'Wash Post' Obtains Shocking Memo from U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

By Greg Mitchell

Published: June 19, 2006 6:20 PM ET

NEW YORK The Washington Post has obtained a cable, marked "sensitive," that it says shows that just before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, "the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees."

This cable outlines, the Post reported Sunday, "the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government."

It's actually far worse than that, as the details published below indicate, which include references to abductions, threats to women's rights, and "ethnic cleansing."

A PDF copy of the cable shows that it was sent to the SecState in Washington, D.C. from "AMEmbassy Baghdad" on June 6. The typed name at the very bottom is Khalilzad -- the name of the U.S. Ambassador, though it is not known if this means he wrote the memo or merely approved it.

The subject of the memo is: "Snapshots from the Office -- Public Affairs Staff Show Strains of Social Discord."

As a footnote in one of the 23 sections, the embassy relates, "An Arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province, as political parties and their militiast are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq."

Among the other troubling reports:

-- "Personal safety depends on good relations with the 'neighborhood' governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. The central government, our staff says, is not relevant; even local mukhtars have been displaced or coopted by militias. People no longer trust most neighbors."

-- One embassy employee had a brother-in-law kidnapped. Another received a death threat, and then fled the country with her family.

-- Iraqi staff at the embassy, beginning in March and picking up in May, report "pervasive" harassment from Islamist and/or militia groups. Cuts in power and rising fuel prices "have diminished the quality of life." Conditions vary but even upscale neighborhoods "have visibly deteriorated" and one of them is now described as a "ghost town."

-- Two of the three female Iraqis in the public affairs office reported stepped-up harassment since mid-May...."some groups are pushing women to cover even their face, a step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative." One of the women is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats.

-- It has also become "dangerous" for men to wear shorts in public and "they no longer allow their children to play outside in shorts." People who wear jeans in public have also come under attack.

-- Embassy employees are held in such low esteem their work must remain a secret and they live with constant fear that their cover will be blown. Of nine staffers, only four have told their families where they work. They all plan for their possible abductions. No one takes home their cell phones as this gives them away. One employee said criticism of the U.S. had grown so severe that most of her family believes the U.S. "is punishing populations as Saddam did."

-- Since April, the "demeanor" of guards in the Green Zone has changed, becoming more "militia-like," and some are now "taunting" embassy personnel or holding up their credentials and saying loudly that they work in the embassy: "Such information is a death sentence if overheard by the wrong people." For this reason, some have asked for press instead of embassy credentials.

-- "For at least six months, we have not been able to use any local staff members for translation at on-camera press events....We cannot call employees in on weekends or holidays without blowing their 'cover.'"

-- "More recently, we have begun shredding documents printed out that show local staff surnames. In March, a few staff members approached us to ask what provisions would we make for them if we evacuate."

-- The overall environment is one of "frayed social networks," with frequent actual or perceived insults. None of this is helped by lack of electricity. "One colleague told us he feels 'defeated' by circumstances, citing his example of being unable to help his two-year-old son who has asthma and cannot sleep in stifling heat," which is now reaching 115 degrees.

-- "Another employee tell us that life outside the Green Zone has become 'emotionally draining.' He lives in a mostly Shiite area and claims to attend a funeral 'every evening.'"

-- Fuel lines have grown so long that one staffer spent 12 hours in line on his day off. "Employees all confirm that by the last week of May, they were getting one hour of power for every six hours without. ... One staff member reported that a friend lives in a building that houses a new minister; within 24 hours of his appointment, her building had city power 24 hours a day."

-- The cable concludes that employees' "personal fears are reinforcing divisive sectarian or ethnic channels, despite talk of reconciliation by officials."


http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690071

The US should leave Iraq. Why would you mortgage your countries future to help these animals? Wouldn't the money be better spend on a Republican tax break to big corporations?

they're not animals. they are, however, different from us. and they live differently. and it should be that way. let them be how they are.

Well put, they are not animals, just different which is fine.

Yes.

Their society is incapable of democracy. They are too racist, too tied up in a violent religion, and to accepting of mass-murder to handle it. They did not earn their democracy, and like all things unearned, they do not value it. I see no reason why one more American soldier should die for them.

While we're on the subject of getting the fuck out, The Rude One has been rather lucid this week.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2006/06/ ... on-as.html

6/20/2006
Cutting and Running - A History Lesson:

As the frothing right madly pounces on any intimation that the United States should get the fuck out of Iraq before it engulfs us into a swirl of dusty insanity, screaming "Cut and run" with all the pathetic force of "flip-flop" before it, it would do us well to remind the right that they are, essentially, saying that Ronald Reagan was a big pussy. For history is a harsh motherfucker. It'll drag you by the short hairs into the alley and beat you unconscious before it fucks your anus raw so that you wake up, bruised, sphincter bleeding, confused, only thinking, "Goddamn, history just kicked my ass."

'Cause nobody'd accuse Caspar Weinbergerof being a limp-wristed lefty when he was the Gipper's Secretary of Defense. Tough-minded son of a bitch oversaw Reagan's massive, budget-wrecking build-up of the military, wanted him some Star Wars, and kicked commie surfer ass in Grenada. Say what you will about Cap Weinberger, he had the backs of the military a great deal more than, say, Donald Rumsfeld, getting them pay raises, benefits, and outlining the Weinberger Doctrine of military intervention (later appropriated by Colin Powell). And, perhaps just as importantly, he wanted the United States to get the fuck out of Lebanon months before the Beirut barracks bombing in October 1983.

From Lou Cannon's book President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, page 361: With Secretary of State George Shultz and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane "making patriotism the test of U.S. commitment in Lebanon, Weinberger was on the losing side of the national security argument. 'He [Reagan] was being told all this stuff,' Weinberger said. 'Marines don't cut and run. Americans don't run when the going gets tough. Americans don't pull down the flag. I said, "Nonsense, they're not doing any good over there." But these arguments appealed to the president.'" This was in the spring of 1983.

The Marines were in the middle of a goddamned civil war, sent there in July of 1982 to keep the peace. On February 4, 1984, months after 241 Marines were killed in that explosion, Reagan made a radio addresswhere he said, "Yes, the situation in Lebanon is difficult, frustrating, and dangerous. But that is no reason to turn our backs on our friends and to cut and run. If we do, we'll be sending one signal to terrorists everywhere: they can gain by waging war against innocent people."

Then, quite interestingly, Reagan continued, "The men and women who patrol our streets here at home also face great dangers every day. But the greatest danger of all would be to yank those police officers off the streets and to leave our neighborhoods and families at the mercy of criminals. If we're to be secure in our homes and in the world, we must stand together against those who threaten us. This is a time for unity, not partisan politics."

Of course, Weinberger eventually got McFarlane on his side, and Reagan pulled the U.S. troops out of Lebanon at the end of that same month. Man, what a punk ass bitch Reagan was.

The script never changes for Republicans. Without fear and projected machismo, they have nothing. By instilling fear and spouting bravado, they can go on getting Americans killed for as long as they want.

By the way, Lebanon's not doing too badly these days as a kind of democracy in the Middle East. Of course, the civil war lasted for fifteen years. But the United States was only there for less than two of them.

He had me until this point. Not as weak as his usual stuff though, interesting post.

Compared to it's neighbors, Lebanon is doing pretty well.

Funny, the Pundit doesn't have anything to say about Moqadishu and Somalia. Something that Baghdad and Iraq have much more similarities to than Lebanon.

I think he would draw the same parallels, but the point was to find a Reagan era example, so as to not be called a "liberal pussy" by those on the right.

Ohhhhhhhh. So it really wasn't to make a point, it just to be partisan. Gotchya.

In other news. We have found two and half stockpiles of WMD's in Iraq. The benchmark threshold, as stated by G_V of course, is 200 for a stockpile.

Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq
Thursday, June 22, 2006

WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

• Click here to read the declassified portion of the NGIC report.

He added that the report warns about the hazards that the chemical weapons could still pose to coalition troops in Iraq.

"The purity of the agents inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal," Santorum read from the document.

"This says weapons have been discovered, more weapons exist and they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.

Hoekstra said the report, completed in April but only declassified now, shows that "there is still a lot about Iraq that we don't fully understand."

Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn't advertise it, Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

The official said the findings did raise questions about the years of weapons inspections that had not resulted in locating the fairly sizeable stash of chemical weapons. And he noted that it may say something about Hussein's intent and desire. The report does suggest that some of the weapons were likely put on the black market and may have been used outside Iraq.

He also said that the Defense Department statement shortly after the March 2003 invasion saying that "we had all known weapons facilities secured," has proven itself to be untrue.

"It turned out the whole country was an ammo dump," he said, adding that on more than one occasion, a conventional weapons site has been uncovered and chemical weapons have been discovered mixed within them.

Hoekstra and Santorum lamented that Americans were given the impression after a 16-month search conducted by the Iraq Survey Group that the evidence of continuing research and development of weapons of mass destruction was insignificant. But the National Ground Intelligence Center took up where the ISG left off when it completed its report in November 2004, and in the process of collecting intelligence for the purpose of force protection for soldiers and sailors still on the ground in Iraq, has shown that the weapons inspections were incomplete, they and others have said.

"We know it was there, in place, it just wasn't operative when inspectors got there after the war, but we know what the inspectors found from talking with the scientists in Iraq that it could have been cranked up immediately, and that's what Saddam had planned to do if the sanctions against Iraq had halted and they were certainly headed in that direction," said Fred Barnes, editor of The Weekly Standard and a FOX News contributor.

"It is significant. Perhaps, the administration just, they think they weathered the debate over WMD being found there immediately and don't want to return to it again because things are otherwise going better for them, and then, I think, there's mindless resistance to releasing any classified documents from Iraq," Barnes said.

The release of the declassified materials comes as the Senate debates Democratic proposals to create a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq. The debate has had the effect of creating disunity among Democrats, a majority of whom shrunk Wednesday from an amendment proposed by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to have troops to be completely withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of next year.

At the same time, congressional Republicans have stayed highly united, rallying around a White House that has seen successes in the last couple weeks, first with the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then the completion of the formation of Iraq's Cabinet and then the announcement Tuesday that another key Al Qaeda in Iraq leader, "religious emir" Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, was also killed in a U.S. airstrike.

Santorum pointed out that during Wednesday's debate, several Senate Democrats said that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, a claim, he said, that the declassified document proves is untrue.

"This is an incredibly — in my mind — significant finding. The idea that, as my colleagues have repeatedly said in this debate on the other side of the aisle, that there are no weapons of mass destruction, is in fact false," he said.

As a result of this new information, under the aegis of his chairmanship, Hoekstra said he is going to ask for more reporting by the various intelligence agencies about weapons of mass destruction.

"We are working on the declassification of the report. We are going to do a thorough search of what additional reports exist in the intelligence community. And we are going to put additional pressure on the Department of Defense and the folks in Iraq to more fully pursue a complete investigation of what existed in Iraq before the war," Hoekstra said.

FOX News' Jim Angle and Sharon Kehnemui Liss contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/2 ... 4imol.html

I agree 120% with this.

And about Lebanon...some beatiful girls there

No. The point is the same, it was a pre-emptive attack against charges of partisanship.


I question why the administration has not trumpeted this triumph before, and why I need Rick Santorum to uncover this for me.

I'd also be VERY interested to know the state of these weapons that have been found. I believe that individual munitions have been found before, but they were 20 years old and mostly in a state where they were not really operable.

It's kind of like if someone found my old bong from ten years ago buried in my backyard and then used it to justify arresting me for drug trafficking.

It has been trumpeted before. A lot of this was in the original reports filed by Kay and Duelfer, the media felt like spinning it in its own direction though. You're right, these are post GWI weapons.

I don't really look at this as a "SEE LOOK! WE FOUND WMD'S SO BUSH WAS RIGHT! THEY HAD WMD'S ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I look at this more as, "See, Saddam was decieving the UN all along," In that regard, Bush was right, and that is what this should have been all about. We've found these things, along with TONS of other illegal materials that Saddam was hiding, that decades of inspections and more inspections would have NEVER FOUND. Imagine if France, Russia, Germany, and Saddam would have gotten there way? Now that, since invasion of course, we know that Saddam had desires of a WMD arsenal, and the infrastructure to ramp one up in just six months if the sanctions had ended. There have been other reports that have come out of the front recently about illicit arms. In Ramadi, they found STOCKPILES of missiles that had one use: launching chemical weapons. They found hundreds of these illegal missiles (not scuds, and not believed to be Iraqi). Missiles from POST GWI era, just buried in the desert.

The entire charges against Bush and the US are about the legality of this war from an international perspective. To me, it's reports like this that simply serve to show that we had every right to uphold the UN Security resolutions that Saddam had broken. To me, popular opinion means absolutely nothing. The resolutions are still there for all eyes to see. The facts and what we've found are there to see. From a legal perspective, I see no reason why it was illegal. If anything, France and Germany should be now heald accountable for not upholding the resolutions that signed onto. It is matters like this that make me not believe in the UN. It's instances like this that show it is inept at accomplishing anything than serving its own personal interests at the cost of humanity all over the globe.