Saddam arrived in court today and announced he and other defendants are on a hunger strike:

Observers say that the fitful proceedings appear to be edging closer to collapse after the judge struggled to maintain order during a raucous session when, for the second consecutive day, key prosecution witnesses refused to testify.

The proceedings lasted three hours and were adjourned. Here's a typical exchange:

Two Senators today called for an investigation of Dick Cheney and whether he ordered Libby or others to leak classified information pertaining to the War in Iraq to reporters in an effort to bolster the Administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called the leak of intelligence information "inappropriate" if it is true that unnamed "superiors" instructed Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to divulge the material on Iraq.

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., said a full investigation is necessary. "I don't think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy," said Allen, who appeared with Reed on "Fox News Sunday."

[Graphic created exclusively for TalkLeft by CL.]

by TChris

Two stories in the NY Times this morning highlight the administration's post-"mission accomplished" failures in Iraq. Despite claims that insurgent attacks in Iraq are declining, declassified statistics "portray a rebellion whose ability to mount attacks has steadily grown in the nearly three years since the invasion." Meanwhile:

Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq's oil, electricity, water and sewerage sectors has fallen below preinvasion values even though $16 billion of American taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the Iraq reconstruction program, several government witnesses said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The "culture of corruption" lives anywhere there is something worth giving or taking, and that includes Iraq. How poor is it when it sits on top of a huge oil reserve? The people maybe; those who control the oil, definitely not.

Our war to bring democracy to Iraq (or was it the War on Terror? I forget. No, maybe it is to control the oil.) is bogged down in part because "troubling pattern of government corruption enabling the flow of oil money and other funds to the insurgency and threatening to undermine Iraq's struggling economy," according to Oil Graft Fuels the Insurgency, Iraq and U.S. Say, in tomorrow's NY Times.

by TChris

Robert J. Stein Jr. was a contracting official for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-controlled entity that ran Iraq for more than a year after the president's "mission accomplished" declaration. Stein helped bring a culture of corruption to the CPA. He's scheduled to enter a guilty plea today to charges that he conspired with Philip Bloom and others to steal reconstruction money and to enrich his friends while pocketing more than a million dollars.

Stein, who has an earlier federal fraud conviction, used the money he stole or was paid by Bloom to buy a single-engine Cessna airplane, a top-of-the-line Porsche and other cars, grenade launchers, machine guns, diamond rings and other jewelry, and property in North Carolina, he said in his signed statement. Stein said he helped steer more than $8.6 million in contracts to companies controlled by Bloom, a U.S. citizen who has lived in Romania for many years.

Bloom also faces conspiracy and money laundering charges. Court documents indicate that five "U.S. Army Reserve officers also have been implicated in the theft and kickback scheme."

The good news is Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll is alive. Another video of her has been released, in which she is veiled and crying and asks for the release of the remaining Iraqi prisoners.

Remember the "Marlboro Man" Marine? He's now 21 and home from Iraq, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The photo of the 'Marlboro Man' in Fallujah became a symbol of the Iraq conflict when it ran in newspapers across America in 2004. Now the soldier has returned home to Kentucky,where he battles the demons of post-traumatic stress.

....The man in the photograph is James Blake Miller, now 21, and he is an icon, although in ways [Dan] Rather probably never imagined. He's quieter now -- easier to anger. He turns to fight at the sound of a backfire, can't look at fireworks without thinking of fire raining down on a city. He has trouble sleeping, and when he does, his fingers twitch on invisible triggers. The diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder.

How did the Marines' react to him becoming a recognizable symbol? They asked him to leave Fallujah to ensure he didn't die and become a public relations nightmare.

Think good thoughts for Bob Woodruff, who along with his cameraman, have been seriously injured in Iraq after being hit with an explosive device. ABC will release more details later today. [via Crooks and Liars.]

More from the AP:

The two journalists were with U.S. and Iraqi troops near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad, when the device went off, ABC News President David Westin said. Both suffered serious head injuries and underwent surgery at a U.S. military hospital in the area, the network said.

Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were wearing body armor and helmets, but were standing up in the hatch of the Iraqi armored vehicle when the device went off. No one else was hurt in the explosion, the network said.

by TChris

As President Bush crows about his success in bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq, perhaps he can explain why Kamal Sayid Qadir has been sentenced to 30 years in an Iraqi prison for criticizing corruption in the Kurdish leadership.

From Austria he had written articles accusing [Kurdish leader Massoud] Barzani's all-powerful Kurdistan Democratic Party of corruption while calling members of its intelligence service, the Parastin, criminals and its chief -- Mr. Barzani's son -- a "pimp."

Qadir was tried for "defaming" the Parastin and Kurdish political leaders. He says the trial lasted only 15 minutes.

President Bush might favor a political system that incarcerates critics of the government, but a country can't be free if journalists and writers risk prison for expressing opinions and exposing facts that discomfort those who hold power. Qadir isn't the only Iraqi who has lost his freedom for daring to express an opinion. The NY Times reports that Iraqi authorities are increasingly "using the courts as an instrument of intimidation to discourage reporting on corruption and abuses of power."

Bump and Update: (TL) Unbelievable. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, Jr. convicted of manslaughter for killing an Iraq military officer during an interrogation is sentenced to no jail and a reprimand. Soldiers in the courtroom cheered at the sentence. How disgusting, there simply is no other word for it.

*******
Original Post (Jan 22):

by TChris

In a series of posts (collected here), TalkLeft has followed the military's response to the death of Iraqi military officer Abed Hamed Mowhoush during an abusive interrogation. The trial is over and the verdict is in:

There was a big conference at Princeton Theological Seminary last week, at which religious leaders from multiple faiths gathered to assail torture.

More than 100 Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders and thinkers met this month at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey to try to take a more public and more vigorous lead in the debate on U.S. use of torture in the war on terrorism.

...The purpose of the January 13-15 Princeton conference was to galvanize religious opposition to U.S. torture policy and launch a national religious campaign against torture. "Nobody is standing up and saying they're for torture, but not many religious people are speaking the truth with love saying this is outrageous," said Father William Byron, research professor at Loyola College in Baltimore, who attended the conference. "We of faith communities all have a fundamental baseline commitment to the preservation and protection of human dignity, and [torture] is an assault on human dignity."

by TChris

Testifying from behind a curtain to conceal his identity from the public, a witness in a military murder trial revealed that he warned his "CIA bosses" about abusive interrogations of Iraqi prisoners.

He said Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer, accused of suffocating an Iraqi general during an interrogation, didn’t seem to care.

“He said he was pretty sure they were breaking those rules every day,” said the man, whose CIA ties were exposed by a defense lawyer who let the intelligence agency’s acronym slip out during questioning. It was the first public acknowledgment that the agency played a role in Army interrogations at the makeshift prison camp where Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush died.

Other witnesses described the abusive interrogation techniques.