June 21, 2006

By Jerry Gordon

Last week, I called Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, incredible. Why? Because as I wrote in an Israpundit article by the same title; that a Military Intelligence buddy and former colleague of Mr. Garlasco deemed him technically incapable of rendering any bomb damage assessment. Especially on the hapless deaths of the eight Palestinians in the Gaza Beach mystery blast. They may have been killed by what IDF and forensic experts now believe could have been an explosive device like a landmine planted by Hamas to dissuade Israeli commandos from landing on the Gaza beach. Garlasco said in various news and TV news stories on the unfortunate event that he was “certain that the victims were killed by an errant 155MM shell.”

Monday, June 19th, the ubiquitous media savvy Mr. Garlasco met with the IDF investigating team for a briefing on their investigations. Lots of knowing smiles all around after a two and one half hour meeting with Garlasco evinced about the evident professionalism in the findings and report of the IDF briefing team led by Major General Meir Klifi - head of the IDF inquiry commission.

But right there in a frankly confusing Jerusalem Post article entitled: “HRW: We can’t contradict IDF Findings,” Garlasco does it all over again . “We came to an agreement with General Klifi that the most likely cause [of the blast] was unexploded Israeli ordinance.”

In a HRW press release blaring the title :”Israel: Gaza Beach Investigation ignores evidence: issued the following day on June 20th h Garlasco said:

“ An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be considered credible. The IDF’s partisan approach highlights the need for an independent, international investigation.”

The same HRW news release noted that Klifi disputed claims about a piece of shrapnel allegedly extracted from a 19 year old injured in the blast indicated that it could have dipped in the victim’s blood.

Garlasco gets up on his agitprop soap box once again and retorts:

“If the Israeli allegations of tampered evidence are to be believed, many Palestinians would have to have engaged in a massive and immediate conspiracy to falsify the data,” said Garlasco. “The conspirators – witnesses, victims, medical personnel and bomb disposal staff – would have had to falsify their testimony, amend digital and hand-written records, and dip shrapnel into a victim’s blood. It beggars belief that such a huge conspiracy could be orchestrated so quickly.”

In a History News Now Deja Vu weblog report by Judith Klinghoffer we learn from one of the surgeons, a Doctor Michael Bayme attending one of the wounded injured in the blast that the shrapnel does not resemble that of an Israel 155MM shell. The wounded woman, Rania Niham the Israel doctor was treating has gained consciousness and would recover from her massive injuries sustained in the blast although multiple surgeries were required and expertly carried out to save her life according to a news release issued on June 20th by the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv.

Dr. Michael Bayme wrote his friends:

“There is now incontrovertible proof that Israel did not cause the tragedy - shell fragments extracted from one bomb victim match the types of bombs made by Hamas - and not Israeli artillery shells. How do I know? I received the victim last Sunday (at 2:00 AM), operated on her until 5AM, and have re-operated every night since. Now she’s out of danger, and will survive to rejoin her family.”

But Garlasco and his HRW minions are like a dog with a bone its mouth: they hang on to their original :assessment;”

“We do not believe the Israelis were targeting civilians.” Garlasco said. “We just want to know if it was an Israeli shell that killed the Palestinians.”

Lucy Mair of the HRW Jerusalem office prattled their propaganda line.

‘We differ when it comes to other pieces of information from other sources that don’t relate to the military strike such as the timing and the type of injuries,” Mair explained. “While they [the IDF] made a very good presentation, we still think there are enough unanswered questions that have not been examined by Klifi’s team…and that is why we believe there should be an independent investigation.”

The independent investigation is doubtless one that HRW suggested in their news release of last week involving Palestinian hospital information and independent studies by third parties “friendly” to their views, label that “cause.”

Why should we buy anything that Garlasco says about the Gaza beach or for that matter his evaluation of the current Haditha controversy in Iraq that seems to be dissolving given current developments? Garlasco comments to the press that:

“What happened at Haditha appears to be outright murder. The Haditha massacre will go down as Iraq’s My Lai.”

As Judith Klinghoffer noted in her DejaVu weblog report of the Hidtatha charade by Garalasco:
“When Garlasco appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show to discuss his views with Hannity and retired Marine colonel Oliver North, Garlasco immediately back-pedaled, admitting under questioning that he had “no idea of the facts” in the situation.”

I went back to my MILINT buddy and former DIA colleague of Garlasco and asked him why Garlasco would persist in this patent denial of the facts as in the case of the Gaza beach blast. Here are my friend’s responses about Garlasco and the scientific requirements of bomb damage assessment.

On Garlasco’s knowledge about bomb damage assessment in Kosovo.

“I read the blurb from HRW; he could have been involved in the Kosovo BDA project and picked up some OJT, but 155 MM artillery was not used in that conflict!!!

On the science background of USAF bomb damage assessment

“I worked closely with an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel during Operation Desert Fox on Bomb damage Assessment (BDA) at CENTCOM. My contribution was analyzing Iraqi allegations and finding exactly where the round supposedly hit. Once we got imagery of the site, or video from Iraqi TV, the LTC would examine the evidence from catering, blast effects, etc. I picked up some things along the way, such as the shot-gun effect of anti-radiation missiles, but this is not the same as systematically going through a course on the science of BDA. This was a recurring requirement for me during the time we were dropping loads on Southern Iraq, right up until I left in July 2000.”

On Garlasco’s “nuanced” resume

“The HRW site said he participated in 50 interrogations as an SME. Those were not interrogations, but strategic debriefings. SDs is by definition non-coercive. I am very familiar with this process and operation. This qualifies him to speak on the nuances of maintaining rapport and questioning technique, but it does not qualify him to speak about approach techniques to persuade a reluctant source to cooperate.”

Some insights into Garlasco and his transition from military intelligence to work at HRW can be gained from an extensive interview published on-line at the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. The interview with Garlasco was conducted by H. Aaron Levy The Current Views and Reviews editor in March 4, 2006

On why Garlasco quit as Chief of High Valued targets for the Iraq War

Garlasco: “ I will be honest with you, I didn’t support the war in Iraq. I thought that it was taking away important resources from the war against terrorism. I saw Saddam as a side show, unnecessary. I didn’t see a real clear and present danger to the U.S…..and I think there is something to be said about his stabilizing force. His existence was a stabilizing force in the region. So, I just didn’t really see the need for the U.S. invasion…. I stayed there through the war and I left on April 11th shortly after Baghdad fell, and then HRW took me, hosed me down, cleaned me off, and sent me off to Iraq.”

About the difference working on Military intelligence and for HRW

Garlasco: “ I will say one thing. I was shocked at how very similar the day-to-day work is at HRW and at the Pentagon, and in intelligence in general. At HRW instead of meeting with sources of intelligence information or with a defector, you are meeting now with a victim, and it is similar. It is someone who has a story, who has seen something or heard something. You are using maps and satellite imagery still and are trying to understand and analyze something. You draw conclusions and try to see what needs to be done. It is really the same work. It is just that your audience is different.”

About his views on the war on terror in the Middle East

Garlasco: “Now, how is the war on terrorism and the actions of the U.S., writ large, affecting Middle Eastern policy and really the global war on terrorism? I was really shocked when we started the war in Iraq. Maybe shocked is too strong, because there was a slow percolation at the Pentagon where you knew something was coming, but it is kind of this wonder of why are we doing this? Why is this going forward when we know that Osama Bin Laden was at the heart of this attack? “

“A lot of the world is completely unsupportive of U.S. military action in Iraq and have been from the beginning of the war in Iraq, and it has been really detrimental to the war on terrorism. You look for example to what happened in Spain with the train bombing. They pulled their troops out of Iraq, and that has had an affect on the war on terrorism. We need to understand that our actions in one area have a ripple effect. People look at what’s going on (prisoner mistreatment, the war on terrorism, and pulling out families in Iraq and Afghanistan and incarcerating them while you are trying to figure out if they are part of an insurgency) and they are thinking this is just wrong.”

So, Mark Garlasco has made his perch at Human Rights Watch into a one man media band against the direction of the war on terrorism, engaging in support of Israel’s enemies in the Palestinian territories and embroidering his expertise in intelligence analysis so that the unwary in the press, the electronic media and in our Congress take his analysis for gospel truth.

As evidenced by his purported expertise on display in the current Gaza beach kerfuffle, you can bet that his colleagues at HRW are happy with his “performance” because he panders to their left radical agenda and in the process has destroyed his independence of mind and credibility as an “intelligence analyst.”. That’s chutzpah, by me.