Veterans for Common Sense

The Pentagon has urged Congress not to extend recent increases in “imminent danger pay” and “family separation allowances” to U.S. troops in war zones, citing the extra $225 monthly for the two pay categories. 

The action has stirred anger among military families, veterans groups, congressional Democrats and even prompted an editorial attack in the Army Times, a weekly newspaper for military personnel and their families that is seldom so outspoken. 

Imminent-danger pay, given to Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force members in combat zones, was raised to $225 from $150 a month in April. The family separation allowance, which goes to help military families pay rent, child care or other expenses while troops are away, was raised from $100 a month to $250.

The Pentagon’s personnel chief, David Chu, yesterday told reporters that the outrage was misguided and that overall compensation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan remains stable by giving them other forms of pay raises.

“I would just like to very quickly put to rest what I understand has been a burgeoning rumor that somehow we are going to reduce compensation for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mr. Chu said. “That is not true. We are not going to reduce that compensation.”

Mr. Chu spoke after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Pentagon wanted to cut the pay of nearly 149,000 troops in Iraq and another 9,000 in Afghanistan because it supported the expiration of the increases. Both benefits are set to expire Sept. 30 unless extended by Congress.

Yesterday, presidential contenders and congressional Democrats criticized the Pentagon for opposing the legislation.

“If it’s part of a cruel game of Washington budgeting, it’s an abuse of our soldiers,” Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said while campaigning in Iowa.

“If it’s not, and the Bush administration is really considering cutting the pay of the men and women they asked to serve, then it’s a betrayal of our troops,” he added.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, called the Pentagon’s position a disgrace.

“The Bush administration’s decision to cut the pay of our troops in Iraq is unconscionable,” he said. “It’s bad enough that President Bush left our troops underprepared to win the peace in Iraq. Now the commander in chief is about to add insult to injuries by commandeering the imminent-danger pay increase that Congress approved earlier this year.”

The Senate and House have proposed different versions of the extension. The House would limit the increases to those troops who are serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan combat zones, but not those who are supporting those war efforts from bases outside the combat zone. The Senate provision makes no such distinction in assignment locations.

In a July 9 “appeal” to the Senate and House spelling out its position on provisions of the 2004 defense authorization bill, the Pentagon urged that both the Senate and House provisions be dropped.

The Pentagon said it opposed the House version because it would exclude troops who are supporting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but are serving outside the combat zones. It said it opposed the Senate version because the Defense Department “has not budgeted for these increases.”

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Maryland Democrat, joined in criticizing the Pentagon’s position.

“Surely, we can afford to pay our men and women risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan the money they deserve,” he said.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Mr. Ruppersberger asked that the matter be reconsidered.

“This sends the wrong message to our soldiers and families,” Mr. Ruppersberger wrote. “It says to them the Pentagon does not care about their well-being. It suggests that their efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer dangerous.”

Military families have started hearing about the looming pay reductions, and many aren’t happy.

They say duty in Iraq is dangerous — 57 Americans have died in combat-related incidents since Mr. Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1. Another 69 have been killed by disease, the heat or in accidents [the correct total, as of August 13, 2003, is 267 US killed in Iraq].

It’s rare for the independent Army Times, which is distributed widely among Army personnel, to blast the Pentagon, the White House and the Congress. But in this instance, the paper has said in recent editorials that Congress was wrong to make the pay raises temporary, and the Pentagon is wrong to call for a rollback.

“The bottom line: If the Bush administration felt in April that conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan warranted increases in danger pay and family separation allowances, it cannot plausibly argue that the higher rates are not still warranted today,” the paper said in an editorial in its current edition.

Iraqi police accompanied by U.S. troops raided the offices of Al-Mustaqila newspaper, which means The Independent in Arabic. Neighbors said troops broke down the front door, ransacked the office and detained the newspaper’s manager, Abdul Sattar Shalan.

According to U.S. occupation authorities, the paper published an article 10 days ago titled, “Death to all spies and those who cooperate with the U.S.; killing them is religious duty.” The headline closely echoed recent threats made by clandestine armed groups against U.S. forces and their Iraqi collaborators.

“The Coalitional Provisional Authority supports and encourages the development of a free and responsible Iraqi press,” the occupation agency said in a statement today. But it said Al-Mustaqila “has chosen to threaten the basic human rights of Iraqi citizens” and published a “clearly inciteful article,” putting it in violation of occupation press rules.

The U.S. authority has banned all Iraqi media from publishing or airing material it views as inciting political, religious or ethnic violence or promoting attacks on U.S. forces here. It has already shut down one Baghdad radio station and one Shiite Muslim newspaper in Najaf on these grounds.

In a report today, the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders criticized the occupation press rules, saying U.S. authorities should ease their restrictions on the Iraqi media and develop more “liberal and democratic” regulations.

The Iraqi Governing Council, appointed earlier this month by U.S. officials, issued a statement today supporting the shutdown of Al-Mustaqila. It said the article in question was “inconsistent with all laws, religious principles and human rights,” and that the right to press dissent should not extend to “calling for the shedding of others’ blood.”

Today, the two-story yellow building that housed Al-Mustaqila was locked and empty, and no copies of the newspaper could be found at any newsstand in downtown Baghdad. But several neighbors described Monday’s armed raid in detail and said they were surprised because nothing about the newspaper or its staff had appeared out of the ordinary.

“Everything seemed normal. There was nothing suspicious. They reported on what was happening, including the attacks [on U.S. troops] in Fallujah,” said Abdul Mohsin, 40, who manages a printing plant across the street. He said the police and U.S. troops turned the newspaper’s office upside down and took some equipment.

Occupation authorities could not be reached for comment tonight. It was not immediately clear whether the article in question had been a news story or an editorial, and there was no information on the whereabouts of Al-Mustaqila’s manager or whether any charges would be filed against him.

Several Iraqi newspaper journalists said they knew little about Al-Mustaqila but that they did not feel the U.S. authorities were interfering unduly in their own reporting. More than 50 newspapers and magazines have opened in the capital since the government of president Saddam Hussein was deposed.

“Every day the Americans send a representative with their news, and we are free to publish it or not,” said Nadah Shauqat, an editor at Az-Zaman, the best-known Baghdad daily. “We are independent. We publish news and interviews about political groups, but we do not publish propaganda.”

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Both men committed suicide after showing recognised symptoms of the illness – blamed on controversial jabs our troops were given before the war.

One – Royal Engineer Eddie Hosdell, 21 – leapt to his death from the Humber Bridge in Hull and a 26-year-old soldier hanged himself at a base in Germany.

The German-based soldier was given five jabs in one day – in direct contradiction of Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon’s pre-war pledge that troops would not have multiple vaccinations at the same time.

The suicides are the first linked to Gulf War Syndrome after the latest conflict.

Campaigners say almost 200 soldiers who saw service in the 1991 Gulf War have killed themselves after developing the illness, which has always been officially denied by the Government.

Charlie Plumridge, spokesman for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA), said: “It’s a shocking and sad state of affairs that these young soldiers are taking their own lives. For 12 years we have been warning the MOD that this sort of thing has happened and would continue to happen.

“Tragically these two deaths show we were right. This could only be the tip of the iceberg.

“I call upon the Government to do more to look after brave young men and women who have been willing to lay down their lives for this country.”

Both soldiers are believed to have been given multiple vaccinations before war broke out to protect them from chemical or biological attack.

The Sunday Mirror has seen medical records showing the 26-year-old soldier – not named at the request of his family – received five inoculations, including the controversial anthrax jab, on the same day.

Experts attribute the illness to the cocktail of jabs and tablets given to troops, and the use of depleted uranium in allied weapons.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told MPs in January: “A key lesson learned about inoculations is that it is not sensible to inflict on our forces a large number simultaneously.”

Eddie, whose funeral took place in Hull this week, returned from the war at the end of April with 39 Engineer Regiment, based at Waterbeach Barracks in Cambridgeshire.

Within days he started to behave erratically.

The soldier, never in trouble before, was arrested by police on suspicion of firing a ball-bearing out of a car window near his home in Hornsea, North Humberside. He was released on bail and sent text messages to friends saying he was going to take his own life.

His body was found on the Humber river on May 18.

Last night Eddie’s parents, Jacqueline and Tuke, were too upset to comment.

An inquest in to Eddie’s death was opened and adjourned on May 23, with the full hearing in six months.

The parents of the soldier found dead in Germany have also demanded a full inquest. The member of the Queen’s Royal Hussars hanged himself at his Army base in Sennelager, Germany, days after falling ill.

He had been unfit to travel, with a rash, sleeping problems and mood swings.

This week his parents, from the Birmingham area, contacted the NGVFA’s helpline.

An Army source said: “He was planning to get married so his suicide is especially tragic.”

Gulf War Syndrome expert Professor Malcolm Hooper, a member of the MOD’s independent Vaccine Panel, said: “The soldiers are hung out to dry, where instead they should be offered help when they come back from a horrific war distressed and unwell.”

An MOD spokesman said yesterday: “We recognise people are ill but we do not recognise a single syndrome.

“We will not comment on individual cases.”

In the UK, the NGVFA 24-hour helpline number is 01482 833812

In the US, free readjustment assistance and medical care for Gulf War / Iraqi Fredom veterans is available by calling (800) 827-1000.

Blow to Blair over ‘mobile labs’

Saddam’s trucks were for balloons, not germs

[United Kingdom’s Prime Minister] Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he [and President Bush] has repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort.

The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether they really are germ labs.

The British review comes amid widespread doubts expressed by scientists on both sides of the Atlantic that the trucks could have been used to make biological weapons.

Instead The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987.

The British review follows access by UK officials to the vehicles which were discovered by US troops in April and May.

‘We are being very careful now not to jump to any conclusions about these vehicles,’ said one source familiar with the investigation. ‘On the basis of intelligence we do believe that mobile labs do exist. What is not certain is that these vehicles are actually them so we are being careful not to jump the gun.’

The claim, however, that the two vehicles are mobile germ labs has been repeated frequently by both Blair and President George Bush in recent days in support of claims that they prove the existence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

During his whistle stop tour of the Gulf, Europe and Russia, Blair repeatedly briefed journalists that the trailers were germ production labs which proved that Iraq had WMD.

But chemical weapons experts, engineers, chemists and military systems experts contacted by The Observer over the past week, say the layout and equipment found on the trailers is entirely inconsistent with the vehicles being mobile labs. Both US Secretary of State Colin Powell, when he addressed the UN Security Council prior to the war, and the British Government alleged that Saddam had such labs.

A separate investigation published by the New York Times yesterday discloses that the trailers have now been investigated by three different teams of Western experts, with the third and most senior group of analysts apparently divided sharply over their function.

‘I have no great confidence that it’s a fermenter,’ a senior analyst said of a tank supposed to be capable of multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government’s public report, he said, ‘was a rushed job and looks political’. The analyst had not seen the trailers, but reviewed evidence from them.

Another intelligence expert who has seen the trailers told the US paper: ‘Everyone has wanted to find the “smoking gun” so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion. I am very upset with the process.’

Questions over the claimed purpose of trailer for making biological weapons include:

· The lack of any trace of pathogens found in the fermentation tanks. According to experts, when weapons inspectors checked tanks in the mid-Nineties that had been scoured to disguise their real use, traces of pathogens were still detectable.

· The use of canvas sides on vehicles where technicians would be working with dangerous germ cultures.

· A shortage of pumps required to create vacuum conditions required for working with germ cultures and other processes usually associated with making biological weapons.

· The lack of an autoclave for steam sterilisation, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

· The lack of any easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

One of those expressing severe doubts about the alleged mobile germ labs is Professor Harry Smith, who chairs the Royal Society’s working party on biological weapons.

He told The Observer ‘I am concerned about the canvas sides. Ideally, you would want airtight facilities for making something like anthrax. Not only that, it is a very resistant organism and even if the Iraqis cleaned the equipment, I would still expect to find some trace of it.’

His view is shared by the working group of the Federation of American Scientists and by the CIA, which states: ‘Senior Iraqi officials of the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering facility in Mosul were shown pictures of the mobile production trailers, and they claimed that the trailers were used to chemically produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.’

Artillery balloons are essentially balloons that are sent up into the atmosphere and relay information on wind direction and speed allowing more accurate artillery fire. Crucially, these systems need to be mobile.

The Observer has discovered that not only did the Iraq military have such a system at one time, but that it was actually sold to them by the British. In 1987 Marconi, now known as AMS, sold the Iraqi army an Artillery Meteorological System or Amets for short.

* Note Pentagon Censorship Tag at End of Article *

Kuwait, Iraq, and New York – merican and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.

“Everyone has wanted to find the ‘smoking gun’ so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion,” said one intelligence expert who has seen the trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not be identified. He added, “I am very upset with the process.”

The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding a program for biological warfare. In a white paper last week, it publicly detailed its case, even while conceding discrepancies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof.

Now, intelligence analysts stationed in the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Britain, are disclosing serious doubts about the administration’s conclusions in what appears to be a bitter debate within the intelligence community. Skeptics said their initial judgments of a weapon application for the trailers had faltered as new evidence came to light.

Bill Harlow, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, said the dissenters “are entitled to their opinion, of course, but we stand behind the assertions in the white paper.”

In all, at least three teams of Western experts have now examined the trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the trailers were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended for the purpose of making germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts divided sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said.

In effect, early conclusions by agents on the ground that the trailers were indeed mobile units to produce germs for weapons have since been challenged.

“I have no great confidence that it’s a fermenter,” a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government’s public report, he added, “was a rushed job and looks political.” This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.

The skeptical experts said the mobile plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

Second, if this shortcoming were somehow circumvented, each unit would still produce only a relatively small amount of germ-laden liquid, which would have to undergo further processing at some other factory unit to make it concentrated and prepare it for use as a weapon.

Finally, they said, the trailers have no easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

Senior intelligence officials in Washington rebutted the skeptics, saying, for instance, that the Iraqis might have obtained the needed steam for sterilization from a separate supply truck.

The skeptics noted further that the mobile plants had a means of easily extracting gas. Iraqi scientists have said the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. While the white paper dismisses that as a cover story, some analysts see the Iraqi explanation as potentially credible.

A senior administration official conceded that “some analysts give the hydrogen claim more credence.” But he asserted that the majority still linked the Iraqi trailers to germ weapons.

The depth of dissent is hard to gauge. Even if it turns out to be a minority view, which seems likely, [this is an opinion of Judith Miller and William Broad that doesn’t belong in the article] the skepticism is significant given the image of consensus that Washington has projected and the political reliance the administration has come to place on the mobile units. At the recent summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Bush cited the trailers as evidence of illegal Iraqi arms.

Critics seem likely to cite the internal dispute as further reason for an independent evaluation of the Iraqi trailers. Since the war’s end, the White House has come under heavy political pressure because American soldiers have found no unconventional arms, a main rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who also used Iraqi illicit weapons as a chief justification of the war, has been repeatedly attacked on this question in Parliament and outside it.

Experts described the debate as intense despite the American intelligence agencies’ release last week of the nuanced, carefully qualified white paper concluding that the mobile units were most likely part of Iraq’s biowarfare program. It was posted May 28 on the Internet at www.cia.gov.

“We are in full agreement on it,” an official said of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency at a briefing on the white paper.

The six-page report, “Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants,” called discovery of the trailers “the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program.”

A senior administration official said the White House had not put pressure on the intelligence community in any way on the content of its white paper, or on the timing of its release.

In interviews, the intelligence analysts disputing its conclusions focused on the lack of steam sterilization gear for the central processing tank, which the white paper calls a fermenter for germ multiplication.

In theory, the dissenting analysts added, the Iraqis could have sterilized the tank with harsh chemicals rather than steam. But they said that would require a heavy wash afterward with sterile water to remove any chemical residue – a feat judged difficult for a mobile unit presumably situated somewhere in the Iraqi desert.

William C. Patrick III, a senior official in the germ warfare program that Washington renounced in 1969, said the lack of steam sterilization had caused him to question the germ-plant theory that he had once tentatively endorsed. “That’s a huge minus,” he said. “I don’t see how you can clean those tanks chemically.”

Three senior intelligence officials in Washington, responding to the criticisms during a group interview on Tuesday, said the Iraqis could have used a separate mobile unit to supply steam to the trailer. Some Iraqi decontamination units, they said, have such steam generators.

The officials also said some types of chemical sterilization were feasible without drastic follow-up actions.

Finally, they proposed that the Iraqis might have engineered anthrax or other killer germs for immunity to antibiotics, and then riddled germ food in the trailers with such potent drugs. That, they said, would be a clever way to grow lethal bacteria and selectively decontaminate the equipment at the same time – though the officials conceded that they had no evidence the Iraqis had used such advanced techniques.

On the second issue, the officials disputed the claim that the mobile units could make only small amounts of germ-laden liquids. If the trailers brewed up germs in high concentrations, they said, every month one truck could make enough raw material to fill five R-400 bombs.

Finally, the officials countered the claim that the trailers had no easy way for technicians to drain germ concoctions from the processing tank. The fluids could go down a pipe at its bottom, they said. While the pipe is small in diameter – too small to work effectively, some analysts hold – the officials said high pressure from an air compressor on the trailer could force the tank to drain in 10 or 20 minutes.

A senior official said “we’ve considered these objections” and dismissed them as having no bearing on the overall conclusions of the white paper. He added that Iraq, which declared several classes of mobile vehicles to the United Nations, never said anything about hydrogen factories.

Some doubters noted that the intelligence community was still scrambling to analyze the trailers, suggesting that the white paper may have been premature. They said laboratories in the Middle East and the United States were now analyzing more than 100 samples from the trailers to verify the intelligence findings. Allied forces, they noted, have so far failed to find any of the envisioned support vehicles that the trailers would need to produce biological weapons.

One skeptic questioned the practicality of some of the conjectural steps the Iraqis are envisioned as having taken to adapt the trailers to the job of making deadly germs.

“It’s not built and designed as a standard fermenter,” he said of the central tank. “Certainly, if you modify it enough you could use it. But that’s true of any tin can.”

[Pentagon Censorship Note, in italics:] “The reporting for this article was carried out by Judith Miller in Iraq and Kuwait and by William Broad in New York. Her agreement with the Pentagon, for an ’embedded’ assignment, allowed the military to review her copy to prevent breaches of troop protection and security. No changes were made in the review.”

“My Horror at POW Sex Abuse Pictures”

The young mum who uncovered the Iraqi POW sex snaps scandal said last night: “I felt sick to the stomach at those pictures.”

Kelly Tilford, 22, called police after developing a film in her photo shop.

The shocking pictures — revealed by The Sun yesterday — showed male Iraqis apparently forced into sexual positions by their British captors. In another a prisoner was suspended by rope from a fork-lift truck driven by a laughing Brit. Just when I realized I was about to get my first forced creampie stories, my clit began to twitch with a second orgasm. When his cock felt my body contract with cum, he shot his load deep into my asshole. As it started to leak out, he got up and walked out of the toilet without a backward glance. I will remember him forever as my ultimate sex master. When it comes to sex, so much emphasis is placed on what people do. And for obvious reason. But what about what people say? Particularly for long-distance lovers, words become an important device for expressing themselves and connecting sexually. While men must focus on maintaining good penile health so that any visual materials they send aren’t alarming, and so that they will be able to perform once the lover is nearby, they should equally attend to their verbal abilities so they can please partners in the present with a tailored sex story. Now, anyone can tell a sex story, but not everyone can tell a truly thrilling one. Below, men can find tips for telling a tale that stokes a lover’s passion. And, while this is certainly desired in the case of long-distance lovers, it can also be of benefit to those near and dear, spicing things up in the bedroom.

Fusilier Gary Bartlam, 18, of Tamworth, Staffs, is being grilled by the Army’s top criminal investigator — amid fears the scandal is the tip of an iceberg.

Disgusted Kelly said she knew she had to call police after seeing the horrific scenes in Gulf War II snaps she had just developed.

Kelly said: “I immediately realised something terribly wrong had happened and something had to be done about it.

“I started shaking and was panicking in case the guy came back before I could raise the alarm.”

She spoke out last night as Bartlam, of the 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was in custody.

Four snaps on Bartlam’s roll of 25 exposures shocked the mum-of-two.

One [picture] was apparently taken in a warehouse. It showed a man stripped at least to the waist and suspended high in the air by a rope attached to one of the forks on a fork-lift truck.

More rope bound him throughout the length of his body.

He was hanging horizontally and his frightened face was in close-up. A soldier driving the fork-lift truck could be seen in the background, staring at his victim and apparently laughing.

Another picture showed a pair of white legs and the head of a male Iraqi.

The hand of a man behind the Iraqi’s head appeared to be forcing him to perform oral sex.

The Iraqi was squatting and again appeared to be at least naked to the waist. The soldier’s face was not visible.

A third picture showed a pair of bare backsides. One Iraqi man was on his knees on the floor with his body bent.

Another was pressed behind him, tightly moulding his body like a spoon in what seemed to be a sexual position.

The fourth snap showed two naked Iraqis cowering on the ground as if thrown there.

Kelly, who has children aged two and eight months, said Fusilier Bartlam called at the Max Spielmann photo shop where she works in Tamworth, Staffs, on Wednesday.

The young soldier, who was home on leave after the war, left a roll of film to be developed into 7in x 5in prints within an hour.

She went on: “I went to the mini-lab. As you put the film through, you are meant to check the pictures on a screen to ensure they are printed properly.

“You have never got time to watch all of them, because you are inevitably doing something else. We had been very busy.

“I had already processed the films of one or two soldiers back from Iraq and had told them, ‘Congratulations, well done,’ when they came to collect their photos.

[Note: to see a sketch of the “Fork-lift horror … artist’s impression of Iraqi PoW’s ordeal,” please go to link at top of article.]

“But when I started cutting the negatives on this batch, I looked at one and noticed immediately that it seemed a bit strange. I took a closer look.

“At first appearance, it had seemed like soldiers having a laugh.

“Then I realised it was a half-naked Iraqi being hauled high into the air by a forklift truck while bound hand and foot.

“I saw the look on his face. He was petrified.

“I will never forget that terrible stare. I immediately thought, ‘That’s not right’.

“Then I saw some sexual pictures. One looked like an Iraqi POW being forced to give a soldier oral sex. I think the Iraqi was naked — you could just see the top half of him and the bottom half of the soldier.

“There was also a close-up of the naked backsides of two Iraqis, as if they were simulating anal sex.

“Another shot showed two Iraqis lying naked on the ground as if they had just been thrown there. There didn’t seem anything wrong with the other photos. They were just pictures of Iraqi soldiers surrendering — the sort of thing you saw on the TV during the war.”

Kelly, who has only worked at the shop for eight weeks, said: “It should have cost the guy £5.99 but he never paid for those pictures in the end.

“I was worried and waited for my colleague to come back from lunch. She just took one look and said, ‘Oh my gosh — we have got to call the police’.

“We phoned our area manager to tell him what we were doing.

“The lad was due back any minute to collect his photos, so we agreed to tell him they were not ready because there was a problem with the machine.

“He came back before the police arrived. We told him the machine was not working and it would be another half an hour.

Shock … Kelly spotted photos

“As I said that he blushed — as if he knew something was wrong. He stayed in the shop 15 to 20 minutes and I could not bring myself to look at him.

“I eventually said, ‘Look, we have got to get a technician out. If you want to call back’. I told him to leave his telephone number so we could call when the film was ready.

“He agreed and just as he was leaving, a police sergeant arrived. Fortunately it was a detective in plain clothes, so the soldier was none the wiser.

“There was nothing we could do at that stage because he had not seen the pictures.

“After the detective saw them, he contacted his office and we rang the soldier to say the film was ready for collection.

“When he came into the shop, the sergeant was waiting for him and called out his name. The lad said ‘Yeah’ and confessed to the copper that the pictures were his.

“The officer showed him his badge and took him through to the back of the shop. He went straight away. He didn’t struggle or anything.

“About half an hour later an unmarked blue car pulled up outside and they took him away. The police then came back later to take a statement from me about what I saw.

“The lad was in some of the pictures, but not all of them.

“I don’t know which photos he had taken and which had been taken of him, because some were such close-ups you could not see the faces of those involved.

Kelly added: “I don’t feel guilty about calling in the police. I know people who have been fighting in Iraq.

“I am as proud as anybody of what our forces did out there — but there are rules.

“I would not want any of my friends to be treated like those Iraqis on the photographs. We are a great nation.

“But we would lose our self-respect and much more besides if we allowed ourselves and our troops to stoop this low.”

The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers served in Iraq with the 7th Armoured Brigade, the legendary Desert Rats of World War II fame. The regiment is based in Celle, Germany.

Major General Ken Perkins, The Sun’s military adviser, said last night: “This involves a breakdown in discipline going far beyond one or two soldiers.

“Individuals might occasionally get away with it unknown to their officers or NCOs.

“But there is something very wrong if a number can do it without their superiors knowing or discovering it.

“The Army has no place for NCOs and officers who condone such behaviour, or are too weak to prevent it.”

The controversy is the latest to hit British troops over their alleged behaviour in the Gulf.

Lt Col Tim Collins, former CO of the 1st Royal Irish Regiment, is being investigated over accusations he mistreated Iraqi civilians and PoWs.

The Bartlam and Collins inquiries are not connected.

DO YOU know Fusilier Gary Bartlam? Call The Sun on 020 7782 4105. We’ll call you straight back.

EXCLUSIVE

‘More to come’

By John Kay

The Army probe into the photos scandal has been stepped up amid fears that a “hornets’ nest” of horror could be unearthed.

Lt Col Jeremy Green, commanding officer of the Special Investigations Branch, last night took personal charge of the inquiry.

And a source close to the investigation said: “There is a genuine fear that this is not just a scandal involving one 18-year-old Fusilier.

“Our biggest worry is that the reputation of 1 Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, will be besmirched.”

Fuslier Gary Bartlam, 18, is being held in custody at an Army base where he is being grilled by senior Special Investigation Branch officers. He is unlikely to be released until the probe is completed.

One source said that some of the photos appeared to show simulated sex acts but “even if that is so, it would not excuse the behaviour.”

A Royal Military Police source said: “We are braced for more scandals to come out — it could become a real hornets’ nest with more horrific revelations.

“But we have a duty to investigate thoroughly and no stone will be left unturned.

“Whatever the circumstances, there is no excuse for British soldiers to maltreat POWs. Our first job is to establish how many of the regiment may be involved.

“That includes finding out if NCOs and platoon commander [non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers] knew of these activities.”

Lt Col Green immediately widened the probe to cover the entire regiment.

A lieutenant who was Bartlam’s platoon commander, plus a sergeant and three corporals, will be quizzed and statements taken from others in Bartlam’s platoon.

A senior Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: “If there is any truth in these allegations the MoD is appalled and would stress we take our responsibilities to POWs extremely seriously.”

“Bush Certainty On Iraq Arms Went Beyond Analysts’ Views”

Washington – During the weeks last fall before critical votes in Congress and the United Nations on going to war in Iraq, senior administration officials, including President Bush, expressed certainty in public that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, even though U.S. intelligence agencies were reporting they had no direct evidence that such weapons existed.

In an example of the tenor of the administration’s statements at the time, the president said in the Rose Garden on Sept. 26 that “the Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons.”

But a Defense Intelligence Agency report on chemical weapons, widely distributed to administration policymakers around the time of the president’s speech, stated there was “no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has or will establish its chemical agent production facilities.”

The disparities between the conviction with which administration officials portrayed the threat posed by Iraq in their public statements and documents, and the more qualified reporting on the issue by intelligence agencies in classified reports, are at the heart of a burgeoning controversy in Congress and within the intelligence community over the U.S. rationale for going to war. The failure of the United States to uncover any proscribed weapons eight weeks after the end of the war is fueling sentiment among some Democrats on Capitol Hill and some intelligence analysts that the administration may have exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq.

The White House yesterday defended the administration’s prewar claims. “We continue to have confidence in our statements about Iraq’s possession of chemical and biological weapons,” spokesman Ari Fleischer said. He added that “the precise location of where Iraq had chemical and biological weapons was never clear, but the fact they had it was never in doubt, based on a reading of the intelligence.”

[Fleisher’s comment makes no sense. If a US intelligence service knows Iraq has WMD, didn’t anyone bother to ask their sorces where the weapons were? On what basis did the US decide to bomb dozens of suspected Iraqi weapons sites?]

The controversy over the administration’s handling of the Iraq intelligence continued, however, as two senior defense intelligence officials discussed the issue behind closed doors with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The officials, Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, were asked by reporters afterward about the classified Defense Intelligence Agency report on Iraq’s chemical weapons.

“What we’re saying is that as of 2002 in September, we could not reliably pin down, for somebody who was doing contingency planning, specific facilities, locations or production that was underway at a specific location at that point in time,” Jacoby said.

The existence of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document was reported in this week’s U.S. News and World Report. The administration declassified a summary page of the document last night.

The report said that “although we lack any direct information, Iraq probably possesses chemical agent in chemical munitions” and “probably possesses bulk chemical stockpiles, primarily containing precursors, but that also could consist of some mustard agent and VX,” a deadly nerve agent.

As the administration built its case for war last fall, some policymakers used caveats in describing Iraq’s weapons holdings that mirrored the caution built into the DIA and other intelligence reports. In early September, for example, Bush used words such as “likely” or “suggests” in making the case that Iraq had a covert weapons program. But many of the president’s speeches, as well as statements by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, went without caveats.

Among those concerned by the discrepancy is Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who routinely asked at committee meetings on Iraq whether officials were certain they would find weapons of mass destruction if the United States toppled the Iraqi government. Warner’s committee and the Senate and House intelligence committees are deciding whether to launch an independent investigation of the administration’s handling of Iraqi intelligence by their staffs. The CIA is already conducting an internal probe.

Cheney kicked off the administration’s campaign to win congressional and U.N. support for military action in a speech on Aug. 26 to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville. “Simply stated,” Cheney said, “there’s no doubt that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”

Before his Rose Garden statement in late September, Bush had used more measured language about Iraq’s chemical weapons program, in line with the Defense Intelligence Agency conclusion.

At the United Nations on Sept. 12, when he urged the world body to join the United States in confronting Iraq, Bush said that previous U.N. inspections revealed “that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents.”

But on Sept. 26, as the campaign to win congressional and U.N. Security Council approval for military action intensified, the president told congressional leaders Iraq “possesses” such weapons. On the same day, Rumsfeld told reporters that Iraq has “active development programs for those weapons, and has weaponized chemical and biological weapons.”

On Oct. 1, the CIA released a “white paper” on Iraq’s weapons programs derived from a broader, classified National Intelligence Estimate that had been sent to the White House and shared with members of Congress in briefings.

Among the “Key Judgments” in the first two pages of the National Intelligence Estimate that were meant to summarize the details that followed were statements in the white paper that “Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons,” and “Baghdad has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, cyclosarin and VX.”

However, the more detailed backup material later in the document did not support those assessments. The intelligence paper contained more qualified language, stating, for example, that “gaps in Iraqi accounting and current production capabilities strongly suggest Iraq has the ability to produce chemical warfare agents within its chemical industry.” It also said Iraq “has the ability to produce chemical warfare agents” — a softer formulation than the summary section of the document, which said that Iraq “has begun” producing the agents.

On Oct. 7, Bush echoed without qualification the white paper’s “key judgment” conclusion when he said that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.” He went on to say, “Saddam Hussein has chosen to build and keep these weapons despite international sanctions, U.N. demands, and isolation from the civilized world.”

Asked about the president’s comments on the Iraq intelligence yesterday, Fleischer said: “Intelligence comes in the form of a mosaic. The president’s description of the complete picture resulted from an interagency process in which every statement was vetted and approved by each agency.” [Fleisher must have meant “vetted by Bush apointees in each agency.”]

A senior administration official, who consulted with analysts familiar with the white paper, said the document’s judgments “were a bit more categorical” than later statements “but the overall burden of the evidence pointed to that conclusion.” He added that the president’s statements were “based on the preponderance of the evidence” as he and policymakers saw it.

Throughout the run-up to war, according to senior intelligence officials, intelligence agencies had no direct evidence such as photographs or stolen Iraqi documents to support a firm conclusion about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. They said the case was circumstantial, largely because U.N. weapons inspectors had left Iraq in 1998, shutting off the last bit of direct knowledge available to the United States. Inspectors returned last November and remained in Iraq until March.

Some officials have said privately that, while they could influence the content of intelligence documents, they had no control over what administration policymakers said in interpreting the material.

Washington, DC (AP) – The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war.

“What disturbs me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the very top about what the intelligence did say,” said Greg Thielmann, who retired last September. “The area of distortion was greatest in the nuclear field.”

Thielmann was director of the strategic, proliferation and military issues office in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His office was privy to classified intelligence gathered by the CIA and other agencies about Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear programs.

In Thielmann’s view, Iraq could have presented an immediate threat to U.S. security in two areas: Either it was about to make a nuclear weapon, or it was forming close operational ties with al-Qaida terrorists.

Evidence was lacking for both, despite claims by President Bush and others, Thielmann said in an interview this week. Suspicions were presented as fact, contrary arguments ignored, he said.

The administration’s prewar portrayal of Iraq’s weapons capabilities has not been validated despite weeks of searching by military experts. Alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have not turned up, nor has significant evidence of a nuclear weapons program or links to the al-Qaida network.

Bush has said administration assertions on Iraq will be verified in time. The CIA and other agencies have vigorously defended their prewar performances.

CIA Director George Tenet, responding to similar criticism last week, said in a statement: “The integrity of our process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.” On Friday, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency acknowledged he had no hard evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons last fall but believed Iraq had a program in place to produce them.

Also Friday, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was not prepared to place blame for any intelligence shortcomings until all information is in.

“There are always times when a single sentence or a single report evokes a lot of concern and some doubt,” Warner told reporters after a closed hearing of his committee. “But thus far, in my own personal assessment of this situation, the intelligence community has diligently and forthrightly and with integrity produced intelligence and submitted it to this administration and to the Congress of the United States.”

Thielmann suggested mistakes may have been made at points all along the chain from when intelligence is gathered, analyzed, presented to the president and then provided to the public.

The evidence of a renewed nuclear program in Iraq was far more limited than the administration contended, he said.

“When the administration did talk about specific evidence – it was basically declassified, sensitive information – it did it in a way that was also not entirely honest,” Thielmann said.

In his State of the Union address, Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

The Africa claim rested on a purported letter or letters between officials in Iraq and Niger held by European intelligence agencies. The communications are now accepted as forged, and Thielmann said he believed the information on Africa was discounted months before Bush mentioned it.

“I was very surprised to hear that be announced to the United States and the entire world,” he said.

Thielmann said he had presumed Iraq had supplies of chemical and probably biological weapons. He particularly expected U.S. forces to find caches of mustard agent or other chemical weapons left over from Saddam’s old stockpiles.

“We appear to have been wrong,” he said. “I’ve been genuinely surprised at that.”

One example where officials took too far a leap from the facts, according to Thielmann: On Feb. 11, CIA Director Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq “retains in violation of U.N. resolutions a small number of Scud missiles that it produced before the Gulf War.”

Intelligence analysts supposed Iraq may have had some missiles because they couldn’t account for all the Scuds it had before the first Gulf War, Thielmann said. They could have been destroyed, dismantled, miscounted or still somewhere in Saddam’s inventory.

Some critics have suggested that the White House and Pentagon policy-makers pressured the CIA and military intelligence to come up with conclusions favorable to an attack-Iraq policy. The CIA and military have denied such charges. Thielmann said that generally he felt no such pressure.

Although his office did not directly handle terrorism issues, Thielmann said he was similarly unconvinced of a strong link between al-Qaida and Saddam’s government.

Yet, the implication from Bush on down was that Saddam supported Osama bin Laden’s network. Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks frequently were mentioned in the same sentence, even though officials have no good evidence of any link between the two.

The military says an American soldier was killed and four others wounded when gunmen opened fire on them today near Tikrit. At least seven U.S. soldiers have been killed in attacks in Iraq over the past two weeks.

Central Command says the attackers used small arms and rocket-propelled grenade.

Tikrit is about 120 miles north of Baghdad and remains a tense area for American forces.

In a separate incident, unidentified assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades and small arms at a U.S. patrol near an air base west of Baghdad on Friday, military sources said.

Soldiers returned fire, but there were no reports of casualties on either side.

The attackers fired on an M1A1 Abrams tank and a military police Humvee. The tank wasn’t damaged, but the Humvee had numerous bullet holes in it, according to field reports.

The firefight in the town of Khaldiya, 45 miles west of Baghdad, is the latest in a series of hit-and-run attacks by gunmen on U.S. forces in central Iraq. Several dozen soldiers have been killed or injured.

On Thursday, gunmen shot dead an American soldier and wounded five in the nearby city of Fallujah (search), where there has been strong resistance to the U.S. occupation.

Meanwhile, U.S. military sources said that two soldiers guarding a bank in downtown Baghdad were wounded Thursday when two men with pistols opened fire at them. The sentries returned fire and killed one of the attackers, while the other managed to flee, said a statement released by the U.S. Central Command.

It said that in another incident in the capital, a soldier injured four civilians when he accidentally fired his machine gun as he was picking it up. The victims, who were struck in the legs, were evacuated. The statement said their injuries were not life-threatening.