Karzai Objects to Sham Agreement on Air Strike “Restrictions”

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Hamid Karzai lashed out yesterday against the continued use of NATO air strikes in civilian areas. He angrily referred to police actions in the US and France, noting that even when the most dangerous suspects are being sought, houses where they are holed up are never bombed. Remarkably, the New York Times provided background that helps to understand Karzai’s rage, explaining that the sham agreements on night raids and prison management recently enacted only “nominally” put Afghanistan in charge.

Here’s a basic description of the new “restrictions” on air strikes as it appears in the Washington Post:

Allen issued new orders this week restricting the use of airstrikes on civilian dwellings in response to the Logar deaths and continued criticism by Karzai. U.S. military officials said commanders will be instructed to use other means to get Taliban fighters out of homes and buildings rather than calling in airstrikes. Civilian homes have been damaged by airstrikes 32 times so far this year, according to U.S. military statistics.

Ah, but as in all the NATO agreements driven by the Obama administration, the devil is in the details. As the New York Times reported on the US response to Karzai’s outburst:

Hours later, the allied commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, reiterated significant changes to rules concerning the use of airstrikes announced earlier this week, issuing a statement in which he said he had given the order that “no aerial munitions be delivered against civilian dwellings.” But he added the caveat that the strikes would be permitted as an absolute last resort in self-defense “if no other options are available.”

As in all other agreements from Obama and NATO, the caveat allows a full work-around of the main point of the agreement. Here is how the article describes the night raid and prison management agreements in the context of the air raid “restrictions”:

But authority over both night raids and detention is nominally in the hands of Afghans now, since memorandums of understanding were signed this spring. And, while Americans still call many of the shots on both, the clock is running on how long that will go on: the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan is set to end in 2014, and by the end of this year, there will be 23,000 fewer American troops here.

So Afghanistan is in charge of night raids. But not really. And Afghanistan is in charge of prisons. But not really. And NATO will not bomb civilian areas. But not really. Is it any wonder that Karzai is ranting? Returning to the Washington Post article:

Karzai said he had an argument with Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, over the weekend about the issue, following a deadly airstrike that killed civilians in Logar province. “I said, ‘Do you do this in the United States?’ There is police action every day in the United States in various localities. They don’t call an airplane to bomb the place.”

The Times carries more of this outburst, where Karzai expanded it to include more of NATO:

“There was a police action in France, in Toulouse, when they were going to neutralize the terrorist,” Mr. Karzai said, referring to a French siege in March at an apartment where a man had holed up after killing seven people. “They were engaged in a fight with the person who was in a house, for about 36 hours or so, but they didn’t call the French Air Force to bomb the house.”

Mr. Karzai added: “Airstrikes are not used in civilian areas. If they don’t want to do it in their own country, why do they do it in Afghanistan?”

Don’t worry, Hamid, NATO and the US have promised they will only bomb civilians as a “last resort”. Don’t you trust them?

US Negotiators Leave Pakistan, Supreme Court Commission Blames Husain Haqqani for Memo

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There are two separate major developments coming out of Pakistan in the last 24 hours. First, US negotiators have left Pakistan without reaching an agreement on reopening NATO supply routes. Both sides appear to be trying to gloss over the obvious conclusion that this represents a major breakdown in the process, but since it appears that Pakistan is insistent on a real apology over the killing of 24 Pakistani troops last November and a stop to US drone strikes in Pakistan, there is no reason to continue the lower level talks on details of route reopening until the larger political issues are settled.

On a separate front, the commission appointed by Pakistan’s supreme court has finally delivered its report and it places blame squarely on former ambassador Husain Haqqani for authoring the memo that sought US help in avoiding a military coup days after the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Haqqani has been ordered to return to the country, but he is rightly pointing out that the commission’s findings are not the result of a judicial process and that he has not yet presented his defense.

Dawn provides a summary of the breakdown in negotiations:

The Pentagon said on Monday the United States was pulling its negotiators from Pakistan but the State Department said the team could go back at an appropriate time.

Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington, Sherry Rehman, also indicated that the talks would continue.

But diplomatic observers in the US capital noted that “no spin can hide the fact that relations between the two countries are at their worst now”, as one of them said on an American news channel.

“I believe that some of the team left over the weekend and the remainder of the team will leave shortly,” Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told a briefing in Washington. “This was a US decision.”

The Express Tribune offers more details:

Officials familiar with the development said the two sides have almost worked out technical details on the resumption of Nato supply lines but the deal could not be finalised due to political issues, including the US refusal to offer an explicit apology for the Salala raid and halt drone strikes.

“Unless the US offers something that resembles an apology, it is very difficult for Pakistan to reopen Nato supplies,” said an official familiar with the development.

“We want to have a package deal and the issue of apology is still included … there will be no compromise on it,” the official added.

The US appears to be taking a very hard line at this point. Reuters quotes a “senior US government official”: Read more →

Alarming Rise in Military Suicides: More Than Double Rate in 1999

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AP’s Robert Burns yesterday delivered sad news on a large rise in the rate of military suicides.  Just over a month ago, Burns discovered that the military has been systematically under-reporting “green on blue” attacks in Afghanistan by only providing reports on deaths and not reporting attacks in which soldiers are wounded or unharmed.

Burns notes that suicides have held at almost exactly one each day for a period of almost half the year and that this is a large increase over what had been lower, steady rates the past two years. Sadly, deaths by suicide far outnumber combat deaths this year:

Suicides are surging among America’s troops, averaging nearly one a day this year — the fastest pace in the nation’s decade of war.

The 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of the year far outdistance the U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan— about 50 percent more — according to Pentagon statistics obtained by The Associated Press.

/snip/

Because suicides had leveled off in 2010 and 2011, this year’s upswing has caught some officials by surprise.

/snip/

The 2012 active-duty suicide total of 154 through June 3 compares to 130 in the same period last year, an 18 percent increase. And it’s more than the 136.2 suicides that the Pentagon had projected for this period based on the trend from 2001-2011. This year’s January-May total is up 25 percent from two years ago, and it is 16 percent ahead of the pace for 2009, which ended with the highest yearly total thus far.

Burns notes that although numerous mental health and counseling programs have been put in place suicides continue at a very high rate. Contributing factors are discussed:

The reasons for the increase are not fully understood. Among explanations, studies have pointed to combat exposure, post-traumatic stress, misuse of prescription medications and personal financial problems. Army data suggest soldiers with multiple combat tours are at greater risk of committing suicide, although a substantial proportion of Army suicides are committed by soldiers who never deployed.

I thought it would be informative to find the rate of suicides before the ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. An AP article on military suicides from June, 2000 can be found here. It also was written by Robert Burns.

The suicides reported in that article for calendar year 1999 are broken down by branches of the armed services and in terms of deaths per 100,000 troops. The rates were 15.5 per 100,000 in the Army, 15 in the Marines, 11 in the Navy and 5.6 in the Air Force. Consulting this table of the number of active duty members of those branches, actual numbers come out to 65 suicides in the Army (although Burns noted there were 65 confirmed suicides and another 12 suspected suicides that are not included), 26 in the Marines, 41 in the Navy and 20 in the Air Force. That computes to a projected total of 152 suicides for calendar 1999. The total size of the force of active duty personnel for 1999 was 1,385,703.

Active duty forces now also total 1.4 million, so annual rates can be compared evenly. The rate for this year of 154 suicides in 155 days computes to a projected total of 363 suicides for this year. That suggests that after the decade of wars our armed forces have been asked to conduct, the suicide rate has more than doubled, going up by a factor of 2.4, from 152 per year to 363 while the force size has remained the same.

 

First Quarter Violence Down in Afghanistan: Progress or Harsh Winter?

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ANSO's data on Armed Opposition Group violence through the first quarter of 2012. (click on image for a larger view)

During his unannounced trip to Kabul today, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had the unfortunate timing to arrive on the worst day for civilian casualties this year. The Washington Post, however, gave plenty of room for Panetta to cling to the military’s “we’re winning” mantra despite a security situation so bad that his trip could not be announced in advance:

Panetta came to Afghanistan to confer with military leaders on plans to withdraw troops and deal with rising violence. He noted that despite the increase in bloodshed in recent weeks, overall violence was lower than in previous years.

“We have a tough fight on our hands” Panetta said. He reaffirmed the United State’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan and said he believed that commitment would help stymie the Taliban’s ambition.

Over at the New York Times, the headline proclaims “Panetta Visits Afghanistan Amid Mounting Violence” and the article opens by noting the civilian casualties:

Leon E. Panetta, the United States defense secretary, arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday, after the deadliest day for civilians this year and amid controversy over a NATO airstrike the day before in which Afghan officials say 18 women and children were killed.

The article goes on to note, however, that data for the first quarter of this year showed reduced civilian casualties but that reduction may be going away now:

Last week, the head of the United Nations Afghanistan office, Jan Kubis, said that in the first quarter of this year, civilian casualties had dropped for the first time since the United Nations began keeping statistics in 2007. That positive trend has appeared to be eroding in recent days. Another official in the office, James Rodehaver, said, “One thing we can say is that this has been the deadliest day of the year so far for civilians.”

The metric I have followed most closely in monitoring Afghanistan violence has been ANSO’s (Afghanistan NGO Safety Office) reports, and specifically their data on Armed Opposition Group activity. Their latest report (pdf) includes data for the first quarter and a chart summarizing trends in AOG violence over the years in Afghanistan appears above. As seen in the inset, ANSO sees a significant decrease in violence for 2012 over 2011. Their discussion of this decrease is revealing: Read more →

Will al-Libi Killing Be Used to Justify Drone Strikes on Mourners, First Responders?

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Back in early February, a report from Chris Woods and Christina Lamb at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism delivered the shocking news that CIA targeting practices for drone attacks include the intentional targeting of mourners at funerals and first responders to initial attacks:

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of  civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau for the Sunday Times has revealed.

/snip/

But research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children.  A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts.

As Woods and Lamb point out, targeting mourners and first responders is a practice that is both heinous and likely to include civilian deaths along with those who are military targets. However, it now appears that the strikes that took out Abu Yahya al-Libi included both a strike on mourners and possibly a strike on first responders, so it seems likely now that there will be a push from Obama administration figures to provide a patina of glory derived from taking out al-Qaeda’s number two in command to a practice that Woods and Lamb pointed out amounts to “little more than extra-judicial executions”.

Before it was known that al-Libi had likely been killed, Glenn Greenwald pointed out yesterday that Monday’s strikes had been aimed at mourners and I pointed out that locals in the vicinity feared a follow-on strike hitting first responders. Greenwald cited and quoted from a Guardian article pointing out the mourner aspect of the strike. More details come from this article in Pakistan Today:

A US drone targeted a compound believed to be used by militant commanders Mullah Nazir and Commander Malang in the Wocha Dana Beermal area of South Waziristan.

While officials in various intelligence agencies have confirmed al-Libi’s death, officials in the United States endorsed that al-Libi was the target of Monday’s drone strike. There has not been any confirmation or rejection of the report by al Qaeda yet. According to reports, the militants had gathered in the compound to condole the death of Malang’s brother who was killed the previous day in a drone attack in the same area.

Multiple reports indicate that two missiles were used in the attack that killed al-Libi. Read more →

When Did the “Signature Strikes” Start in Yemen?

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Last week, I argued that the focus on the drone vetting process–the “Kill List”–is a shiny object, distracting us from signature strikes targeted at patterns, not people, in Yemen. Today, I’m going to push that further and suggest the focus on drones is also a shiny object distracting from the degree to which we’ve gone to war against Yemeni insurgents, using a variety of tactics including but not limited to drones.

I’ve long accepted, based on the public reporting, that Obama approved signature strikes in Yemen–and John Brennan took over the targeting process–just a day or two after the Saudis delivered up UndieBomb 2.0 around April 20. That’s based largely on the fact that when Greg Miller first reported on the issue on April 18, he spoke prospectively. When the WSJ reported that Obama had approved signature strikes, it said the decision had been made “this month” (meaning some time in April), and it pointed to an April 22 drone strike that seemed likely to be a signature strike.

The frequency of U.S. strikes in Yemen is expected to increase with the changes. On Sunday, a CIA-piloted drone hit a vehicle believed to be carrying AQAP militants. Intelligence analysts are working to identify those killed.

[snip]

The White House’s decision this month stopped short of giving CIA and JSOC the Pakistan-style blanket powers that had been sought—opting instead for what one defense official termed “signature lite.”

Interestingly, that WSJ report pointed to “several direct threats to the US” that surely included the UndieBomb sting that had already reportedly been delivered up to the Administration.

U.S. counterterrorism officials said they are currently tracking several direct threats to the U.S. connected to AQAP. The officials wouldn’t provide further details because that information is classified.

So one way or another, Administration sources seemed to time this to the UndieBomb plot.

But I want to consider the likelihood that Obama embraced “signature strikes”–or rather, expanded drone targeting–earlier than that (though remember that the Administration reportedly knew the UndieBomb plot was coming up to a month before April 20, when it was reportedly delivered up).

Based on TBIJ’s reports of drone strikes in Yemen, it’s fairly clear what have been treated as drone strikes started getting out of control in March, after Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi took over as President in February, not just in April. There are the strikes in three days in early March, which TBIJ estimates killed upwards of 50 people.

The latest strike involved at least five U.S. drones and took place in the Jabal Khanfar region of Jaar, located in southern Abyan province, two senior Yemeni security officials said. At least six suspected al Qaeda militants were killed, Yemeni officials said.

A member of the military committee — Yemen’s highest security authority — confirmed that strike, and said the Yemeni government was given no advance warning of it.

“The United States did not inform us on the attacks. We only knew about this after the U.S. attacked,” the committee member told CNN.

The strike was the third such attack on suspected al Qaeda targets in less than three days, according to Yemeni officials.

The United States was also involved in two other major attacks on Friday and Saturday, which killed at least 58 suspected al Qaeda insurgents, two senior Yemeni defense ministry officials said.

The Friday airstrikes occurred in the Yemen province of al-Baitha in areas used as launching pads for militant attacks. The second attack took place in the towns of Jaar and Zinjibar in Abyan province.

One of the strikes–in Bayda–reportedly killed a significant number of civilians.

It’s not just the civilian casualties, the high numbers of dead, or the reported Yemeni ignorance of the strikes that suggest these might be signature strikes (or something even broader) rather than personality strikes. They also accompany other military action–including reported naval bombardment–that suggests they’re part of the coordinated assault on insurgents. While there have certainly been a number of lower level AQAP members named as those killed in the strikes, the focus seems to be on militarily significant targets, not individuals.

Also note, on some of these strikes, there has been confusion whether a drone or manned planes carried out the attack (partly based on the mistaken assumption–now largely put to rest–that only Yemen, rather than the US, would be using manned aircraft in Yemen).

Finally, note that all of these strikes came in the wake of AQAP claims to have killed a CIA officer earlier in March, though the US denied it. Provide AQAP targets to hit, they’ll hit those targets, and you’ve got a reason to retaliate 100 times.

With all that in mind, re-read this April 2 LAT article. Read more →

Armed US Diplomats Detained at Peshawar Toll Booth: What Was Mission?

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Google map showing Malakand University (missing "A" label at top right), Chamkani Police Station (B) and Bara (C). Driving time from Malakand University to Chamkani Police Station is given as about two and a half hours, while it is only a half hour to Bara from the police station.

The Raymond Davis incident in Lahore, Pakistan raised the issue of people moving within Pakistan under US diplomatic cover while heavily armed. Davis, who in fact worked for the CIA, had a number of weapons in his possession (see here for photos) when he was arrested for killing two men. A third man was killed by a consular vehicle rushing to the scene of the shooting. That issue arose again yesterday, when two vehicles transporting US “diplomats” were stopped at a toll plaza outside Peshawar and multiple weapons were seized:

Four US diplomats and their three Pakistani employees were arrested and shifted to the nearby Chamkani police station.

An FIR was registered against the three Pakistanis under Section 13 of the Arms Ordinance, while the US diplomats were released after hours-long negotiations between SP Shafeeullah Khan and US Consul General in Peshawar Marie Richard.

The police intercepted two bullet-proof vehicles of the US consulate on the motorway in Peshawar and found four pistols, four SMG rifles and several ammunition magazines in their possession, Chamkani police station’s SHO Haji Inayatullah told The Express Tribune.

/snip/

Inayatullah identified the four diplomats as Vincent Capodicci, Timothy Daniel, Leon Carter and Daryal Lee Groom. The arrested Pakistanis were security in-charge Manzoor and drivers Ihsan Khan and Asif Khan.

The Chamkani Police Station is on the eastern outskirts of Peshawar. It is very hard to understand the stated destination the diplomats had visited. From Dawn:

Police said the Americans were taken into custody along with their vehicles during examination on a Motorway checkpost when they were on their way to Peshawar from Malakand University.

Malakand University is quite small and moderately isolated. It is hard to understand why diplomats would be visiting there. The “nearby” Chamkani Police Station where the diplomats were taken from the toll plaza area is on the most direct route back into Peshawar from Malakand University, which is to the north and east.

Dawn and the Express Tribune differ on both the number of and names of the diplomats detained. The list of four names above is from the Express Tribune, while Dawn claims only two were detained, “Daniel and Levan”. The “Levan” name does not appear in the Express Tribune list of names, which does include “Timothy Daniel”. Taken together then, the two articles implicate anywhere between two and five Americans being in the vehicles.

If we assume that the University is just a cover location, then what was the real purpose of the trip? Two possibilities come to mind in light of recent events. Read more →

Robert Bales Allegedly Started Doing Steroids January 1, Accused of Assault on Afghan in February

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As I reported here, DOD released a new charge sheet for Robert Bales. I’m going to start by laying out the chronology it portrays, then talk about the identities of the victims at the end. Here’s his original charge sheet for comparison.

The Charges

November 1, 2011-March 10, 2012: Bales is accused (Charge VI) of violating a general order prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in Afghanistan going back to November 1, 2011. Significantly, however, he is not accused of drinking on March 11; the endpoint on this charge is March 10, 2012.

January 1, 2012-March 11, 2012: Bales is accused (Charge V) of possessing and using stanozolol while receiving special pay. Update: Let me correct this. Bales was charged with using steroids starting on January 1. He was charged with possessing steroids starting on February 1. Both because of the assault and the claims by Bales’ lawyers that he got steroids from the special ops guys, that may be significant.

February 1, 2012-February 29, 2012: Bales is accused (Charge III Specification 7) of “unlawfully strik[ing] a male of apparent Afghan descent whose name is unknown on the face and body with his hands and knees.”

March 11, 2012: Bales is accused of 16 counts of premeditated murder (this is one fewer female victim than his prior charge sheet); the charge sheet says that in addition to shooting all the victims, he burned 10 of them (which as I’ll show below is clearly Mohammed Wazir’s family). He is also charged with attempted murder and assault against 6 more people (two girls, two boys, a man, and a woman); these charges appear to line up with the previous charges. In addition, the new charge sheet adds two charges of impeding an investigation, one by “damaging a laptop” and another by “wrongfully burn[ing] bodies.”

The Identities

As I said above, the murders described in Specifications 7 through 16 must be Mohammed Wazir’s family, because we know they were all burned (see this WSJ article for his description of him; see this post for the last time I tried this trick). That section lists 6 females and 4 males. Wazir says he lost 7 females and 4 males, though that includes his daughter Palwahsa who, he described, had no bullet wounds. The last 10 or 11 names listed on the first charge sheet don’t line up perfectly–they include 8 females and 3 males, though I did wonder whether DOD had gotten the sex of one of Wazir’s family members wrong in the first count, so if Palwasha were not listed and they had corrected the sex of one of his sons, then the last 16 on the new charge sheet would correlate to the last 17 of the old one.

The redacted name in Specification 6 in the original charge sheet appears to match the redacted name in Specification 5 in the new one. For the moment, I’ll suggest that’s Mohammad Dawood, who like Wazir’s family was in Najiban. That might mean Specification 6 in the new charge sheet is just another of Wazir’s family members, but one whose body wasn’t dragged into the fire.

The sexes of the first four Specifications match (though not some of the redactions). This would mean they’ve since named the female victim in Specification 4, who was unnamed in the original.

And if all that’s right, then the victim originally listed in Specification 4 would be the one now absent from the charge sheet.

But all this means there’s still a discrepancy between who Afghans say got killed–which consist of 8 male and 8 female victims, and who DOD says got killed–which consist of 7 male and 9 female victims. In a scenario in which Mohammad Dawood got killed by JSOC guys on an official night raid, that would then mean there’s one more female who Bales is charged with killing–probably at Alkozai–whom the Afghans haven’t identified.

In other words, there’s still something funky.

Update: powwow did her own version of a list of victims back in April here (read comments for updates). I’m going to try to match up my list to this.

16+1=17; 17-1=16

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One of Robert Bales’ lawyers, Emma Scanlan, seemed to expect the government to drop one of the murder chargers against her client, and the press seems to assume that DOD simply overcounted bodies when they first charged Bales.

Bales attorney Emma Scanlan said she received the new charges Friday and that there was nothing surprising in them. There had been talk for some time that the number of victims in the massacre had been over-counted.

Because DOD, apparently, can’t count to 20, or even 17?

But take that revelation in the light of this description, which says the new number comes from developments in the investigation.

Update: Here is the new charge sheet. There is one fewer female, though as I’ll explain shortly I think they may have also explained a gender discrepancy they had earlier. So this might just be a correction. Also note, the new charge sheet, unlike the old one, names everyone.

The new slate of charges detailed Friday by the U.S. Army — which are defined as violations of the Uniform Military Code of Justice — include 16 counts of premeditated murder, one of several changes that the military said were done “to conform to developments in the ongoing investigation.”

And Bales’ lawyer John Henry Browne’s relief that DOD has made his client’s steroid use public by charging it.

Bales’ lawyer, John Henry Browne, responded to the changes by saying he is “so relieved” that military prosecutors “came out publicly with the steroid use.”

“Steroid use is going to be an issue in this case, especially where Sgt. Bales got steroids and how he got steroids,” Browne told CNN.

I have long maintained that the attacks made more sense if you assumed multiple killers in Najiban, with the attack on Mohammed Dawood’s house being a regular night raid, with Bales’ alleged attack on Mohammed Wazir’s family a terrible fuckup. It’s an argument Truthout developed further here, with reporting from villagers. Significantly, in response to their queries, DOD significantly qualified the statement they gave to me regarding related operations in the area.

The investigative web site Emptywheel reported March 28 that Department of Defense spokesperson Bill Speaks had checked with the International Security Assistance Force and confirmed that “there were no military operations in those villages the night of the killings.” But in response to a query from Truthout, Brig. Gen. Lewis M. Boone, the director of public affairs for US Forces Afghanistan, qualified that response. “[A]ll operational reports received in the initial aftermath of the incident indicate that the subject acted alone,” Boone wrote. “Furthermore, his actions were not associated with any other operation in the area.”

In a further email, Boone explained that any additional information beyond those initial reports related to the questions of whether Bales acted alone and whether there was a US military operation that night “falls under the purview of the investigation.”

Browne’s comments, plus his reference to Bales taking, “two sips of alcohol off of someone else’s Gatorade bottle,” seem to point to the involvement of another person(s), the source of the steroids and booze. Which leads me to suspect that that other person was part of that night raid, which killed one person (Dawood) as a legitimate military target that they have therefore taken off Bales’ charge sheet.

Which brings us to one other new charge of particular interest: destroying a laptop. Robert Bales is now accused of destroying what is/was likely evidence. Remember that tale the government told about how Bales turned himself in? Was that before or after he destroyed a laptop?

It appears that tale is no longer operative.

Update: Yep. Bales’ legal team is waving big flags saying “There were other people!!!!” though the press seems not to have noticed.

She said the development was indicative of the “prosecution’s biggest problem in this case — even putting our client in these villages. Or that he was even the one who killed them.”

The question is, if Bales destroyed a laptop with evidence of others’ involvement and he’s taking the fall, does DOD know who else was involved?

Update: Trying to get the new charges. USA Today lists the laptop charge and one for burning bodies that others don’t have, so there is a discrepancy.

Update: OK, the Defense is clearly saying SOF provided the steroids, which I think says they’re pointing at SOF involvement.

Emma Scanlan, an attorney on Bales’ defense team, said the Army alleges that Bales obtained steroids from a Special Forces soldier at his base in Panjwai.

Update: Here’s the new charge sheet. He is accused of burning a laptop on the day of the attack. He’s also accused of assaulting an Afghan in February. I’m working on a post analyzing the changes.

Transcribing Obama Administration Iran Spin, Sanger Advances False “Breakout” Capability

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Marcy will be along later to discuss the shiny thong thing aspect of David Sanger’s New York Times article where he was awarded today’s transcription prize by the Obama administration and allowed to “break” the story in which the US for the first time admitted its role in cyberwarfare against Iran’s nuclear program. What I want to concentrate on here is how in putting forward the cyberwarfare story, Sanger unquestioningly accepts the administration’s framing that Iran is just a short “breakout” away from having multiple nuclear weapons.

Consider this key paragraph:

These officials gave differing assessments of how successful the sabotage program was in slowing Iran’s progress toward developing the ability to build nuclear weapons. Internal Obama administration estimates say the effort was set back by 18 months to two years, but some experts inside and outside the government are more skeptical, noting that Iran’s enrichment levels have steadily recovered, giving the country enough fuel today for five or more weapons, with additional enrichment.

All Iran needs is “additional enrichment” for “five or more weapons”. That assumption is false on many levels. First, because Iran’s enrichment activities are closely monitored by onsite IAEA inspectors, any activity aimed at above the 20% level which is their current upper bound would be detected quickly. That statement is backed up even by David Albright, who has been busy fanning the anti-Iran rhetoric on the Parchin front. Adding further doubt to a rapid breakout of enrichment is that even in this same article, Sanger notes that Iran’s centrifuge technology is old and unreliable. Albright supports that observation as well, and notes that installation of additional capability has been slowed by technical issues that don’t seem related to cyberattacks.

The second major flaw in Sanger’s transcription above is that more than just “additional enrichment” is needed. The whole cat and mouse game at Parchin is playing out because in addition to enrichment of uranium to weapons grade, Iran will need technology for initiating the nuclear chain reaction that results in the weapon being detonated. Sanger makes no mention at all of this technical barrier for which there is no evidence that Iran has made an appropriate breakthrough.

Heck, the “enough uranium for five bombs” framing requires us to count the material enriched to only 3.5%. That makes it surprising the US and Israel aren’t claiming that Iran has enough uranium for an unlimited number of bombs if you count the uranium in the ground that they haven’t mined yet.

Roja Heydarpour, writing at The Back Channel, brings us this bit of reassurance from David Albright that any Iranian attempts at enrichment to weapons grade would be caught quickly: Read more →