Julian Pike from Farrers law firm said he had known NoW executives were making misleading statements about scandal The BBC has referred the royal solicitors, Farrers, to the profession’s disciplinary body over their work for the News of the World during the phone-hacking scandal. Julian Pike, a partner at the firm, admitted to a parliamentary committee on Wednesday that he had known all along that News of the World executives had been making misleading statements to parliament and the public when they claimed a single “rogue reporter” was to blame for the hacking. But it has emerged that Farrers sent a letter to the BBC in March threatening to sue for libel when Panorama suggested News International executives had made misleading statements – a letter Pike has since defended. In correspondence seen by the Guardian, the BBC had alleged: “NI executives made statements, that have subsequently shown to be misleading and untrue, that Clive Goodman was ‘one rogue journalist’ at the News of the World who commissioned [private detective] Glenn Mulcaire to ‘hack’ into voicemail messages.” Pike replied from the offices of the law firm in Lincoln’s Inn Fields that NI had “made it clear that at no stage has any executive of the company made public statements knowing them to be misleading or untrue … if you make any suggestion in the programme that any NI executive has made a statement knowing it to be misleading and/or untrue this will be highly defamatory and the relevant individual(s) will be entitled to commence proceedings in respect of which they will be unquestionably successful”. The BBC said in a statement on Friday the Panorama team “were surprised to hear Mr Pike’s testimony … since, on the face of it, it seems to contradict one aspect of what he’d written in a letter to the programme.” It added: “As a result, we have written to the Solicitors Regulation Authority today seeking advice in relation to their rules governing the conduct of solicitors.” According to SRA rules, it may be a disciplinary offence under the code of conduct for a lawyer to do anything that “misled or had the potential to mislead clients, the court or other persons”. The SRA said: “If a complaint was brought to us about anyone regulated by the SRA, we would of course investigate the complaint thoroughly.” In July the SRA announced it was launching a formal investigation into the roles played by a number of solicitors in the phone-hacking affair. Pike denies that he wrote a misleading letter to the BBC. He said his admissions to parliament only concerned the case of Gordon Taylor, one of those whose phones were hacked, and who received £425,000 in a secret settlement. Pike wrote: “The letter to the BBC is headed: ‘Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman.’ The passage which you quote obviously has to be read in the context of this heading, ie in reference to Mulcaire and Goodman. “The evidence given to the select committee yesterday, as you will know, concerned the Gordon Taylor case. It does not relate to ‘Mulcaire and Goodman’, not least because Goodman had no involvement in the Taylor case. Consequently, the conclusion you are drawing is therefore incorrect.” At the Commons hearing, Pike had impressed at least one of the committee members, Labour MP Tom Watson, with what he called his “brutal honesty”. Pike said he knew that MPs being misled by testimony they were hearing, but he had kept quiet. Another MP, Paul Farrelly, said: “You have told us that you were aware from the moment that News International came in front of parliament that it was not telling the truth and did nothing. Does that make you uncomfortable?” Pike conceded that it would be “not ideal” to read headlines saying: “Queen’s solicitors knew News of the World was lying to parliament and did nothing about it.” But he added: “There is no obligation on me as a lawyer to go and report something that I see within a case where there might have been some criminal activity.” Earlier, Pike, who had been released from normal client confidentiality on the issue by the special News International committee seeking to manage the scandal, denied that he had a reputation as a bully. He said he realised in 2008 that the “single rogue reporter” story was untrue. “The advice given in 2008 was that three journalists other than Goodman were involved in phone hacking … It was advised by counsel and ourselves that there was a powerful case to support a culture of illegally accessing information in order to get stories.” But the following year, 2009, when the Guardian revealed there had been a coverup, a succession of NI executives denied in public that any such culture existed. BBC Phone hacking Clive Goodman Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers David Leigh guardian.co.uk
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News Corp chairman and chief executive makes defiant address at annual shareholder’s meeting in Los Angeles Rupert Murdoch has made a defiant and uncompromising address in front of his company’s shareholders in Los Angeles, insisting News Corp’s history was the “stuff of legend” as he prepares to face down the most serious investor revolt in the company’s history. The 80-year-old chairman and chief executive of the media giant said he was “personally determined” to clean up the phone hacking scandal that had led to the closure of the News of the World, but said the issue needed to be set in context at a company that had been under “understandable scrutiny and unfair attack”. He argued that the business had a famous history – from the time he took over a single newspaper in Adelaide in 1953 – which had to be set against the revelations that several reporters at the News of the World had been engaged in hacking into voicemails left for crime victims, their families, public figures and celebrities. Speaking at the start of the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Murdoch offered no fresh concessions. With 40% of the votes in his control, there was no prospect of either Murdoch or his heir apparent and son, James, being voted off the board. However, the scale of the rebellion was expected to exceed 20% of non-family shareholders. Those attending included Edward Mason, secretary of the ethical investment advisory group of the Church of England, which owns about $6m of News Corp shares. “There needs to be decisive action in terms of holding people to account,” he told the Guardian before the event, noting that it was the first time his group had attended a company annual meeting. Later, at the meeting, Murdoch criticised the church’s investment track record, describing it as “not that great”. Julie Tanner, assistant director of News Corp investor Christian Brothers Investment Services (CBIS), which represents more than 1,000 Catholic institutions worldwide, was the first to question Murdoch’s track record at the meeting itself, saying that the “extraordinary scandals” in the UK required corporate overhaul. Tanner proposed a motion that News Corp appoint an independent chairman, “to empower the board in relation to the Murdoch family”, and asked that the company launch a “truly independent investigation” into the phone-hacking allegations, instead of the work by its London-based internal management and standards committee. The Labour MP Tom Watson, a persistent thorn in Murdoch’s side, who travelled to Los Angeles to attend the AGM, commented on the “deepest irony” of Friday’s opening presentation, which included images of Prince William – who he alleged had been targeted by former News of the World private investigator Glenn Mulcaire – and Kate Middleton, who he claimed had been targeted by another private investigator employed by the now closed Sunday tabloid, Jonathan Rees. Watson warned News Corp investors that they were facing “Mulcaire 2″ in the UK as victims of alleged computer hacking took action against News International. “You haven’t told any of your investors what is to come,” he told Murdoch, although the News Corp boss insisted in response that his company was co-operating fully with police inquiries. Investors, critics and the press were bussed into the high security event from a parking lot in Century City to the Zanuck Theatre at Fox Studios, where a collection of Oscars was on display outside. Investors were deciding whether to reappoint the company’s directors, including Rupert Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, whether to endorse a remuneration scheme that paid Murdoch $33.3m last year, and whether to appoint an independent chairman. A few hours before the meeting began, News Corp confirmed it had reached an agreement to pay the family of murdered teenager Milly Dowler £2m in compensation, with Rupert Murdoch personally donating an additional £1m to six charities. The settlement relates to the hacking of the missing schoolgirl’s phone messages by the News of the World after she went missing in March 2002. “Nothing that has been agreed will ever bring back Milly,” the Dowler family said. “The only way that a fitting tribute could be agreed was to ensure that a very substantial donation to charity was made in Milly’s memory.” Rupert Murdoch News Corporation Phone hacking United States Tom Watson Media business Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Dominic Rushe Dan Sabbagh Jason Deans guardian.co.uk
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Libyans queue to see dictator’s body as wounds appear to confirm he was killed in cold blood Bloodied, wearing just a pair of khaki trousers, and dumped on a cheap mattress, Muammar Gaddafi’s body has become a gruesome tourist attraction and a macabre symbol of the new Libya’s problems. Hundreds of ordinary Libyans queued up outside a refrigerated meat store in Misrata, where the dead dictator was being stored as a trophy. A guard allowed small groups into the room to celebrate next to Gaddafi’s body. They posed for photos, flashing victory signs, and burst into jubilant cries of “God is great.” Wounds on Gaddafi’s body appeared to confirm that he was indeed killed in cold blood in the chaotic minutes following his capture on Thursday. He was found in the town of Sirte, hiding in a drainage pipe. There was a close-range bullet wound on the left side of his head. Blood stains showed another bullet wound to his thorax. His body, subsequently driven to Misrata and publicly paraded, was barefoot and stripped to the waist. This display came amid a row inside the Transitional National Council (NTC) over what to do with Gaddafi’s body. Libya’s interim prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, arrived in Misrata to talk with local NTC representatives. They have made it abundantly clear they do not want Gaddafi to be buried in their town. The NTC leadership in Tripoli wants a solution quickly. One popular option is to bury him at sea, as Osama bin Laden was. The dispute threatens to overshadow NTC plans to declare a formal end to Libya’s nine-month uprising . The council will announce from Benghazi, where the Libyan revolution began in February, that the project of national liberation is now complete. It will say a new, democratic post-Gaddafi era has begun. Among ordinary Libyans, there were few regrets about the bloody and preemptive manner of Gaddafi’s demise. Most worshippers at Friday prayers in the capital’s Martyrs Square said they were pleased Gaddafi had been killed. But one young woman said: “Some people do care about the rule of law and don’t think it’s right that he should have been assassinated.” The NTC faces questions from international rights organisations. On Thursday, Jibril claimed that Gaddafi had been killed from a bullet to the head received in crossfire between rebel fighters and his supporters. He was dragged alive on to a truck, but died “when the car was moving”, Jibril said, citing forensic reports. Gruesome mobile phone footage obtained by the Global Post undermines this account. It records the minutes after Gaddafi’s capture, when his convoy came under Nato and rebel attack. He is dragged out of a tunnel where he had been hiding. Blood is already pouring out of a wound on the left side of his head. A group of fighters then frogmarch him towards a pick-up truck. There are shouts of “God is great” and the rattle of gunfire. At one point Gaddafi keels over; a fighter kicks him and scuffs dirt over his bloodstained clothing. The rebels prop Gaddafi back on his feet and propel him onwards. Gaddafi is clearly dazed and wounded – but is alive, conscious, and pleading feebly with his captors. Fighters at the scene said that he was injured in the shoulder and leg when he was found. Fresh blood is also flowing from a head injury. The evidence has prompted Amnesty International to call on the NTC to investigate. It said that if Gaddafi were deliberately killed, this would be a war crime. The NTC’s position is that it will support an investigation because the new Libya is a law-abiding country, but officials seemed sceptical that it was necessary. “Even if he was killed intentionally, I think he deserves this,” Mohammed Sayeh, a senior official, told the BBC. “If they kill him 1,000 times, I think it will not pay back the Libyans what he has done.” Amnesty also called for an investigation into the unexplained, violent death of Gaddafi’s son Mutassim. Video footage that surfaced shows him calmly smoking a cigarette after his capture. Soon afterwards, someone appears to have shot him. His body is now on show in another freezer unit in Misrata. In a televised interview, Gaddafi’s cousin and former bodyguard claimed it was Mutassim, and not the dictator himself, who had been co-ordinating the loyalist resistance inside Sirte. Mansour Dao, who was captured with Gaddafi, also cast doubt on the account of Nato air strikes against the dictator’s convoy. Instead, he said Gaddafi’s convoy had received “heavy, heavy gunfire” from pursuing rebels. “They had us circled,” he said. Gaddafi’s cousin added that their convoy was not escaping from Sirte, as has been reported, but was heading for the village where Gaddafi was born in the nearby Jarif valley. “Gaddafi did not run away, and he did not want to escape,” Dao said. “We left the area [we were staying] towards Jarif, where he comes from. The rebels surrounded all the neighbourhood. “They launched heavy raids on us which led to the destruction of the cars and the death of many individuals who were with us. After that, we came out of the cars and split into several groups and we walked on foot, and I was with Gaddafi’s group that includes Abu Bakr Yunis and his sons and several volunteers and soldiers. I do not know what happened in the final moments, because I was unconscious after I was hit on my back.” One of the rebels who apparently captured Gaddafi told how his brigade had been on its way to support the Tiger Brigade when they spotted a group of “around 15″ Gaddafi loyalists, some running right and left. They arrested them. “At that time, we were standing on top of the hole where Gaddafi was hiding,” he said. The unnamed rebel added: “We saw another two people hiding and fired on them … Our colleague went down and he killed two of them … Later on, we went to the other side and four or five ran out from under the road. And they surrendered themselves and they told us Gaddafi is hiding inside and is injured. “When we entered the hole, I saw his bushy head, and I captured him immediately. Then all the fighters came and surrounded him.” The fighters retrieved Gaddafi’s golden handgun, together with a second gun and a Thuraya phone. Nato’s role in Gaddafi’s death remains controversial. French warplanes and a US Predator drone were involved in the attack on the dictator’s convoy. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, criticised the bombardment. The Kremlin has long complained that it was tricked into not vetoing the security council resolution allowing Nato to enforce a no-fly zone. Lavrov said: “There is no link between a no-fly zone and ground targets, including this convoy. Even more so since civilian life was not in danger because it [the convoy] was not attacking anyone.” The fate of Gadhafi’s one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam, meanwhile, was unclear. Justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi said al-Islam was wounded and being held in a hospital in the city of Zlitan. But information minister Mahmoud Shammam on Friday that the son’s whereabouts were uncertain. Muammar Gaddafi Libya Middle East Africa Ian Black Luke Harding guardian.co.uk
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October 20 marked the second annual “Spirit Day” thrown by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Debate (GLAAD). They say the D stands for Defamation, but they've been very aggressive in pressuring media outlets to refuse to grant time to any conservative guest that dares to question the gay agenda. To celebrate “Spirit Day,” GLAAD encouraged the news and entertainment media to wear purple to show their leftist support — ostensibly for the “LGBT” youth and against bullying, and boy, did they show it. TVNewser reports two of three evening news anchors — NBC's Brian Williams and ABC fill-in George Stephanopoulos — wore purple, and there was even more gay-alliance violet on the morning shows: On ABC's “Good Morning America,” George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts participated, as did Ann Curry and Al Roker on NBC's “Today.” All four co-hosts on “The View” – Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Sherri Shepherd and Elisabeth Hasselbeck – were decked out in purple as well… On CNBC, the entire “Squawk Box” and “Squawk on the Street” teams participated: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Joe Kernen, Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer, Steve Liesman and Simon Hobbs. Also in purple were CNBC’s Melissa Francis, Sue Herera,
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David Attenborough’s latest TV series, Frozen Planet, is being heralded as his take on climate change. Now 85, he explains why – finally – he’s speaking out on the issue, and shares the joys of a long life spent filming sex and death in the wild ‘I’m not a propagandist, I’m not a polemicist; my primary interest is just looking at and trying to understand how animals work,” says David Attenborough. We are talking in a gigantic BBC sitting room. Attenborough, wearing slacks, shirt and jacket, is a trifle unkempt at 85,
Continue reading …David Attenborough’s latest TV series, Frozen Planet, is being heralded as his take on climate change. Now 85, he explains why – finally – he’s speaking out on the issue, and shares the joys of a long life spent filming sex and death in the wild ‘I’m not a propagandist, I’m not a polemicist; my primary interest is just looking at and trying to understand how animals work,” says David Attenborough. We are talking in a gigantic BBC sitting room. Attenborough, wearing slacks, shirt and jacket, is a trifle unkempt at 85,
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Losing candidate in 2008 mayoral election says he was threatened after suggesting rival’s relative may have been a spy Ken Livingstone has claimed Boris Johnson threatened to “punch his lights out” during the last mayoral campaign, after Livingstone had suggested his rival’s Turkish great-grandfather might have been a British spy. In his autobiography, published on Monday, Livingstone chronicles the mounting tension during the 2008 mayoral race. Publication comes months before he faces a rematch with Johnson at the 2012 mayoral election in May. In the book, titled You Can’t Say That, Livingstone dismisses his Tory rival as a politician used to “getting away with it” through humour when responding to difficult policy questions. But he says Johnson’s “mask slipped” a couple of times during the campaign. Livingstone recounts an appearance on the BBC’s Question Time with Johnson: “After Question Time the cameras were still on us as a smiling Boris draped his arm around my shoulders and said, ‘If you carry on talking about my great-grandfather I’m going to punch your lights out.’” The veteran politician also reveals he thought he would have to stand down in the run-up to the last mayoral campaign because of a cancer scare, and cried as he cleared his office after losing to Johnson. In a book which sheds little light on his emotional life, Livingstone alludes to being “down and depressed” during the 2008 mayoral race and, despite his political experience, says he was “still shocked” by the way the “right wing” threw everything at the campaign. Livingstone refuses to concede any major mistakes during his time as mayor. He blames defeat on the recession, an unpopular government and the media, singling out the Evening Standard – under the editorship of Veronica Wadley – for the campaign it ran against him that alleged corruption in his office. The allegations were unsubstantiated. He complains that he felt like a “non person” at City Hall after losing. “My first experience of Boris’s pettiness came when I turned up at City Hall to discover my security pass had been blocked and I was only to be allowed in the building if accompanied by an official,” he says. Livingstone, the son of working-class Conservative parents, also highlights what he believes to be the advantage gained by Johnson’s privileged background in the eyes of the media, where “one rule applies for Boris and his class and another one for the rest of us”. Livingstone, who has often championed policies and causes long before they were accepted by the mainstream, tells the Guardian that the animosity he has attracted over the years is down to being a working class person in a profession now “exclusively middle class, reported through the prism of a media that is exclusively middle class. And I think it’s because they see me as an effective socialist. “They’re used to Labour politicians who come into office and end up being a tame pussycat, or being totally ineffectual. They’re quite used to ones that they can seduce or buy off, or are incompetent. They wouldn’t mind me if I was useless and they wouldn’t mind me if I was a hireling. But I don’t make the compromises they always want me to.” Living up to its title, the book is interspersed with tracts about Livingstone’s uncompromising views on controversial issues such as Israel, which are likely to raise eyebrows in senior Labour ranks. His says views were formed in the 1980s after reading up the history of Zionism and from that point on: “I was not going to be silenced by smears of antisemitism whenever I criticised Israeli government policies.” Despite his staunch criticism about New Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, he reveals that he tipped off Brown, via his ally Ed Balls, after he was asked by the Labour peer Margaret McDonagh to lead the call for Brown’s resignation as premier. “For all my doubts about Brown I wasn’t going to help hand the party back to the Blairites so I phone Ed Balls on his mobile to warn him.” After he had lost mayoral office, Livingstone says that Brown called him to commiserate. “He seemed genuinely upset, but whether this was because I was losing or that my loss might open up a leadership challenge to him wasn’t clear”. Livingstone also reveals that he decided not to have children because of his “dysfunctional childhood” and his anxiety that he would not be a good parent. Despite this, he has fathered five children. He suggests that he offered to father two children (both daughters) with a local newspaper journalist, and one (a son) with a political activist, because their biological clocks were ticking and they had no partner at the time. He claims to have pre-arranged the role he would play in their lives, but does not describe how this was received by his partner at the time, Kate Allen. Livingstone later had two children with Emma Beal, whom he married in 2009. A spokesperson for Boris Johnson said: “Any allegations like this in Ken Livingstone’s autobiography should be viewed in the context of his candidacy for the mayoralty next year.” He also reveals that during his time as mayor, he thought his phone was being bugged by MI5, despite the insistence of Eliza Manningham Buller, then MI5 chief, to the contrary. He said at the time didn’t believe her as he often picked up the home phone immediately after finishing a call and heard a playback of his conversation. “However, given the Guardians 2009 expose of phone tapping by newspapers, I may have blamed the wrong culprit.” Ken Livingstone Boris Johnson London Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
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President says ‘America’s war in Iraq will be over’ with decision to pull all troops from Iraq by the end of the year President Barack Obama on Friday declared an end to the Iraq war by announcing that all American troops would be withdrawn from the country by year’s end. Obama’s statement put an end to months of wrangling over whether the US would maintain a force in Iraq beyond 2011. He never mentioned the tense and ultimately fruitless negotiations with Iraq over whether to keep several thousand US forces there as a training force and a hedge against meddling from Iran or other outside forces. Instead, Obama spoke of a promise kept, a new day for a self-reliant Iraq and a focus on building up the economy at home. “I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,” Obama said. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.” Obama spoke after a private video conference with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, and he offered assurances that the two leaders agreed on the decision. The US military presence in Iraq stands at just under 40,000. All US troops are to exit the country in accordance with a deal struck between the countries in 2008 when George Bush was president. Obama, an opponent of the war from the start, took office and accelerated the end of the conflict. In August 2010, he declared the US combat mission over. “Over the next two months our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home,” Obama said. “The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.” More than 4,400 American military members have been killed since the US and its allies invaded Iraq in March 2003. The Associated Press first reported last week that the United States would not keep troops in Iraq past the year-end withdrawal deadline, except for some soldiers attached to the US embassy. Denis McDonough, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said that in addition to the standard Marine security detail, the US will also have 4,000 to 5,000 contractors to provide security for US diplomats, including at the US embassy in Baghdad and US consulates in Basra and Erbil. In recent months, Washington had been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand American troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces. Throughout the discussions, Iraqi leaders refused to give US troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, and the Americans refused to stay without that guarantee. Moreover, Iraq’s leadership has been split on whether it wanted American forces to stay. When the 2008 agreement requiring all US forces to leave Iraq was passed, many US officials assumed it would inevitably be renegotiated so that Americans could stay longer. The US said repeatedly this year it would entertain an offer from the Iraqis to have a small force stay behind, and the Iraqis said they would like American military help. But as the year wore on and the number of American troops that Washington was suggesting could stay behind dropped, it became increasingly clear that a US troop presence was not a sure thing. The issue of legal protection for the Americans was the deal-breaker. But administration officials said they feel confident that the Iraqi security forces are well prepared to take the lead in their country. McDonough said assessment after assessment of the preparedness of Iraqi forces concluded that “these guys are ready; these guys are capable; these guys are proven; importantly, they’re proven because they’ve been tested in a lot of the kinds of threats that they’re going to see going forward. “So we feel very good about that.” Pulling troops out by the end of this year allows both Maliki and Obama to claim victory. Obama kept a campaign promise to end the war, and Maliki will have ended the American presence and restored Iraqi sovereignty. The president used the war statement to once again turn attention back to the economy, the domestic concern that is expected to determine whether he wins re-election next year. “After a decade of war the nation that we need to build and the nation that we will build is our own, an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we’ve restored our leadership around the globe.” US foreign policy Barack Obama Iraq US military Middle East guardian.co.uk
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President says ‘America’s war in Iraq will be over’ with decision to pull all troops from Iraq by the end of the year President Barack Obama on Friday declared an end to the Iraq war by announcing that all American troops would be withdrawn from the country by year’s end. Obama’s statement put an end to months of wrangling over whether the US would maintain a force in Iraq beyond 2011. He never mentioned the tense and ultimately fruitless negotiations with Iraq over whether to keep several thousand US forces there as a training force and a hedge against meddling from Iran or other outside forces. Instead, Obama spoke of a promise kept, a new day for a self-reliant Iraq and a focus on building up the economy at home. “I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,” Obama said. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.” Obama spoke after a private video conference with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, and he offered assurances that the two leaders agreed on the decision. The US military presence in Iraq stands at just under 40,000. All US troops are to exit the country in accordance with a deal struck between the countries in 2008 when George Bush was president. Obama, an opponent of the war from the start, took office and accelerated the end of the conflict. In August 2010, he declared the US combat mission over. “Over the next two months our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear and board convoys for the journey home,” Obama said. “The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.” More than 4,400 American military members have been killed since the US and its allies invaded Iraq in March 2003. The Associated Press first reported last week that the United States would not keep troops in Iraq past the year-end withdrawal deadline, except for some soldiers attached to the US embassy. Denis McDonough, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said that in addition to the standard Marine security detail, the US will also have 4,000 to 5,000 contractors to provide security for US diplomats, including at the US embassy in Baghdad and US consulates in Basra and Erbil. In recent months, Washington had been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand American troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces. Throughout the discussions, Iraqi leaders refused to give US troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, and the Americans refused to stay without that guarantee. Moreover, Iraq’s leadership has been split on whether it wanted American forces to stay. When the 2008 agreement requiring all US forces to leave Iraq was passed, many US officials assumed it would inevitably be renegotiated so that Americans could stay longer. The US said repeatedly this year it would entertain an offer from the Iraqis to have a small force stay behind, and the Iraqis said they would like American military help. But as the year wore on and the number of American troops that Washington was suggesting could stay behind dropped, it became increasingly clear that a US troop presence was not a sure thing. The issue of legal protection for the Americans was the deal-breaker. But administration officials said they feel confident that the Iraqi security forces are well prepared to take the lead in their country. McDonough said assessment after assessment of the preparedness of Iraqi forces concluded that “these guys are ready; these guys are capable; these guys are proven; importantly, they’re proven because they’ve been tested in a lot of the kinds of threats that they’re going to see going forward. “So we feel very good about that.” Pulling troops out by the end of this year allows both Maliki and Obama to claim victory. Obama kept a campaign promise to end the war, and Maliki will have ended the American presence and restored Iraqi sovereignty. The president used the war statement to once again turn attention back to the economy, the domestic concern that is expected to determine whether he wins re-election next year. “After a decade of war the nation that we need to build and the nation that we will build is our own, an America that sees its economic strength restored just as we’ve restored our leadership around the globe.” US foreign policy Barack Obama Iraq US military Middle East guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Study: Hundreds of Fraudulent Defense Contractors Are Still Getting Contracts
October 21, 2011 No CommentThis reports comes out while members of the congressional supercommittee are pissing and moaning about how we can’t possibly cut any more money from the Defense department . These numbers seem to indicate otherwise: How often does the Pentagon award contracts to defense companies that have already been proven to be defrauding taxpayers? A report the Department of Defense did at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reveals an answer that should make Washington very uncomfortable. The report, released today, showed that hundreds of defense contractors found guilty of civil fraud received more than $1.1 trillion in defense contracts since 2001. The study took into account only companies that were found to have defrauded taxpayers of more than $1 million dollars. More than $573 billion went directly to companies that were guilty of defrauding taxpayers, and when you factor in the awards that went to the parent companies of those contractors, the total is $1.1 trillion. Of that $573 billion, more than two-thirds—$398 billion—went to companies after they had been found guilty of fraud. Companies convicted of “hard-core criminal fraud” received $255 million in contracts, $33 million of it after conviction. Some of the country’s biggest defense contractors were implicated. “The ugly truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money,” said Sanders. According to the report: Lockheed Martin in 2008 paid $10.5 million to settle charges that it defrauded the government by submitting false invoices on a multi-billion dollar contract connected to the Titan IV space launch vehicle program. That didn’t seem to sour the relationship between Lockheed and the Defense Department, which gave Lockheed $30.2 billion in contracts in fiscal year 2009, more than ever before. In another case, Northrop Grumman paid $62 million in 2005 to settle charges that it “engaged in a fraud scheme by routinely submitting false contract proposals,” and “concealed basic problems in its handling of inventory, scrap and attrition.” Despite the serious charges of pervasive and repeated fraud, Northrop Grumman received $12.9 billion in contracts the next year, 16 percent more than the year before.
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