The secret Iraq documents an 8-year-old found

[RamboLiberal]

From Peter Moore on Salon.com

I'm a political scientist, and I've spent many hours rooting through documents to study the bureaucracies that once, not so long ago, ran various British colonial outposts in the Middle East. Back in the days when occupation governments dealt in paper, there was always a chance that you'd find a surprise in these cobwebbed mountains of folders, ledgers and official reports. There were sometimes notes scribbled in pencil in the margins of books, and it was not unheard of to open a dusty old volume and have a personal letter fall out. Through such fortunate mistakes researchers could piece together the unofficial, off-the-record history of empire.

When I started studying the massive archive of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American occupation government that ruled Iraq from April 21, 2003, to June 28, 2004, I expected my experience to be different. I didn't think any letters would fall in my lap, because the archive is paperless. The first archive of occupation created during the IT era, the CPA's virtual history can be found online at www.cpa-iraq.org, on thousands of pages that each begin "Long live the new Iraq!"

But I forgot to factor in the ubiquity of human error, and of Microsoft Word. It turns out the IT era really is different, after all. It took my 8-year-old son just a few seconds to shake loose some hidden history from within the official transcript of the CPA.

My son made his discovery while impatiently waiting to play a computer game on my laptop. As part of a research project, I had downloaded 45 documents from a section of the CPA Web site known as Consolidated Weekly Reports. All but three of the documents were Microsoft Word. I had one of the Word documents up on my screen when my son starting toying with the computer mouse. Somehow, inadvertently, he managed to pull down the "View" menu at the top of the screen and select the "Mark up" option. If you are in a Word document where "Track changes" has been turned on, hitting "Mark up" will reveal all the deletions and insertions ever made in the document, complete with times, dates and (sometimes) the initials of the editors. When my son did it, all the deleted passages in a document with the innocuous name "Administrator's Weekly Economic Report" suddenly appeared in blue and purple. It was the electronic equivalent of seeing every draft of an author's paper manuscript and all the penciled changes made by the editors. I soon figured out that with a few keystrokes I could see the deleted passages in 20 of the 42 Word documents I'd downloaded. For an academic like myself it was a small treasure trove, and after I'd stopped hooting and hollering it took some time before I could convince my startled son that he hadn't done anything wrong.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/05/18/cpa_documents/

You can download the documents at: http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2007/05/18/cpa_documents/

The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq wrote a memo in 2004 dismissing the idea that terrorist groups were rearming and regrouping, calling it a 'boring theory,' according to a report in Salon.

"The 'Operational Pause' theory surmises that reduced attacks may be a statistical blip," notes Pete Moore of a memo he uncovered that considers why terrorist attacks in Iraq's Al Anbar province had declined in 2004, shortly before the CPA handed over control of the country to Iraq's interim government. "They may increase again as 'terrorists' regroup for future fights against the Americans and 'other Iraqis.' But then the author calls this 'a boring theory,' and notes, 'There are very few persons we have met who subscribe to this.'"

Moore, an academic, discovered the memo by accident within documents he downloaded from the archive website of the CPA.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/CPA_in_04_called_prospect_of_0518.html

[Xenotime]

1. So, it takes an 8 year old to get MS Word to work...

That explains it.

[magellan]

2. Holy jeebus, this is DAMNING

A deleted portion from the March 2004 report, including the reference to 'terrorists' regrouping. (Emphasis and italicized notes in brackets are mine.)

1. Over the past month attacks against Coalition Forces in Al Anbar province have gone from over 20 per day to next to none. There are a number of theories for why this is. It is entirely possible that it is merely a blip on the screen or a statistical aberration and we will return to larger numbers of attacks, but it has held for nearly five weeks now and both military commanders and Anbar’s citizens are starting to openly talk about it and offer their theories for why it is happening. Among the reasons given:

Rounding up the Bums: MG Swannack and all military commanders (as well as GC) believe that the many high yield raids of the past weeks have made a difference both in getting off the streets some of the leaders and financiers of the resistance and especially some of the technical experts that attackers rely on to carry out their attacks. (What, no mention of AQ or Iran?) This has had the spin off effect of causing others to go underground out of fear that they might be next. Most raids also leave in their wake a number of innocents who were either rounded up and detained or had their houses busted up. These can conceivably lead to bitterness over the occupation and spawn new attacks. But there appears to be sufficient care in how the attacks are carried out, adequate information in the community about the mild reality of detention, and sufficient civil affairs clean up afterwards that this has not been a major factor. (Truth: there were lines forming outside the US detention centers of Iraqis wanting to see their family members. Most were turned away, causing grief and anger. And we know what happened to many of the detainees, innocent or not.)

Crossed the Line: Violence in Iraq is a form of political discourse as well as being culturally acceptable for settling disputes and scores. Thus for a people which is nearly universal in its opposition to being occupied, attacking the occupier is a natural reaction and is widely accepted, even by those who are friendly to us. “It is nothing personal,” one businessman told me, “I like you and believe you could be bringing us a better future, but I still sympathize with those who attack the coalition because it is not right for Iraq to be occupied by foreign military forces.” Thus a low level of violence has been widely accepted in Al Anbar and those carrying out the attacks have even been the recipients of admiration and praise. But with the spate of attacks in mid to late November, culminating with the shootdown of the Chinook, there may have been a sense that the insurgents had crossed a line. This was reinforced strongly by General Abizaid when he came here on the heels of that incident and told some 70 Sheikhs and community leaders that he planned to unleash hell if they kept it up. It was further reinforced by the dropping of several JADMs which may have served to get the attention of the province.(!!!) It is possible that Anbar’s leaders realized they had crossed a line and reeled the attacks in.

Operational Pause: A boring theory is that the terrorists are in an operational pause, needing to regroup after the recent spate of roundups. There are very few persons we have met who subscribe to this. ("Boring"? Did whoever write this even READ it when completed? 1 + 1 = 2!)

Occupation Ending: A number of individuals have expressed satisfaction at the announcement of the new political calendar, although they don’t appear to fully understand it. What has caught their attention is the simple expression that in June a sovereign Iraqi government will be in place. What they have gotten wrong is the idea that the military will be leaving Iraq in June, which one individual said he was sure was a major factor in the diminishing attacks. Oh well, this is one time it might be best that folks don’t fully understand things. By June, when there is a transition of the force rather than a pullout, we will have a new set of challenges anyway, but if this bought us some months of peace it will be worth the confusion.

Project Money Flowing: Some individuals have expressed satisfaction that project money is flowing in greater quantities and believe this has made a difference in the public perception toward the occupation. While the amounts of money are still modest, especially in Fallujah, there are a number of visible projects ongoing that have employed some people and given the appearance that help is on the way. (And it's all about appearances, isn't it?)

Engagement: We’ll take some credit here. We have been engaging widely with all the various groups of losers in the new Iraq – intelligence officers, ex-Ba’athists, ex-Army. While many are tiring of the refrain that if you stay with us things will get better, for some they actually have improved and that may have given hope to entire groups. The Veteran’s Affairs office, for example, has created some very positive interaction with the ex-military, and it has helped some of the senior leaders to go on to employment. The simple fact that we are engaging with these people sends a positive signal, even though many others are still waiting for something that will help them. (So the thousands of Iraqi military grunts they turned off and left unemployed weren't a concern. How many of them later joined the resistance or extremist groups we'll never know.)

 2. We are still in the knock on wood mode here, as there is no telling what the future holds. (No telling? Whoever wrote this is touching on it all the time, but appears to be in denial. "Knock on wood" is not a plan.) The bizarre reaction to the Saddam capture and the increasing lawlessness in many cities in the west certainly gives us pause. There is also the sense among many Sunnis that we are clearly a temporary presence and other Iraqis are the real enemy so in the long term it might be better to begin to gear up and position themselves for the fight to come. This would not in the end make the reduction in attacks a good news story. In short there is plenty of fight left in the Sunnis here and plenty of weapons to carry on that fight. But the sharp and now continuing drop in attacks does give the coalition a much needed respite whose continuation will be critical to successfully carrying out the very challenging political calendar before us. Reinforcing this trend with resources and added attention will be crucial to ultimate success.  As of March 27, the CPA Administrator had appointed Inspectors General (IG) in 18 Ministries, and another five Ministries had selected nominees (out of 26 total). Almost all Ministries are expected to have IGs appointed by the end of March. (Unfortunately the appointees were made of the same stuff as Bush**'s appointees here, and every Iraqi knew it.)

[loudsue]

11. Let me get this straight: We could have pulled out in 2004???

And the coalition government was actually DOING THINGS RIGHT?

Anyone who doesn't think this is a war for a permanent mideast presence hasn't been paying attention to the PNAC document. Iraq was coming to PEACE with themselves, and we just kept paying Halliburton, KBR, & Blackwater MORE & MORE MONEY???

This document find is a TREASURE. If we actually HAD a media in THIS country, the people would be taking to the streets in riots over this, not "peace marches".

:kick::kick::kick:

[magellan]

13. Essentially, yes

I'm not sure about the CPA doing things "right" (I'm just too cynical now to even give them that much!). More like things weren't nearly so wrecked at that point as they are now and the promise of sovereignty made a graceful exit possible. Well, the Iraqis lived up to their side of the bargain time and again -- BushCo didn't.

But mostly, as I read this, I thought the same thing as you: this says they'd already decided to stay, no matter what. It's in black and white right here in this document. We could have kept our promise and gotten out gracefully, that's what the Iraqis were expecting, but we didn't. Leaving was never the plan.

And it still isn't!!

Any time you're ready to riot I'm there beside you.

[Richard Steele]

3. Serendipitous! Recommended.

[file83]

4. Every investigator using digital means should know this about Word.

Maybe there is an idea for a book here...Investigative Tricks for the Digital Age.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

5. Is This Breaking To DU? Have We Known About These Yet Or Is This Fresh Reading?

This seems friggin fascinating. K&R!

[loudsue]

14. It's news to me!

And it really is fascinating. And infuriating!!

:kick::kick::kick:

[myrna minx]

6. Kick. I'll have to review this later. n/t

[magellan]

7. And what's this from the April 16, 2004 report?

As in my other post, emphasis mine:

 The New Iraqi Dinar (NID) has now been stable the past month and a half. At the NID auction on March 25, the settlement price was 1,425 dinars per dollar, the same as the previous day. The value of dollars sold at the auction varied over the week from $7.7 - $27.3 million. The total net purchases of U.S. dollars by the Central Bank of Iraq from October 4, 2003, until March 25, 2004, was $1.49 billion. The exchange rate on the Baghdad streets was 1,420 dinars per dollar on March 25, the same as the previous day. During the past week, March 20- 25, the NID depreciated 0.5 percent against the U.S. dollar.

Is this usual?

[formercia]

8. Life in a parallel universe

the CPA.

[Octafish]

23. A ''boring'' universe...

...run by small heresiarchs.

http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/Borges_-_Tlon,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertius.html

[formercia]

24. Now I understand the rationale..

"On Tuesday, X crosses a deserted road and loses nine copper coins. On Thursday, Y finds in the road four coins, somewhat rusted by Wednesday's rain. On Friday, Z discovers three coins in the road. On Friday morning, X finds two coins in the corridor of his house. The heresiarch would deduce from this story the reality - i.e., the continuity - of the nine coins which were recovered. It is absurd (he affirmed) to imagine that four of the coins have not existed between Tuesday and Thursday, three between Tuesday and Friday afternoon, two between Tuesday and Friday morning. It is logical to think that they have existed - at least in some secret way, hidden from the comprehension of men - at every moment of those three periods."

[sabra]

9. wowzer!

k&r

[Richard Steele]

10. Kick. nm

[sabra]

12. kick for truth

:kick:

[libodem]

15. Wow n/t

[rossmonster]

16. Holy heck....

Ive started rummaging around this cpa site.... looking especially at the banking/financials section...

There is a whole spreadsheet with all the contracts allocated from Jan-04 to April-04 only
at this address:

http://www.iraqcoalition.org/business/Awarded_Contracts.pdf

Unfortunately its a pdf so probably not much hidded, but VERY interesting!!!!!

Im not sure why $129000 was given to a clean up campaign in basrah!

likewise $236000 under the ubiquitous name of "AK47" (I kid u not, nothing else just AK47) (page 33)

is it for buying them up to get them off the streets or buying them to give to cops or what???? I thought
they grew on trees in iraq!

How about "Vehicles for key iraqi's" $360000

Down to the completely idiotic "Tools for WharehoUSAe" ($239.00) (page 40)

Over 1200 contracts here, i need to get it out of pdf and into excel to do some stats....

FOLKS WE NEED TO SAVE THIS CPA SITE AWAY BEFORE IT IS ALTERED, THE TRACKED CHANGES REMOVED OR VANISHED......................

[rossmonster]

17. Contacts Show they were caught napping.....

Looking through the contracts at

http://www.iraqcoalition.org/business/Awarded_Contracts.pdf

you find suddenly four monster contracts for "Body Armour", all on the 9-apr-2004 (page 59)

The amounts are:

$3,945,000.00

$8,400,000.00

$4,260,000.00

$7,570,200.00

this is then followed on 11-Apr-2005 (page 60)for another body armour contract for

$15,560,000.00

Thats about 40 million worth of body armour in 5 days! Its not the first body armour contract but the only 2 previous ones are like $30000.00 and $313000

Looking up wikipedia i see that 4-apr-04 is the first day the mass uprising by sadr occurs across the south and 31-march-2004 is when
the contractors got butchered at the fallujah bridge.

One of the previous items (the $313000 one) states it is for 1600 sets of body armour. That would put armour at around $200 a set. Does anyone know how much body
armour costs? I thought it would be like $500 a set but know knows with military prices. At $200 a set, contracts equals 225000 sets !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Was the CPA buying vest for just iraq army, police, contractor guards???? or was it for the whole us military??? i dont know.

Anyway, the contracts for body armour show the obvious belated reaction in early april 2004 to the sudden realisation that the locals may fight back.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

22. Where did the 225,000 sets of body armor GO?

If the money was really spent on body armor, that is. Our soldiers have been having to buy their OWN, from the beginning...

In December 2003 the Pentagon confirmed that at least 40,000 of its 130,000 troops then stationed in Iraq did not have the ceramic-plated body armor necessary to stop shrapnel. Likewise, widespread reports indicated that the vehicles in which soldiers traveled did not have adequate shielding against the improvised explosive devices used throughout the country. Some families began to buy body armor for their sons and daughters, because the military was not providing it. A year later, almost 20 months after the war began, the problem remained. In October 2004, members of an Army Reserve unit from Mississippi refused a refueling mission because their vehicles lacked appropriate armor. They called it a “suicide mission.”
http://www.catholic.org/views/views_news.php?id=24148

[rossmonster]

18. You HAVE to check this out!!!

The cpa site has a brilliant little panphlet on "Doing business in Iraq"

http://www.cpa-iraq.org/economy/business_in_Iraq.pdf


It even lists "Custer Battles" as a possible security for your trip (in amoungst 20 others).

Check out the business rules, etc. interesting how it is open slather, except for the oil industry.

This thing is a collectors item!

[MetaTrope]

21. Wow, a nightmare mercenary unit from my own hometown

Sourcewatch has some interesting documentation on Triple Canopy Inc. of Chicago:

Early in 2004, Triple Canopy "won government contracts to guard 13 Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters throughout Iraq. (The renewable six-month deals were worth, in all, about $90 million.)"

"Triple Canopy now has about 1,000 men in Iraq, about 200 of them American and almost all the rest from Chile and Fiji. Its rivals include British firms that draw from the elite units of the U.K. military and outfits that draw from South African veterans of the wars to save apartheid. Australians and Ukrainians and Romanians and Iraqis are all making their livings in the business. Many have experience as soldiers; some have been in law enforcement. The firms guard the huge American corporations struggling to carry out Iraq's reconstruction. The private gunmen try to hold the insurgents at bay so that supplies can be delivered and power stations can be built. And companies like Triple Canopy shield American government compounds from attack. With guns poking out from sport utility vehicles, they usher American officials from meeting to meeting. They defend the buildings and people whom the insurgency would most like to reach."
---
On November 4, 2005, Paul Martin reported in the Washington Times that "British-based Global Strategies Group lost the contract" to defend Baghdad's "Green Zone" "in an open bidding process and handed over responsibility" to Triple Canopy Inc. on November 1, 2005,

"Iraqi officials security inside Baghdad's heavily fortified green zone could be compromised by the turnover," Martin wrote.

"Another concern is that Triple Canopy employees have been recruited mainly in Latin America and speak little English. Global Strategies relies heavily on British-trained Nepalese Gurkhas and Sri Lankans, a majority of whom speak at least some English and often speak it well. ... 'A delay in communicating a problem because the guard cannot speak English down his walkie-talkie can have fatal consequences,' said a security specialist familiar with procedures in Baghdad.

"Yet another worry is over internal discipline. Fights already have broken out between Peruvian and Chilean guards, according to an American businessman living inside the green zone. 'Apparently they had some scores to settle from past conflicts in that continent,' he said."
----
Triple Canopy is currently the defendent in a lawsuit filed by three former employees who worked for Triple Canopy under a contract for KBR. Former Army Ranger Shane Schmidt and former Marine Charles L. Sheppard III claim in the lawsuit that on July 8, 2004, while en route to the Baghdad airport, their shift leader declared he was "going to kill someone today" and shortly afterwards stepped out of the vehicle and fired rounds of his M4 rifle through the windshield of a stopped truck.

The suit goes on to claim the shift leader said, "This didn't happen, understand?" Soon after, the shift leader stated he had "never shot anyone with my handgun before" and then fired his handgun throught the windshield of a parked taxi, killing the driver.

When Schmidt and Sheppard reported the incident, they were fired by Triple Canopy. The shift leader was sent back to the United States. Triple Canopy claims has not denied the incident occured, rather they argue that no violation of Virginia law occurred and that Schmidt and Sheppard were "at-will" employees and could be fired for any reason.

Apparently not all the scum settles in the red states...

[Raksha]

19. K & R

[rossmonster]

20. Hidden stuff in Powerpoints as well....

One of the powerpoint files has hidden notes pages:

http://www.cpa-iraq.org/AST/AST%20ISSUES/ISSUES%20for%20J%20SHOPS.ppt

You have to save it to disk. Reopen it and view the notes.

This appears to have been written sometime around mid march 2004.

Interesting bits are (IA = New Iraqi Army as far as i can tell):

Initially IA was informed and recruited to become the New Iraqi Army responsible for Traffic Control Points, Gate guards, border patrol. When given a mission to defend a city they feel as they are ‘fighting their brother Arabs’ which is unacceptable. Tendency is for the IA soldier to “lay down their arms and walk away from the fight”.

Need better computer support for computer products. Firewall, MS Office software, Operating system software, Anti-Virus software and all other Software with activation codes. Currently have to reload every 30 times a software package is installed (MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and using personal software soldiers have brought which are evaluation versions.

Lots of interesting bits, but main part is if you ever need to look at docs with are powerpoints, check the notes...

[Wilber_Stool]

25. A post from yesterday

has a link to the docs. Look hard, I couldn't find them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=917313&mesg_id=917313

[Emit]

26. kick n/t

[Nikki Stone1]

27. kicking this

:kick: