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• Friday, September 24, 2010

  hollyrocz

  I am glad to see that I am not the only one who thinks the UN should find a new home. My skin crawls every time Ahmedenijad sets foot in this country! When I see his face, I am reminded of evil that probably has not been seen since Hitler. God help us all.

• Saturday, November 06, 2010

  Larry

  January 20 2008
  Mr. Larry Silverstein
  President, Silverstein Associates
  530 5th Ave.
  New York, NY 10036
  USA
  Phone: 212-490-0666
  Fax: 212-687-0067
  Shalom Larry,
  RE: Ownership, Control, and Insurance of The World Trade Centre
  I would like to know if the article below is correct:
  The World Trade Centre complex came under the control of a private owner for the first time only in mid-2001, having been built and managed by the Port Authority as a public resource. The complex was leased to a partnership of Silverstein Properties and Westfield America. 1   2   The new controllers acquired a handsome insurance policy for the complex including a clause that would prove extremely valuable: in the event of a terrorist attack, the partnership could collect the insured value of the property, and be released from their obligations under the 99-year lease. 3  
  Ownership Change
  Author Don Paul investigated this and related issues for his 2002 book, which contains the following passage detailing financial aspects and ownership changes of the complex preceding the attack.
  On April 26 of 2001 the Board of Commissioners for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey awarded Silverstein Properties and mall-owner Westfield America a 99-year-lease on the following assets: The Twin Towers, World Trade Centre Buildings 4 and 5, two 9-story office buildings, and 400,000 square feet of retail space.
  The partners’ winning bid was $3.2 billion for holdings estimated to be worth more than $8 billion. JP Morgan Chase, a prestigious investment-bank that’s the flagship firm of its kind for Rockefeller family interests, advised the Port Authority, another body long influenced by banker and builder David Rockefeller, his age then 85, in the negotiations.
  The lead partner and spokesperson for the winning bidders, Larry Silverstein, age 70, already controlled more than 8 million square feet of New York City real estate. WTC 7 and the nearby Equitable Building were prime among these prior holdings. Larry
  Silverstein also owned Runway 69, a nightclub in Queens that was alleged 9 years ago to be laundering money made through sales of Laotian heroin. 4  

  In December 2003, the Port Authority agreed to return all of the $125 million in equity that the consortium headed by Silverstein originally invested to buy the lease on the World Trade Centre. The Port Authority rejected a request by the Wall Street Journal to review the transaction. 5   A press report from November 2003 about the same transaction noted that it would allow Silverstein to retain development rights. 6  
  The lease deal didn’t close until July 24th, just 6 weeks before the attack. 7  
  Insurance Payouts
  Don Paul also documented the money flows surrounding the loss of Building 7. 
  In February of 2002 Silverstein Properties won $861 million from Industrial Risk Insurers to rebuild on the site of WTC 7. Silverstein Properties’ estimated investment in WTC 7 was $386 million. So: This building’s collapse resulted in a profit of about $500 million. 8  

  The insurance money flows involved in the destruction of the original six World Trade Center buildings were far greater. Silverstein Properties, the majority owner of WTC 7, also had the majority interest in the original World Trade Centre complex. Silverstein hired Willis Group Holdings Ltd. to obtain enough coverage for the complex. Willis undertook “frenetic” negotiations to acquire insurance from 25 carriers. The agreements were only temporary contracts when control of the WTC changed hands on July 24. 9  
  After the attack, Silverstein Properties commenced litigation against its insurers, claiming it was entitled to twice the insurance policies’ value because, according to a spokesman for Mr. Silverstein, “the two hijacked airliners that struck the 110-story twin towers Sept. 11 were separate ‘occurrences’ for insurance purposes, entitling him to collect twice on $3.6 billion of policies.” This was reported in the Bloomberg News less than one month after the attack. 10  
  The ensuing legal battle between the leaseholders and insurers of the World Trade Centre was not about how the 9/11/01 attack on the WTC could be considered two attacks, when the WTC was only destroyed once. Rather it seemed to revolve around whether the beneficiaries thought it was one or two “occurrences.” The proceedings before U.S. District Judge John S. Martin involved a number of battles over the insurers’ discovery rights regarding conversations about this issue between insurance beneficiaries and their lawyers. 11   12  
  In December 2004, a jury ruled in favour of the insurance holders’ double claim. 13  
  A Parable
  To put these events in perspective, imagine that a person leases an expensive house, and immediately takes out an insurance policy covering the entire value of the house and specifically covering bomb attacks. Six weeks later two bombs go off in the house, separated by an hour. The house burns down, and the lessor immediately sues the insurance company to pay him twice the value of the house, and ultimately wins. The lessor also gets the city to dispose of the wreckage, excavate the site, and help him build a new house on the site.
  ________________________________________
  References

  1.Westfield Nabs Trade Center mall, ICSC.org, 6/2/2001
  2. Governor Pataki, Acting Governor DiFrancesco Laud Historic Port Authority Agreement to Privatize World Trade Center, Port Authority on NY & NJ, 7/24/01
  3. Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort Out Cost of Damage, New York Times, 9/12/01, page C6
  4. Facing Our Fascist State, I/R Press, 2002, page 38
  5. MetLife Will Sell Sears Tower, Wall Street Journal Online, 3/12/04
  6. Most of WTC Down Payment to Be Returned, 11/22/03
  7. Insurers Debate: One Accident or Two?, Bloomberg News, 10/10/01
  8. Facing Our Fascist State, , page 47
  9. Double Indemnity, law.com, 9/3/02
  10. Judge John S. Martin Jr.‘s Latest Opinion in Swiss Re v. WTC., Newsday, 09/25/02
  11. Twin Tower Insurers Win Discovery Fight, 6/20/02
  12. World Trade Center’s Mortgage Holder Loses Discovery Fight, 7/8/02
  13. Jury Awards $2.2 Billion in 9/11 Insurance, United Press International, 12/6/04
  *******
  Well, Larry what do you think? It looks like the Goyim think you set it up from the start! They think us Jews would do such things to the Goyim! All the article proves is how clever you are, and how dumb the Goyim are. Is it true you sing Frank Sinatra’s song, “I Did It My Way” in the shower?
  Larry if you are buying any property in the future, give me a call. I will buy the property next door and make sure I take out an insurance policy covering the entire value of the property.
  To:
  Mr. Larry Silverstein
  President, Silverstein Associates
  530 5th Ave.
  New York, NY 10036
  USA
  Phone: 212-490-0666 Fax: 212-687-0067
  Jan 8, 2008
  Shalom Larry,
  There is talk going round that you owned the three (3) buildings that collapsed in the 9/11 disaster? Is this true? Would you please clarify the comments you made regarding WTC-7? In a PBS documentary aired in 2003, you stated:
  “I remember getting a call from the fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, ‘We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.’ And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.”

  Your comments created some concern and speculation - as you are probably aware. In the course of the 9/11 Commission hearings, a question regarding your statement was forwarded directly by 9/11 family group leaders to the 9/11 Commission. They asked the commissioners to inquire about WTC-7 and your statement in the course of former mayor Rudoplh Guliani’s public testimony. Many people hoped that Mr. Guliani’s account would shed light on what you said.
  Unfortunately, the Commission did not raise the question. Therefore, I am writing to sincerely request that you issue me with a statement to clarify your remarks.
  The words “pull it” refer, in typical jargon, to demolition of a building. Is that how you were using the phrase? The last sentence in your statement quoted above has such a “cause and effect” type of syntax that it seems to many as if you are saying the FDNY made the decision to “pull” the building and it was then done that day. Given the lack of closure on the reason for WTC-7’s collapse, a clarification on your part would be most helpful and appropriate.
  Ps. Were the Twin Towers due for demolition in 2005?
  If one believed in Fairies, they would say that you found your Pot of Gold at the bottom of WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7. But others are saying different!
  *************
  Lucky Larry
  WTC destroyed; a multi-billion insurance compensation
  consoles Larry Silverstein
  “The Harbour Authorities of New York and New Jersey were the owners of the WTC. The two towers, 412 meters high, were completed in 1972 and the costs then amounted to 37 million Dollars. ... Since then the towers have become a desirable address for corporate businesses. From the completion of the buildings the entire office space had always been rented and the rents produced a great return for the owners. ... 430 companies from all over the world rented app. 3.3 million square feet office space in the WTC. More than 40,000 people were employed in the towers.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Sep 11, 2001
  Three months prior to the destruction of both towers the owners of the WTC leased the buildings, for incomprehensible reasons, to the Jewish real estate tycoon Larry Silverstein. Since then “Silverstein Properties Inc.” took in the rent from the 430 tenants and other source income (i.e. tourist admission fees). Silverstein in return paid a leasing fee to the owners: “Only three months before the attack Silverstein signed a rental contract for the WTC. Silverstein agreed to pay over 99 years a total of 3,2 billion Dollars in leasing instalments to the Port Authorities: 616 million as an initial payment and then annually 115 million Dollars. The Port Authorities remained the owners of the WTC.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Oct 11, 2001.
  Then the catastrophe came upon New York. On September 11, only three months after signing the lease between Silverstein and the Port Authorities, two large passenger jets crashed into the towers. Larry was lucky, that he was not responsible for liabilities towards the Port Authorities, since the disaster was an act of God. Quite the contrary happened. Larry Silverstein, despite not being the owner of the buildings, was the sole beneficiary of the insurance indemnity payments of more than 7 billion Dollars. Good for Larry that he had not forgotten to increase the insurance policies, just in time, when he signed the lease three months before the catastrophe happened:
  “Larry Silverstein, since July landlord of the towers, demands from the insurers 7,2 billion Dollars compensation, his speaker, Steve Solomon, said. ... The Port Authorities of New York and New Jersey, owners of the WTC, agree with Silverstein’s demand.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Oct 10, 2001.
  The Port Authorities believe that Silverstein should get the 7,2 billion Dollar compensation instead of them, despite the fact that, as the lawful owners, should be indemnified. Larry, born under a lucky star. The following insurance companies are liable to Silverstein’s compensation demand: “Chubb Corp., Swiss Reinsurance Co., Lloyd’s of London, German Alliance Corp., ACE Ltd and XL Capital Ltd.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Oct 10, 2001.
  Wonderful people like Larry Silverstein have many wonderful friends. With the help of New York’s Jewish mayor, Michael Bloomberg, Silverstein found new investors, who are prepared to provide the money to build a new WTC. Larry can therefore keep the 7 billion Dollars from the underwriters and put it into a saving account:
  “Within the next five years a new WTC could be erected on ‘Ground Zero’, Silverstein said after a meeting with the designated New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Nov 28, 2002
  Who would be surprised if Larry’s good-heartedness commanded him to donate a significant part of the insurance compensation to a needy Israel? The Harbour Authorities obliviously sail on the same good Samaritan wave, for they do not even want these vast pay-outs. Thus, God once more helped out his chosen people financially. The insurance companies, liable for the compensation to Larry, are to a great extent re-insured by “Munich Reinsurance Corp”. What a blessing for the Germans, they are happily committed once again to contributing financial good-turns to God’s own people. In order to arrange even more help, Saudi Arabia is now considered a major source of future contribution:
  “Saudi Arabia as America’s enemy, ‘the core of evil’ ... We Americans will annex your oil fields and your assets in America. ... The U.S. pushes Royal Saudi Arabia, just like Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Libya into an open membership club, called the ‘axis-powers of evil’.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Nov 23, 2002.
  After all, the entire world is happy for Larry Silverstein, whom fate poured its manna from heaven and good fortune upon him. First, the WTC-leasing contract fell on his lap and only a short time later two passenger jets crashed into the towers, which prompted 7,2 billion Dollars to rain down on Larry’s head:
  “70 year old Silverstein, by leasing the WTC only in July, made the ‘dream of his life come true’.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Nov 23, 2002.
  Who would not understand lucky Larry’s sentiments, when he described the WTC-deal as the fulfilled dream of his life, despite his deep sorrow for the victims? Whenever so many wonderful people of the Jewish faith come together and celebrate their deserved fortune, Daniel Liebeskind must never be missed out. This wonderful architect has been chosen to build Larry Silverstein’s new WTC:
  “The architect who designed the Jewish Museum Berlin shall build the new WTC: The blueprint ‘gardens of the world’, by star-architect Daniel Liebeskind, was chosen to be the plan to build again on Ground Zero, the NYT and NY1-Television reported Thursday.”—Die Welt, Berlin, Feb 28, 2003.
  However, there were others who had the same Larry-like unmistakable instinct. Three days before September 11, some followed their instincts and began betting on falling shares of those airlines, involved in the 911 hijacking:
    “Trading with Sales-Options for United Airlines and American Airlines multiplied in the last three days before the attack.”—Spiegel online, Hamburg, Sep 19, 2003
  Profile: Larry Silverstein
  Larry Silverstein was a participant or observer in the following events:
  July 24, 2001: World Trade Centre Ownership Changes Hands For the First Time
  Real estate development and investment firm Silverstein Properties and real estate investment trust Westfield America finalize a deal worth $3.2 billion to purchase a 99-year lease on the World Trade Centre. The agreement covers the Twin Towers, World Trade Centre Buildings 4 and 5 (two nine-story office buildings), and about 425,000 square feet of retail space. [New York Times, 4/27/2001; Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 7/24/2001; IREIzine, 7/26/2001] Westfield America will be responsible for the retail space, known as the Mall. Silverstein Properties’ lease will cover the roughly 10 million square feet of office space of the Twin Towers and Buildings 4 and 5. Silverstein Properties already owns Building 7 of the WTC, which it built in 1987. This is the only time the WTC has ever changed hands since it was opened in 1973. [International Council of Shopping Centres, 4/27/2001; Westfield Group, 7/24/2001; Daily Telegraph, 9/11/2001; New York Times, 11/29/2001; CNN, 8/31/2002] It was previously controlled by the New York Port Authority, a bi-state government agency. [Wall Street Journal, 5/12/2007] Larry Silverstein, the president of Silverstein Properties, only uses $14 million of his own money for the deal. His partners put up a further $111 million, and banks provide $563 million in loans. [Brill, 2003, pp. 156] The Port Authority had carried only $1.5 billion in insurance coverage on all its buildings, including the WTC, but Silverstein’s lenders insist on more, eventually demanding $3.55 billion in cover. [American Lawyer, 9/3/2002] After 9/11, Larry Silverstein will claim the attacks on the World Trade Centre constituted two separate events, thereby entitling him to a double payout totalling over $7 billion. [Daily Telegraph, 10/9/2001; Guardian, 8/18/2002] Eventually, after several years of legal wrangling, a total of $4.55 billion of insurance money will be paid out for the destruction of the WTC (see May 23, 2007). Most of this appears to go to Silverstein Properties. How much goes to Westfield America is unclear. [New York Post, 5/24/2007]
  Larry Silverstein, Silverstein Properties, Westfield America, New York Port Authority, World Trade Centre
  August 23, 2001: Former FBI Al-Qaeda Expert Begins Job as Head of Security at the WTC
  John O’Neill begins his new job as head of security at the WTC. O’Neill had been the special agent in charge of the FBI’s National Security Division in New York, and was the bureau’s top expert on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. [New York Magazine, 12/17/2001; New Yorker, 1/14/2002] He’d left his job with the FBI just the day before (see August 22, 2001). His friend Jerome Hauer, who is the former head of New York’s Office of Emergency Management, had found him the job at the World Trade Centre. Developer Larry Silverstein, who recently took over the lease of the WTC (see July 24, 2001), had been highly impressed with O’Neill but insisted he start in the post no later than the first week of September, when his firm Silverstein Properties is set to assume control of the buildings. O’Neill had agreed to this. [Weiss, 2003, pp. 336-338, 345-346 and 349-351] After hearing that O’Neill has got this job, Chris Isham, a senior producer at ABC News who is a close friend, says to him, “Well, that will be an easy job. They’re not going to bomb that place again.” O’Neill replies, “Well actually they’ve always wanted to finish that job. I think they’re going to try again.” [PBS Frontline, 5/31/2002] After a few days as the WTC security director, O’Neill will move into his new office on the 34th floor of the South Tower. [Weiss, 2003, pp. 353-354 and 366]
  John O’Neill, Jerry Hauer, Larry Silverstein, Chris Isham, World Trade Centre
  September 10, 2001: Anti-Terrorism Meeting at WTC on 9/11 is Cancelled.
  Silverstein Properties, Larry Silverstein’s company which took over the lease of the WTC weeks earlier (see July 24, 2001), has a meeting planned for the morning of 9/11 in it’s temporary offices on the 88th floor of the WTC North Tower, along with Port Authority officials. It is to discuss what to do in the event of a terrorist attack. However, this evening the meeting is cancelled because one participant cannot attend. [New York Times, 9/12/2001; Ha’aretz, 11/21/2001] Of Silverstein Properties’ 160 staff, 54 are in the North Tower when it is hit, and four of them die. [Globe and Mail, 9/7/2002]
  Larry Silverstein, Silverstein Properties, New York Port Authority
  (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Larry Silverstein Doesn’t Go to WTC Due to Doctor’s Appointment
  WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein is supposed to be working today in the temporary offices of his company, Silverstein Properties, on the 88th floor of the North Tower. However, at his Park Avenue apartment, Silverstein’s wife reportedly “laid down the law: The developer could not cancel an appointment with his dermatologist, even to meet with tenants at his most important property.” [New York Observer, 3/17/2003; New York Magazine, 4/18/2005] He is therefore not at the WTC when it is hit, and first hears of the attacks when an associate calls him from the lobby of one of the WTC buildings. [Real Deal, 1/2004] Two of Silverstein’s children—his son, Roger, and daughter, Lisa—work for his company and have been regularly attending meetings with WTC tenants at Windows on the World (the restaurant at the top of the North Tower). Yet this morning they are running late. According to the New York Observer, “If the attack had happened just a little later, Mr. Silverstein’s children would likely have been trapped at Windows.” [New York Observer, 3/17/2003] Fifty-four of Silverstein Properties’ 160 staff are in the North Tower when it is hit, and four of them die. [Globe and Mail, 9/7/2002] Silverstein signed the lease on the WTC less than two months previously, and later will attempt to get $7 billion in insurance for the destruction of the towers (see July 24, 2001).
  Larry Silverstein
  After 12:00 Noon September 11, 2001: Larry Silverstein Tells Fire Department Commander to ‘Pull’ WTC 7
  At some point during the afternoon of 9/11, WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein receives a phone call from the Fire Department commander, where they discuss the state of Building 7 of the WTC complex. Silverstein will discuss this call in a PBS documentary broadcast in 2002, saying that he told the commander, “You know, we’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building collapse.” [PBS, 9/10/2002] Some people suggest that by “pull it” Silverstein meant the deliberate demolition of the building. But a spokesman for Silverstein states that he was expressing “his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those fire-fighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.” [US Department of State, 9/16/2005] Yet this claim is contradicted by some accounts, according to which fire-fighters decided early on not to attempt fighting the fires in WTC 7 (see After 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001)(see (11:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Building 7 eventually collapses at around 5:20 in the afternoon (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001).
  Larry Silverstein
  Building 7 of the WTC complex, a 47-story tower, collapses. No one is killed. [CNN, 9/12/2001; Washington Post, 9/12/2001; MSNBC, 9/22/2001; Associated Press, 8/19/2002] It collapses in 6.6 seconds, which is just 0.6 of a second longer than it would have taken a free-falling object dropped from its roof to hit the ground. [Deseret Morning News, 11/10/2005] Many questions will arise over the cause of this collapse in the coming weeks and months. Building 7, which was not hit by an airplane, is the first modern, steel-reinforced high-rise to collapse because of fire. [Chicago Tribune, 11/29/2001; Stanford Report, 12/5/2001; New York Times, 3/2/2002] Some later suggest that the diesel fuel stored in several tanks on the premises may have contributed to the building’s collapse. The building contained a 6,000-gallon tank between its first and second floors and another four tanks, holding as much as 36,000 gallons, below ground level. There were also three smaller tanks on higher floors. [Chicago Tribune, 11/29/2001; New York Times, 3/2/2002; New York Observer, 3/25/2002; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. 1-17] However, the cause of the collapse is uncertain. A 2002 government report concludes: “The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.” [Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. 1-17] Some reports indicate that the building may have been deliberately destroyed. Shortly after the collapse, CBS News anchor Dan Rather comments that the collapse is “reminiscent of… when a building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down.” [CBS News, 9/11/2001]
  Larry Silverstein, World Trade Centre, Dan Rather
  September 12, 2001: WTC Leaseholder Already Wants to Claim Double Insurance for Attacks and Rebuild
  Developer Larry Silverstein, who recently took over the lease of the World Trade Centre (see July 24, 2001), later tells journalist Steven Brill that he’d been so sickened by the destruction on 9/11, and by the deaths of four of his employees in the WTC, that he did not focus on insurance or financial matters until “perhaps two weeks later.” But according to two people who call him this morning to offer their sympathy, Silverstein soon changes the subject: “He had talked to his lawyers… and he had a clear legal strategy mapped out. They were going to prove, Silverstein told one of the callers, that the way his insurance policies were written the two planes crashing into the two towers had been two different ‘occurrences,’ not part of the same event. That would give him more than $7 billion to rebuild, instead of the $3.55 billion that his insurance policy said was the maximum for one ‘occurrence.’ And rebuild was just what he was going to do, he vowed.” By mid-morning, he calls his architect David Childs, and instructs him to start sketching out a plan for a new building. He tells Childs to plan to build the exact same area of office space as has been destroyed. In fact, Silverstein’s lawyers claim the developer had been on the phone to them on the evening of 9/11, wondering “whether his insurance policies could be read in a way that would construe the attacks as two separate, insurable incidents rather than one.” [Brill, 2003, pp. 18-19 and 39-40; Real Deal, 1/2004] Yet Jerome Hauer, the former director of New York’s Office of Emergency Management, had gone to Silverstein’s office on 9/11, and later claims that Silverstein’s primary concern that day had been his employees, and whether they had gotten out of the WTC. “Larry was absolutely devastated,” he says. [Weiss, 2003, pp. 374] Following a lengthy legal dispute, Silverstein will eventually receive $4.55 billion in insurance payouts for the destruction of the WTC (see May 23, 2007). [New York Post, 5/24/2007]
  Larry Silverstein, David Childs, Jerry Hauer
  May 2002: Silverstein Properties Awarded Insurance Payout for WTC 7
  Industrial Risk Insurers agrees to make a full payment under its $861 million policy for the loss of World Trade Centre Building 7, a 47-story office building which completely collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11. [Insurance Journal, 6/7/2002; Wall Street Journal, 7/10/2002; Newsday, 10/21/2003] WTC 7 was owned by Silverstein Properties, which also acquired the lease on the Twin Towers six weeks before 9/11. [International Council of Shopping Centres, 4/27/2001; Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 7/24/2001] Larry Silverstein, the president of Silverstein Properties, intends to use $489 million of the insurance payment to cover an existing mortgage on WTC 7, and $65 million of it for other debts and costs. The remaining $307 million will go toward the construction costs of the new WTC 7. [Bloomberg, 1/14/2003; New York Daily News, 1/14/2003] He is currently in a dispute with the carriers of his insurance on the Twin Towers, over whether the 9/11 attack constituted one or two separate events, and this will not be settled until mid-2007 (see May 23, 2007). [Wall Street Journal, 9/11/2002; New York Times, 5/23/2007]
  Larry Silverstein, Silverstein Properties, Industrial Risk Insurers, World Trade Center
  May 23, 2007: $2 Billion Settlement Ends Long Dispute Over WTC Insurance
  Insurance companies reach a $2 billion settlement with real estate development and investment firm Silverstein Properties for the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. The agreement, which involves seven of the two-dozen insurers for the WTC, ends more than five years of legal wrangling. The other insurance companies involved have already paid out about $2.55 billion, meaning the total payout will be $4.55 billion. In September 2006, Silverstein Properties and the New York Port Authority had agreed to split the reconstruction of the WTC site between them, and to divide up the remaining insurance proceeds accordingly. Consequently, the Port Authority is to receive about $870 million from the latest settlement, while the remaining $1.13 billion will go to Silverstein Properties. [New York State, 5/23/2007; New York Times, 5/23/2007; Newsday, 5/23/2007; Reuters, 5/23/2007] Silverstein Properties acquired the lease on several of the World Trade Centre buildings, including the Twin Towers, in July 2001 (see July 24, 2001). [Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 7/24/2001] As the New York Times summarizes, “At that time, two dozen insurers had signed binders pledging to provide $3.5 billion in insurance coverage, but had not finished the documentation.” Therefore, after 9/11, an “ugly dispute developed over which insurance policy was in effect at the time of the attack. Mr. [Larry] Silverstein [the president of Silverstein Properties] argued that since two jetliners slammed into the two towers, he was entitled to a double payment on the $3.5 billion policy. But many of the insurers countered that they had agreed to a different policy that did not permit double claims.” [New York Times, 5/23/2007] In 2004, federal juries had decided that Silverstein Properties could collect a maximum of $4.68 billion for the loss of the WTC. The current settlement therefore means the insurers are obliged to pay 97.2 percent of that maximum. [Bloomberg, 5/23/2007; New York State, 5/23/2007; Newsday, 5/23/2007; Reuters, 5/23/2007] Silverstein Properties had separately been awarded $861 million of insurance money in 2002 for the loss of World Trade Centre Building 7, which also collapsed on 9/11 (see May 2002).
  Larry Silverstein, Silverstein Properties, New York Port Authority, World Trade Centre
  Taking a Closer Look: Hard Science and the Collapse of the World Trade Centre
  While none of the many 9-11 researchers knows exactly what happened on that fateful day in September, any sensible person can easily spot dozens of inconsistencies in the official story that is being forced upon us. And these inconsistencies are huge. They range from the apparent stand-down of America’s immense military arsenal (for over an hour and a half) to the small hole and lack of debris at the Pentagon.
  There was Bush’s bizarre, uninterrupted photo op in a Florida elementary school, and then there is the matter of the remains of Flight 93 being scattered over eight miles of Pennsylvania farmland, a fact that suggests the plane may have been shot down. The official story seems wrong on all of these points.
  But the focus of this article is on just one point: the odd collapse of the three buildings in the World Trade Centre complex.
  How I First Began to Question: WTC7
  The World Trade Centre (WTC) contained seven buildings. The Twin Towers were called buildings One (WTC1) and Two (WTC2). They collapsed in truly astounding fashion, but the event that caused me first to question the official story about the events of 9-11 was viewing videos of the collapse of World Trade Centre Building 7 (WTC7).
  If you’ve forgotten, WTC7 was a 47-story building that was not hit by an airplane or by any significant debris from either WTC1 or WTC2. Buildings 3, 4, 5, and 6 were struck by massive amounts of debris from the collapsing Twin Towers, yet none collapsed, despite their thin-gauge steel supports.
  The 9-11 commemorative videos produced by PBS and CNN are best. Both clearly show WTC7’s implosion.
  Lower resolution Internet movies are also available.
  WTC7, which was situated on the next block over, was the farthest of the buildings from WTC1 and WTC2. WTC7 happened to contain the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM), a facility that was, according to testimony to the 9-11 Commission, one of the most sophisticated Emergency Command Centres on the planet. But shortly after 5:20 pm on Sept. 11, as the horrific day was coming to a close, WTC7 mysteriously imploded and fell to the ground in an astounding 6.5 seconds.
  6.5 seconds. This is a mere 0.5 seconds more than freefall in a vacuum. To restate this, a rock dropped from the 47th floor would have taken at least 6 seconds to hit the ground. WTC7, in its entirety, fell to the earth in 6.5 seconds. Now, recall, we’re supposed to believe that each floor of the building “pancaked” on the one below. Each of the 47 floors supposedly pancaked and collapsed, individually. Yet WTC7 reached the ground in 0.5 seconds longer than freefall. Is this really possible?
  Judge for yourself. Watch WTC7 go down. It takes 6.5 seconds. Take out your stopwatch.
  What About Towers One and Two?
  The odd, swift collapse of WTC7 made me reconsider the Twin Towers and how they fell. As I had with WTC7, I first studied video footage available on the web. Then I acquired and watched a DVD of the collapses, frame by frame. What struck me first was the way the second plane hit WTC2, the South Tower. I noticed that this plane, United Airlines Flight 175, which weighed over 160,000 pounds and was travelling at 350 mph, did not even visibly move the building when it slammed into it. How, I wondered, could a building that did not visibly move from a heavy high-speed projectile collapse at near freefall speed less than an hour later?
  Next, I turned my attention to steel beams that fell in freefall next to the building as it collapsed. The beams were falling at the same rate that the towers themselves were descending. Familiar with elementary physics, including principles of conservation of energy and momentum, this seemed quite impossible if the towers were indeed “pancaking,” which is the official theory.
  The height of the South Tower is 1362 feet. I calculated that from that height, freefall in a vacuum (read, absolutely no resistance on earth) is 9.2 seconds. According to testimony provided to the 9-11 Commission, the tower fell in 10 seconds. Other data shows it took closer to 14 seconds. So the towers fell within 0.8-4.8 seconds of freefall in a vacuum. Just like WTC7, this speed seemed impossible if each of the 110 floors had to fail individually.
  As I was considering this, another problem arose. There is a principle in physics called the Law of Conservation of Energy. There is also the Law of Conservation of Momentum. I’ll briefly explain how these principles work. Let’s assume there are two identical Honda Civics on the freeway. One is sitting in neutral at a standstill (0 mph). The other is coasting at 60 mph. The second Honda slams into the back of the first one. The first Honda will then instantaneously be going much faster than it was, and the second will instantaneously be going much slower than it was.
  This is how the principle works in the horizontal direction, and it works the same in the vertical direction, with the added constant force of gravity added to it. Jim Hoffman, a professional scientist published in several peer-reviewed scientific journals, took a long look at all of this. He calculated that even if the structure itself offered no resistance, that is to say, even if the 110 floors of each tower were hovering in mid-air, the “pancake” theory would still have taken a minimum of 15.5 seconds to reach the ground. So, even if the building essentially didn’t exist, if it provided no resistance at all to the collapse, just the floors hitting each other and causing each other to decelerate would’ve taken 15.5 seconds to reach the ground.
  But of course the buildings did exist. They had stood for over 30 years. The floors weren’t hovering in mid-air. So how did the building provide no resistance?
  Yet another observation one makes in watching the collapsing towers is the huge dust clouds and debris, including steel beams that were thrown hundreds of feet out horizontally from the towers as they fell. If we are to believe the pancake theory, this amount of scattering debris, fine pulverized concrete dust, and sheetrock powder would clearly indicate massive resistance to the vertical collapse. So there is an impossible conflict. You either have a miraculous, historical, instantaneous, catastrophic failure that occurs within a fraction of a second of freefall and that kicks out little dust, or you have a solid, hefty building that remains virtually unaffected after a massive, speeding projectile hits it. You either have a house of cards or a house of bricks. The building either resists its collapse or it doesn’t.
  And we know the WTC Towers were made of reinforced steel and concrete that would act much more like bricks than cards. Thus, put simply, the floors could not have been pancaking. The buildings fell too quickly. The floors must all have been falling simultaneously to reach the ground in such a short amount of time. But how?
  What About the Fires?
  The official story maintains that fires weakened the buildings. Jet fuel supposedly burned so hot it began to melt the steel columns supporting the towers. But steel-
  framed skyscrapers have never collapsed from fire, since they’re built from steel that doesn’t melt below 2750 degrees Fahrenheit. No fuel, not even jet fuel, which is really just refined kerosene, will burn hotter than 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.
  Steel-framed skyscrapers have never collapsed from fire.
  It’s also odd that WTC7, which wasn’t hit by an airplane or by any significant debris, collapsed in strikingly similar fashion to the Twin Towers. There wasn’t even any jet fuel or kerosene burning in WTC7.
  According to the 9-11 report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), “the specifics of the fires in WTC7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time.”
  Aside from its startling nonchalance, this statement makes a rather profound assumption. Again, no building prior to 9-11, in the 100-plus year history of steel frame buildings, had ever collapsed from fire.
  This fact was known to firemen. Hence their unflinching rush up into the skyscrapers to put out the fire. Partly it was bravery, to be sure, but partly it was concrete knowledge that skyscrapers do not collapse due to fire. Yet after 100 years, three collapsed in one day.
  Did the FEMA investigators not think to ask the New York City Fire Department how they thought the fire started, or how the fires could have caused the astounding, historical collapse?
  This would seem to be an elementary step in any investigation about a fire. Instead, they chose to leave the cause of the collapse “unknown.”
  Conclusion
  So if the science in this article is correct (none of it goes beyond the tenth grade level), then we know that the floors of the three WTC buildings were not pancaking but were falling simultaneously. We also know that fire is an insufficient explanation for the initiation of the collapse of the buildings.
  Why, then, did the three WTC buildings fall?
  There is a method that has been able to consistently get skyscrapers to fall as fast as the three buildings of the World Trade Centre fell on 9-11. In this method, each floor
  of a building is destroyed at just the moment the floor above is about to strike it. Thus, the floors fall simultaneously and in virtual freefall. This method, when precisely used, has indeed given near-freefall speed to demolitions of buildings all over the world in the past few decades. This method could have brought down WTC7 in 6.5 seconds. This method is called controlled demolition.
  A controlled demolition would have exploded debris horizontally at a rapid rate. A controlled demolition would also explain the fine, pulverized concrete powder, whereas pancaking floors would leave chunks of concrete. Controlled demolition would also explain the seismic evidence recorded nearby of two small earthquakes, each just before one of the Twin Towers collapsed. And finally, controlled demolition would explain why three steel skyscrapers, two of which were struck by planes and one of which wasn’t, all collapsed in essentially the same way. The massive energy required to pulverize concrete into microscopic dust suggests the use of explosives
  Ongoing Questions
  But having established that all three WTC towers had to have been assisted in their failures, I asked myself, Who could have planted the explosives to blow up the buildings in a controlled demolition? Could fundamentalist Muslim fanatics have gotten the plans for those buildings, engineered the demolition, and then gotten into them to plant the explosives?
  This seemed improbable. And after learning that WTC7 housed the FBI, CIA, and the OEM, it seemed impossible. Then I thought, Why would terrorists engineer a building to implode? Wouldn’t they want to cause even more damage to the surrounding buildings and possibly create more havoc and destruction from debris exploding away from the building? And if they’d planted explosives in the buildings, why would they have bothered hijacking and flying planes into them? Perhaps WTC7 was demolished to destroy evidence that would answer these questions. To this day, I don’t know. But this is how I began to question the official story about 9-11.
  Recently I learned that President Bush’s brother, Marvin Bush, is a part owner of the company that not only provided security for both United and American Airlines, but also for the World Trade Centre complex itself. I also discovered that Larry Silverstein, who had bought the leasing rights for the WTC complex from the NY/NJ Port Authority in May of 2001 for $200 million, had received a $3.55 billion insurance settlement right after 9-11 - yet he was suing for an additional $3.55 billion by claiming the two hits on the towers constituted two separate terrorist attacks! He stood to make $7 billion dollars on a four month investment. Talk about motive.
  In conclusion, I’ll repeat myself. None of the many 9-11 researchers can definitively say exactly what happened on that fateful day in September. But any sensible person can easily spot dozens of inconsistencies in the official story that is being forced upon us. And the fact is, most of the available 9-11 evidence points to at least some level of government complicity or foreknowledge.
  Please, read more for yourself. Don’t take my word for it. Most of all, do not buy the double-speak that visible politicians and the media use to discount any question about 9-11. Clearly, there are no “conspiracy theories” surrounding 9-11. The official story itself affirms that there was obviously some kind of conspiracy. It’s just a question of which conspiracy occurred. We know it wasn’t mere coincidence that several hijackers happened to be on several different airplanes and happened to hijack them at the exact same time and happened to pick the World Trade Centre as a target. The real question is, “Who was involved in the conspiracy?”
  Dave Heller, who has degrees in physics and architecture, is a builder and engaged citizen in Berkeley, California.

  Well, Larry, what have you to say about those facts? If the Goyim ever find out that you were behind the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans and the thousands that will die from Asbestosis from WTC 1, WTC 2 and WTC 7, then there will be indeed another Holocaust someday in the future.

• Sunday, November 07, 2010

  Larry

  IRAQ & ETHNIC CLEANSING

  The United Nation’s Human Rights Council in Geneva reviews the human rights record of the United States on the 5th of November 2010, on the occasion of the Ninth Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), 1 to 12 November 2010. The following is a presentation given by Dirk Adriaensens in Geneva on 3 November.

  Just days after the devastating attacks of 9/11 Deputy Defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz declared that a major focus of US foreign policy would be “ending states that sponsor terrorism”. Iraq was labelled a “terrorist state” and targeted for ending. President Bush went on to declare Iraq the major front of the global war on terror. US forces invaded illegally with the express aim to dismantling the Iraqi state. After WWII focus of social sciences was on state-building and development model. Little has been written on state-destruction and de-development. We can now, after 7 years of war and occupation, state for certain that state-ending was a deliberate policy objective.

  The consequences in human and cultural terms of the destruction of the Iraqi state have been enormous: notably the death of over 1,3 million civilians; the degradation in social infrastructure, including electricity, potable water and sewage systems; over eight million Iraqis are in need of humanitarian assistance; abject poverty: the UN Human rights report for the 1st quarter of 2007 found that 54% of Iraqis were living on less than $1 a day; the displacement of minimum 2.5 million refugees and 2.764.000 internally displaced people as to end 2009. One in six Iraqis is displaced. Ethnic & religious minorities are on the verge of extinction. UN-HABITAT, an agency of the United Nations, published a 218-page report entitled State of the World’s Cities, 2010-2011. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the percentage of the urban population living in slums in Iraq hovered just below 20 percent. Today, that percentage has risen to 53 percent: 11 million of the 19 million total urban dwellers.
  Destroying Iraqi education
  The UNESCO report “Education Under Attack 2010 – Iraq”, dated 10 February 2010, concludes that “Although overall security in Iraq had improved, the situation faced by schools, students, teachers and academics remained dangerous”. The director of the United Nations University International Leadership Institute published a report on 27 April 2005 detailing that since the start of the war of 2003 some 84% of Iraq’s higher education institutions have been burnt, looted or destroyed. Ongoing violence has destroyed school buildings and around a quarter of all Iraq’s primary schools need major rehabilitation. Since March 2003, more than 700 primary schools have been bombed, 200 have been burnt and over 3,000 looted. Populations of teachers in Baghdad have fallen by 80%. Between March 2003 and October 2008, 31,598 violent attacks against educational institutions were reported in Iraq, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE). Since 2007 bombings at Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad have killed or maimed more than 335 students and staff members, according to a 19 Oct 2009 NYT article, and a 12-foot-high blast wall has been built around the campus. MNF-I, the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police units occupied more than 70 school buildings for military purposes in the Diyala governorate alone, in clear violation of The Hague Conventions. The UNESCO report is very clear: “Attacks on education targets continued throughout 2007 and 2008 at a lower rate – but one that would cause serious concern in any other country.” Why didn’t it cause serious concern when it comes to Iraq? And the attacks are on the rise again, an increase of 50%, as these statistics show:
  Murdered Academics (source: BRussells Tribunal)
  Date unknown   115   killed in 2003-2005
  2003   16  
  2004   36  
  2005   65  
  2006   113  
  2007   63  
  2008   19  
  2009   10  
  2010   16   (Until 15 October 2010)
  Murdered Media-professionals (source: BRussells Tribunal)
  2003   26   6 Iraqis
  2004   59   53 Iraqis
  2005   59   58 Iraqis
  2006   90   88 Iraqis
  2007   82   81 Iraqis
  2008   19   19 Iraqis
  2009   8   8 Iraqis
  2010   12     12 Iraqis (Until 15 October 2010)
  (On the 20th of March 2008, Reporters Without Borders reported that hundreds of journalists were forced into exile since the start of US-led invasion.)
  Eliminating the Iraqi middle class
  Running parallel with the destruction of Iraq’s educational infrastructure, this repression led to the mass forced displacement of the bulk of Iraq’s educated middle class — the main engine of progress and development in modern states. Iraq’s intellectual and technical class has been subject to a systematic and ongoing campaign of intimidation, abduction, extortion, random killings and targeted assassinations. The decimation of professional ranks took place in the context of a generalized assault on Iraq’s professional middle class, including doctors, engineers, lawyers, judges as well as political and religious leaders. Roughly 40 percent of Iraq’s middle class is believed to have fled by the end of 2006. Few have returned. Up to 75 percent of Iraq’s doctors, pharmacists and nurses have left their jobs since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. More than half of those have emigrated. Twenty thousand of Iraq’s 34,000 registered physicians left Iraq after the U.S. invasion. As of April 2009, fewer than 2,000 returned, the same as the number who were killed during the course of the war.
  To this date, there has been no systematic investigation of this phenomenon by the occupation authorities. Not a single arrest has been reported in regard to this terrorization of the intellectuals. The inclination to treat this systematic assault on Iraqi professionals as somehow inconsequential is consistent with the occupation powers’ more general role in the decapitation of Iraqi society.
  Destroying the Iraqi culture and erasing collective memory
  All these terrible losses are compounded by unprecedented levels of cultural devastation, attacks on national archives and monuments that represent the historical identity of the Iraqi people. On America’s watch we now know that thousands of cultural artefacts disappeared during “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. These objects included no less that 15.000 invaluable Mesopotamian artefacts from the National Museum in Baghdad, and many others from the 12.000 archaeological sites that the occupation forces left unguarded. While the Museum was robbed of its historical collection, the National Library that preserved the continuity and pride of Iraqi history was deliberately destroyed. Occupation authorities took no effective measures to protect important cultural sites, despite warnings of international specialists. According to a recent update on the number of stolen artefacts by Francis Deblauwe, an expert archaeologist on Iraq, it appears that no less than 8.500 objects are still truly missing, in addition to 4.000 artefacts said to be recovered abroad but not yet returned to Iraq. The smuggling and trade of Iraqi antiquities has become one of the most profitable businesses in contemporary Iraq.
  The attitude of the US-led forces to this pillage has been, at best, indifference and worse. The failure of the US to carry out its responsibilities under international law to take positive and protective actions was compounded by egregious direct actions taken that severely damaged the Iraqi cultural heritage. Since the invasion in March 2003, the US-led forces have transformed at least seven historical sites into bases or camps for the military, including UR, one of the most ancient cities of the world and birthplace of Abraham, including the mythical Babylon where a US military camp has irreparably damaged the ancient city.
  Destroying the Iraqi state
  Rampant chaos and violence hamper efforts at reconstruction, leaving the foundations of the Iraqi state in ruins. The majority of Western journalists, academics and political figures have refused to recognise the loss of life on such a massive scale and the cultural destruction that accompanied it as the fully predictable consequences of American occupation policy. The very idea is considered unthinkable, despite the openness with which this objective was pursued.
  It is time to think the unthinkable. The American-led assault on Iraq forces us to consider the meaning and consequences of state-destruction as a policy objective. The architects of the Iraq policy never made explicit what deconstructing and reconstructing the Iraqi state would entail; their actions, however, make the meaning clear. From those actions in Iraq, a fairly precise definition of state-ending can be read. The campaign to destroy the state of Iraq involved first the removal and execution of the legal head of state Saddam Hussein and the capture and expulsion of Baath figures. However, state destruction went beyond regime change. It also entailed the purposeful dismantling of major state institutions and the launching of a prolonged process of political reshaping.
  Bremer’s 100 orders turned Iraq into a giant free-market paradise, but a hellish nightmare for Iraqis. They colonized the country for capital - pillage on the grandest scale. New economic laws instituted low taxes, 100% foreign investor ownership of Iraqi assets, the right to expropriate all profits, unrestricted imports, and long-term 30-40 year deals and leases, dispossessing Iraqis of their own resources.
  This desecration of the past and undermining of contemporary social gains is now giving way in occupied Iraq to the destruction of a meaningful future. Iraq is being handed over to the disintegrative forces of sectarianism and regionalism. Iraqis, stripped of their shared heritage and living today in the ruins of contemporary social institutions that sustained a coherent and unified society, are now bombarded by the forces of civil war, social and religious atavism and widespread criminality. Iraqi nationalism that had emerged through a prolonged process of state-building and social interaction is now routinely disparaged. The regime installed by occupation forces in Iraq reshaped the country along divisive sectarian lines, dissolving the hard-won unity of a long state-building project. Dominant narratives now falsely claim that sectarianism and ethnic chauvinism have always been the basis of Iraqi society, recycling yet again the persistent and destructive myth of age-old conflicts with no resolution and for which the conquerors bear no responsibility. Contemporary Iraq represents a fragmented pastiche of sectarian forces with the formal trappings of liberal democracy and neo-liberal economic structures. We call this the divide and rule technique, used to fracture and subdue culturally cohesive regions. This reshaping of the Iraqi state resulted in a policy of ethnic cleansing, partially revealed by the Wikileaks files.
  The Wikileaks documents
  The Wikileaks documents, first made public on 22 October 2010, show how the US military gave a secret order not to investigate torture by Iraqi authorities discovered by American troops.
  The data also reveal how hundreds of civilians were killed by coalition forces in unreported events, how hundreds of Iraqi civilians: pregnant women, elderly people and children, were shot at checkpoints.
  There are numerous claims of prison abuse by coalition forces even after the Abu Ghraib scandal. The files also paint a grim picture of widespread torture in Iraqi detention facilities. Two revelations await the reader of the Wikileaks section dealing with civilian deaths in the Iraq War: Iraqis are responsible for most of these deaths, and the number of total civilian casualties is substantially higher than has been previously reported.
  The documents record a descent into chaos and horror as the country plunged into so-called “civil war”. The logs also record thousands of bodies, many brutally tortured, dumped on the streets of Iraq.
  Through the Wikileaks files we can see the impact the war had on Iraqi men, women and children. The sheer scale of the deaths, detentions and violence is here officially acknowledged for the first time.
  A thorough research of these documents will give us a further insight into the atrocities committed in Iraq. The Wikileaks logs can serve as evidence in courts. They are important material for lawyers to file charges against the US for negligence and responsibility for the killing of thousands. A fair compensation for the families of the victims and the recognition of their suffering can help to heal the wounds. In the first official US State Department response to the massive WikiLeaks release of these classified Iraq War documents, spokesman P.J. Crowley shrugged off the evidence that US troops were ordered to cover up detainee abuse by the Iraqi government, insisting the abuse wasn’t America’s problem. This response is infuriating. The perpetrators of this violence and those who ordered the soldiers to turn a blind eye when being confronted with torture and extra-judicial killings should be convicted for war crimes. The US and UK forces and Governments clearly refused to fulfil their obligations under international law as a de facto occupying power.
  However, these logs reveal only the ‘SIGACT’s or Significant Actions in the war “as told by soldiers in the United States Army”: the reports of the “regular” US troops. The logs contain nothing new, they merely confirm and officialize what the Iraqis and un-embedded Western observers have been trying to convey to the public for years. While all of the press is now reporting the Wikileaks story, few media outlets are going back to their own coverage and acknowledging how they have failed to honestly report about the crimes.
  What these 400.000 documents do not reveal is the US involvement of “irregular troops” in Special Operations, counter-insurgency war and death squads activities. When will the documents of the “dirty war” be revealed? The BRussells Tribunal, monitoring this horrendous invasion and occupation since 2003, is convinced that the leaked logs only scratch the surface of the catastrophic war in Iraq. What we can extract from the Wikileaks documents is only the tip of the iceberg. It is time to take a dive into the troubled waters of the Iraq war and try to explore the hidden part of the iceberg.
  Ethnic cleansing
  It became clear after the invasion in 2003 that the Iraqi exile groups were to play an important role in the violent response to dissent in occupied Iraq. Already on January 1st 2004, it was reported that the US government planned to create paramilitary units comprised of militiamen from Iraqi Kurdish and exile groups including the Badr brigades, the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi National Accord to wage a campaign of terror and extra-judicial killing, similar to the Phoenix program in Vietnam: the terror and assassination campaign that killed tens of thousands of civilians.
  The $87 billion supplemental appropriation for the war in November 2003 included $3 billion for a classified program, funds that would be used for the paramilitaries for the next 3 years. Over that period, the news from Iraq gradually came to be dominated by reports of death squads and ethnic cleansing, described in the press as “sectarian violence” that was used as the new central narrative of the war and the principal justification for continued occupation. Some of the violence may have been spontaneous, but there is overwhelming evidence that most of it was the result of the plans described by several American experts in December 2003.
  Despite subsequent American efforts to distance US policy from the horrific results of this campaign, it was launched with the full support of conservative opinion-makers in the USA, even declaring that “The Kurds and the INC have excellent intelligence operations that we should allow them to exploit… especially to conduct counterinsurgency in the Sunny Triangle” as a Wall Street Journal editorial stated.
  The Salvador Option
  In January 2005, more than a year after the first reports about the Pentagon’s planning for assassinations and paramilitary operations emerged, the “Salvador Option” hit the pages of Newsweek and other major news-outlets. The outsourcing of state terrorism to local proxy forces was regarded as a key component of a policy that had succeeded in preventing the total defeat of the US-backed government in El Salvador. Pentagon-hired mercenaries, like Dyncorp, helped form the sectarian militias that were used to terrorize and kill Iraqis and to provoke Iraq into civil war.
  In 2004 two senior US Army officers published a favourable review of the American proxy war in Colombia: “Presidents Reagan and Bush supported a small, limited war while trying to keep US military involvement a secret from the American public and media. Present US policy toward Colombia appears to follow this same disguised, quiet, media-free approach.”
  It reveals the fundamental nature of “dirty war”, like in Latin America and the worst excesses of the Vietnam War. The purpose of dirty war is not to identify and then detain or kill actual resistance fighters. The target of dirty war is the civilian population. It is a strategy of state terrorism and collective punishment against an entire population with the objective to terrorizing it into submission. The same tactics used in Central America and Colombia were exported to Iraq. Even the architects of these dirty wars in El Salvador (Ambassador John Negroponte and James Steele) and in Colombia (Steven Casteel) were transferred to Iraq to do the same dirty work. They recruited, trained and deployed the notorious “Special Police Commandos”, in which later, in 2006, death squads like the Badr Brigades and other militias were incorporated. US forces set up a high-tech operations centre for the Special Police Commandos at an “undisclosed location” in Iraq. American technicians installed satellite telephones and computers with uplinks to the Internet and US forces Networks. The command centre had direct connections to the Iraqi Interior Ministry and to every US forward operating base in the country.
  As news of atrocities by these forces in Iraq hit the newsstands in 2005, Casteel would play a critical role in blaming extrajudicial killings on “insurgents” with stolen police uniforms, vehicles and weapons. He also claimed that torture centres were run by rogue elements of the Interior Ministry, even as accounts came to light of torture taking place inside the ministry headquarters where he and other Americans worked. US advisers to the Interior Ministry had their offices on the 8th floor, directly above a jail on the 7th floor where torture was taking place.
  The uncritical attitude of the Western media to American officials like Steven Casteel prevented a worldwide popular and diplomatic outcry over the massive escalation of the dirty war in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, consistent with the “disguised, quiet, media-free approach” mentioned before. As the Newsweek story broke in January 2005, General Downing, the former head of US Special Forces, appeared on NBC. He said: “This is under control of the US forces, of the current Interim Iraqi government. There’s no need to think that we’re going to have any kind of killing campaign that’s going to maim innocent civilians.” Within months, Iraq was swept by exactly that kind of a killing campaign. This campaign has led to arbitrary detention, torture, extra-judicial executions and the mass exodus and internal displacement of millions. Thousands of Iraqis disappeared during the worst days of this dirty war between 2005 and 2007. Some were seen picked up by uniformed militias and piled into lorries, others simply seemed to vanish. Iraq’s minister of human rights Wijdan Mikhail said that her ministry had received more than 9,000 complaints in 2005 and 2006 alone from Iraqis who said a relative had disappeared. Human rights groups put the total number much higher. The fate of many missing Iraqis remains unknown. Many are languishing in one of Iraq’s notoriously secretive prisons.
  Journalist Dr. Yasser Salihee was killed on June 24th 2005 by an American sniper, so-called “accidentally”. Three days after his death Knight Ridder published a report on his investigation into the Special Police Commandos and their links to torture, extra-judicial killings and disappearances in Baghdad. Salihee and his colleagues investigated at least 30 separate cases of abductions leading to torture and death. In every case witnesses gave consistent accounts of raids by large numbers of police commandos in uniform, in clearly marked police vehicles, with police weapons and bullet-proof vests. And in every case the detained were later found dead, with almost identical signs of torture and they were usually killed by a single gunshot to the head.
  The effect of simply not pointing out the connection between the US and the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade militia, the US-backed Wolf Brigade and other Special Police Commando units, or the extent of American recruitment, training, command, and control of these units, was far-reaching. It distorted perceptions of events in Iraq throughout the ensuing escalation of the war, creating the impression of senseless violence initiated by the Iraqis themselves and concealing the American hand in the planning and execution of the most savage forms of violence. By providing cover for the crimes committed by the US government, news editors played a significant role in avoiding the public outrage that might have discouraged the further escalation of this campaign.
  The precise extent of US complicity in different aspects and phases of death squad operations, torture and disappearances, deserves thorough investigation. It is not credible that American officials were simply innocent bystanders to thousands of these incidents. As frequently pointed out by Iraqi observers, Interior Ministry death squads moved unhindered through American as well as Iraqi checkpoints as they detained, tortured and killed thousands of people.
  As in other countries where US forces have engaged in what they refer to as “counter-insurgency”, American military and intelligence officials recruited, trained, equipped and directed local forces which engaged in a campaign of state-sponsored terror against the overwhelming proportion of the local population who continued to reject and oppose the invasion and occupation of their country.
  The degree of US initiative in the recruitment, training, equipping, deployment, command and control of the Special Police Commandos made it clear that American trainers and commanders established the parameters within which these forces operated. Many Iraqis and Iranians were certainly guilty of terrible crimes in the conduct of this campaign. But the prime responsibility for this policy, and for the crimes it involved, rests with the individuals in the civilian and military command structure of the US Department of Defense, the CIA and the White House who devised, approved and implemented the “Phoenix” or “Salvador” terror policy in Iraq.
  The report of the Human Rights Office of UNAMI, issued on September 8th 2005, written by John Pace was very explicit, linking the campaign of detentions, torture and extra-judicial executions directly to the Interior Ministry and indirectly to the US-led Multi-National Forces.
  The final UN Human Rights Report of 2006 described the consequences of these policies for the people of Baghdad, while downplaying their institutional roots in American policy. The “sectarian violence” that engulfed Iraq in 2006 was not an unintended consequence of the US invasion and occupation but an integral part of it. The United States did not just fail to restore stability and security to Iraq. It deliberately undermined them in a desperate effort to “divide and rule” the country and to fabricate new justifications for unlimited violence against Iraqis who continued to reject the illegal invasion and occupation of their country.
  The nature and extent of involvement of different individuals and groups within the US occupation structure has remained a dirty, dark secret, but there are many leads that could be followed by any serious inquiry.
  The Surge
  In January 2007, the US government announced a new strategy, the “surge” of US combat troops in Baghdad and Al-Anbar province. Most Iraqis reported that this escalation of violence made living conditions even worse than before, as its effects were added to the accumulated devastation of 4 years of war and occupation. The UN Human Rights report for the 1st quarter of 2007 gave a description of the dire conditions of the Iraqi people. The violence of the “surge” resulted i.e. in a further 22% reduction of the number of doctors, leaving only 15.500 out of an original 34.000 by September 2008. The number of refugees and internally displaced has risen sharply during the period 2007-2008.
  Since Interior Ministry forces under US command were responsible for a large part of the extra-judicial killings, the occupation authorities had the power to reduce or increase the scale of these atrocities more or less on command. So a reduction in the killings with the launch of the “security plan” should not have been difficult to achieve. In fact, a small reduction in violence seems to have served an important propaganda role for a period until the death squads got back to work, supported by the new American offensive.
  The escalation of American firepower in 2007, including a five-fold increase in air strikes and the use of Spectre gun-ships and artillery in addition to the “surge” was intended as a devastating climax to the past 4 years of war and collective punishment inflicted upon the Iraqi people. All resistance-held areas would be targeted with overwhelming fire-power, mainly from the air, until the US ground forces could build walls around what remained of each neighbourhood and isolate each district. It’s worth mentioning that General Petraeus compared the hostilities in Ramadi with the Battle of Stalingrad without qualms about adopting the role of the German invaders in this analogy. Ramadi was completely destroyed as was Fallujah in November 2004.
  The UN Human Rights reports of 2007 mentioned the indiscriminate and illegal attacks against civilians and civilian areas and asked for investigations. Air strikes continued on an almost daily basis until August 2008 even as the so-called “sectarian violence” and US casualties declined. In all the reported incidents where civilians, women and children were killed, Centcom press office declared that the people killed were “terrorists”, “Al Qaeda militants” or “involuntary human shields”. Of course, when military forces are illegally ordered to attack civilian areas, many people will try to defend themselves, especially if they know that the failure to do so may result in arbitrary detention, abuse, torture, or summary execution for themselves or their relatives.
  Forces involved in “Special Operations”:
  Another aspect of the “surge” or escalation appears to have been an increase in the use of the American Special Forces assassination teams. In april 2008 i.e. President Bush declared: ”As we speak, US Special Forces are launching multiple operations every night to capture or kill Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq”. The NYT reported on 13 May 2009: “When General Stanley McChrystal took over the Joint Special Operations Command in 2003, he inherited an insular, shadowy commando force with a reputation for spurning partnerships with other military and intelligence organizations. But over the next five years he worked hard, his colleagues say, to build close relationships with the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. (...) In Iraq, where he oversaw secret commando operations for five years, former intelligence officials say that he had an encyclopaedic, even obsessive, knowledge about the lives of terrorists, and that he pushed his ranks aggressively to kill as many of them as possible. (...) Most of what General McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite unit so clandestine that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence.” The secrecy surrounding these operations prevented more widespread reporting, but as with earlier US covert operations in Vietnam and Latin America, we will learn more about these operations over time.
  - An article in the Sunday Telegraph in February 2007 pointed towards clear evidence British Special Forces recruited and trained terrorists in the Green Zone to heighten ethnic tensions. An elite SAS wing, called “Task Force Black”, with bloody past in Northern Ireland operates with immunity and provides advanced explosives. Some attacks are being blamed on Iranians, Sunni insurgents or shadowy terrorist cells such as Al Qaeda.
  - the SWAT teams (Special Weapons and Tactics), extensively used in counter-insurgency operations. The mission of SWAT is to conduct high-risk operations that fall outside the abilities of regular patrol officers to prevent, deter and respond to terrorism and insurgent activities. It was reported that “The foreign internal defense partnership with Coalition Soldiers establishes a professional relationship between the Iraqi Security and Coalition forces where the training builds capable forces. Coalition soldiers working side-by-side with the SWAT teams, both in training and on missions.” On 7 October 2010 the Official website of US Forces in Iraq reported that “The Basrah SWAT team has trained with various Special Forces units, including the Navy SEALs and the British SAS. The 1st Bn., 68th Arm. Regt., currently under the operational control of United States Division-South and the 1st Infantry Division, has taken up the task of teaching the SWAT team.”
  - the Facilities Protection Services, where the “private contractors” or mercenaries, like Blackwater, are incorporated, are also used in counter-insurgency operations.
  - the Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF), probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces. The project started in Jordan just after the Americans conquered Baghdad in April 2003, to create a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, which would operate for years under US command and be unaccountable to Iraqi ministries and the normal political process. According to Congressional records, the ISOF has grown into nine battalions, which extend to four regional “commando bases” across Iraq. By December 2009 they were fully operational, each with its own “intelligence infusion cell,” which will operate independently of Iraq’s other intelligence networks. The ISOF is at least 4,564 operatives strong, making it approximately the size of the US Army’s own Special Forces in Iraq. Congressional records indicate that there are plans to double the ISOF over the next “several years.”
  Conclusion: the “dirty war” in Iraq continues. Even as President Barack Obama was announcing the end of combat in Iraq, U.S. forces were still in fight alongside their Iraqi colleagues. The tasks of the 50,000 remaining US troops, 5,800 of them airmen, are “advising” and training the Iraqi army, “providing security” and carrying out “counter-terrorism” missions.
  According to the UN Human Rights report, upon a request for clarification by UNAMI, the MNF confirmed that “the US government continued to regard the conflict in Iraq as an international armed conflict, with procedures currently in force consistent with the 4th Geneva Convention” and not that the civil rights of Iraqis should be governed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other human rights laws, because this would have strengthened the rights of Iraqis detained by US or Iraqi forces to speedy and fair trials. The admission that the US was still legally engaged in an “international armed conflict” against Iraq at the end of 2007 also raises serious questions regarding the legality of constitutional and political changes made in Iraq by the occupation forces and their installed government during the war and occupation.
  Legitimizing torture
  When the public revelations of abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison created a brief furor in the world, the ICRC, Human Rights First, AI, HRW and other Human Rights groups documented far more widespread and systematic crimes committed by US forces against people they extra-judicially detained in Iraq. In numerous human rights reports they established that command responsibility for these crimes extended to the highest levels of the US government and its armed forces.
  The forms of torture documented in these reports included death threats, mock executions, water-boarding, stress positions, including excruciating and sometimes deadly forms of hanging, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, starvation and thirst, withholding medical treatment, electric shocks, various forms of rape and sodomy, endless beatings, burning, cutting with knives, injurious use of flexicuffs, suffocation, sensory assault and/or deprivation and more psychological forms of torture such as sexual humiliation and the detention and torture of family members. The ICRC established that the violations of international humanitarian law that it recorded were systematic and widespread. Military officers told the ICRC that “between 70% and 90% of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake”.
  All these facts are well known, but only the lower ranks in the Army were mildly punished. The “Command’s Responsibility” report revealed that the failure to charge higher ranking officers was the direct result of the “key role” that some same officers played “in undermining chances for full accountability”. By delaying and undermining investigations of deaths in their custody, senior officers compounded their own criminal responsibility in a common pattern of torture, murder and obstruction of justice. Senior officers abused the enormous power they wield in the military command structure to place themselves beyond the reach of law, even as they gave orders to commit terrible crimes. It was in recognition of the terrible potential for exactly this type of criminal behaviour that the Geneva Conventions were drafted and signed in the first place, and that is why they are just as vital today.
  Nevertheless, the responsibility for these crimes is not limited to the US army. The public record also includes documents in which senior civilian officials of the US government approved violations of the Geneva Conventions, the 1994 Convention against Torture and the 1996 US War Crimes act. The United States government should thus be held accountable for this terrible tragedy it inflicted upon millions of Iraqi citizens and should be forced to pay appropriate compensations to the victims of its criminal policy in Iraq.
  RECOMMENDATIONS
  We learned that on Tuesday the 26th of October the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay urged Iraq and the United States to investigate allegations of torture and unlawful killings in the Iraq conflict revealed in the Wikileaks documents. We are very surprised by this statement. Does the High Commissioner think it is appropriate for criminals to investigate their own crimes? Wijdan Mikhail, the Iraqi Minister of Human Rights in Iraq has called for putting Julian Assange on trial instead of investigating the crimes. And since the Obama administration has shown no desire to expose any of the crimes committed by US officials in Iraq, an international investigation under the auspices of the High Commissioner of Human Rights is necessary. Different Special Rapporteurs should be involved: i.e. the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. A Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iraq should be urgently appointed.
  Although the U.N. did not authorize the invasion of Iraq, it did “legalize” the occupation a posteriori in UNSC resolution 1483 (22 May 2003), against the will of the overwhelming majority of the world community, that didn’t accept the legality or the legitimacy of that UN resolution. And it was during the occupation that the war crimes brought to light by WikiLeaks took place. As should the U.S., the U.N. has the moral and legal duty to respond.
  The world community has the right to know the complete and unbiased truth about the extent and responsibilities of American involvement in Iraq’s Killing Fields and demands justice for the Iraqi people.
  We appeal to all states to ask the US about all these crimes against the Iraqi people during the UPR on the 5th of November.
  We also demand that procedures be set up to compensate the Iraqi people and Iraq as a nation for all the losses, human and material destruction and damages caused by the illegal war and the occupation of the country lead by the US/UK forces.

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