Saturday, April 05, 2014

Nouri's Iraq: Another reporter assaulted, elections are iffy and civilians continue to be killed

Saturday saw another attack on the press in Iraq.  The Journalistic Freedom Observatory in Iraq notes that Al-Ghadeer reporter Karim al-Qaisi was attacked Saturday morning.  The fifty-year-old reporter was severely beaten on the orders of Diyala Province Governor Amir al-Majamyi. Karim explains the governor ordered his security detail to grab him and they beat him in the face and dragged him fifty meters while journalists looked on. Those who attempted to film the assault were threatened with violence.

Will the State Dept bother to weigh in?

Not likely.

The only time they have in the last years has been when an Iraqi male working for a US propaganda outlet was killed.




Iraq is supposed to hold parliamentary elections April 30th. Kitabat notes that the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Ammar al-Hakim declared today that the fate of Iraq was in the hands of the voters, that Iraq is at the crossroads and escaping frustration and despair is in the hands of the Iraqi people. Al Mada reports Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi made similar remarks today, noting the power of the voter.  He also noted a scheme to keep people from participating in the vote.   Hamza Mustafa (Asharq Al-Awsat) reports:

Iraqi parliamentarians said Friday that the government is seeking to send a draft law to parliament that would allow the announcement of a state of emergency ahead of elections scheduled for April 30.
Iraqi parliamentary rapporteur Mohamed Al-Khalidi told Asharq Al-Awsat that parliament had received the draft National Safety Law on Friday, but warned that it would not be able to ratify the bill due to how late it was submitted.

“This bill arrived at a time when parliament is preparing to end its current session, so there is no time to approve this bill. This is something that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who submitted this draft law on behalf of the government, is well aware of,” he said. 



Friday's snapshot included this, "Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) reports that the Sadr bloc has expressed fear that Nouri may attempt to declare a state of emergency and dissolve the Parliament with Jalal out of the country still to avoid losing the election.  Should that happen, not only will Jalal and his family be the subject of scorn and hostility but the PUK will suffer as well -- this after they already went from leading party in the Kurdistan Regional Government to coming in third -- behind Barzani's KDP and the newly emergent Goran."

Nouri's assault on the civilians of Anbar continues.  NINA noted early Saturday that the military's bombing of Falluja neighborhoods had left 1 civilian dead and nine more injured and then, later in the day, 2 more civilians were killed and six more were injured.

In other violence, National Iraqi News Agency reports Joint Operations Command says they killed 29 suspects in Falluja, a security source says the military killed 11 suspects in Khalidiya, the Ministry of the Interior announced 1 suspect was killed in Salah al-Din, a police source says they killed 3 suspects in al-Qawsiayt, Baghdad Operations Command announced they killed 6 suspects in Baghdad, six suspects were killed in Alhalabsah "with the participation of military aviation," a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soldiers and left two more injured, a Mosul roadside bombing left 2 Iraqi soldiers dead and three more injured,  a Shura roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and left two more injured,  Musayyib sticky bombing claimed 1 life and left three more people injured, and a Muqdadiyah roadside bombing left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and two more military personnel injured.  Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) adds that a Garma farmhouse exploded ("booby-trapped") as Iraqi soldiers were searching it and 21 were killed with twenty-four more left injured.


The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com, Tavis Smiley, Susan's On the Edge and Pacifica Evening News -- have updated:








  • The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.














    I Hate The War

    A very angry e-mail came in from a blogger of a non-community site which (I'm paraphrasing, not quoting) insists: I'm very upset with you.  You are supposed to be a Hillary supporter and you have attacked her.

    They're referring to Friday's snapshot.  Before we get there?

    I'm a truth supporter.

    I've made actual friends much angrier than you over TV show critiques that Ava and I have done of the shows they make.  Being friends with ____ doesn't mean their show gets a rave.  If it deserves it, it gets it.  If it's a lousy show, it gets called out.

    I've known Hillary for many years.  I have no desire to spend any time in any setting with her today.

    The e-mail trashes my line about Hillary attempting to be "the baddest bitch in the whole damn town."  That's a riff on Jim Croce's "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown," FYI.

    And you can bitch and moan all you want about that line -- I think the line's appropriate.

    And it didn't debut in Friday's snapshot.

    It appeared in the March 5th snapshot first.

    And that's the reason Hillary talked gender this week and tried to turn it into a media event.

    We were right to call her out and we noted all she is another person screaming for war.  We pointed out that the issues that made her 2008 campaign work were now ignored -- employment, breast cancer, etc.  Because all she could do is snarl, "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

    That didn't go over well in Camp Clinton, what I wrote didn't.  But the polling they did bore me out.  Hillary's not planning to run.  Hillary's testing the waters.  She wants to run.  She may run.

    But she has a serious image problem.

    She's only the 'front runner' because a lazy media needs something to fluff about and because there's not a field of candidates.

    She had this same thing in 2006.

    And she blew it.

    She should have apologized for her Iraq War vote.  She should have said it was wrong.  She should have said she had learned from it.

    Instead, she offered that holier-than-thou little snippet of how would-I-vote-for-it-today?-no.  And suddenly, in her bitchy remarks, the bad guys and gals weren't the ones who sent troops into war, it was those who were calling the illegal war out.

    She was tone deaf beyond belief and that was 2007 and that's part of the reason Barack overcame her.

    She's not Bill.  Bill knows how to interact with people.

    The key is to be at ease.  Bill never doubts that he can win an audience over.  Hillary goes in with a chip on her shoulder.  Which can allow her to work harder than anyone else, it can also allow her to go beyond accepted limits (under sniper fire remarks, for example) and it (way too often) results in her going defensive.

    She talked gender this week and didn't help women and didn't help herself.


    Not only did it lead the press to start noting that her campaign treated many reporters poorly -- and there will be more on that in the media -- but she looked insane.

    Is the media biased?

    Absolutely.

    Gloria Steinem, Susan Faludi, Jessica Valenti, any number of women could have given those remarks exactly as Hillary did and it would have been fine.

    Jane Fonda and Marlo Thomas would have been laughed off the stage.

    Because people would have thought, "Who the hell are you to be angry? You're successful, you're wealthy . . ."

    Hillary should have tried wry humor -- and that may have been her attempt, it may be what passes for humor for her these days.

    But it came off angry.

    And it never acknowledged the anger.

    Jane's the best speaker today.  If she'd said those same words in that same voice and tone and done so accidentally, she would have registered it while delivering the remarks and would have added something like, "Do I sound angry?  That's because I am.  I am so angry that even now young women are having to deal with this.  We've been fighting this forever and it's still thriving."

    Immediately, Jane can be as angry as she wants.  It's no longer about her, it's about the women she joined with to fight sexism years ago and it's about the young women still being confronted with it.


    If Hillary's campaign sinks, it's not going to be because of me.  It's going to be because Hillary fawners and groupies like the blogger who e-mailed.

    Hillary looks like a beast as she screams for war.  This behavior is similar to John McCain's and what got him painted as crazy in the 2008 race.

    So if you're trying to get Hillary elected president, now's the time for you to be telling her to lay off the angry cries for war.

    When others enter the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Hillary's soft and fuzzy coverage will be over.  As you should have noticed by Friday, the press was already being vocal about the wounds -- real and imagined -- they suffered from Hillary's 2008 campaign.  There is huge press animosity towards her.

    Hillary's never grasped perception.  She's always required handlers or Bill to explain it to her.

    That's only more true today.

    And why she tries to walk away from her all-war-all-the-time anger position by giving a speech on sexism which is characterized as angry?

    That did nothing to help her and the photos were even worse.

    She has speech writers, they should have assembled something with wry humor.

    Instead, it was another cycle of angry Hillary.

    Hillary was supposed to have been in San Diego delivering a speech.

    She instead delivered it by satellite.

    Why?

    She didn't want to face protesters led by Pat Smith.

    Pat Smith's not going away.  I stated here months ago that I had no plans to vote for Hillary and the only thing that might change that would be her apologizing to Pat Smith.

    Pat's the mother of Sean Smith who, along with Tyrone Woods, Chris Doherty and US Ambassador Chris Stevens -- was killed in Libya September 11, 2012.

    Pat Smith deserves an apology and I've likened her to Cindy Sheehan before.

    But grasp the perception that Hillary sent out this week on that.

    Pat and a group of people were going to protest (supposedly it was going to be a small protest) and Hillary cancels a public appearance to avoid a small protest?

    Again, I've compared to Cindy (which I mean as a compliment).  I didn't compare Hillary to Bully Boy Bush. But damned if she didn't act like him this week.  It was as cowardly as Bully Boy Bush hiding out on his Crawford Ranch-ette while Cindy staged Camp Casey.

    In fact, it was actually more cowardly because Camp Casey had big numbers and the San Diego protest was supposedly going to be smaller.  And Hillary couldn't face that?

    She's thinking about being president but can't handle a small protest outside of one of her speeches?

    And if she does run, these won't be small protests.

    Pat Smith should know now she has tremendous power.

    The threat of a protest by Smith and a few others sent Hillary running.

    Again, Hillary's an idiot when it comes to perception.

    I think Pat Smith deserves an apology.

    Even if Hillary doesn't think so, there's the perception issue.

    If Bill were running, he would have met with Pat long ago.


    He would have done so for perception reasons if no other reason.  (Though I think Bill would have felt compassion for Pat if it had been his actions and not Hillary's.)

    (To be clear, I'm not talking about what did or did not happen in Benghazi.  I'm referring to tone deaf statements by Hillary that appeared to trivialize Sean, Glen, Tyrone and Chris and I'm referring to a promise Hillary made to Pat which Hillary then didn't keep.  That's why I'm saying Pat's owed an apology.)

    Bill would have met with Pat, would have offered an apology and heard her out.

    In doing so, he would have neutralized any threat she could have had to his campaign.

    Hillary's so damn stupid about perception.  If she does try to run, most likely a month into 2016, she'll be wondering how her supposed lock on the nomination slipped away again?

    Because she can be a real idiot.

    And because of fawning groupies who refuse to hold her accountable.

    In 2013, I called out her "What difference does it make!" screaming and did so the day of the hearing.  I was there and it was appalling.

    There is no 'context' for it (though Huffington Post tried to pretend there was just last month).

    The press is the biggest purveyor of S&M in this country and they love to be beat up by their betters.  So they loved Hillary's snarling and screaming.  While I was calling it out, they were praising it.

    I know perception.

    And who was right, who was wrong about those remarks?

    They feed into the image of Hillary as an angry, unfeeling bitch.

    She should have kept control of her emotions and she certainly should never have snarled, "What difference does it make!"

    Not when you're talking about four dead Americans.

    Not when you're seeking a career in politics.

    She's made one rookie mistake after another and she's not a rookie.

    Super delegates who supported her in her 2008 run?  Six have told me they can't believe how she conducts herself in public today.  Two say they won't support her if she runs, the other four say they pray she doesn't run.


    Friday morning, I wrote of the issue of the State Dept's missing billions:


    They're not able to offer more than that which is sad because it is news.  If no one's talking about the real points of this by the time we do the snapshot tonight, I'll go over it.  But it's really sad that the media is as uninformed as it is.  Neither Fox nor Free Beacon are reporting.  They're repeating from a letter.
    The letter's accurate, that's not the issue.  Again, hopefully some grown ups will enter the conversation before I start dictating the snapshot tonight.  If that doesn't happen, I'll do the walk through myself.



    There was no grown up in the room so I had to be the grown up.

    Hillary refused to have an IG over the State Dept.  Under her, the State Dept refused to inform the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction what the State Dept's plans were when it took over the lead -- from DoD on October 1, 2011 -- on the US mission in Iraq.  Her department also refused to inform Congress.


    Now while the blogger was busying herself pretending that Hillary's job was to act out Gidget Grows Up (that's the one where Gidget joins the United Nations) and posted photos and raves over Hillary in this country or that, we were attending Congressional hearings and hearing the reality of what was going on.

    The missing millions goes to oversight -- specifically, the lack of it.  For her entire four years as Secretary of State, Hillary rejected oversight.  There's never, ever been a time like that in the history of the Inspector Generals.  She didn't want oversight and she screwed up.

    That's on her and it really does serious damage to any run for the White House she might have.

    Not only was her anti-transparency stance anti-democratic and not only does it question her competency as a leader, it also feeds into the negative perceptions that have always swirled around her.

    One of the super delegates who supporter her in 2008 characterized Hillary's current public dance as, "She seems to think we owe her the nomination after 2008."

    The blogger should worry less about the supposed 'harm' I'm doing -- I'm just telling the truth -- and more about her own site which exists not to pressure Hillary but to praise and justify everything Hillary does -- even when its repulsive.

    The Iraq War is not a faded memory.

    Hillary screaming for war on Syria or US troops in Ukraine or comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler just remind many Democrats why they didn't want to support a blood thirty War Hawk in 2008.  She could bite the head off a bat tomorrow and it wouldn't shock a lot of people.

    Hillary's refused to speak out against Nouri al-Maliki.  That's an Iraq issue that's going to bite her in the ass.  She's also going to find less support from Jewish Americans this go round.

    Especially if Barack hands over the Jewish Archives to the Iraqi government.

    Those artifacts were stolen from Iraqi Jews.  They do not belong to the government of Iraq.

    And if they go to Iraq, it's going to become a big issue.

    How does this effect Hillary?

    She refused to address this issue.  Many Jewish leaders called on her to.  In the last months -- since the exhibit opened at the National Archives in DC and the artifacts have been on display -- there's been a lot of press on it.  But this campaign to save the artifacts goes back years.  Hillary left it as unfinished business.  She refused to address the issue.

    If those artifacts are handed over to Iraq, Hillary's going to find that many Jewish Americans who supported her in 2008 won't support her in 2016.

    Me?

    bloodywarhawks


    I've already said she needs to apologize to Pat Smith and I'm not supporting her in any way otherwise.  But what she's demonstrated in the years since 2008 isn't, "Once a War Hawk, always a War Hawk."  No, she's demonstrated, "A War Hawk only grows more blood thirsty."  She needs fresh 'kills' and that's why I won't be supporting her.  (And I probably won't support anyone.  You're not given my vote, you earn it.  And I don't vote based on fear.)  Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Bloody War Hawks" from September 30, 2007.




    It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
    There's a war going on
    So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
    And I'm writing a song about war
    And it goes
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Na na na na na na na
    I hate the war
    Oh oh oh oh
    -- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)


    The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4489.

    The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.










    Court Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging U.S. Drone Killings of Three Americans

    The Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following on Friday:


    press@ccrjustice.org


    April 4, 2014, Washington – A federal district court today dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the targeted killing of three American citizens by U.S. drones in Yemen in 2011. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the case on behalf of the families of Anwar Al-Aulaqi, Samir Khan, and Al-Aulaqi’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman.

     
    Plaintiff Nasser Al-Aulaqi, the father of Anwar and grandfather of Abdulrahman, said, “I am deeply disappointed by the judge’s decision and in the American justice system. What I am asking is simply for the government to account to a court its killings of my American son and grandson, and for the court to decide if those killings were lawful. Like any parent or grandparent would, I want answers from the government when it decides to take life, but all I have got so far is secrecy and a refusal even to explain.”

     
    In May, the Obama administration publicly acknowledged responsibility for the killings, but the Justice Department continued to argue in court that national security concerns bar any judicial review of the government’s actions. In response to this broad claim, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer stated at oral argument that “the executive is not an effective check on the executive,” and in her opinion, she rejected the government’s argument that the case presented a “political question” that prevented the judiciary from hearing it at all. Nonetheless, she dismissed the case.
     

    Said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Attorney Maria LaHood, “Judge Collyer effectively convicted Anwar Al-Aulaqi posthumously based on the government’s own say-so, and found that the constitutional rights of 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi and Samir Khan weren’t violated because the government didn’t target them.  It seems there’s no remedy if the government intended to kill you, and no remedy if it didn’t.  This decision is a true travesty of justice for our constitutional democracy, and for all victims of the U.S. government’s unlawful killings.”  
     

    Said ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi, one of the attorneys who argued the case, “This is a deeply troubling decision that treats the government's allegations as proof while refusing to allow those allegations to be tested in court. The court's view that it cannot provide a remedy for extrajudicial killings when the government claims to be at war, even far from any battlefield, is profoundly at odds with the Constitution. It is precisely when individual liberties are under such grave threat that we need the courts to act to defend them. In holding that violations of U.S. citizens' right to life cannot be heard in a federal courtroom, the court abdicated its constitutional role."
     

    The case, Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta,was filed in July 2012 and argued in July 2013. It names as defendants former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta; former CIA Director David Petraeus; Adm. William H. McRaven, Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command; and Gen. Joseph Votel, Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.
     

    In 2010, following press reports that the U.S. government had put Anwar Al-Aulaqi on government “kill lists,” CCR and the ACLU filed their previous lawsuit representing Nasser Al-Aulaqi challenging the government’s authority to kill his son. The court dismissed that case on the grounds that Nasser Al-Aulaqi did not have legal standing to challenge the targeting of his son and that the request for before-the-fact judicial review raised “political questions” not appropriate for the court to decide.
     

    Click here to read today’s opinion.
     


    For more than 90 years, the ACLU has been our nation's guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Visit www.aclu.org and follow @ACLU.


    The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.











    The Vote to Declassify Interrogation Report (Senator Wyden)

    This is from Senator Ron Wyden's office:





    Wyden Statement on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Vote to Declassify its Interrogation Report


    Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released the following statement after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted to begin the process of declassifying the committee’s 6,200 page report on CIA interrogations:




    "I believe the American people will be profoundly disturbed by the contents of this report.  Today, I joined my colleagues in voting to begin the process of declassifying the findings. Though I can’t provide any details until that declassification process is finished, I can say that the American people will see that much of what CIA officials have said about the effectiveness of coercive interrogations was simply untrue. I have spoken about the intelligence leadership’s culture of misinformation before and it continues to be a problem to this day. 


    "I have also been asking questions publicly for years about the role that outside contractors played in the interrogation program and I hope the American people will soon get some answers to those questions. I urge the administration to move quickly to declassify this report. It is going to make many people uncomfortable, but getting the facts about torture out to the American people will keep these mistakes from being repeated and make our national intelligence agencies stronger and more effective in the long run."















    Real Unemployment at 12.7% (Senator Sanders)

    Senator Bernie Sanders' office issued the following this week:




    Real Unemployment at 12.7%



    The official unemployment rate for March was 6.7 percent, unchanged from February, but real unemployment ticked up to 12.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday. That number counts workers forced to settle for part-time jobs and those unemployed for so long that they have given up looking for work. The Senate is expected to vote Monday to resurrect benefits that expired last Dec. 28 for the long-term jobless. “This will impact several million American workers who are at the end of their ropes financially,” Sanders said. Passing the bill is “the morally right thing to do” and “good economics,” the senator added, but he cautioned that the measure faces an uncertain fate in the Republican-run House.


    This bill to extend long-term emergency unemployment benefits for 2.2 million Americans would restore benefits that expired nearly three months ago.The benefits, about $300 a week on average, help jobless workers fill up their gas tank to get to a job interview, feed their families, pay the rent and heat their homes.
    Each  week that the Congress fails to act, an additional 72,000 Americans are losing their unemployment benefits. Today, about 4 million Americans who are currently looking for a job have been unemployed for more than 6 months. In the wake of a slow recovery from the recession that began in 2007, long-term unemployment is near a 60-year high.


    House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans today oppose extending the benefits, but when George W. Bush was President, Republicans, including Boehner, voted for emergency unemployment benefits five times  Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, many congressional Republicans oppose extending these benefits. Since 1958, Congress has never failed to pass emergency unemployment benefits when long-term unemployment has been as high as it is today. Today, there are nearly three job applicants for every one job opening.  There simply aren’t enough jobs out there for the more than 10 million Americans who are actively seeking work.


    The long-term unemployment rate today is more than double what it’s been at any other time Congress has let emergency jobless assistance expire. For example, hundreds of people applied last month to work at a Sam’s Club in Oxford, Ala., that won’t be opening until August. In January, more than 5,000 people waited in line for just 1,500 jobs at an outlet mall in Palm Beach, Fla. That same month, 1,600 people in Hagerstown, Md., applied for just 36 job openings at a dairy farm to process milk and ice cream. Last December, 10,000 people applied for just 750 flight attendant jobs at Southwest Airlines and more than 23,000 Americans applied for just 600 jobs at Wal-Mart in Washington, DC.



    If Congress fails to extend emergency unemployment benefits, 240,000 American workers will lose their jobs by the end of this year. The overall economy will be hurt because when people lose their unemployment benefits, they don’t go to the grocery store, they don’t buy clothes, they don’t go to the pharmacy.  Businesses lose customers, they lose money, and they fire even more people.













    Friday, April 04, 2014

    Iraq snapshot

    Friday, April 4, 2014.  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri continues killing civilians in Falluja, the Guardian calls him a 'front runner' because they're so useless, the State Dept -- primarily under Hillary Clinton -- lost billions, the press seems to be unaware that the Hillary-led State Dept stonewalled Congress, Stuart Bowen and others in their bid to be non-transparent about Iraq, and much more.


    Will today be remembered as the day Iraq War supporter Hillary Clinton's presidential dreams vanished?

    Possibly.

    A letter from [PDF format warning] the Office of Inspector General letter might just do the trick.

    Fox News noted:

    The Office of Inspector General, in a March 20 "management alert" to department leaders, said the department has failed to provide all or some of the files for $6 billion worth of contracts in the last six years.
    "The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department's contract actions," the memo said.

    Adam Kredo (Free Beacon) noted, "The State Department misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during the past six years, mainly during the tenure of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a newly released Inspector General report."


    But nobody appeared to know what they had.

    Let's first note how this plays out in a campaign.  The obvious question is one of competency as in, "Can she handle the presidency when she couldn't even handle the State Dept budget?"

    It needs to be noted that Hillary has spent her year-plus since resigning as Secretary of State with only one public goal: To present herself baddest bitch in the whole damn town.

    She's screamed for war, compared people to Hitler -- Let's just stop for a moment on that.  How do you become president when you're screaming "Hitler!" at someone?

    At any rate, she's attempted to prove just how tough she is -- as if anyone ever doubted she could be cold blooded or ruthless.

    And now this comes up.

    How is John Kerry better Secretary of State than Hillary Clinton?

    There are a lot of variables which go to opinion.  And there are some people who would argue that neither are good in their positions.

    But these are appointments, these people are not elected, they are appointed.  Since the American people had no say in the process -- despite paying their salaries -- it is especially important that they do their jobs and do the jobs professionally.  In a democracy, you're supposed to have an open government.

    Does Hillary grasp that?

    John Kerry did.

    Let's drop back to the April 17, 2013 snapshot, where we reported on that day's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing:


    Chair Ed Royce:  I'd also like to call your attention to the State Department's Inspector General's Office.  This is the key independent office looking at waste and fraud.  Mr. Secretary, as of today, there has been no permanent State Department Inspector General for over five years.  This includes President Obama's entire first term.   The Committee raised this issue in a bi-partisan letter sent to you in February and we would like to see an immediate appointment to this position.

    Secretary John Kerry:  On the IG, you're absolutely correct.  We're -- we're trying to fill a number of positions right now, the IG among them.  The greatest difficulty that I'm finding now that I'm on the other side of the fence is frankly the vetting process.  And I've got some folks that I selected way back in February when I first came in and it's now April and I'm still waiting for the vetting to move.  I've talked to the White House.  They're totally on board.  They're trying to get it moved.  So I hope that within a very short span of time, you're going to see these slots filled.  They need to be.  And that's just the bottom line.  It's important and I commit to you, we will.

    Chair Ed Royce:  I think this is the longest gap that we've had in the history of this position.  So if you could talk to the President about this in short order, we would very much appreciate it. 

    Secretary John Kerry:  I don't need to talk to the President, we're going to get this done.  We know it and we're trying to get the right people.  Matching person to task and also clearing all the other hurdles, as I am finding, is not as easy as one always thinks.  But we'll get it done.  


    Kerry kept his word.  As Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) reported yesterday, "The warning was the second 'management alert' in State Department history, both issued by new Inspector General Steve Linick. Linick took over the job in late September, after it had been vacant for nearly six years."

    For Hillary's entire four years as Secretary of State, she didn't feel she need to be accountable.  She wasn't about to 'subject' herself to oversight.

    She proved to be hostile to it.

    It's this sort of thing that made many hate her -- yes, hate -- as First Lady.  She thought she could do whatever she wanted with, for example, health care and do it away from the public eye and from any oversight.  She had the chance, as Secretary of State, to embrace democracy and she chose not to.

    $6 billion is unaccounted for and that's largely from her four years.

    John Kerry only had to be asked once publicly by Congress about the IG.  And he didn't have to puzzle it.  He didn't have to take the question for the record.  He immediately agreed that an IG was necessary and that there would be someone appointed to that position and that they were already working on it.

    But for her entire four year term as Secretary of State, Hillary avoided oversight, she subverted democracy and, in the process, she appears to be unable to account for billions of US taxpayer dollars.

    That doesn't say "presidential."  And it means "Travelgate" and all the other scandals or 'scandals' (I didn't think there was anything there beneath the smoke) come back to haunt her.  Secretary of State was supposed to be the prestige position that propelled Hillary to a new level but that didn't happen.

    A comment on DeYoung's article is confusing:


    sleeve
    7:11 AM CST
    Once again paying the price for the corrupted GOP refusing to approve needed vital personnel to protect us from the vast network of fraud establish under W went he rented out our government functions to his highest campaign contributors. W belongs in a cage at The Hague.


    Is Sleeve stating that the money that's missing/unaccounted for from 2008 to present is Republicans' fault?

    If so, is Sleeve saying ("refusing to approve needed vital personnel") that the Republicans in the Senate must have blocked a nomination for the State Dept IG?

    If that's what's Sleeve's saying, Sleeve is wrong.

    There was no nominee.

    And Republicans in Congress joined with Democrats in raising the issue in public letters to the White House and Republicans in the House tended to raise this issue repeatedly.

    December 7, 2011 we reported on the House Oversight and Government Reform's National Security Subcommittee hearing.

    Subcommittee Chair Jason Chaffetz:  Before recognizing Ranking Member [John] Tierney, I'd like to note that the Defense Dept, State Dept, USAID and SIGAR will not have IGs in January.  In May of this year, I wrote the President asking him to move without delay to appoint replacements.  That letter was signed by Senators [Joe] Lieberman, [Susan] Collins, [Claire] McCaskill and [Rob] Portman, as well as [House Oversight Committee] Chairman [Darrell] Issa and Ranking Member [Elijah] Cummings and Ranking Member Tierney.  I'd like to place a copy of htis record into the record.  Without objection, so ordered.  To my knowledge, the President has yet to nominate any of these replacements, nor has he responded to this letter.  I find that totally unacceptable.  This is a massive, massive effort.  It's going to take some leadership from the White House.  These jobs cannot and will not be done if the president fails to make these appointments.  Upon taking office, President Obama promised that his administration would be "the most open and transparent in history." You cannot achieve transparency without inspectors general.  Again, I urge President Obama and the Senate to nominate and confirm inspectors general to fill these vacancies  and without delay.


    So don't blame Republicans or Democrats in Congress for what Hillary did as Secretary of State.  Let's note
    Speical Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen from that same hearing:

     

    SIGIR Stuart Bowen:  First, I am concerned about maintaining SIGIR's ability to get the information we need to complete ongoing audits and investigations and to continue to provide the kind of comprehensive Quarterly Report coverage that the Congress has come to expect from us. The State Department recently instituted a new bureaucratic process, requiring the channeling of information that we request from the Embassy through Foggy Bottom offices.  This process inevitably will cause delays, impede our capacity to deal directly with the individuals in Iraq responsible for providing the necessary data, and thus reduce our  responsiveness. Symptomatic of this bureaucratic development, one of my investigators, working jointly with the FBI on a criminal case, recently was refused information by the State Department regarding a potential subject (who is a State employee). State directed my investigator to use the "audit process" to obtain this investigative information. Worse, he was challenged as to whether the information, which he had requested in good faith, was even related to "reconstruction funding." This development is just the latest quandary in a predicament-filled year, during which the State Department has repeatedly raised fallacious objections to varying SIGIR requests. I thank the Chairman and Ranking Member -- and the full Committee's leadership -- for their steadfast support of our oversight mission; but these recent issues underscore  the reality of the continuing oversight challenges that confront us. 


    Attending hearings on Iraq and what the State Dept was doing there was very frustrating and not just for me watching the interaction but for members of Congress.  As we have noted repeatedly since the State Dept took over the US mission in Iraq in October of 2011,  they did so with no transparency.  They attempted to circumvent Stuart Bowen and his office (which is no more today even though the State Dept continues to have a budget of approximately a billion each year just on Iraq) and they refused to inform his office or the Congress what they were doing.

    How bad was it?

    For one example, let's drop back to the December 1, 2011 snapshot which covered the November 30th hearing of the  House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East ans South Asia.  The State Dept was represented by Brooke Darby.


    US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Madame Deputy Assistant Secretary, welcome. Is it your testimony here today that the State Dept is fully committed to transparency and accountability with respect to any and all programs it has oversight and responsibility for in Iraq?
     

    Brooke Darby: We take our responsibility for accountability and cooperation with all of the  audit entities, with Congress very, very seriously.
     

    US House Rep Gerald Connolly: No, ma'am, that was not my question.  Is it your testimony that you're fully committed to transparency and accountability with respect to those responsibilities?

     
    Brooke Darby: We are absolutely committed to accountability.

     
    US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Full accountability?  Full transparency and accountability?
     
    Brooke Darby:  I'm not sure -- I'm not sure how you define that so . . .

     
    US House Rep Gerald Connolly:  Well I guess I'm not sure why you avoid the word.  That was my question and you've ducked it three times.  Are we or are we not, is the State Dept committed to full transparency and accountability to the tax payers in the United States and the people who served in Iraq or not?

     
    Brooke Darby:  We absolutely are accountable to the tax payers, to our Congress and to all of the oversight bodies who are looking into how we are spending our dollars, whether our programs are achieving success.  We are absolutely --
     


    US House Rep Gerald Connolly:  Alright. I'll sort of take that as a commitment. 


    This was characteristic of Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State.  The Congress was unable to get answers -- especially ahead of the transfer of Iraq from a DoD-led mission to a State Dept-led one and in all the time that followed that transfer.

    Six billion is unaccounted for.  And the bulk of it is from Hillary's term as Secretary of State.  She came in with no IG and she demanded no IG.  She served four years without any check or oversight.  And she and her people stonewalled Congress and any body or official attempting to provide oversight.

    The missing money is a mark against her and against what she tries to pass off as "leadership."  No oversight, no accountability, that's not leadership in a democracy.


    The issue was raised at today's State Dept press briefing:

    QUESTION: Marie, do you have any comment on the OIG report that was made public today on the $6 billion?

    MS. HARF: I do. Just give me one second. Well, reports that there is a $6 billion that can’t be accounted for are grossly inaccurate. The OIG’s report noted that there were a number of incomplete files for our contracts and that these contracts’ cumulative value was about 6 billion. As highlighted in our response to the OIG, this is an issue of which the Department is aware and is taking steps to remedy. It’s not an accounting issue. I think it’s more like a bureaucratic issue. But it’s not that we’ve lost $6 billion, basically.
    On March 20th, our new Inspector General did issue a management alert on contract file management deficiencies. The Bureau of Administration responded with a plan to address their three recommendation. Those are all posted on the IG’s web page now.

    QUESTION: So how much money can you not account for if it’s not 6 billion?

    MS. HARF: I have no idea.

    QUESTION: But whatever amount it is, it’s --

    MS. HARF: I think we try to account for all of our money.


    QUESTION: But it’s way less than 6 billion? I mean, you said it was grossly inflated.

    MS. HARF: Grossly inaccurate. Uh-huh.

    QUESTION: Okay. So do – you must have --


    QUESTION: What’s a rounded-up figure --


    MS. HARF: I’m not – no --


    QUESTION: You must have an estimate of what it is if you have an understanding --


    MS. HARF: It’s my understanding that it’s not an accounting issue. It’s not that we can’t account for money. So I don’t – I’m not sure that there’s any money that we can’t account for.


    QUESTION: So how is it grossly inaccurate, then?


    MS. HARF: Because it’s not that there’s $6 billion we can’t account for. They said there were incomplete files --


    QUESTION: Right.


    MS. HARF: -- and that the files were – their cumulative value for those contracts was about $6 billion. So it’s a filing issue. It’s not a “we lost money” issue.

    QUESTION: So you’re sure that you know where all that money is even though you acknowledge that the files are not complete?


    MS. HARF: I – that’s my understanding, yes. But again, all of this is posted on the IG’s website in much more detail.


    QUESTION: But --


    MS. HARF: I don’t have the $6 billion.


    QUESTION: Yeah. I mean, I just – (laughter) – it sounds like it may be more of a distinction without a difference, saying it’s an accounting error, like maybe --


    MS. HARF: No, because the notion that we can’t find $6 billion, right, would mean that it’s an accounting issue, that somehow we lost money that – you can understand why when people hear that they think that it means we’ve lost $6 billion. That’s my understanding that that’s not the case.


    QUESTION: Yes, please. I mean, regarding this IG issue, it’s like every other day something is coming out of --


    MS. HARF: IG’s been very busy, apparently.


    QUESTION: Yeah. I mean, because there was no IG before, no five years.


    MS. HARF: We have a new IG, yep.


    QUESTION: Yeah, it came on September. Yeah. I mean, I’m trying to figure out – I mean, when he’s like – when you say grossly and inaccurate, does he presenting these things with information or just like a number?


    MS. HARF: Yeah. So the way the IG works in general – and I don’t have the details about their methodology here – is they are independent and they undertake independent reviews, some I understand that are done just routinely, some I think are in response to people submitting things to them. And in general, after the IG does a draft report they submit it to either the post overseas or the office here or the bureau that deals with it so they can have a chance to review it and comment on it and to begin implementing recommendations, if there are any that they think are helpful. So there’s a process here. Then they eventually release the final report that sometimes takes into account comments, sometimes they disagree. We have a variety of ways to respond.

    QUESTION: The reason I am asking because these things are related more about overseas activities and contracts. Does the State Department officially – when you say grossly inaccurate, are you going to say what is accurate?



    MS. HARF: Yes. And as I said, our response and the entire report is up on the IG’s website. I’m happy to dig into it a little bit more. But yes, we do. I mean, that’s why we give responses and they’re published.


    I don't know that State Dept spokesperson Marie Harf should have treated the issue so lightly.

    It's really not a good public visual for the State Dept to be seen by the public as yucking it up over missing money.

    That said, it's Hillary's problem.  The money can be accounted for tomorrow, it doesn't matter now.  It's underscored the failures of her leadership and the damage done by her refusing the oversight that is supposed to come with the job in a democracy.

    Again, it's Hillary's problem and Marie Harf's not part of Hillary's crew so she doesn't have to worry but it still doesn't create a good visual for the public when the State Dept spokesperson appears to have 'fun' with the topic of billions of missing taxpayer dollars.


    Turning to the state of Illinois where the lower house of the state legislature has House Joint-Resolution 68 supported by the following:

    Rep. David Harris - Jack D. Franks - Lou Lang - Mike Bost - Scott Drury, Jerry F. Costello, II, Barbara Wheeler and Elaine Nekritz

    Rep David Harris proposed the bill:

    Synopsis As Introduced
    Urges the United States Department of State to rescind its decision to transfer artifacts seized from Iraq's Jewish community by Saddam Hussein's regime back to the Iraqi government.

    House Committee Amendment No. 1
    Replaces everything after the heading with similar language. States the proper name of the collection of artifacts held by the Iraqi government. Adds language concerning resolutions passed by the United States House of Representatives and Senate regarding the artifacts and their return to Iraq. Urges the United States Department of State to renegotiate with the Government of Iraq the provisions of the original agreement in order to ensure that the Iraqi Jewish Archive collection be kept in a location accessible to scholars, Iraqi Jews, and their descendants where its long-term preservation and care can be guaranteed.



    November 13th, the State Dept's Brett McGurk appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa.  We'll note Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen explaining the archives from that hearing.



    Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen:  And finally, a letter to Secretary Kerry regarding the return of Iraqi-Jewish community artifacts that are now on display at The National Archives.  In 2003, US and coalition forces found a  trove of Iraqi-Jewish cultural artifacts being warehoused in the basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police headquarters.  And the US subsequently brought them here, to The National Archives, for restoration, preservation and display; however, these artifacts are scheduled to be returned to Iraq where the government will claim possession of these artifacts which were unjustly taken from the Iraqi-Jewish community.  The US government must not return those stolen treasures to the Iraqi government but instead should facilitate their return to their rightful owners or descendants.  Therefore, on behalf of me, Congressman Steve Israel and over 40 of our House colleagues, we ask you, Deputy Secretary McGurk, to personally deliver this letter to Secretary Kerry and the Dept of State ensures that the Iraqi-Jewish community does not get robbed again of its collective memory and treasures. 


    The White House intends to hand the archives over to the Iraqi government in June.  As that moment looms ever closer, others, such as Illinois state Rep David Harris, step forward to make a case for the artifacts to be returned to their rightful owners.   Mara Ruff (Jewish United Fund) reports:


    Rep. Harris feels strongly on this issue, both on a personal and professional level.
    "Having served in Iraq for 14 months, I was concerned about what would happen to the artifacts if they were returned to the Iraqi government," he said. "The decision to return them should be renegotiated so that the artifacts are returned to the original Jewish owners, if possible, and if that is not possible, then returned to the Jewish community where they would be respected and preserved."
    With this resolution, Harris hopes the Illinois General Assembly's support will help influence the appropriate government authorities to reconsider and keep the Iraqi Jewish Archives in a location that is accessible to scholars and Iraqi Jews around the world.



    Handing the collection over to Nouri's government is nonsense.  This is the property of Iraqi Jews.  Rebecca Shimoni Stoil (Times of Israel) explains, "The archive is a collection of Jewish religious items and documents which were seized from Iraq’s persecuted Jewish community in the 1970s and 1980s, under Saddam Hussein’s regime. It contains more than 2,700 books, dating back as early as the 16th century."  Stolen property is not returned to the thieves, it's returned to the rightful owners.  Add in that Nouri's Iraq has run off all but a handful of Jews and there's no reason in the world -- certainly no legal or ethical reason -- for the artifacts to be handed over to the Iraqi government.

    There's also the issue of Nouri's hatred of Israel.  Nouri was first installed by the US government in May of 2006.  Two months later, July 25, 2006, US Senators Dick Curbin, Harry Reid and Charles Schumer were calling Nouri out in a letter for the anti-Israel remarks he was making.  Six years later, in July of 2012, Al Arabiya reported, "Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday that Baghdad does not discriminate against countries but said he rejected forming any ties with Israel."

    Nouri refused to protect the Jewish community in Iraq.  He's also refused to protect the Christian community in Iraq which is why so many have become external and internal refugees.  Alex Newman (The New American) observed last December, " Before the U.S. government imposed so-called “democracy” on Iraq, estimates suggested there were as many as 1.5 million Christians throughout the diverse country. They had survived centuries of invasions, persecution, and more — but in many respects, the community was still thriving. Today, experts and Christian leaders suggest the number of Christians still in Iraq is somewhere closer to 200,000. Many of those would leave if they could."

    The internal Christian refugees have largely migrated north.  The October 31, 2010 attack on Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation Church led many Baghdad Christians to flee.  That wasn't the only or even the last attack on Baghdad's Christian community but it was an attack that shocked many.  When Iraqis flee for safety, they don't sell the home first.  So homes are left abandoned.

    AFP reports today that "gangs claiming ties to powerful militias" are grabbing the empty homes in Baghdad and that the owners are left with little recourse:

    The US State Department said in its 2013 human rights report that "delays and corruption prevented the (Iraqi) government from effectively adjudicating property restitution claims".
    It added, citing local human rights NGOs, that "the government's inability to resolve claims disproportionately affected Christian communities".


    KRG President Massoud Barzani has increased his international profile, for over a year now we've noted there's a good chance he will become the next president of Iraq.  Shafaq News reports an expected -- not surprising -- development, "President of the Iraqi National Congress , Ahmed al-Chalabi announced his support for the candidacy of Kurdistan Region's President , Massoud Barzani as the president of Iraq , considering him as a 'good' president."


    On the topic of the next President of Iraq, Alsumaria reports State of Law is having a hissy fit.  MP Haider al-Abadi was sent out to denounce the suggesting that Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi should be president.  al-Abadi fumes this is a conspiracy.  Tareq remains Vice President and remains outside of Iraq due to Nouri's efforts to have Tareq sentenced to death.

    That's the next president.  Where's the current one?  December 2012,  Iraqi President Jalal Talabani suffered a stroke.   The incident took place late on December 17, 2012 following Jalal's argument with Iraq's prime minister and chief thug Nouri al-Maliki (see the December 18, 2012 snapshot).  Jalal was admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital.    Thursday, December 20, 2012, he was moved to Germany.  He remains in Germany all this time later.

    Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) reports that the Sadr bloc has expressed fear that Nouri may attempt to declare a state of emergency and dissolve the Parliament with Jalal out of the country still to avoid losing the election.  Should that happen, not only will Jalal and his family be the subject of scorn and hostility but the PUK will suffer as well -- this after they already went from leading party in the Kurdistan Regional Government to coming in third -- behind Barzani's KDP and the newly emergent Goran.


    Moving over to the wimpy Guardian newspaper out of England.  They wanted everyone to stand up for them against the British government but the cowards don't stand up for themselves.  Nouri al-Maliki sued them over reporting and won.  The verdict was reversed on appeal.  Since then, the newspaper's Iraq reporting has been a joke and reporters for the paper, like Martin Chulov, have done better work in radio interviews than they've been allowed to do at the paper.


    And that's why the paper offers crap like this:


    Date: 30 April
    No of voters: 18 million
    Frontrunner: Nuri al-Maliki
    Free and fair factor: 2
    Biggest anxiety: full-scale insurgency, spilling over from Syria, makes security parlous across much of the west of the country
    What it means for the world: country that cost so many lives appears to be backsliding towards autocracy and instability, rendering democracy almost irrelevant. Would further carnage trigger an American re-engagement?



    How's Nouri the front runner?  Based on 2013 parliamentary elections?  I thought the press told us that was bad news for Nouri?


    Based on his popularity now?

    Nope, he's more unpopular than ever.

    Because Shi'ites want to coalesce around him?  Motada al-Sadr, just this week, again declared Nouri shouldn't seek a third term.  Wednesday,  Al Arabiya News reported:

    Iraq’s Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr urged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday not to run for a third term, accusing him of terrorizing Sunnis so that they don’t go to the polls in the upcoming April 30 general election.
    “I advise brother Maliki… brother Maliki thinks he served Iraq, let him rest for four years, and see if whoever comes next would serve better… if not let him come back after four years, it is not a problem,” Sadr told reporters in Najaf, 60 kilometres south of Baghdad.

    The Shiite leader, who had announced his withdrawal from active politics, accused Maliki’s government of “building a dictatorship” by excluding candidates from the parliamentary elections.

    And today Al Arabia News reports:

    Editor-in-chief of Al-Mada newspaper, Adnan Hussain, told Al Arabiya News that Ahrar “is entering the upcoming elections with strength.” He expects the Sadrists to keep their 40 parliament seats, particularly since Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, whom Sadr has described as a “dictator,” is in a shaky position.
    “Maliki didn’t achieve anything in the past four years. On the contrary, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated,” said Hussain.
    Baghdad-based TV commentator Ahmad Al-Abyadh said he expects Ahrar to at least consolidate its position or win about 45 seats in the upcoming elections.


    The Guardian's nonsense has been highlighted by Alsumaria as 'news' that Nouri is expected to win.

    There's no reason to declare a Nouri a front runner.  There's no factual basis for the claim.

    Nouri is responsible for more deaths today.  NINA notes the military's continued shelling of residential neighborhoods in Falluja -- this happens every day, this bombing -- has left 6 civilians dead and nine more injured.  But the Guardian won't report that, they're too damn busy cowering in fear.


    Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 102 people dead from yesterday's violence with another sixty-two injured.  Today?  National Iraqi News Agency reports a Rashad roadside bombing left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and two more injured, a security source tells NINA 6 suspects were killed today in Subaihat, Joint Operations Command announced they killed 15 suspects in Anbar, a Husseiniya roadside bombing left 1 person dead and six more injured, a Ramadi battle left 3 police members and 3 rebels dead (with three more police members left injured), and, late last night, a bombing in Sindej left 1 police member dead and nine more injured.



    Moving to the US, Unforgettable returns to CBS tonight for its third season. Marilu Henner is a consultant on the show.  Actress Marilu is also an author and activist and Sunday she's a guest on Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox where she and Cindy will discuss health and genetically modified foods.



    Turning to the Fort Hood shooting. Eleanor Goldberg (Huffington Post) sums it up,  "On Wednesday afternoon, Ivan Lopez, 34, opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas, killing three and injuring 16 before turning the gun on himself. The violence was particularly disheartening because Fort Hood was the site of the worst mass killing at an American military installation, which left 13 people dead and more than 30 injured in 2009."  Will Weissert and Danica Coto (AP) report, "On Friday, authorities formally identified the dead as 39-year-old Daniel Ferguson, of Mulberry, Fla.; 38-year-old Carlos Lazaney-Rodriguez, of Puerto Rico; and 37-year-old Timothy Owens, of Effingham, Ill."  Al Jazeera's The Stream speaks with Iraq War veteran Michael Prysner.  Excerpt.


    Are the problems at Fort Hood unique or is it just a difference in scale?

    Prysner: The scale is different because the base is so large. The crisis in mental health treatment is endemic to the entire military. Other bases, such as Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Fort Carson, Fort Bliss, have come in the media spotlight after soldiers have helped expose treatment on base. 
    It’s important to note that this suicide epidemic and crisis in mental health care is no secret. For many years, the shocking rate of suicides, mass PTSD diagnoses and scandals around mistreatment have been made blatantly obvious to the Pentagon and Washington. They respond to media pressure by just giving speeches about “supporting troops” and “caring for veterans.” 
    The fact is that this has been a real emergency situation for so, so long. Our “leaders” have made very clear that they are either unwilling or incapable of taking any meaningful action to address this horrific crisis facing our community.




    the washington post
    karen deyoung









    al arabiya news






    State Dept can't account for 6 billion in funds

    Call it the day of the expected news when it comes to Iraq.

    The US State Dept has not managed money well when it comes to Iraq. [Note: $2.1 billion of the money is Iraq funds.  The title of this entry originally read "State Dept can't account for 6 billion in Iraq funds" -- that was incorrect, my mistake.  $2.1 billion is the Iraq funds number.  It does not effect the text. Only the title.]

    Here's the [PDF format warning] Office of Inspector General letter.

    Fox News notes:

    The Office of Inspector General, in a March 20 "management alert" to department leaders, said the department has failed to provide all or some of the files for $6 billion worth of contracts in the last six years.
    "The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department's contract actions," the memo said.

    Adam Kredo (Free Beacon) notes, "The State Department misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during the past six years, mainly during the tenure of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a newly released Inspector General report."

    They're not able to offer more than that which is sad because it is news.  If no one's talking about the real points of this by the time we do the snapshot tonight, I'll go over it.  But it's really sad that the media is as uninformed as it is.  Neither Fox nor Free Beacon are reporting.  They're repeating from a letter.

    The letter's accurate, that's not the issue.  Again, hopefully some grown ups will enter the conversation before I start dictating the snapshot tonight.  If that doesn't happen, I'll do the walk through myself.

    We've noted for some time that KRG President Massoud Barzani has increased his international profile, for over a year now we've noted there's a good chance he will become the next president of Iraq.  So Shafaq News is reporting an expected -- not surprising -- development, "President of the Iraqi National Congress , Ahmed al-Chalabi announced his support for the candidacy of Kurdistan Region's President , Massoud Barzani as the president of Iraq , considering him as a 'good' president."

    On the topic of the next President of Iraq, Alsumaria reports State of Law is having a hissy fit.  MP Haider al-Abadi was sent out to denounce the suggesting that Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi should be president.  al-Abadi fumes this is a conspiracy.  Tareq remains Vice President and remains outside of Iraq due to Nouri's efforts to have Tareq sentenced to death.

    Also expected is that the Guardian would be afraid and tiny when it came to Iraq.  Why is it Martin Chulov can speak so freely on radio -- especially Australian radio -- but not in the pages of the Guardian?

    Because Nouri sued the paper and initially won.  The paper won on appeal.

    It's been a joke in terms of Iraq ever since when it came to reporting.  (The paper was sued over a piece of reporting which was correct.)

    So they offer crap like this:

    Date: 30 April
    No of voters: 18 million
    Frontrunner: Nuri al-Maliki
    Free and fair factor: 2
    Biggest anxiety: full-scale insurgency, spilling over from Syria, makes security parlous across much of the west of the country
    What it means for the world: country that cost so many lives appears to be backsliding towards autocracy and instability, rendering democracy almost irrelevant. Would further carnage trigger an American re-engagement?


    How's Nouri the front runner?  Based on 2013 parliamentary elections?  I thought the press told that was bad news for Nouri?


    Based on his popularity now?

    Nope, he's more unpopular than ever.

    Because Shi'ites want to coalesce around him?  Motada al-Sadr, just this week, again declared Nouri shouldn't seek a third term.

    So they whore a little more each day and then wonder why we don't want to rush to defend them?

    They're whores.

    That crap has been highlighted by Alsumaria as 'news' that Nouri is expected to win.

    You need to think about what you do and the influence it has.

    There's no reason to declare a Nouri a front runner.  There's no factual basis for the claim.

    So stop whoring.

    The whoring gets noted in this second Alsumaria article and has State of Law's Haider al-Abadi insisting that they've given no thoughts to any alternative to Nouri.  (State of Law is Nouri's coalition.)

    Nouri is responsible for more deaths today.  NINA notes the military's continued shelling of residential neighborhoods in Falluja -- this happens every day, this bombing -- has left 6 civilians dead and nine more injured.  But the Guardian won't report that, they're too damn busy cowering in fear.


    Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) counts 102 people dead from yesterday's violence with another sixty-two injured.  Today?  National Iraqi News Agency reports a Rashad roadside bombing left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and two more injured, a security source tells NINA 6 suspects were killed today in Subaihat, Joint Operations Command announced they killed 15 suspects in Anbar, a Husseiniya roadside bombing left 1 person dead and six more injured, a Ramadi battle left 3 police members and 3 rebels dead (with three more police members left injured), and, late last night, a bombing in Sindej left 1 police member dead and nine more injured.




    The following community sites -- plus Ms. magazine's blog, Susan's On the Edge, Jody Watley, Jake Tapper, Antiwar.com, Tavis Smiley and Pacifica Evening News -- updated:







  • In addition, Ruth's "Benghazi hearing" is not showing up on the links and, yesterday, when noting the updates, I didn't include Mike's "Robert Altman, How I Met Your Mother, American Mas..." because it wasn't on the link list -- Tori caught that and e-mailed (thank you, Tori).






    The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.























     

















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