers hold him doen..nothing happens. He tries to move and gets a good kick.... normal reaction. Anyone been in the forces just recall your training. And everyone having no clue about it should rather think twice

11 hits for "mr black tshirt" till he stops moving and resisting - after that no more beating

The one in blue only gets 5 and 2 kicks, plus some poking to lie down....after he does no more hits

...

[Balschoiw 0]

Legal procedures will tell you that the behaviour was damn wrong.

The juveniles were already taken prisoner and taken to the compound . Where do you see that the captured ones kep on attacking ? The next procedures should have been to cuff them up and deliver them to Iraqi police or temporarely put them under british custody until they are handed over to local police.

Hitting fixed teenagers in the guts and headballing them with a helmet while they already were fixed is hardly to explain to anyone.

I have been to similar situations where we got a nice stonerain on the helmets. That´s just a normal situation. Even shots fired vastly into your direction are quite normal. That´s where riot control takes place. There is no significant violence of the juveniles on the riot team. Once captured they just try to flee. This is in no way an aggressive act towards the troops. They neither beat the troops nor attack them. The use of force within the compound was highly exagerrated and not within the rules of engagement. Of course they are POW´s. They were not captured by Iraqui police which is the executive command in Iraq. British troops are part of the occupying force. They conduct no police task as the lach the legitimation for it. So people captured by british forces ARE Pow´s. And there are rules on how to treat those. The troops obviously enjoyed beating them up and intentionally tried to hide that behaviour by pulling them inside the compound.

There is a difference between handling a current riot and beating up people participating in the riot AFTER the riot has already been ended. That´s just stupid and against law.

Or do you think the soldier already arrested has been arrested for acting according to the rules ?

Quote[/b] ]never ever get out of their chair and feel what is going on in those situations

What if people who actually have been in situations like that object to the behaviour just because they know that the situation was not handled right ?

[bn880 5]

But what happened was, UK soldiers overreact after beeing attacked by iraqis.

As always, western troops react on an attack by a crowd of people, than they get blaimed that they had attacked.

Overreaction? Naaa....If they attacked the executive authority (that's what the forces are there) they earned the few sticks on their backsides they recieved.

Problem is that (as usual) it is turned around 180° by some idiots in offices, who never had to stand infront of a mob

Non-leathal punishment is totaly conform with human rights as a method of riot-control or penalization in trouble areas...

Have you ever watched riot-controls at football games??? If that is torture what the squadies did, then you will see a lot of "torture" during the woldcup here in germany.

I can link a police video from a nuclear-transport which demonstrants tried to stop by force. There was more batting involved there...but this may offend s.o. or what?

Wow, surprised this kind of talk is even allowed on the forum. Think before you post maybe? These kids were protesting with rocks against soldiers with body kit.... the only time the ycan be beaten somewhat is to dispurse them if they refuse or to arrest. Neither is the case in the video.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

I dont want to play devils advocat once again, and dont get me wrong asking the following (it bothers me since a long time).

Why did Saddams Regime succeed to keep the country under control with brutality and the same behaviour by western forces has the opposite effect (as the latest event will show)?

Was it maybe because the Baathists simply had a better secret service network so every single Iraqi had to fear being caught and tortured for talking or behaving rebelliously?

[billybob2002 0]

I'm going to say it but they might of had overracted. They might of been "juveniles" but what did they do to deserve it? Iraqi kids are known to throw rocks, not pebbles, at passing convoys causing damage to windshields and raising the chance of accidents. Rocks being thrown at you while wearing a "body kit" is no fun I would guess. I can guess (this is key) some soldiers got sick of the actions of some iraqi juveniles and decided to response back. Do I agree with it? No but who am I?

@SAS interview: Interesting article but I do not believe a majority of people think that Iraqi insurgents would treat soldiers with dignity when captured if this incident did not happen. At least one soldier and some contractors have learned that lesson already. Iraq is a different "conflict" at least from the perspective of one Vietnam veteran who did a tour in Iraq ( http://www.usatoday.com/news....s_x.htm ...old).

Edit: Isn't it awesome that this video is released at this point of time!

[LennyD 0]

Quote[/b] ]Wow, surprised this kind of talk is even allowed on the forum. Think before you post maybe? These kids were protesting with rocks against soldiers with body kit.... the only time the ycan be beaten somewhat is to dispurse them if they refuse or to arrest.

Where's your problem? If i can't trie to make my view of it clear just because s.o. sees it different...we all should rather move to iran

Quote[/b] ]The juveniles were already taken prisoner and taken to the compound . Where do you see that the captured ones kep on attacking ?

So we have an agreement that up to this point it has been a normal reaction? Great!....the rest is rather tricke. I haven't been there and i do think that they rather trie to get away. Like i posted before...who knows if they had weapons. I have learnt to be agressive and contain the situation...until you have total control. So if the move around you simply stop them. If they could draw a weapon you prevent that.

The point is that neither you or me where there to jude if they reacted hostile while beeing taken into the barracks.

As i see it it was a little to agressive but nothing against the human rights bill....like i posted before, they where not searched jet and where still a possible threat, the wheren't handcuffed and to me they looked like trieing to resist. But it just might be better to let the investigations decide what was right and wrong. I can't be sure from here, neither can you.

Quote[/b] ]Rocks being thrown at you while wearing a "body kit" is no fun I would guess.

It is not...and it's not like you wount feal any impacts like rambo in a soft spring rain. Stress and tension are enormous....

[bn880 5]

Nutjobs.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ] Like i posted before...who knows if they had weapons. I have learnt to be agressive and contain the situation...until you have total control. So if the move around you simply stop them. If they could draw a weapon you prevent that.

The point is that neither you or me where there to jude if they reacted hostile while beeing taken into the barracks.

Now that´s utter nonsense. If you had learned how to bring down suspects and search tem you´ll know that it´s a matter of seconds to fix up a person and search them. There are plenty of guys at the scene. This is a job of 20 seconds to pack them into a position where they neither can move nor be a threat. They conducted no search on weapons throughout the whole video. They just prepared them to get a good kick. If you are trained in such situations as you claim you would know that the approach they took was neither by the book nor effective. It was just a bunch of guys trying to get some hits on some juveniles, nothing else. If you had military experiance in that field you´d see that judged from a military-training pov they fucked up badly.

Quote[/b] ]The point is that neither you or me where there to jude if they reacted hostile while beeing taken into the barracks.

That is NOT important. The moment the video pictures they are not aggresive or attacking the troops. This is where it has to stop. No aggression - no countermeasures. You can´t beat up someone the way they do just because he has been hostile to you minutes ago. It just doesn´twork that way and no military training teaches you such. If you were taught that, I´d like to know when and where.

Quote[/b] ]It is not...and it's not like you wount feal any impacts like rambo in a soft spring rain. Stress and tension are enormous....

The only times I felt uncomfortable while driving through rocklobbers was when I had no protective gear on except the helmet. If you wear flak vest or plated armor it´s nothing big.

We have made fun of it sometimes by catching some stones and lobbing them back which left the kids laughing at the streets. It´s like a sport to them. They are kids.

If you already felt stressed by some stonethrowers I wonder what would have been the reaction to random fire. Pee your pants ?

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

But what happened was, UK soldiers overreact after beeing attacked by iraqis.

As always, western troops react on an attack by a crowd of people, than they get blaimed that they had attacked.

Overreaction? Naaa....If they attacked the executive authority (that's what the forces are there) they earned the few sticks on their backsides they recieved.

Problem is that (as usual) it is turned around 180° by some idiots in offices, who never had to stand infront of a mob  

Non-leathal punishment is totaly conform with human rights as a method of riot-control or penalization in trouble areas...

Have you ever watched riot-controls at football games??? If that is  torture what the squadies did, then you will see a lot of "torture" during the woldcup here in germany.  

I can link a police video from a nuclear-transport which demonstrants tried to stop by force. There was more batting involved there...but this may offend s.o. or what?

Wow, surprised this kind of talk is even allowed on the forum.  Think before you post maybe?  These kids were protesting with rocks against soldiers with body kit....  the only time the ycan be beaten somewhat is to dispurse them if they refuse or to arrest.  Neither is the case in the video.

erm they where not just throwing rocks it also included homemade grenades and rocks don't bounce of you like say stones can these things can kill or cause serious harm to a soldier.

[Daniel 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Quote  

Overreaction? Naaa....If they attacked the executive authority (that's what the forces are there) they earned the few sticks on their backsides they recieved.

Problem is that (as usual) it is turned around 180° by some idiots in offices, who never had to stand infront of a mob  

Non-leathal punishment is totaly conform with human rights as a method of riot-control or penalization in trouble areas...

Have you ever watched riot-controls at football games??? If that is  torture what the squadies did, then you will see a lot of "torture" during the woldcup here in germany.  

I can link a police video from a nuclear-transport which demonstrants tried to stop by force. There was more batting involved there...but this may offend s.o. or what?  

Have you ever heard about something stupid like Rules of engagement ?

If you take someone prisoner like the guys did here obviously there is no justification to pull them out of sight first and then beat them up in the way they did. That´s just against all set of rules a soldier has. Those were juveniles, not terrorists. They were captured and as a legal matter that has to be it. Beating them up like shown in the movie is beyond any legal justification.

Get your facts straight.

Bit of common sense here mate? These guys had nades chucked at them, they are just giving the brats a "good hiding". Okay, maybe they could have left them alone once captured, but this has still been pounced on by the media as usual.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]These guys had nades chucked at them, they are just giving the brats a "good hiding". Okay, maybe they could have left them alone once captured, but this has still been pounced on by the media as usual.

So you think their behaviour was justified and ok ?

"Pounced on by the media" does not lead to immedeate arrests like we have seen today.

I wonder if you´d talk that way if you were one of those "brats" protesting for better living conditions on the streets the usual way down there and then get your guts kicked out of your eyeholes.

Those "brats" as you call them were juveniles, not some AQ trained terrorists. You´re the same age if not older and think it´s ok that soldiers beat them up badly. Congratulations.

About the nades: Were they lobbed from the protesters ?

Do you see that in the video ?

If some beatings like that take place in the US or in the UK there is an outcry from human rights activists and the people responsible get a ticket to prison, but it´s ok to do the same stuff with juveniles on the roads of Iraq as they are just "brats".

Hearts and mind, all over.

Edit:

Man held over Iraq abuse claims

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

If some beatings like that take place in the US or in the UK there is an outcry from human rights activists and the people responsible get a ticket to prison, but it´s ok to do the same stuff with juveniles on the roads of Iraq as they are just "brats".

Hearts and mind, all over.

well if youths did it to riot police along with throwing homemade nades at them then i would not bat an eye lid at the police giving them a good hiding.

[Balschoiw 0]

Well there were no nades thrown at the riot squad afaik...

Do you have a different source ?

[Monkey Lib Front 10]

It's being reported at the moment that these particular guys where getting incoming rocks and homemade explosive devices and this was the same time when we were seeing scenes like these

[brataccas 0]

they probably beat up those kids to take out their anger out of them as a lot of the troops has seen their collegues blown up shot etc, but its still no excuse to beat up those iraqis like that, what a crazy violent world we live in

[Llauma 0]

A few countries invades another country (whether it was justified or not is another question), bombs the area to pieces causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths, and then we get a big fuzz about a beating which occurs every weekend, in every town, all around the world. I aint defending the soldiers, they are no different to any idiot who beats up someone else.

In my oppion this aint even worth mentioning outside the local press. Focus on the real issues instead.

[EiZei 0]

and then we get a big fuzz about a beating which occurs every weekend, in every town, all around the world. I aint defending the soldiers, they are no different to any idiot who beats up someone else.

In my oppion this aint even worth mentioning outside the local press. Focus on the real issues instead.

Videotape some cops beating the shit out of some teenager and then try telling me they won't make national news..

But hey, couple of silly drawings caused more outrage out there than say.. some random two guys getting tortured to death by prison MPs.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]A few countries invades another country (whether it was justified or not is another question), bombs the area to pieces causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths, and then we get a big fuzz about a beating which occurs every weekend, in every town, all around the world. I aint defending the soldiers, they are no different to any idiot who beats up someone else.

I do agree with you there. What astounds me most though is that standards seem to be such a flexible thing when they don´t fit your patterns or schemes. Building justifications around actions that can not be justified is a a good example. It only shows me that some people do believe that not all men are equal. Animal farm live.

Talking about building justifications:

Insider reignites Iraqi intelligence war

Quote[/b] ] WASHINGTON - The US intelligence community's top Middle East analyst from 2000 to 2005 has accused the George W Bush administration of distorting and politicizing intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.

In an article published on Friday in Foreign Affairs magazine, analyst Paul Pillar, who resigned from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) last year, also charges that the Bush administration ignored much of the analysis that had been prepared by the intelligence community, including its predictions of the chaos and conflict that followed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. He argues that the administration not only ignored the traditional model for separating the functions of policymakers - who are to make decisions based on facts and analyses developed by independent intelligence specialists - from those of the intelligence analysts themselves, but "turned the entire model upside down".

"The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made," he wrote. "It went to war without requesting - and evidently without being influenced by - any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

Indeed, said Pillar, as the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, the first request he received from the administration for such an assessment was not until a year after the March 2003 invasion.

Pillar's charges that the administration "cherry-picked" and otherwise manipulated the intelligence process in order to take the country to war are the most serious since the leak of the so-called "Downing Street Memo" to the London Sunday Times last May.

The memo, the minutes of a meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's war cabinet in July 2002, quotes intelligence chief Alastair Campbell, who had just returned from a trip to Washington, as reporting that Bush "wanted to remove Saddam, through military action ..." and, to that end, "... the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

The memo's contents - which bolstered charges by a number of retired US intelligence officers who had spoken out against the war - put the administration and its Republican backers on the Senate Intelligence Committee, on the defensive. The Republicans on the committee have stalled Democratic demands for an investigation of the administration's use of the prewar intelligence.

That Pillar, a witness - and a high-ranking one at that - has now publicly joined the chorus of critics with his own bill of particulars, marks a serious setback to Bush's Republican administration and one the Democrats are certain to seize on.

Senate minority leader Harry Reid called for investigation. "Evidence that the Bush White House manipulated and selectively declassified intelligence to wage a public relations campaign before, during and after the invasion of Iraq grows every day," he said.

Pillar's charges are also likely to be more difficult for the administration to refute in light of new disclosures on Thursday that I Lewis "Scooter" Libby - the former chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney who is now under indictment for lying to federal authorities about his role in "outing" a CIA operative - has since testified that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House officials to leak classified information to reporters in the run-up to the war.

The purpose of those leaks, which continued after the war, according to The National Journal, which broke the story, was to "build public support" for going to war.

According to previously published reports, Libby acted as the liaison between the White House and special units in the Pentagon's policy office of former under secretary of defense, Douglas Feith. Those units reviewed "raw intelligence", particularly related to alleged links between then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and sent it directly to Cheney's office and the White House without submitting it for vetting by professional intelligence analysts.

In his article, which generally avoids naming specific individuals responsible for politicizing the intelligence process, Pillar explicitly identifies Feith's Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group as responsible for distorting the normal intelligence process in a number of ways - by supposedly discovering links between al-Qaeda and Saddam reported in the raw intelligence and by presenting "briefings [that] accused the intelligence community of faulty analysis for failing to see the supposed alliance" between the two.

While Pillar admits the intelligence community made serious mistakes in gauging the status of Saddam's alleged weapons programs, he charges that the Bush administration deliberately ignored the larger strategic judgments by the intelligence community - that "deterrence of Iraq was working, that Saddam was being kept 'in his box", and that the best way to deal with the weapons problem was through an aggressive inspections program to supplement the sanctions already in place".

"That the administration arrived at so different a policy solution indicates that its decision to topple Saddam was driven by other factors - namely, the desire to shake up the sclerotic power structures of the Middle East and hasten the spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region.

"If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war - or if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath. What is most remarkable about prewar US intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important US policy decisions in recent decades."

Before the war, according to Pillar, the intelligence community also considered the main challenges that would be faced by any post-invasion authority in Iraq, and forecast "a deeply divided Iraqi society" that could erupt into "violent conflict" unless the occupying power "established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam".

It also predicted that war and occupation would "boost political Islam and increase sympathy for terrorists' objectives - and Iraq would become a magnet for extremists from elsewhere in the Middle East".

But this assessment was undertaken only on the intelligence community's own initiative. The administration never requested such an analysis, according to Pillar.

As the administration marched to war in 2002 and 2003, according to Pillar, intelligence officers registered "varying degrees of private protest", particularly when the administration's public statements went "beyond what analysts deemed credible or reasonable", especially regarding the alleged existence of an al-Qaeda-Saddam alliance and Bush's assertion in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy uranium ore in Africa.

The intelligence community never backed up the al-Qaeda-Saddam connection, according to Pillar. "The enormous attention devoted to this subject did not reflect any judgment by intelligence officials that there was or was likely to be anything like the 'alliance' the administration said existed," he wrote.

"The reason the connection got so much attention was that the administration wanted to hitch the Iraq expedition to the 'war on terror' and the threat the American public fear most, thereby capitalizing on the country's militant post-9/11 mood.

"Feeding the administration's voracious appetite for material on the Saddam-al-Qaeda link consumed an enormous amount of time and attention at multiple levels, from rank-and-file counterterrorism analysts to the most senior intelligence officials. It is fair to ask how much other counterterrorism work was left undone as a result."

Pressure exerted by administration officials on intelligence analysts was seldom crude or direct, according to Pillar, who said they made their preferences known more subtly. "It was clear that the Bush administration would frown on or ignore analysis that called into question a decision to go to war and welcome analysis that supported such a decision. Intelligence analysts - for whom attention, especially favorable attention, from policymakers is a measure of success - felt a strong wind consistently blowing in one direction. The desire to bend with such a wind is natural and strong, even if unconscious."

The fact that Pillar published his article in Foreign Affairs, whose publisher, the Council on Foreign Relations, is headed by Richard Haass, a top adviser to former secretary of state Colin Powell, is also likely to bolster the critics who have charged the administration with politicizing intelligence.

Not only is the magazine the most influential foreign policy publication of its kind, but Haass, who resigned as head of Powell's policy office shortly after the war began, has repeatedly expressed bewilderment as to when the administration decided to go to war and why it did so.

Powell's chief of staff at the time, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, has also publicly charged that Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Feith's superior, formed a "cabal" that deliberately circumvented or manipulated the normal policymaking process, including the intelligence community, in order to take the country to war.

Can it even get more abvious than that ?

We have a complete picture of the made-up case Iraq for a long time now and details on the issue keep flowing. The picture has already so many details that you don´t have to be an internal affairs expert to see where that war was coming from. I´m still waiting on the reaction among US people though. They seem to be paralized to some extend just accepting anything the government feeds them. In some cases the government just doesn´t tell, or keep it with the old Rumsfeld habbit to just make a joke about it and that´s it. Are people in the US aware what that government has done and is doing to their people ?

[LennyD 0]

The only times I felt uncomfortable while driving through rocklobbers was when I had no protective gear on except the helmet. If you wear flak vest or plated armor it´s nothing big.

We have made fun of it sometimes by catching some stones and lobbing them back which left the kids laughing at the streets. It´s like a sport to them. They are kids.

If you already felt stressed by some stonethrowers I wonder what would have been the reaction to random fire. Pee your pants ?

I can't tell how it is DRIVING through a "stone-shower"...just know how it is standing in the 2nd row without a plexi-shield and recieving one outside a car. We certainly didn't throw any back...clearly not allowed and impossible when you have more than one person giving you he good news.

To tell you the truce i don't really feel comfortable while getting stones on the helmet. The first one that hits an uncovered spot (you don't run round like the invincible michelinman) really hurts, the second one even more...the third one makes you just think "what the **** am i doing here?". And i bet as soon as you see a bloke liteing the cloth sticking out of a bottle you really want to be somewhere else...

What do you mean by radom fire? Something like the "pling" of a bullet hitting an APC you are hiding behind? You constantly search the hill for the attackers while you can hear "thump"...a nother bullet going into a sandbag ...Yes, i must admit i really was afraid.

I know, people like you don't feel any fear and would rather stand up and take a surf on the beach apocalypse now-style...(no comment)

I better just stop now and rest my case, getting carried OT here