(Washington, DC) - The US government should release in full the military investigative reports into the deaths of three prisoners at Guantanamo in June 2006, Human Rights Watch said today.  A Seton Hall University study issued today raises questions about the US military's findings that the deaths were suicides.

Seton Hall University School of Law's Center for Policy and Research concluded that the military's investigation into the deaths of Yassar Talal al-Zahrani, Mani Shaman Turki Al Habardi al-Tabi, and Ali Abdullah Ahmed, allegedly by suicide on June 10, 2006 at Guantanamo Bay, "failed to conform to minimum standards."  In each case, the military determined that the men died by hanging.

The Seton Hall researchers reviewed thousands of pages of documents, including official reports on the deaths from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), the Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF), US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), and the Staff Judge Advocate, as well as the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's autopsies of the three men.  Because the military reports are heavily redacted, the researchers found it impossible to get a clear picture of the events the night the men died.

"Whatever the cause, there should be no confusion about the deaths of prisoners in US custody," said Andrea Prasow, senior counsel with the Human Rights Watch's Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program.  "The military reports should be released in full so the public can be confident in the nature and scope of the investigations."

Human Rights Watch urged the US government to release versions of the reports in which redactions are kept to those absolutely necessary for privacy and security considerations so that there is sufficient factual information to allow the public to obtain a clear understanding of the relevant events.

In their current redacted form, the reports leave several key questions unanswered, including why guards did not check on the prisoners for more than two hours before the men were discovered hanging in their cells.

In the immediate wake of the deaths, US officials were not only quick to label them suicides, but also spoke of them in a provocative and inflammatory way.  Guantanamo's then-Commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, called the deaths an act of "asymmetric warfare," while Colleen Graffy, then-deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, described the deaths as a "good PR move."

Human Rights Watch also expressed concern that the Justice Department, in a brief filed last week, argued that a federal court lacked jurisdiction to hear a damages action filed by the families of al-Zahrani and Ahmed, and that the case should be dismissed.  According to the Justice Department brief, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 stripped the courts of jurisdiction to hear such cases.

The Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush in 2008 rejected the government's theory that the Military Commissions Act strips courts of jurisdiction to hear claims by Guantanamo detainees when it ruled that detainees had the right to file habeas petitions, Human Rights Watch said. Whether or not courts have jurisdiction to hear other claims is still in dispute.

"If the three detainees at Guantanamo died as a result of mistreatment, their families have a right to a remedy," Prasow said. "The Military Commissions Act should not be used to hide government misconduct."

By Andrew Gilligan
Published: 9:58PM GMT 21 Nov 2009

British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) with US Secretary of State Colin Powell outside 10 Downing Street Photo: PA

Tony Blair is accused of presiding over 'significant shortcomings? at all levels Photo: REUTERS

Tony Blair addressing British troops in Basra after the invasion Photo: PA

On the eve of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels.

They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.

The reports disclose that:

Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.

The need to conceal this from Parliament and all but “very small numbers” of officials “constrained” the planning process. The result was a “rushed”operation “lacking in coherence and resources” which caused “significant risk” to troops and “critical failure” in the post-war period.

Operations were so under-resourced that some troops went into action with only five bullets each. Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage. Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.

Commanders reported that the Army’s main radio system “tended to drop out at around noon each day because of the heat”. One described the supply chain as “absolutely appalling”, saying: “I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert.”

The Foreign Office unit to plan for postwar Iraq was set up only in late February, 2003, three weeks before the war started.

The plans “contained no detail once Baghdad had fallen”, causing a “notable loss of momentum” which was exploited by insurgents. Field commanders raged at Whitehall’s “appalling” and “horrifying” lack of support for reconstruction, with one top officer saying that the Government “missed a golden opportunity” to win Iraqi support. Another commander said: “It was not unlike 1750s colonialism where the military had to do everything ourselves.”

The documents emerge two days before public hearings begin in the Iraq Inquiry, the tribunal appointed under Sir John Chilcot, a former Whitehall civil servant, to “identify lessons that can be learnt from the Iraq conflict”.

Senior military officers and relatives of the dead have warned Sir John against a “whitewash”.

The documents consist of dozens of “post-operational reports” written by commanders at all levels, plus two sharply-worded “overall lessons learnt” papers – on the war phase and on the occupation – compiled by the Army centrally.

The analysis of the war phase describes it as a “significant military success” but one achieved against a “third-rate army”. It identifies a long list of “significant” weaknesses and notes: “A more capable enemy would probably have punished these shortcomings severely.”

The analysis of the occupation describes British reconstruction plans as “nugatory” and “hopelessly optimistic”.

It says that coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation, which turned out to be “the defining stage of the campaign”. It condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians.

The leaked documents bring into question statements that Mr Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion. On July 16 2002, amid growing media speculation about Britain’s future role in Iraq, Mr Blair was asked: “Are we then preparing for possible military action in Iraq?” He replied: “No.”

Introducing the now notorious dossier on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, on Sept 24, 2002, Mr Blair told MPs: “In respect of any military options, we are not at the stage of deciding those options but, of course, it is important — should we get to that point — that we have the fullest possible discussion of those options.”

In fact, according to the documents, “formation-level planning for a [British] deployment [to Iraq] took place from February 2002”.

The documents also quote Maj Gen Graeme Lamb, the director of special forces during the Iraq war, as saying: “I had been working the war up since early 2002.”

The leaked material also includes sheaves of classified verbatim transcripts of one-to-one interviews with commanders recently returned from Iraq – many critical of the Whitehall failings that were becoming clear. At least four commanders use the same word – “appalling” – to describe the performance of the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.

Documents describe the “inability to restore security early during the occupation” as the “critical failure” of the deployment and attack the “absence of UK political direction” after the war ended.

One quotes a senior British officer as saying: “The UK Government, which spent millions of pounds on resourcing the security line of operations, spent virtually none on the economic one, on which security depended.”

Many of the documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph deal with key questions for Sir John Chilcot and his committee, such as whether planning was adequate, troops properly equipped and the occupation mishandled, and will almost certainly be seen by the inquiry.

However, it is not clear whether they will be published by it.

Tracy Barker says she was raped in Iraq by a US state department employee while working as a civilian contractor

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 20.55 GMT
• Article history

An arbitrator has awarded a woman nearly $3m (£1.8m) to settle her claims that she was raped in Iraq by a US state department employee in 2005 while working for a former Halliburton subsidiary.

Court records filed this week show Tracy Barker was awarded $2.93m to settle her claim against military contractor KBR.

Barker had sued Houston-based Halliburton and its former KBR subsidiary in May 2007, alleging she was sexually attacked while working as a civilian contractor in Basra, Iraq.

The Associated Press doesn't usually identify those who report they were sexually assaulted, but Barker made her identity public in her lawsuit.

Lawyer alleges collusion between Britain and US over ill-treatment of prisoners, including sexual humiliation

• Jenny Percival
• The Guardian, Saturday 14 November 2009
• Article history

The Ministry of Defence confirmed last night that it is investigating 33 cases of alleged abuse, including rape and torture of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers.

One claimant alleges that he was raped by two British soldiers, while others claim they were stripped naked, abused and photographed. Female soldiers are also alleged to have taken part in abuse.

A pre-action protocol letter was served on the Ministry of Defence last week by Phil Shiner, the lawyer representing the Iraqis, according to the Independent.

In the letter to the MoD, reported in the newspaper, Shiner said the allegations raised questions of collusion between Britain and the US over the ill-treatment of Iraqis. "Given the history of the UK's involvement in the development of these techniques alongside the US, it is deeply concerning that there appears to be strong similarities between instances of the use of sexual humiliation," said Shiner.

Responding to the allegations, Bill Rammell, the armed forces minister, said: "Over 120,000 British troops have served in Iraq and the vast majority have conducted themselves to the highest standards of behaviour, displaying integrity and selfless commitment. Only a tiny number of individuals have been shown to have fallen short of our high standards. Allegations of this nature are taken very seriously, however allegations must not be taken as fact and investigations must be allowed to take their course without judgments being made prematurely."

The Guardian reported in September that the Royal Military police had launched a criminal investigation into allegations that British soldiers repeatedly raped and mutilated an 18-year-old Iraqi civilian who was working as a labourer at Camp Breadbasket in Basra, the scene of other abuse allegations.

The man who wishes to remain unnamed alleged that two soldiers raped him, subjecting him to a 15-minute ordeal, then slashed him with a knife. He was treated in hospital for cuts and the military police are understood to have secured the medical records. The victim said he was so traumatised he tried to kill himself.

Shiner also represents Baha Mousa, 26, an Iraqi who died after being taken into UK military custody. Mousa and nine other civilians were arrested at a hotel in Basra in September 2003. The father-of-two died the following day, having suffered 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose.

Corporal Donald Payne became the first member of the British armed forces to be convicted of a war crime when he pleaded guilty at a court martial in September 2006 to inhumanely treating civilians. He was dismissed from the army and sentenced to one year in a civilian jail.

At the ongoing public inquiry into Mousa's death, a former British soldier admitted for the first time that he saw Payne and Private Aaron Cooper kicking and hitting the Iraqi shortly before he died. Garry Reader told a hearing on Monday how he had tried to resuscitate Mousa.

Iraqi former battle zone sees abnormal clusters of infant tumours and deformities

• Martin Chulov in Falluja
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009 19.24 GMT
• Article history

The children of Falluja Link to this video

Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.

The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.

Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.

A group of Iraqi and British officials, including the former Iraqi minister for women's affairs, Dr Nawal Majeed a-Sammarai, and the British doctors David Halpin and Chris Burns-Cox, have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war – including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted.

"We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies," said Falluja general hospital's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais. "Before 2003 [the start of the war] I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically."

The rise in frequency is stark – from two admissions a fortnight a year ago to two a day now. "Most are in the head and spinal cord, but there are also many deficiencies in lower limbs," he said. "There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of less than two years [old] with brain tumours. This is now a focus area of multiple tumours."

After several years of speculation and anecdotal evidence, a picture of a highly disturbing phenomenon in one of Iraq's most battered areas has now taken shape. Previously all miscarried babies, including those with birth defects or infants who were not given ongoing care, were not listed as abnormal cases.

The Guardian asked a paediatrician, Samira Abdul Ghani, to keep precise records over a three-week period. Her records reveal that 37 babies with anomalies, many of them neural tube defects, were born during that period at Falluja general hospital alone.

Dr Bassam Allah, the head of the hospital's children's ward, this week urged international experts to take soil samples across Falluja and for scientists to mount an investigation into the causes of so many ailments, most of which he said had been "acquired" by mothers before or during pregnancy.

Other health officials are also starting to focus on possible reasons, chief among them potential chemical or radiation poisonings. Abnormal clusters of infant tumours have also been repeatedly cited in Basra and Najaf – areas that have in the past also been intense battle zones where modern munitions have been heavily used.

Falluja's frontline doctors are reluctant to draw a direct link with the fighting. They instead cite multiple factors that could be contributors.

"These include air pollution, radiation, chemicals, drug use during pregnancy, malnutrition, or the psychological status of the mother," said Dr Qais. "We simply don't have the answers yet."

The anomalies are evident all through Falluja's newly opened general hospital and in centres for disabled people across the city. On 2 November alone, there were four cases of neuro-tube defects in the neo-natal ward and several more were in the intensive care ward and an outpatient clinic.

Falluja was the scene of the only two setpiece battles that followed the US-led invasion. Twice in 2004, US marines and infantry units were engaged in heavy fighting with Sunni militia groups who had aligned with former Ba'athists and Iraqi army elements.

The first battle was fought to find those responsible for the deaths of four Blackwater private security contractors working for the US. The city was bombarded heavily by American artillery and fighter jets. Controversial weaponry was used, including white phosphorus, which the US government admitted deploying.

Statistics on infant tumours are not considered as reliable as new data about nervous system anomalies, which are usually evident immediately after birth. Dr Abdul Wahid Salah, a neurosurgeon, said: "With neuro-tube defects, their heads are often larger than normal, they can have deficiencies in hearts and eyes and their lower limbs are often listless. There has been no orderly registration here in the period after the war and we have suffered from that. But [in relation to the rise in tumours] I can say with certainty that we have noticed a sharp rise in malignancy of the blood and this is not a congenital anomaly – it is an acquired disease."

Despite fully funding the construction of the new hospital, a well-equipped facility that opened in August, Iraq's health ministry remains largely disfunctional and unable to co-ordinate a response to the city's pressing needs.

The government's lack of capacity has led Falluja officials, who have historically been wary of foreign intervention, to ask for help from the international community. "Even in the scientific field, there has been a reluctance to reach out to the exterior countries," said Dr Salah. "But we have passed that point now. I am doing multiple surgeries every day. I have one assistant and I am obliged to do everything myself."

Additional reporting: Enas Ibrahim.

Johan Spanner for The New York Times

A device used by Iraqi forces to detect bombs and other weapons at checkpoints has been called useless by the American military.

By ROD NORDLAND

Published: November 3, 2009

BAGHDAD — Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.

The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.

With violence dropping in the past two years, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has taken down blast walls along dozens of streets, and he contends that Iraqis will safeguard the nation as American troops leave.

But the recent bombings of government buildings here have underscored how precarious Iraq remains, especially with the coming parliamentary elections and the violence expected to accompany them.

The suicide bombers who managed to get two tons of explosives into downtown Baghdad on Oct. 25, killing 155 people and destroying three ministries, had to pass at least one checkpoint where the ADE 651 is typically deployed, judging from surveillance videos released by Baghdad’s provincial governor. The American military does not use the devices. “I don’t believe there’s a magic wand that can detect explosives,” said Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr., who oversees Iraqi police training for the American military. “If there was, we would all be using it. I have no confidence that these work.”

The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.

Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, said the center had “tested several devices in this category, and none have ever performed better than random chance.”

The Justice Department has warned against buying a variety of products that claim to detect explosives at a distance with a portable device. Normal remote explosives detection machinery, often employed in airports, weighs tons and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ADE 651’s clients are mostly in developing countries; no major country’s military or police force is a customer, according to the manufacturer.

“I don’t care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” General Jabiri said. “I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world.”

He attributed the decrease in bombings in Baghdad since 2007 to the use of the wands at checkpoints. American military officials credit the surge in American forces, as well as the Awakening movement, in which Iraqi insurgents turned against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, for the decrease.

Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC.

Jim Mitchell, the head of ATSC, based in London, did not return calls for comment.

The Baghdad Operations Command announced Tuesday that it had purchased an additional 100 detection devices, but General Rowe said five to eight bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for $60,000, with provable results.

Checking cars with dogs, however, is a slow process, whereas the wands take only a few seconds per vehicle. “Can you imagine dogs at all 400 checkpoints in Baghdad?” General Jabiri said. “The city would be a zoo.”

Speed is not the only issue. Colonel Bidlack said, “When they say they are selling you something that will save your son or daughter on a patrol, they’ve crossed an insupportable line into moral depravity.”

Last year, the James Randi Educational Foundation, an organization seeking to debunk claims of the paranormal, publicly offered ATSC $1 million if it could pass a scientific test proving that the device could detect explosives. Mr. Randi said no one from the company had taken up the offer.

ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.

To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable. “It would be laughable,” Colonel Bidlack said, “except someone down the street from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the streets.”

Proponents of the wand often argue that errors stem from the human operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device.

Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to “charge” the device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator’s left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator’s left and point at them.

If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume, air fresheners or gold fillings in the driver’s teeth.

On Tuesday, a guard and a driver for The New York Times, both licensed to carry firearms, drove through nine police checkpoints that were using the device. None of the checkpoint guards detected the two AK-47 rifles and ammunition inside the vehicle.

During an interview on Tuesday, General Jabiri challenged a Times reporter to test the ADE 651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in plain view in his office. Despite two attempts, the wand did not detect the weapons when used by the reporter but did so each time it was used by a policeman.

“You need more training,” the general said.

Riyadh Mohammed contributed reporting.

By Jeremy Scahill

October 22, 2009

Judge Ellis's ruling only relates to the charges that Blackwater and Prince violated federal laws and not to the additional allegations that they also violated state laws. Even if Judge Ellis ultimately rejects all of the federal arguments made by Burke and CCR, which is a big if, the cases can still proceed under "common law," as has happened in other torture and war crimes cases. Ellis has not yet ruled on those charges.

Former PM accused over teenager's death in Iraq

Bereaved families call for legality to be investigated

• Karen McVeigh
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 October 2009 18.59 BST
• Article history

Anne Donnachie, whose son was killed in Iraq, told the inquiry that she wanted Tony Blair to be held to account for the 'illegal war'. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

 

The mother of a teenage soldier killed in Iraq broke down today as she told an inquiry she wanted Tony Blair to be held to account for the "illegal war".

Anne Donnachie, whose son Rifleman Paul Donnachie was killed in Basra in April 2007, was among a number of families addressing the Iraq inquiry committee at a regional meeting in Bristol.

Earlier this month in a similar meeting in London, Sir John Chilcot, the committee chairman who had invited the bereaved families to tell him the issues they believe he should focus on, was left in no doubt what they wanted investigated – legality, equipment and the role of Blair.

Today it was the turn of Donnachie to add her voice to the growing clamour for accountability, as committee members Sir Roderick Lyne, Sir Lawrence Freedman and Sir Martin Gilbert looked on.

Accompanied by her husband James, she wept as she made her plea. Echoing the sentiments expressed earlier in the hearing by the family of Territorial Army soldier Corporal Dewi Pritchard, who was killed in Basra in 2003, she said: "I lost my son and he was only 18, and I blame Tony Blair."

Donnachie, from Reading, Berkshire, who served with 2nd Battalion The Rifles, was killed by small arms fire during a routine patrol in the Ashar district of Basra City on 29 April, two years ago, during one of the worst periods of fighting in the area since the start of the conflict.

Pritchard, 35, from Rhondda, south Wales, was one of three military police officers who died when their civilian 4x4 vehicle was ambushed by gunmen.

His uncle, Brynley Pritchard, spoke on behalf of his family, including the soldier's father Tony, who also attended.

He told the committee: "We believe the war on Iraq was wrong and unlawful. The UK and US could not justify getting it past the UN because of vetoes by other member countries.

"So we believe a conspiracy was formed by Tony Blair and President Bush to invade Iraq under the pretence that Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and was preparing to use them against other countries of the world.

"We believe the true reason for the war was to protect the oil-producing countries of the Middle East, and was therefore motivated by greed. The protection of the oil fields could have been done by the UN and this could have saved 179 British personnel, numerous United States personnel and countless Iraqi civilians.

"Mr Blair should be taken to task by the UK judicial system for lying in parliament."

Relatives of Private Phillip Hewett, 21, of 1st Battalion the Staffordshire Regiment, Royal Marine Paul Collins, 21, with 847 Naval Air Squadron, and Prince William's friend 2nd Lieutenant Joanna Dyer, 24, attached to 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, all attended.

The inquiry's meetings with 50 of the bereaved families will end in Belfast next Wednesday. In addition to Bristol and London, it met in Edinburgh and Manchester. The investigation will also seek the views of current and former serving personnel.

Following his initial meeting with the bereaved, Sir John promised them that their views would "help inform the structure of the inquiry and the lines of questioning to witnesses."

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:14:12 GMT

Blackwater founder Erik Prince

New disturbing charges have emerged against XE, the infamous private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, whose operations came under spotlight after its 2007 carnage in Baghdad.

According to a report by MSNBC and based on alleged sworn declarations by two Blackwater employees in federal court, the firm used child prostitutes at its compound in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.

The declarations added Iraqi minors got involve in sexual acts with Blackwater members in exchange for one dollar and Erik Prince, the firm's owner, "failed to stop the ongoing use of prostitutes, including child prostitutes, by his men."

Based on other statements, the firm was involved in another sex scandal; "Prince's North Carolina operations had an ongoing wife-swapping and sex ring, which was participated in by many of Mr. Prince's top executives."

The two employees also alleged that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," The Nation reported.

Prince also allegedly forced health professional to endorse the redeployment of those Blackwater members who had been mental problems, such as excessive drinking and drug abuse.

Other charges against the firm include arms smuggling, money laundering and tax evasion.

The criminal activities of the firm first came under scrutiny after a group of the firm's members who were tasked to guard US diplomats in Iraq opened fire on civilians in Baghdad on September 2007, killing 17 people.

According to federal contract data obtained by The Nation, the Obama administration has recently extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for "security services" in Iraq.

SB/MD

What makes Therese a modern saint

By Robert Pigott BBC religious affairs correspondent

St Therese's remains spent a few hours in Wormwood Scrubs prison

In life, St Therese of Lisieux was virtually unknown - a Carmelite nun by the age of 15 and dead from tuberculosis in 1897 at only 24.

But in death she became one of the Church's brightest stars.

To judge from the thousands of Roman Catholics who have queued to see bones from her thigh and foot on their month-long visit to England and Wales, her star quality endures to this day.

Two thousand people an hour are expected to file past the ornate jacaranda wood casket in Westminster Cathedral to view the bones through a glass window, before they return via the Channel Tunnel to France.

Therese's popularity resulted from a posthumous autobiography that revealed her struggles with doubt.

The Provost of Birmingham Oratory, Father Paul Chavasse, says those doubts strike a powerful chord in a rationalist and sceptical age.

"She had long, long, periods when she didn't so much feel the presence of God as the absence of God", he said.

'Don't feel worthy'

"Therese… has a specific message for an age, which, in so many ways, is searching for meaning and for a spiritual understanding of what is going on."

But there is another characteristic of saints that explains Therese's special appeal - their role in Roman Catholic belief as intermediaries between the faithful and God.

I think that what this pilgrimage of the relics shows is that we misunderstand ourselves if we rule out the spiritual element of every human being and every human life Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols In pictures: St Therese relics tour

Grace is a Roman Catholic who travelled from Cambridge to see the relics arrive at Wormwood Scrubs jail in west London.

She watched as the decorated casket - clearly visible through the open door of a people carrier - entered the forbidding Victorian gatehouse at the high-security jail.

Grace said Therese's simplicity and humility made her all the more approachable as a "friend in heaven".

She explained: "We feel we can't pray directly to God but we use the saints as intermediaries on our behalf to ask our favours. That's why we pray a lot to saints.

"It's using them to speak to God on our behalf because we don't feel worthy enough to speak to him directly."

Inside the jail, 100 prisoners in regulation grey flannel tracksuits, many wearing rosaries, knelt and prayed before the casket in the prison chapel as others dispensed incense.

In a couple of weeks, Roman Catholics will celebrate All Saints' Day, with masses and soaring music.

It will be a celebration of Christians, such as Therese, who the Church believes are in heaven.

Catholics invest great faith in the power of prayers directed through such saints, and they insist that proximity to their earthly remains intensifies the sense of connection with God.

Fiercely resisted

But it is a practice fiercely resisted by some Protestant Christians.

The Rev Peter Ratcliffe, editor of the traditionalist Protestant journal The English Churchman, denounced the practice of praying to saints as superstition.

He said: "The Roman Catholic Church obscures - whether it be through indulgences, relics, the Mass, priests, penances and all sorts of things - it obscures the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no reason why anyone should not be able to pray to anyone who's dead."

Roman Catholics believe that the relics provide a way of getting closer to God

Relics of St Therese were taken to Baghdad in 2002 in an effort to forestall the Iraq war, and some have even been released into orbit around the Earth.

But Church leaders insist there's nothing magical or mystical about the relics. They are just a focus for prayer.

The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols - who will send the relics on their journey back to France - rejected the suggestion that the relics' journey was at odds with a secular age.

He said: "It might be out of step with that element of secularism and scepticism, but that's not the whole of society.

'Things of God'

"I think there is still a real hunger in our society for the things of God. I think that what this pilgrimage of the relics shows is that we misunderstand ourselves if we rule out the spiritual element of every human being and every human life", he said.

"If we push that to the margins we are depriving ourselves, and society, of a great source of generosity and heroism and love."

St Therese's popularity might reveal a hunger for "the things of God", but it also suggests widespread interest in her particular approach to the divine.

When Therese was a young nun, the image of God presented by the Church was designed to inspire awe and even fear.

But she described a personal relationship, even a friendship with God and that still seems to strike a chord today.