Get Columbia Out of the War blog

I decided to pass on my usual article clippings and add some original thoughts.
Things could not be going worse for Bush or better for those of us who were
opposed to the war in the first place. Three months after the "end" of the war,
not a single Weapon of Mass Destruction has been found. Every scientist we
capture says there weren't any. Every terrorist we capture says that Iraq had
no links with Al Qaeda because Bin Ladin hated Saddam and wouldn't work
with him. Bush himself has been forced to admit that he at least overstated
the case for war, and Blair has been held to the flames on this one.

We were right, but it doesn't feel very good. If you've been checking out
the casualty lists, you can see that this occupation is swiftly becoming a
losing proposition. We've now lost more troops than in the last Gulf War
and we're losing anywhere from one to three soldiers a day and that's
not getting any better. Life in Iraq must be hell for these kids, and I only
wish they weren't there in the first place.

Thinking ahead: the anti-war movement has been keeping a hand in
over the uranium allegations, but I think we should become more
visible in the future. In the coming presidential race, we have four
candidates opposed to the war, at least one of whom is viable.
In addition to supporting pro-war candidates, I think we could buttress
the presidential elections with "bring our troops home" marches.
Bush is going to be in New York City for his convention - that's
going to be the nightly news that week. But if 400,000 people
held a rally in Central Park calling for Bush to withdraw from our
city and if an anti-war presidential nominee were to headline it,
that would be a very different image. Instead of a wealthy, politically
savvy president working his mojo, you'd see a damaged and
unpopular president hiding from the real New York.

Just a thought.

Enemy Combatant Vanishes Into a 'Legal Black Hole'
By Paula Span
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 30, 2003; Page A01


Second of two articles

NEW YORK -- It was the luck of the draw.

Some other spring morning, Donna Newman would have encountered a different client in a prison jumpsuit, someone accused of fraud or drug trafficking. Instead, arriving at the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan in May 2002, she met Jose Padilla.

Newman serves on a panel of private practice attorneys who occasionally take on indigent clients facing federal charges. She accepts new cases two days a year. "I believe in defending indigents," she said. "You gotta give back." At the time, though, she had no inkling how much she was about to give.

Padilla, arrested by the FBI at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8, had been flown east to appear before a grand jury as a material witness. The subject he supposedly had knowledge of -- an al Qaeda plan to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the United States -- sounded scarier than most. Another alarming sign was that every time Newman set her pen down on the courtroom table during that first appearance, federal marshals handed it back to her, evidently so that Padilla couldn't seize it as a weapon.

Still, for Newman, the procedures seemed largely routine -- until June 9, when President Bush declared her client an enemy combatant and Padilla was hauled off to a brig in South Carolina. At that point, the Padilla case detonated, largely consuming Newman's practice, her leisure, her life for the coming year and plunging her into an extraordinary constitutional debate.

The pivotal question: Can an American citizen, arrested on U.S. soil, be held incommunicado in a military prison indefinitely -- without being charged with a crime, without access to a lawyer?

The issue has ignited a fierce debate over civil liberties. It has been argued on the Senate floor and on op-ed pages, and Amnesty International has condemned Padilla's treatment as "an unprecedented suspension of fundamental rights of U.S. citizens in U.S. custody."

Prosecuting Terror
No Choice but Guilty
Lackawanna Case Highlights Legal Tilt

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 29, 2003; Page A01


First of two articles

LACKAWANNA, N.Y. -- Even now, after the arrests and the anger and the world media spotlight, the mystery for neighbors in this old steel town remains this: Why would six of their young men so readily agree to plead guilty to terror charges, accepting long prison terms far from home?

"These knuckleheads betrayed our trust, and we're disgusted with their attendance at the camps in Afghanistan," Mohammed Albanna, 52, a leader in the Yemeni community here, said of the six men who have admitted to attending an al Qaeda training camp two years ago. "But the punishment doesn't fit the crime, or the government's rhetoric. It's ridiculous."

But defense attorneys say the answer is straightforward: The federal government implicitly threatened to toss the defendants into a secret military prison without trial, where they could languish indefinitely without access to courts or lawyers.

That prospect terrified the men. They accepted prison terms of 61/2 to 9 years.

"We had to worry about the defendants being whisked out of the courtroom and declared enemy combatants if the case started going well for us," said attorney Patrick J. Brown, who defended one of the accused. "So we just ran up the white flag and folded. Most of us wish we'd never been associated with this case."

Clipping news reports of casualties in Iraq is depresssing
and hard to keep up with, but I found a site that does it
for me.

Here you go.

http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx

CBS News Poll. July 8-9, 2003. N=753 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4 (total sample).
.

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?"

Approve Disap-
prove Don't
Know
% % %
7/03 58 32 10
5/03 72 20 8
3/26-27/03 69 27 4
3/24/03 71 24 5
3/23/03 75 22 3
3/22/03 72 23 5
3/20-21/03 69 25 6
3/15-16/03 55 41 4
3/7-9/03 51 42 7
3/4-5/03 54 39 7
2/24-25/03 52 44 4
2/10-12/03 53 42 5
.

"Do you think removing Saddam Hussein from power was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not?" Form A (N=341)

Worth
It Not
Worth It Don't
Know
% % %
7/03 54 37 9
6/03 62 31 7
.

"Do you think the end result of the war with Iraq was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not?" Form B (N=412)

Worth
It Not
Worth It Don't
Know
% % %
7/03 45 45 10
.

"Which comes closer to your opinion: Iraq was a threat to the United States that required immediate military action, or Iraq was a threat that could have been contained, or Iraq was not a threat to the United States at all?" Form C (N=384)

Required
Immediate
Action Could
Have
Been
Contained Was Not
a Threat Don't
Know
% % % %
7/03 43 43 9 5
6/03 53 35 10 2
.

"Looking back, do you think that Iraq's Saddam Hussein represented a major threat to the U.S., a minor threat, or was Saddam Hussein not a threat to the U.S.?" Form D (N=369)

Major
Threat Minor
Threat Not a
Threat Don't
Know
% % % %
7/03 56 28 12 4
.

"How would you say things are going for the U.S. in its efforts to bring stability and order to Iraq? Would you say things are going very well, somewhat well, somewhat badly, or very badly?"

Very
Well Somewhat
Well Somewhat
Badly Very
Badly Don't
Know
% % % % %
7/03 6 54 25 11 4
5/03 11 61 19 5 4
.

"Which do you think the Iraqi people are feeling right now: grateful to the United States for getting rid of Saddam Hussein, or resentful of the United States for being in Iraq right now?"

Grateful Resentful Both
(vol.) Don't
Know
% % % %
7/03 34 37 20 9
5/03 46 31 20 3
.

"From what you have seen or heard, is the United States in control of events taking place in Iraq, or are the events in Iraq out of U.S. control?"

In
Control Out of
Control Don't
Know
% % %
7/03 45 41 14
4/03 71 20 9
.

"How long do you think the United States troops will have to remain in Iraq: for less than a year, one to two years, two to five years, or will U.S. troops have to stay in Iraq for longer than five years?"

Less Than
1 Year 1 to 2
Years 2 to 5
Years More Than
5 Years Don't
Know
% % % % %
7/03 13 31 31 18 7
.

"If the United States and its allies never find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then do you think the war against Iraq will have been worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not??"

Worth
It Not
Worth It Don't
Know
% % %
7/03 46 46 8
5/03 56 38 6
.

"Thinking back now to the weeks before the war with Iraq, do you think the Bush Administration overestimated the number of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, underestimated the number of weapons of mass destruction, or accurately estimated the number of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?"

Over-
estimated Under-
estimated Accurately
estimated Don't
Know
% % % %
7/03 56 11 19 14
6/03 44 14 28 14
.

"When presenting what they knew about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war, do you think the members of the Bush Administration were telling everything they knew, most of what they knew, hiding important elements of what they knew, or mostly lying?"

Telling
Everything Telling
Most Hiding
Important
Elements Mostly
Lying Don't
Know
% % % % %
7/03 4 32 45 11 8

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Majority in US believes Bush 'stretched truth' about Iraq: poll
Wed Jul 2, 4:04 AM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON (AFP) - For the first time since the beginning of the war in Iraq (news - web sites), a solid majority of Americans believe the Bush administration either "stretched the truth" about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or told outright lies, according to a new opinion survey.

The poll by the University of Maryland found that 52 percent of respondents said they believed President George W. Bush (news - web sites) and his aides were "stretching the truth, but not making false statements" about Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s chemical, biological and nuclear programs.


Another 10 percent said US officials were presenting Congress, the American public and the international community "evidence they knew was false," indicated the survey which was made public Tuesday.


Only 32 percent said they thought the government was being "fully truthful" about the Iraqi arsenal.


The weapons of mass destruction -- as well as the Iraqi government's alleged ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist group -- which the administration claimed represented an immediate threat to the Unites States, served as the chief rationale for launching the March 20 invasion of the country.


But more than three months since the start of the war, US troops have yet to find any of the suspected weapons.


Similarly, 56 percent of those polled believed the US government stretched the truth or made outright false statements about Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda.


The nationwide survey of 1,051 people was conducted from June 18 to 25 and had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.