News Release Archive - 2006

· Lebanon · Bethlehem · Oaxaca

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BASSAM HADDAD
Assistant professor of political science at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and visiting professor at Georgetown University, Haddad is editor of the Arab Studies Journal and was in Lebanon earlier this year. He said today: “The recent monumental protests by the opposition indicate that in any future elections the support for the current government’s political orientation will not constitute a majority.” Haddad is producer/director of the award-winning documentary film “About Baghdad” and is currently working on a book about Syria’s political economy and directing a film series on “Arabs and Terrorism.”
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Rev. SUSAN P. WILDER
Wilder, a Presbyterian minister and member of Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace, will be participating in a “Christmas Procession for Bethlehem” at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 23. “Mary and Joseph,” with donkey, will (begining at Lafayette Park) lead a candle-lit procession around White House and National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse.

Rev. Wilder said today: “The humanitarian situation in Bethlehem and in all the rest of the occupied territories is urgent. We hope our procession will shine a light on the suffering there. I was in Bethlehem this summer and saw the 26-foot wall that imprisons the city. It was such a contrast to my visit to Bethlehem for Christmas 2000 — at that time we drove straight into Bethlehem, about a 10-minute trip from Jerusalem. … We are pleading for the wall to come down and the occupation to end. Security certainly is crucial for Israelis, but the wall is not the way to achieve lasting security. If the wall were truly intended for security purposes, it would be along the green line (between Israel and the West Bank) but instead it runs through the West Bank; the path of the wall reveals its true intent….”
More about Bethlehem today
“O little town of Bethlehem cards”

RENATA RENDON
Rendon is Amnesty International’s director of advocacy for the Americas. She recently returned from a delegation to Oaxaca. Rendon said today: “No matter where you are in the world and no matter what the circumstances are, when hundreds of thousands of people come together in a matter of days, organize themselves into a popular movement within hours, and unite in calling for the resignation of their state governor, massive social discontent has reached a boiling point and the worst possible government response is through repression and violence. This is what happened after Oaxacan State Police entered the city square at around 5 a.m. on June 14, 2006, using tear gas and batons on sleeping men, women and children in a failed effort to forcibly evict striking teachers who were peacefully calling for higher salaries and better learning conditions and resources for their students.

“Since June 14, 2006, and as the situation in Oaxaca intensified, Amnesty International has reported on over 140 detentions. Many of the detainees had reportedly been beaten and threatened with death once in custody. We have also documented widespread human rights violations particularly by state and municipal authorities including excessive use of force, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, torture, fabrication of evidence and political killings.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

U.S. Buildup Against Iran

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The New York Times is reporting on its front page today: “The United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran that will come as the United Nations continues to debate possible sanctions against the country, Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday.” Another Times front-page piece is headlined “Iran President Facing Revival of Students’ Ire.”

TRITA PARSI
Parsi is head of the National Iranian American Council. He said today: “As bad as the war in Iraq is, the U.S. action raises the specter of a wider regional war. Some ‘neo-cons’ have called for just such a military deployment. Some in Saudi Arabia seem to be preferring a wider war to an Iraq dominated by Shiites.” Parsi is author of the forthcoming book Treacherous Triangle: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States.
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ARASH NOROUZI
Norouzi said today: “If a country is under threat, certainly nationalism would be a big reaction. Support for [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad has come from his anti-Western rhetoric and he relies on continued threats from the West to have the status as the defender of Iran. Each act of aggression or threat validates the arguments in Iran that the Muslim world is under attack by Western powers, especially the U.S.”

Norouzi is an artist and has set up a web page about Mohammad Mossadegh, who was Iran’s democratically elected prime minister from 1951 to 1953 — until the U.S. government engineered a coup that overthrew him.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Troop Levels

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CINDY WILLIAMS
Principal research scientist at the Security Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Williams is editor of the book Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System.

CARL CONETTA
Co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, Conetta said today: “Unless you are planning more invasions like that of Iraq, or you think a 10 percent increase will change the direction of the war, a troop level increase — if achievable — is a purely political move. It’s a sop to the military brass for continuing to go along with the Iraq war. Many of the Democrats have been calling for this so they can be seen as tough and pro-military.”

KELLY DOUGHERTY
Executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Dougherty said today: “The Democrats’ continued consent and funding of the war allows Bush to conduct it as he wishes. … The U.S. military presence in Iraq is the main factor, either directly or indirectly, instigating the violence there.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Accountability and the Bush Administration

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In a piece today, Editor & Publisher reports that Sean Penn “hit the media and called for impeachment of the president in receiving the 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award from The Creative Coalition Monday night in New York City.”

In his speech, Penn said: “Now, there’s been a lot of talk lately on Capitol Hill about how impeachment should be ‘off the table.’ We’re told that it’s time to look ahead — not back. … Can you imagine how far that argument would go for the defense at an arraignment on charges of grand larceny, or large-scale distribution of methamphetamines? How about the arranging of a contract killing on a pregnant mother? ‘Indictment should be off the table.’ Or ‘Let’s look forward, not backward.’ Or ‘We can’t afford another failed defendant.’

“Our country has a legal system, not of men and women, but of laws. Why then are we so willing to put inconvenient provisions of the U.S. constitution and federal law ‘off the table?’ … Unless we’re going to have one set of laws for the powerful and another set for those who can’t afford fancy lawyers, then truth matters to everyone. And accountability is a matter of human and legal principle.”

Penn’s remarks were first published at: The Huffington Post.

Two former prosecutors released comments this afternoon to the Institute for Public Accuracy about Penn’s speech and are available for interviews:

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN
Holtzman is a former Congresswoman and was the district attorney of Brooklyn; she was a member of the House panel that impeached Richard Nixon. Holtzman is co-author with Cynthia L. Cooper of the new book The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens.

Holtzman said today: “Penn is right; the principle here is holding our leaders accountable for their actions under the law, just as citizens are held accountable under the law for theirs. There is plenty of evidence President Bush has committed what the Constitution calls ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ the remedy for which is impeachment. Congress needs to get the Constitutional machinery started, first by formally investigating the evidence, then executing the required procedures for impeachment and removal from office.”
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ELIZABETH DE LA VEGA
Elizabeth de la Vega served as a federal prosecutor in Minneapolis and San Jose for more than 20 years. She is author of the new book U.S. v. George W. Bush et. al.

De la Vega said today: “Sean Penn is absolutely correct in his call for accountability. ‘The law is no respecter of persons,’ meaning, of course, that both the protections and the obligations of our laws apply equally to plumbers, preachers and presidents — of corporations and of the United States. That is the bedrock principle of our justice system. Prosecutors who are trying to enforce the laws of our country will have a difficult task indeed if we allow the President and his senior administration to violate them at will, simply because our representatives, Democrats and Republicans alike, are more concerned about political strategy, however misguided, and protecting their power than about carrying out their sworn duty to oversee the Executive Branch.

“Even without having had hearings, we in the United States now have far more than enough evidence, based on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report, and other documents, to know that the President and his senior administration officials used all of the same techniques used by fraudsters everywhere to deceive the American people and Congress into authorizing an invasion of people 8,000 miles away who had not harmed us in any way and were not threatening to do so. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell and others suppressed material information, repeated half-truths, used artfully-worded misleading statements and asserted ‘facts’ with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity.

“Around this country every day, those who use such deceit to defraud people into making decisions they would not otherwise have made — purchases of swampland in the Everglades or unneeded house repairs — are prosecuted. Yet, in the case of the most egregious and horrific fraud imaginable, perpetrated by our highest elected officials, our Congress seems to have strategized itself into paralysis. In their obligation to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch, Congress stands in the shoes of law enforcement. We are calling 911 and we need them to respond.

“It is long past time for everyone who loves this country and who cares about the Constitution to be on their feet saying ‘I object!’ to the conduct of this President and his entire administration. This is not a radical position, nor is it a partisan one. On the contrary, it is a conservative and patriotic stance that shows deep reverence for the ideals and tenets that inform our legal system.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Questions for Colin Powell

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Yesterday, as Colin Powell left his interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy asked him about claims he made regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in his speech at the UN Security Council before the invasion of Iraq.

Powell was asked by IPA about his speech’s citing of the defector Hussein Kamal, Saddam Hussein’s late son-in-law, in support of U.S. claims about Iraqi WMDs. When asked if he knew at the time he gave his UN speech on Feb. 5, 2003, that Hussein Kamal had stated that Iraq had destroyed its WMDs, Powell replied: “Of course not!” However, in the mid-1990s, Kamal told UN inspectors as well as CNN that Iraq no longer had WMDs.

In addition, Powell was questioned Sunday about his reported distortion of quotes from Iraqi intercepts at the UN session. Bob Woodward in his book “Plan of Attack” writes that Powell “had decided to add his personal interpretation of the intercepts to rehearsed script, taking them substantially further and casting them in the most negative light.”

But Powell did not address this allegation in his response on Sunday. Instead he replied: “Everything that was in that presentation that I gave was approved and edited by the intelligence community, the director of central intelligence and the deputy director of central intelligence and all of their principal assistants.” Video and transcript are available at Washington Stakeout.

A policy analyst who has written extensively on claims about Iraqi WMDs is available for comment:

JONATHAN SCHWARZ
Schwarz’s latest piece is titled “Powell Again Blames CIA For Fabrications And Lies-By-Omission In U.N. Speech” and provides a detailed critique of Powell’s comments Sunday as well as suggested follow-up questions.

For further background, see the media watch group FAIR’s media advisory “Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed,” from Feb. 27, 2003, three weeks before the invasion of Iraq. The FAIR advisory stated: “On Feb. 24 [2003] Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis. In a revelation that ‘raises questions about whether the WMD stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist,’ the magazine’s issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told UN inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Iraqi Unions Attack Oil Privatization

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United Press International is reporting: “Five Iraqi trade union federations have condemned federal oil law negotiations for being too corporation-friendly.”

The wire service quoted Hasan Jum’a, president of the Federation of Oil Unions, as saying: “This law has a lot of problems. It was prepared without consulting Iraqi experts, Iraqi civil society or trade unions.” [Full article]

Dow Jones reports: “Iraqi trade unionists criticized the major role for foreign companies in the draft law, which specifies that up to two-thirds of Iraq’s known reserves would be developed by multinationals, under contracts lasting 15 to 20 years. The negotiations for a new Iraq hydrocarbon law continued this week with the circulation of a draft law that recommends the government sign production sharing agreements and other service and buyback contracts.”

The following policy analysts are available for interviews:

GREG MUTTITT
Muttitt met with Iraqi union leaders while in Amman this week and has just returned to London. He is lead researcher at the British group Platform and primary author of the report “Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth,” which outlines the structure of production sharing agreements.

Muttitt said today: “The opposition by Iraq’s powerful trade unions will dismay the U.S. government, which is keen to see the law in place by the end of the year. Since the summer, U.S. officials have been calling for an oil law to encourage foreign investment in Iraq’s oil — a call reiterated by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group in its report last week. …

“In a joint statement, the trade unions rejected ‘the handing of control over oil to foreign companies, whose aim is to make big profits at the expense of the Iraqi people, and to rob the national wealth, according to long-term, unfair contracts that undermine the sovereignty of the state and the dignity of the Iraqi people.’ The statement added that this was a ‘red line’ they would not allow to be crossed.”
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SAMEER DOSSANI
Director of 50 Years Is Enough, Dossani said today: “In announcing its agenda for the privatization of Iraqi oil, the Baker-Hamilton report leaves no doubts as to what the U.S. must achieve in order to call its mission successful. It is an agenda laid out by U.S. corporate interests, by what will benefit their bottom line in a world of shrinking oil reserves. By these terms, what President Bush and others are calling a U.S. victory would be a defeat for the Iraqi people who have struggled for decades to control their own fates, their own destinies and their own resources.”

“The institutions that the report suggests should enforce these policies are the same institutions that are in charge of ensuring that corporate profits take priority over public need in the rest of the world, namely, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”
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For background see “Iraq War and Oil,” an Institute for Public Accuracy news release.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Iraq War and Oil

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The Dow Jones news service, which has obtained a proposed draft of a new oil law for Iraq, reports: “Iraq’s first postwar draft hydrocarbon law recommends the government sign production sharing agreements and other service and buyback contracts … An Iraqi oil ministry official told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday the new law proposes allowing — for the first time — local and international companies to carry out oil exploration in Iraq.” (Full article)

Co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, Lee Hamilton was questioned yesterday about provisions in the Group’s report that call for Iraq’s oil industry to be “reorganized” as a “commercial enterprise” to “encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by … international energy companies.” He declined to clarify whether the Group was calling for some sort of privatization, though he did note that the Group’s report had “as many recommendations on oil” as on any other issue.

Similar questions were asked of incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Oregon). (Full transcript below; video at Washington Stakeout)

ANTONIA JUHASZ
A visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, Juhasz wrote the piece “It’s Still About Oil in Iraq,” published in the Dec. 8 edition of the Los Angeles Times, which states: “While the Bush administration, the media and nearly all the Democrats still refuse to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil, the ever-pragmatic members of the Iraq Study Group share no such reticence.

“Page 1, Chapter 1 of the Iraq Study Group report lays out Iraq’s importance to its region, the U.S. and the world with this reminder: ‘It has the world’s second-largest known oil reserves.’ The group then proceeds to give very specific and radical recommendations as to what the United States should do to secure those reserves. If the proposals are followed, Iraq’s national oil industry will be commercialized and opened to foreign firms.

“The report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.” Juhasz is author of the book The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.
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JAMES PAUL
Executive director of the Global Policy Forum, Paul has written several pieces about oil including “Oil in Iraq: The Heart of the Crisis.” He said today: “The cat is finally slipping out of the bag. U.S. policy in Iraq has been fixated on the oil prize for a very long time and the Baker-Hamilton report gives us an important glimpse of that. The language about re-organizing Iraq’s oil industry as a ‘commercial enterprise’ is shorthand for Exxon and BP returning to their former (pre-1972) control over Iraq’s oil so that they can rake in future profits in the trillions of dollars. Iraq may be an unspeakable tragedy, but the oil giants are still hoping for ‘victory’ if they can push the oil law through the Iraqi parliament and ink the contracts before the occupation collapses into oblivion.”
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GREG MUTTITT
Muttitt is lead researcher at the British group Platform. He is the primary author of the report “Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth,” which outlines the structure of production sharing agreements [PSAs]. He said today: “We know from the Dow Jones report that there are plans for Iraq’s oil to be developed by PSAs — which can be described as Privatization by Stealth Agreements. They give rights to Iraq’s oil to multinational companies for decades into the future at the expense of the Iraqi people.

“The Baker-Hamilton report says very clearly that an oil law is needed for foreign investment — this is shorthand for PSAs. Elsewhere the report says that Bush should emphasize that the U.S. is not interested in oil in Iraq. These are two recommendation of the report that Bush will follow.

“The Bush administration had been calling for a new oil law. It had been claiming that such a law was necessary because foreign investment is needed. More recently, the administration has been claiming such a law would help solve sectarian problems. But this is a Trojan Horse. If one’s actual goal were solving sectarian conflict, PSAs would hardly be the remedy. Their real reason is to ensure that multinational oil companies take a share of Iraq’s oil.”
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Question to Hamilton by Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Mr. Hamilton, can you clarify one of your recommendations, number 63, which called on the U.S. to ‘assist the Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise’ and to ‘encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.’ Are you calling for some sort of privitization?”

Hamilton’s full response: “Oil of course is the critical asset in Iraq. It furnishes a very large percentage of the GDP of Iraq. It furnishes a huge percentage of the total revenues of the government. We recommend many things with regard to the oil industry. I think there are as many recommendations on oil as any other feature of it, and you have to look at them as a package. Okay, thank you.”

When Sen. Joseph Biden was asked if these ISG recommendations were “a de facto call for privatization or quasi-privatization” of Iraq’s oil, he replied: “No, I think what it’s a de facto call for is a political settlement.” However, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Oregon), when he was questioned about the oil recommendations, stated: “This is Iraq’s oil, it’s not our oil. They need to make these political decisions in how to distribute the resources among the population of Iraqis.”

Hamilton, Biden and Smith spoke on Dec. 10.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Iraq Oil Grab

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“The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise…”
— Iraq Study Group

ANTONIA JUHASZ
A visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, Juhasz just wrote the piece “Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization,” which states: “The [Iraq Study Group] report calls for the United States to assist in privatizing Iraq’s national oil industry, to open Iraq to private foreign oil and energy companies, to provide direct technical assistance for the ‘drafting’ of a new national oil law for Iraq, and for all of Iraq’s oil revenues to accrue to the central government. …

“If these proposals were followed, Iraq’s national oil industry would be privatized, opened to foreign firms, and in control of all of Iraq’s oil wealth.

“The proposals should come as little surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq’s oil and wealth.” Juhasz is author of the book The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.
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JAMES PAUL
Executive director of the Global Policy Forum, Paul has written several pieces about oil including “Oil in Iraq: The Heart of the Crisis.”

He said today: “The Iraq Study Group’s report confirms Washington’s long-standing focus on Iraq’s oil resources, seen as the greatest potential for profits in the history of the industry. The ‘recommendation’ that private foreign companies (read: Exxon, Chevron and BP) take charge of Iraq’s oil has, in fact, been U.S. policy all along.

“The dilemma Baker and colleagues face is how to impose this radical change when Iraq’s government is increasingly shaky, public Iraqi sentiment against the occupation is overwhelming, and the occupation is daily losing control of the country. Houston oil lawyer Baker and his colleagues on the commission may have their hopes and illusions, but the oil scenario they would prefer is looking increasingly horrifying. How much more Iraqi blood will Washington be ready to spill in hopes of controlling the country’s black gold?”
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GREG MUTTITT
Muttitt is lead researcher at the British group Platform. He is the primary author of the report “Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth” and most recently of the article “Will Iraq Repeat Russia’s Oil Mistakes?”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Iraq Study Group: How to Stay in Iraq?

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TOM ENGELHARDT
Available for a limited number of interviews, Engelhardt just wrote a piece titled “How to Stay in Iraq: The Iraq Study Group Rides to the Rescue,” in which he states: “Put in a nutshell, the Iraq Study Group plan — should it ever be put into effect — might accomplish the following: As a start, it would in no way affect our essential network of monumental permanent bases in Iraq (where, many billions of dollars later, concrete is still being poured); it would leave many less ‘combat’ troops but many more ‘advisers’ in-country to ‘stand up’ the Iraqi Army (tactics already tried, at the cost of many billions of dollars, and just about sure to fail); many more American troops will find themselves either imprisoned on those vast bases of ours in Iraq or on similar installations in the ‘neighborhood’ where they are likely to bring so many of our problems with them.

“And those aggressive chats with the neighbors, whose influence in Iraq is overestimated in any case, are unlikely to proceed terribly well because the Bush administration will arrive at the bargaining table, if at all, with so little to offer (except lectures).

“All of this should ensure that, well into 2008, at least 70,000 American military personnel will still be in Iraq, after which, in the midst of a presidential election season, will actual withdrawal finally appear on some horizon? In other words, the Baker Commission plan guarantees us at least another 3-5 years in Iraq.” Engelhardt is editor of TomDispatch.com.
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KEVIN MARTIN
GORDON CLARK
Executive director of Peace Action, Martin said today: “The civil war in Iraq is spiraling out of control and it’s unclear whether the government of Prime Minister al Maliki can survive, yet the [Iraq Study Group] report will call for ‘gradual’ withdrawal of troops. It’s no time for gradual anything. We need bold and creative actions to dramatically change the dynamic in Iraq, not tepid recommendations for political consumption at home.

“The first necessary step is an immediate cease-fire and an announcement that the U.S. will be withdrawing its troops, on a timetable, and that we have no plans to leave behind military bases or to control Iraqi oil, but by all accounts this will be noticeably absent from the recommendations.”

Clark is communications director for Peace Action.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Iraq Co-Mission Accomplished?

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NIR ROSEN
Rosen has spent a total of two and a half years in Iraq since the invasion. He said today: “The [Baker-Hamilton] commission is based on consensus, calling for eventual withdrawal but no timeline; I don’t think it’s very significant. The U.S. can make things worse in Iraq, but it can’t make things better. Everything it has touched in the region has turned to dust.” Rosen has just returned from Iraq, Lebanon and Somalia. He is a fellow at the New America Foundation and is author of the book In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq.
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STEVEN KULL
Kull is director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, which just released a poll that found that “three out of four Americans believe that in order to stabilize Iraq the United States should enter into talks with Iran and Syria, and eight in ten support an international conference on Iraq. A majority also opposes keeping U.S. forces in Iraq indefinitely and instead supports committing to a timetable for their withdrawal within two years or less.”
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SUE UDRY
MEDEA BENJAMIN
Benjamin of Global Exchange said today: “We did not elect James Baker and Lee Hamilton to come up with the new policy on Iraq — we elected the new Congress to do that.” Said Udry of the anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice: “The Congress has enormous room to do the bidding of the electorate, stem the bloodshed and stop the flow of funding for a failed policy.”

Udry and Benjamin are part of the new Mandate for Peace campaign, which “calls on Congress to restore the bonds of trust between the people, who want a swift end to the Iraq war, and our elected representatives, who have not represented the will of the majority with regards to Iraq.” Relevant polling data are at Polling Report.
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TERRY ROCKEFELLER
A member of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Rockefeller said today: “In January 2003, I went to Iraq because we must form alternatives to the use of violence. My sister was an innocent civilian killed in the World Trade Center on 9-11 and we’ve now had so many more innocents die in Iraq because our government chose war. Now our military is not proving to be effective in stabilizing Iraq; it should get out. We need to have honest discussion between citizens. And our government should apologize for this war.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167