Got $5 Billion? Know & Influence Your "Neighbors"

Hotels, shops, condos planned for Green Zone
By BRADLEY BROOKS and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Associated Press Writers
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad.
That's all part of a five-year development "dream list" - or what some dub an improbable fantasy - to transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone from a walled fortress into a centerpiece for Baghdad's future.
[...] “When you have $1 billion hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbors are. You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time," said Navy Capt. Thomas Karnowski, who led the team that created the development plan.
Karnowski said a deal already has been completed for Marriott International Inc. to build a hotel in the Green Zone. He also said a possible $1 billion investment could come from MBI International, a conglomerate that focuses on hotels and resorts and is led by Saudi Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber.
[...] But the $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, the lead military liaison for the project told The Associated Press.
For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy to serve as a kind of high-end buffer for the compound, whose total price tag will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year.
[...] For the moment, however, it's mortars and rockets - not investment money - pouring into the Green Zone, which includes the U.S. and British embassies, key Iraqi government offices and other international compounds. Militants have escalated their shelling of the enclave since Iraqi forces began a crackdown on Shiite militias in late March.
But developers are clearly looking many years ahead and gambling that Bagdad could one day join the list of former war zones such as Sarajevo and Beirut that have rebounded and earned big paydays for early investors.
[...] Last week, a Los Angeles-based holding company for equity firms, C3, confirmed it was starting a $500 million project to build an amusement park on the outskirts of the Green Zone in an area encompassing the Baghdad Zoo. The first phase, a skateboard park, is scheduled to open this summer.
But any Green Zone project is literally starting from the ground up.
"There is no sewer system, no working power system. Everything here is done on generators. No road system repair work. There are no city services other than the minimal amount we provide to get by," Karnowski said.
He noted that of 500 development projects carried out in Baghdad last year, not one was done in the Green Zone - with the exception of the building of the new American embassy.
[...] Privately, American diplomats say the plan is, at best, wishful thinking.
Security is nowhere near the level needed for major development projects. Then there is the question of whether the Iraqi government even wants U.S. involvement in developing the center of their capital.
One diplomat, who asked not to be named because of no authorization to speak to the media, said they did not think Iraqis would want Washington to "turn this area into downtown Kansas City." [What’s their problem??? Girls just wanna have fun!] [...] "The Iraqi government wants to limit U.S. power in the Green Zone," a top adviser to al-Maliki said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the press.
[...] Some Iraqi leaders even have drawn parallels to the U.S.-backed development plan and what Saddam Hussein did in the area - known by its Iraqi name of Tashri during his regime.
Hussein stocked the neighborhood with family and tribal allies, political loyalists and members of his elite Republican Guard. Karnowski called the accusation "partially true."
[...] The biggest hurdle to the plan is sorting out the true owners of property in the Green Zone, where "eminent domain by gun" was employed during the Saddam era, Karnowski said.
Air Force Lt. Col. Monte Harner leads the effort to discover who owns the titles and consolidate the areas held by the U.S. military.
[...] According to Karnowski, the United States will spend $120 million to demolish buildings damaged by air strikes during the opening days of the war.
Both Karnowski and Harner are aware their Green Zone plan is viewed as unrealistic by many, primarily U.S. Embassy officials.
"If you talk to people at the State Department, they still believe a hotel isn't going up. But it is a done deal," Karnowski said of the Marriott project.
Harner also believes even having a blueprint is important.
"You have to stake a goal in the sand before you can begin to move toward it," he said. "Without a vision of what could be, you're just treading water." [Or deluding yourself]

In this undated image released by the U.S. military, planners envision the
"Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club" in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq.

(U. S. Army/The Associated Press)

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_greenzone_050408/

Just Testing? We're All Guinea Pigs Now

Heather Wokusch and Wray Forrest have done our country a great service by putting this topic out there for all of us to study. They reveal that our worst fears are all true: the government is using citizens here and abroad, as "test subjects" in life-threatening situations without being given information about the risks being taken. The content of this unusually long post is of critical importance to us all. I have tried to pick some of the most urgent elements out of the original, very detailed article, with the hope you will click the links and read the whole story, with [my bold] throughout:
Breaking the Nuremberg Code: The US Military’s Human-Testing Program Returns
by Heather Wokusch | March 5, 2008 - 11:28pm
The Pentagon is slated to release a suspected toxicant in Crystal City, Virginia this week, ostensibly to test air sensors.
There is a tricky clause in Chapter 32/Title 50 of the United States Code (the aggregation of US general and permanent laws). Specifically, Section 1520a lists the following cases in which the Secretary of Defense can conduct a chemical or biological agent test or experiment on humans if informed consent has been obtained:
(1) Any peaceful purpose that is related to a medical, therapeutic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial, or research activity.
(2) Any purpose that is directly related to protection against toxic chemicals or biological weapons and agents.
(3) Any law enforcement purpose, including any purpose related to riot control.
In other words, there are many circumstances under which the Secretary of Defense can test chemical or biological agents on human beings, but at least informed consent has to be obtained in advance.
Or does it. Section 1515, another part of Chapter 32, is entitled "Suspension; Presidential authorization" and says: After November 19, 1969, the operation of this chapter, or any portion thereof, may be suspended by the President during the period of any war declared by Congress and during the period of any national emergency declared by Congress or by the President.
Essentially, if the President or Congress decides that we are at war then the Secretary of Defense does not need anybody´s consent to test chemical or biological agents on human beings. Gives one pause during these days of a perpetual "war on terror."
[...Wray C. Forrest] became one of roughly 6,720 soldiers used as Edgewood Arsenal test subjects between 1950-1975.
Forrest was given a new identity at Edgewood: Research Subject #6692. He says, "That was the number assigned to me … similar to the numbers assigned to the Jews in the concentration/death camps in Germany during WWII."
The US military tested heart drugs on Forrest, which he says were administered by IV and various types of injections. Forrest was also exposed to "contaminated drinking water, food, and various ground contaminates that permeate Edgewood Arsenal. BZ [a chemical incapacitating agent], napalm, mustard agents, and any number of other contaminates in the ground and drinking water there, from previous testing done there by the military."
A total of 254 different chemicals were researched on soldiers at Edgewood, and Forrest notes, "We were never informed as to exactly what we were being given. We also did not sign any informed consent prior to the testing. This was a direct violation of the Geneva Convention rules for the use of humans in chemical and drug experiments/research."
The Edgewood Arsenal facility played a role in WWII human subject testing as well. Roughly 4,000 US soldiers were used as human guinea pigs in chemical research which often took place in gas chambers. US Navy member Nat Schnurman, for example, was sent to an Edgewood gas chamber six times one week in 1942. As The Detroit Free Press reported: "On his last visit, a blend of mustard gas and lewisite was piped in. ”> Schnurman was overcome with toxins, vomited into his mask and begged for release. The request was denied. His next memory is of coming to on a snowbank outside the chamber."
[...] Dubbed "Urban Shield: Crystal City Urban Transport Study," the operation will test the effectiveness of the city’s chemical sensors, and according to The Examiner newspaper, ”> "the data will help the Pentagon and Arlington shape their lockdown policies for chemical and biological attacks or accidents." Lockdown policies.
According to a Pentagon press release from late February 2008, the study "will involve releasing a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and inert tracer gas that poses ”> no health or safety hazards to people or the environment."
But it’s not quite that simple. ”> Sulfur hexafluoride is a suspected respiratory toxicant ; as such, exposure in certain amounts may be harmful for those with asthma, emphysema and other respiratory issues. It also is a suspected neurotoxicant, with potential untold consequences for the nervous systems of those vulnerable.
That part is left out of the Pentagon’s press release. [my bold]
[...] Yet repeated phone calls to the Pentagon yesterday yielded no results. The Force Protection Agency seemed unaware of the upcoming test and the press office was of no help either. No one could - or would - answer basic questions such as how many people could be exposed in the open-air test, if any attempt had been made to brief citizens on potential health risks or if there would be any medical follow-up provided.
[...] The Bush administration has quietly channeled tens of billions of dollars into chemical and biological weapons. Bush’s 2007 budget, for example, earmarked almost $2 billion for biodefense research and development via the National Institutes of Health alone.
[...] Since the R&D is top secret and oversight limited, the public is rarely aware of escalating dangers. As of August 2007, for example, biological weapons laboratories across the country had reported 36 lost shipments and accidents for that year, almost double the number for all of 2004.
In addition to challenging international non-proliferation agreements and risking a global arms race, the Bush administration’s surge in chemical and biological weapons spending raises questions over what deadly weapons may have been tested on populations abroad. And what may be tested domestically, with or without the public’s consent.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/13265
Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives’ Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now series and can be reached at ”> www.heatherwokusch.com . Wray Forrest and other veterans have put together a DVD on "how our Federal Government treated its troops at not only Edgewood Arsenal, but also at other military installations in the United States of America." For a free copy, send a blank DVD+R and self-addressed postage paid DVD Envelope to: EDGEWOOD RESEARCH VETERAN, 3910 Patrick Drive Apt 14, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80916.
Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives' Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now, which went to #1 on Amazon's political activism charts in December 2007.
In searching for photos for this post I came upon yet another expose of the Edgewood Arsenal from a 2007 article in Wired:
Army's Hallucinogenic Weapons Unveiled
By Sharon Weinberger, April 06, 2007
[...] Advocates of using chemical agents in nonlethal warfare are increasing, making now a good time to start reviewing the historical record. A recently published book on the Army's infamous "Edgewood Experiments" involving hallucinogenic agents like LSD may help shed more light on the debate. The infamous CIA work, MK ULTRA, is often considered synonymous with all government LSD experimentation. But the historical record is far more complex.
This may be the first and last time in my life that I call a self-published book a "must read," but psychiatrist James Ketchum's Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten is an usual case. As Steve Aftergood of Secrecy News has already pointed out, this book "is a candid, not entirely flattering, sometimes morbidly amusing account of a little-documented aspect of Army research." Ketchum's book is also discussed in an article published today in USA Today, which provides a brief description of the work Ketchum was involved in:
Army doctors gave soldier volunteers synthetic marijuana, LSD and two dozen other psychoactive drugs during experiments aimed at developing chemical weapons that could incapacitate enemy soldiers, a psychiatrist who performed the research says in a new memoir.
The program, which ran at the Army's Edgewood, Md., arsenal from 1955 until about 1972, concluded that counterculture staples such as acid and pot were either too unpredictable or too mellow to be useful as weapons, psychiatrist James Ketchum said in an interview.
The program did yield one hallucinogenic weapon: softball-size artillery rounds that were filled with powdered quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ, a deliriant of the belladonnoid family that had placed some research subjects in a sleeplike state and left them impaired for days.
Ketchum says the BZ bombs were stockpiled at an Army arsenal in Arkansas but never deployed. They were later destroyed.
The Army acknowledged the program's existence in 1975. Follow-up studies by the Army in 1978 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1981 found that volunteers suffered no long-term effects.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/04/the_secrets_of_.html