Spurious rumor alert: Negroponte to State to replace Rice, who is tapped to replace ailing Cheney.
Update: As long as we're gossiping, did you hear what Laura said? Just between you, me, and the fence post, of course.
--David Kurtz
Another day in Iraq:
* 30 dead in central Baghdad clash between Iraqi Army and gunmen following reports that Sunnis had set up fake checkpoint where they were detaining Shiites, shooting them, and hanging their bodies from lampposts;
* 27 bodies were dumped behind a hospital in Baghdad;
* 72 bodies were recovered around Baghdad on Saturday, most showing signs of torture.
--David Kurtz
From the (Murdoch-owned) Sunday Times:
ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.
. . .
Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.
. . .
Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes have been mapped out, including one over Turkey.
Air force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons on the mission. The preparations have been overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the Israeli air force.
Sources close to the Pentagon said the United States was highly unlikely to give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One source said Israel would have to seek approval “after the event”, as it did when it crippled Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak with airstrikes in 1981.
Late update: As I hinted in the parenthetical, it's important to consider the source.
--David Kurtz
This is worrisome. It comes from a McClatchy report on the likely selection of Ryan Crocker as the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, replacing Zalmay Khalilzad:
Crocker "must answer: Whose side are we on?" said a State Department official in Washington, who asked not to be identified because the official isn't authorized to speak to the news media. "It is going to be extremely difficult."
We keep hearing about a faction within the Administration that wants to choose sides (i.e., back the Shiite majority) in order, presumably, to bring the civil war to a quicker and more decisive end so that we can declare victory and withdraw. I say presumably because there are so many problems with this approach that trying to tease out its proponents' objectives almost misses the point.
But here's the thing. One might expect that faction to reside at the Pentagon or NSC--but the State Department? That can't be a good sign.
--David Kurtz
One of the nice things about weekend blogging is that I'm not quite as captive to the news cycle as during the week. So on a Saturday morning during flu season, let me put on my tinfoil hat and digress into one of my pet fascinations: the spread of the H5N1 influenza virus.
About this time last year, I read John Barry's The Great Influenza, about the 1918 pandemic. (A good read, though not in the same league as his seminal work on the Great Flood of 1927, Rising Tide. If you want to really understand Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath, start with Rising Tide.) Beyond the sheer number of deaths from what was dubbed the Spanish Flu is the speed with which the virus spread and the ferocity with which it attacked its victims. It simply overwhelmed the ability of political, social, and medical institutions (such as they were at the time) to respond in any meaningful or effective way. Advances in medical science would help mitigate the effects of a flu pandemic today in developed countries, although probably not to the extent we would like to think. It would make Katrina look like a gentle spring rain.
There have been other flu pandemics since 1918, though none so lethal, and the experts assure us that another pandemic is just a matter of time. It is the high mortality rate among human victims of the H5N1 virus that has public health experts particularly worried, combined with the fact, not surprising, that the virus has taken hold in bird populations in underdeveloped countries like China, Indonesia, and Vietnam where birds and humans live in close proximity and where monitoring and treatment is hampered by a lack of resources, among other things.
Still, and this is why I started out with the tinfoil hat reference, the total number of H5N1 human deaths worldwide since the virus first emerged is dwarfed by the annual number of deaths in the U.S. from regular old strains of influenza. So H5N1 may or may not be the next pandemic flu. There are good reasons to worry (more people died of H5N1 in 2006 than the previous three years combined), and good reasons not to panic (a swine flu showed signs of going pandemic in the 1970s but never did).
In the meantime, there's no better place from where to keep a watchful eye on the spread of H5N1 than the H5N1 blog.
--David Kurtz
The rise of digital entertainment has upended whole industries, from Hollywood to the music business. Now it's striking at a touchstone of the American family: the allowance. Kids are pouring money into things that can't be bought with cash -- music downloads, cellphone ringtones and online videogames. JupiterResearch estimates teenagers spent $3 billion online last year alone. In many families, the upshot has been the demise of the weekly cash dole that parents have long used to teach kids financial responsibility and keep them from busting the budget.Instead, "giving the kids their allowance" now often entails untangling a complex web of electronic transactions. It means figuring out which sibling blew $29.99 to download Season 4 of "South Park" on iTunes and getting someone to fess up for charging those Jay-Z ringtones to mom's cellphone bill. Some parents find themselves taking on the role of bill collector and dunning their kids for reimbursement, while others are throwing up their hands and giving up on spending limits altogether.
My kids are 5 and 3, so we're just on the cusp of having to deal with this problem. Aside from the issue of turning kids into consumers at an ever younger age, how are TPM parents handling the digital allowance?
--David Kurtz
TPM Reader DB reports in:
I would like to refer to the note about Saddam’s changing image in the Arab world. I have lived in the United Arab Emirates for 8 years. The other night I was taking a little run into Dubai for a bad burrito (for some strange reason the cooks in Dubai do appalling things to Mexican food) and a beer. My taxi driver, Amjed, a Pakistani who has been driving taxi in Sharjah and Dubai for 25 years, was unusually quiet on this trip. Finally, after we got going on the freeway, he asked me,“So, Saddam gone, eh?”
“Yes,” I answered. “He is dead. He was a bad man. But it won’t change the troubles in Iraq.”
“He was bad man,” Amjed agreed. “You see?”
“No. I didn’t see it.”
“I see on television. He was brave.”
“I heard that.”
“He was bad man. In end, he was brave. He was not afraid. In end he was brave man. Was good.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. We drove on in silence. When we got to the bar, I thanked him, tipped him, walked in, and ordered a cold pint of Stella.
--David Kurtz
NYT:
In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe.On the streets, in newspapers and over the Internet, Mr. Hussein has emerged as a Sunni Arab hero who stood calm and composed as his Shiite executioners tormented and abused him.
“No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed,” President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt remarked in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot published Friday and distributed by the official Egyptian news agency. “They turned him into a martyr.”
--David Kurtz
I would hate to let John Negroponte's departure as Director of National Intelligence go by without reminiscing about the job's long hours and positively dreary surroundings, as recounted last March by Jeff Stein at CQ:
On many a workday lunchtime, the nominal boss of U.S. intelligence, John D. Negroponte, can be found at a private club in downtown Washington, getting a massage, taking a swim, and having lunch, followed by a good cigar and a perusal of the daily papers in the club’s library.“He spends three hours there [every] Monday through Friday,” gripes a senior counterterrorism official, noting that the former ambassador has a security detail sitting outside all that time in chase cars. Others say they’ve seen the Director of National Intelligence at the University Club, a 100-year-old mansion-like redoubt of dark oak panels and high ceilings a few blocks from the White House, only “several” times a week.
. . .
But there seems to be a new, relaxed John Negroponte. And some close observers think they know why.
He’s figured out the job. Which is to say, he really doesn’t have much control over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.
So why not hang at the University Club?
Negroponte spokesman Carl Kroft takes serious issue with that portrayal.
“He’s the hardest working person in U.S. intelligence,” Kroft said. “He’s hard at work from the early hours of the morning to late every night. The job never ends.”
Negroponte's new digs in Foggy Bottom will be much closer to the University Club than were DNI's temporary offices out at Bolling Air Force Base.
--David Kurtz
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) turns the Golden Rule on its head: "What we really expect out of the Democrats is for them to treat us as they would like to have been treated."
Given Boehner's perma-tan, maybe we can call this the Bronzed Rule.
--David Kurtz
The Bush administration doesn't want you to know who's been visiting the White House. So they've made sure you never find out.
--Paul Kiel
Huh. I didn't see that coming. Gen. Casey is being kicked up stairs to become Army Chief of Staff, succeeding Rumsfeld's man, Gen. Schoomaker, whom if memory serves Rummy had to bring out of retirement because he couldn't find any other generals in active service who would go along with his plans.
Late Update: Okay, a friend who knows this stuff says Schoomaker was "not a Rummy toady by any stretch." So I want to add that to the mix.
--Josh Marshall
Biden: "I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost. They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy -- literally, not figuratively."
--Josh Marshall
This is a key quote out of Sen. McCain's remarks this afternoon at AEI.
Contrary to popular notions that U.S. troops are getting “caught in the cross-fire” between Sunni and Shia fighters, and are therefore ineffective in ceasing the smoldering civil war, the track record is that when U.S. troops stopping [sic] sectarian violence is excellent; where American soldiers have been deployed to areas in turmoil, including Baghdad neighborhoods, the violence has ceased almost immediately.Similary, the Marines in Anbar province report very positive effects in reducing the non-sectarian Al Qaeda based violence that is the predominant cause of instability there.
Is that true? My recollection is that there was an earlier surge or crackdown in Baghdad. Violence did abate at first but then it rose again. The thinking, if I recall, was that the insurgents just adapted to the new tactics and then the fighting escalated again.
I doubt there's any real question that in a certain geographical area, with X number of soldiers and sufficiently permissive rules of engagement (two mammoth 'ifs') we could stop all the violence. The question is what X number is, whether we have X number of troops available, whether we're willing to make the area into a free fire zone and whether the whole effort really makes an eventual political settlement more possible.
So what exactly is McCain referring to? And are they examples which have any real bearing on the question at hand?
--Josh Marshall
Another winger tall-tale bites dust...
Here's some new proof that the so-called "lonely Kerry" photo story, which allegedly proved that he was "snubbed" by the troops in Iraq, is completely bogus.
--Greg Sargent
We've just obtained an advance copy of the soon-to-be-released letter to President Bush from Dem leaders coming out strongly against escalation in Iraq.
Key quote: "It is time to bring the war to a close."
Late Update: CNN now says the letter is coming soon as 'breaking news'. But you can read it here now.
--Greg Sargent
TPM Reader JM on Applebaum ... "It would be a bit easier to take Applebaum seriously if she could make a good case as to why we should have launched a war of liberation to free the Soviet Union from Stalin. Obviously, since no one with a hint of sanity seriously argued for taking out Stalin at the time, there were many American policy makers who understood how evil he was yet did not think it was worth a pre-emptive war to remove him from power. Yet Applebaum, like most neocons, implies that the only people who possibly could have understood Saddam's evil are those who supported obliterating his regime by force. In their fantasy world, there are two types of foreign rulers - those who are stable and good, and those whom we must destroy. Perhaps history holds no lessons for them except that we've had too few wars, too few chances to demonstrate our moral rectitude."
--Josh Marshall
Lieberman: Iraq War has the next relationship to the next war as the Spanish Civil War had to World War II.
Update: We've captured the moment here. Beware! Excessive historical analogizing may cause dizziness.
--Josh Marshall
Huh. Trent Lott admits the administration "pushed" the intelligence on Iraq to go to war.
--Paul Kiel
Dem leaders planning to release tough statement today on Iraq escalation.
--Greg Sargent
Prosecutors give a rundown on how much it cost for Jack Abramoff to bribe Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH). That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Paul Kiel
If you're looking for an example of the ideological narcissm and conspicuous self-pity of the now forlorn Iraq war promoters, go no further than this little squib in Slate by Anne Applebaum. Saddam, she says, one more of the great totalitarian dictators of the 20th century, and one of the few who ever got any sort of trial, so what's the problem exactly. People still don't get just how significant Saddam was. But that's no surprise because no one understood how important and dangerous Hitler or Stalin were either. In fact, people like Applebaum who are willing to stand up, publicly and say that Saddam was an evil man are villified and demeaned. "His death is being analyzed for its impact on Iraq's civil war and therefore for its impact on our troops. The chaos of his trial and execution are another excuse to attack the White House. Write that Saddam really was an evil man, and you'll be thought an apologist for George Bush. Write that Saddam's regime resembled Stalin's, and you'll be called a right-wing ideologue."
Does anyone know who these people are who are making it so hard to say publicly that Saddam was a bad guy?
It gets better though. Much of Applebaum's mini-screed is made up of a long and multiple condemnation of Americans and Europeans who not only misunderstood Saddam as they misjudged Hitler and Stalin but still only see him for his effect on us -- our dead troops, our geopolitical needs, etc. -- rather than for what he did in and to Iraq.
But in her final paragraph, it turns out that even the Iraqis themselves have failed to grasp what Applebaum et al. understand about Saddam.
Someday, perhaps, when Iraq's civil war is over, and when Iraqis have achieved a measure of personal safety—an even more basic human requirement than political freedom—it may be possible for Iraqis, at least, to think objectively about the physical and the psychological damage that Saddam's regime did to their country and about the ways in which that damage helped feed the insurgency. The human rights record compiled by the Iraqi human rights tribunal will help, particularly if Iraq's judges now continue to prosecute other defendants. Maybe someday Americans or Europeans will also find ways to discuss Saddam as something other than a pawn in their own games or as a figure in their own political debates. But I doubt it.
If you read the piece and think I'm being to harsh or sneering, please tell me. But all I can see here are so many wanne-be Churchills and Arendts who've fallen into a galactic pout because history hasn't sanctified their grandiosity.
--Josh Marshall
CBS: 68% 'optimistic' about 110th Congress; 25% 'pessimistic'.
Top priority for 110th: Iraq, 45%, Economy/Jobs 7%; Health Care 7%.
Perhaps some of my public opinion analyst friends will chime in on this. But I'm not sure I remember ever seeing such a stark number on public priorities on a question like this. With nearly half the respondents giving the same answer and the second highest not even rating in double digits.
Logic tells me terrorism must have rated that high in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But I'm not sure I actually remember that being the case.
Anyone know?
--Josh Marshall
Nice. New documents show that in 1986, John Bolton unleashed the FBI on witnesses who were going to testify against William Rehnquist during his confirmation hearings.
--Paul Kiel
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) introduces himself to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) on the House floor.
Update: Goode's district office in Virginia vandalized.
--Paul Kiel
Big Oil and kickbacks (and sex?) -- oh my! Welcome to the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service.
--Justin Rood
You think a little thing like a gift ban is going to stop them?
Lobbyists brainstorm on ways to circumvent Democratic reforms.
--Paul Kiel
White House: What's so bad about a little taunting? That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
Good to know who you're dealing with.
Saddam prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon, who pleaded with the members of the execution team taunting Saddam at the execution, yesterday recanted his claim that Iraqi National Security Advisor al Rubaie was one of the two governmental officials videotaping the execution with his cell phone.
Today he's saying that there actually weren't any people in the execution chamber taunting Saddam and hailing Moktada al-Sadr. The taunts, he now says, came from outside the execution chamber.
Must be fun to be him right now.
And yesterday's reports that a guard had been arrested over the video tape? Maliki advisor Sami al-Askari tells Reuters, no, didn't happen.
--Josh Marshall
So they really did turn him over to the Mahdi Army.
The latest line from Maliki/al Rubaie and Co. ...
"There was an infiltration at the execution chamber."Echoing those accusations, a senior Interior Ministry official said the hanging was supposed to be carried out by hangmen employed by the Interior Ministry but that "militias" had managed to infiltrate the executioners' team.
"The execution was carried out by militias and outsiders. They put aside the team from the Interior Ministry that was supposed to carry it out," the official said.
At this point, do we just officially call it a lynching? Of course, that doesn't take into account the very real possibility that this is no more true than yesterday's silly excuse that al Jazeera had infiltrated the execution chamber.
And does this perhaps get us toward an answer to our earlier question, Why the Rush? We know that Maliki is highly dependent on al Sadr and the Mahdi Army (the folks the 'surge' is supposed to crush). If it's really true that Saddam was handed over to MA fighters to be executed rather than Interior Ministry officials, was that the rush? Did al Sadr and Co. make Maliki an offer he couldn't refuse? Did they demand that Saddam be turned over to them -- and now -- for execution? Was that why he was pulling so many strings and cutting so many corners?
--Josh Marshall
Yes to the Surge? Or No? Or, okay, escalation. Have an opinion on this one? As we mentioned a while back, Sens. McCain and Lieberman are heading across town to the American Enterprise Institute on Friday to roll out their 'surge' plan to send a few tens of thousands more troops to Baghdad to crush the Mahdi Army. Make no mistake: this event is the official 'surge' roll-out.
Now it turns out that MoveOn is sponsoring a protest at the event at noon on Friday.
Now, I've seen protests outside AEI before. So if experience is any guide, they'll probably have a few goons on loan from Ahmed Chalabi or someone like that to manhandle anyone who actually tries to make it in as a member of the public or just toss them out the closest window. So this will probably just be a down on the sidewalk outside the building. But you'll get to see all the key regime changers and probably Joe and McCain and all the other PNAC folks. So if you're going to be in DC, stop by. It's right near the corner of 17th & M.
At least if this is a topic that matters to you.
--Josh Marshall
Parody-proof at any speed ... (from The Hill)
Washington Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Washington Wizards basketball team and Verizon Center, yesterday blasted Democratic plans to kill a sports ticket loophole from lawmakers’ $50 gift limit, saying it would damage an important local business.“We support the concept of full and open disclosure on the part of lobbyists and lawmakers to comply with ethics standards,” said Matt Williams, senior vice president at WS&E. “However, we oppose a total ban on all corporate entertainment opportunities. And this ban of tickets to sporting events as gifts will cause a negative impact on our business.
“Probably more than any other franchises in professional sports, Washington, D.C.-area teams count business from lobbyists as a contributing factor to our bottom line. This ban will certainly negatively affect the business we do with one of the major industries in our region — the federal government.”
Abe Pollin, head of WS&E, may be especially chagrined by the public-sector smack-down because, by his own count, he spent $220 million to build the Verizon Center, which has spurred a boom of development in the Capitol’s Penn Quarter.
Reminds me of the old days of Pollin-Abramoff-DeLay shindigs.
--Josh Marshall
Alright. What does it mean? Not exactly sure.
John Negroponte is resigning as Director of National Intelligence and becoming Deputy Secretary of State.
The DNI position is a new one. So it's hard to say where it rates. But it's hard for me to see where this isn't a substantial come down in seniority. And what does it say about the position of DNI? I suspect that is the story here.
--Josh Marshall
Administration official: Surge "more of a political decision than a military one."
--Josh Marshall
al-Rubaie's latest: Arab TV networks snuck videotaper into the execution chamber!
Rubaie, courtesy of CNN, "I believe there was an infiltration to the crowd inside the chamber. These people have done a lot of harm, and I honestly believe that this may well have been planned by one of these Arab television channels infiltrating, and probably this video has been sold to this Arab television station."
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Feeney (R-FL) says Abramoff junket was 'waste of time' in helping him become more corrupt.
--Josh Marshall
Dems so surprised they won on election day that they hadn't done much planning for executive branch oversight.
--Josh Marshall
Let's do a little credibility recap in the evolving Saddam snuff film whodunit.
Munkith al-Faroun was a prosecutor at Saddam's trial. And by all accounts he was the one at the execution demanding that the executioners stop their taunts and harangues and complete the process in a dignified way. "Please, I am begging you not to. The man is being executed," he is heard saying on the now-infamous cell-phone vid.
al-Faroun first said that he saw two Maliki government officials making videos of the execution by holding up their cell phones as the events took place. He later identified one of the two men as Iraqi National Security Advisor Mowaffak al-Rubaie. In response to Maliki government claims that it was one of the guards who took the cell phone video, al-Faroun said, not likely. "I am confident that they were not the guards, for I checked the guards. I kept them under my eye," he said.
As the intensity of the scrutiny into the story rose overnight, al-Faroun recanted his claim to have seen al-Rubaie making a video of the execution: "I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and I did not see him taking pictures."
Now, as a result of the Maliki government investigation, one of the guards has been arrested for making the video tape, according to the New York Times. But Maliki's spokesman, Sadiq al-Rikabi, won't say who the guard is, why he did the filming or where he's being held in Baghdad. "It is clear that it was only one person doing that filming, and he has been arrested."
Remember, at least one Maliki government official had a cell phone in the chamber. Because he answered the phone with Saddam's body in front of him when CNN called.
Meanwhile, an unnamed Maliki government official tells the AP that the person arrested was not a guard but "an official who supervised the execution."
So question of the day. Who would you rather be right now? The 'guard' who is currently in custody? Or Mr. al-Faroun?
--Josh Marshall
If I'd told you last January that one year from now, House Republicans will be crying about Democrats making deals in smoke-filled rooms, would you have believed it?
--Paul Kiel
A stern view from TPM Reader JG ...
Reading your detailed post on the sorry spectacle of the Hussein execution and the pathetic responses by the right wing bloggers, it struck me that this is a repeating theme for this crew. They don't really believe in democracy, they don't really believe in the rule of law, or in impartial justice. Every Bush effort, and every Republican effort, since the Iraq war got started has the same touches on it as this sorry spectacle, rush things to fit political time tables, ride over the rule of law, chaos, incomptence, and the country looking worse at the end of it. Some of your readers don't understand the problem, but it's the same problem as what's going on in Gitmo and god knows where else, it's all of a piece. Rule of law isn't some neat extra cool thing that democratic countries came up with because its nice and convenient, it's like oxygen, entirely necessary. It's what gives the entire process of justice something more than simple bloodletting. We see the consequences of a lack of respect for the rule of law in the savegery of Saddam's execution, do we imagine that these thugs are any less savage to anybody else they deem "guilty" but is actually simple an innocent from the wrong tribe? The longer this thing goes on, the more clear it becomes that the current Iraqi government is the child of its Republican fathers in every meaningful way. Are we suppossed to imagine that a (Republican) government which is so clearly incompetent, dangerious, savage when it can get away with it, elevates politcal theatre above actual results, and plays hard to its base somehow created a government that does the *same exact things* in Iraq (where those tendencies have even worse results) by *accident* or *coincidence*? No. The Iraqi government is as much an import from the US as the US solders sustaining it are.
I mainly agree on the issue of the provenance of the new Iraqi regime. But I'd say it's married the worst of what they have to offer with the worst from us. And that ain't a pretty picture. Or video.
--Josh Marshall
Great moments in chat show journalism: Chris Matthews asks, Was Jerry Ford a nice guy or a real nice guy ...
First in a series, no doubt.
--Josh Marshall
Oh, we'll miss you, Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA). Already gone, he got kicked in the pants today by the House ethics committee.
--Paul Kiel
On Mr. al-Rubaie's evolving recollections ...
al Rubaie on Dec. 29th ...
the whole process from A to Z has been videoed, and it's kept in a safe place, and there was absolutely no humiliation to Saddam Hussein when he was alive, and after he was executed. So there was no -- there was all respect to him, when he was alive, and after the execution when he was like a body, if you like. I'm honestly proud of the way it was executed. It was done in a proper way, in all the international standards and the Islamic standards, and Iraqi standards. I'm really proud of the way it went on ...
And today ...
Iraq's National Security Adviser, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie, said the shouting was "unprofessional, disgusting and shouldn't have happened"."This was supposed to be a uniting event between Shia and Sunni," Mr Rubaie told Sky TV, adding that Iraq's government would punish those found to be involved.
Maybe he should look at his cell phone video again to remind him?
(ed.note: Special thanks to sleuthing from TPM Reader AL.)
--Josh Marshall
It gets better and better. Now al-Rubaie denies ever having a cell phone in the execution chamber: "I had no camera and no mobile phone with me. I handed my mobile over to my assistant before getting on the American helicopter that took us to the scene."
Speaking of Iraqis who may need asylum in the US, how about Munkith al-Faroun? He's the deputy prosecutor who first ID'd Rubaie as the cell-phone videographer. He was also the one overheard on the tapes appealing for order and an end of the taunting just before the hanging (clearly the guy has no sense o fun). Now he's recanted ...
--Josh Marshall
So many lessons to be drawn from the execution of Saddam Hussein. High on the list now: if you're only a deputy prosecutor at the war crimes trial, don't accuse the country's National Security Advisor of shooting the execution snuff tape.
--Josh Marshall
Can anybody here make any sense of the Rudy camp's explanation for that leaked campaign memo? We can't.
Update: Still more info emerges about the great strategy memo caper -- and the Rudy campaign's explanation grows still more convoluted.
--Greg Sargent
Mystery solved! From the AP:
The person believed to have recorded Saddam Hussein's execution on a cell phone camera was arrested Wednesday, an adviser to Iraq's prime minister said.The adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, did not identify the person. But he said it was "an official who supervised the execution" and who is "now under investigation."
****
On Wednesday, an Iraqi prosecutor who was also present at the execution denied a report that he had accused National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie of possible responsibility for the leaked video.
"I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and I did not see him taking pictures," Munqith al-Faroon, a prosecutor in the case that sent Saddam to the gallows, told The Associated Press.
"But I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution. They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces," al-Faroon said in a telephone interview.
What a big misunderstanding.
--Paul Kiel
Well, the Dems don't mean to cause no trouble/They just came to do the K Street Shuffle. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
DOJ to Sen. Leahy (D-VT) on secret CIA prisons document request: Go screw yourself.
--Josh Marshall
Was the guy who took the Saddam hanging snuff film that's lighting up the internet none other than the Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser?
As we noted earlier, the Maliki government has now begun an 'investigation' into who chanted the praises of Moktada al Sadr at Saddam Hussein's execution and who took a grainy snuff film video of the final moments with a cell phone camera and then let it out on the internet.
According to the Post, Munqith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor at the trial, said he saw two senior officials using cell phones to record the events.
Now, here's where it gets interesting. When I excerpted a passage from the Post piece this afternoon, it read like this ...
He said he knew that "two top officials ... had their mobile phones with them" at the execution, although other witnesses had their phones taken away beforehand.
That passage has now been replaced by a new one which contains more details but has al-Faroun less clear on who the people were ...
The probe could implicate senior Iraqi officials. Munqith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor in Hussein's trial, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he saw two official observers using their cellphones to record Hussein's last moments. The two men, he said, were "recording through their mobiles openly." He said he did not recognize them, but could do so if he saw them again.Maliki aides said they did not think any officials were behind the video.
"I think [it was] one of the guards, but let us leave everything to the inquiry," Rikabi said.
"I am confident that they were not the guards, for I checked the guards. I kept them under my eye," Faroun said. "They were not people who came off the street." Iraqi officials had been flown in by two U.S. helicopters from the Green Zone an hour before the execution.
But al-Faroun told a significantly different story to reporters for the New York Times ...
... one of the officials who attended the hanging, a prosecutor at the trial that condemned Mr. Hussein to death, said that one of two men he had seen holding a cellphone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein’s last moments — up to and past the point where he fell through the trapdoor — was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser. Attempts to reach Mr. Rubaie were unsuccessful. The prosecutor, Munkith al-Faroun, said the other man holding a cellphone above his head was also an official, but he could not recall his name.
Apparently everyone else had had their cell phones confiscated, even al-Faroun.
Now, stay with me.
It turns out that at least one official in Maliki's government spoke to CNN by cellphone from the execution chamber just moments after the sentence had been carried out. In a report which appeared overnight on December 29th ...
Many of those who witnessed the execution celebrated in the aftermath."Saddam's body is in front me," said an official in the prime minister's office when CNN telephoned. "It's over.
"In the background, Shiite chanting could be heard. When asked about the chanting, the official said, "These are employees of the prime minister's office and government chanting in celebration.
"He said that celebrations broke out after Hussein was dead, and that there was "dancing around the body."
This passage appeared in at least four CNN reports and usually tucked in amidst a series of on the record quotes from al-Rubaie -- a thin evidentiary reed certainly, but a suggestive one given the content that has subsequently revealed itself.
What does CNN have to say? Any thoughts, guys?
Late Update: Seems Mr. al-Rubaie makes a lot of calls in to CNN. TPM Reader AL dug up this transcript from the Anderson Cooper show on the 29th in which Anderson interviews al-Rubaie. And among other things, al-Rubaie denies reports that there was anything untoward about how the execution was carried out ...
Before he went -- of course, this process, the whole process from A to Z has been videoed, and it's kept in a safe place, and there was absolutely no humiliation to Saddam Hussein when he was alive, and after he was executed. So there was no -- there was all respect to him, when he was alive, and after the execution when he was like a body, if you like ... I'm honestly proud of the way it was executed. It was done in a proper way, in all the international standards and the Islamic standards, and Iraqi standards. I'm really proud of the way it went on.
--Josh Marshall
An investigation? Now the Maliki government is going to investigate the 'Moktada' chants at Saddam's execution and the leaking of the phone-cam snuff film?
First of all, wasn't it filmed? And wasn't it clear that the hooded guys were among the chanters and taunters? Does the Maliki government know who the guys in the masks were? Or were they on special detail from the Mahdi Army?
One question seems to be who got into the room with a cell phone that allowed the surreptitious recording ...
Munqith al-Faroon, an Iraqi prosecutor whose job was to convict Saddam Hussein of genocide, was one of the small group of witnesses at the hanging and defended Saddam's right to die in peace.He said he knew that "two top officials ... had their mobile phones with them" at the execution, although other witnesses had their phones taken away beforehand.
But maybe they should start the investigation down in Atlanta with the folks at CNN. Here's what CNN reported shortly after the execution ...
Many of those who witnessed the execution celebrated in the aftermath."Saddam's body is in front me," said an official in the prime minister's office when CNN telephoned. "It's over."
In the background, Shiite chanting could be heard. When asked about the chanting, the official said, "These are employees of the prime minister's office and government chanting in celebration."
He said that celebrations broke out after Hussein was dead, and that there was "dancing around the body."
Sounds like that dude had a cell phone, doesn't it?
This passage makes it a little ambiguous whether this government official was in the execution chamber or somewhere in the prime minister's office where they took Saddam's body. Another version of the story that CNN ran a few hours later leaves no doubt ...
A witness to Saddam Hussein's execution in Baghdad said that celebrations broke out after the former dictator died, and that there was "dancing around the body.""Saddam's body is in front me," said an official in the prime minister's office when CNN telephoned. "It's over."
In the background, Shiite chanting could be heard. When asked about the chanting, the official said
"These are employees of the prime minister's office and government chanting in celebration."
I take it that this government 'investigation' will be highly impartial.
--Josh Marshall
GOP Primary 2008 begins!
A McCain aide takes a swipe at Rudy over that leaked campaign memo laying out Rudy's top-secret plan for taking the White House.
--Greg Sargent
Let me follow up on something I mentioned yesterday.
As I noted in last night's lengthy post, I still don't think we've seen a satisfactory explanation of just why Prime Minsiter Maliki was so intent on hanging Saddam as quickly as he did. According to CNN, when the Americans pressed for a short two week delay, And CNN, in a report on the website, said that when the Americans pushed for a short two week delay, "Al-Maliki and his aides rejected that ... citing security concerns and rumors of possible violence swirling around the capital."
Now, as I said last night, it's a cryptic reference and it's buried down in the piece. But it's hard to think of a logical explanation for this rationale other than the thought that they feared someone was going to spring Saddam from his jail cell. I know that sounds ridiculous -- especially when you consider that Saddam was held in US Army custody. But how else to make sense of this remark? What other sort of violence would make it necessary to execute Saddam quickly? Were they trying to defuse or appease some Shi'a unrest?
It's a cryptic remark and with so many people making excuses it may not mean anything. It may just be a crock. But has anyone heard anything else like this? Any other news reports that have anything similar to what CNN reported?
Late Update: TPM Reader HS notes the following passage in today's article in the Wall Street Journal ...
Mr. Maliki wanted to leave nothing to chance. His mind raced through several scenarios, however improbable, that might have derailed the execution, says a close adviser who spoke with him. What if the Americans struck a secret deal sparing Mr. Hussein's life in exchange for a halt to attacks against U.S. troops? What if the former dictator's lawyers succeeded in blocking his hanging through U.S. courts? And finally, what if insurgents abducted a group of schoolchildren and threatened to kill them unless the hanging was canceled?
This stuff gets pretty weird pretty quickly. But I get the feeling that something this is what's at the root of urgency. I think Maliki wanted to lock us in.
Of course, there's another distinct possibility -- that it's Maliki who realizes that he's not going to be around (or, given the country and danger of ambiguity, in government) for much longer. After all, the troop surge/escalation is to wipe out Sadr and his Mahdi Army, upon whose thugs and muscle Maliki seems to lean.
Even Later Update: Hangin' at the same dinner parties? A couple TPM Readers alerted me to the fact that this schoolchildren hostage scenario showed up in a post Cliff May did at The Corner on New Year's day ...
Imagine that Saddam had not been executed. Imagine that he had been sentenced to life in prison. Now imagine that a group of pro-Saddam terrorists seizes an elementary school. They say they will kill all the students and teachers if Saddam is not released within 24 hours.Should Saddam then be released? Or should several dozen innocent children and their teachers be killed?
Is it not better that we have guaranteed that it will never be necessary to make such a choice?
Hard to imagine both these guys imagining this one independently. What's the backstory? Did someone in the US suggest this to the reporter? Is this in the chatter in the Green Zone? And doesn't the scenario sound a bit more like something that might happen in the US rather than Iraq? Not to say it couldn't of course. But I bet there's a story behind this anecdote.
Of course, this does suggest the ultimate Bush White House explanation of why Saddam's hanging had to happen right then ... for children.
--Josh Marshall
I don't know if the basic gist of the New York Times piece on what happened in Iraq in 2006 will get picked up. But in case anyone misses it, let's do the short summary. According to the White House, the person to blame for Iraq is Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the top American commander in the country. And Casey's so bad that President Bush is probably going to can him before his current tour concludes this summer. Probably as soon as next month.
In so many words, Casey's policy (which, reading between the lines, it's pretty clear Casey thought was Bush's desired policy) was maintain current troop levels and 'standing down as the Iraqis stand up'. You may have thought that was the Bush policy. But apparently not. "Over the past 12 months," the Times now tells us, "as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy."
In fact, the Casey policy left the White House so wrong footed that they were "constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground."
So why did the president wait so long to rid himself of this meddlesome general? Well, politics is politics, remember. "Many of Mr. Bush’s advisers say their timetable for completing an Iraq review had been based in part on a judgment that for Mr. Bush to have voiced doubts about his strategy before the midterm elections in November would have been politically catastrophic."
At least there was no rush to get a handle on the situation. Read this article. The swirl of buckpassing, cravenness, ridiculous lies and general awfulness will turn your head.
--Josh Marshall
For those of you who were left confused by the subtleties of Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA) earlier letter to constituents warning of Muslims immigrating to the U.S., he's finally done you the favor of a clear summation of his beliefs.
--Paul Kiel
House Republicans, newly humble, are pushing for a Minority Bill of Rights.
A bill, of course, they wouldn't even consider when they were in the majority.
--Paul Kiel
Iraq investigates whether hangmen engaged in unauthorized taunting of Saddam Hussein prior to his execution. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
It seems that like so many events in President Bush's long adventure in Iraq, the execution of Saddam Hussein looked best on day one and successively worse on every day after.
John Burns of the New York Times puts it best when he writes that ...
None of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Mr. Maliki had been unwilling to allow the execution to wait. Nor would any explain why those who conducted it had allowed it to deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.
After I wrote about Saddam's impending execution on Friday, a few readers wrote in to ask why the manner of Saddam's execution should have been such a big deal to me. TPM Reader AA, for instance, wrote ...
I’ve been with you through pretty much all of your scathing criticism of Bush’s sorry record in Iraq, but I was really taken aback by your reaction to Saddam’s execution. I don’t quite get what animated it all—are you a general opponent of capital punishment? I really can’t find a reason to see Saddam’s death as anything but a good thing. If anybody deserved a hanging, he was it. For all the terrible errors made in this whole endeavor, I think Bush is entitled to point to this execution and say that well, there was at least one good thing the war brought about. (He was an Evil Dictator, haven’t you heard?) So why does the execution serve as such a sorry moment for you?
With more sarcasm, TPM Reader AB wrote ...
Well, I for one am going to lose just loads of sleep thinking about how undignified Saddam's execution was. Jeez, guys danced around him and chanted. And they wore hoods!Gracious, he really deserved something better than that!!
Pomp and circumstance baby, pomp and circumstance.
Plenty of people deserve to die. And Saddam Hussein ranked very high on that list. And there was more than a little poetic justice in the way Saddam met his end.
But if justice were simply a matter of bad men meeting bad ends, then Iraq today would be awash in justice.
Vengeance isn't justice. Vengeance is part of justice. But only a part. I understand the need for vengeance. I appreciate and I've felt it -- for wrongs to myself, to my loved ones, probably most of all to groups I identify myself with. But I've always thought there was something cowardly and insecure about people who get too vicariously involved in other people's righteous desire for vengeance. And that is how I would class a lot of the folks I see today getting all jonesed up about Saddam's hanging when they probably didn't even know the first thing about the guy's record until a few years ago. Perhaps it is excessive to note that a lot of the same folks now endorse flattening the same people Saddam was butchering fifteen or twenty-five years ago.
Saddam may have gotten what he deserved. But the process he got it through was a sham. And the execution itself appears to have been managed and organized at every stage to maximize sectarian divisions in Iraq. Burns, again, has the depressing account of the drumhead process that rushed Saddam to the gallows ...
... a narr