TWO TRILLION $$

FEDERAL RESERVE ORDERS TWO TRILLION DOLLARS TO BE PRINTED AND PUT INTO CIRCULATION! By Special Report Mar 28, 2006, 21:05 TWO TRILLION $$ SOURCES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES TREASURY ARE FLABBERGASTED! INFO CORROBORATED BY THREE SEPARATE U.S. TREASURY SOURCES Six months ago, the Federal Reserve quietly announced that as of March 20, 2006, they would no longer publish "M3" Data. The "M3" was the amount of cash the government printed to put into circulation, propping-up the U.S. economy. As of eight days ago, M3 data is no longer being reported, so there is no way for the public, investors or bond holders to know how much currency exists - and no way to gauge how much a "dollar" is truly worth. Three separate sources in the U.S. Treasury have told me that this week, the federal reserve ordered TWO TRILLION dollars to be printed! The U.S. Treasury is allegedly running printing presses 24/7 to accommodate that order. Treasury employees were specifically ORDERED not to talk about this to anyone because it could cause economic collapse. Even worse, I was also told that the whole Immigration Amnesty Debate (especially the well-funded well-attended protests) was deliberately scheduled to take place now, to divert attention from this massive printing/devaluation of the U.S. Dollar. The feds allegedly figured that by the time anyone found out, they could smooth things over. They figured wrong. Surprise, boys, you've been exposed! Watch for Gold and silver to skyrocket in price within days as the world wises up and begins dumping the U.S. Dollar. UPDATE: As of 9:05 AM this morning, Silver is at a ten year high and Gold is within a few dollars of a 25 year high. The U.S. Dollar is falling against all major world currencies. . More details as they become available.

شبكة البصرة

الاربعاء 28 صفر 1427 / 29 آذار 2006

يرجى الاشارة الى شبكة البصرة عند اعادة النشر او الاقتباس http://www.albasrah.net/ar_articles_2006/0306/dolar_290306.htm

Statement by Dr Naji Sabri al-Hadithi

Statement by Dr Naji Sabri al-Hadithi about the new American lie

www.albasrah.net

Dr. Naji Sabri al-Hadithi, legitimate Foreign Minister of Iraq (before occupation) made the following statement with regard to the false allegations circulated recently by American TV network, NBC: 1.The allegations included in the this strange and faked story are totally baseless, false and fabricated. 2. The NBC has been one of the big American media, which had promoted the lies and fabrications cooked up by the US administration to deceive the American people and the whole world with a view to selling its colonial plan to invade and occupy Iraq. After the lies of the non-existent weapons of mass destruction and the false link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, this faked story comes as yet another lie in the same context. One aim is to provide another false pretext to keep justifying the crime of the century, that is the US-led invasion of Iraq, dismembering of its state and fervent policy to plunge the Iraqi people in bloodshed, chaos and deterioration into pre-state age. 3. It is also another petty attempt to distort the image of Iraqi patriotic leaders who stood and fought with honour and courageous commitment against the Anglo-American-Zionist plan to invade and occupy Iraq after placing it under total blockade for 13 years. This distortion attempt is made now after the advocates of the colonial plan to invade and occupy Iraq had, for several years utterly failed to win over any Iraqi official, civilian or military, senior or junior, so as to make him betray his homeland and join them, i.e., the enemies of Iraq. It seems that these US bodies have resorted to the old-new ploy, which colonial bodies had always adopted to distort the image of all patriotic and nationalist leaders who strongly stand against the schemes of these bodies. 4. NBC has recently asked in a blackmail manner to interview me. But, I apologized and declined to receive its representative. 5. I challenge the NBC network to present a single evidence to prove its fabricated story. I would like also to say that I have already started legal consultations with specialized lawyers to sue this American network for its cheep , petty attempt to distort my reputation.

شبكة البصرة

الاحد 25 صفر 1427 / 26 آذار 2006

يرجى الاشارة الى شبكة البصرة عند اعادة النشر او الاقتباس http://www.albasrah.net/ar_articles_2006/0306/sabri2_260306.htm

The War Lovers

By John Pilger

03/23/06 "ICH" -- - -The war lovers I have known in real wars have usually been harmless, except to themselves. They were attracted to Vietnam and Cambodia, where drugs were plentiful. Bosnia, with its roulette of death, was another favorite. A few would say they were there "to tell the world"; the honest ones would say they loved it. "War is fun!" one of them had scratched on his arm. He stood on a land mine.

I sometimes remember these almost endearing fools when I find myself faced with another kind of war lover – the kind that has not seen war and has often done everything possible not to see it. The passion of these war lovers is a phenomenon; it never dims, regardless of the distance from the object of their desire. Pick up the Sunday papers and there they are, egocentrics of little harsh experience, other than a Saturday in Sainsbury's. Turn on the television and there they are again, night after night, intoning not so much their love of war as their sales pitch for it on behalf of the court to which they are assigned. "There's no doubt," said Matt Frei, the BBC's man in America, "that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East … is now increasingly tied up with military power."

Frei said that on April 13, 2003, after George W. Bush had launched "Shock and Awe" on a defenseless Iraq. Two years later, after a rampant, racist, woefully trained, and ill-disciplined army of occupation had brought "American values" of sectarianism, death squads, chemical attacks, attacks with uranium-tipped shells and cluster bombs, Frei described the notorious 82nd Airborne as "the heroes of Tikrit."

Last year, he lauded Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the slaughter in Iraq, as "an intellectual" who "believes passionately in the power of democracy and grassroots development." As for Iran, Frei was well ahead of the story. In June 2003, he told BBC viewers: "There may be a case for regime change in Iran, too."

How many men, women, and children will be killed, maimed, or sent mad if Bush attacks Iran? The prospect of an attack is especially exciting for those war lovers understandably disappointed by the turn of events in Iraq. "The unimaginable but ultimately inescapable truth," wrote Gerard Baker in the Times last month, "is that we are going to have to get ready for war with Iran. … If Iran gets safely and unmolested to nuclear status, it will be a threshold moment in the history of the world, up there with the Bolshevik revolution and the coming of Hitler." Sound familiar? In February 2003, Baker wrote that "victory [in Iraq] will quickly vindicate U.S. and British claims about the scale of the threat Saddam poses."

The "coming of Hitler" is a rallying cry of war lovers. It was heard before NATO's "moral crusade to save Kosovo" (Blair) in 1999, a model for the invasion of Iraq. In the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets; the rest hit hospitals, schools, factories, churches, and broadcasting studios. Echoing Blair and a clutch of Clinton officials, a massed media chorus declared that "we" had to stop "something approaching genocide" in Kosovo, as Timothy Garton Ash wrote in 2002 in the Guardian. "Echoes of the Holocaust," said the front pages of the Daily Mirror and the Sun. The Observer warned of a "Balkan Final Solution."

The recent death of Slobodan Milosevic took the war lovers and war sellers down memory lane. Curiously, "genocide" and "Holocaust" and the "coming of Hitler" were now missing – for the very good reason that, like the drumbeat leading to the invasion of Iraq and the drumbeat now leading to an attack on Iran, it was all bullsh*t. Not misinterpretation. Not a mistake. Not blunders. Bullsh*t.

The "mass graves" in Kosovo would justify it all, they said. When the bombing was over, international forensic teams began subjecting Kosovo to minute examination. The FBI arrived to investigate what was called "the largest crime scene in the FBI's forensic history." Several weeks later, having found not a single mass grave, the FBI and other forensic teams went home.


In 2000, the International War Crimes Tribunal announced that the final count of bodies found in Kosovo's "mass graves" was 2,788. This included Serbs, Roma, and those killed by "our" allies, the Kosovo Liberation Front. It meant that the justification for the attack on Serbia ("225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59 are missing, presumed dead," the U.S. ambassador-at-large David Scheffer had claimed) was an invention. To my knowledge, only the Wall Street Journal admitted this. A former senior NATO planner, Michael McGwire, wrote that "to describe the bombing as 'humanitarian intervention' [is] really grotesque." In fact, the NATO "crusade" was the final, calculated act of a long war of attrition aimed at wiping out the very idea of Yugoslavia.

For me, one of the more odious characteristics of Blair, and Bush, and Clinton, and their eager or gulled journalistic court, is the enthusiasm of sedentary, effete men (and women) for bloodshed they never see, bits of body they never have to retch over, stacked morgues they will never have to visit, searching for a loved one. Their role is to enforce parallel worlds of unspoken truth and public lies. That Milosevic was a minnow compared with industrial-scale killers such as Bush and Blair belongs to the former.

A reliable prophet of doom

A reliable prophet of doom

By Joshua Hergesheimer

Thursday 23 March 2006, 19:37 Makka Time, 16:37 GMT

To some people, George Bush is a visionary, a bold man who will bring democracy to the world’s people, defend America in this new age of insecurity, and hunt down terrorists wherever they may be hiding.

To some, George Bush is an incompetent nutcase, a man who bungled the hunt for Osama bin Laden, got bogged down in Iraq, botched the Katrina relief effort and drove the Iranians to try to develop a nuclear weapon. As George himself famously said: "Our enemies never stop trying to come up with new ways to harm our people, and neither do we."

Visionary, moron, or something in between – everyone has their favourite label. One label that you do not hear very often, however, is prophet.

I believe that George Bush is a prophet. But not just any old prophet. A special kind – one whose actions bring about the very things he claims will happen, albeit without any recognition of his role in causing them to occur. He is, therefore, a self-fulfilling prophet. Let me explain.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, George Bush told the American people that Iraq was somehow connected to global terrorism. He said that under Saddam Hussein’s leadership, Iraq was harbouring terrorists.

At the time, most political analysts and security experts outside of the Pentagon thought he was wrong. If there were any terrorists there, they were sure keeping a low profile. There were no terrorist training camps, nothing to suggest an inflow and outflow of foreign fighters.

In short, there was nothing that would indicate that Iraq was the centre of any terrorist organisation. On the strength of the available evidence, many concluded that he was waging the wrong war.

But just look at Iraq now. Iraq is clearly a centre for terrorism, a global hub for myriad loosely affiliated, interconnected terrorist groups.

I believe that George Bush is a prophet. But not just any old prophet. A special kind – one whose actions bring about the very things he claims will happen, albeit without any recognition of his role in causing them to occur.

Furthermore, not only is there an al-Qaida presence in Iraq, but they have a head office with a high-profile branch leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There are probably dozens of terrorist training camps, sending jihadi graduates out into short but high-impact careers involving car bombings and suicide attacks on markets, mosques and hospitals.

There are frequent kidnappings and occasional beheadings. Oil supplies are almost continually disrupted, and a large portion of the money originally earmarked for reconstruction is siphoned off paying the exorbitant prices demanded by private security firms. Sectarian violence is raging. It is not yet civil war, but it is getting close. So, three years on, we should admit that, gosh darn it, George was right after all.

For the sceptics out there who remain unconvinced, let me give you another example of George’s prophetic ability.

When Guantanamo Bay first opened, the Bush administration told the rest of the world that it was being used to house people who "hate America and its ideology of freedom". It was a place filled with "al-Qaida sympathisers opposed to our values of justice", people who "would not hesitate to strike against us if given the chance".

Once again, at the time, most military and political strategists outside the defence department thought that George was wrong.

The vast majority of those transferred from Afghanistan had been captured by Afghan security forces who were paid $5,000 for any "terrorists or foreign fighters" they could find.

It was inevitable, therefore, that most of the people had nothing to do with the Taliban or al-Qaida and everything to do with some soldier’s greed. Most detainees were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even the military interrogators and the CIA came to the conclusion there that there was little to be gained from questioning any of them further. Yet the Bush administration refused to release them.

So, is George right? This prophecy is more difficult to verify without first-hand knowledge of the current situation inside Guantanamo. However, I still think it is possible to speculate.

Four years on, after enduring torture, abuse, force-feeding and solitary confinement, it is almost inevitable that many of the detainees will be have developed a dislike for the American doctrine of “freedom”.

After being denied any legal status, after being refused access to lawyers, and with the fear of kangaroo courts that can sentence them to death, it would not be surprising to find that many of the detainees might be suspicious about America’s justice system. That the detainees on hunger strike are not even being allowed to die with dignity, but are being force-fed in the most brutal fashion, would probably cause a few of them to develop, if not a hatred, then at least an intense dislike of what the American people are allowing to be done to them.

And, just as George predicted, those who were released have not hesitated to strike back against America. Several Pakistani men are compiling a legal case and are planning to sue the US government for kidnapping, abuse and illegal detention.

George Bush predicts that his war on terror will be a long war. It may last decades, even generations. It will involve kicking in doors, raiding houses, torturing suspects, bombing villages, invading other countries, deposing other heads of state and setting up puppet governments.

Moazzam Begg, a British citizen and former Guantanamo detainee, has written a book entitled Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back. In it he provides a detailed account of the mistreatment he received. Also, the now-famous Tipton Three are the subject of Micheal Winterbottom’s new movie The Road to Guantanamo. The negative publicity generated by these former inmates will undoubtedly serve to further undermine America’s case for Guantanamo.

And even if what Donald Rumsfeld says is true, that "some of the people we released have later been captured on the battlefield attacking US soldiers", is anyone even slightly surprised? If I were just an ordinary Afghani farmer or teacher, after enduring years of horrific treatment, I would probably be willing to join up and fight the Americans on my release. And there is probably little I could say that would convince my brothers, cousins or sons not to try to avenge my humiliating treatment.

So, if George’s prophecy has not yet fully come true, it soon will. The longer the detainees at Guantanamo are denied justice, the longer they are subjected to torture, abuse or humiliation, the more likely it is that they will develop a hatred of everything for which the US claims to stand. It will not be surprising if some decide to act on their frustrations.

One last point. George Bush predicts that his war on terror will be a long war. It may last decades, even generations. It will involve kicking in doors, raiding houses, torturing suspects, bombing villages, invading other countries, deposing other heads of state and setting up puppet governments. It will involve rooting out and killing terrorists and their sympathisers wherever they may be hiding.

There may be mistakes, of course. There may be unintended casualties, such as Pakistani villages that turn out not to have hosted al-Qaida dinner parties. There may cases of mistaken identity or miscommunication, resulting in innocent people being rendered to countries that use even more horrific methods of torture than the US can dream of employing.

There may even be cases where there turn out not to be stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in countries where Bush was sure there were. After all, making prophecies is more art than science, and interpreting the meaning of divine revelation takes practice and skill. Sometimes it may not seem right at first, or may contradict the current evidence available.

But given George’s track record on Iraq – which turned out in the end to be a terrorist hotbed – and Guantanamo – where people are now very suspicious of American justice – excuse me if I start to believe him.

George is truly a self-fulfilling prophet. If the US continues its campaign of bombing with impunity, abrogating human rights and threatening to attack anyone, anywhere, any time, then the war on terror will be very long indeed. God help us.

[Joshua Hergesheimer is a Canadian freelance columnist based in the UK. His writing focuses on the implications of political violence in contemporary society.]

Chomsky Calls for Iraqi Reparations

Chomsky Calls for Iraqi Reparations

Published On 3/22/2006 2:50:52 AM

By MARGOT E. EDELMAN

Contributing Writer

Famed linguist and provocative public intellectual Noam Chomsky criticized the Iraq War at an Institute of Politics (IOP) policy group yesterday, calling the occupation a bungled version of Nazi Germany in Vichy France.


“America had endless resources to rebuild the place,” he said. “But instead they have created a catastrophe. Take the Nazis. They had no problem running occupied territories.”


Speaking extemporaneously to a group of 15 students, the MIT professor said that America should immediately withdraw from Iraq and pay the nation reparations.

“We owe them for the invasion and for 10 years of sanctions that devastated a society and strengthened a tyrant,” he said.


He argued that the impetus behind the Iraq invasion was not to promote democracy, as the Bush administration claimed.

Chomsky instead said that the American government ordered an invasion of Iraq in order to maintain its hegemony against China and to establish a U.S.-friendly puppet government.

“The U.S. wants a clan state like El Salvador,” Chomsky said. “You can call it democracy if you want. People are brainwashed enough to agree.”


A soft-spoken Chomsky drew comparisons between Second World War Germany and Japan and the American forces.


“If the Germans had taken a poll in Vichy France, I doubt that 87 percent of them would have wanted the Germans to leave,” Chomsky said, in reference to a recent poll that found almost 90 percent of Iraqis support American withdrawal.


The vice president of the IOP student advisory committee, Ari S. Ruben ’08, said that while he respected Chomsky’s intellect, he disagreed with his world view.


“It is not wrong for the U.S. to promote democracy around the world,” he said. “I would have liked for him to say what the U.S. should have done about Saddam Hussein’s atrocities and persistent threat.”

But Rami R. Sarafa ’07, co-chair of the Iraq Reconstruction policy group, praised Chomsky for his analysis.

“His perspective on the issue was akin to a typical Iraqi, rather than an American who’s looking in, who’s fed various media sources,” Sarafa said.

Deena S. Shakir ’08, also a co-chair, said that Chomsky’s ideas will help guide the group’s proposals for governance in Iraq.


“He described a harsh reality about Iraq’s future,” she said. “We have to consider this and reconcile our own formation of policy with the terrible reality of the country’s future.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512297

The Abu Ghraib files

279 photographs and 19 videos from the Army's internal investigation record a harrowing three months of detainee abuse inside the notorious prison -- and make clear that many of those responsible have yet to be held accountable.

Editor's note: The 10 galleries of photo and video evidence appear chronologically in the left column, followed by an additional Salon report on prosecutions for abuse and an overview of Pentagon investigations and other resources. The nine essays accompanying the photo galleries were reported and written by Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin. Photo and video captions were compiled by Page Rockwell. Additional research, reporting and writing for "The Abu Ghraib Files" were contributed by Jeanne Carstensen, Mark Follman, Page Rockwell and Tracy Clark-Flory.

By Joan Walsh

Pleas Clik on the Title for the full File

8,000 desert during Iraq war

نار المقاومة العراقية ترغم 8 الاف جندي اميركي على الفرار من الخدمة

شبكة البصرة

اعترفت وزارة الدفاع الاميركية بهرب حوالي 8 الاف جندي اميركي من الخدمة منذ العام الاول لاحتلال العراق. وقالت مجلة يو اس اي توداي الاميركية نقلا عن مصادر في البنتاغون ان السجلات المؤرخة منذ خريف 2003 تشير الى فرار 4454 جنديا و3454 عنصرا من جنود البحرية و1455 من المارينز و82 من سلاح الجو من الخدمة في جيش الاحتلال في العراق منذ شهر تشرين الاول من عام 2003 . 8,000 desert during Iraq war By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY Tue Mar 7, At least 8,000 members of the all-volunteer U.S. military have deserted since the Pentagon records show, although the overall desertion rate has plunged since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Since fall 2003, 4,387 Army soldiers, 3,454 Navy sailors and 82 Air Force personnel have deserted. The Marine Corps does not track the number of desertions each year but listed 1,455 Marines in desertion status last September, the end of fiscal 2005, says Capt. Jay Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman. Desertion records are kept by fiscal year, so there are no figures from the beginning of the war in March 2003 until that fall. Some lawyers who represent deserters say the war in Iraq is driving more soldiers to question their service and that the Pentagon is cracking down on deserters

See Dick Loot

See Dick Loot

By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Wednesday 08 March 2006

Halliburton and its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) have been
making hay in the burning Iraqi sun for years now. It is, of course, no
coincidence that the man sitting as vice president played a key role
with his influence in obtaining the lion's share of contracts in Iraq
for the company he was CEO of prior to his self-appointed position. Yet
none of this is news.

What is news, however, is that the ties that bind Cheney to Halliburton
also link him to groups with even broader interests in the Middle East,
which are causing civilians on the ground there, as well as in the US,
to pay the price.

Cheney had much more at stake than pure altruism in making sure
Halliburton/KBR obtained so many no-bid contracts in occupied Iraq.
Despite his claims of not having any financial ties
<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/politics/main575356.shtml>

to Halliburton, the fact is that in both 2001 and 2002 he earned twice as
much from a deferred salary from his "old" company as when he was CEO.

But that wasn't the beginning. When Cheney was US Secretary of Defense
in the early 1990's under Big Bush, Halliburton was awarded the job of
studying, then implementing, the privatization of routine army functions
such as cleaning and cooking meals.

Following this study, when Cheney was finished with his job at the
Pentagon, he scored the job as CEO of Halliburton, which he held until
nominating himself for the position of Little Bush's running mate in
2000. Remember, it was Cheney who was given the task of finding a
running mate for Bush. After searching far and wide across the US,
Cheney ended up generously offering his own services for the job.

As if Cheney didn't already have enough conflicts of interest, it is
important to note that he assisted in founding the neo-conservative
think tank, the "Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
<http://www.newamericancentury.org/>," whose goal is to "promote
American global leadership," which entails acquiring Iraqi oil.
Complimenting this, Cheney was also part of the board of advisers to the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA
<http://www.jinsa.org/home/home.html>) along with John Bolton, Richard
Perle and Paul Wolfowitz (all PNAC members) before becoming vice
president. JINSA, self-described as a "nonsectarian educational
organization," does things like nominate John Bolton for the 2006 Nobel
Peace Prize and works to "explain the role Israel can ... play in
bolstering ... the link between American defense policy and the security
of Israel."

Their Mission Statement adds, "The inherent instability in the region
[Middle East] caused primarily by inter-Arab rivalries and the
secular/religious split in many Muslim societies leaves the future of
the region in doubt. Israel, with its technological capabilities and
shared system of values, has a key role to play as a US ally in the
region," which happens to be quite similar to the stated goals of the
PNAC for the region, but I digress.

By the end of 2002, Cheney owned at least 433,000 unexercised
Halliburton stock options worth over $10 million. And that was before
the invasion of Iraq, when the games really began.

In March 2003, the month the invasion began, Halliburton was awarded a
no-bid contract worth $7 billion from the Pentagon. The blatant awarding
of this "reconstruction" contract to Halliburton even led Representative
Henry Waxman to comment, "The administration's approach to the
reconstruction of Iraq is fundamentally flawed. It's a boondoggle that's
enriching private contractors."

Of course the invasion and occupation of Iraq aren't only about oil.

Remember, it was Cheney himself who, at a VFW convention in August 2002,
said "Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons
fairly soon. Just how soon, we cannot really gauge."

Cheney then, solely in the interests of protecting the American and
Iraqi people of course, made sure the US would go into Iraq and take
care of that nuclear trouble-maker Saddam Hussein.

Just to be safe, Halliburton was paid $40 million for providing housing
and transportation for teams searching for non-existent weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq. For with each contract Halliburton is and was
awarded, Cheney's bank account grows.

The one place where there were remnants of a nuclear program in Iraq,
albeit over 20 years before the 2003 US invasion, was the Osirak Nuclear
Research Facility on the outskirts of Baghdad. US-made Israeli warplanes
bombed it back on June 7, 1981, and when I visited the place in January
2004, all I found were empty warehouses which the American military
wasn't concerned about enough to prevent from being looted.

Villagers in nearby al-Tuwetha, ignorant of radioactive waste stored in
old drums, looted them in the chaos following the invasion and had been
using them as water containers - thus irradiating the entire village
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album11&id=100_1936>.

One example of what it looks like on the ground in Iraq when Halliburton
fails to fulfill its contractual obligations is the life of Adel
Mhomoud. The 44-year-old beekeeper in al-Tuwetha told me, "I have
cancer, and I know I'm dying. My white blood cell count is 14,000, and I
don't have enough red blood cells. We are all sick; our joints ache, my
hips are killing me, and my blood is bad. But nobody will help us here."

Certainly not Halliburton.

Cheney, who received no less than five military deferments during the
Vietnam War despite being a supporter of that war (Sound familiar?), had
shamelessly told the veterans at the VFW, "Simply stated, there is no
doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is
no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our
allies, and against us."

So that was the door Cheney took to bring Iraq his Halliburton.

And of course, once through that door, Halliburton promptly went to work.

Aside from the aforementioned awarding of no-bid contracts worth
billions of US taxpayer dollars, as early as December 2003, the US Army
found out Halliburton was overcharging the government $61 million for
fuel transportation and $67 million for food services in Iraq. I
remember being in Baghdad when this occurred - seeing the enormously
long gas lines at petrol stations whilst knowing Halliburton, not only
failing to provide Iraqis with their own petrol, was even charging the
US taxpayer three dollars per gallon for fuel that local companies could
have imported for under one dollar.

But that was barely the beginning.

Let's take a brief glance at some of the more recent Halliburton/KBR
rogueries:

* 27 February 2006 - US Army decides to reimburse KBR nearly all of its
disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and
repair equipment in Iraq, despite Pentagon auditors identifying over
<http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://gk.nytimes.com/mem/gatekeeper.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26URIQ3DhttpQ3AQ2FQ2Fwww.nytimes.comQ2F2006Q2F02Q2F27Q2FinternationalQ2FmiddleeastQ2F27contract.htmlQ26OQ51Q3D_rQ513D2Q5126exQ513D1141794000Q5126enQ513Ddd10c714ad278d1dQ5126eiQ513D5070Q5126orefQ513DsloginQ26OPQ3D31676cb3Q512FQ51241Q5122xQ5124Q515BkaQ513Dckkp_Q5124_OOJQ5124O_Q5124_HQ5124Q5160LpQ5122cLQ515CpQ5160kLQ515CQ5123Q51247Q5160Q515BQ515BQ5123Q5122Q5122Q515CQ513DpQ5124_HakLpcQ515CapQ5151Q512Ap7Q5123&OP=72d7a905Q2Fz8PYzQ3CXQ51PbQ5BQ27ztQ51Q60bqqQ3CQ3EzqpQ7CQ51PtQ51PQ5BzebQ51P-PPqPpmtQ51Q60>
$250 million in charges as "potentially" excessive.

* 17 February 2006 - KBR executive hired to fly cargo into Iraq pleads
guilty
<http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70B16FF3B5A0C748DDDAB0894DE404482>
to inflating invoices by $1.14 million to cover fraudulent "war risk
surcharges."

* 6 February 2006 - KBR employee in Iraq, speaking on condition of
anonymity, says "We pay our locals [in Iraq] $5 to $16 dollars a day and
you can see where [KBR] put it down [on the military requisition] as $60
a day <http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/labor2.html>." Military
requisitions reveal KBR to be paying between $5-$16 per day in wages to
third world laborers in Iraq whilst billing US taxpayers between $50-$80
per day.

* 30 January 2006 - Bush administration settles dispute between Pentagon
and Halliburton by agreeing to pay company $199 million in disputed
gasoline charges in Iraq. To date KBR has been awarded nearly $16
billion in total revenue from Iraq contracts.

* 23 January 2006 - Halliburton fails to alert American troops and
civilian contractors at US base in Ramadi that their water was
contaminated. Despite allegations which came from Halliburton's own
water quality experts, the company denies
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/01/22/national/w104644S60.DTL&type=printable>
there was a contamination problem.

* 27 December 2005 - KBR, linked to human trafficking-related concerns
via its work in Iraq (such as forced prostitution and labor),
Halliburton benefits from Defense Department's refusal
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512270176dec27,1,2117782.story?ctrack=1&cset=true>
to adopt policy barring human trafficking.

* 1 December 2005 - UPI reports KBR workers in Iraq ("third country"
nationals) found to be paid as little as 50 cents an hour.

* 5 November 2005 - UN auditing board finds that US should repay Iraqi
government $208 million from Iraqi oil revenue for fraudulent
contracting work.

Then there is how these "policies" Halliburton is following in Iraq
affect US soldiers and contractors, including its own employees.

With contracts in Iraq now worth up to $18 billion, there is nothing
stopping Halliburton from abusing the lack of oversight and obvious
conflict of interest between their free reign and their ties to the vice
president.

An example of this is Jim Spiri, who was hired by Halliburton/KBR in
January 2004 to work as a logistics coordinator. Sent to Camp Anaconda
in Balad, Iraq, he worked the flight line handling passenger movements,
as Spiri had 20 years of aviation experience.

"During my time there, I assisted nightly with medevac [medical
evacuations] operations and was highly respected among all military
medical folks," he told me this week. "I had a good name throughout the
theatre."

But problems were immediately apparent to him.

"I witnessed much alcohol abuse, in an environment where alcohol is
strictly prohibited. I made note of this and reported it to my
superiors, who actually were the ones abusing the system. It was obvious
that the fox was guarding the hen house, so to speak."

He told me his entire flight line operation was "run in a gang-like
manner" and "the work was never done in an efficient manner." Instead,
according to Spiri, the motto was, "Do as little as possible for as much
as you can, for as long as you can."

On February 5th of this year, while working the night shift which he had
for the last two years, Spiri witnessed something that made the thought
of continuing to work for KBR intolerable.

After watching a fallen soldier loaded onto a plane without the proper
ceremony of honor, Spiri told me he "wrote an account of what I
experienced that night." After this, "It was published, and ... all hell
broke loose about 36 hours later."

Spiri was fired by KBR after writing an article
<http://www.lcsun-news.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006602070324>
detailing the event and criticizing Halliburton's policies in Iraq.

Now he wants to shine light on how KBR operates in Iraq. "What they
don't want to let out is the type of workers they have over there, that
it's the largest gravy train operation, it's the largest welfare system
I've ever seen in my life. It's pathetic," Spiri said in a recent
interview while adding that over half the people KBR employed in Iraq
were "grossly under-qualified and highly over-paid."

His work entailed three people, but by the time he left there were 10
people on his team, most of whom "sat around listening to their iPod's
and DVD players."

Yet firing an employee for raising awareness about corruption and his
questioning of policy is minor compared to the treatment of Iraqis meted
out by the company.

When I was in Amman last May, I met Ahlam al-Hassan, a young Iraqi woman
who had worked for KBR in Diwaniyah.

Two gunshots by assailants who attacked her for collaborating with
occupation forces left her blind
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album35&id=various_and_friends_013>,
and her former employers would not return her calls or requests for
assistance.

For her three months of work for KBR she was paid $475, having taken the
job to support her family. "My two bosses at KBR, Mr. Jeff and Mr. Mark,
were very good and gentle with me," she explained to me in Jordan, "They
told me it wasn't dangerous to work for them." But after spending months
in hospitals for what happened to her on her way to work, "After this,
they have made no attempts to contact me."

Note that on May 31, 2004, an Army Corps of Engineers email revealed
that Cheney's office "coordinated" Halliburton's multi-billion dollar
Iraq contract. Cheney, like most common criminals, denied having
anything to do with the no-bid contract.

More recently, on January 26th of this year, Halliburton announced that
its 2005 profits were the "Best in our 86-year history," as all six of
its divisions posted record results. Halliburton stock price doubled in
the last year, and Dick Cheney's tax returns indicate that he earned
$194,862 from his Halliburton stock in just the last year.

Loot Dick, Loot!

Is that clear enough?

All of this begs the question: Do you approve of your tax dollars being
used in this fashion?

If not, then what are you willing to do about it?

The Show Trial of the Century

President Saddam Hussein's “trial” before a U.S.-orchestrated Kangaroo Court is hailed as the “trial of the century”. Those who committed the crimes are rewarded and protected, while their victims are put on a show trial. It is not Saddam who is on trial; it is the international legal system. Saddam trial is a theatre. It is a Hollywood show to divert attention from the destruction of Iraq and the massive war crimes committed against the Iraqi people. Like the invasion, the “tribunal” is illegal and has no legitimacy in occupied Iraq According to Professor Charif Bassiouni of DePaul University, an expert on International Criminal Law and former U.N. human rights investigator in Afghanistan: “All efforts are being made to have a tribunal whose judiciary is not independent but controlled, and by controlled I mean that the political manipulators of the tribunal have to make sure the U.S. and other western powers are not brought in cause. This makes it look like victor's vengeance: it makes it seem targeted, selected, and unfair. It's a subterfuge”. This is the accurate definition of a Kangaroo Court. “The Americans are intent on making this pure theatre, a show trial”, said one of Saddam’s lawyers. Saddam trial is a theatre. It is a Hollywood show to divert attention from the destruction of Iraq and the massive war crimes committed against the Iraqi people. Like the invasion, the “tribunal” is illegal and has no legitimacy in occupied Iraq. There is overwhelming prima facie evidence to convict George W. Bush and Tony Blair of crimes against humanity than to convict Saddam Hussein. Under the U.N Convention, Bush and Blair are guilty of crimes against humanity, torture, and guilty of wanton destruction of the Iraqi state. The reality is; the U.S. and its allies are not interested in a trial per se; they are interested in the humiliation of all Arabs. Saddam is an Arab and a Muslim. He is used as a symbol to further demonise Arabs and Muslims. The trial is seen in the West as if all Arab leaders are on trial. It is orchestrated and controlled by Western imperialism. It is a show trial for bullying and intimidation. The self-appointed Arab leaders or despots have failed to provide not only a strong economy, but also failed to build a defence against Western imperialism and remain vulnerable to its wrath at any time. Today, Arabs are sandwiched between Zionism and imperialism. Their armies are only there for the purpose of protecting them from the disfranchised masses. They betrayed everything Arab and everything Muslim, and failed to understand the danger of imperialism-Zionism ideology. The show trial provides Western journalists, pundits, and Western (mostly U.S.-based) human rights organisations and NGOs the opportunity to show their loyalty to the Occupation and imperialism. Saddam was demonised for more than 15 years that he represents the epitome of everything bad today. Despite the complete lack of knowledge of the man, every journalist and pundit has something to say about Saddam. Saddam is resurrected to become part of Western schools curricula. One hopes that the curricula will include Saddam achievements including, the best education system and the best health care services in the Middle East. Saddam provided complete rights for women, before the U.S. destroyed every thing. Remember, during the Saddam regime, human rights organisations and journalists had no problem to go to Iraq and report on the human rights condition there. Always negative, of course. They visited detainees in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere with considerable access. However, since the invasion and occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces, human rights organisations and journalists almost completely refrained from even mentioning the massive abuse of human rights of the Iraqi people by U.S. forces and their collaborators. These same organisations who visited Iraq freely before the invasion, have no right to be anywhere in Iraq today. Their meagre reports were only designed for deception. It is not surprising to hear Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticising the so-called “Iraqi tribunal”. This is the way imperialism works. “We have grave concerns that the tribunal will not provide the fair trial guarantees required by international law”, said Richard Dicker of HRW. Can you imagine HRW “have great concerns” for the rights of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis – men, women and children – who have been arrested, imprisoned, abused and tortured without charges? Is Saddam responsible for the slaughter of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, mostly women and children? HRW and AI express no concern for the deliberate starving of the Iraqi population by U.S. forces. Only when the wrong person is in the dock, does one hears the rumbling of human rights organisations and NGOs. Saddam’s show trial constitutes an opportunity for HRW, AI and the rest of Western NGOs to camouflage the war crimes committed by the occupying forces. In this regard, they constitute tools of Western imperialism. It should be borne in mind that all the allegations against Saddam are unsubstantiated and there is no evidence that Saddam is personally responsible for the alleged crimes. The charge “is totally empty… In France, any judge would dismiss the case. It would not even go to trial”, said Andre Chami, a French lawyer in Saddam’s defence team. Indeed, some of the allegations against Saddam regimes have been refuted by the UN and credible Western officials. The allegations against Saddam and Iraq were made by Western journalists, expatriate conmen, and Western-based human rights organisations and NGOs. Moreover, even if Saddam committed crimes, the crimes were committed with the full complicity and support of Western leaders, and Western media. It is not Saddam who is guilty of crimes against humanity; Bush and Blair are. The invasion and destruction of Iraq constitute an illegal act of aggression “contravened the UN charter” and international laws. “Only the most incorrigible legalists can pretend to be shocked by the conclusion that the perpetrator of an aggressive war acts at peril of being punished for his perpetration, even if no tribunal has ever previously decided that perpetration of an aggressive war is a crime”, wrote, Telford Taylor, assistant of the chief American prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, at the Nuremberg Trial. “To initiate a war of aggression”, said the Nuremberg Tribunal's judgment, “is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. Sadly, the wrong people are in the dock in Baghdad. No one has articulated the case of war crimes and crimes against humanity against George Bush better than Francis A. Boyle, a professor of Law and an expert on International Law at the University of Illinois. In countless documents, Professor Boyle shows how the Nuremberg principle can be used to indict the Bush administration. Boyle writes: “In international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, due to its formulation and undertaking of aggressive war policies that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the Nazi regime”. In addition, article 6(b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter defined the term “War crimes” to include: “... wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity...” Thus the destruction of Iraqi cities, including Fallujah, Ramadi, Hillah, Tel Afar, Baghdad etc. constitutes the wanton destruction of cities, and “it is certainly not justified by ‘military necessity’, which is always defined by and includes the laws of war”, writes Francis Boyle. Professor Richard Overy of King’s College London, a leading authority on the Nuremburg Trial and International Law, accurately describes the way the international legal system works. He writes: “International law works only against weaker states. Big powers have an unmerited, but unassailable, [self-induced] immunity”. “What had happened in Iraq was a major crime against humanity, and Bush and Blair could be in the dock” and the principles of international legal system should apply in trying them. Justice is not achieved by a show trial; it is achieved by a fair trial. The continuing presence of U.S. troops and mercenaries in Iraq is against the will of the Iraqi people in contravention of international laws. The most urgent action is to put an end to the ongoing crimes of the Occupation. Iraqi lives and human rights would be better served by the full and immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Somebody is trying to provoke a civil war in Iraq.

Roberst Fisk shares his Middle East knowledge

Reporter: Tony Jones

TONY JONES: Well, Robert Fisk is one of the most experienced observers of the Middle East and in his latest book, 'The Great War for Civilisation - the Conquest of the Middle East', he draws on almost 30 years of reporting from his base in Lebanon to look at the forces which have shaped current events and conflicts Robert Fisk, thanks for being there.

ROBERT FISK, WRITER & JOURNALIST: You're welcome.

TONY JONES: Now, unless you've changed your position in recent days, the one thing that you and President Bush agree on is there's not going to be a civil war in Iraq.

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, I listened to Bush. It made me doubt myself when I heard him say that. I still go along and say what I said before - Iraq is not a sectarian society, but a tribal society. People are intermarried. Shiites and Sunnis marry each other. It's not a question of having a huge block of people here called Shiites and a huge block of people called Sunnis any more than you can do the same with the United States, saying Blacks are here and Protestants are here and so on. But certainly, somebody at the moment is trying to provoke a civil war in Iraq. Someone wants a civil war. Some form of militias and death squads want a civil war. There never has been a civil war in Iraq. The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it's Al Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for the Ministry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militia men who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities. I'd like to know what the Americans are doing to get at the people who are trying to provoke the civil war. It seems to me not very much. We don't hear of any suicide bombers being stopped before they blow themselves up. We don't hear of anybody stopping a mosque getting blown up. We're not hearing of death squads all being arrested. Something is going very, very wrong in Baghdad. Something is going wrong with the Administration. Mr Bush says, "Oh, yes, sure, I talk to the Shiites and I talk to the Sunnis." He's talking to a small bunch of people living behind American machine guns inside the so-called Green Zone, the former Republican palace of Saddam Hussein, which is surrounded by massive concrete walls like a crusader castle. These people do not and cannot even leave this crusader castle. If they want to leave to the airport, they're helicoptered to the airport. They can't even travel on the airport road. What we've got at the moment is a little nexus of people all of whom live under American protection and talk on the telephone to George W Bush who says, "I've been talking to them and they have to choose between chaos and unity." These people can't even control the roads 50 metres from the Green Zone in which they work.

TONY JONES: OK.

ROBERT FISK: There's total chaos now in Iraq.

TONY JONES: Let's go back, if we can, to start answering that question about who wants civil war. Back one week to the bombing of the golden shrine in Samarra. Now, most people do think the only people with reasons for doing that would be the Al Qaeda in Iraq group led by al-Zarqawi. You don't agree?

ROBERT FISK: Well, I don't know if al-Zarqawi is alive. You know, al-Zarqawi did exist before the American Anglo-American invasion. He was up in the Kurdish area, which was not actually properly controlled by Saddam. But after that he seems to have disappeared. We know there's an identity card that pops up. We know the Americans say we think we've recognised him on a videotape. Who recognises him on a videotape? How many Americans have ever met al-Zarqawi? Al-Zarqawi's mother died more than 12 months ago and he didn't even send commiserations or say "I'm sorry to hear that". His wife of whom he was very possessive is so poor she has to go out and work in the family town of Zarqa. Hence the name Zarqawi. I don't know if al-Zarqawi is alive or exists at the moment. I don't know if he isn't a sort of creature invented in order to fill in the narrative gaps, so to speak. What is going on in Iraq at the moment is extremely mysterious. I go to Iraq and I can't crack this story at the moment. Some of my colleagues are still trying to, but can't do it. It's not as simple as it looks. I don't believe we've got all these raving lunatics wandering around blowing up mosques. There's much more to this than meets the eye. All of these death squads that move around are part of the security forces. In some cases they are Shiite security forces or clearly Sunni security forces. When the Iraqi army go into Sunni cities they are Shiite soldiers going in. We are not making this clear. Iraqi troops, we've got an extra battalion. The Iraqi army is building up. The Iraqi army is split apart. Somebody is operating these people. I don't know who they are. It's not as simple as we're making it out to be. What is this thing when Bush says we have to choose between chaos and unity? Who wants to choose chaos? Is it really the case that all of these Iraqis that fought together for eight years against the Iranians, Shiites and Sunnies together in the long massive murderous Somme-like war between the Iranians and Iraqis - suddenly all want to kill each other? Why because that's something wrong with Iraqis? I don't think so. They are intelligent, educated people. Something is going seriously wrong in Baghdad.

TONY JONES: Can we look at one thing that might possibly be wrong, the Sunnis feel like they are being left out of the political equation. The Shias could end up running the majority of the government because they are indeed in the majority in a democracy.

ROBERT FISK: They do run the Government now. The Shiites do run the Government.

TONY JONES: Indeed. Couldn't that precisely be one of the reasons for the violence?

ROBERT FISK: Because the Sunnis don't have power anymore? But we've been saying this if the start. Don't you remember that after 2003 the Anglo-American invasion, the resistance started against the Americans and we were told they were Saddam remnants, 'dead-enders', that was the phrase used. Not anymore, because there are 40,000 insurgents, but that was the phase used at the time. They were Sunnis. They didn't like the fact they didn't have power. Then we captured Saddam and Paul Bremer, the number two pro-Consule in Baghdad, says, "Oh, we've got him," and everything was going to be OK. And then the insurgency got worse still. The reason was because people who wanted to join the insurgency feared that if they beat him out he might come back. Well, the moment Saddam was captured, they knew they could join the insurgency and Saddam wouldn't come back. I mean, there is something wrong in the narrative sequence that we've been given. You know, the idea that the Sunni community is suddenly sacrificing themselves en mass, strapping explosive belts to themselves and blowing themselves up all over Iraq because they don't have power anymore is a very odd reflection. I think what is going on among the Sunni community is much simpler. The Sunnis are not fighting the Americans because they don't have power and they're not fighting the Americans just to get them out - and they will get them out eventually. They are fighting the Americans so that they will say, "We have a right to power because we fought the occupying forces and you, the Shiites, did not," which is why it's very important to discover now that Moqtada al-Sadr, who has an ever-increasing power base among the Shiite community, is himself threatening to fight the British and Americans. Now, if the Shiites and Sunnies come together, as they did in the 1920s in the insurgency against the British, then we are finished in Iraq. And that will mean that Iraq actually will be united.

TONY JONES: But, Robert Fisk, what's is happening now, by all accounts and, indeed, the accounts of these Washington Post reporters who've been into the morgue and report hundreds of bodies of Sunnies who evidently have been garroted or suffocated or shot, are all saying that Moqtada al-Sadr's thugs have actually taken these people away and murdered them. That was in revenge for the Golden Shrine bombing.

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, look, in August, I went into the same mortuary and found out that 1,000 people had died in one month in July. And most of those people who had died were split 50/50 between the Sunnies and the Shiites, but most of them, including women who'd been blindfolded and hands tied behind their backs - I saw the corpses - were both Sunnies and Shiites. Now, I'm not complaining that the Washington Post got it wrong - I'm sure there are massacres going on by Shiites - but I think they are going on by militias on both sides. What I'd like to know is who is running the Interior Ministry? Who is paying the Interior Ministry? Who is paying the gunmen who work for the Interior Ministry? I go into the Interior Ministry in Baghdad and I see lots and lots of armed men wearing black leather. Who is paying these guys? Well, we are, of course. The money isn't falling out of the sky. It's coming from the occupation powers and Iraqi's Government, which we effectively run because, as we know, they can't even create a constitution without the American and British ambassadors being present. We need to look at this story in a different light. That narrative that we're getting - that there are death squads and that the Iraqis are all going to kill each other, the idea that the whole society is going to commit mass suicide - is not possible, it's not logical. There is something else going on in Iraq. Don't ask me to...

TONY JONES: Alright. But...

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, go on.

TONY JONES: No, it does seem to be impossible to explain, but, of course, this is exactly what people were saying in Bosnia before that war started up - that people were too intermarried, that you couldn't separate the community.

ROBERT FISK: Iraqi is not Bosnia. Iraqi is not Bosnia. Iraqi is not Bosnia. Iraqi is not Bosnia. We discovered here in Lebanon - and this city I'm talking to you from - that, during the civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990 and killed 150,000 people, that there were many outside powers involved in promoting death squads and militias here, and paying militias, not just Arab powers, but European powers were involved in stirring the pot in Lebanon. I think we're being very naive. Just because I can't give you the detail, like, of who ordered this death squad, doesn't prevent us saying that something is wrong with the narrative we're being given the press, from the West, from the Americans, from the Iraqi Government. There is something going wrong. Iraqis are not suicidal people. They don't go around blowing up mosques every day. It's not a natural thing for them to do. It's never happened before. I can't say to you, "Well, ok, here is the person who killed this person, or here's the person who left this explosive truck." All I am saying to you is that it is time we said, "Hang on a minute, this is not how it looks."

TONY JONES: What if you put Iran into this equation, because, as we all know, Iran is under tremendous pressure from the West and particularly from the United States at the moment. It has links to these Shia militias and, possibly, links too, to these people you are talking about in the Interior Ministry.

ROBERT FISK: No, no, no, that's wrong. The Iranians link is with the Iraqi Government. The main parties in the government of Iraq which have been elected, who are there now dealing with the Americans, these are the representatives of Iran. Moqtada al-Sadr is irrelevant to Iran. Iranians are already effectively controlling Iraq because the two major power blocks, the two major parties who were elected and who Bush has just been talking to, these are effectively the representatives of Tehran. That's the point. Iran doesn't need to get involved in violence in Iraq.

TONY JONES: Unless the pressure from the United States ratchets up on Iran to the point where there are military threats against these nuclear facilities. Could it not therefore create havoc in Iraq?

ROBERT FISK: Well, you could say the same about Syria, too, couldn't you? And, of course the Americans are also accusing Syria of supporting the insurgents or letting them cross the border. But I think it it's much more complicated than that. For example, my sources in this area, who are pretty good, tell me that the Americans have already talked to the Syrians and are trying to do a deal with them to try and get the Syrians to help them over the insurgency and the price of Syria's help, I'm told, is that the Americans will ease off on the UN committee of inquiry into the murder of ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri, here in Beirut, only a few hundred metres from here, on the 14th February last year. You know, if the Americans are going to get out of Iraq - and they must get out, they will - they need the help of Iran and Syria. And I think you'll find that certain elements within the State Department are already trying to work on that. Now, we hear the rhetoric coming from Bush. I mean, he's got an absolute black-hole chaos in Iraq, he's got Afghanistan - not an inspiration to the world, it's been taken over effectively by narco warlords, many who work for Karzai, the man who's just been making jokes about the Afghan welcome for Bush - and Bush wants another conflict with Iran? I don't think the Americans are in any footing or any ability, military or otherwise, to have another war or to have another crisis in that region. They're in the deepest hole politically, militarily and economically in Iraq. The fact that the White House and the Pentagon and the State Department seem to be in a state of denial doesn't change that. We had Condoleezza Rice here - literally in that building behind me - a few days ago saying that there are great changes taking place in the Middle East - optimistically. Well, sure, there is a mosque war going on in Iraq with the Americans up to their feet in the sand, there's an Iranian crisis, or so we're told, the Saudis are frightened the Iraq war will spill over into Saudi Arabia, the Egyptians don't know how to reconcile Syria and Lebanon, there are increasing sectarian tensions here in Lebanon. You would think that someone is building what used to be called Potemkin villages, you know, these extraordinary things that Catherine the Great's court favourites use to build, facades of villages, so that everything looked nice in Russia even though things were barbarous behind the facades. I mean, this is a barbarous world we're living in now in the Middle East. It's never been so dangerous here, either for journalists or soldiers but most of all for Arabs. Hence the thousands of people in the mortuary.

TONY JONES: Robert Fisk, I am afraid we are out of time. We'll have to leave it there and the rest of the discussion on Iran, I suspect, we'll have to have when you're in Australia in the near future. Good luck in Beirut.

ROBERT FISK: (Laughs) Good place to have it! You're welcome.