Post articles, commentaries and opinions pertaining to the censorship of our govt/military actions. Awareness is all about knowing the truth and being open with what is and what isn’t. This thread is to expose just how much our Military/ DoD covers up and censors the real news. Americans deserves to know everything for which their tax monies are spent on outside military strategy.



http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0225-08.htm


How The News Will Be Censored In This War

A new CNN system of 'script approval' suggests the Pentagon will have nothing to worry about
by Robert Fisk

Already, the American press is expressing its approval of the coverage of American forces which the US military intends to allow its reporters in the next Gulf war. The boys from CNN, CBS, ABC and The New York Times will be "embedded" among the US marines and infantry. The degree of censorship hasn't quite been worked out. But it doesn't matter how much the Pentagon cuts from the reporters' dispatches. A new CNN system of "script approval" – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitized– suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about. Nor do the Israelis.

Indeed, reading a new CNN document, "Reminder of Script Approval Policy", fairly takes the breath away. "All reporters preparing package scripts must submit the scripts for approval," it says. "Packages may not be edited until the scripts are approved... All packages originating outside Washington, LA (Los Angeles) or NY (New York), including all international bureaus, must come to the ROW in Atlanta for approval."

The date of this extraordinary message is 27 January. The "ROW" is the row of script editors in Atlanta who can insist on changes or "balances" in the reporter's dispatch. "A script is not approved for air unless it is properly marked approved by an authorized manager and duped (duplicated) to burcopy (bureau copy)... When a script is updated it must be re-approved, preferably by the originating approving authority."

Note the key words here: "approved" and "authorized". CNN's man or woman in Kuwait or Baghdad – or Jerusalem or Ramallah – may know the background to his or her story; indeed, they will know far more about it than the "authorities" in Atlanta. But CNN's chiefs will decide the spin of the story.

CNN, of course, is not alone in this paranoid form of reporting. Other US networks operate equally anti-journalistic systems. And it's not the fault of the reporters. CNN's teams may use clichés and don military costumes – you will see them do this in the next war – but they try to get something of the truth out. Next time, though, they're going to have even less chance.

The relevance of this is all too obvious in the next Gulf War. We are going to have to see a US army officer denying everything the Iraqis say if any report from Iraq is to get on air. Take another of the Ramallah correspondent's complaints last year. In a package on the damage to Ramallah after Israel's massive incursion last April, "we had already mentioned right at the top of our piece that Israel says it is doing all these incursions because it wants to crack down on the infrastructure of terror. However, obviously that was not enough. We were made by the ROW (in Atlanta) to repeat this same idea three times in one piece, just to make sure that we keep justifying the Israeli actions..."

But the system of "script approval" that has so marred CNN's coverage has got worse. In a further and even more sinister message dated 31 January this year, CNN staff are told that a new computerized system of script approval will allow "authorized script approvers to mark scripts (i.e. reports) in a clear and standard manner. Script EPs (executive producers) will click on the colored APPROVED button to turn it from red (unapproved) to green (approved). When someone makes a change in the script after approval, the button will turn yellow." Someone? Who is this someone? CNN's reporters aren't told.

Awesome post Bro' -- for sure!

What about the propaganda of the "SHRUB" Chickenhawk regime???

August 5, 2005
Administration denies it, but deaths in Iraq on an increase

An Associated Press article ("Iraq war drags on through 3rd hot summer," Aug. 2) notes: "About 50 U.S. service members were killed in Iraq in July — at least 16 in the past week. According to American military figures, insurgents attacked U.S. and coalition forces an average of 68 times a day during the month. By comparison, the average daily rate of attacks for July last year was 47. Since the announcement of the new Iraqi government on April 28, more than 2,100 Iraqis — most of them civilians — have been killed, according to an Associated Press count. The actual figure is likely much higher."

There are three important things to be gleaned from this story:



We are not winning in Iraq.The total death toll is increasing. The administration tells us the number of American soldiers being killed on average is dropping. The overall total of deaths in Iraq though, is on an increase. How does that become a win?

Every time we turn a so-called corner, the violence increases. We are fed the propaganda that there will always be a build-up of violence right before some milestone in Iraq — the turnover, the elections, the constitution and such — yet after each of these events passes the violence not only does not decrease, it becomes more sophisticated.


We are hearing little to nothing about the 68 attacks a day here at home.
The administration is concerned, and rightly so, that if Americans had to sit through their dinner and see the actual full coverage of the carnage, as we witnessed with Vietnam, we might become disgusted with what is going on in the Middle East and rise up and actually do something to oppose this fiasco.

Brian Essex
Jackson

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll.../508050304/1009

A blast from the past cover-up of the after affects from the two Atom Bombs dropped on Japan that came out in 1980 is now being shown on cable tv on the Sundance channel Aug 6-7, 2005. Not all of the film footage, but some. Can you imagine what footage is being kept from the public?


http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001001583

SPECIAL REPORT: Hiroshima Film Cover-up Exposed


Published: August 03, 2005 10:00 PM ET

NEW YORK In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan almost 60 years ago, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. In addition, for many years all but a handful of newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited.

The public did not see any of the newsreel footage for 25 years, and the U.S. military film remained hidden for nearly four decades.

The full story of this atomic cover-up is told fully for the first time today at E&P Online, as the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings approaches later this week. Some of the long-suppressed footage will be aired on television this Saturday.

Six weeks ago, E&P broke the story that articles written by famed Chicago Daily News war correspondent George Weller about the effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki were finally published, in Japan, almost six decades after they had been spiked by U.S. officials. This drew national attention, but suppressing film footage shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was even more significant, as this country rushed into the nuclear age with its citizens having neither a true understanding of the effects of the bomb on human beings, nor why the atomic attacks drew condemnation around the world.

As editor of Nuclear Times magazine in the 1980s, I met Herbert Sussan, one of the members of the U.S. military film crew, and Erik Barnouw, the famed documentarian who first showed some of the Japanese footage on American TV in 1970. In fact, that newsreel footage might have disappeared forever if the Japanese filmmakers had not hidden one print from the Americans in a ceiling.

When that footage finally emerged, I corresponded and spoke with the man at the center of this drama: Lt. Col. (Ret.) Daniel A. McGovern, who directed the U.S. military filmmakers in 1945-1946, managed the Japanese footage, and then kept watch on all of the top-secret material for decades.


"I always had the sense," McGovern told me, "that people in the Atomic Energy Commission were sorry we had dropped the bomb. The Air Force -- it was also sorry. I was told by people in the Pentagon that they didn't want those [film] images out because they showed effects on man, woman and child. ... They didn't want the general public to know what their weapons had done -- at a time they were planning on more bomb tests. We didn't want the material out because ... we were sorry for our sins.

If news from Iraq ever appears to be slowing down, one might note that Iraqi journalists are being detained by coalition forces.


http://electroniciraq.net/news/1970.shtml


The Media

Iraqi journalists 'disappear' in US army hands E-mail this

Report, IOC/CPJ, 18 May 2005

May 18, 2005 - Index on Censorship (IOC)

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). is demanding an explanation from US and Iraqi military forces regarding the whereabouts of least eight Iraqi journalists who have been detained since March 2005.

A US military spokesman told CPJ that the journalists pose a "security risk to the Iraqi people and coalition forces." No further details were given. All work for Western news organisations. None of the journalists have been formally charged. Two are thought to be missing employees of Agence France-Presse - reporter Ammar Daham Naef Khalaf, who was detained by U.S. troops on 11 April in Ramadi, and photographer Fares Nawaf al-Issaywi, who was arrested in Fallujah on 1 May. A third individual reportedly works for CBS News. Another detainee, Hassan al-Shummari, reports for the privately owned satellite station Diyar TV, says CPJ. He was detained in Diyala province in March or early April and remains in custody. US officials have often alleged that some Iraqi journalists collaborate with Iraqi insurgents. But the military have rarely tried to provided evidence to substantiate their claims.

* On 15 May 2005, armed men killed Najem Abed Khudair and Ahmed Adam near Latifiyah, south of Baghdad. Khudair worked for the independent daily newspapers al-Mada and Tariq al-Shaab. Adam, a poet and writer, was a contributor to al-Mada and Sabah, a newspaper launched after the start of the conflict. The Iraqi army said on 16 May that it had arrested nine suspects.



CPJ calls on U.S., Iraqi authorities to explain journalist detentions

New York, May 12, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed deep concern about the detentions of at least eight Iraqi journalists by U.S. and Iraqi military forces. CPJ called on U.S. and Iraqi officials to publicly explain the basis for the journalists' continued detention.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan told CPJ that U.S. and Iraqi forces are holding eight Iraqi journalists who pose a "security risk to the Iraqi people and coalition forces." He declined to provide details about the detentions or the names of the journalists, all of whom work for Western news organizations. None of the journalists have been formally charged, and Boylan gave no indication that they would be.

Agence France-Presse reported last week that the detainees included the news agency's reporter, Ammar Daham Naef Khalaf, who was detained by U.S. troops on April 11 in Ramadi, and AFP photographer, Fares Nawaf al-Issaywi, who was taken by Iraqi forces on May 1 while photographing in Fallujah and then transferred to the custody of U.S. troops. AFP said no details were provided regarding the basis for the detentions.

A freelance cameraman working with the U.S. broadcaster CBS News remains in custody after being detained by U.S. forces in early April on suspicion of insurgent activity. The cameraman, whose name CBS has withheld for safety reasons, was taken into custody after being wounded by U.S. forces' fire while he filmed clashes in Mosul in northern Iraq. CBS News reported last month that the U.S. military said footage in the journalists' camera led them to suspect he had prior knowledge of attacks against coalition forces. AFP also cited U.S. officials as saying the journalist "tested positive for explosive residue."

Hassan al-Shummari, who reports for the privately owned satellite station Diyar TV, was detained by Iraqi National Guard forces in Diyala province in March or early April and remains in custody. Salah Abdel Majid al-Shikarchi, news editor of Diyar TV, told CPJ that al-Shummari was detained while he and his cameraman filmed a gathering at a mosque in Diyala. Al-Shikarchi said that Iraqi officials informed him al-Shummari was being held for aiding insurgents but provided no details.

The identities and affiliations of the other detainees were unclear.

"We are deeply concerned by the arbitrary nature of these detentions and are concerned that these journalists are in detention merely for doing their work," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said. "U.S. and Iraqi officials must credibly explain the basis for these detentions at once."

U.S. military officials have often voiced suspicions that some Iraqi journalists collaborate with Iraqi insurgents and have advance knowledge of attacks on coalition forces. But the military never provided evidence to substantiate these earlier claims; in previous instances, journalists detained on such suspicions were all released without charge. In 2004, the U.S. military detained Iraqi, Turkish and South Korean journalists after allegedly finding explosive residue on them, according to press reports at the time. All were released after their credentials were established.

The Myths of Hiroshima
By Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
The Los Angeles Times

Friday 05 August 2005

Sixty years ago tomorrow, an atomic bomb was dropped without warning on the center of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. One hundred and forty thousand people were killed, more than 95% of them women and children and other noncombatants. At least half of the victims died of radiation poisoning over the next few months. Three days after Hiroshima was obliterated, the city of Nagasaki suffered a similar fate.

The magnitude of death was enormous, but on Aug. 14, 1945 - just five days after the Nagasaki bombing - Radio Tokyo announced that the Japanese emperor had accepted the US terms for surrender. To many Americans at the time, and still for many today, it seemed clear that the bomb had ended the war, even "saving" a million lives that might have been lost if the US had been required to invade mainland Japan.

This powerful narrative took root quickly and is now deeply embedded in our historical sense of who we are as a nation. A decade ago, on the 50th anniversary, this narrative was reinforced in an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first bomb. The exhibit, which had been the subject of a bruising political battle, presented nearly 4 million Americans with an officially sanctioned view of the atomic bombings that again portrayed them as a necessary act in a just war.

But although patriotically correct, the exhibit and the narrative on which it was based were historically inaccurate. For one thing, the Smithsonian downplayed the casualties, saying only that the bombs "caused many tens of thousands of deaths" and that Hiroshima was "a definite military target."

Americans were also told that use of the bombs "led to the immediate surrender of Japan and made unnecessary the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands." But it's not that straightforward. As Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has shown definitively in his new book, "Racing the Enemy" - and many other historians have long argued - it was the Soviet Union's entry into the Pacific war on Aug. 8, two days after the Hiroshima bombing, that provided the final "shock" that led to Japan's capitulation.

The Enola Gay exhibit also repeated such outright lies as the assertion that "special leaflets were dropped on Japanese cities" warning civilians to evacuate. The fact is that atomic bomb warning leaflets were dropped on Japanese cities, but only after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed.

The hard truth is that the atomic bombings were unnecessary. A million lives were not saved. Indeed, McGeorge Bundy, the man who first popularized this figure, later confessed that he had pulled it out of thin air in order to justify the bombings in a 1947 Harper's magazine essay he had ghostwritten for Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.

The bomb was dropped, as J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, said in November 1945, on "an essentially defeated enemy." President Truman and his closest advisor, Secretary of State James Byrnes, quite plainly used it primarily to prevent the Soviets from sharing in the occupation of Japan. And they used it on Aug. 6 even though they had agreed among themselves as they returned home from the Potsdam Conference on Aug. 3 that the Japanese were looking for peace.

These unpleasant historical facts were censored from the 1995 Smithsonian exhibit, an action that should trouble every American. When a government substitutes an officially sanctioned view for publicly debated history, democracy is diminished.

Today, in the post-9/11 era, it is critically important that the US face the truth about the atomic bomb. For one thing, the myths surrounding Hiroshima have made it possible for our defense establishment to argue that atomic bombs are legitimate weapons that belong in a democracy's arsenal. But if, as Oppenheimer said, "they are weapons of aggression, of surprise and of terror," how can a democracy rely on such weapons?

Oppenheimer understood very soon after Hiroshima that these weapons would ultimately threaten our very survival.

Presciently, he even warned us against what is now our worst national nightmare - and Osama bin Laden's frequently voiced dream - an atomic suitcase bomb smuggled into an American city: "Of course it could be done," Oppenheimer told a Senate committee, "and people could destroy New York."

Ironically, Hiroshima's myths are now motivating our enemies to attack us with the very weapon we invented. Bin Laden repeatedly refers to Hiroshima in his rambling speeches. It was, he believes, the atomic bombings that shocked the Japanese imperial government into an early surrender - and, he says, he is planning an atomic attack on the US that will similarly shock us into retreating from the Mideast.

Finally, Hiroshima's myths have gradually given rise to an American unilateralism born of atomic arrogance.

Oppenheimer warned against this "sleazy sense of omnipotence." He observed that "if you approach the problem and say, 'We know what is right and we would like to use the atomic bomb to persuade you to agree with us,' then you are in a very weak position and you will not succeed.... You will find yourselves attempting by force of arms to prevent a disaster."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin are coauthors of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, published earlier this year by Knopf.

You believe that sheet above?

Uncle Sammy would never lie - never! LOL

Just like the "SHRUB" would never tell even a fib! LOL

Hang Tough~ (Wonder what "Baghdad Bob" will have to post to counter this sheet Bro' - should be -maybe a chuckle or two--LOL)

Media Flagstones along a Path to War on Iran
By Norman Solomon
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Wednesday 03 August 2005

On Tuesday, big alarm bells went off in the national media echo chamber, and major US news outlets showed that they knew the drill. Iran's nuclear activities were pernicious, most of all, because people in high places in Washington said so.

It didn't seem to matter much that just that morning the Washington Post reported: "A major US intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis. The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among US intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House."

By evening - hours after the Iranian government said it would no longer suspend activities related to enriching uranium - American news outlets were making grave pronouncements, amplifying the statements from French, British and German officials closing ranks with the Bush administration. On television in the United States, a narrow range of talking heads detoured around the USA's profuse nuclear hypocrisies.

Yes, officials in Washington and their allies conceded, an Iranian restart of uranium enrichment activities would not violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But, as a Washington Post article put it Wednesday, the Iranian nuclear program was "built in secret over 18 years" and "the clandestine nature of the effort created deep suspicions in Washington and elsewhere about Iran's intentions."

In sharp contrast, no "suspicions" are needed about the nuclear activities of two of Iran's bitterest enemies, Israel and Pakistan. Both have produced atomic weapons. Unlike Iran, those two US allies have refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and do not submit to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

For good measure, last month the US government announced plans to engage in cooperation on atomic energy projects with the Indian government, which has nuclear bombs and has not signed the NPT.

So, the nuclear moralists in Washington have no problem with Israeli, Pakistani and Indian nuclear weapons, developed and stockpiled with contemptuous disregard for the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the White House and talking heads of US television are insisting that Iran has no right to do what the treaty allows it and other signers to do - develop nuclear power, ostensibly to generate electricity.

The latest US media uproar about Iran's nuclear program is part of a dream starting to come true for neo-cons in Washington who fantasize about "regime change" in Tehran. More realistically, for the nearer term, the Bush administration is setting the agenda for a US air attack on Iran.

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," President Bush told a news conference in late February. He added in the same breath: "and having said that, all options are on the table." Assembled journalists laughed.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norman Solomon is the author of the new book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go to
http://www.WarMadeEasy.com.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080305E.shtml
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More cover-ups of the real news ahead in our Pentagon's future... just what the BushCons are wanting.


http://www.indexonline.org/en/indexindex/a...xceptions.shtml

Pentagon seeks more exceptions from FoI law

The US Department of Defense is pushing for a new rule that would make it easier for the Pentagon to withhold information on US military operations from the public.
The provision, proposed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act, would render so-called "operational files" fully immune from requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The New Standard reports that open government advocates oppose the move; they fear the proposed clause is so vaguely worded it could allow the Pentagon to seal off information, including evidence of abuse and misconduct, without proper justification. An earlier attempt to pass such a provision in 2000 was rejected by Congress after public lobby groups condemned the bill, dubbing it 'the death squad protection act'.

Everything you wanted to know about DU and it's cover-ups 101, 102, 103. Good article to raise the curious meter by.


http://www.nukewatch.com/du/coverups.html

Uranium Weapons Cover-ups - a Crime against Humankind

Piotr Bein, Ph.D., M.A.Sc., P.Eng.,
Karen Parker, J.D., Diplome (Strasbourg)

Paper prepared in January 2003, for a monograph Politics and Environmental Policy in the 21st Century, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade

Abstract

Key words: radiological weapons, humanitarian law, crimes against humanity, information warfare

Munitions that contain low-grade uranium 235 – insufficient to trigger nuclear explosion – are chemical-radiological weapons. They contain other toxic-radioactive elements and have indiscriminate effects. They are illegal by virtue of international conventions, laws and customs of war. When used in populated areas or in the presence of numerous troops (enemy or friendly), they become weapons of delayed but mass destruction (WMD). Fatal consequences of depleted uranium (DU) armour-piercing ammunition emerged in veterans and civilians after wars in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. While the victims remain neglected, hundreds of tons of uranium from weapons developed in recent years against hard and buried targets have polluted Afghanistan. Up-coming war scenarios involve larger chemical-radiological contamination potential.

The military, governments, and nuclear and weapon industries fail to or inadequately disclose the effects of uranium weapons, and manipulate inquiries of international health organizations. The media act as a propaganda outlet for these groups. The purpose of Information Operations behind the propaganda is to influence perceptions and actions of foreign and domestic public, governments, and intelligence. A spiraling group self-deception perpetuates the propaganda for fear of liability and criminal responsibility. Covering up information on war crimes and crimes against humanity, and military and foreign policy based on such information, are crimes themselves.

Independent researchers urge priority actions to reverse the cycle of deception and human suffering ecause of deception on uranium weapons: (i) weapon inspections to determine which ones contain uranium, (ii) target inspection to identify those hit and contaminated by uranium weapons, (iii) health monitoring and support for target communities in uranium-contaminated areas, and (v) fundamental review of all research that was so far restricted to DU instead of uranium weaponry in general.

The weapons clearly violate humanitarian law, even in the absence of a specific treaty barring their use. The violations related to the use of the weapons are sufficiently grave to be classified war crimes or crimes against humanity, which would impose legal liability and criminal sanctions on the users as well as fair compensation and other remedies for the victims of these weapons. A treaty banning uranium weaponry is not necessary, but preparations for one could be exploited to duck responsibility. Even beginning the process to draft a treaty could be used by the US to argue that any ban on uranium weaponry in light of existing customary law is null and void. The US uses public pressure for an anti-DU treaty to bolster its position and to argue against the existing ban. Unsuspecting activists play into the US position and seriously undermine all anti-uranium initiatives.



Part 3: Anatomy of cover-ups

Group-think

The US and UK governments claim they deploy DU ammunition because for a lower cost compared to tungsten, it can havean advantage over enemy armour, reduce their own casualties and utilize industrial waste. The claims are not justified. The additional expense on tungsten would be negligible in the total military spending. The DU weapons are not effective compared to alternatives [Venik’s Aviation, 2001]. DU ammunition and armour do not utilize significant quantities of the total nuclear waste. As to protecting own soldiers, the victims of “friendly fire” suffer from acute poisoning and radiation sickness, instead of ordinary wounds, while longer-term casualties are substantial. A US study of 10,000 Gulf War Veterans indicated that 80% could have been exposed to DU, i.e. more than half a million. Of the tens of thousands of coalition soldiers serving after the war’s end, only about 30 specialists knew how to identify equipment contaminated by DU and were aware of the need to wear protective clothing. September 2002 Gulf War report on US veterans shows 0.1% casualty rate in combat, but a 36% post-combat rate. Uranium is one of several major causes of the syndrome, so a casualty rate of several percent would be attributable to DU.

Official reports in the West ignore civilian casualties of uranium weapons in Iraq, the Balkans, and recently in Afghanistan. Iraqis and Serbs were subject to economic sanctions when they most needed medical supplies, fuel and food. Sick Afghanis with weakened immune resistance due to uranium contamination died of cold and starvation, without being recorded as victims of uranium weapons. Given that the US and other NATO governments knew about the consequences for civilians, it seems likely that the severe imposition of sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Iraq is meant to cover-up damage due to radiological weaponry. Ignoring military and civilian casualties, placing serious obstacles on humanitarian aid, and failing to disclose the truth about uranium effects is a serious violation of humanitarian law. For this reason alone, the sanctions regime against Iraq could be characterized as a crime against humanity. Yet the US has indicated that it would militarily attack any country that tries to bring American military to the International Criminal Court or to courts in their own countries, notwithstanding the provision of the Geneva Conventions set out above.


The media, reduced to a handful of conglomerates by deregulation, mold public’s minds, profoundly affecting interpretation of reality. The largest conglomerates are growing even bigger by consuming competition, almost tripling in size during the 1990s. With the consolidation of the media empires, TV stations, newspapers and radio broadcasting are no longer independent. Only a handful are large enough to maintain independent reporters. The rest must depend on the chains for all of national and international news. It is also unsettling that one ethnic group dominates North American media ownership and staff, without reflecting the ethnic profiles of big business owners, officers and employees. The group refutes criticisms by intimidating the critic, based on historical prosecution of a radical part of the ethnic group [The National Alliance, 2002].

TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures speak with a single voice, reinforcing each other. Despite apparent diversity, there are no alternative sources of information. The most prestigious and influential newspapers in the USA, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post illustrate the ability of the media masters to use the press as an unopposed instrument of policy. The papers set the trends and the guidelines for nearly all the others, and originate the news for the others to copy. In a joint venture with the New York Times, the Post publishes the International Herald Tribune, the most widely distributed English-language daily in the world.

Conclusion

Pro-uranium weapons propaganda operates within the cover-up system of the nuclear complex. At its core is a basically flawed model of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, according to which low-level internal radiation from fine uranium particles is not a hazard. Proponents of uranium power and weapons use the model instead of empirical evidence, which they suppress with a sophisticated misinformation and fact-distortion web reaching as far as international organizations responsible for public health.

Recognizing the harm done, Williams, for example, urges priority actions to reverse the cycle of deception and human suffering because of uranium weaponry: (i) weapon inspections to determine which ones contain uranium, (ii) target inspection to identify those hit and contaminated by uranium weapons, (iii) health monitoring and support for target communities in uranium-contaminated areas, and (v) fundamental review of all research that was so far restricted to DU instead of uranium weaponry in general.

Observers believe that DU cover-ups serve to ease public acceptability of present non-nuclear uranium weapons against hard targets, present small nuclear warheads, and future pure fusion nuclear weapons. All of these weapons contaminate with low level radiation. A future combat scenario using fusion micro-weapons translates into a low-level radioactive input comparable to that on DU battlefields [Gsponer et al., 2002]. Elimination of uranium radiological and fission weapons in the 21st century would not terminate the health and environmental problems of low-level radiation battles.

Thanks for posting this, Ghost.....and thanks to Bammo for contributing...this is very informative...

My pleasure ulrika... we are all about awarness.

Nobody really knows just how much we are truly manipulated by our govt, but during the '60s the GOP was hard at work behind the scenes to drag us into the Cuban Crisis. If one is not sure about that, simply Google Cuban Crisis with the names Bush or Nixon and some of the other Neocons from those times. Pack a lunch if you do, because the information is endless despite a lot of such documents having been hiddened or destroyed.



http://www.injusticebusters.com/2003/Opera..._Northwoods.htm

Operation Northwoods

Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

By David Ruppe, abc news.com

NEW YORK, May 1, 2001 - In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."

Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes.

The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.

"These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing," Bamford told ABCNEWS.com.

"The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants."

Gunning for War

The documents show "the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government," writes Bamford.

The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.

Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."

The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first communist leader in the Western Hemisphere - only 90 miles from U.S. shores.

The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed to provide firepower. The military leaders now wanted a shot at it.

"The whole thing was so bizarre," says Bamford, noting public and international support would be needed for an invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro.

Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military - not democratic - control over the island nation after the invasion.

"That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from," Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing."

'Over the Edge'

The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military.

Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job.

The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in the military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there real were concerns in American society about their military overstepping its bounds.

There were reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged their subordinates to vote conservative during the election.

And at least two popular books were published focusing on a right-wing military leadership pushing the limits against government policy of the day. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published its own report on right-wing extremism in the military, warning a "considerable danger" in the "education and propaganda activities of military personnel" had been uncovered. The committee even called for an examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing groups. But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods, says Bamford.

"Although no one in Congress could have known at the time," he writes, "Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs had quietly slipped over the edge."

Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued to plan "pretext" operations at least through 1963.

One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base - an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.

"There really was a worry at the time about the military going off crazy and they did, but they never succeeded, but it wasn't for lack of trying," he says.

Honorable Cynthia McKinney reports on several cover-ups marking the 9/11 commission's first yr anniversary. Not only is this important for the families of the 9/11 victims, but all of America that has been hoodwinked by the Neocons of our govt. Never let this die! Awareness is our friend! BushCo is our politcal enemy!

http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.ph...order=0&thold=0

Critics Cite Omissions, Cover-Ups On First Anniversary of 9/11 Commission Report

By Len Bracken – July 25, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C.—On the first anniversary of the 9/11 Commission Report, family members and experts challenged its veracity and comprehensiveness at hearings convened by Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) on July 22.

Congresswoman McKinney set the tone by reminding the assembled citizens and media in the stately Cannon Office Building hearing room of administration’s opposition to the commission, of the conflicts of interest among its members and of the omissions in the report. Many of the alleged hijackers are alive in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Egypt, she said, yet the report failed to mention this. She lamented that the report did not cover the final $100,000 payment to hijacker Mohamed Atta from Saeed Sheikh or Bin Laden’s connection with the mujaheddin. Much “inconvenient information” was left out of the report, she said.
Co-chair the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, Lorie Van Auken, whose husband died in the World Trade Center, shattered the notion that the report is an accurate account by presenting numerous cases where it is suspect, such as the three-minute discrepancy with the seismic record of the flight 93 crash and the failure to investigate the claim by the administration spokesman that there were no warnings when in fact there were many.

The report somehow skipped over the FBI’s thwarting of a request to search Zacorais Moussaoui’s computer by editing the request and finally blocking it. According to Van Auken, the so-called Reno Wall excuse for this was unjustified and an FBI lawyer who looked into the affair had never seen a refusal for a search request such as this. Moreover, the FBI official responsible for blocking the request, David Frasca, was rewarded with a promotion and large financial bonus.

Van Auken also cites the report’s failure to draw a conclusion from the CIA’s lack of follow-up on a tip from German intelligence that could have led to the Hamburg cell. Buried in a footnote, she said, the report mentions the CIA deliberately kept the FBI out of the loop regarding two suspects who should have been on a watch list much earlier. The desk officer would not say who told her to withhold this information. The commission perpetuates the myth that institutional problems, not intentional withholding, were to blame, she said. Van Auken directly challenged the veracity of Condoleezza Rice’s testimony regarding purported ignorance of the threat posed by hijacked planes used as missiles and the famous presidential daily briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States.” Van Auken characterized the latter as domestic and current rather than historical.

Reflecting the frustration of many victims’ families, Van Auken noted the absence of prosecutions, citing the release of suspects in Germany because of the lack of cooperation from the United States. She said the report did not adequately account for the military exercises on the morning of 9/11, which created considerable confusion. Only one video of the Pentagon has been released, she said, and it has the wrong date on it. The commission did not answer requests to see the videos from a nearby gas station and hotel.

A list of whistleblowers whose testimony was either barely acknowledged or omitted, she said, showed that the commission “actively and knowingly ignored evidence.” Van Auken derided the commission’s conclusion that 9/11 was the result of a “failure of imagination” and she condemned the way it skirted questions of accountability.

Addressing flaws in the process, 9/11 CitizensWatch co-founder John Judge noted that much of the testimony concerned recommendations for intelligence reform rather than what actually happened. Members and staff of the commission are part of the national security state with serious conflicts of interest, he said. Many of the sources cannot be seen and FOIA requests to do so have been denied. Judge said that the commission’s work faced obstruction from the White House and suffered from unquestioned acceptance of information from earlier reports.

Ex-CIA official Mel Goodman said the commission deferred to executive privilege, failed to use its subpoena power with detainees and, in general, lacked tenacity. Goodman said Philip Zelikow, the commission’s staff director with deep right-wing connections, authored intelligence case studies at Harvard purporting to show how the CIA made accurate assessments of the Soviet Union, when in fact the agency was famously wrong. Goodman was questioned by Mike Ruppert, author of Crossing the Rubicon in which he alleges Vice President Cheney orchestrated the event. Ruppert was the only person at the hearing to flatly state that 9/11 was an inside job.

Paul Thompson, creator of the influential Complete 9/11 Timeline online and author of The Terror Timeline published by Harper-Collins, said that there are five timeline accounts in conflict with each other, adding the commission made a “complete rewrite of what happened” in 2004. Thompson quoted Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minn.) as saying that the North American Aerospace Command and the Federal Aviation Administration have “lied to the American people.” Thompson has discovered yet another war game taking place on 9/11, this one with the ominous title Global Guardian: Practice Armageddon.

Nafeez Ahmed, author most recently of War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism, spoke of “unresolved anomalies” in the hijackers’ behavior, such as trips to the Philippines and Las Vegas for “prohibited pleasures.” He cited the hijackers training at U.S. military installations and noted that they had all been under surveillance - yet they were able to enter the United States. According to a Miami Herald report, he said, hijacker Mohamed Atta’s conversations with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were monitored by the National Security Agency. Ahmed noted that the United States used the mujaheddin in Bosnia and he finds a pattern in the way Algerian and Philippine intelligence services infiltrated terrorist organizations and perpetrated massacres.

Other panelists included Marilyn Rosenthal PhD. on the pre-9/11 warnings, Lauretta Napoleoni on terror financing, Anne Norton on the political philosophy of U.S. conservatives, John Newman on “triple agent” Saeed Sheikh, and Peter Dale Scott on drugs, oil, and U.S. operational ties with the al-Qaeda. In addition to Ruppert, the questioners included former intelligence analysts turned critics Ray McGovern (CIA) and Wayne Madsen (NSA). Pacifica Network’s Verna Avery-Brown moderated the proceedings. This was a rare hearing in a Republican-controlled Congress, proving, as Wallace Stevens said, that in the presence of an extraordinary event, conscience takes the place of imagination.

http://www.newstarget.com/002577.html

U.S. military doctors involved in Abu Ghaib abuse, human rights cover-up
A report in The Lancet by Professor Steven Miles of the University of Minnesota reveals that U.S. military doctors, nurses and medics at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad violated medical ethics and international human rights treaties. The doctors faked death certificates of detainees in Iraq, as well as in Afganistan. They indicated that detainees died of natural causes, when they were actually abused.

The report also criticized U.S. senior commanders that allowed the abuses to occur. The Lancet calls for all who were involved in or saw the ill treatment to reveal what really happened at the prisons. Related articles on this topic are also available on the NewsTarget Network, including: The great direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising con: how patients and doctors alike are easily influenced to demand dangerous drugs.

Shocked? Want to see the document yourself? Here is a PDF file of the original from the George Washington University

One of the biggest cover-up with our military actions in Iraq is the smokescreen image in that Iraqis are happy and better off with us there. This article explains it much differently than what our Bush flavored news media reports.

http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese05202005.html

May 19, 2005

Insurgency Increases; US Military Recruits Fall
One-in-Four Iraqis Directly Affected by the War

By KEVIN B. ZEESE

The level of insurgent activity in Iraq today is four or five times higher than it was in early summer 2003 when there were 10-13 attacks per day. Currently, there are approximately 50 per day. A report released by the Project for Defense Alternatives explains why the resistance to U.S. occupation is expanding ­ the root cause is the U.S. occupation itself.

In a March-April 2004 poll sponsored by USA Today, CNN, and Gallup, 58 percent of Iraqis said US forces have behaved very or fairly badly. Indeed, nearly one in four Iraqis ­ 22 percent ­ have been "directly affected by violence in terms of death handicap, or significant monetary loss" during the occupation according to a survey by the International Republican Institute.

The report, Vicious Circle: The Dynamics of Occupation and Resistance in Iraq, notes U.S. occupation offends many Iraqis every day. They face:

Constant foreign military patrols - about 12,000 per week;
Ubiquitous (and too often deadly) vehicle check-points;
Raids -- 8,000 total since May 2003; and
Citizen round-ups -- 80,000 detained since April 2003.

Perhaps the most invasive are house raids by U.S. forces. The International Committee of the Red Cross described how the raids are conducted in a February 2004 report:

"Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets, and other property. They arrested suspects, tying their hands in the back with flexicuffs, hooding them, and taking them away. Sometimes they arrested all adult males in the house, including elderly, handicapped, or sick people. Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking, and striking with rifles. Individuals were often led away in whatever they happened to be wearing at the time of arrest - sometimes pyjamas or underwear... In many cases personal belongings were seized during the arrest with no receipt given.... In almost all incidents documented by the ICRC, arresting authorities provided no information about who they were, where their base was located, nor did they explain the cause of arrest. Similarly, they rarely informed the arrestee or his family where he was being taken or for how long, resulting in the defacto disappearance of the arrestee for weeks or even months until contact was finally made."

Most of these intrusive and aggressive raids turn up nothing -- 70 percent according to one officer -- and most of those detained are soon released. The International Committee of the Red Cross reports being told by military intelligence officers that between 70 percent and 90 percent of these were being held by mistake -- an estimate affirmed independently by some who have worked in the system. These invasive house searches continue. Last week, U.S. marines went from town-to-town along the Syrian border searching houses and finding nothing ­ but certainly seeding the ground for new resistance fighters.

In addition to road block searches Iraqis also witness daily, routine street patrols. An embedded reporter with Knight Ridder, Ken Dillian, describes how these operate in a February 2005 article:

"All day long, the soldiers pointed their guns at Iraqi civilians, whom they called 'hajis'.... Wary of ambushes, they rammed cars that got in the way of their Humvees. Always on the lookout for car bombs, they stopped, screamed at, shoved to the ground and searched people driving down the road after curfew - or during the day if they looked suspicious."

In addition to these daily interactions there have been major errors made by the U.S. military. Fallujah, for example, did not become a hot-bed of resistance until U.S. military action against civilians in that city. Vicious Cycle provides examples:

* The troubles in Falluja began on April 28 and 30, 2003, when in two separate incidents US troops shot and killed between 13 and 17 people protesting the U.S. presence. Fifty more were wounded. Falluja was further alienated by the 12 September 2003 accidental killing of 10 Iraqi police and security personnel as well as a hospital worker.

* In the Mosul area, between 17 and 24 civilians were killed in four sperate incidents between 15 Aril and 26 July.

* On 25 May 2003 in Samarra, four members of a wedding party were killed and nine injured when U.S. troops fired on their vehicles. Three day later a 12-year old boy and 15-year old girl were killed at a checkpoint. The incidents led to a spiral of local violence due to tribal dynamics.

CIA Director Porter Goss recently testified before the U.S. Senate describing Iraq as a magnet and training ground for terrorists. Many Iraqis and others from the Middle East are joining the resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq resulting in increasing violence, loss of life and undermining the U.S. supported government. In the future they are likely to focus their attentions on the U.S. outside of Iraq and within the United States. The need to enforce an unpopular occupation is undermining not only security in Iraq, but in the United States as well. In July 2003, President Bush urged "Bring them on," referring to the battle in Iraq. Unfortunately for Iraq and the United States he is getting what he asked for.

Concerning: Afghanistan / Pentagon-Rumsfeld

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=13560

Whoops, our bad
Marauding U.S. military leaves messy trail of cover-ups and casualties

War is hell. War is fog. The Pentagon seems committed to proving these axioms in Afghanistan. On July 1, the U.S. military attacked a compound in the village of Kakrak, At least 54 people were killed and 120 wounded. They were civilians; many were women and children attending a wedding celebration. Twenty-five members of the bridegroom's family were destroyed.

The event was horrible, the latest in a string of U.S. military mishaps that have caused the deaths of Afghan civilians—the total estimate of those killed ranging from hundreds to several thousand. It is probably sadly true that major military action is not possible without what's euphemistically known as "collateral damage"—especially when that action consists of air attacks and bombing raids. But throughout the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon has been loath to acknowledge errors and to deal with the supposedly unavoidable and supposedly unintentional consequences of its operations. The Defense Department refused to concede that in December it had wrongly hit a convoy of tribal elders on their way to the inauguration of interim president Hamid Karzai. In January, U.S. Special Forces raided two compounds and killed over a dozen troops loyal to Karzai's government and captured and held almost two dozen more (some of whom claimed they were abused). Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld eventually conceded the U.S. troops had killed and grabbed the wrong people, but he refused to characterize the U.S. actions as a mistake. No one apparently was disciplined.

With the most recent event—the worst known case of civilian casualties of this war—the Pentagon, once again, tried at first to duck responsibility and to explain away the slaughter. But as more information became available about the attack in Kakrak, it became harder for the Defense Department to hold the line. A look back at its changing story is instructive.

On the day of the assault, U.S. military officials told reporters that a 2,000-pound satellite-guided bomber dropped from a B-52 had strayed off course and slammed into the village. They noted that an Air Force AC-130 gunship operating in the area had returned fire after receiving sustained antiaircraft fire. One U.S. military officer scoffed at the initial report that a wedding party had been hit, noting that the last time such a claim was made, "even the 'bride' had a beard and an AK-47." This unidentified officer further told Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post, "This group is masterful at disinformation." In other words, don't believe what the locals say about this incident.

The day after, the Pentagon rejiggered its story and said the 2,000-pound bomb had struck an uninhabited hillside. It refused to accept responsibility for the civilian deaths and injuries. Defense Department officials could not explain what happened, though they now focused on the AC-130 gunship, again saying it had attacked targets in this area after being shot at. As the Post reported, the U.S. military officials "insisted that U.S. forces ... were responding to a deliberate attack by antiaircraft guns or other weapons." At a Washington press conference, Marine Corps Lt. General Gregory Newbold, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "This is an area of enormous sympathy for the Taliban and al-Qaeda." He and Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, pointed out that it was a common tactic for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to place weapons and troops in civilian areas. Military officials also suggested that locals might have been harmed by falling antiaircraft fire. Rumsfeld said it would take up to two days to come up with "useful information."

The whiff of justification was in the air. But as reporters were able to speak with survivors of the attacks, an awful tale emerged. Villagers said that at about 2:00 am a warplane blasted them at the wedding party. Some saw family members cut in half. Body parts were flying. Survivors spoke of fleeing through rice and corn fields as the aircraft seemed to chase after them, firing away. Some said the attack went on for several hours and also targeted other villages. Some reported that American and Afghan troops arrived shortly after the assault ended and remained on the scene until about noon. (Presumably, these U.S. troops were not in a position to send "useful information" to Rumsfeld.) And local villagers maintained they were supporters of Karzai and explained they were from his ethnic Pashtun tribe. As one said, would we be having a wedding celebration with music and dancing, if the Taliban were around?

Two days after the attack—and as it became more clear a massacre had occurred, intentional or not—the Pentagon began to acknowledge errors might have been committed during the raid, but it asserted the U.S. forces had cause to attack the compound. Major Gary Tallman, a U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan, said that U.S. aircraft had flown over the area repeatedly the two days prior to the attack and each time had encountered antiaircraft fire, and, he added, the antiaircraft gun was firing when the AC-130 attacked on July 1. He acknowledged, though, that no trace of the gun had been found. Pentagon officials would not confirm that the airstrike had caused civilian casualties. But Tallman also said that U.S. Special Forces had "reliable information" that senior Taliban officials were being sheltered in Kakrak. At the same time, U.S. military investigators told reporters, off the record, that they had not found evidence that many people had been killed and injured. "There should be more blood," one said.

It looked as if the Pentagon was attempting to wiggle its way out of this mess—to dodge responsibility, as it had become accustomed to doing. One problem was, the Afghan government could not join its American allies in this mission. With the villagers protesting—and other Afghans outraged—Foreign Minister Abdullah decried the raid, noting, "This situation has to come to an end. Mistakes can take place ... but our people should be assured every measure has been taken to avoid such incidents." President Karzai blamed the U.S. military for the deaths and declared, "People should not be hurt, and the campaign against the Taliban and terrorism must not become the cause of harassment of the people."

Though Karzai had raised questions about civilian Afghan casualties in the past, his government was more forceful this time. With a tenuous claim to power, his administration had to address the controversy and demonstrate to its constituents it can serve and protect them. (Who cares about helping the U.S. war on terrorism if that means a gunship can blow away you and your family?) Karzai's comments were a gentle but clear warning to the United States: don't think you can get away with this.

President George W. Bush expressed his sympathies—without apologizing or assigning blame. And five days after the strike, Lt. General Dan McNeill, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, conceded that civilians were indeed killed in the airstrike. He announced that a "formal investigation" would be conducted to determine what transpired. "It is important that we keep this coalition together," he remarked. Yet he asserted there were "ample indications" the assault was mounted in response to antiaircraft fire. Maybe so, but there were "ample indications" by this point that the wrong target—and people—were struck.

Meanwhile, back in Kakrak, human flesh was still hanging on the trees. And local Afghan officials were telling journalists that American commanders had informed them that U.S. forces had acted on faulty intelligence. Apparently, the Americans had received word that Mullah Omar, the number-one Taliban, was hiding in Kakrak. After Osama bin Laden, he's next on the get-him list. That might explain why the AC-130 attacked with such ferocity, why it may have strafed people running from the compound, and why it also attacked nearby villages (could every one of these villages have had an antiaircraft gun firing at the gunship?).

On July 8, as the Pentagon announced an investigative team was heading to Kakrak in a day or two (no rush there), Victoria Clarke was claiming the Defense Department had no solid information regarding what had happened: "The issue of the number of civilian casualties and civilians killed is much less clear. We know they occurred, and we regret every one of them, but we do not have hard and fast numbers from what we have seen thus far." And Lt. General Newbold was still claiming U.S. forces were shot at first. But he produced no evidence of this. No communications tapes ("we're taking fire"), no reported on-the-ground sightings of antiaircraft weaponry in Kakrak.

The bloody assault upon Kakrak raises another matter: compensation for Afghan civilians. For months, I and a few others have been proposing that the United States ought to make payments to Afghans who have lost relatives, homes, businesses, and limbs because of U.S. mis-attacks and errant bombs. The CIA did quickly dispense cash to the innocent victims of the January raid, but hundreds, if not thousands, of Afghans injured have received nothing. The latest blunder has prompted additional calls for compensation—and not only from Afghans. "If American forces prove to be responsible for the deaths of innocent people, compensation should be paid and U.S. commanders should give a public accounting of how and why such a tragedy occurred," the Post editorialized. And Post columnist Jim Hoagland suggested the same.

Will the nightmare of Kakrak lead the Bush administration finally to agree to compensation, the lousy but only remedy available for redressing a lethal raid gone wrong? There's reason to be pessimistic. If the Bush administration paid to ease the suffering of the villagers of Kakrak, it would have a tough time arguing that all other Afghan civilian victims should be ignored. The money is not the issue. We're talking tens of millions of dollars—barely an asterisk in the budget for the war in Afghanistan. Rather, the Pentagon and the Bush administration do not want to enter the business of evaluating claims and determining guilt (their own). That can only distract from the mission at hand and create one helluva precedent for a war on terrorism that Bush and Rumsfeld say may last as long as the Cold War. Truth is the first casualty of war, goes another axiom. Accountability may be the second.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afgh-n27.shtml

US war crime in Afghanistan:

Hundreds of prisoners of war slaughtered at Mazar-i-Sharif

27 November 2001

The killing of as many as 800 captured Taliban prisoners Sunday in Mazar-i-Sharif is a war crime for which the American government and military, right up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush, are politically responsible. This massacre reveals the real nature of the US attack on Afghanistan. The terrorist attacks of September 11 are but a pretext for a colonial-style war of pillage and mass murder.

In both the savage methods used, and the lies employed to cover up the crime, the butchery at the Qala-i-Janghi fortress recalls the atrocities of the Vietnam War period: the My Lai massacre, the murder of 20,000 Vietnamese in the Phoenix assassination program, the saturation bombing and aerial defoliation with chemical poisons like Agent Orange, the obliteration of the town of Ben Suc, where an American officer declared it was necessary “to destroy the village in order to save it.”

According to both press and US government accounts, US Special Forces and CIA personnel were on the spot in Mazar-i-Sharif, calling in air strikes by helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers and directing the actions of Northern Alliance soldiers as they shot down hundreds of prisoners. German television broadcast footage of Northern Alliance soldiers shooting down from the walls of the fortress-prison into a mass of prisoners below.

Most of those killed, however, were annihilated by US air strikes. Warplanes dropped bombs on the fort and AC-130 helicopter gunships, which can fire 1,800 rounds a minute, were called in by Special Forces spotters in the fortress. Tanks and 2,000 Northern Alliance ground troops were also brought in to complete the destructive work. Throughout the one-sided battle, according to Time journalist Alex Perry, who was on the scene, the 40 or so American Special Forces and British SAS operatives were “running the show,” directing both the air and ground operations.

A massacre on Rumsfeld’s orders

If the exact chain of events that led up to the slaughter at Qala-i-Janghi is still uncertain, the moral and political responsibility for the bloodbath is not. In the days leading up to the massacre, officials of the UN and humanitarian organizations were warning of an impending bloodbath. US officials, on the contrary, made it clear that they wanted as many of the foreign Taliban killed as possible. Their repeated public statements were undoubtedly accompanied by even more bloodthirsty private directives to the Northern Alliance leaders, who hardly needed any encouragement.

The role of the media

The response by the American government and media to Sunday’s bloodbath in Afghanistan has been brazen lying and defense of mass murder in a manner that recalls the worst crimes of Nazism.

US military spokesman Kenton Keith denied Monday that Alliance troops had carried out a massacre, saying the “status” of the prisoners as POWs covered by the Geneva Convention had changed once they “engaged in offensive action” (i.e., once they resisted their own execution).

While press reports have described the beating to death of Taliban prisoners in Kunduz, in addition to the Qala-i-Janghi slaughter, Keith claimed that Northern Alliance troops “have been behaving with restraint. We do not know of any atrocities as part of any widespread pattern.”

This version of events has gone virtually unchallenged in the American press. At Bush’s latest press conference, on Monday morning, the day after the slaughter, there was not a single question on the prison massacre. At Rumsfeld’s press conference later the same day, the question came up only tangentially, and no reporter pursued the issue.

The British-based Guardian published a column November 26 by Brian Whitaker that raised the question of whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was guilty of war crimes.

Whitaker compared the slaughter of Afghan prisoners to another imperialist atrocity, the massacre of Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Shatila camps in September 1982, when Lebanese fascist militia entered the camps under the protection of Israeli forces and murdered more than 1,000 men, women and children.

Whitaker wrote: “The link between Sabra/Shatila and many of the killings in Afghanistan is that both are examples of ‘green light’ warfare, where the main protagonists try to escape responsibility by allowing surrogates to do the unspeakable (and politically unacceptable) dirty work while providing discreet encouragement and assistance.”

Iraq - The Unseen War



http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/...llery/iraq.html

Was sarin gas used during the Vietnam War? Some believe it was..... while of course, the Pentagon plays it off. It was called Op Tailwind... in the Valley of Death... Laos. You be the judge. cCick on link for it's entirety.

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1526/15260640.htm

The Operation Tailwind tangle

M. S. VENKATARAMANI

IN July 1998, two key units of a giant American conglomerate, Cable News Network (CNN) and Time magazine, which modestly labelled themselves as the world's two great news organisations, were laid low and thrown into convulsions in full public view. The onslaught against them was led in person by William S. Cohen, Secretary of Defence in the Clinton Administration. The convulsions of the two were of such severity that one wondered whether Cohen had unleashed against them the verbal equivalent of the dreaded nerve gas sarin.

The Pentagon and its chief were not lacking in compassion and willingness to "forgive and forget" selectively. Confronted with the wrath of the Pentagon, CNN and Time tearfully retracted two serious allegations that they had made against the Pentagon and offered abject apologies. Magnanimous in victory, Cohen was content to let bygones be bygones. Apparently what he had used against the world's two great news organisations was merely the verbal equivalent of a potent tear gas of the "hidden persuader" category, and not that of sarin. Tear gas and nerve gas are important elements in this analysis of Pentagon's top-secret "black operation" codenamed Tailwind in neutral Laos in September 1970.

On June 7, 1998 CNN telecast a programme entitled "Valley of Death", which purported to expose shocking details about Operation Tailwind. Time, which had joined hands with CNN in sponsoring the programme, carried a print version of the story in its issue of June 15, 1998. Their reports alleged that in September 1970 the U.S. military establishment had authorised and implemented Operation Tailwind, which had as its objective the killing of U.S. soldiers who had defected to North Vietnam. The reports asserted that in the course of efforts to extricate the Tailwind team from the site of their incursion, U.S. aircraft used sarin against a group of advancing enemy soldiers. Time said: "Now, after the eight-month investigation, military officials with knowledge of the mission assert to... CNN and Time that the gas dropped 28 years ago in Laos was nerve gas, specifically sarin, the lethal agent used in the 1995 terrorist attack in a Tokyo subway that killed a dozen people."

The horrifying charges purveyed by CNN and Time were featured in newspapers around the world. A Pentagon official was quoted as saying that the U.S. military establishment "has found no documentary evidence to support CNN's claim that nerve gas of any type was used in Operation Tailwind." Cohen, who was in Europe at the time, found that the CNN telecast "had an impact certainly on the people I was dealing with" and immediately ordered a comprehensive investigation. He explained subsequently why such an investigation was necessary:

"CNN/Time said that the purpose of this (Tailwind) mission was to hunt and to kill U.S. defectors and that the United States used sarin, a lethal nerve gas, during the mission.

It is important to raise some issues briefly, starting with Cohen's assertion that only "tear gas" was used during the operation. The term "tear gas" brings to mind a rather innocuous chemical repellent used by policemen to disperse unruly crowds; the victims are seen to suffer a short spell of acute discomfort but are not thrown into convulsions or rendered unconscious or injured bodily. Was the chemical agent used during the rescue of the Tailwind team exactly the same as what was familiar to the public as tear gas? Newspersons should have questioned Cohen closely on its exact chemical composition and on whether it was concentrated or diluted and, if so, to what extent.

The questions are relevant since the international community is aware of the fact that the Pentagon had waged chemical warfare in Vietnam during 1961-1971, under what was euphemistically depicted as the "herbicide programme". Studies of that programme had shown that six different types of chemical agents, representing a total of 19,195,369 gallons, were "disseminated" on Vietnam. "Agent Orange", which accounted for over 60 per cent of the "herbicides" sprayed on Vietnam, was stated to contain "relatively high levels of an exceedingly poisonous contaminant known as dioxin". It is thus evident that tear gases, like "herbicides", may be of various kinds and of varying levels of toxicity. Cohen should have been asked whether tests had been conducted in public or private sector laboratories prior to 1970 on the effects of the exact kind of "tear gas" used in Operation Tailwind and what the results of those tests were.

THE next issue relates to casualties suffered by the Tailwind team. Cohen mentioned that all 16 U.S. members of the team had returned safely to the base in South Vietnam and cited as conclusive proof that no lethal gas had been used during the operation. He made no reference to the 140 Montagnards in the team. "Sixteen Americans fought steadily for four days.... All got out alive," said Cohen. "I think all Americans should know that the 16 men who conducted the mission were heroes," he added. What happened to the Montagnards? According to Annex B, while four C-53 helicopters were used for the initial airlift to Laos, only three C-53s were needed to extract the Tailwind team for the return journey to South Vietnam, indicating that there must have been some casualties among the Montagnards. CNN investigators stated that "as many as 60 of the Montagnards died in Operation Tailwind, but all 16 Americans got out alive." The Montagnards might have volunteered for, or might have been assigned, hazardous tasks. Cohen said proudly that all the U.S. members of the Tailwind team had received injuries; it is reasonable to assume that several Montagnards who escaped death might have sustained injuries. The Montagnards were sought after, used and sacrificed; afterwards they were erased from Washington's memory.

What did the Tailwind commandos accomplish? "The documents that they captured provided an intelligence bonanza," Cohen claimed. In the absence of any evidence of what exactly the bonanza was, Cohen's statement appears to be a figment of his imagination. Annex B of the top-secret official history makes no reference whatever to any documents "captured" by the U.S. raiders in the obscure Laotian village that they ravaged. In the preface to Annex B, its compiler and "SOG Historian" Lt. Commander Mark H. Waggoner says that the document records "significant accomplishments" of the operations conducted by the SOG. The accomplishments mentioned in Annex B are the following: destruction of a single 120mm mortar, 40 dismantled bicycles, several latrines and hootches, miscellaneous ammunition of no significant volume, and 8,000 kg of rice. Annex B makes no mention of documents containing valuable intelligence information triumphantly captured and brought back by the SOG. Cohen's "bonanza" reminds one of the 1970 cartoon by Bill Mauldin, a perceptive chronicler of the tribulations of the U.S. soldier, that lampooned the U.S. forays into Laos and Cambodia. Neither the cartoonist nor even the U.S. Congress had any knowledge of Tailwind. The cartoon reflected the disenchantment among growing segments of the U.S. public and the Congress with their country's protracted and costly military adventure in Vietnam. They were baffled and angered over the continuing sacrifice of American lives despite Nixon's announced course of "Vietnamisation" and the progressive reduction of U.S. troops in Vietnam.

Conserving his energies for bold conceptualisation and for efforts to influence the President, Kissinger did not worry even about death of or injury to the U.S. soldiers who were dropped into hostile territory during raids such as Tailwind. After each raid, an officer of the Pentagon briefed the National Security Adviser. No information is available on the briefing after Tailwind. But there is Kissinger's own account of a briefing after the next raid on a North Vietnamese installation 32 km from Hanoi, ordered after Kissinger's fruitless second meeting with the North Vietnamese emissary. Kissinger provides a sample of what he himself characterised as his "warped sense of humour".

Perhaps after the briefing by the Pentagon official, the National Security Adviser busied himself with conceptualising the next commando raid and the next bombing mission that he should push through the WSAG. His moves would send U.S. boys - and Meos, Montagnards, Vietnamese and Thais - "into the valley of Death, into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell," to borrow the words of poet Alfred Tennyson. The producers of the "Valley of Death", who were fired by CNN, have said that they wrote two letters to Kissinger seeking information on Tailwind but received no response. They telephoned him several times but their calls were not returned. The usually voluble Kissinger believes that "silence is golden" as far as Operation Tailwind is concerned.

I know it won't do any good to post a copy of the investigation because everything is a conspiracy and a cover-up to you but maybe you could explain why Clinton's Secretary of Defense would want to protect Richard Nixon?

Maybe too it would help if you explained why after CNN reviewed the journalistic integrity of the story two senior producers were fired, one senior producer resigned, the reporter for the story Peter Arnett was reprimanded, and shortly there after Peter Arnett left the employ of CNN.


DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE REVIEW OF ALLEGATIONS
CONCERNING "OPERATION TAILWIND"

JULY 21, 1998



I. INTRODUCTION

On June 7, 1998, the Cable News Network (CNN) aired a story entitled "Valley of Death" on the program NewsStand. The story alleged that in September of 1970, U.S. Special Forces and indigenous troops were inserted into Laos to locate and kill U.S. military defectors in what was named OPERATION TAILWIND. The story further alleged that the four-day operation destroyed a village, and killed U.S defectors, enemy troops, and women and children. Finally, the story alleged that U.S. aircraft dropped lethal Sarin gas to suppress enemy fire while friendly forces were extracted by helicopter. The broadcast was followed the next day by an article in Time Magazine, headlined "Did the U.S. Drop Nerve Gas," repeating the allegations. Tab A.

The Defense Department viewed these allegations with concern. On June 9, 1998, the Secretary of Defense initiated an extensive review to determine if events such as those alleged had occurred in OPERATION TAILWIND. Tab B.

The Secretary directed the Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to interview individuals with personal knowledge of the operation, and to review military records, archives, historical writings and any other appropriate sources. The Secretary also asked the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct a similar review of relevant agency files and personnel.

II. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

A. Purpose of OPERATION TAILWIND

The operation was launched as a reconnaissance in force to engage the enemy and to divert enemy attention from OPERATION GAUNTLET, an offensive operation to regain control of terrain in Laos. Tab C.
No records or personal recollections were discovered to suggest that targeting U.S. defectors played any part in the operation. (Throughout)
B. Use of Sarin

U.S. policy since World War II has prohibited the use of lethal chemical agents, including Sarin, unless first used by the enemy. Tab D.
No evidence could be found that the nerve agent Sarin was ever transported to Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand). Tab H; Tab I; Tab M.
No evidence could be found that Sarin was used in OPERATION TAILWIND. (Throughout)
Unique safeguards are required for the handling of lethal chemical agents by U.S. forces. Such safeguards were not used in association with OPERATION TAILWIND because lethal chemical agents were not employed in Southeast Asia. Tab H.
Air Force personnel involved in support of OPERATION TAILWIND said they recalled employing tear gas to suppress enemy fire on the ground during extraction of the SOG forces but did not employ Sarin. Tab H.
Relevant North Vietnamese military documents reviewed record no use of lethal chemical agents by U.S. forces at any time during the Vietnam War, but they do record the use of tear gas. Tab E.
The high toxicity of Sarin gas is such that, had it been employed as a weapon to facilitate the landing zone extraction of Studies and Observation Group (SOG) forces as has been alleged, it is highly improbable that all 16 U.S. servicemen and all but three Montagnards would have survived the mission alive. Tab O.
C. Use of Tear Gas

Tear gas munitions were used by U.S. forces during OPERATION TAILWIND to suppress enemy ground fire while friendly forces were extracted by helicopter. Tab C; Tab H.
The tear gas used was designated CS, a more potent version than the CN tear gas used previously in the war. Tab H.
The use of tear gas, or Riot Control Agents (RCA) as they were sometimes called, was in accordance with U.S. policy at the time. Tab H; Tab K.
The use of tear gas to suppress enemy fire was viewed as successful in the operation. Tab C; Tab F.
D. Defectors

Only two U.S. military personnel were known to be defectors during the Vietnam War. Tab C; Tab E.
No records suggest that defectors were thought to be in the area of OPERATION TAILWIND at the time of the operation. Tab C; Tab E.
No document discovered in this review suggests that defectors were targeted or harmed in OPERATION TAILWIND. Although Lieutenant Van Buskirk claims to have seen a defector (CNN/Time Magazine story), other SOG members dispute this account. Tab C; Tab I.
E. Overall Operation

The operation was rated by all echelons in the chain of command as successful in engaging the enemy and in intelligence gathering on the North Vietnamese 559th Transportation Group. Tab K.
Friendly casualties were three Montagnards killed, 33 Montagnards wounded, no U.S. servicemen killed in action, and 16 U.S. servicemen (every man on the mission) wounded. Tab K.
One Army AH-1G and two Marine Corps CH-53D helicopters were lost to ground fire. Tab J, Tab K.
Contemporaneous documents and personal recollections do not support the allegation there were non-combatant (women and children) casualties. Tab C; Tab F; Tab K.
III. CONDUCT OF REVIEW AND SUMMARIES OF REPORTS



A. Methodology

Each of the organizations participating in the review of OPERATION TAILWIND followed a similar approach. They located and reviewed relevant records, archives, unit chronologies and other historical documents. They conducted searches on computer databases. They reviewed press accounts from the time of OPERATION TAILWIND and concerning the storage of chemical agents like Sarin gas. They located and interviewed individuals who participated in OPERATION TAILWIND or who were likely to have first-hand knowledge of facts relevant to this inquiry.

OPERATION TAILWIND was a joint operation that occurred almost 28 years ago.

The nature of the operation dictated that four different organizations within the Department of Defense furnish reports related to the operation. The forces that conducted OPERATION TAILWIND on the ground were members of the Army’s Studies and Observations Group (SOG), a Special Forces unit, assigned to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). Close air support was provided by Air Force and Marine Corps aviation assets. The Marine Corps provided the helicopters that flew OPERATION TAILWIND participants into the Laotian jungle and extracted them four days later. The SOG chain of command for planning and execution of OPERATION TAILWIND was through the Commander, MACV and Commander, U.S. Forces, Pacific, to the Secretary of Defense, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) providing the Secretary military staff support. Therefore, separate reports were required from the Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as from the JCS. The CIA also submitted a report. These reports are appended and summarized below. Tabs H-L.

Each report submitted by participating organizations consists of a summary report to the Secretary of Defense with supporting tabular attachments. In addition, in an effort to complement the reviews of the Service Secretaries and the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness conducted interviews and gathered information from OPERATION TAILWIND participants. A complete list of interviewees is included at Tab T, and relevant newsclips on OPERATION TAILWIND are found at Tab N.

B. Communications to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) in the Review Process

OPERATION TAILWIND was conducted by 16 SOG members, accompanied by approximately 120 Montagnard troops. These forces were inserted by air into the Southern Laotian panhandle. The dual purposes of the mission were to conduct a reconnaissance-in-force—an offensive operation to contact the enemy—and to create a diversion so that North Vietnamese forces pressuring friendly forces conducting OPERATION GAUNTLET elsewhere in Laos would be drawn away.

OPERATION GAUNTLET lasted approximately three weeks (September 3-23, 1970). Its objectives were to harass and interdict enemy lines of communication in southern Laos and to clear the eastern rim of the Bolovens Plateau. The operation involved approximately 5,000 irregular troops, with half of them moving against the Bolovens, while the other half operated in the central Laos panhandle. They initially met stiff resistance but were ultimately able to succeed, probably because some enemy forces were diverted by OPERATION TAILWIND. Enemy activity there remained low during October 1970 due to tropical storms, U.S. air strikes, and OPERATION GAUNTLET. Tab K.

OPERATION TAILWIND was unprecedented because of the large size of the force conducting the operation and because of the depth of the penetration into Laotian territory. As a result, the senior MACV leadership was aware of its conduct and was briefed on its outcome.

To gain an accurate understanding of what actually occurred during the conduct of OPERATION TAILWIND, the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) (USD(P&R)) invited key individuals involved in the planning and execution of the operation to the Pentagon on June 23, 1998, to recount their experiences. Key invitees included, among others, Major General John Singlaub, USA (Ret.) (former SOG Commander); Colonel John Sadler, USA (Ret.)(SOG Commander during OPERATION TAILWIND); Colonel Robert Pinkerton, USA (Ret.)(SOG Operations Officer and principal unit planner for OPERATION TAILWIND); Lieutenant Colonel Eugene McCarley, USA (Ret.)(Company Commander and senior officer on the ground during OPERATION TAILWIND); and Captain Michael Rose, USA (Ret.)(Company medic for OPERATION TAILWIND). A Memorandum for the Record summarizing the discussions at the meeting is at Tab C, along with supporting documents provided by the invitees.

Comments made by participants in the meeting provided useful context for understanding the systemic and extensive reviews comprising the Department’s inquiry.

Colonel Sadler, the SOG Commander, described his role in OPERATION TAILWIND—"The buck should start and stop here [with me]. I was responsible for planning it [OPERATION TAILWIND], getting it approved, and directing it." He described the purpose of OPERATION TAILWIND as 1) to "help relieve pressure on the task force coming down from the North—it was a beehive there"; and 2) in the area of Chavane [Laos] "we knew there was something in there in force. We had to go see why the area was so important to the enemy."

With respect to the allegation contained in the CNN/Time Magazine story that women and children in a village were killed by the SOG forces, Captain Michael Rose, the medic on OPERATION TAILWIND, made the following comments:

It wasn’t a village we went into as CNN said. It was a compound. I came up after the fight was over. I only saw two bodies, both dead from small arms fire, and I’ve seen enough dead people from small arms fire to know what that looks like.

Lieutenant Colonel (then Captain) Eugene McCarley, field commander of OPERATION TAILWIND, explained that riot control agent or tear gas was used to keep the enemy from overrunning the position of the American forces:

The FAC [forward air controller] advised me the gas was coming in. He could see the NVA [North Vietnamese Army] massing. We were almost out of ammo. We were exhausted. He could see that once we got to the extraction zone, we would be overrun. The FAC called for the gas. I never requested it.

Captain Rose vividly recounted the final hours of the mission as the SOG force moved to the evacuation point:

We got hit with gas. It was CS [tear gas]. I know what CS is from basic training. It’s like skunk. Once you smell it, you never forget, even if it’s fifty years later. It was definitely tear gas. I was wincing, my eyes watered, my nose and lungs burned. You turn your face into the wind and it clears. My wounded were in distress. I never saw any evidence of nerve gas. It was CS! It’s criminal to say our own Air Force would drop nerve gas on us!

Captain Rose later added: "I’m living proof that toxic gas was not dropped on us that day. Nobody showed any signs of exposure to toxic gas."

As to the presence of defectors during OPERATION TAILWIND, Colonel Pinkerton explained: "I never heard in the year I was SOG operations officer any reference to defectors." Colonel Sadler added: "Another reason the defector story doesn’t pass muster is that it was a standing imperative that if you saw POWs, that [POW rescue] became your mission, regardless of what mission you were on." Lieutenant Colonel McCarley added: "There was no mention whatsoever in the debrief of [Caucasians] or nerve gas."

In the eyes of the participants, OPERATION TAILWIND was also a success. Colonel Sadler commented that the operation succeeded in gathering exceptionally good intelligence about the enemy. "The two footlockers of documents we got, [General Creighton] Abrams described as ‘the best logistics intelligence ever gained in the Vietnam War.’ "

Following the June 23rd briefing, former First Lieutenant Robert Van Buskirk, USA, was interviewed. Mr. Van Buskirk was a member of the SOG unit on the ground during the four-day operation and a central figure and information resource for the NewsStand broadcast and Time magazine article. He declined to orally answer specific questions about the use of Sarin gas and the presence of defectors on OPERATION TAILWIND but provided background information on other aspects of the mission. Mr. Van Buskirk volunteered that on September 14, 1970, when gas was dropped on the SOG troops before their extraction from the landing zone, he saw his fellow soldiers "convulsing". However, he did not know that new, larger tear gas munitions (CBU-30) had been introduced for use in Vietnam in 1970, replacing CBU-19, with which he was familiar. He said "whatever it was, it worked. Whatever was on the LZ got us out alive." A memorandum summarizing his oral comments and his written responses to questions are attached at Tab G. Individuals who claimed to have participated in OPERATION TAILWIND but who were later determined not to have done so were not interviewed. In particular, Jay Graves and Jim Cathy were not interviewed, although Mr. Graves submitted a statement denying participation in OPERATION TAILWIND. Tab P.

Doctor Frederick R. Sidell, an authority on Sarin gas and former Chief of the Casualty Care Office, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, was interviewed. He explained that Sarin is highly toxic to humans and can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled, although the effects are most immediate and pronounced upon inhalation. Unprotected exposure for one minute to a concentration of 100 milligrams of Sarin per cubic meter will kill 50 percent of the people who inhale it. Protective gas masks and rubber suits are employed by those working with Sarin to avoid exposure. Sarin may be employed as an effective lethal weapon. Lethality when used as a weapon depends on a variety of factors, such as size of the weapon, whether the Sarin is dispersed as vapor or liquid, ambient environment (temperature, wind and humidity), and whether those exposed have protective clothing or gas masks. Tab O.

Exposure to Sarin produces no burning sensation but causes miosis, or contraction of the pupil, which may last for days or even weeks. Exposure also produces a runny nose (but not burning), excessive salivation, secretions in the airways and extreme shortness of breath. If a sufficient amount of Sarin is inhaled, a person would become unconscious, go into convulsions, experience muscle twitching and then become flacid. Death may occur in 10 minutes. Tab O.

Doctor Sidell explained that the compounds CS and CN are classified as riot control agents and commonly known as tear gas. Although similar in effect, they are different compounds chemically. CS is the more potent agent. Exposure to riot control agents causes burning eyes, tearing, a burning and runny nose, a burning sensation in the mouth, salivation and a burning sensation on exposed skin. Coughing and retching may occur but convulsions of the sort associated with exposure to Sarin do not generally occur. Riot control agents are not employed as lethal weapons. Tab O.

Additionally, USD(P&R) staff conducted reviews of documents provided by the invitees that described or referenced OPERATION TAILWIND and that were created shortly after the actual operation. Documents examined include Lieutenant Van Buskirk’s briefing summary for General Creighton Abrams, then Commander, MACV, newspaper reports, award citations, military operational maps, military histories, photographs and other information furnished by OPERATION TAILWIND participants. Tab C.

The briefing script used by Lieutenant Van Buskirk to brief General Abrams following OPERATION TAILWIND provides a realistic sense of how the operation was conducted when the enemy base camp was encountered. Tab F. When attacked by enemy forces for the first time, the SOG forces concluded that the enemy was trying to protect a valuable location and initiated an attack.

Some of the enemy returned fire and others broke and ran. The two squads killed those remaining and drove many into a bn (battalion) size base camp. The assault continued and the enemy broke into three directions. The reserve squad engaged those that were fleeing in their direction. Due to the canopy thinning out, the base camp was marked with a white phosphorus grenade and TAC air was brought to bear on the enemy soldiers fleeing to the front and the right flank. The enemy who remained in the center of the base camp took up positions in huts which were assaulted and destroyed. The first platoon killed a confirmed 54 enemy in huts, bunkers and spider holes, and the 2nd platoon killed 17 enemy on the left flank. TAC air killed an estimated 25 fleeing enemy soldiers. After the base camp was secured, photographs were taken and many valuable intelligence documents were gathered and all livestock was killed.

The information and documents revealed no evidence that the operation targeted U.S. defectors or that Sarin gas was used at any time.

C. Summaries of Reports Received From the Service Secretaries, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

1. Report of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (Tab K)

The review conducted by the Joint Staff included participation from U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. In addition, all Joint Staff directorates, the Joint Staff Information Management Division, and the Chairman’s Legal and Public Affairs offices were consulted. An estimated 350 Joint Staff man-hours were expended conducting this review. The Joint Staff review of current and historical files found no evidence to support allegations that OPERATION TAILWIND was directed against U.S. defectors, or that Sarin gas was used during the operation.

In addition, the Joint History Office interviewed Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Ret.) and General John W. Vogt, USAF (Ret.), who were the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director, Joint Staff, respectively, during OPERATION TAILWIND. Admiral Moorer said that he "never confirmed anything" to the CNN reporters because he could not remember anything about OPERATION TAILWIND. He reported that he had no knowledge of the use of Sarin or the targeting of defectors, and he felt that April Oliver had asked him "trick" questions. General Vogt said that he had no memory of anything "remotely resembling" the use of Sarin gas or the killing of American defectors. He said that he found the CNN story "absolutely unbelievable" and categorically denied ever having received or issued such instructions. Thus, neither Admiral Moorer nor General Vogt believes that Sarin gas was used during OPERATION TAILWIND or that defectors were targeted or sighted during the operation.

2. Report of the Secretary of the Air Force (Tab H)

The Air Force report addressed the allegation that Air Force A-1 "Skyraider" aircraft dropped Sarin gas during the operation. Approximately 1500 man-hours were expended in conducting the Air Force review. The review included interviews with pilots and other individuals with firsthand knowledge of the operation. Among those interviewed were General Michael Dugan, USAF (Ret.), former Chief of Staff of the Air Force and former A-1 pilot; three A-1 pilots from the 56th Special Operations Wing (SOW) (located at Nakhon Phanom (NKP) Air Base, Thailand) who flew close air support and tear gas sorties on September 14, 1970, in support of OPERATION TAILWIND; three forward air controller (FAC) pilots who flew in support of the operation; and former members of the 56th SOW’s munitions maintenance squadron during September 1970. The A-1 pilots and FAC pilots independently confirmed the use of tear gas on OPERATION TAILWIND. One of the A-1 pilots, retired Major Arthur Bishop, made a diary entry that the munitions his plane dropped on September 14, 1970, were CBU-30, tear gas cluster bomb units (CBU).

In addition to interviews, a search for relevant materials was conducted by the Office of the Air Force Historian, Air Force History Support Office, Air Force Historical Research Agency, and Air Force Material Command. The Air Force report concludes that on September 13 and 14, 1970, two A-1s from the 56th SOW dropped CBU-30 CS tear gas munitions in an effort to assist in the extraction of a