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    Shadow Warriors   By David ForsmarkFrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, February 04, 2008 Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of SurrenderBy Kenneth TimmermanCrown Forum, $25.95, 404 pp. At long last, the CIA and the State Department have targeted a government they have identified as an aggressive threat to world peace and largely countered its foreign policy through psy-ops, propaganda, selective leaks of intelligence and covert operations.And who was the target of this covert campaign? Are these operations aimed at the Islamofascists in Iran? How about Vladimir Putin and his increasingly fascist government in Russia?...

Arthur Bremer, who shot and paralyzed Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1972, will be released from a Maryland prison this year. "It appears at this point in time that Arthur Bremer will be leaving the Maryland Division of Corrections sometime in late 2007," said Mark Vernarelli, director of public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. "He has served all of the sentence for which he can be held." Bremer, who turned 57 this week, is scheduled for release on Dec. 16 from the Maryland Correctional Institute-Hagerstown, said Rae Sheeley, a case management specialist at the...

Congressional inquiry probes former Bush official's handling of billions of dollars February 6, 2007— - Sparks flew on Capitol Hill Tuesday as a Democrat-led Congressional committee investigated the Bush administration's handling of billions of reconstruction money in Iraq. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the former Coalition Provisional Authority administrator responsible for rebuilding post-war Iraq, appeared for the first time before Congress to defend his record -- and pointed a finger at a lack of pre-war planning . Panel Investigates 'Waste, Fraud and Abuse' Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif, chairman of the House Government Reform & Oversight Committee summoned Bremer, citing a January...

Bremer quizzed over cash for Iraq Four years after the invasion, Iraq remains poor and chaotic The former head of the US-led civilian administration in Iraq has defended his decision to send billions of dollars in cash to Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.Paul Bremer told a Congressional committee investigating allegations of waste and fraud that he had done his best to kick-start Iraq's economy. The funds came from Iraqi oil revenue and previously frozen assets. Much of the money went missing and critics say there was no system to track how it was used. "Who in their right mind...

Dana Milbank is mad at Democrats for somehow letting Former Iraq Chief Paul Bremer off the hook today in the Washington Post’s ”Rusty Democrats Unable to Pin Anything on Bremer”. I guess to show he is a real meterosexual, Milbank starts his piece off with an observation on Bremer’s choice of footwear and draws the wild conclusion that it must say something about his mental state. Jerry Bremer wore black dress shoes instead of his trademark combat boots yesterday as he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But except for that concession, the former American viceroy of...

Jerry Bremer wore black dress shoes instead of his trademark combat boots yesterday as he testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. But except for that concession, the former American viceroy of Iraq had lost none of his swagger. His widely condemned move to disband the Iraqi military? "I stand by the decision." Billions of dollars potentially wasted on dubious contracts? "I did not have authority over the awarding of contracts." Incompetent personnel at the Coalition Provisional Authority? "My role in hiring was very limited." "On the whole," Bremer told the lawmakers, "I think that we made great...

Excerpt - WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said on Tuesday. The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime. Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep....

Greek police arrested three brothers, Savas Triandafyllos, 40, Christodoulos Triandafyllos, 44, and Vassilis Triandafyllos, 30, and charged them with being members of the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Organisation of November 17 terrorist group. The brothers are being charged with having participated in a number of terrorist inspired killings. The police have now made nine arrests, including the Xiros brothers. Savas Triandafyllos, reported to have Sudanese links, was seriously injured on 29 June when a bomb he was carrying exploded. On investigation, police found the fingerprints of Alexandros Giotopoulos, a 58-year-old academic, in flats containing bomb-making equipment. Giotopoulos denies all knowledge of the...

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon. To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. (snip) Interviews with scores of...

George Bush made his trip to Baghdad, he told the new prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, "to look you in the eye." Yet his surprise visit established more than a first-hand connection. It signposted the dramatic events of the past week, which bode well both for Iraq's future and for the broader war on terrorism. As he stood in the hall of one of Saddam's former palaces--quite literally in the eye of the storm--Mr. Bush implored the Iraqis to "seize the moment." There are now emerging indications that they are doing just that. Thanks to the efforts of the men...

by Mark Finkelstein April 13, 2006 As has been noted here before, the surest way for a Republican to get himself invited onto an MSM show and accorded respectful treatment is to be prepared to take shots at the Bush administration. The time-tested technique was on display on this morning's Today, as Newt Gingrich got the kind of kid-glove treatment he could have only dreamed of back in his Speaker days when the MSM was vilifying him as 'the Gingrich Who Stole Christmas'. At the top of the show, Matt Lauer teased Newt's appearance in these terms: "A prominent politican...

As the Bush administration's envoy for Iraqi politics, Zalmay Khalilzad had considerable experience dealing with Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein. Before the war, Mr. Khalilzad was the White House's point man in meetings with Iraqi exile leaders in London and Kurdistan. After the shooting started, he was a key figure at political gatherings in Baghdad and at Tallil air base to begin assembling a new Iraqi leadership. So when the White House prepared to announce the appointment of L. Paul Bremer III as the chief civilian administrator in Iraq in May 2003, Mr. Khalilzad had every expectation that he would...

THE persistence of the insurgency in Iraq has divided America in a way not seen since Vietnam. Now the blame game among the principals has begun. The former presidential envoy to Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, has written in his new memoir that he informed President Bush that the military did not have "a strategy to win." Quite. The lesson the Pentagon should learn from Iraq is to avoid another L. Paul Bremer. This is less a reflection on Mr. Bremer, who accurately described himself as "the American viceroy" in Iraq and "the president's man," than on the position he...

NEW YORK -- The U.S. intelligence focus on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction may have contributed to the Bush administration's failure to anticipate the insurgency that followed the U.S. invasion, former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer said Tuesday. "The fact that there would be some resistance was anticipated. What really caught us by surprise was its intensity," Bremer told a Manhattan audience, when questioned about why U.S. leaders mistakenly expected a friendlier reception in Iraq. "I suppose an argument would be that the intelligence resources were almost entirely devoted to WMD and not to this question of the insurgency,"...

Britain was 'weak-kneed' over arrest of Iraq cleric, says Bremer By Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 10/01/2006) The British Government and Armed Forces were "weak kneed" and displayed "cold feet" over plans to arrest a radical Islamic cleric in Iraq, the former US administrator in Iraq claimed yesterday. Paul Bremer also turned his fire on organisations with a reputation for hawkishness, including the CIA, the US Marine Corps and the US chiefs of staff, who were berated for their timidity in refusing to arrest Moqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand Shia leader. His accusations came in a long-awaited memoir of his 13-month...

On August 8, an independent commission charged with investigating mismanagement and corruption at the United Nations oil-for-food programme, published a damning report. It accused the former head of that programme, Benon Sevan, of corruptly benefiting from kickbacks and of having $160,000 (Dh587,200) in unusual bank deposits. The commission also accused Alexander Yakovlev, an officer in the procurement department, of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from other UN contractors. The commission will publish its definitive findings in September. These are serious charges, which undermine the credibility of an international organisation shaken by the inhumanity of the sanction regime, and the...

...With media coverage of Iraq focused almost exclusively on car bombs and suicide attacks, it would be hard to attract international attention to other realities there. Yet without attention to economic reconstruction and political institution-building, the current almost daily fare of car bombs and suicide attacks is likely to continue for many more months, if not years. There will be no security for as long as there is no political and economic turnaround in Iraq. Much has already happened on the political front, notably last January's landmark general elections. But a culture of despotism with centuries-deep roots cannot be transformed...

Talk to anyone interested in the future of Iraq these days and you are likely to hear a note of frustration. "What are they doing in Baghdad?" asks a senior British official, expressing London's feelings about the long delay in the formation of the new Iraqi government which has just been unveiled. It took almost three months, from the day Iraqis turned out in record numbers to vote in their first free elections, for Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari to submit his ministerial list to the three-man presidential council for approval before presenting it to the National Assembly. There is concern...

...Despite the amazing progress in Iraq in two short years, some armchair experts carp that we should have moved even faster. Frankly, it's hard to understand what they are thinking.... From the outset, the Coalition recognized that democracy requires more than just elections. We judged that we had a special obligation to help Iraqis design a political and legal structure to guide Iraq's journey from tyranny to democracy. The result, after three months of intense negotiations and compromise, was the interim constitution. This revolutionary document addresses three crucial areas. First, the Coalition insisted that checks and balances guard against the...

Scenes of bloody struggle in Iraq have dominated headlines in the two years since Saddam Hussein was overthrown. The steps taken at the same time to lay the foundation of the new Iraqi state, and its economy, have generally attracted less attention. But it is likely that their effects will be felt for many years to come, whether or not the violence continues. Most of Iraq's legal apparatus was dismantled in the aftermath of the invasion that began in March 2003, and replaced by new decrees enacted by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Many of these new laws were...

http://netwmd.com/articles/article849.html Baghdad, Iraq — Half past ten in the morning on Monday, January 3, an Iraqi National Guard unit, escorted by a dozen uniformed U.S. military, pulled up to Abdul Karim Muhammadawi's headquarters in the Hay al-Jamiah section of Baghdad. Muhammadawi, known to the Iraqis as Abu Hatem, is renowned among Iraqi Shia as "the Robin Hood of the marshes." Hailing from al-Amarah, during Saddam's rule, he led a persistent Shia resistance which harried local Baathist commanders and protected political opposition. A member of the now-defunct governing council, he has since joined the Iraqi National Alliance (al-Ittilaf al-Watani al-Iraqi), the...

In the present government there are 10 Sunni Arabs, 14 Shi'ite Arabs, and 8 Kurds, plus 1 Turkoman and 1 Christian. The Kurds are all Sunnis, as is the Turkoman, making 19 Sunnis and 14 Shi'ites, which is very generous toward the Sunnis. Historically, Iraq has been ruled by Sunni Arabs who represent a minority of some 15-18 percent in a state where 55 percent are Shi'ites and 18 percent are Kurds. As a result of the last war, all of a sudden Iraq is to be ruled by the majority and the Sunni Arabs feel they are being disinherited....

BAGHDAD — A purported new message from Osama bin Laden yesterday condemned all Iraqis who cast ballots in upcoming elections as "infidels," and it endorsed Abu Musab Zarqawi, the terrorist leader who is attempting to halt the Jan. 30 vote.     Hours before portions of the audiotape aired on the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera, suicide terrorists bombed the Baghdad home of a top Shi'ite political leader, and Iraq's main Sunni political group said it would boycott the elections. [snip] On Iraq's upcoming elections, it said:     "The constitution imposed by the American occupier Bremer is blasphemous ... and anyone who takes...

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT: GWB awarded the nation's highest civilian honor -- the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, former CIA Director George Tenet, and retired U.S. Army General Tommy Franks. QUOTE OF THE DAY: General Tommy Franks was raised in Midland, Texas -- nothing wrong with that. (Laughter.) I didn't know him then, but Laura and he went to the same high school. In those days, some people in Midland wondered about Tommy's future. It sounds familiar. (Laughter.) At a recent high school reunion, Tommy's old principal told the General, "You weren't the brightest bulb in the...

Bush has chosen retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who oversaw combat in Afghanistan and the initial invasion of Iraq, former CIA Director George Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The president will hand out the awards at a White House ceremony Dec. 14, press secretary Scott McClellan said.

Thanksgiving marks the season when hearts begin turning towards home, and this year again finds many of our young men and women in a war they did not choose, but one they are bravely waging. Some have given their lives to protect not only you and me and our children from enemies who hate us, but to liberate a people who are oppressed by these same enemies. None of us should ever take any of this for granted. It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since President Bush made his surprise visit to our troops in Baghdad last...

...Last week in London, President Jacques Chirac admitted that getting rid of Saddam "may well have been good idea" — then added a big "but" about the wisdom of early elections in Iraq. His argument for delay was based on the claim that he wanted "broader participation" in the elections.... The camp of Saddam nostalgics, including Chirac and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have... portrayed the hostage-takers and head-choppers who terrorize parts of Iraq as "la resistance" and insisted that they should have a place in shaping the future of the country.... With Bush re-elected, chances of sabotaging Iraq's elections vanished....

Tune into FNC now. Bremer makes a first time appearance since his return to the states especially to address the missing explosives in Iraq.

According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration’s assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to “plant” WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by “friendly fire”, the Environmentalists Against War report. Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest...

n recent days, attention has been focused on some remarks I've made about Iraq. The coverage of these remarks has elicited far more heat than light, so I believe it's important to put my remarks in the correct context. In my speeches, I have said that the United States paid a price for not stopping the looting in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations and that we did not have enough troops on the ground to accomplish that task. The press and critics of the war have seized on these remarks in an effort to undermine...

In recent days, attention has been focused on some remarks I've made about Iraq. The coverage of these remarks has elicited far more heat than light, so I believe it's important to put my remarks in the correct context. In my speeches, I have said that the United States paid a price for not stopping the looting in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations and that we did not have enough troops on the ground to accomplish that task. The press and critics of the war have seized on these remarks in an effort to undermine President...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR In recent days, attention has been focused on some remarks I've made about Iraq. The coverage of these remarks has elicited far more heat than light, so I believe it's important to put my remarks in the correct context. In my speeches, I have said that the United States paid a price for not stopping the looting in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations and that we did not have enough troops on the ground to accomplish that task. The press and critics of the war have seized on these remarks in an effort to...

Paul Bremer has made clear that his statement of not enough troops to quell looting in Baghdad applied to May immediately after Baghdad fell. We should know who is responsible for this terrible state of affairs...

Former viceroy L. Paul Bremer did 14 months of hard service in Iraq, so it is a special shame to see that he is now squandering that legacy by blaming others for what's gone wrong there.... Mr. Bremer revised his remarks: "I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq." ...Trouble is, we haven't found a single other senior official involved in the war or its aftermath -- in or out of uniform -- who attests to Mr. Bremer's version of events. "I never heard him ask for more troops and he had many opportunities before the President...

EAST LANSING, Mich. - The former U.S. ambassador to Iraq (news - web sites) on Tuesday defended U.S. actions there — a day after faulting troop strength following the ouster of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). L. Paul Bremer, appointed by President Bush (news - web sites) as head of the Iraq occupation, said Monday that U.S. forces failed to stop widespread looting after toppling Hussein, and "paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness." During a speech Tuesday at Michigan State University, he said his remarks had been somewhat distorted by...

TIPTON, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic White House challenger John Kerry accused President Bush of mismanaging the war in Iraq after a former top aide said the U.S. paid the price for not deploying enough troops after last year's invasion. Paul Bremer, the former administrator for Iraq, said in a speech this week that the U.S. intervention in Iraq was hampered early on by a lack of adequate forces and efforts to contain looting after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. "We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Bremer said. "We never had...

WASHINGTON - The United States did not have enough troops in Iraq (news - web sites) after ousting Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and "paid a big price" for it, says the former head of the U.S. occupation there. L. Paul Bremer said Monday that he arrived in Iraq on May 6, 2003 to find "horrid" looting and a very unstable situation. "We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," Bremer said during an address to an insurance group in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. The group released a summary of his...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim prime minister issued a decree allowing a controversial newspaper to reopen after it had been closed by U.S. officials in March, setting off months of fighting between U.S. forces and militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The weekly Al-Hawza was the mouthpiece of al-Sadr's "Sadrist" movement, routinely carrying his fiery sermons on its front page along with articles sharply critical of the U.S.-led occupation, which formally ended June 28. Iraq's former American governor, L. Paul Bremer, ordered the newspaper closed for two months on March 28 for allegedly inciting...

<p>WHEN L. PAUL BREMER, fresh from stepping down as American regent in Iraq, visited the White House on June 30, he was greeted by President Bush with a bear hug. Half-jokingly, Bush insisted a White House photographer take a picture of them and drew attention to the signature soft leather boots Bremer wears with a coat, tie, dress shirt, and cufflinks. As the two walked outside from the Oval Office to the Old Executive Office Building, Bush spotted press photographers and immediately threw his arm around Bremer in a gesture of public support. Later that day, Bremer joined the president for a workout in the presidential gym, just as he had last November during an earlier visit to the White House.</p>

In an article meant to assert outgoing civilian administrator Paul Bremer had a distant relationship with the Iraqi people, the Los Angeles Times falsely claimed he departed without addressing the nation. The paper said Bremer "left without even giving a final speech to the country -- almost as if he were afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year." But Bremer in fact delivered a speech broadcast on Iraqi TV, which was covered by the U.S. media. The Times addressed the error, but did not necessarily correct itself, reported Fox News host...

Media: The U.S. administrator said goodbye to the Iraqis, and at least some were moved by his words. It was the type of story that the prestige press tries to ignore.Actually, two influential dailies, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, did more than ignore Paul Bremer's speech. They simply denied that it occurred. Bremer's remarks aired on Arab-language TV on June 28, the day the U.S. restored Iraqi sovereignty. One Iraqi, a 33-year-old Baghdad physician named Ali who runs the Iraq the Model Web log with his two brothers, reported how a busy hall went quiet when Bremer...

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On Sept. 8, 2003, Bush administration officials awoke to find that Paul Bremer III had written an op-ed piece in The Washington Post laying out a seven-step plan for the democratization of Iraq. Bremer hadn't cleared the piece with his higher-ups in the Pentagon or the White House, and here he was describing a drawn-out American occupation. Iraqis would take their time writing a constitution, and would eventually have elections and take control of their country. For some Bush officials, this was the lowest period of the entire Iraq project. They knew they couldn't sustain an occupation for that long,...

DRESSED in his trademark combat boots and a dark business suit, Paul Bremer spoke yesterday of the weight lifted off his shoulders after the end of his tenure as US administrator in Iraq. Speaking outside the White House, Mr Bremer said he was relieved to be in the United States after handing over sovereignty on Monday. "It’s like having a rather large weight lifted off my shoulders," he told ABC’s Good Morning America programme. But he said he was sorry not to have brought more stability to Iraq, where insurgents launch daily attacks and the death toll is rising for...

President Bush met with the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, after they both met with Iraq-Americans regarding the current situation in Iraq. Sudan: The Bush Administration called on all parties to the conflict in Darfur to adhere to the ceasefire, to respect the rights of civilians, to allow the free movement of humanitarian workers and relief supplies, and to work in good faith toward a negotiated settlement. President Directs Powell To Travel to Sudan Short on pictures today but there are a few newcomers from the NATO summit. Enjoy your visit to the Dose @ Sanity...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 28 — In a surprise, secret ceremony that was hastily convened to decrease the chances of more violence, United States officials today handed over sovereignty to Iraqi leaders, formally ending the American occupation two days earlier than scheduled. In a tightly guarded room behind high walls, L. Paul Bremer III, the top United States administrator, presented a formal letter recognizing Iraq's sovereignty to Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Just 30 or so people were present for what Dr. Allawi described as the "historic" handover. A few hours later, Mr. Bremer flew off on a military plane, leaving...

Bremer the 'dictator' of Iraq – UN envoy UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Wednesday responded to criticism of US involvement in the nomination of the new Iraqi government by stressing Washington was still the dominant force in the country. "I would remind you the Americans are governing the country so their point of view was certainly taken into consideration," he said at a news conference. "He has the money, ..the signature" "I don't think he'd mind my saying this: Bremer is the dictator of Iraq. He has the money, he has the signature," said Brahimi after stressing he had...

WASHINGTON — Have you read the encouraging headlines from Iraq? "Monthly U.S. Combat Deaths Down by Half in May" is one. "Radical Shiite Cleric's Militia Decimated in Holy Cities" is another, and finally: "Iraqi Leaders, Defying U.S. and U.N. Dictates, Choose Prime Minister." No, those were not headlines anybody could see. In Gloomy Gus newsrooms, good news is no news. ***********SNIP************** [C]onsider the possibility, for a change, that on our Memorial Day, we have cause for cautious optimism. Rather than admit this, our dovish defeatists have turned themselves into the hardest of hardliners. **************SNIP************** Of course, if coalition forces were...

Introduction On April 18, 2003, shortly after the start of the occupation of Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) issued order No. 1 to uproot the former ruling Ba'th Party from positions of authority. The order, commonly referred to as the de-Ba'thification of Iraq, was patterned after a similar program, known as the de-Nazificationof Germany, introduced by the allied forces upon the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. In Iraq, de-Ba'thification has meant the dismissal hundred of thousands - of civil servants, teachers, army officers, and other bureaucrats or professionals who served the Saddam Hussein regime. The one enormous difference...

Last August, I participated in a town-hall meeting hosted by the administrative council of Dibis, an ethnically mixed town 22 miles northwest of Kirkuk. Locals complained about everything from sporadic electricity to fertilizer shortages to potholes, and their Iraqi representatives listened attentively. It was an encouraging sight, all the more so because the month before, Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) head L. Paul Bremer had proudly announced, in a televised speech, that "all of Iraq's main cities, and dozens of other towns, now have administrative councils." But there was a problem. Soon after his announcement, Bremer--not wanting to complicate planning for...