The Scribe

NPR: 10/18/05: Interview on with Cherif Bassouini on Iraq, the constitution, the US role in Saddam's trial, and Iraq's potential disintegration

Jerome McDonnell on Chicago Public Radio's "World View" interviews Cherif Bassouini, President, International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University.

McDonnell:  The constitutional process was certainly confusing in Iraq.  The original deadline for the draft was extended several times.  Last-minute changes were made without parliamentary approval, and the constitution contains a provision which will allow changes to continue in the constitution during the next few months.  Cherif Bassouini gave me his thoughts on how the constitution process in Iraq went down. 

Cherif Bassouini:  Well, it's a very curious process.  This was essentially driven by the US.  This is part of the US agenda -- #1 to show some sign of success in Iraq and some progress, and also because it paves the way for a permanent Iraqi government to be established so that the US can then map out an exit strategy.  While this is perfectly legitimate and justified, the problem is that there are many issues in Iraq that needed more time to decant.  The introduction of a new concept of federalism in a country that had sort of been glued together by even the repressive regime of Saddam was now being unglued and a new federalism was being put in place.  But nobody has thought it out. For example, nobody thought out what are the boundaries of a region.  And a community opts in and out so that, for example, a Chicago suburb can decide, Well, I'm going to join Chicago tomorrow but then maybe if Chicago doesn't give me enough, I'm going to join maybe another community tomorrow!  How are the taxes levied? How are revenues shared?  What about natural resources?  All of these questions haven't been addressed so far and so, in the rush to get a constitution, both the US and those supporting the US in Iraq say that, Well, we can deal with these issues later.  Same thing with women's issues.  They can say, Well, okay, we've got constitution that Islam is the primary source of law but there are issues of minority's rights and women's rights... and we'll deal with that later.  So the thorny issues were left for "we will deal with that later"!  So, necessarily, the process had to include a second stage.  But as the process evolved in the primary stage, and it became quite obvious that the Sunni weren't participating, both the US as well as the Shi'a and Kurdish communities in Iraq started downplaying the numbers.  So suddenly the Sunnis went down from being over 30% to being barely 20% and, as is frequently the case, if you're not in the room, your voice can't be heard. So the Sunnis were left out and now they want back in.

McDonnell:  What do you make of Sunni participation?  Because it seems like the Administration is saying, Well, look -- they voted and most of them voted against it but at least they are participating now whereas they were boycotting before and in the long run this is going to be a good thing.  They're going to be having input down the road as they throw this into the National Assembly.  What did you make of Sunni participation?

Bassouini:  Well, I think Sunni participation was obviously a protest vote, and it's a protest vote that came when the Sunnis realized that the Shi'a's and the Kurds -- and I'm going to exaggerate now to make the point -- were going to [steal it? inaudible] again.  Because they were there.  They were there, they had a process that was somewhat legitimized by the US, and the US was backing it, and they realized that this federalism was soon going to mean that the country would be split in three. And if that's the case, that would be the worst possible outcome not only for the Sunni but also for Iraq in general and, I would say, for the stability of the region.

McDonnell:  Do you buy that? that the constitution is going to drive the country apart, split it up?

Bassouini:  No, not the constitution. The constitution is merely another sort of phase that will allow the process of disintegration to take place.  If you look at the Kurds, the Kurds would be quite satisfied for the complete autonomy which they have had for the past ten years to continue.  They are quite uncertain about Turkish reaction and very apprehensive.  So they need to digest the complete autonomy which would now be enshrined in the constitution.  So that issue for the Kurds would be maybe ten years down the pike.  On the Shi'a side there are concerns because there are really three factions among the Shi'a.  There's the al Sistani faction which is potentially an Iraqi nationalist faction; there is the Haqim faction which is completely pro-Iranian and would soon turn over the Shi'a area to complete Iranian control;  and there's Sadr who is really a maverick and who's now being manipulated by Ahmed Chalabi, our former crony, who has found a patron there with the political and military muscle to back him up.  So that, too, is an area in which there is a great deal of uncertainty.  They will need to digest their new autonomy and need to find out who is going to be on top of the agenda.  If it's al Sistani, then obviously it means they will have to find an accomodation with the Sunni on power-sharing.  If it's the pro-Iranians and Sadr as a maverick then joins the pro-Iranians, then we're in trouble.  Right now is the setting of the stage for what will unfold in the next decade.

McDonnell: And you call it "a process of disintegration."

Bassouini:  I call it a process of disintegration because the objective of any nation-building, in my judgment, should be to cement a nation together, to cement a people together, to break down the divisions of ethnicity and religion that we know by experience sow hatred.  And so for the US to promote an extensive notion of federalism and regionalism that can only play out in a break-up of the country and can only play out in setting up enmities between the people is a very dangerous path to follow.

McDonnell:  And there's a Sunni gentleman who's had an editorial in the New York Times today, and he said the constitution is about the Kurds.  That's who it's written for and it's going to be about a Kurdish state in the future.  Is that a reasonable conclusion for a Sunni politician to come to?

Bassouini:  Well, the Sunni politicians hope they can find an accomodation with the Shi'a politicians who are nationalists, and that's al Sistani's movement.  So the Sunni politicians will not want to antagonize the Shi'a at this point.  What they will do is they will aim their barbs at the Kurds.  Within the Kurdish community, there is no doubt that if they could have an independent state tomorrow, they would do it.  The only reason they don't want to make that visible is because they're afraid of the Turks. The Turks, if that were the case, the Turkish army would move into Kurdistan tomorrow.  So what they're doing is they're planning it carefully.  They're cementing their rights in a new constitution and they're gradually moving to be able to take control of the Kirkuk area, so that if and when the time is ripe for them to become a state, they'll not only have the territory but the resources.

McDonnell:  ...What did you make of the fraud allegations that were out there, and there's a lot of talk about fraud in some of the provinces where you wouldn't expect any fraud to happen.  They got 99% turnout and 90% of them voted for the constitution.  And then there are fraud allegations in some of the Sunni areas too -- where the constitution could have possibly gotten even more votes against.  What do you make of the legitimacy of the exercise?

Bassouini: There's no doubt that the electoral process was done hastily, that there weren't enough monitors, there wasn't enough of a supervision system.  The whole process was in the hands of the government.  There was no external supervision that could verify what's taking place.  The system of transporting ballot boxes which are huge plastic containers can very easily be changed.  An entire box can be dumped and another box take its place.  Ballots that are usually filled by a sign or some mark can easily be faked. So the potential for this type of abuse is very,  very open.

McDonnell:  So we should look forward to the December elections for the National Assembly.

Bassouini:  I think so.  I think that's going to be a more interesting exercise and people will have a little more scrutiny over what's going on.  Right now, unfortunately, there are small things that go a long way in a society like Iraq's.  So when Sec'y of State Condoleezza Rice, in London, said she thinks that the Iraqi people will adopt the constitution before the vote has started, it sort of feeds into the rumor mill:  Oh, the fix is in!  Everybody believes that there is a little bit of a fix that's already in, so the question in everybody's mind now is how big is the fix going to be!

McDonnell:  And if you're Sunni and you participated in the election -- and apparently they participated in good numbers -- do you come away from this disenchanted and "I don't want to participate in future elections," or do you come away from it saying "Well, I'm going to try again."

Bassouini:  I think the risks are much higher.  I think that what will happen is if the Sunnis come out of this experience believing that the vote was rigged, the constitution was adopted because that's what the Americans and the present coalition of Shi'a and Kurds want it to be, then this is going to drive many more of the youth into the hands of the national resistance.  It's going to increase and stiffen the national resistance.  And that means more casualties, more destruction of life and more disintegration of the country.  So the stakes are much, much higher than just getting a constitution so that somebody in Washington can put a good spin on it and s how the Administration has made a success.  And I'm sure that people the US ambassador in Baghdad, Ambassador Khalilzad and others are quite conscious of this danger.  And so it's a question of how to balance public perception.

McDonnell: I can't help but ask you a few questions about Saddam Hussein's appearance in court that's going to happen this week apparently.  And this is a little like the constitutional process.  There's some kind of process going on but nobody knows exactly where it's going, and it sounds like the whole process for trying Saddam Hussein is a little similar.

Bassouini: Well, the similarity is that the US is behind both efforts.  And I should add it is doing it, I should add, to a large extent in good faith.  It's doing it in its belief that it's helping the country.  But the US does not have the kind of of... let me call it "diplomatic finesse" and experience that an old colonial power like Great Britain or France would have.  And so our fingerprints are all over the place.  As we try to balance things out and make things look better, we sometimes stumble into big blunders which make us look worse.  So we have a trial of Saddam coming up.  Think about it this way:  the law under which he is tried is a law that was promulgated by Ambassador Bremer when he represented the US as a foreign occupying power.  The statute was drafted in English.  It was translated into Arabic and it's poorly translated.  Those from the Department of Justice who contributed to it added a lot of the features of an American trial.  Which doesn't really fit with an Iraqi trial.  The trial is going to be in the Green Zone which is controlled by the US.  The court has been rebuilt with US funds.  The judges are within the Green Zone and they're under the protection of the US.  All of the costs of the tribunal, including the salaries of the judges, are paid by the US.  So what will that convey to the Iraqi people?  You see, most people don't realize that the Iraqi people are totally convinced that Saddam committed terrible crimes.  For them it's not a question of, Let's go to trial to find out whether he killed 5,000 Kurds by using gases or whether he tortured people that were dissidents.  Everybody knows that.  So for the Iraqi people it's not a question of discovering the facts.  It's not a question of, Oh, we have an innocent man here and maybe we need to prove whether he was guilty.  So the next question becomes, If we know he's done these things, what is the purpose of a trial?  Is the purpose of a trial to record history? To educate the people? Does it have any other political purpose?  And many in Iraqi society believe this is really a trial set up by Americans in order to prove how bad Saddam is so as to justify the American invasion.  And that is really the worst type of reaction that we could engender.  Because I think this is an important historic occasion to show, not only in Iraq but in the Arab world, the importance of the rule of law.  And we may just botch it up to the point that instead of being that, it would turn out to be a sort of farcical political comedy.

McDonnell:  What does the rule of law exercise in this case look like?  If everyone in this case thinks he's guilty and nobody really cares about a trial -- and basically wants to just get to it?  How do you make a rule of law situation out of that?

Bassouini:  Well, first of all there's one thing that has developed since the statute was passed, and that is my efforts with the Iraqi government and with the US government to have the law changed so that it is enacted by the current parliament of Iraq.  I should say that the new law has been adopted by the current parliament.  However, it cannot enter into effect until thirty days after publication in the official gazette.  And that hasn't occurred yet. Somebody miscalculated the time.  And so this first trial is going to go on under the old law which is the Bremer law as opposed to the new law.  That's one of the problems that we're going to have to face.  Once that's done, I think there's a political question.  I think it would be extremely important to allow Saddam as much leeway in his trial as possible.  I realize there's a danger --  he turns the trial into a political platform and all of that. But I think it is better to run the risk of letting him run at the mouth, and be prepared for it, rather than try to muzzle him and control everything and stage everything so that the trial itself looks staged and stale.

McDonnell:  And right now there's going to be one US reporter allowed in to watch it.  There are arguments over whether it should be televised.  All those dangers are right there.

Bassouini:  Well, and the problem is that the people haven't given much thought to it from a long time ago.  It's like these issues are just surfacing now as if nobody knew about them.  While the idea of preparing for this particular case has been going on now for almost six months!  It's really just another indication of how low priority this is in the scale of priorities of the Administration.  It's something the NSC hardly deals with.  DOS is out of the loop as is DOD and it's something left to the Department of Justice.  The Department of Justice is not equipped to deal with international affairs.  And it has sort of sunk down to a very low level.  With all due respect to him, the person who's in charge of running this tribunal on behalf of the US is a former state representative from New Hampshire!  It's not one of those things in which the US administration has given it high priority, is placing a high level person in charge of it.

10/21/05: PBS: Charlie Rose interviews George Packer about "The Assassins' Gate," Iraq, and the Administration

Charlie Rose:  George Packer is here.  He's a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine.  He has been covering Iraq since 2003.  He has been to the region four times and recently won an Overseas Press Club award for his reporting from there.  His book is called "The Assassins' Gate:  America in Iraq." I am pleased to have him here...  Tell me what your goal is in this?  How did you, someone who hoped for the best at the beginning of this war, it's fair to say, chronicle all of your disappointments here?... take a look at it from its beginning to where we are today?  What is it you want to tell us?

George Packer:  First of all, I wanted to tell the story of this war through the lives of individuals.  I wanted to write a book that read somewhat like a novel and yet was entirely true because the Iraq war has the problem of being extremely abstract and distant from American readers. It's an argument.  Unless you've got someone in uniform over there, it's quite passionate but it's also quite far away and all the big abstract questions of contemporary politics are immediately raised when you talk about the Iraq war.  What I wanted to do was tell it as a human story, first and last.  Because it is so complex and so tragic morally and so gripping psychologically.  I thought the best way to convey that would be through the lives of the people who have been swept up in this recent history.  The main character is a man named Kanan Makiya who is an Iraqi dissident intellectual...

Rose:  ... And who's been on this show several times.

Packer:  Yes, and had a great influence on me and on many other Americans in making a moral case for this war.  I've known him for years and in the book I trace our relationship and my growing awareness of Iraq through his writings and through our conversations.  So the beginning of the book takes a long look back at the '90's and how the idea of the Iraq war began to grow in certain circles of American policy makers and intellectuals, but also Iraq intellectuals like Kanan Makiya.

Rose:  You think he had significant influence on the neocons?

Packer:  I think they needed each other.  One of his friends told me of Ahmad Chalabi, an associate of Kanan's and a friend of Kanan's.  Chalabi needed a liberal intellectual and Kanan Makiya needed a man of power.  And they found each other.  And I think the same was true of people like Makiya and the Administration.  The Administration needed an Iraqi of bona fides -- someone who could be the Vaclev Havel, the Alexander Soljenitsin of the Iraq cause. 

Rose:  And who was that?  Makiya?

Packer: I think he's the closest we have to that kind of figure.  But unlike them, he was very unfortunate in his friends inside the Administration.  And they used each other to their own ends.  But in the end I think they became somewhat entangled in kind of an unwholesome mess!

Rose:  How would you measure his disappointment today?

Packer:  I think he's sitting on a great deal of disappointment.  He hasn't articulated it fully to me.  I expect to begin to hear it from him because although he had a realistic sense of how difficult this could be, he also had such enormous hopes that he allowed them to overcome, I think, his skepticism.  He said to the President that the troops would be greeted with sweets and flowers -- which is the one sentence he will be most remembered for!  Whether that's fair or not.  He was allowing his hopes to overwhelm his better judgment.  And someone who wanted, I think, liberal democracy for Iraq with all his being has to be crushed by the way that last two and a half years have gone.

Rose: Now let me take you where I want to go...  What's possible today?  We just saw an election about a constitution.  Some questions are being raised about irregularities, the level of support in certain provinces, etc. etc., but clearly there was significant support for a constitution.  What's the reality of where we are today and what's possible tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?

Packer:  I have two scenarios, and because my hopes have been confounded by my darker notions, I'm assuming that my darker scenario is likely to prevail.  One scenario is that Iraqi politics begin to get traction among Sunni's, Shi'a, and Kurds alike, but especially among Sunnis who until now have not been part of the political game.  They feel they were locked out.  I think the other groups in Iraq feel that they locked themselves out because they had lost power.

Rose:  Or refused to accept the reality of power that they no longer had the advantage of being 20% of the population and dominating the other 80%.

Packer:  And a lot of Sunnis think that they're still 60% of the population which is the kind of distortion that comes when you're used to power for centuries and centuries.  So if you're only 20%, you've got to expect that sort of power or you'll get an argument.  But Iraqis as individuals have an astonishing capacity for patience, for restraint, for seeing this over the long haul as something worth sacrificing for over a very long time.  Otherwise, how could they endure.

Rose:  What is the light at the end of the tunnel that they see? Those people who have the capacity to endure, capacity to accept that things have gone far worse than they expected, the capacity to know that the insurgency and everything else is larger than ever imagined...

Packer:  They just want an ordinary, decent life without Saddam's secret police, without suicide car bombings, without an Occupation, without electrical outages.  First  of all they want the absence of certain terrible things they've grown very used to living with.

Rose:  Before the war came...

Packer:  And since the war.  In many ways, some things in everyday ordinary life have gotten much worse since the war.  The one thing they have that they didn't have before is hope. 

Rose:  And freedom of expression...

Packer:  Absolutely!  Although it's dangerous.  There's freedom of expression but they don't always have freedom after expression.  Those are the things that they want and representative government that responds to their needs.  I know so many Iraqs and have heard the voices of others who want very similar things to what friends of democracy in this country and other countries would hope that they wanted.

Rose:  How is that... what they want... different than what the Administration -- George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld... We're not talking about execution now, we talking about want -- different from what they want?

Packer:  I think all along the Administration wanted above all control without responsibility.  In other words, Ahmad Chalabi was supposed to be the leader of free Iraq according to the neo-conservatives in Washington, was going to allow us to keep control over Iraqi politics and perhaps even over Iraqi oil without really having responsibilities, without having to provide security for that country.

Rose:  So you believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld wanted a client state?

Packer:  Which would have a democratic face.  Which would have people like Chalabi and Kanan Makiya in powerful positions.  Which was not brutalizing its citizens.  I don't think -- they did not want to impose another Saddam....

Rose:  ...but a state in which they had a real influence in terms of their politics and their economy.

Packer:  Absolutely!  And there was a tremendous naivete in what they expected.  Paul Wolfowitz was once interviewed by my colleague at the New Yorker, Jeff Goldberg.  And Jeff  Goldberg asked him, What if, after an election, they vote for an Islamist theocracy?  And Wolfowitz said, They won't.  Why not?  Well, 50% of them are women and they don't want it, and among the other 50% I know many of them and they don't want it.  Well, this was a pretty naive account of what a very different people might want.  So I'm neither in the camp of these new realists who believe that we have absolutely no business advocating democracy and trying to change people's culture, and that Iraq is a stubbornly undemocratic place and in fact it has no right to exist as Iraq and is going to fall apart.  I don't buy that.  But on the other hand, you can't go in with the kind of arrogance and blindness that this admininistration went in with, expecting things to go your way, simply because you don't want to prepare for alternatives.

Rose:  What's within their power now?

Packer:  Very little. That's the reality of where we are. A series of bad choices:  staying is bad, leaving is bad.  Trying to push Iraqi politics in a certain direction is bad; allowing Iraqi politics to drift in the direction of militias and religious parties tied to Iran is also bad.  So we don't have good options.  I think the key question for us is going to be whether the public is prepared to stick this out...

Rose:  The US public?

Packer: Yes, the American public.  We have not been prepared to stick this out.  We have been conditioned by the Administration to expect quick, favorable outcomes. Saddam has been captured; things are going to get better; the insurgency will end.  Sovereignty is transferred; we're going to see the end of the insurgency.  The January elections:  the insurgency is "in its last throes."  The October referendum on the constitution:  the same thing.  They've always had these benchmarks none of which has made a difference in the war.  And they won't make a difference in the war because there's a very stubborn insurgency.  That's going to take a very long time to deal with.  I worry that the short attention span of this administration has conditioned the public to expect either quick good results or "let's get out."  And I see in 2006 great likelihood that there will be a lot of pressure to get out.

Rose:  From the American public.

Packer:  And the Republican Party. 

Rose:  Fear of the election in November 2006.

Packer:  Yes, I think so.  That's where the crunch will come.  I think there will be defections in Congress among representatives who think their careers are beginning to look...

Rose:  The clock is working that way for another reason, too, which is that I think they're just waiting for the Iraqis to elect their own representatives.  Once they can get past that...that gives them an opportunity to begin discussing.  They've got a constitution.  They elected their own people.  It's up to them.  We did everything we can.  We made huge sacrifices.

Packer:  The last benchmark is that December election coming up -- a permanent government, not a six-month or one-year government but a permanent three or four year government will be in place.  Perhaps Sunnis will participate this time, more than last time.  And if so, you're absolutely right.  I see the Administration essentially declaring victory.  But it's a hollow victory, a totally hollow victory.

Rose:  But they live also with this notion -- and you reflect this through... what was the name of the father?

Packer:  Chris Frosheiser.

Rose:  You reflect that through some sense of people who've lost a lot.  How they feel about it.  What Bush said at one point:  they live with the difficulty of getting their arms around what they might have wanted to achieve and the price they've paid.

Packer:  Yes, well Chris Frosheiser whom I wrote about in my book lost his son in Baghdad and has spent the years since then trying to account for his death and its meaning.  Which means trying to explain to himself what the Iraq war is about.  And he's an extremely honest, unsparing man.  He does not spare himself the most painful questions.

Rose:  And where is he today in coming to grips with that?

Packer:  The skies have darkened a bit for him.  I think he has managed to accept that there was nobility in his son's death simply because he wanted to serve the country and duty brought him to that place.  And to him that is what's redemptive...

Rose:  His heart was a patriotic heart.

Packer:  I think... [inaudible] soldiers are there not because they don't want to work at McDonald's.   They're there because they have some higher sense of their role as citizens. 

Rose:  And they're not playing in some international geopolitical...

Packer:  Yeah.  They're not there for that either.  They are always pawns of that larger game.  But they're also serving nobly by serving at all.  So his death has a meaning in that sense.  But whether it has a meaning in the sense of a war that should have been fought and can be won...

Rose:  World War II. Packer:  Yeah. His grave is in the Memorial Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa.  And around him are the graves of veterans of World War II.  And the grass on his grave is fresh and the dirt is rich and brown.  And the tablet says, "Iraq.  November 8, 2003," and when I saw that it was quite striking and terribly sad to see this latest and as yet undetermined war.

Rose:  If, in fact, the reason for going in, as you said -- what they expected and hoped they would have -- someone like Ahman Chalabi who was not as we came to know a heroic figure but he was, as we came to know later, someone who understood the power game remarkably...

Packer:  Very well. No one could deny that.

Rose:  And if it was to create a client state -- if it was a state to have influence on rather than simply doing away with a terrible dictator and all those other goals having to do with weapons of mass destruction and terrorists, but more that side -- let's look for a way in a future of great tension and conflict having a friend that we can count on in the Middle East -- was that enough for you? In terms of the reason you supported the terms of the reason you supported it...

Packer:  It depends on what kind of client we're talking about.  I think they wanted a democratic client.  I don't doubt their sincerity when they talk about democracy simply in what they think they believe.  I doubt their judgment and their commitment to what they say they believe.  But when they talk about democracy, I don't think President Bush is misleading the public.  I don't think in secret they're talking about setting up a General Musharraf in Iraq. 

Rose:  I'm not sure.  You think Ahmad Chalabi went in there as a democrat?

Packer:  Ahmad Chalabi is a lot better than what Iraq has been used to.  But he's a manipulator and quite a devious man and he played this administration for all it was worth.  He's quite a brilliant politician.  He's an amazing figure.  For me, first of all, a negative was a prime motive for this war.  That was to get rid of the regime of Saddam Hussein.  That was, in the post-Holocaust world, to me was a moral imperative.  He is a commiter of genocide, was perhaps likely to do it again.  He was a starter of serial regional wars which killed hundreds of thousands of people.  He was a source of instability and suffering.  And his sons, who were up next when he went, were going to be perhaps five or ten times worse.  So getting rid of that regime was a very attractive part...

Rose:  ...So if there had been an inspection allowed and carried out and there had been no weapons of mass destruction, that would have been enough for you.

Packer: That was the jam I was in because inspection seemed like a great idea because it brought in the international community and it was going to reveal whether there were these weapons or not.  But I always found myself looking at the end of inspections and what if Saddam is left standing as a kind of hollow thing.  Well, yes, but we still have Saddam and Iraqis in the region are still suffering.

Rose:  You also believe that whether the WMD's were there or not, they just wanted to get rid of him.  Because they thought he was evil and because they thought he had the potential for extending that evil.

Packer:  Yeah.  And the big idea behind the war, which I did think they were committed to perhaps in a naive way, was simply to begin to undo the ideology that brought murder and war to the Middle East and terrorism to America.  Now the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam was obviously... it doesn't exist.  It was a fiction the Bush administration created.  But ideologically, Saddam, with his totalitarian rule in a part of the world where so much of this political trouble and killing is originating, I think what they wanted to do was begin the process of rolling it back by taking Iraq out of the camp of that kind of fanaticism.

Rose:  If the United States and the coalition had done everything right, had done everything right, which is unlikely in war regardless, and they had been wise enough at every turn to have brought in international people, the UN and everybody else, after they won, when the statue fell, and they understood what looting would mean if it happened, and if they had protected the right places --if all that had happened and they had bought the plan which came out of the State Department for reconstruction -- it would have turned out okay?  Or was there something indigenous to this ideal, to this country, that made the idea impossible.

Packer:  I don't think it was inevitable.  I don't really believe in historical inevitability in that way.  I think countries are always capable of surprising us and taking turns in their own history.  People who say, for example, that the Bosnia war had to happen because they've always fought each other.  Or that the Rwanda genocide was just part of the way they've always treated each other in that country.  Essentially these are saying, "It's none of our business.  There's nothing we can do about it.  We have to stay out."  An argument like that about Iraq would have struck me similarly.  It may have been a lot harder in Iraq...

Rose:  ...So you believe it was possible.  That it was possible to achieve a result that the world would have admired.

Packer:  Over a period of time.  It would have taken a long time, a lot of commitment.  But I've been to Iraq enough and talked to enough Iraqis to know they had it in their own hearts -- most of them -- that they wanted this too.  They wanted their country to have a decent government and for themselves to have a decent life.

Rose:  You want responsibility and accountability to be the focus. 

Packer:  Well, they won't do themselves; someone has to do it for them.  I think they have this notion that as soon as they admit anything by way of a mistake, they'll be destroyed politically.  Richard Perle said to me -- I asked Richard Perle:  "Do you ever had doubts?"  And he said, "Of course, we have them all the time but it would be fatal to show them in public."

Rose:  You see, whenever anyone says that to me, I think they're prepared to lie in public.

Packer: Oh, I think that's true!  I think we've see that over and over again.  And one thing Leslie Gelb, formerly of the Council on Foreign Relations, said to me was, he was in the Johnson administration...

Rose:  ...in the State Department...

Packer:  ... during Vietnam.  Yeah, exactly.  And in the Pentagon.  And he said -- he's the director of the Pentagon papers -- he said "That was a liberal's war.  Only liberals look back and see if they were right or wrong."  The neo-conservatives look around for the stab in the back.  And I think what we'll see from this administration when their memoirs are written is not, Were we wrong, or Yes we were wrong, but rather We've been stabbed in the back! 

Rose:  By?

Packer:  The State Department!  The press!

Rose:  But they're so triumphal over the State Department.  Did they triumph over the State Department?

Packer:  They did!  Donald Rumsfeld was given control over post-war Iraq.

Rose:  And you say Donald Rumsfeld didn't give a damn about Iraq!

Packer:  He didn't!

Rose:  He just wanted to get in there and get out.

Packer:  He did.  That's right.  His spokesman, Larry DeRita went to Kuwait to join Garner's group before they went into Baghdad to take over the administration of Iraq. Someone there said, "We need to show the Iraqis benefits right away."  And he said, "We don't owe them a damn thing.  We're giving them their freedom.  That's enough."  That was a reflection of the Secretary of Defense's view.

Rose:  But didn't Jay Garner think they'd be out of there in 90 days or something?  And the State Department plan was to run the reconstruction.  And later the Pentagon plan.

Packer:  Well, the Pentagon plan.  And he was Rumsfeld's man.  And he was in over his head.  I think Jay Garner was an honest man and of their ideology but he was in over his head. 

Rose:  What's your evaluation of Paul Bremer's...

Packer:  My sense is, Bremer really took charge.  And a lot of people in the White House and the State Department complained that he was kind of a one-man show over there and that he'd run amok and was not reporting back and he'd kind of run off the reservation...  One official said to me that Bremer's organization is sort of a foreign country.  It's become another government over in Baghdad and we're just trying to get information from him.  Bremer's a man who loved control and in the end he actually managed to take control away from the White House and the Pentagon himself.  And I think he's responsible for a good deal of the mistakes of the occupation.

Rose:  He has a lot to live with then.

Packer:  Yeah.  I don't know whether he knows it.  One administration official said to me, "Of all the people in this administration, the one who has trouble sleeping at night is Paul Wolfowitz."  And I asked why, and he said "Because he has a conscience."  And I said, "What about the others?"  And he said, "I'm not sure!"

Rose:  Dick Cheney.

Packer:  Oh, I don't think he has any trouble sleeping at night at all. 

Rose:  Because he's a true believer?  Or because he's just an international...

Packer:  I think first of all he's a ruthless political fighter.  And for him the Iraq war has always been about politics, and about consolidating Republican power, and about making it difficult for the opposition.

Rose:  He's not about defeating terrorism?

Packer:  He's about that too. I'm sure he believed in Saddam's nuclear bomb!  I'm sure he did!  He convinced himself.  But the way he conducted himself and he way the Administration did, they divided this country when we needed to be united.  We were about to embark on this massively difficult roll of the dice.  And instead of making sure that all factions were at least willing to see it through, they made sure that the country was polarized.  And they've been paying the price for that ever since.

Rose: I've never [inaudible] Powell so I have no idea of what he's like, but it seems to me that you pointed out a whole range of things, and this is a small example, {inaudible] Condi Rice, National Security Advisor.   And then said no.  Like they did not want to hear somebody... because I've always raised this question across the board with people who come here and in private conversations, What did they want to hear!  It's one thing to acknowledge it in public, whatever you believe about a united front.  That's one thing.  It's another thing to make sure you're right in private.  To make sure that you [inaudible].  And this goes to the part of Bob Woodward's question to George Bush:  "Did you ever talk to your father about this?"  And he said "I appealed to a higher father."  How much were they seeking out, to know the truth?  To know the risk? To understand the difference?

Packer:  In that case, that you mentioned, Condoleezza Rice was actually seeking it.  Leslie Gelb went to her with this plan that several think tanks would sort of form a consortium and give the Administration a range of options on postwar Iraq.  And she said, "Great idea!  We won't have time to do it ourselves."  It got sunk when the American Enterprise Institute, which she insisted on being part of this, said, "That's nation building and the President doesn't do nation building!"  And then Condi Rice was forced.  It was as if the tail was wagging the dog.  The AEI told her not to do anything!  She was open to the idea.  But that to me means she knew better. But she still didn't do the right thing. It was because of politics, because AEI said "This isn't going to fly with our conservative base."

Rose:  How much introspection was there? In private?  How much did George Bush reach out to say, "Should I believe these generals?  Should I believe the guys in the Pentagon?"  We don't have any evidence of Colin Powell, knowing where he came from?  And how much respect he had coming in?  Was asked to come over to the White House?  "Tell me what I'm doing right and wrong?  You've done this before."

Packer:  Well, I'll give you two incidents in my book.  Colin Powell's last meeting with the President in January of 2005, he finally told Bush what he'd been thinking all along -- not just about Iraq but about Bush's foreign policy.  That the Pentagon had too much control.  That they didn't understand the need to negotiate.  The importance of alliances.  And that the strategy about Iraq was failing.  Obviously these were things that he'd been keeping to himself for a long time and he felt he could only say them to the President when he was saying goodbye.  And the President was giving him every cue to cut it short.  "This isn't how I'm used to being addressed in the Oval Office."  But Colin Powell talked it through to the end because he had nothing to lose any longer.  The other story:  When Jay Garner came back from Iraq in May of 2003, he was brought to the White House for his sort of farewell conversation with the President by Rumsfeld.  This was Bush's chance to talk to the man who had been on the ground, his representative in Iraq, and ask him, "How's it really going, Jay?  Where are the problems?  What do we need to worry about? What's down the road?"  And instead it was kind of a back-slapping session in which they all congratulated each other on how well Operation Iraqi Freedom was going.  But I don't think the President is interested in those points of view.  I don't think he wants to hear it.

Rose:  In your eyes was it worth it?  this war?

Packer:  I've come to feel that for this country it was not.  At least in the foreseeable future one can't make the case.  With the dead and wounded, with the cost to our standing in the world, with the amazing focus of all of our energies on this one place to the exclusion of others, with the division at home, and with the situation in Iraq, with the beehive that we've kicked, I don't see how anyone can say it was worth it for us in the short term.  For Iraqis -- and this is a very different question, and very few Americans are going to say that Iraqis interests should affect our policies -- I think it's possible that it will have been worth it and maybe even in the next five years.  I don't know.  But for us it wasn't worth it.

10/17/05: NPR: Interview with Irvin Nathan about Fitzgerald, Grand Jury, the legalities of possible indictments

Robert Siegel:  One thing you have to say about Patrick Fitzgerald. He runs a very tight ship.  We have no idea what his plans are in terms of possible indictments.  But lawyers familiar with criminal law know there is a limited universe of offenses that might have been committed and might be the subject of indictments.  Irvin Nathan is a Washington defense lawyer and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department.

Robert Siegel:  One of the areas of possible wrong-doing that we read references to is a person being less than forthright with the FBI or the Grand Jury about what he said about Valerie Plame.  What's the range of offenses that a prosecutor might be thinking of in this regard?

Irvin Nathan: Well.. I have no inside information from Mr. Fitzgerald or from his staff and I think he's done an excellent job of maintaining in confidence what his plans are.  It is quite often the case that, with respect to investigations that start on one basis they end up going off on false statements to the FBI or false statements at the Grand Jury.  There also can be obstruction of justice and there can be a conspiracy to obstruct justice both by agreeing with others as to false statements and false testimony to make, and encouraging others to make false statements could also be included as an offense.

Siegel:  And is it really common for various kinds of lying to be brought as criminal charges, lying about saying or doing something without charging somebody for saying or doing that?  That is, without the underlying offense also being charged.

Nathan:  Yes, and I point to the case of Martha Stewart as a good example.  She was not charged with insider trading.  But she was charged for misleading the SEC concerning that matter and she was convicted.  It is quite common to bring those kinds of charges.  They are easier to prove, and there are a lot details on other statutes that may be difficult to prove as substantive offenses.

Siegel:  Disclosing Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA agent brings both a narrow law into play -- one that's just about CIA agents -- but doesn't it also raise alarms about the unauthorized release of classified information as covered by other laws?

Nathan:  Yes, absolutely.  And that is a difficult statute to prove. It's rarely been used because you have to prove that the person who identified the agent knew that the agent was a covert agent, and that the US was taking action to protect the identity of such a covert agent.  But with respect to classified information, the statutes are broader and the leaking of classified information is also an offense.

Siegel:  If in fact getting Valerie Plame's connection to the CIA proved to be the basis for some kind of criminal charge, whether it was a violation of the use of classified materials or even the narrower law, could a reporter conceivably be named as an unindicted co-conspirator -- or indicted?

Nathan:  I think it is possible.  I don't think that it would be consistent with the policies of the Department of Justice -- and Mr. Fitzgerald is, of course, a representative of the Department of Justice -- to bring charges against the reporters, but it is not impossible to conceive of such a circumstance or to conceive of a reporter in these situations as an unindicted co-conspirator. 

Siegel:  The Grand Jury is near the end of its term. Is that it for this grand jury, or can Mr. Fitzgerald extent the Grand Jury, keep it going longer?

Nathan:  There can be an extension of the Grand Jury by order of the Court.  It's also possible and happens frequently that proceedings before one grand jury can be transferred to another grand jury.  And so the investigation could continue beyond the end of this month, but I would expect that Mr. Fitzgerald would do all he could to wrap it up by that time.

Siegel:  What I'm hearing from you -- again, no inside information at all here -- is that what we're like to hear over the next couple of weeks will be either indictments or, if not, then the tight ship has been running will just sail off and we'll never know what happened aboard!

Nathan:  Well, that is certainly a possibility -- that there will be a declination and no explanation.  This has a peculiar situation of course because a number of the witnesses before the Grand Jury were journalists who will undoubtedly want to write about their experiences -- and obviously some have!  So we may learn something.  But if there's a declination, we are not likely to get the official reason and the version of events that the prosecutor and his staff have put together.

10/10/05: NPR: Interview: Michael Osterholm: The likelihood of a "bird flu"-- H5N1 -- pandemic

NPR intro:  Health Secretary Michael Levitt is in Thailand today.  It's the first stop in a tour of 4 southeast Asian nations hit by bird flu.  Levitt is meeting with leaders in the region to urge greater cooperation in containing the disease which has killed more than 60 people in Asia.  Speaking today in Bangkok, Levitt spoke about fears that the virus could become "pandemic."  Levitt's trip comes as the US prepares for a flu pandemic.  According to a report leaked to the New York Times, the government's most recent draft of a plan calls for most decisions to be made at the local level with support from the military. To talk about this, we phoned Professor Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.  He's an advisor to the government and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

Steve Inskeep:  If a major flu pandemic hit the US, how prepared is the US government?

Michael Osterholm: Well, first of all it's not just the US government.  The real question is how prepared is the world.  We'll all be in this together.  The answer is, very poorly prepared.  Regardless of whether it is a federal, state, or local agency, an international agency or private sector company, we have a lot to do to become better prepared for such an event.

Inskeep:  Levitt is in Asia warning people there that the preparations are not adequate.  Is that also true of the preparations by the US government?

Osterholm:  Well, in fact it is true and I think Secretary Levitt is really sounding the clarion call to say that we have much more to do and that it's not just a Department of Health and Human Services issue, or any one department of government, but a full-fledged pandemic which would be something we'd experience for at least 12 to 18 months around the world is something that's going to require many different facets of our life to be about healthcare.  The private sector business side, state and local government, all these.  So that's what he's trying to raise the awareness of at this time.

Inskeep:  Is there enough vaccine to deal with this?

Osterholm:  Well, vaccine unfortunately will become something of an irrelevant issue in the early days of the pandemic.  Today we have a very dated, archaic system for  supplying influenza vaccine.  It's one, as you are well aware of from last year, just to provide the routine every winter type of vaccine, fell far short because of manufacturing problems.  We still use basically a 1950's technology to make this vaccine in eggs.  On a world-wide capacity basis right now, if we used all the pipes, all the machines, all the buildings, all the expertise for flu vaccine production, we would only produce enough vaccine to protect about 88- to 100,000,000 people world-wide in 12 months. That's just a small percentage of the world's population.  So the problem is right now we don't have a system to make influenza vaccine.  And unfortunately as a world -- not just as a country but as a world -- we have not invested in that over the past decade and we're now paying the price should a pandemic suddenly emerge. 

Inskeep:  I want to make sure I understand this.  You said a vaccine would be "irrelevant" in the early days of a pandemic.  Is that because, no matter what people do, there won't be enough of it?

Osterholm:  There won't only not be enough of it but the fact of the matter is that we will need two doses with this new strain.  The first dose we could possibly use the virus we've currently been working with.  In other words, a pre-pandemic strain such as early H5N1 strain.  But you really want to have the actual circulating virus itself, the one that actually begins the pandemic, to be the ultimate vaccine strain. And of course we can't get that until the pandemic begins.  Then you're talking about 6 to 8 months to get the first doses of the vaccine out of the manufacturing process.  So, as you can see, in a world of modern transportation where we travel around the globe overnight, and this pandemic could be expected to be transported at the same speed, we're going to be dealing with the pandemic for six to eight months before we get the first doses of real vaccine into the public's hands, and then, like all the rest of the world, this country will only have a very small and limited amount of that vaccine.  We're going to be on our own without vaccine as we deal with this situation. 

Inskeep:  Do you believe a pandemic, a huge spread of this disease, could happen?  or will happen?

Osterholm:  First of all, pandemics are not a question of if they will happen. Just as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes occur, so do pandemics.  There have been ten of them in the past 300 years.  The question that we really have before us is how big and how bad and when will it start?  The last pandemic was in 1968.  It was a relatively mild one compared to the 1918 pandemic.  What we worry about today is that the next one will be like the 1918 event.  The data of recent weeks, looking at 1918 -- a pandemic that killed 50 to 100,000,000 people worldwide at a time when the world's population was only 1/3 of what it is today -- shows us that the potential now with H5N1 has many parallels with the 1918 virus.  So this is why Secretary Levitt and others are trying so hard to wake the world up, scare them into their wits, not out of their wits, as to the fact that this is a real potential and we have to be better prepared.

Inskeep:  How does the emergency response to a pandemic compare to a hurricane or a flood?

Osterholm:  Absolutely different in the sense that, first of all, it will last 12 to 18 months -- not days -- and then go to recovery phase.  The second thing is that we're talking about catastrophic numbers.  In the US, the current plan says that it could be up to 1.9 million deaths -- and I believe that to be the case.

10/5/05: NPR interview: Michelle Norris talks with US Muslim Army Chaplain, James Yee, about Guantanamo and his own imprisonment.

Audio available here.

Michelle Norris: James Yee is the former Army Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay ["G'mo"].  He was wrongfully accused of aiding Al Qaeda.  Now he's published a memoir.  The book provides a rare look inside the detention camp.  Hundreds of what the Pentagon calls "suspected terrorists" are locked away indefinitely, most without charges filed against them.  Captain Yee, a West Point graduate, advised Army commanders at G'mo about Islam and he was a spiritual advisor and confidante to the detainees.  Then in 2003 Yee was arrested under suspicion of espionage and helping the enemy.  He spent 76 days in solitary confinement in conditions not unlike what he saw at G'mo.  The allegations were later dropped.  Yee talked with us today, telling his side of the story.  For one thing, he says anti-Muslim sentiments ran high in the Army at G'mo and religion was often used to control or manipulate prisoners.

James Yee: I saw the Korans with the bindings literally torn into bits from the guards who had inspected them.  Initially when I got down there, guards were allowed to search all the cells as you would expect.  And that included the actual holy text itself.  They were treated like they were any other object. This is why they resulted in torn and ripped bindings with pages.  And this all happened in front of the prisoners who took offense from that.  And I was very much a part of trying to find solutions.  Because when the prisoners got upset over the disrespect of the Koran, it led to protests, it led to riots within the cell-block.  And when that happened, then the prisoners would have to get punished.  So these tensions led to forceful extractions of prisoners.  It was a violent process to transfer that prisoner to another cell.  And that happened over and over and over again...

Norris:  You weren't present during interrogations, but you would talk to the detainees.  And from what I understand from reading your book, they would actually confide in you about some of the things that happened during that process.  What would they tell you?

Yee:  They would talk about some of the things that happened to them in the interrogations because they trusted me -- that I would address these to the command to try and stop some of these things that were going on.  Some of those complaints revolved around abuse of the Koran, some of them around abuse of the detainees themselves.  One particular incident -- prisoners complained that the Koran was actually kicked along the floor.  And, interestingly enough, the translator did come to me with that concern to inform me that he was disturbed that the interrogator had done this.  This caused riots that led to disturbances within the camp to the extent that I believe even the intelligence section of the operation felt that the incident had disrupted the entire interrogation process.

Norris: Newsweek reported that the Koran was actually flushed down the toilet and that it was pasted with offensive materials.  You talked about guards searching the Korans and sometimes tearing the binding and dropping them on the ground.  Did you have any knowledge of the Koran actually being flushed down the toilet?

Yee: My knowledge of that incident -- though I can't speak directly on it... One particular conversation I had with a prisoner did refer to his time at Camp X-Ray which was prior to Camp Delta and prior to my deployment.  They had at the time in this makeshift prison buckets which the prisoners had to use as a toilet.  And prisoners told me that the Koran had ended up in the toilet buckets back in Camp X-Ray.  Again, this was before my arrival.

Norris: The nation is repeatedly reminded by the White House that the US is at war against terrorism and terrorists.  And some would argue that it's legitimate to use every tool the US has within reason to combat terrorism.  What would you say to that?

Yee: I think fighting terrorism is important.  And I think national security is a priority.  We do need to be safe and secure within our own country.  But we also have to look at the freedoms that this country stands for.  And why we uphold certain values like religious freedom and diversity.  When you take away those freedoms, you are actually undermining the strength of what makes this nation great.

Norris:  So when detainees had concerns, complaints -- when there were allegations of abuse -- you brought those to your command.  Were you concerned at all that you were in fact being used by those who were housed at G'mo?

Yee:  Initially -- before I went down there -- I had no idea what my role was going to be in terms of specifics.  However, I was very unsure how I was going to be used, if I was even going to be seriously used in the operation or rather just as a showpiece to be down there so that the command or administration could say Yes, we have a military chaplain down there, therefore we are being very sensitive to the religious needs of the prisoners.

Norris:  What about the prisoners?  Were you concerned that at some point you were being used or manipulated by the detainees?

Yee: One of the things that I did make clear to the detainees was that I would listen to their concerns and address them to the command.  And that it wasn't within my capacity as chaplain to make those command decisions.  There's a balance that has to be made there.  I was someone who was effectively able to balance both the unique religious paradigm of the operation as well as security concerns that we necessary, especially in detention operations anywhere.

Norris:  There are some who might dismiss your book as payback toward the Pentagon after charges were filed against you and later dismissed.  Because you only wrote about these things after you were ill-treated.  Is there an element of payback here?

Yee: So you're suggesting some people may say I wrote this as payback?

Norris:  That you may have been motivated by anger...

Yee:  What I've really been motivated by in writing this book was that by writing this book I can help others and insure that what happened to me doesn't happen to anyone else.  What happened to me was clearly... a gross miscarriage of justice.  And I suffered through a very difficult, trying ordeal.  But by writing this book, my motivation is that if this helps prevent what happened to me from happening to anyone else, then I've made a huge contribution.  It's a lesson about why the values of diversity, religious freedom, and justice are very important to everyone.

Norris:  You have an honorable discharge, a commendation medal.  You also wanted an apology.  Did you ever get it?

Yee:  I've not gotten an apology.  And I hope that one day I'll get that apology.  So I bring up this note that, yes, after my ordeal, the Department of Defense Inspector General did agree to investigate my case as to how it was that Captain James Yee landed in prison for 76 days -- why did it all happen?  Was it my faith  that was scrutinized or part of the reason why I was thrown in prison?  Did the military follow the proper procedures and treat me properly as an officer?  That investigation is ongoing.  Perhaps that will lead to what I believe is a very deserving apology.

Democracy Now! devoted the full program today to a long interview with James Yee.  You can read it and/or listen to it here.  The home page also has photos of Yee and prisoners.

10/3/05: NPR Report from Baghdad: Anne Garrels inside the Green Zone, the "Bunker Bar," with US contractors and private security forces.

Intro:   Now, a trip inside Baghdad's Green Zone.  The fortified compound occupies four square miles of prime real estate in the center of town.  It's a tightly sealed city-within-and-city where the US Embassy and Iraqi government are based along with thousands of American troops and contractors.  The US government has refused to give official tours to journalists, so NPR's Anne Garrels took an unofficial one.

Anne Garrels:  It's a Thursday night, the beginning of Iraq's weekend when the denizens of the Green Zone are said to party. A friend, who must remain anonymous lest she lose her job, has the necessary credentials and escorted me into what can only be described as the ultimate gated community. [Sounds of being transported in a car.]

Guide/friend:  On the left we've got the CIA compound.  On the right we've got the [  ] compound.  And then on the left here we've got Bechtel -- Bechtel, the engineering company...

Garrels:  Companies doing reconstruction and companies hired to protect them.   Companies which provide supplies, and those who protect them!   And then there are the bureaucrats who oversee the tens of thousands of contracts all of this generates. Forts within forts -- dozens of them!  Surrounded by 14' concrete blast walls.

Guide:  I bet you'd have enough concrete right here in these barriers to supply half a million constructions in Iraq!

Garrels:  Though attacks here are down from a year ago, security is tighter than ever.  There are regular checkpoints.

Guide:  How's it goin'?

Guard:  Great.  Yourself?

Guide:  I'm all right!  Take care!

Garrels:  With the exception of a few key spots manned by the Marines, security is in the hands of private contractors.  The guards come from all over:  Fiji, Sri Lanka... and now Iraqi forces are taking over some areas.  US officials are concerned about infiltration by insurgents.

Guide:  Another checkpoint.  This time it's the Gurkhas.  Watch this!  Yo!...

Garrels: Whether it's her rudimentary Nepalese, her smile, or the green stripe on her badge, we get waved through without ado.

Guide:  And this is the kind of general shopping area

Garrels:  A PX catering to basic needs -- a Burger King, a Subway, and an expresso bar -- our ill-fated destination. [Music]

Hostess:  Hi!

Guide:  Oh, no coffee?

Hostess: [dramatically]  No!  No watta!  I'm sorree.

Garrels:  Hired as a waitress by some contractor, 20-year-old Claudia is a blonde from Romania.  Given the shortage of women, it's fair to assume she has a pretty active social life here... Next stop, the Blue Star Cafe.  Business is far from bustling because the Department of Defense has put the few private restaurants here off-bounds for their direct employees citing unspecified threats. 35-year-old Steve Lawless and and 53-year-old Eric Dynhart, both self-confessed geeks, work for a contractor providing computer services for the Iraqi police and military. 

Steve Lawless:  It's interesting.  And, you know, we're happy to create a better Iraq and hey, there's the money! 

Garrels:  Steve Lawless kind of slurred the part about "it pays well."  In the 16 or so months he and Eric have been here, they've never left the Green Zone.

Eric Dynhart:  It's danger out there. There's no doubt about that.  It's more dangerous out there than it is in here. Garrels:  They are weighted down by security badges.

Steve:  I've got one, two, three, four, five, six... and my other one I don't carry with me.  Seven!

Garrels:  You have to go to different badging offices for each badge? 

Steve:  At least one badging office for each badge!  Some require up to three!

Garrels:  Travelling to the next destination, it becomes obvious that the necessary security measures can drive you a little nutty!

Guide:  I'm going to drive faster over these speed bumps because I can't take this slow stuff anymore.  Let's see what happens to the car. [grinding sounds, bangs]   That was painful!

Garrels:  The Liberty Pool complex is the most recent addition to the Green Zone and it's pretty luxurious.  Covered pool, water slides, exercise rooms.  Sitting on the patio, Marine Chief Warrant Officer Morris Honeywood is counting the months till he can go home...

Morris Honeywood:  You know, it's been a special week.  It's been interesting.  Any day I'm here is a good day. 

Garrels:  Any day you're in Iraq?

Honeywood:  No.  Breathing.  [laughs]  Any day I'm breathing is a good day!

Garrels:  As we head for a watering hole called the Bunker Bar, my friend stashes her weapons.  Have you ever used your gun?

Guide:  Never!  The point here is to get the convoy from point A to point B, to get the drivers there alive, to get the cargo there with integrity.  It's not to engage in fights. 

Garrels:  But the shooting of Iraqi civilians, allegedly involving a legion of American and other foreign security contractors operating here, has created problems for the US military who say they have no authority over them.  There's a big divide between the military and American security contractors whose heavy presence stems in large part from the Pentagon's attempts to keep troop numbers down by privatizing jobs that would once have been performed by American troops.  Partly it's because of the difference in pay, partly because the contractors can drink.  The Bunker Bar was set up by a contractor which works with bombs and bomb dogs. There are no troops here. [bar sounds, talk, laughter]

TJ McClaren:  The solders are not allowed under General Order #1 to drink shouldn't know about this place.  We don't brag about it.  So we don't want to insult our fellow soldiers.  So we don't talk about it.  We keep it exclusive...

Garrels:  TJ McClaren supervises contracts for a company that's helping to train and supply the new Iraqi army.  A booming business these days.  The Bunker's walls are covered with deadly devices and weapons, the ceiling draped with parachutes.  The clientele includes Australians, Brits, Americans and Eastern Europeans.  Several resemble beefed-up Yul Brynners.  Steroids are said to be this war's drug of choice.  There's a no-photo policy because many drinking here work undercover.

TJ:  Everyone of these men here make between 15 and 20 thousand a month.  They came here to earn a living that they probably will have never again in their life.

Garrels:  One thing missing is women.

TJ:  It's a difficult lifestyle and yes, there's a lot of testosterone floating around

Garrels: McClaren has been here for two years.

TJ:  I believe in the cause and I always have.

Garrels:  You think it's been done well?

TJ:  No.  I've been part of the mess and know that's it's not been done that well.  It's an unprecedented kind of thing that we're doing right now so, yes, we'll make mistakes.  The colossal mistakes that we made under Jerry Bremer -- we still undoing some of that.  But by and large, I've seen improvements from one year to the next.  So it's incrementally getting better.

Garrels:  McClaren makes no predictions on how long he'll be here.

10/2/05: Interview: Foreman of Grand Jury which indicted Tom DeLay

NPR's Sunday Weekend Edition aired an interview today with the foreman of the Grand Jury which indicted Tom DeLay last week. 

This is undoubtedly the same man I heard on Austin's KLBJ asserting the complete independence of the Grand Jury proceedings. 

I'm going to transcribe here in full his interview with Wade Goodwyn on NPR. LeeAnn Hanson introduces the segment, noting that "DeLay was accused of conspiring to evade Texas campaign finance laws and faces up to two years in prison if convicted.  DeLay, his lawyers, and fellow Republican politicians have denounced the indictment as a vindictive, partisan legal attack.  But the foreman of the Travis County Grand Jury says the indictment was no witch-hunt and there was more than enough evidence to charge the congressman."  NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports:

Wade Goodwyn:  At 76 years old, William Gibson is retired from his long career as an investigator for the State Board of Insurance.  In April of this year he was picked for a 90-day stint on a Travis County grand jury.  Mr. Gibson didn't know it, but he was about to serve on one of the most famous grand juries in Texas history. Since issuing their indictment of House Speaker [sic] Tom DeLay five days ago, the Grand Jury action has been the object of considerable derision by Republicans.  So among the first things the jury foreman wants to say about all this is that the five men and six women he served with are people of integrity.

William Gibson:  We had Democrats, we had Republicans and we had some Independents on it.  And this was not a hand-picked grand jury.

Goodwyn:  Between robberies and auto thefts, Gibson's grand jury heard evidence about a political action committee started by Tom DeLay called TRMPAC -- Texans for a Republican Majority.  In 2002, TRMPAC's objective was to raise money to elect a majority of Republicans to the Texas House for the first time since Reconstruction.  With DeLay's help, TRMPAC raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate contributions.  But in Texas, it's illegal to use union or corporate contributions for political campaigning.  That's what Gibson's grand jury was investigating:  whether Tom DeLay had conspired with two of his associates to launder nearly $200,000 in corporate contributions to seven Republican candidates to the Texas House.

Gibson:  What we were looking at was a broad spectrum of information and evidence that was presented to us.

Goodwyn:  The facts in the case aren't, in fact, in dispute.  One issue was whether this action was illegal under Texas law.  In a civil suit against TRMPAC, a state judge has already ruled this was money-laundering.  Still, that was in civil court.  But if illegal, it leads to another big question.  Did Tom DeLay know about this alleged money-laundering and did he participate in it?  Gibson says, based on the documents and evidence he saw, there is no question about it.

Gibson:  I would not have put my name on that indictment had I not been convinced there was sufficient evidence to proceed.  I did not sway.  It was put up to a vote and it was, I would say, a unanimous decision that an indictment be returned.

Goodwyn:  It takes only 9 out of the 12 grand jurors to issue an indictment.  But Gibson says there was no argument. He says there were emails and phone-logs that convinced them DeLay knew about the scheme.  When asked if there was any uncertainty on the part of any of the grand jurors, Gibson was definitive if not effusive:

Gibson:  No!

Goodwyn:  There's an old saying that any DA worth his salt can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.  But it's also true that grand juries can grasp their power and take seriously their commission for justice.  If you ask William Gibson whether DA Ronnie Earle might have been leading them by the nose, Gibson takes quick offense:

Gibson:  And you can be assured that Mr. Earle did not come and tell us, "I want this... I want that."  And I'm quite sure that Mr. Earle did not persuade us in any form or fashion.  It wasn't Mr. Earle that indicted Mr. DeLay.  It was the Travis County Grand Jury.

Goodwyn:  If there is one regret that Gibson has in all of this, it's that Congressman DeLay never came to talk to the Grand Jury.  Gibson said the House Majority Leader had an open invitation.  After the indictment, DeLay denied he'd been asked to appear before them.  But on Friday, DeLay's lawyers conceded Gibson's position.  Gibson says they just wanted to hear DeLay's side.

Gibson:  We wanted to talk with him, see if he could enlighten us on his side of the story.  We kept getting "He may come, he may come" and then he didn't show up.  As I say, he'll have his day in court and I don't regret what this Grand Jury did.  I'll stand behind our indictment and I'll tell Mr. DeLay that right to his face.

Goodwyn:  William Gibson predicts that those who believe there is no evidence against the former House Majority Leader are going to be surprised once the case gets underway.