Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein's Bronze Buttock To Be Auctioned In The UK

David Taintor | October 13, 2011, 5:00AM

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's Statue In Baghdad's Al-Fardous Square Is Pulled Down With The Help Of US Marines In 2003.

For the right price, a bronze buttock of the toppled Saddam Hussein statue from Baghdad's Firdos Square could be yours.

Sound too good to be true? A piece of the infamous statue is set to be auctioned in Britain at the end of October. A journalist working in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion got permission to remove the buttock from the toppled statute, using a hammer and crowbar, the AFP reports. Nigel Ely said U.S Marines had blocked off access to the statue, but when Ely asked for a piece of the statute, they said "No problem, buddy -- help yourself."

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Private Contractors

TPM Investigates: Army Tries To Rein In Rampant Afghan Fuel Theft

Susan Crabtree | March 7, 2011, 7:59AM

The U.S. Army is getting rid of its "pen and paper" and "string and stick" method of tracking fuel use in Afghanistan after nearly a decade of mismanagement, theft and fraud resulting in what is likely hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in lost fuel, some of which is sold on the black market and has ended up in Taliban hands.

The highest levels of the U.S. military have deep concerns about the rampant robbery, and the U.S. Army this week is beginning to implement, base by base in Afghanistan, a computerized accounting system aimed at making it easier to track the disappearing fuel.

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Commission On Wartime Contracting

Highway Robbery! U.S. Losing Hundreds of Millions To Rampant Afghan Fuel Theft

Susan Crabtree | March 3, 2011, 11:55AM

After nearly a decade of mismanagement, theft and fraud, the U.S. military still hasn't found a way to staunch the flow of what is likely hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars in lost fuel in Afghanistan, some of which is sold on the black market and winds up in Taliban hands, a TPM investigation has found.

With political unrest in the Middle East sending oil over $100 per barrel and Congress more intent than ever at cutting government waste, fraud and abuse in tough budgetary times, the Defense Department is under intense pressure to find a way to monitor and track the flow of fuel in and out of its bases in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The extensive corruption associated with disappearing fuel in Afghanistan provides another illustration of the problems associated with the heavy use of private contractors on the battlefield. Earlier this week, the non-partisan Commission for Wartime Contracting reported that the U.S. government has spent $117 billion on private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002, and tens of billions of those dollars have been wasted.

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Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi

'Curveball': I Lied About Iraq WMD To Help Topple Saddam

Eric Lach | February 15, 2011, 10:55AM

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed "Curveball" by German and American intelligence officials, now admits he made up tales of mobile biological weapons trucks and clandestine weapons factories in Iraq, information that was used by the Bush White House to press the case for war. He also says he'd do it again.

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George Bush

Bush: 'I Was A Dissenting Voice' On Iraq War

Rachel Slajda | November 3, 2010, 8:47AM

Fmr. President George W. Bush (R)

Former President George W. Bush considers himself "a dissenting voice" in the decision to go to war with Iraq.

In the first interview of the publicity tour for his new book, Decision Points, Bush told Matt Lauer that he didn't want to use force.

"Not everybody thought you should go to war, though," Lauer said. "There were dissenting voices."

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Iraq War

Is Another CT Candidate Stretching Truth About His Time In War Zone?

Rachel Slajda | July 12, 2010, 5:08PM

CT gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley (R)

The Connecticut Post reports that another Connecticut political candidate -- this time Tom Foley, a Republican candidate for governor -- may be stretching the truth about his time in a war zone.

Foley lived in Baghdad's Green Zone in 2003 while working for the Coalition Provisional Authority. On his campaign web site, he describes his time there as pretty hairy.

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Wikileaks

Army Intelligence Analyst Charged In Wikileaks Probe

Rachel Slajda | July 6, 2010, 12:58PM

Pfc. Bradley Manning

An Army intelligence analyst, arrested in April for allegedly leaking a classified military video of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad to WikiLeaks, is now facing eight criminal charges in connection with the leak.

Pfc. Bradley Manning was charged Monday with violating the Espionage Act by transmitting classified information to an unauthorized third party. He's also facing criminal charges for abusing access to a secret-level network, and is accused of uploading unauthorized software to the network.

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Iraq War

Is Obama's Iraq Pullout Deadline Still Possible? (CHART)

Justin Elliott | May 14, 2010, 3:14PM

In order for President Obama to meet his pledge to get Iraq troop levels down to 50,000 by August, the military will have to exit the country at a rate of about 14,000 troops per month -- a difficult but doable task, military observers tell TPMmuckraker.

The number of U.S. troops in Iraq currently stands at 94,100, according to the Pentagon.

Unless Obama changes his policy, the military must get at least 44,000 troops out of Iraq by August. The Pentagon said recently that it expects to get down to 91,000 by the end of May, at which point an accelerated pullout will begin. (See chart below.)

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Faisal Shahzad

Times Square Bomb Suspect Jogged, Slammed Bush, Defaulted On Mortgage

Zachary Roth | May 5, 2010, 2:03PM

Faisal Shahzad

A day and a half after his arrest, a portrait is starting to emerge of Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-born American citizen who was pulled off a flight to Dubai at JFK Airport Monday night and arrested in connection with Saturday's attempted Times Square bombing.

That portrait, compiled based on accounts in several news outlets, is notable for the way in which Shahzad -- like so many of the young men behind Islamic terror attacks on the U.S. and Europe -- seems to have been simultaneously alien from, and embedded within, western culture. Born in Pakistan's remote and tribal Northwest Frontier Province, Shahzad, 30, grew up in a country that banned alcohol and taught Islam in school, and he maintained close ties to family members in the region. But he also went jogging in his suburban Connecticut neighborhood, and perused used car websites to find the Nissan Pathfinder that he's charged with using in the bomb plot. And he seems to have gone over the edge not long after participating in that archetypal American ritual of recent years -- defaulting on his mortgage.

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Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots

Tea Party Movement Spreads To Military

Zachary Roth | April 12, 2010, 6:01PM

The Tea Party movement has gained a foothold in the armed forces.

A new Tea Party group, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots, has grown quickly since being launched last month by an active duty Marine Corps sergeant. The group, which vows to "stand up on the very soil we defended to preserve common sense conservatism and defend our Constitution that is threatened by a tyrannical government," currently has over 400 members, who have signed up through its Facebook page, though many are not active duty military. And it has close ties to the broader Tea Party movement.

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Iraq War

Wikileaks: Video Shows 'Murder' Of Iraqis By U.S. Helicopters (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | April 5, 2010, 5:33PM

A still from the video obtained by WikiLeaks

The group Wikileaks has released a video that it describes as showing "the indiscriminate slaying" by U.S. troops "of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad," including two Reuters employees.

The graphic and disturbing video, which a senior military official told the AP is authentic, shows 17 minutes of footage taken from the air. In it, US helicopters fire on a group of men after concluding that several of them are holding weapons.

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Dan Senor

Senor Not Running After All

Zachary Roth | March 24, 2010, 12:30PM

Dan Senor, former chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority

Dan Senor, the Bush administration's top spokesman in Iraq, won't run for the U.S. Senate from New York after all.

Here's his statement:

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Ari Fleischer

The Return Of The Bush Flacks

Zachary Roth | March 12, 2010, 10:51AM

Clockwise from top left: Bush administration spokespeople Dan Bartlett, Dan Senor, Dana Perino and Ari Fleischer

For some of the Bush administration's most energetic spinners, it looks like it's finally safe to get back into the water.

OK, in truth, some of them never really got out. But we can't help noticing that in the last few weeks, several prominent spokespeople for the last administration have been back in the media spotlight, triggering memories of those halcyon early years of the century.

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Dan Senor

Report: Former Bush Adviser Senor 'Seriously Considering' Senate Run

Zachary Roth | March 11, 2010, 10:58AM

Dan Senor, former chief spokesperson for the Coalition Provisional Authority

There's more evidence that Dan Senor may be planning a U.S. Senate bid from New York this year.

The New York Times reports that the neoconservative and former top spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq has been urged to run by a slew of top Republicans -- including Rudy Giuliani, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who chairs the NRSC, Michael Long, the influential leader of New York's Conservative Party, and Ed Cox, the chair of the state GOP -- and that Senor is "seriously considering" doing so.

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Iraq War

Army's Iraq Handbook: Avoid War Crimes And Beware Arab Paranoia

Justin Elliott | February 26, 2010, 2:40PM

US soldiers talk to Iraqis in Abu Garab Hail

A 2003 handbook for the U.S. 1st Infantry Division in Iraq exhorts soldiers to "Do your best to prevent war crimes" and warns that "when an Arab is confronted by criticism, you can expect him to react by interpreting the facts to suit himself or flatly denying the facts."

The document, obtained and posted by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, runs nearly 100 pages outlining on the history of Iraq, the customs of Arabs, and the rules of war.

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Clare Short

Ex-Official: Blair Cabinet Was 'Misled' On Iraq War (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | February 3, 2010, 9:56AM

Clare Short

Things heated up yesterday in Britain's official examination of the lessons of the Iraq War, with a former member of Tony Blair's cabinet charging that the British government was "misled" into believing the war was legal.

Since last July, a steady stream of current and former British officials have been testifying before the Iraq Inquiry, led by Sir John Chilcot. But thus far, it's been relatively short on fireworks -- until yesterday's testimony by former International Development Secretary Clare Short.

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Laurie Mylroie

Bush Pentagon Hired Conspiracy Theorist As Al Qaeda Specialist

Justin Elliott | January 25, 2010, 1:12PM

Terrorism analyst Laurie Mylroie

When the Pentagon's internal think tank decided in 2004 it needed a better understanding of Al Qaeda, it turned to an unlikely source: the terrorism analyst Laurie Mylroie, who was known as the chief purveyor of the discredited idea that Saddam Hussein was behind Sept. 11 and many other attacks carried out by Al Qaeda.

Mylroie was paid roughly $75,000 to produce a 300-page study, "The History of Al Qaida," for the Defense Department think tank, known as the Office of Net Assessment, a DOD spokesman tells us. The study, which is dated September 2005, was posted on an intelligence blog last month.

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DynCorp International Inc.

IG: Single Staffer Assigned To Oversee $2.5 Billion Dyncorp Iraq Contract

Justin Elliott | January 25, 2010, 9:33AM

Iraqi police officers stand at attention

It's hardly news that U.S. government contracts in Iraq have been a mess of fraud, abuse, and lax oversight for years. But a new Inspector General report that reveals the State Department assigned just one oversight officer to a $2.5 billion police training contract still manages to shock.

The report (.pdf) released today by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction is the second study in the past few years that showed lax or nonexistent oversight on the large police training contract of Virginia-based Dyncorp.

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War In Afghanistan

Number Of Private Security Contractors In Afghanistan Doubles In Just Four Months

Justin Elliott | January 21, 2010, 10:00AM

Private security operators from the British company ArmorGroup escort a supply convoy near Tal Afar, Iraq on October 19, 2006.

The military is increasingly relying on private security contractors as President Obama ramps up the war in Afghanistan, with contractors now making up as much as 30% of the armed force in the country, a just-released congressional report shows.

In the period roughly tracking with President Obama's first nine months in office, the number of Defense Department armed security contractors soared 236% -- from 3,184 to 10,712 between December 2008 to September 2009. The number roughly doubled between June and September 2009 alone.

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Fox and Friends

Doocy On Bible Rifle Scopes: If Anybody's Making This A Religious Thing, The Terrorists 'Started It' (VIDEO)

Justin Elliott | January 21, 2010, 8:44AM

Fox's Steve Doocy came out this morning with a new defense of the controversial U.S. military rifle scopes featuring inscriptions that cite the New Testament: if anyone made America's wars about religion, our Muslim extremist foes started it!

"My wife made a good observation yesterday when we were taking about this story, and that is, 'Hey, wait a minute, the Taliban and the extremists -- what is it they say just before they blow themselves up which kills somebody, they say, 'Allahu Akbar.'' So if anybody's making this a religious thing, they started it," Doocy said.

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Trijicon

Despite Extensive Online Discussions, Military Denies Knowledge Of Rifle Scope Bible Verses

Justin Elliott | January 18, 2010, 6:20PM

Trijicon scope's Bible verse pointed out on YouTube last year.

Responding to the revelation that rifle sights used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with Bible citations, a Marine Corps spokesman told TPMmuckraker today that the branch simply didn't know about the inscriptions until inquiries were made last week.

But posts on gun enthusiast forums from as early as 2006 and Youtube videos watched thousands of times extensively discuss the Bible verses on the Trijicon rifle sights, casting doubt on the military's claim that it was unaware of what was apparently a poorly kept secret.

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Trijicon

U.S. Rifle Scopes In Iraq And Afghanistan Feature Bible Verse Citations

Justin Elliott | January 18, 2010, 1:21PM

Iraqi police officer in Hayy, Iraq, looks through Trijicon scope with Bible verse in March, 2009 (magnified below).

Here's one that will play well in the Muslim world.

ABC is reporting that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been using rifle scopes that bear abbreviated references to Bible verses, including lines like "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

That verse is rendered on tiny letters on the the scopes, made by Wixom, Michigan-based Trijicon, as "2COR4:6" referring to chapter 4, verse 6 of the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians.

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George Bush

Bush White House Emails Won't Be Public For Years

Zachary Roth | December 15, 2009, 8:30AM

President Barack Obama

The Obama administration and two good government groups yesterday announced, with some fanfare, that they'd come to an agreement on those missing emails from the Bush White House.

But if you think the news means we're finally about to get the full story on the Valerie Plame leak, or the deliberations that took us to war in Iraq, think again. Many of the roughly 22 million emails secured through the deal likely won't be made public until 2022. And even the ones that can be released sooner won't see the light of day for around three years.

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George Bush

Obama Administration Will Restore Missing Bush White House Emails

Zachary Roth | December 14, 2009, 3:59PM

George W. Bush

The White House has announced a settlement in a lawsuit filed by two good-government groups concerning emails that went missing over a two-and-a-half year period during the Bush administration.

Under the terms of the deal, 94 days of emails -- which could shed light on controversial topics that the Bush administration sought to obscure from public view, such as the Valerie Plame scandal and the run-up to the war in Iraq -- will be transferred to the National Archives, and eventually made public.

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Oil Business

CREW Calls On State Dept. To Probe Galbraith Over Kurdish Oil Dealings

Justin Elliott | November 19, 2009, 6:30PM

Peter Galbraith

A good government group is calling on the State Department to investigate the role of former ambassador Peter Galbraith in drafting Iraq's constitution in 2005 while he held a lucrative stake in a Kurdish oil field.

The letter from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to the State Dept. Inspector General asks whether State approved Galbraith's activities, and cites a recent New York Times exposé that built off work of the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv.

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