Democrats shift further to the right (tags)
Six weeks after he denounced the American media and US politicians for undermining the war effort in Iraq and called for an all-out mobilization of American power to win victory, the former US commander in Baghdad, retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, delivered the official Democratic Party response to President George W. Bush’s weekly Saturday radio address. The selection of Sanchez to make the broadcast November 24 is a calculated decision by the Democratic Party leadership to adopt a standpoint on the war in Iraq that criticizes the Bush administration largely from the right, rather than the left. The Democrats have rebuffed the desires of the vast majority of the American people, including those whose votes placed the Democrats in control of Congress a year ago, who want an end to the war as quickly as possible. Sanchez commanded US forces in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004, the period immediately following the US invasion. He is indelibly linked to two episodes in the bloody record of American oppression in Iraq: the murderous onslaught on the city of Fallujah, then one of the strongholds of Iraqi resistance to the occupation, and the abuse of captured Iraqis in the American military prison at Abu Ghraib.
US general Ricardo Sanchez linked to Abu Ghraib abuse (tags)
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of coalition forces in Iraq, issued an order last October giving military intelligence control over almost every aspect of prison conditions at Abu Ghraib with the explicit aim of manipulating the detainees' "emotions and weaknesses", it was reported yesterday.
Operation 'Copper Green' (tags)
A senior C.I.A. official confirmed that Operation 'Copper Green' stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.
War In Iraq: The Punishment of Abu Hishma (tags)
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Robert Fisk: Iraq's occupiers suspected of losing touch with reality (tags)
Robert Fisk: Iraq's occupiers suspected of losing touch with reality