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Posts by Liliana Segura
Why is the Obama DOJ Trying So Hard to Block Torture Lawsuits?
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on June 15, 2009 at 2:30 PM.
In case you missed it, this weekend brought good news and bad news on the accountability-for-torture front.
First the good news: Convicted "terrorist" Jose Padilla -- who in 2002 was declared an "illegal enemy combatant" by the Bush administration and imprisoned on a Navy brig, where he languished for more than three years on the grounds that he planned to unleash a "dirty bomb" on U.S. soil (only for said charge to later disappear in favor of a totally different charge) -- has been given the green light to sue notorious torture lawyer John Yoo.
"The decision issued late Friday by a judge in San Francisco allowing a civil lawsuit to go forward against a former Bush administration official, John C. Yoo, might seem like little more than the removal of a procedural roadblock," wrote New York Times reporter John Schwartz on Saturday.
"But lawyers for the man suing Mr. Yoo, Jose Padilla, say it provides substantive interpretation of constitutional issues for all detainees and could have a broad impact."
According to the civil suit, which was brought forth last year, during the years he was held in military custody:
" ... Mr. Padilla suffered gross physical and psychological abuse at the hands of federal officials as part of a systematic program of abusive interrogation intended to break down Mr. Padilla’s humanity and his will to live. For nearly two years, Mr. Padilla was held in complete isolation and denied all access to the court system, legal counsel and his family. He was subjected to mistreatment including but not limited to extreme and prolonged sleep and sensory deprivation designed to inflict severe mental pain and suffering; exposure to extreme temperatures; interrogation under threat of torture, deportation and even death; denial of access to necessary medical and psychiatric care; and interference with his ability to practice his religion. In the year and a half that Mr. Padilla remained in the Brig after he was granted limited access to legal counsel, much of this severe abuse continued."
(Go here for more details on Padilla's alleged mistreatment.)
Yoo, whose role in creating the legal framework for the Bush administration's torture program is well-documented, responded to the suit by arguing that he cannot be held responsible for tactics that were not considered unconstitutional at the time.
In March, lawyers for the Obama administration basically agreed, arguing against Padilla's right to sue. "We're not saying we condone torture," DOJ attorney Mary Mason said at the time. But because Yoo "had no supervisory role over Padilla or his detention,” she said, the lawsuit is not valid.
On Friday, however, Federal District Judge Jeffrey S. White -- a George W. Bush appointee -- disagreed.
According to the New York Times, White "rejected all but one of Mr. Yoo’s immunity claims and found that Mr. Padilla 'has alleged sufficient facts to satisfy the requirement that Yoo set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Padilla’s constitutional rights.'"
Attorney Tahlia Townsend, one member of Padilla's defense team, called White's ruling a "a significant victory for American values, government accountability and our system of checks and balances."
What is Padilla seeking in compensation from the U.S. government for the torture inflicted upon him?
According to wire reports, "Padilla and his mother, Estela Lebron, are seeking one dollar in damages and a declaration by the court that his treatment was unconstitutional."
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Horrible: Dr. Tiller's Wichita Clinic Will Shut Down For Good
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on June 9, 2009 at 11:36 AM.
This morning brought the distressing news that the Wichita clinic where Dr. George Tiller treated his patients will not reopen, following his death by an assassin's bullet on May 31.
"The family of Dr. George Tiller announces that effective immediately, Women's Health Care Services, Inc., will be permanently closed," read a statement sent to the reporters earlier today. "Notice is being given today to all concerned that the Tiller family is ceasing operation of the clinic and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic."
We are proud of the service and courage shown by our husband and father and know that women's health care needs have been met because of his dedication and service. That is a legacy that will never die.
Like Dr. Tiller himself, the clinic that he ran was the target of decades of harassment, threats, and violence. After opening in the 1970s, it was the site of constant protest by anti-abortion activists. In 1985, it was bombed.
Following news of his murder, Dr. Tiller's colleagues expressed concern over the fate of his embattled clinic. In an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Dr. Susan Robinson, a California gynecologist who used to fly out to Wichita multiple times a month to work by his side asked, "What's going to happen to all those patients? Where are they going to go?"
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Oops! Feds 'Accidentally' Release 266-page Document Mapping Out U.S. Nuclear Sites
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on June 3, 2009 at 8:00 AM.
From the Better than Fiction department: the New York Times reports that the U.S. government has "accidentally" released a list of nuclear sites around the country -- but don't worry, everything's fine.
"The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked 'highly confidential,' that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation's civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons," the Times reported last night.
The document, which was disclosed earlier this week "in an online newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy," is described as containing "an exhaustive listing of the sites that make up the nation's civilian nuclear complex, which stretches coast to coast and includes nuclear reactors and highly confidential sites at weapon laboratories."
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Outrageous: Torture Lawyer John Yoo Gets a Column at the Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on May 12, 2009 at 8:56 AM.
It was jarring enough (and more than a bit bizarre) to see the notorious John Yoo weigh in on the Obama administration's pick for a Supreme Court justice to replace David Souter, in the form of an op-ed this weekend in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled "Obama needs a neutral justice." A crass offensive on the notion of "judicial empathy," Yoo contrasted Obama's stated belief that "justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book," but something that affects "the daily realities of people's lives" unfavorably to the judicial philosophies of conservative justices John Roberts or Samuel Alito.
"In his 2005 confirmation hearings, Roberts compared judges to neutral umpires in a baseball game," Yoo wrote. "Sen. Obama did not vote to confirm Roberts or Alito, but now proposes to appoint a Great Empathizer who will call balls and strikes with a strike zone that depends on the sex, race, and social and economic background of the players. Nothing could be more damaging to the fairness of the game, or to the idea of a rule of law that is blind to the identity of the parties before it."
Obnoxious, yes. Yet I kept reading Yoo's op-ed, at least until I reached that inevitable moment, the Wait, why am I even reading this? moment. The This is the scum whose enthusiasm for torture and zeal for unfettered executive power is so extreme, he once responded to the theoretical question "If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?" with "I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that" moment.
I stopped reading.
Now, this.
It appears the Philadelphia Inquirer has decided not just to run the occasional column by John Yoo, but is making him a full fledged columnist.
Needless to say, some people are unhappy. In a scathing piece yesterday, senior Philadelphia Daily News writer Will Bunch described his shock at the news that the lawyer whose name has become synonymous with torture is joining the ranks.
He wrote:
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Updated: U.S. Soldier Kills 5 Troops at U.S. Base in Iraq
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on May 11, 2009 at 7:00 AM.
MSNBC reports that a U.S. soldier, who apparently suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, opened fire on a clinic at a U.S. base in Iraq, killing five soldiers and wounding three.
"NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reported the assailant took his own life after the violent outburst," according to MSNBC. "The attacker was described as a 'stressed out' U.S. soldier."
Retired Col Jack Jacobs tells MSNBC that this is evidence of the adverse effects of "repetitive tours (with) no end in sight," which "makes life very difficult" for U.S. troops.
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After the Latest U.S. Airstrike, Can Anyone Wonder Why Do 'They' Hate Us?
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on May 8, 2009 at 2:23 PM.
About a half-hour north of Jalalabad, the children along the road change. No waving. No smiling. No thumbs up. No screaming for candy. Only serious stares and empty eyes!
I have seen this in Iraq, and it's deeply uncomfortable until you get used to it -- if you get used to it. Children by nature are friendly, when they're unfriendly it's because their parents, possibly their extended family, maybe their whole community is worse than unfriendly. And the change can be fast, in the next village, yet most of the time the change comes slow. But you have to be looking. Otherwise you look up and the smiling and enthusiastic little ones are suddenly frosty and distant little ones.
-- Embedded journalist in Farah Afghanistan, March 2009
This was written during a four-day convoy ride with the Regional Corps Advisory Command of the U.S. Marines. The author, a Vietnam vet who says he has traveled to 109 countries -- including multiple trips to Afghanistan -- and "reported from more than a dozen wars," has no doubt seen his share of action. But reading it this week, days after a U.S. airstrike killed up to 130 people in Farah, Afghanistan, including 13 members of the same family, this quote from an journalist embedded with soldiers in a warzone that is escalating at this moment, is chilling.
It is a glimpse into the black and white logic that gave birth to the "War on Terror," where there is a "good" side and a "bad" side, and as long as we know where the bad guys are, perpetual war against an entire people is justifiable. Thus, if a child stares coldly at U.S. military convoys, it must be because their "parents, possibly their extended family, maybe their whole community(!)" is comprised of terrorists. Thus by the unfortunate accident of lineage and geography, they too must be terrorist in the making themselves.
Is it too obvious a point that the "frosty and distant" children who stare at U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan might do so not because "their parents, possibly their extended family, maybe their whole community is worse than unfriendly" but because "their parents, possibly their extended family, maybe their whole community" were recently slaughtered by the U.S. military, like those killed this week in Farah?
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'Body Language Expert' on CNN: Condi 'Mopped Up' Student Who Confronted Her on Torture; 'Wish I Could High-Five Condi For That'
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on May 4, 2009 at 9:15 AM.
CNN news anchor Roland Martin, who recently said that the Left "needs to shut up" about all this torture prosecution nonsense, recently hosted a segment on the now famous confrontation of Condoleezza Rice by a Stanford student who pressed her about her role in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. As anyone who has seen the video knows, Rice, who was Stanford's provost from 1993 to 1999, basically shifted between fearmongering -- "If you were there in a position of authority and watched Americans jump out of 80 story buildings because these murderous tyrants …", condescension -- "The world is not a bunch of easy choices in which you get to make one that always feel good" -- and lying her face off: "I did not authorize anything." Chillingly, she also took a page from the Nixon playbook, claiming, "If it was authorized by the president it did not violate our obligation under the conventions against torture."
Wow, right? Worthy of some solid commentary, right? Well, not if you're Roland Martin. If you're Roland Martin, the real story here is not any one of the incredible claims that came out of Condi's mouth, but rather, what she said -- with her body.
On a Friday episode of "No Bias No Bull" (in which he was filling in for new mom Campbell Brown), Martin rolled out Janine Driver, "an expert on body language," to analyze the exchange (while first pausing to share with viewers that he and Rice "share the same birthday.")
"She got a little testy there," Martin said to Driver after introducing her, then asked, "What stood out to you in watching that video?"
Her response:
"I loved it actually. I swear. Sometimes I get calls and I'm like, there's not much there. There's a lot of body language there."
"I'll tell you right now. She's speaking volumes, and I think she mopped those guys up big time."
Mopped. Those. Guys. Up.
(Big Time.)
The rest of the transcript -- featuring much laughter and the occasional moronic remark from CNN's business correspondent Ali Velshi -- bears posting (with some particularly choice quotes in bold):
MARTIN: So what was her body saying, though? I mean, what was -- because, you know, we had the finger moving.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And doing this.
MARTIN: We had the hand. We had -- right, Ali, she was sitting there, the arms crossed. So exactly as a body language expert, what did all of that mean?
DRIVER: Oh, a lot of things. She starts off with an open palm gesture. So open palm, this is called the beggar's pose, a dollar, please, a dollar please. This is, hey, I'm open to what you have to say.
When he starts really going off on a tangent, she does the palm down gesture. And think about it, I have a 3-year-old son, Angus. It's like, Angus, don't run in the street. It's right here.
(LAUGHTER)
She even no-dared him one time.
VELSHI: Yes.
DRIVER: I was loving that. I wish I could high-five Condi for that. She's like no, dear, right here with the whole finger pointing. She, like, reprimanded him back. She does microexpressions, too. At one point, she was going to rip his face off, you know.
(LAUGHTER)
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Supreme Court Justice David Souter to Retire
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on May 1, 2009 at 6:17 AM.
Multiple news outlets are reporting that Supreme Court Judge David Souter will retire from the bench at the end of his term.
NPR reports:
NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term.
The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction.
At 69, Souter is nowhere near the oldest member of the court. In fact, he is in the younger half of the court's age range, with five justices older and just three younger. So far as anyone knows, he is in good health. But he has made clear to friends for some time that he wanted to leave Washington, a city he has never liked, and return to his native New Hampshire. Now, according to reliable sources, he has decided to take the plunge and has informed the White House of his decision.
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Memo to the Media: Obama Did Not Invent 'Yes We Can'
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on April 30, 2009 at 11:20 AM.
Among the silly stories currently being peddled by the networks is the report that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stolen Barack Obama's "Yes, we can" slogan in advance of his country's June 12th election. Earlier today, MSNBC host David Schuster interviewed Politico reporter Ken Vogel, who called it a "co-opting" of Obama's signature slogan.
This "analysis" draws from reports earlier this week about an election video featuring Ahmadinejad that shows him "pointing to the Farsi phrase Ma Mitavanim (We Can) on a blackboard," according to the Guardian. "The film is aimed at students and capitalizes on his former status as a university lecturer."
But the corporate press might want to do its homework. When it comes to the origins of "Yes, we can," Barack Obama invented the phrase in the same way that Al Gore invented the internet.
"Yes, we can" (or, less succintly, "Yes it can be done"), of course, is the English translation of "Sí, se puede" -- the official motto of the United Farm Workers, made famous by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the 1970s.
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Former Soldier Accused of Brutal Rape and Murder of 14-Year Old Iraqi Girl Starts Trial
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on April 29, 2009 at 11:00 AM.
It was called one of the most horrific crimes by U.S. troops against Iraqi civilians: In March 2006, a group of whiskey-fueled soldiers, their faces concealed and wearing black long underwear, descended upon a farmhouse some 20 miles south of Baghdad, gang-raped a teenage girl and shot her in the head, killing her along with her younger sister and their parents. The soldiers then tried to burn the bodies, setting fire to the house.
The grisly crime was initially blamed on insurgents -- "This is what happens when you harbor terrorists," a military translator told a relative after the bodies were found -- but three months later, the truth was revealed, when a fellow soldier from the unit told combat-stress counselors about what had happened.
Initial reports claimed that the girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, was in her 20s. But her Iraqi ID card, obtained by Reuters, showed her date of birth is confirmed to be August 19, 1991, making her 14 years old at the time of her death.
News reports of the incident describe it as a "premeditated" act -- and indeed it was. A federal affidavidt tells the story of how the soldiers, stationed at a traffic checkpoint near the town of Mahmoudiya some 1,000 feet from Abeer's home, would often stop by the house just to stare at her.
According to a 2006 article in TIME magazine, "Her mother, who grew concerned enough to make plans for Abeer to move in with a cousin, told relatives that whenever she caught the Americans ogling her daughter, they would give her the thumbs-up sign, point to the girl and say, 'Very good, very good.'"
"Abeer's brother Mohammed, 13, told TIME he once watched his sister, frozen in fear, as a U.S. soldier ran his index finger down her cheek. Mohammed has since learned that soldier's name: Steven Green."
Today, Steven D. Green, 23, stands trial for planning and leading the assault and massacre of Abeer and her family. A former Private First Class from the 101st Airborne Division who was honorably discharged with a "personality disorder" soon after the killings, Green became the first person identified as one of the perpetrators of the grisly crime, which has been compared to the notorious Haditha massacre in 2005. His trial began this week, at a U.S. District Court in Paducah, Kentucky.
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Federal Court to Obama DOJ: 'State Secrets' Excuse is Bogus, Torture Victims' Lawsuit Can Proceed
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on April 28, 2009 at 1:39 PM.
In February, lawyers for the Obama administration dismayed many of his supporters by attempting to block a lawsuit on behalf of five victims of extraordinary rendition on the same bogus "state secrets" grounds so often invoked by his predecessor.
"This case cannot be litigated," Department of Justice lawyer Douglas Letter argued at the time. "The judges shouldn't play with fire in this national security situation."
This claim, a throwback to the shameless secrecy and fearmongering of the Bush era, was devastating to those who had hoped that the Obama presidency would mark a shift towards seeking justice for the countless men wrongfully swept up in the early days of the so-called "war on terror" -- and accountability for those who sanctioned their torture.
As I explained at the time:
The case was Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan, a lawsuit originally brought in 2007 by the ACLU on behalf of five victims of extraordinary rendition, the notorious CIA program in which terror suspects are kidnapped, thrown on a plane and flown to another country to be tortured and interrogated.
Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of Boeing, is said to have provided the logistical support for the rendition of all five plaintiffs, among them, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national who, in July 2002, was taken from Pakistan to Morocco, where for 18 months he was imprisoned and brutally tortured, including being cut with razorblades on his testicles. Mohamed was later sent to Guantanamo Bay, where he supposedly awaits imminent plans for his release. He has never stood trial.
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FBI Workers Accused of Spying on Teenage Girls in Dressing Room
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on April 21, 2009 at 12:44 PM.
In news that gives new meaning to the term "government spying," here’s a story that pretty much speaks for itself:
"Two FBI workers are accused of using surveillance equipment to spy on teenage girls as they undressed and tried on prom gowns at a charity event at a West Virginia mall."
The FBI employees have been charged with conspiracy and committing criminal invasion of privacy. They were working in an FBI satellite control room at the mall when they positioned a camera on temporary changing rooms and zoomed in for at least 90 minutes on girls dressing for the Cinderella Project fashion show, Marion County Prosecutor Pat Wilson said Monday.
...
The workers were described in a complaint as "police officers," but prosecutors did not say whether the men were agents or describe what kind of work they did.
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Why Are Robert Gibbs and the White House Press Corps Laughing About a Torture Investigation?
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on April 15, 2009 at 7:21 AM.
There was a time during the Bush years when I was addicted to the White House press briefing. Not watching it, but reading the transcript. There was something sort of awe-inspiring about the back-and-forth, the inane dialogue of the whole artificial process, in which Scott McClellan (though never the pugnacious asshole Ari Fleischer was) would respond to reporters with answers that were so baldly dishonest, they did not even need to be shrewd. It was as if there were a common understanding: "I am bullshitting you, and you will accept it." And for the most part, they did. Some reporters would appear obviously frustrated in their attempts to follow-up. But others just seemed genuinely glad to be there. (How long did you say the president's bike ride with Lance Armstrong would be again? Right on.)
McClellan of course, went on to write a book attacking the administration on whose behalf he so dutifully lied. But that's another story.
White House press secretaries have always been bullshit artists, of course, and the press room is their stage. As Matthey Yglesias pointed out earlier last year, "Reporters ask questions that they know perfectly well won't be answered, and then the press secretary does his best to dodge him. Nine days out of ten, the result is a not-very-amusing spectacle for mid-day C-SPAN viewers. If the world is lucky, the Press Secretary commits some kind of gaffe. But nothing real is ever learned."
Which brings me to Robert Gibbs. As communications director for Barack Obama during the election, Gibbs no doubt did a masterful job responding to many of the ugly smears against the then-candidate. But today, when he stands before the White House press corps -- a group of people who obviously find him an affable fellow -- it feels more and more like he's insulting our intelligence.
Take the issue of torture and accountability for Bush's crimes. Yesterday, Mother Jones Washington editor David Corn asked Gibbs whether the Obama administration would cooperate with the Spanish court that is bringing forward an investigation against former Bush officials for their role in making illegal torture a policy of the U.S. government. As Corn wrote later, "He had a predictable response: 'I don't want to get involved in hypotheticals.' He quickly pivoted to point out that Obama has moved to prohibit torture at Gitmo and elsewhere."
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Unhinged Clarence Thomas Muses Publicly on Childhood, Our 'Proliferation' of Rights and Why Dishwashers Are a 'Miracle'
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on April 13, 2009 at 2:28 PM.
The New York Times ran an op-ed this weekend calling for term limits on federal judges -- and, frankly it comes not one moment too soon. A short piece today by Adam Liptak provides an unnerving peek inside the brain of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a man who has not uttered a word from the bench since February 22, 2006 and who is not often seen in public. "Glimpses of Justice Thomas in less formal settings are rare," writes Liptak, so it must have come as a bit of a surprise when the judge agreed to deliver the keynote address at a DC event honoring high school student winners of the "Being an American" essay contest sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute.
Whether the evening went according to plan, we can't be sure. But the thoughts Justice Thomas chose to share with the high school students (while perched, for some reason, at a "fancy hot-pink lectern that glowed from the inside") were a mixed bag, to say the least. "I tend to be morose sometimes," Thomas told the audience, before holding forth on subjects ranging from his nostalgia for his religious upbringing to his belief that there are too many rights, to the wonders of modern appliances (most notably, the dishwasher.)
"I am rounding the last turn for my 18th term on the court," he told the audience, referring to his work on the bench as "this endeavor," "or, for some, an ordeal."
"That's one thing about this job," he said. "You get a little tired."
Admitting that when he gets "a little down," he goes online and looks up "wonderful speeches" -- preferably military speeches -- Justice Thomas also said he likes to go down to the basement to watch Saving Private Ryan. ("I can't tell you why that particular movie, except we have it and it’s about something important in our lives -- World War II.")
He also admitted he likes to think about his more youthful days.
" ... How can you not reminisce about a childhood where you began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance as little kids lined up in the schoolyard and then marched in two by two with a flag and a crucifix in each classroom?" he asked.
As Liptak points out, "the evening was devoted to the Bill of Rights, but Justice Thomas did not embrace the document, and he proposed a couple of alternatives."
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Troops Stole Boxes of Iraq Reconstruction Cash ... Literally ... But There's a Lot More to the Story
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on April 13, 2009 at 9:15 AM.
This weekend the Los Angeles Times ran an article titled "Some U.S. troops tempted by reconstruction cash," reporting that the Department of Justice is pursing some "three dozen prosecutions" of soldiers and others involving bribery for "reconstruction" projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The piece tells the story of one Army captain, a 28-year old graduate from West Point, who according to a federal indictment, "managed to skim more than $690,000 in cash as the civil affairs officer overseeing millions of dollars intended for reconstruction projects and payments to private Iraqi security forces northeast of Baghdad." In a particularly brazen move, Capt. Michael Dung Nguyen allegedly packed the cash into boxes, which he then mailed to his home in Beaverton, Oregon.
According to the LA Times, "at least 25 theft probes are underway."
The story has gotten relatively little attention, and no doubt the response to these crimes will take the predictable form of blaming it on a few bad apples. But, as the Times hints, the system that has produced this sort of corruption by U.S soldiers was ripe for abuse from the start. "The prosecutions reveal the extent to which troops have been tempted by the Pentagon's 'money as a weapon system' policy, which has left battlefields awash in cash."
Late last summer, the Washington Post ran a article titled "Money as a Weapon," which painted a picture of how, five years into the U.S. occupation, "American cash" had become the U.S. military's most valuable strategic counterinsurgency tool.
Soldiers walk the streets carrying thousands of dollars to pay Iraqis for doorways battered in American raids and limbs lost during firefights. Sheiks appeal to commanders to use larger pools of money locked away in Humvees and safes at military bases for new schools, health clinics, water treatment plants and generators, knowing that the military can bypass Iraqi and U.S. bureaucratic hurdles.
The cash was used for things big and small, many of which would ft neatly into the category "hearts and minds":
Army documents show that $48,000 was spent on 6,000 pairs of children's shoes; an additional $50,000 bought 625 sheep for people described in records as "starving poor locals" in a Baghdad neighborhood. Soldiers ordered $100,000 worth of dolls and $500,000 in action figures made to look like Iraqi Security Forces. About $14,250 was spent on "I Love Iraq" T-shirts. More than $75,000 sent a delegation to a women's and civil rights conference in Cairo. And $12,800 was spent for two pools to cool bears and tigers at Zawra Park Zoo in Baghdad.
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