The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

ajandpeter | December 28, 2007, 10:06AM

David Hicks, the sole detainee at Guantanamo Bay to have been convicted of a crime under the U.S. military tribunal system, will be a free man on Saturday, six years after arriving at Guantanamo. The former Austrailian Outback cowboy received a 7-year sentence (with all but 9 months suspended) in a plea-bargain deal that allowed him to serve the remainder of his time in an Austrailian prison -- provided he remains silent about any abuse he alleges to have suffered in U.S. custody. (AP)

The U.S.-backed Iraqi government announced it will slash half the subsidized items from monthly food rations because of "insufficient funds and spiraling inflation." The Iraqi government says it is unable to supply the rations with several billion dollars at its disposal, although Saddam Hussein was able to maintain the program with less than $1 billion.The cuts are supposed to be introduced in the beginning of 2008 and will affect nearly 10 million people who depend on the rationing system. (IPS)

FEMA has hired a new director of public affairs to replace the official who was in charge during a fake news conference in October. Jonathan Thompson, who was a deputy assistant defense secretary for public affairs, strategy and operations, will be FEMA's new director of external affairs. (New York Times)

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

ajandpeter | December 27, 2007, 9:48AM

The best new estimate for the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the "global war on terror" more broadly, is $15 billion per month. According to the Congressional Research Service, operations and maintenance costs for the wars have risen to $81 billion in fiscal 2008 from $72 billion in fiscal 2007. (Washington Post)

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) presided over a nine-second Senate session on December 26. Webb kept the Senate in session over the holiday in order to block Bush's efforts to make a recess appointment of Steven Bradbury, acting chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legislative Counsel, who has signed two secret torture memos in 2005. (USA Today)

About 1,500 heavily armored, V-hulled Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRPA) trucks have arrived at long last in Iraq, but the vehicle that is saving lives has a major shortcoming: it lacks the maneuverability for urban warfare necessary to fight the Iraqi insurgency. But with nearly 12,000 of the trucks on order in a program that has a projected cost of more than $17 billion, the expensive new Army weapons system is likely to influence how the Army fights. (LA Times)

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The Daily Muck

The Daily Muck

ajandpeter | December 26, 2007, 9:49AM

The U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay has been opened for since just after the September 11, 2001 attacks yet the military tribunal system there has produced only one conviction (through a plea bargain). Hundreds have been freed after having never been charged with any crime, yet Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a year-end Pentagon news conference that the government has made little progress toward its "vowed goal of closing" the prison. (AFP)

Experts in interrogation assert that “the United States is behind the curve of current best practices, and that videotaping is an essential tool in improving the methods - and results - of questioning terrorism suspects.” According to the specialists, the lack of videotapes in “as many as 100 ‘high-value’ terrorism suspects has prevented” the “capturing” of details that should be “archived, compared, and analyzed in-depth by a range of government experts.” (Boston Globe)

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