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BAGHDAD — Iraq's Interior Ministry has fired or reassigned more than 10,000 employees, including high-ranking police, who were found to have tortured prisoners, accepted bribes or had ties to militias, a ministry spokesman has disclosed.
A soon-to-be-released internal inquiry also details 41 incidents of human rights abuse at the ministry. In one case, four members of the national police hanged prisoners from a ceiling and beat them with sticks in a ministry-run prison known as Site 4, according to the report by the ministry's inspector general.
The United States has pressured Iraq's Shiite-led government to clean up its security forces as they undertake a broad plan to reduce sectarian violence. Sunni politicians have accused Iraq's police of collaborating with Shiite death squads.
More than half of those fired or reassigned since June were found to have militia ties, Jassim Hanoon, the Interior Ministry's deputy spokesman, said in a weekend interview. The investigation is ongoing.
"We are struggling against this disease," Hanoon said of militia infiltration at the ministry.
Building a democracy from scratch takes time. This appears to be another significant step in the right direction.
About a year ago I posted an article titled, Impeachment Threats, From the Left or From the Right: The Most Dangerous Trend in U.S. Politics.
Evidently a lot of people on both sides of the aisle felt the same way, because here it is, a year later, and the tactic has evolved. Last May Pelosi stated that impeachment is off the table:
Seeking to choke off a Republican rallying cry, the House's top Democrat has told colleagues that the party will not seek to impeach President Bush even if it gains control of the House in November's elections, her office said last night.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) told her caucus members during their weekly closed meeting Wednesday "that impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it," spokesman Brendan Daly said.
The Democrats have been true to the letter, but not to the implied spirit, of Pelosi's promise: they have produced a new variation on this dangerous political trend. While Dems says that impeachment is off the table, they are still launching efforts to use the legal system to attack the presidency, and to attempt to paralyze efforts by that presidency to run the country:
A House Judiciary subcommittee approved today the first in what is expected to be an avalanche of subpoenas to Bush administration officials. They will likely explore corruption and mismanagement allegations on everything from pre-war Iraq intelligence to the mishandling of the response to Hurricane Katrina.
As I posted last March:
...Both parties must stop this harassment of sitting Presidents. We cannot afford to distract our Presidents from the business of keeping America safe.
Who knows if Clinton might have done a better job against Al Qaeda if he hadn't been preoccupied with similar legal attacks from the Republicans? Who knows what terrorist attacks against the U.S. may be successful if GWB is tied up in investigations which have no purpose other than to make political hay?
Pelosi was persuaded to promise that there would be no attempt to impeach GWB, but she is still launching the kinds of legal attacks which are used to prepare for impeachment. Democrat and Republican leaders alike must be persuaded that this tactic is too dangerous to the safety of the nation to be tolerated.
Progress towards a hydrogen car engine.
"An Israeli website uses child's words to teach Iranians about the Holocaust -- and it's working:"
The website was designed to convince the people of Iran that the Holocaust happened. By the museum's estimation, it is working.
In the two weeks after its Jan. 27 launch, more than 10,000 people logged on in Iran and hundreds of e-mails flooded in, thanking the museum for providing information that some Iranians found difficult, if not impossible, to access in their country.
This is the evil result of raising children to hate:
A recent poll of Palestinian children shows a direct correlation between the PA curriculum and Palestinian children's opinions. PMW's newest report on Palestinian Authority schoolbooks warns that because of the PA curriculum, which repeatedly and utterly rejects Israel's right to exist, "The well-meaning (Palestinian) student is left with no logical justification or religious option to accept Israel as a neighbor ..."
At a Washington news conference to release the new report, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton likewise concluded that these PA schoolbooks are "...deeply disturbing, particularly for the denial of Israel's existence..."
The results that PMW and Sen. Clinton have warned about can be seen in a new poll released by Near East Consulting, a Palestinian research institute, which asked Palestinians, "Does Israel have the right to exist?"
Among young people ages 18 -25, those who have been most influenced by PA education, an overwhelming number - between 84% - 93% -- denied Israel's right to exist. [http://www.neareastconsulting.com/] This was higher than the overall figure of 75% who denied Israel's right to exist. It should be noted that PA teachings denying Israel's right to exist are endemic throughout PA society and media, including among Fatah leaders, which would account for the high levels of denial of Israel's legitimacy throughout PA society.
Hillary Clinton is again to be commended for drawing attention to this key to what is driving Palestinians to seek death and war over building the health, success, and prosperity of their own people.
My opposition to McCain is becoming a loathing, given this latest comment of his. Our troops are on a mission - a good, noble, mission, to kill terrorists and bring freedom and Democracy to the Mid East. All of our enemies in Iraq are on the run. And for McCain to say that the lives our troops have bravely given in this cause are "wasted" is despicable. What's getting wasted is McCain's good name, and he himself is the one who's doing so much harm to it.
Contrary to what cartoonist Garry Trudeau is trying to convince everyone of this week in Doonesbury, Iraqi troops fought well and had a big win yesterday against al Qaeda:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Eighty militants were killed and 50 were captured in fighting between Iraqi security forces and militants in Anbar province, the violent area west of Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Thursday.
Iraqi police and soldiers, along with tribal leaders, battled al Qaeda in Iraq fighters in the Amriyat al-Falluja village, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
A police official in the area, Ahmed al-Falluji, told Reuters news agency that 70 militants died in the fighting, and said three police officers also were killed.
The fighting started Wednesday afternoon when dozens of militants attacked the village, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Falluja, where local tribes have taken an anti-al Qaeda stance.
Reuters said residents fled the village when the attack began and asked Iraqi security forces for help. Fighting lasted through Wednesday evening.
