The American Bar Association, America's largest legal group, on Monday overwhelmingly opposed a Bush administration anti-terrorism measure that bars U.S. citizens jailed as enemy combatants from consulting defense lawyers.

"The American Bar Association's policy-making body voted 368-76 to approve a proposal backing the right of U.S. citizens held as enemy combatants to have access to lawyers and judicial review of their status. It also urged the U.S. Congress to establish clear standards and procedures for the designation of enemy combatants and their treatment."

"Neal Sonnett, a Miami defense lawyer who heads the association's task force on the treatment of enemy combatants, said that while every lawyer in the room wanted to work with the administration to fight terror, "we just cannot lose our Constitution in the process. It is an issue of defending liberty and pursuing justice."

More information about the resolution is available in this AP article. You can read the text of the resolution and Task Force Report here.

A federal court in Manhattan has banned the Peace March scheduled for next weekend:

Antiwar demonstrators may not march past the United Nations complex on Saturday, or anywhere else in Manhattan, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Agreeing with the city that a large, moving rally of 100,000 people or more raised serious security risks, the judge said the organizers would have to settle for a stationary rally five blocks north of the complex. In refusing to grant a parade permit, the city did not violate the demonstrators' First Amendment rights, the judge, Barbara S. Jones of Federal District Court in Manhattan, wrote in her opinion rejecting their request for a preliminary injunction. She said that their free-speech rights were adequately protected by the city's counteroffer of a rally for 10,000 people at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, at 47th Street, with overflow space as far north on First Avenue as needed.

Alvin Wyman Walker, PhD, PD, PC, a clinical psychologist/psychotherapist with a PhD in Personality/Social Psychology/Cultural Anthropology and the equivalent of a second PhD in Clinical Psychology, applies his skills and insights into G.W. Bush in "Shrub" Bush's Pathological Focus On Saddam Hussein in the new issue of The Black Commentator.

Walker shares his insights into Bush's reactions both to the death penalty and his obsession with Iraq and Saddam. Lots of oedipal stuff. A fun read.

Colin Powell likely was mistaken when he labelled a shabby military compound in Iraq a 'poison factory' , says a British reporter who just visited the compound.

In the Sunday London Observer, Luke Harding reports from the terrorist camp in northern Iraq named by Colin Powell as a centre of the al-Qaeda international network.

If Colin Powell were to visit the shabby military compound at the foot of a large snow-covered mountain, he might be in for an unpleasant surprise. The US Secretary of State last week confidently described the compound in north-eastern Iraq - run by an Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Islam - as a 'terrorist chemicals and poisons factory.' Yesterday, however, it emerged that the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind - more a dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a grassy sloping hill. Behind the barbed wire, and a courtyard strewn with broken rocket parts, are a few empty concrete houses. There is a bakery. There is no sign of chemical weapons anywhere - only the smell of paraffin and vegetable ghee used for cooking.

Harding acknowledges there was a sophisticated television studio and computers in the compound and that the group is a violent bunch, having killed more than 800 opposition Kurdish fighters and failing in an assassination attempt of the Prime Minister of a neighboring town.

Giving Powell the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the camp has been dismantled since he received his information. On the other hand, maybe he purposefully was fed disinformation. Either way, it doesn't strike us as either a "smoking gun" or even reliable evidence that this outdated, out of the way compound poses any great threat to America.

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Maureen Dowd is great in Desert Spring, Sprung, up now on the New York Times website. It's hard to pick just a few paragraphs to quote, but these should do:

The orange alert made me wonder again why the Bush administration has spent the last year and a half hyping the Iraqi menace instead of singlemindedly hunting Al Qaeda.

Mr. Bush's presidency came into focus when he made his bullhorn vow to get "the people who knocked these buildings down." But we're not getting the creeps who knocked the buildings down. We're getting the creeps whose address we know....

Once they scratch their Saddam itch, maybe the Bush team can zero in on the terrorists who have put us on code orange, and the North Koreans who have put us on nuclear notice.

According to the BBC today, here's how the U.N. Security Council stands on War with Iraq:

For military action: US*, UK*, Spain and Bulgaria

Sceptics or opposed: France*, Russia*, China*, Germany and Syria

In doubt: Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan

Nine votes and no veto required to pass a resolution

*veto-wielding countries

The BBC reports that U.N. Chief Kofi Annan is requesting that the U.S. "allow the UN to decide collectively whether to launch a war on Iraq. Mr Annan said military action should only be taken when all other means of disarming Iraq had failed," and "The UN is most successful to all its members, including the US, when it is united and works as a source of collective action."

Also, Germany is challenging the Bush Administration's war plans.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has directly challenged the United States over the justifications for possible military action against Iraq.
"I am not convinced... I cannot go to the public and say these are the reasons because I don't believe in them," he told a European defence conference in Munich.

More than 10,000 protesters took to the streets in Munich outside the conference.

Terrance Kindlon is a criminal defense lawyer from Albany, N.Y., who as a Marine, received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his service in Vietnam. Don't miss his op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle opposing the War with Iraq--titled A Marine remembers the past and its lessons. It is poignant and personal, with a universal message.

The American Historical Association met in Chicago in January. Historians from more than forty colleges and universities agreed to form a new national network, " Historians Against the War." A committee was appointed to draft the following statement, which has been circulated for other historians to sign.

We historians call for a halt to the march towards war against Iraq. We are deeply concerned about the needless destruction of human life, the undermining of constitutional government in the U.S., the egregious curtailment of civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad, and the obstruction of world peace for the indefinite future.

Nearly 1500 historians of all sorts have signed the HAW statement, and a press release on the statement has been widely distributed.

They are forming their own contingencies to march on Feb. 15 - 16 as part of the United for Peace protests. If you are a historian, or even if you aren't, go check them out. This is great grass roots stuff.

Foreign Policy In Focus, has a Global Affairs Commentary by Phyllis Bennis, Powell's Dubious Case for War.

Daily Kos wasn't buying it either, see his post, Powell's 'Adlai' Moment.

Ward Harkavy in the Village Voice did some numbers crunching and came up with some statistics for casualties in the Iraq War, as compared to previous wars.

Here's some of them:

Number of American soldiers poised for attack at the borders of Iraq: 100,000

Number of Iraqis and Americans who, doctors say, might die in the next war: 48,000 to 260,000

Number of additional deaths expected from the civil war within Iraq following an invasion: 20,000

Number of additional deaths expected from "post-war adverse health effects": 200,000

Number of total deaths if nuclear weapons are used: 3,900,000

[link via Cursor]

64 cities and counties have passed anti-war resolutions, according to the Institute for Policy Studies and Cities for Peace News. Here is the list.

Former UK Labour Cabinet Minister Tony Benn interviewed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Here is the full text of the interview which was broadcast on the UK's Channel 4 news program.

You can read quotes from the interview here. Saddam denied any link to Al Qaeda, said he did not have weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. and Britain were going to war for control over oil.