Yesterday we saw the complete unravelling of the lie that the assault on Basra is strictly an all-Iraqi operation, with the Baghdad government imposing its authority on "criminal gangs" in the port city. American warplanes joined in the attack yesterday, dive-bombing residential areas. Nor were these U.S. operations confined to Basra; American planes struck several cities throughout the country, with a heavy concentration in the Sadr City quadrants of Baghdad. (For more, see the earlier post, Operation Permanent Presence: The Civil War "Surge" in Iraq.)

Also gone is the obvious lie that the operation has anything to do with "criminal gangs" in a single city. The target is clearly the forces of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of the most powerful and popular political force in Iraq. American officials acknowledged as much with their assertions of a full-scale engagement with "the enemy" in Sadr City, the stronghold of the Sadr movement. And the bombing raids across the country -- again, on Sadr forces -- only underscore the true target of the operation.

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In addition, another motive behind the attack on the oil port of Basra has emerged. As noted in the Guardian by Sami Ramadani, an Iraqi writer persecuted and driven into exile by Saddam Hussein, the escalation of the civil war is also designed to crush the oil workers' union in Basra, which adamantly opposes the "oil laws" now being pushed by Bush and al-Maliki: measures which will consign the nation's oil wealth to the long-term control and domination of Western oil giants. Ramadani also notes that the brutal operation is reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's violent repression of "insurgents" in the same area in 1991 -- while U.S. forces sat by and watched.

By Dan Eggen and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 2, 2008; A01

The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.

The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality."

Although the existence of the memo has long been known, its contents had not been previously disclosed.

Nine months after it was issued, Justice Department officials told the Defense Department to stop relying on it. But its reasoning provided the legal foundation for the Defense Department's use of aggressive interrogation practices at a crucial time, as captives poured into military jails from Afghanistan and U.S. forces prepared to invade Iraq.

Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers.

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Gus: so wartime Geneva conventions were dismissed at the discretion of a rogue US president... And he is still roguing around, somewhere...

From the independent

But while Britain and America have firmly stood by Megrahi's conviction, many people – including a number of British families who lost loved ones in the tragedy and the UN-appointed observer at the trial – who were convinced the real culprits remained at large while an innocent man was jailed.

It took more than three years for western intelligence agencies to start blaming Libya and in that time a number of disparate terrorist groups had claimed responsibility, including Islamic Jihad, the little-known Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and even, allegedly, the Ulster Defence League.

...

Two years before Lockerbie, PFLP-GC's Syrian leader Ahmed Jibril had called a press conference warning that there would be "no safety for any traveller on an Israeli or US airliner".

Intelligence agencies took this to mean that Tehran had given Jibril the go-ahead to carry out a revenge attack for the shooting down of an Iranian Airlines passenger jet by the US warship Vincennes. Iran Air Flight 655 had been carrying 290 pilgrims to Mecca for the hajj but the captain of the USS Vincennes, who later received a medal from the US government, fired upon it believing it was a hostile Iranian jet fighter.

Two years later the very threat that Jibril had promised to carry out had happened. The PFLP-GC hastily called a press conference in Beirut denying any involvement but many believed Jibril's organisation carried out the attack on behalf of Iran in revenge.

Those who do not believe the official verdict say Libya was placed in the frame three years later because the US could not afford to alienate Iran and Syria during the build up to the first Gulf War, which had been sparked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

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I may be wrong but in the back of my mind lurks a bit of news that the "very small piece of evidence" (a tiny fragment of a circuit board that "may have been" part of a detonator), used to convict Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi back then, "was not his" and may have been from something either planted or made by the CIA or even a bit from someone's radio set... Who knows...

Like a year after 9/11 happened, Bush blamed Saddam for it, when Saddam had nothing to do with it and Bush knew that...

see toon at top

A tip-off would demonstrate the continuing value of human intelligence and human sources over such sophisticated technology as spy planes, satellites, electronic eavesdropping and drones. This was the message delivered last week by Sir John Sawers, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, which obtains its secret information from people, mainly foreigners. The Saudi tip-off demonstrated the importance of getting advance intelligence "as far away from the UK as possible", said one British official echoing points made by Sawers in what was the first public speech by a serving MI6 chief in the agency's 101-year history.

The plot raises the question of Britain's close relations with Saudi Arabia. Though there is no suggestion at all that torture was involved in this case, and British officials say that Saudi security services are reformed, the country's approach to human rights is scarcely one that Britain would defend. (And we should not forget, either, that the Serious Fraud Office dropped its corruption allegations case against BAE, Britain's biggest arms company, relating to Saudi Arabia on the grounds that the Saudis threatened to stop sharing intelligence with the UK.)

The second key point, after the one about relying on human intelligence, is that al-Qaida sympathisers – in this case their bombmaker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, 28, a Saudi national based in Yemen – appear to have the expertise to build a device capable of evading airport controls and screens in three Gulf states (Yemen, Qatar and Dubai).

British and US security and intelligence agencies emphasise how sophisticated the bombs were, hidden in printer toner cartridges, in packets addressed to synagogues in Chicago yet timed to blow planes in mid air, somewhere.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/01/saudi-tip-off-bomb-plot

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Gus: first and foremost, I would be HIGHLY suspicious of any unchecked package sent from Yemen to "SYNAGOGUES" anywhere in the world... That an Al-Qaeda operative squealed on his mates is highly suspicious too... It would be an easy one to squeal on... Does he get a medal or is he part of a plot to let the West know Al Qaeda can strike anywhere at anytime...? Or is it a tip off given to gain his freedom from his Western "controllers"... A tip-off demonstrating the value of "intelligence"?... An ordinary tip-off is only coming at the "goodwill" of the tip-off-er... The only thing "intelligence has to do is "collect the info and verify it". Should "intelligence" collects the info and not verify it, as happened in the case of 9/11, there could be strife...

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The crucial tip-off that led to the discovery of parcel bombs on two cargo planes came from a repentant al-Qaeda member, UK officials say.

Jabr al-Faifi handed himself in to authorities in Saudi Arabia two weeks ago, the officials told the BBC.

The US says its main suspect in the failed bomb plot is the chief bombmaker for al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch.

Yemeni officials said 14 suspected al-Qaeda members had surrendered in the restive southern province of Abyan.

Abyan's governor said five senior figures were among those who had handed themselves in, and more fighters were expected to surrender in the coming days.

Yemen is facing mounting multi-national pressure to battle al-Qaeda, says the BBC's Lina Sinjab in Sanaa, but some doubt its ability to do so as it faces social, economic and political problems at home.

US intelligence officials have suggested the Saudi bombmaker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, said to be in his 20s, is the key suspect in last week's attempt to send the parcel bombs from Yemen to the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11666272

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Gus: do I smell the good work of a "double-cross system" here? A DCS where agents are coerced to work for both sides, while being on an invisble leash... Double-cross agent control is a delicate mastery of psychological manipulation, possibly associated with auto-suggestion — in which the memory of having been punished in Guantanamo plays a strong subconscious part. "repentant"? my foot. There would be a better pay off for that.

See toon at top...

Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh admits covering up US military strikes on Al Qaeda in Yemen by claiming they are carried out by Yemeni forces, according to US documents leaked by WikiLeaks.

"We continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," Mr Saleh said in January talks with General David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in the Middle East, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable published by the New York Times.

The cable was sent by the US ambassador to Yemen, the daily said.

The daily said the remarks prompted Yemen's deputy prime minister to "joke that he had just lied by telling parliament" that Yemeni forces had staged the strikes against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Qaeda's Yemeni arm.

And during a meeting about Al Qaeda with John Brennan, the US deputy national security adviser, Mr Saleh was "dismissive, bored and impatient," according to another leaked US diplomatic cable published in Britain's The Guardian.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Washington had deployed drones to hunt down jihadists.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/29/3078892.htm