US moving to appeal Bagram detention ruling 11 Jun 2009 The Obama administration is moving to appeal a ruling that some prisoners at a military air base in Afghanistan can use U.S. civilian courts to challenge their detention. The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court here Friday to hear its appeal on an expedited basis. The move was expected. U.S. District Judge John Bates, who made the original ruling April 2, suspended action in the case to give the government time to seek higher court review of his action.
U.S. frees Guantanamo detainee seized when a 14-year-old 11 Jun 2009 An African prisoner held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay since he was a teenager has been released without charge after more than seven years in captivity, his lawyers said on Thursday. Mohammed El Gharani, a Chadian citizen, was freed five months after a U.S. federal judge ordered him released having reviewed the evidence against him and ruled that there was nothing to suggest he was ever an “enemy combatant.” Lawyers for Gharani said he was the youngest detainee to be released from Guantanamo, having been seized in 2001 when he was 14.
U.S. sends four Uighur detainees to Bermuda 11 Jun 2009 Four Chinese detainees from Guantanamo Bay arrived in Bermuda on Thursday after being freed by U.S. authorities in the Obama administration’s latest move to close the controversial prison camp for terrorism suspects. Attorneys for the four Muslim men, who were held for seven years before being cleared by U.S. authorities as terrorism suspects, said they would take part in Bermuda’s foreign guest worker program.
ACLU Sues CIA to Show White House Interrogation Link 11 Jun 2009 The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the CIA and other government agencies to get documents it says may show links between the Bush regime and a program of harsh interrogation techniques torture. The lawsuit was filed on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. On Monday, CIA Director Leon Panetta said releasing documents about the agency’s terror interrogations would gravely damage national security.
CIA says Osama bin Forgotten (now) hiding in… wait for it… it’s good, right under the cover of a flu pandemic: CIA chief says bin Laden in Pakistan 11 Jun 2009 CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Thursday the U.S. intelligence agency believes al Qaeda [al-CIAduh] leader Osama bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan and hopes joint operations with Pakistani forces will find him. [LOL!] Asked whether he was sure that bin Laden was in Pakistan, Panetta told reporters: “The last information we had, that’s still the case.”
Pentagon: Billions in U.S. terror aid to Pakistan diverted 06 Jun 2009 Pakistan diverted U.S. aid meant for fighting Taliban terrorists to bolster its conventional warfare capabilities against India, documents indicate. U.S. Defense Department documents accessed by the Press Trust of India reveal Islamabad secretly diverted a substantial portion of nearly $7 billion in foreign military financing and arms sales from the administration of former U.S. President [sic] George W. Bush to beef up its armed forces along the Indian border instead of fighting terrorists. PTI quoted the Pentagon documents as saying that a major portion of post-Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. military aid meant to counter advances made by the Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan’s northwest was instead used to buy and refurbish eight P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, worth $474 million. [See: US Pledges Additional $200 Million in Aid to Pakistan 03 Jun 2009 U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said the Obama administration is standing beside Pakistan in its fight to defeat create Islamic extremists. See: Billions in U.S. Aid to Pakistan Wasted, Officials Assert 24 Dec 2007; US Senate approves Pakistan aid worth $785m 20 Dec 2007.]
KBR Wasted Billions in Troop-Support Work, Panel Says 10 Jun 2009 KBR Inc. wasted billions of dollars through inefficiencies, lax oversight and poor management of its contract to support U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an independent, bipartisan panel. The contract — to provide housing, food, laundry, mail delivery and fuel for U.S. troops — was ultimately worth $31.7 billion, with most of the work being done in Iraq and Kuwait. “The services could have been delivered for billions of dollars less,” the commission stated in a report released today at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform’s national security panel.
Contractor oversees security guards in Afghanistan –London-based Aegis was hired in January under a nearly $1 million deal to support the Armed Contractor Oversight Directorate. 10 Jun 2009 A major security contractor is running an office overseeing armed guards in Afghanistan, a situation at odds with the Pentagon’s claim that military officers would be in charge of such sensitive work. A new report on wartime spending to be made public Wednesday at a congressional hearing says the contractor, Aegis Defense Services, has operated with limited U.S. government supervision. The company’s responsibilities include working with Afghan authorities investigating “escalation-of-force” incidents involving for-hire security guards, the report by the independent Wartime Contracting Commission says. [In other words, the terrorists (Aegis) are in charge of investigating (their) terrorism.]
Iraq says frees 3 of 5 arrested U.S. contractors 11 Jun 2009 Three of five U.S. security contractors arrested in Baghdad as part of an investigation into the killing of a fellow American contractor have been freed, Iraq’s government spokesman said Thursday. An Interior Ministry official said the men were ordered released on bail, and that they were still suspects in the case.
Guantanamo ‘suicide’ had been prisoners’ representative –Detainee had been held in prison’s psychiatric ward 11 Jun 2009 Almost five months before he was found dead at Guantanamo Bay, a detainee volunteered to represent prisoners in talks with the military and left his jailhouse for a meeting with the detention camp’s most senior commanders. But he never returned — from then on, he was held in the prison’s psychiatric ward, a former detainee recalled. Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi died in the ward this month in what the military has called an apparent suicide — the fifth since the prison opened and the first on President Barack Obama’s watch.
US Marines out of Iraq in 2010 11 Jun 2009 US Marines will withdraw from Iraq in the spring of 2010, General James Conway says, signaling the end of a mission amid resurgence of violence in the country. “We think that in the spring of 2010 we’ll close the door and turn out the lights to Marine Corps presence in Iraq,” said General James Conway in a speech at the National Press Club.
Rand says US unlikely to contain Iran 12 Jun 2009 A US think-tank has warned that a US-led containment of Iran is ‘unlikely’ to be sustainable among the Persian Gulf states. The Rand Corporation has said in a report that the Persian Gulf states desire to maintain their cordial ties with Iran, if not active political and economic engagement.
Petraeus: Afghan violence at highest levels 12 Jun 2009 Violence in Afghanistan last week reached its highest level since the US overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, General David Petraeus says. Petraeus stressed that it was vital that the US and other NATO troops be perceived as increasing local security and not harming civilians. “This is the graveyard of empires … It is a place that has never taken kindly to would-be conquerors,” he said. [Right, so get out *now.*]
British troops at mercy of Taliban surge –Average of 12 attacks a day by insurgents in Helmand, new figures show 12 Jun 2009 British troops fighting the Taliban are facing three times as many attacks as any other Nato force in Afghanistan amid spiralling violence across the country which has seen ‘insurgent’ bombings and shootings rise by 73 per cent. Official Nato figures reveal that fatalities among the international force, including British, have risen by 78 per cent while the targeting of officials serving the beleaguered Afghan government has increased by 64 per cent.
Heads up! Nuclear weapons stewardship mission to expand at Minot AFB 11 Jun 2009 Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan and Congressman Earl Pomeroy announced today that the Air Force will establish a unit at Minot AFB to oversee the maintenance and sustainment of nuclear weapons at all of the nation’s Minuteman ICBM bases. This will bring a new nuclear mission to Minot. “Minot supports both bombers and a missile wing. It makes great sense for Minot to host the group that would oversee the upkeep of many of our nation’s nuclear weapons,” the delegation said. The unit will be officially established this summer and will assume command of munitions squadrons at Vandeburg Air Force Base, CA; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, WY; Malmstrom Air Force Base, MT; and Minot Air Force Base.
‘I think mental torture is worse than physical torture.’ Detention in Britain ‘mental torture’ 12 Jun 2009 One of the Pakistani students deported from Britain described his detention in prison there on charges of terrorism, as ‘mental torture’. The students were released after British authorities failed to produce any evidence to back up the terror charges against them and instead deported them.
Students tell of humiliation by British police –After the charges were dropped for lack of evidence, the students were kept in detention on the grounds that they constituted a national threat. 11 Jun 2009 Pakistani students detained in a well-publicized April terror crackdown in northwest England say they were imprisoned with criminals charged with murder. Tariq Rehman, apparently the first to be sent home, told reporters in brief comments at the Islamabad airport that he had suffered “mental torture” and humiliation in a British prison. He added that his fellow detainees, who were also accused of extremism, were also treated like hardened criminals in British detention.
