President Bush just gave a long speech on Iraq. He said knowing everything that he does now, he'd do it all again.

That's our President. He can never admit a mistake.

A few weeks ago we reported on an Iraqi jail operated by the Iraq Interior Ministry in which torture had occurred. The Washington Post has learned of a second such jail.

An Iraqi government search of a detention center in Baghdad operated by Interior Ministry special commandos found 13 prisoners who had suffered abuse serious enough to require medical treatment, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday night.

An Iraqi official with firsthand knowledge of the search said that at least 12 of the 13 prisoners had been subjected to "severe torture," including sessions of electric shock and episodes that left them with broken bones. "Two of them showed me their nails, and they were gone," the official said on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

by TChris

The NY Times examines the military’s propaganda effort:

The 1,200-strong psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg turns out what its officers call "truthful messages" to support the United States government's objectives, though its commander acknowledges that those stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship is hidden.

Whether you agree with his politics or not, praise is due Ramsey Clark for risking his life to represent Saddam Hussein. Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post explaining why Clark is a true hero and why the right-wing law bloggers who are bashing him are doing a disservice not only to Clark but to all who support the rule of law.

it is painfully obvious -- or at least it ought be -- that few things are more vitally important than ensuring that Saddam Hussein has a genuine, fair trial before he is convicted and punished. If we simply execute him after some sort of sham show trial, it will be even more difficult than it already is for us to claim that we are building a different, better Iraq -- or that we are there in order to bring democracy and respect for human rights. If we claim the right to simply execute people including Hussein without a fair trial, it's hard to see how we can claim, with a straight face, that we are engaged in something other than pure tyranny.

A feisty defendant, an outspoken defense lawyer and a judge trying, and failing in large measure, to maintain control of the courtroom. Day one of the witness testimony in the trial of Saddam Hussein did not go exactly as planned. Some highlights:

Defense lawyers staged a short walkout when the Judge didn't allow them two minutes to attack the legitimacy of the court. Later, they were allowed to make their argument. Saddam insisted he is not afraid of execution but lost his temper several times.

After the defense lawyers left, Saddam, shaking his right hand, told the judge: "You are imposing lawyers on us. They are imposed lawyers. The court is imposed by itself. We reject that."

Saddam and Ibrahim then chanted "Long live Iraq, long live the Arab state." Ibrahim stood up and shouted: "Why don't you just execute us and get rid of all of this!"

When the judge explained that he was ruling in accordance with the law, Saddam replied: "This is a law made by America and does not reflect Iraqi sovereignty."

One of the five judges in Saddam Hussein's trial, scheduled to resume tomorrow, has stepped aside after reviewing a document showing that one of Saddam's co-defendants was linked to the murder of his brother. A replacement judge will be brought in.

Testimony is scheduled to start tomorrow with five witnesses.

The trial, due to resume at around 10 a.m. (0700 GMT), may continue for up to three days, the U.S. official said, with up to 11 witnesses appearing in all, although eight of those will have their identities concealed.

While further charges may be brought against Saddam and others, the current trial relates to the deaths of 148 men from the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an attempt to kill Saddam there in 1982.

In other trial related news, a plot to fire rockets at the courthouse has been uncovered.

by Last Night in Little Rock

The Democratic National Committee had a contract for two billboards near both of Rep. Jean Schmidt's offices in the Cincinnati area to criticize her for her comments about Rep. John Murtha for "attack[ing] one of our veterans for cheap political gain."

The graphic on the DNC's website shows the billboard as saying "Shame on you Jean Schmidt."

Lamar, however, inexplicably backed out of the contract just as the billboards were to go up, as discussed in an e-mail from the DNC to contributors to the billboard campaign because of the content of the billboards, already approved by Lamar, was determined to be "inappropriate."

by TChris

We know that the Bush administration illegally released pro-administration propaganda packaged as news, and that it gave press credentials to a Bush supporter masquerading as a legitimate reporter so that Bush could get softball questions at news conferences. Given the administration’s commitment to media manipulation, it should come as no surprise that the military took the administration's pretend news campaign on the road, to Iraq.

As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

by TChris

This is the system American soldiers are fighting (and dying) to protect?

As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

by TChris

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking freely on the company he kept:

• President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of postwar planning.

• Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard." (Tough choice.)

by TChris

With two defense lawyers murdered and another wounded, the team defending Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants asked for another continuance of Hussein's trial, which sputtered to a brief start today before being adjourned to December 5.

Hussein complained about walking up four flights of stairs in shackles (repairing the elevator is still on the Iraqi government's "to do" list) before, with characteristic bravado, he challenged the judge to do his job more forcefully.

What difference did the Iraq war make in terms of human rights advancements? None, according to former prime minister Iyad Allawi.

Abuse of human rights in Iraq is as bad now as it was under Saddam Hussein, if not worse, former prime minister Iyad Allawi said in an interview published on Sunday. "People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse. It is an appropriate comparison," Allawi told British newspaper The Observer.

"We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated," said Allawi in an apparent reference to the discovery of a bunker at the Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry where 170 men were held prisoner, beaten, half-starved and in some cases tortured. "A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed in the course of interrogations."