Eric Umansky

Another Sign of Success in Iraq: No Slavery!

"We need to be more humble about how long it has taken us to get to a multi-ethnic democracy that works. And I will tell you one thing: To this point, I have not yet seen the Iraqis make a compromise as bad as the one that in 1789 made my ancestors three-fifths of a man." - Condoleezza Rice, just overheard on CNN.

Dept. of Unintended Irony

"I think those who oppose this ballistic missile system don't understand the threats of the 21st century, " said President Bush today. "They're living in the past. We're living in the future. "

Now who is living in the past?

The New Abuse Scandal

Sunday's Oregonian has an extraordinary report about how a national guardsman looking through his sniper scope in Baghdad spotted police from the Interior Ministry torturing detainees:

He immediately radioed for help. Soon after, a team of Oregon Army National Guard soldiers swept into the yard and found dozens of Iraqi detainees who said they had been beaten, starved and deprived of water for three days.

In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices -- metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their back and legs. [...] At least one had a gunshot wound to the knee.

The soldiers disarmed the Iraqi jailers, moved the prisoners into the shade, released their handcuffs and administered first aid. Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Ore., the highest ranking American at the scene, radioed for instructions.

Hendrickson's superior officers told him to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw. It was June 29 -- Iraq's first official day as a sovereign country since the U.S.-led invasion.

The Oregonian's frontpage really conveys the scene, and the paper has two dozen photos of the abuse.

This stuff is disturbing in and of itself. But then there's the reason all the men were being tortured in the first place: They were apparently detainees picked up in interim prime minister (and strongman) Iyad Allawi's much heralded crime sweep a few weeks ago. Let freedom reign!

P.S.: None of the big papers have picked up the Oregonian's report. I can't blame them for that. But there does seem to be plenty room for follow-up. Namely, Oregonian suggests the Interior Minister was behind this stuff. Is that true? And who is he?

Indonesia's letting 'em off

This is disgusting:

New York Times

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Aug. 6 — An Indonesian appeals court has overturned the convictions of three army officers and one policeman for crimes against humanity during violence in 1999 over East Timor's independence that left some 1,500 people dead.

The decisions, delivered two weeks ago but released only on Friday, may mark the end of legal processes against 18 people in all — 16 security officers and 2 civilians — indicted by an Indonesian human rights tribunal on East Timor.

In all, four sentences have been overturned and one reduced. Twelve others were were acquitted. Only one person — East Timor's former governor, Abílio Jose Soares— is serving a prison sentence, a three-year term that started last month.

The massacres that occurred in 1999 have been well documented by human rights groups and official investigators in both Indonesia and East Timor. Many more suspects have been identified than tried.

The Indonesian military organized, supplied and commanded Timorese militias to try to derail a vote on independence, which was conducted by the United Nations.

I was in East Timor during the 1999 vote. I returned six weeks later, to find that the town where I had stayed in, Manatuto, a city of about 40,000, had six buildings still standing. The rest had been by burnt by the militia. I can't remember how many in town were mudered--at least a handful and perhaps upwards of 40. In other towns, the slaughter was in the hundreds, sometimes of people hiding in churches. In other words, we're talking about war crimes. And this is the response?

Democracy Undermined (see page A12)

Lounging around this weekend, I came across the following little story buried inside the NYT, so small it didn't even merit a byline:

By The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - The Interior Department confirmed Friday that Gary Frazer, its senior career official in the Endangered Species Office, which has produced several scientific findings angering his political superiors in the Fish and Wildlife Service, was reassigned last week to a newly created post as his division's liaison to the United States Geological Survey.

Tina Kreisher, the spokeswoman for the Interior Department, read a prepared statement saying that Mr. Frazer's new post was created as part of the commitment of the service's director, Steven A. Williams, "to strengthening the service's science capability."

The reassignment, which was made official in late July, was seen by environmental groups as a loss for the biologists and other scientists whose reviews of the status of endangered species and their habitat needs had been supported by Mr. Frazer, sometimes in the face of industry criticism.

Mr. Frazer did not reply to two messages left on his cellphone Friday afternoon.

Before taking the job of assistant director of the service in charge of the endangered species program, Mr. Frazer was field supervisor of his agency's Ecological Services field office in Columbia, Mo.

Ms. Kreisher said it was not clear when Mr. Frazer would take his new post.

I'm back...

Sort of. This week I'm pulling doing double-duty: writing Today's Papers and filing diary dispatches from my trip to Cuba. Oh, and I'm visiting my grandparents. So I probably won't be posting much--if anything--until next week.

Me Voy...

And I'm off. I'll back and tanned in two weeks.

George, Tony and WMDs: Only Dishonest and Disingenuous

I think the Economist gets it right when it pronounces: George Bush and Tony Blair "believed what they said, but they said more than they knew." In other words, they didn't know they were wrong, but they also didn't know they were right even though their public rhetoric and reports claimed otherwise.

That's one of the key--and I think underappreciated--takeaways from the recent Senate Intel report as well as the British Butler report. The two government's public claims about Iraq, whether in the U.S.'s unclassified CIA report in October 2002 or the British dossier published around the same time both went significantly beyond the intelligence services' assessments.

To put it in journo terms, Bush and Tony weren't Stephen Glasses. They were just like dishonest magazine writers: They included only those facts that supported their thesis; when those weren't available they took hypothoses and portrayed them as fact, even if the hypothoses were weak filmsy as balsa wood. It's the kind of stuff any 22-year-old fact-checker would flag and, at any honestly run magazine would get the writers fired.

But of course, our elected leaders, who you know, decide matters of war and stuff, shouldn't be forced to hold the same high standards.

Havana-bound

Next week, I'm heading to Cuba in two weeks. Anybody who's been there recently, I'd love hear to your hear tips or post in the comments section for all.

Note to Treasury Department personnel: I have a permit, thanks!

Note to potential robbers: I also have a house-sitter, thanks!

Remember Steven Hatfill?

Well, he's still pissed. He's suing the New York Times and Nicholas Kristof for purportedly defaming him in a series of articles Kristof wrote two years ago suggesting that Hatfill was the anthrax mailer. Kristof didn't name Hatfill, instead ID'ing him as "Mr. Z." But as I mentioned at the time, it wasn't hard to figure out who Kristof was fingering.