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CIVIL RIGHTS CASUALTY OF WAR IN IRAQ

By Bill Gallagher

"People were more interested in winning a case than in doing justice." -- William Swor, Defense Attorney, Detroit "terrorism" trial.

DETROIT -- The agony in Iraq is George W. Bush's medal of dishonor and the notion that the war there has anything to do with thwarting the terrorism that brought us the Sept. 11 attacks is beyond folly. Now, Bush can only say he will stay the course, promising the endless war against insurgents and indefinite occupation will miraculously transform Iraq into a model democracy in the Middle East and that the U.S.-imposed civics lesson will discourage terrorists and make the world more peaceful. The only thing more amazing than that preposterous thinking is that so many Americans still buy it.


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Bush often reminds us Iraq is no sideshow, but is, in fact, the forefront in the war on terrorism. Better to fight the barbarians there than on our own soil. The United Nations and European nations will not make significant commitments to help in Iraq as long as Bush and his crazies are running the show.

Money first intended for rebuilding Iraq is being diverted for security purposes, as outbreaks of deadly hepatitis occur because of poor sanitation. Our troops are overstretched and pacifying many areas in Iraq is impossible without more help.

A Pentagon-appointed panel of experts has completed a study that shows the U.S. military does not have sufficient forces to sustain the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and other missions that might arise. A military newsletter quotes the study as concluding that "current and projected force structure will not sustain our current and projected global stabilization commitments."

The National Guard is falling far short of its recruitment projections, and the more the Bushites deny it, the more the smell of a military draft drifts through the air. There is a price for world domination and the Iraq oil colony, and more young Americans and their families will be getting a bill from George W.

Other fronts in Bush's misguided war on terrorism are also going badly. In prisons, detention camps and military tribunals, and in federal courthouses, Bush's strategy to deal harshly with our "enemies" is a colossal fraud and failure. All the detentions, arrests, show trials and courts-martial have not made our nation one whit safer and we're paying the price of liberty lost.

George W. Bush and his minions in the Pentagon and the Justice Department have done more to trample on fundamental freedoms than any terrorists could do. The way enemy combatants, accused military personnel and civil defendants are treated is an affront to everything our nation stands for and an insult to those who sacrificed and died to protect human rights.

Under the banner of national security, the Bush administration is using secrecy and silence to hide the truth about treatment of prisoners being held by the United States at military bases and overseas detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Several civil and human rights groups filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request nearly a year ago to review government documents and records relating to the treatment of U.S.-held detainees. The Bush administration simply stalled and the organizations requesting the information were forced to file a lawsuit.

Federal District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein blasted the government's delaying tactics and ordered the records be turned over next month. In his order, the judge said, "No one is above the law." He added that "merely raising national security concerns cannot justify unlimited delays" in complying with the requests. Judge Hellerstein is on to the Bush administration's real motives, noting, "If the documents are more of an embarrassment than a secret, the public should know of our government's treatment of individuals captured and held abroad."

The judge certainly knocked King George off his throne when he declared, "No one is above the law: not the executive, not Congress, not the judiciary." Imagine that. The king, Lord Halliburton, Field Marshall Rumsfeld and the big brass in the Pentagon want to keep a lid on the truth. They don't want to let any more out about how those fine Christian soldiers taunted and tortured their Muslim captives to make us safer and please God in the process.

Last week, treason charges against an Air Force interpreter were dropped, providing yet another example of the government's abuse of power and wild prosecutions. Airman Ahmad Al Halabi of Dearborn, Mich., once faced the death penalty, accused of passing classified documents to foreign agents "that directly affected the United States' war on terrorism." He was accused of trying to deliver messages from detainees at Guantanamo to Syria. The case against Al Halabi was marred by irregularities, inflamed charges and flat-out lies. One of the allegations was that Al Halabi conducted "unauthorized communications with detainees" because he brought them baklava, a Middle Eastern pastry. Al Halabi admits to taking photographs of his workplace and lying about taking the pictures. He also brought a classified document home without locking it up.

The government's spy case fizzled and Al Halabi pleaded guilty to a minor charge of "conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline."

Imad Hamad of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee told the Detroit News, "People want to believe that the government has a legitimate case when they bring forward serious allegations. ... It makes you wonder when such examples will end -- when we won't see the rush to judgment, to prosecute people before getting all the facts."

The facts never get in Attorney General John Ashcroft's way as he pursues purported terrorists with the raging zeal of a Puritan on the trail of a witch in the woods. Ashcroft, who believes God anointed him for this mission, does the Lord's work with painful predictability.

First, big raids and roundups of Arab suspects. Then the news conference, where the spectacular charges are ominously announced and the dutifully hyperventilating media provide screaming headlines like "Feds Bust Terror Cell in Detroit."

Detroit, of course, has a significant Arab-American population and many immigrants from the Middle East -- about 400,000 people. So Ashcroft and his ilk conclude that, with all those Arabs, hordes of terrorists must be lurking among them. Forget the fact that not a single one has been found yet -- it just sounds so reasonable.

The Detroit case was the first post-Sept. 11 prosecution of suspected terrorists. The four defendants from Morocco and Algeria were accused of operating a "sleeper cell" providing support for a "holy war or a global jihad" against the United States. The Justice Department claimed the men were plotting terrorist attacks on a U.S. Air Force base in Turkey, and a confiscated video "appears to depict surveillance of such U.S. landmarks as Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and the MGM Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas."

But it sounded even worse. Ashcroft declared the Detroit defendants had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. Ashcroft retracted the claim a few days later, never explaining where he got such damning and false information.

The entire case was built upon the testimony of one defendant-turned-government-witness and the sketches of a mentally ill man who committed suicide. While most in the media provided the echo chamber for Ashcroft's lies and hyperbole, some did not.

"I was suspicious from the beginning," says Amy Lange, a colleague and superb reporter who covered the case from the get-go. "It didn't make any sense," she notes. "In one indictment, Youssef Hmisssa is the ringleader of the cell, and then in a superseding indictment, he's the government's star witness." As the case wore on, she warned anyone with ears to listen that the case was a fraud and she suspected government lawyers were concealing important information.

"It was a disaster, with the Justice Department totally out of control. It was disgusting to watch," she said.

Confused jurors convicted two of the defendants on terrorism charges, one on a document fraud count and another was acquitted. Federal prosecutors lit up cigars and gave one another high-fives after the verdicts.

But just a few weeks after the trial, the fraud was exposed. In an excellent report, the Detroit News uncovered documents in the case and interviewed law enforcement experts. The News concluded, "Government investigators repeatedly ignored rules intended to ensure a fair trial. What resulted was an investigation geared toward winning at any cost. The government literally went around the world to bolster seemingly benign evidence and transformed an obvious case of document fraud into the nation's first post-9/11 terror trial."

Career professionals in the Justice Department reviewed the case and found a "pattern of mistakes and oversights" warranting the dismissal of the convictions. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Ashcroft got that news.

What happened to those men is a national disgrace. Ashcroft should be impeached, disbarred and criminally prosecuted for what he did. The U.S. Attorneys and FBI agents involved in the case should be fired.

Ben Franklin said it best: "They who would give up essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."

We don't deserve George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, either.


Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@aol.com.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Sept. 28 2004