Iraq’s Death Squads US Supported: Video

Dahr Jamail reports from the streets of Bagdhad, where death squads terrorize civilians.

Full written confession published in advance of the crimes

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Another current and rather obvious mistake based entirely on faulty models of understanding is that the dispute over the British sailors captured in Iranian waters is part of an Anglo-American plan to provoke an attack on Iran. Nonsense! If the analysts can get their minds off their stupidities and their heads out of their asses about the inevitability of an attack, and, for once, look at the facts (I’m getting tired of being the only one who does so), it is glaringly apparent that the London response is completely ad-libbed. B-liar is getting pounded by the Iranian propaganda, and the British lies aren’t even close to believable. Don’t you think it obvious that a real calculated provocation would have with it a pre-planned media war against the Iranians? The fact that the British are obviously making this up as they go along – and not too well, I might add – proves that London, at least, was not part of a conspiracy. There are two options left: 1) it was a mistake (the captain’s negligence); or 2) some cowboy local commander, working on his own agenda, decided to cross the line (both literally and figuratively). B-liar now manages the complete trifecta, looking stupid, weak, and lying, all at the same time. This was no plan.

As I’ve said all along, the ‘Clean Break’ document (Realm=Empire) is the blueprint for the Zionist Plan for the Middle East (note my comments on the real role of oil), and the neocons, weakened but certainly still dangerous, continue to follow it to the letter. The ‘Iran talk’ from the Israeli right (aped by their employees in the United States), now fading, was just a distraction to divert attention from the Lebanon debacle (Iran is hardly mentioned in the ‘Clean Break’ document). Despite recent American diplomatic contact, Syria, as always, is back on the agenda:

“The Bush administration has launched a campaign to isolate and embarrass Syrian President Bashar Assad, using parliamentary elections in late April as a lever, according to State Department officials and Syrian exiles.

The campaign, which some officials fear is aimed at destabilizing Syria, has been in the works for months.

It involves escalating attacks on Syria's human rights record, which is generally regarded as abysmal, as well as White House-approved support for Syrian bloggers and election monitors inside and outside the country to highlight the nation's lack of freedom, the officials and others said.

The State Department in recent weeks has issued a series of rhetorical broadsides against Syria, using language harsher than that usually reserved for U.S. adversaries. On Friday, the administration criticized a planned visit there by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif..

‘It's the new Cuba - no language is too tough,’ said one of the officials, who like others insisted on anonymity to discuss internal government planning.”

and (my emphasis in red blood dripping from his fangs):

“The officials say the campaign bears the imprint of Elliott Abrams, a conservative White House aide in charge of pushing Bush's global democracy agenda.”

The first parts of the Plan are to break up Iraq, break up Lebanon, and attack Syria. If you get confused by Iran talk, you’ll miss what they are really up to. The Plan hasn’t been going all that well. Iraq isn’t breaking up, Israel was defeated in Lebanon, the Americans didn’t take the bait last summer and attack Syria (representing the awakening of the American Establishment to the fact their government was being run by traitors like Abrams), the Saudis have belatedly woken up to the fact that Israel is not their friend and the Americans are out of control, and the current Zionist attack on Syria has had the unwanted effect of reconciling Syria with the Saudis:

“Indeed, U.S. efforts to isolate Syria received a setback at this week's Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi leadership, which has ostracized Assad since the Hariri assassination, appeared to welcome him back into the fold.”

Despite all these setbacks, the Washington neocons know only one thing, and continue to follow the Plan religiously.

I find it amazing that Americans still continue to resist the idea that their government is under the control of Zionist traitors, particularly given that the ‘Clean Break’ document, being obsessively followed by the people who wrote it like Perle, Wurmser, and Feith (note in particular the actions of Feith in creating a complex system of lie creation and dissemination which led directly to the attack on Iraq he advocated, but that Israel could not possibly have done, in the ‘Clean Break’ document!), constitutes one of those extreme rarities in conspiracy theory, a full written confession of the complete details of the conspiracy, a document which is still being followed in Washington by the actual conspirators who wrote it!

posted at 2:56 AM permanent link

Iraq/Iran Maritime Boundaries; Iranian Diplomat: I Was Misquoted Over UK Sailors Trial

Iranian Diplomat: I Was Misquoted Over UK Sailors Trial
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Iraq/Iran Maritime Boundaries
March 30, 2007

Craig Murray

Foreign Policy magazine has a blog which has just published an article calling me a "gadfly" and saying I am "missing the point". The point being a highly contentious statement by former Bahraini government legal adviser Kaiyan Kaikobad that the maritime boundary drawn by the UK MOD has become part of international law by usage.

Actually, I hadn't missed this point at all. Kaikobad's view is quoted in the LA Times, and I spent rather a lot of time explaining to the journalist writing the artcle what was wrong with his argument. Whether the LA Times carried any of my points I do not know.

The Foreign Policy blog article follows, with the rejoinder I have sent them:

Obviously, the seizure of 15 British marines and sailors and the Iranians' use of them as pawns in a propaganda game is a deadly serious business. Yet there's also plenty of farce amid the danger:

The Iranians also blundered in diplomatic talks by giving the British their own compass reference for the place where they said the 14 men and one woman had been seized. When Britain plotted these on a map and pointed out that the spot was in Iraq’s maritime area, the Iranians came up with a new set of coordinates, putting the seizure in their own waters.

Whoops. Turns out, though, that the border issue isn't as black and white as either side claims. King's College of London's Richard Schofield, an expert on the Iran-Iraq border, explained in a telephone interview that although "basically, there is a boundary" nowadays along the Shatt al-Arab, that's not the case further out in the Persian Gulf where the British sailors and marines were taken prisoner. Below is the map presented by the UK Ministry of Defense (MoD):

That's what lends the claims of gadfly Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, a whiff of plausibility. Murray, who also headed the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1989 to 1992, writes on his website that "there is no agreed maritime boundary between Iraq and Iran in the Persian Gulf," a milder version of his earlier argument that the boundary used by the MoD "is a fake with no legal force."

Murray is missing the point. True, as Schofield says, "the boundary that [the MoD] showed further south was a little disingenuous, because it doesn't have the same legal force or weighting, by any means, as the Iran-Iraq boundary." Explains Schofield, "It's more just a provisional indication of what Iraq's territorial water claims might be." But what's good for the goose is good for the gander; if there's no clear border, then Iran doesn't have a case, either. And as Kaiyan Kaikobad, an associate professor of international law at Durham University, observes in the LA Times, "If you can show that over a reasonably long period of time, that this was the line that both countries actually agreed on, there's lots of rules in international law that allow that line to become not only a de facto line, but a de jure line." So the MoD could be right after all.

Rather than seizing the opportunity to chalk the whole thing up to a misunderstanding about maritime law, though, the Iranians keep digging themselves into a deeper diplomatic hole, and the British are happy to hand them the shovel. It's clear from the Iranian actions that this isn't really about territorial waters, in any case. After all, the Iranians could have politely notified the British Navy that their boat was in the wrong spot, and the two sides could have worked it out like gentlemen. Instead, we get an absurd hostage situation and a diplomatic crisis. So what's it about? http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/4230

I have replied:

I am rather unable to understand why you should be so gratuitously rude about me in your blog, first calling me a "gadfly", then saying that I am "missing the point".

Firstly, I am not missing the point at all - that neither Britan, Iraq nor Iran has a plain case is precisely my point. You give the impression that I support Iranian claims and actions, which I most certainly do not.

Secondly, I am unsure why you should choose to take the view that Kaiiyan Kaikobad's view is more valid than the practically identical views of Richard Schofield and I

There are major problems with Kaikobad's view that state practice can result in a de jure as well as a de facto line.

Firstly, there are no judgements that enshrine that view in the area of maritime boundaries since the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea entered into force.

Secondly UNCLOS provides that, in the absence of an agreed boundary, neither side should attempt to enforce territorial water claims beyond a median line. It is very plain that this is for the purpose of conflict avoidance, and does not prejudice either state's rights in the eventual resolution of the boundary dispute.

So Kaikobad's view that working accommodation does bring de jure permanent solution is incompatible with UNCLOS, which is becoming generally accepted as enshrining customary international law in this area.

Thirdly, the wisdom of UNCLOS in this regard is demonstrated if you consider the ramifications of Kaikobad's view. If going along with a working arrangement would lead to its acceptance as de jure, then the only way a state could maintain a quite legitimate claim would be by the exercise of force to show it did not go along. Kaikobad's view is a recipe for conflict. If you think about it logically, if Kaikobad's view were true, then the Iranians would have to initiate some sort of military action or lose their claim. Is that desirable?

Kaikobad is an interesting man of strong views, but not an entirely definitive authority.

Look, it is a free country and you are perfectly entitled to publish about me what you like. But to disagree with a point is not to miss it, and I hope this convinces you that was an unfair characterisation.

Posted by craig on 11:02 PM 30/03/07 under 7 War and Iran? | Comments (4)

Craig Murray
Writer and broadcaster

As Britain's outspoken Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray helped expose vicious human rights abuses by the US-funded regime of Islam Karimov. He is now
a prominent critic of Western policy in the region.

Report: ADL, BBI reps were at Rosen event: Prosecutors say they received classified info

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Representatives of ADL and B'nai B'rith reportedly are refusing to cooperate with the defense in the classified information case against two former AIPAC staffers.

Representatives of ADL and B'nai B'rith reportedly are refusing to cooperate with the defense in the classified information case against two former AIPAC staffers.

Jess Hordes, Washington director of the Anti-Defamation League, and Dan Mariaschin, executive vice president of B'nai B'rith International, were present with Steve Rosen, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's former foreign policy chief, at a 2003 briefing with Anthony Zinni, the former top U.S. envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Forward reported this week. Neither man commented to the Forward.

Rosen's defense wants to call Zinni, Mariaschin and Hordes to testify that the meeting was routine and did not involve the divulgence of classified information, as the prosecution contends. The ADL and B'nai B'rith fear being drawn into a case that already has complicated AIPAC's mission in Washington.

Zinni has told JTA that the meeting was inconsequential. "I met Mr. Rosen once at a dinner while I was the envoy,” the retired Marines general and former head of U.S. Central Command wrote in an e-mail to JTA a year ago, when his name first emerged as a possible witness. “It was a casual event and we discussed the process I was then involved in. The dinner was with four others.” The fourth person at the dinner is not known.

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Unravelling The US Political-Military Paradox

March 29, 2007

By Jim Kirwan

What got us into this nightmare was a lengthy string of mega-lies that originated within the twisted plans of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, back in the 1970’s. The U.S. presidents that have come and gone since then, have each played their part, in bringing us kicking and screaming to this decision point. There are several major parallax-views that have led the public to misunderstand and misinterpret the political events and military actions in the Middle-East: Actions that have kept our invasions going, and that now threaten to up-end the world—if these lies are allowed to serve, yet again; for another cover-story that can only end in chaos!

The November elections set the stage for this final confrontation between the desires of the public and the needs of the Outlaws: when it comes to funding and perpetuating our illegal and unilateral military responses to circumstances and to the control of those powers and resources that have become the global stance which has always underpinned the players in their intrigues in the Middle-East. Many nations now are involved to the point of self-extermination in the literal outcomes of how our continued presence there is handled.

It has taken almost forty years to get to the point where the United States government could be reduced from a single government consisting of three branches—to a cabal that has absolute power and that speaks for not only the other two branches, but who is totally opposed to the preferences and the well-being of the people of the United States as well!

One indication of this paradox is the recent behavior of Nancy Pelosi, in her capacity as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war; and her hands will always have the bloodstains of millions of lives upon them – so long as she lives!

“For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran. "'It would take away perhaps the most important tool the U.S. has when it comes to Iran,' she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"'I don't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize in a civilized way,' said Gary Ackerman of New York." According to John Nichols of The Nation, Pelosi's decision to strip the provision barring Bush from attacking Iran without Congress' approval "sends the worst possible signal to the White House."

"The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically," writes Nichols. Her "disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come." Nichols does not exaggerate.

If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority. Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress. They have been flashed the go-sign for war on Iran.

Nothing in the provision would have prevented Bush, as commander in chief, from responding to an Iranian attack or engaging in hot pursuit of an enemy found in Iraq. Nor would the provision have prevented Bush from threatening Iran. It would simply have required him to come to Congress -- before launching all-out war. Now Pelosi has, in effect, ceded Bush carte blanche to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. It's all up to him and Cheney.” (1)

The Second Indication that something is dangerously amiss – are the numbers in the surge. The original demand was for 21,000. That number has since been added to, twice; and now it looks more like 40,000 total. There was never any attempt to comply with the wishes of the electorate or the congress, because the Decider acted immediately upon the announcement of his stated decision – as though no approval was required, from either the people or the congress: This, despite the fact that the public, the congress, and the world had all registered strong disapproval for his plans from the moment he announced them. If The Decider is determined to ‘act as a president and not a Dictator—he has a direct obligation to respond to obvious opposition, with something besides contempt!

But that’s only a sideshow: The real point is how these ‘surged’ troops will now be used. The Decider says they will be assigned to Baghdad. But it’s far more likely that these are the same troops that a Russian Satellite has just spotted, massing along the Iran border with Iraq—troops that will now be used to pre-emptively invade Iran. (2) Bush is lying to the world one more time, to create yet another WAR-Without-Reason: except of course to keep him, his friends, and his supporters out of jail and still in office—until he can disappear into Paraguay, without a backward glance. He’s lied to the world so many times before, what’s one-more-LIE, when the world has apparently swallowed so many of his lies already?

The Third Indication is the immediate reactions by those in the area, to what is obviously about to be. There were supposed to be US war games taking place yesterday and today in the Gulf: last night the media had “film at eleven” of two US aircraft carriers conducting war-games just beyond the territorial limits of Iran, in the Gulf. An Iranian Admiral has just denied that any such actions ever happened. (3) The Brits are also making warlike noises over the detention of 15 British Sailors and Marines, captured by Iran, in what Iran claims were Iranian waters. Tony Blair says otherwise and is demanding their release. So now there are two clay pigeons sitting outside or inside Iran either or both of which can be used as the next “Tonkin Gulf incident” for Iran.

The Fourth Paradox is perhaps the most complex and dangerous element: yet in an ironic twist of potentials, this one may just offer a possible way out, if it doesn’t become the actual reason to launch this operation—for in the twisted minds of the rabid American and Israeli war-mongers they absolutely want these new wars to happen!

“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: The president of the United Arab Emirates forbade the U.S. military from using bases in his country to attack or spy on Iran as mammoth U.S. Navy maneuvers in the Gulf entered their second day. Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who leads this key U.S. ally, said Tuesday that the Emirates had assured Iran that it was not siding with Washington in its dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

Leaders of Arab nations around the Gulf have grown increasingly uneasy with the tough U.S. stance toward Iran, believing any outbreak of war would bring Iranian retaliation on their own soil, which lies in easy reach of Iranian missiles. On Wednesday, the U.S. Navy continued its largest show of force in the Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with 15 ships, 125 aircraft and 13,000 sailors taking part in an exercise that veered within a few dozen miles of Iran's coast.” (4) However it should be noted that Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey, along with a host of other states would also be drawn, one way or another, into any new war on Iran.

“The Russians and the Chinese for their part are also concerned, beyond their strictly commercial interests in that nation. “Russia's Foreign Ministry has sharply criticized the United States for what it called over-reliance on force and warned Washington against military action against Iran, The Associated Press reported. Russia criticized what it called "the creeping American strategy of dragging the global community into a large-scale crisis around Iran," saying that Tehran helps maintain stability in Afghanistan and Central Asia.” In an already scrubbed report, Russian and China had also warned the US that Washington must sit down at the table with Iran and solve this dilemma diplomatically. Simultaneously they also told Iran that they needed to back down from their hard line position on developing nuclear facilities. It would appear that these two major nuclear powers want this stand-off defanged, so that the world can return to that time before the USA began to behave like the Hulk-of-all-Superpowers that has become overly enchanted with their own purely-macho approach to international affairs.

This is the totality of what’s on the table now, and thanks to Nancy Pelosi, there is no congressional way to stop the Bushwhackers from shattering the Middle-East—like the proverbial Piñata that floats above the banquet-table of the war-mongers—drooling over the ‘possibilities’ that await their next and perhaps final move to empower Israel, and to capture the entire Middle-East, for the Corporatocracy and the Oil, in a bold and savage move.

The only final Paradox that remains, is that in all of this American Military planners have failed to account for what they may actually face with this new attack—exactly as they did when Rummy ran his dog & pony show into Baghdad in 2003. No matter how many times the lies of this administration are repeated—it does not make them true! As the intensity of the bloodlust in their greed does not insure success; so too the half-hearted assessments of the defense of Iran, will not change the outcomes of the trajectories of Iranian missiles one iota. If this misguided and criminal attack gets underway—at any time—the world will suffer for this crime: for decades to come if any of us survive at all. Congress is now irrelevant—again—but the rest of the planet is apparently awakening to the reality that now threatened people everywhere. Why not add your voice to those of the other peoples that oppose this Nightmare NOW! (6)

kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net

1) The AIPAC Girl, Nancy Pelosi Leaves Iran War in Bush/Cheney Hands

http://www.postchronicle.com:80/commentary/article_21270952.shtml

2) Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html

3) Iran Admiral – US War Games Claims – False

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=4137&sectionid=3510101

4) Gulf Arabs distance themselves from U.S. Treats against Iran

http://www.iht.com:80/articles/ap/2007/03/28/africa/ME-GEN-Arabs-US-Iran.php

5) Easter Surprise Attack on Iran, new 9/11. . . Or Worse

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com:80/node/1052

6) Accept Peace or Face War, Israel told

http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/accept-peace-plan-or-face-war-israel.html

Housing Crisis Knocks Loudly in Michigan

Credit Markets
Why Soft Landings are Impossible in Property Booms
The Ultimate Subprime Lender
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Foreclosures Hit Record Numbers as Region Continues to Lose Jobs

By Dina ElBoghdady
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 31, 2007; A01

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. -- Janet Laitis leaned on a chain-link fence in her front yard, dragged on a cigarette and pointed to the homes on her block that lenders have seized in just the past two weeks.

"There. There. There," said Laitis, 70, pointing across the street, down the street and then to the modest ranch house next door. "This neighborhood is deteriorating before my eyes."

Within a square mile of Laitis's house in this bedroom community outside Detroit, more than half the 96 homes on the market are foreclosed properties. The situation is not uncommon in pockets of the industrial Midwest, where a record number of people are missing their mortgage payments and losing their homes.

While lax lending policies have been blamed for the unfolding home-mortgage crisis across the country, the distress in the Midwest has been exacerbated by fundamental problems with the economy. The region has been devastated by a severe drop in manufacturing jobs as the U.S. automobile industry shrinks.

"There's a structural shift going on that's undermining the unionized, industrialized states, and Michigan is leading the way," said Donald Grimes, a senior research specialist at the University of Michigan. "When you talk to people in Michigan, you can tell from their voice and their demeanor that they are just depressed."

The housing bubble of recent years has burst and home prices are under pressure in many parts of the country. How far they fall will be determined in large measure by the strength of the economy, experts say, since job and income growth ultimately determine how much people can pay for housing. The U.S. economy is growing, but the pace of growth has slowed markedly of late.

States like Michigan and Ohio, struggling with their particular economic problems, illustrate just how bad things could get in the housing sector if the national economy falls into a recession. They are, moreover, politically important swing states; rising anger there over the housing situation could help determine the outcome of the 2008 presidential election.

Michigan has lost 305,000 jobs since 2001. Economists estimate that 40 percent of the cuts came from automakers and their suppliers, who have shed jobs each of the past six years as they have tried to regain their competitive edge.

About 65,000 people moved out of Michigan from July 2005 to July 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau reported. The migration eroded already weak demand for houses, which in turn hurt prices. In the last three months of 2006, Michigan was the only state in the nation where home prices fell, dropping 0.4 percent from the same time in 2005.

Even during the first half of the decade, when home prices jumped in most of the country, Michigan's stagnated. Dana Johnson, chief economist at Comerica Bank, said home prices typically outpaced income in most of the nation during the housing boom. But in Michigan, income plummeted and dragged housing down with it.

Cash-strapped homeowners could no longer sell their homes or refinance their way out of trouble. Many got stuck with adjustable-rate mortgages offering low teaser rates that spiked in later years. Now many borrowers are struggling.

"It's been a spillover from the weak economy to the housing sector," Johnson said. "What we've seen here is a one-state recession."

Losing Jobs and Value

Brian Minjares, 40, is living that recession first-hand. His story is proof that no one in Michigan is immune to the state's financial woes.

Three years ago, he left his job at a financial services firm to start his own practice with a partner in the Detroit suburb of Southfield. Minjares took out a home equity line of credit to finance the business. At the time, his house was appraised at $350,000 and he owed $275,000, he said. The bank gave him a loan equal to 100 percent of his equity.

As the housing crisis worsened, the value of his home dropped to $260,000. Minjares could not afford to sell it because he owed more than it was worth. He could not afford to keep it because, as the rates on his loans adjusted, his monthly payments jumped to $3,000 from $2,100.

Meanwhile, his client roster was drying up. With the auto industry in decline, many of his customers' businesses crumbled. "So they had no money to give me to invest for them," Minjares said. He coped by running up credit-card debt.

But he fell behind on his payments and the bank foreclosed on his Colonial in Flat Rock, not far from Detroit. Minjares shut down his business and now sells cleaning products. He rents a condominium from his brother.

"You just have to cut your losses and run," Minjares said. "You have to take into consideration your marriage and your health and you say to yourself: 'It's just a house.' "

Ralph Newkirk, an agent with the Michigan brokerage Real Estate One, hears similar stories every day. The foreclosure situation is so extreme that his firm created a division two years ago with 25 agents who sell only foreclosed homes; Newkirk heads it.

Back then, the average sales price on foreclosed homes was about $70,000. Since then, the price has more than doubled, suggesting the problem is no longer confined to low-income neighborhoods in Detroit. "The problem is moving out to the suburbs," Newkirk said. "It's spreading like a cancer."

A Tangible Form of Pain

Michigan's strong tie to the auto sector has been a source of pain before. Strikes damaged its economy in 1967 and high oil prices crippled Detroit in the 1980s.

But Michigan's most recent trouble is "the most severe crisis in the state's existence," defying the pattern of past economic cycles, when Michigan bounced back quickly, said David Littmann, senior economist at the Michigan's Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

This time, the rest of the country recovered from the 2001 recession, but Michigan's per capita income remains 7 percent below the national average, Littmann said. For the first time since the Great Depression, Michigan is a poor state relative to the rest of the nation.

"This is not a cyclical problem anymore, and housing is the most tangible form of the pain," Littmann said.

For most of the past year, Michigan has ranked among the three states with the highest percentage of late mortgage payments and foreclosures, surveys by the Mortgage Bankers Association show. In the fourth quarter, it came in third, behind Ohio and Indiana, with 2.39 percent of its loans in foreclosure.

Many economists say, and union officers agree, that those hardest hit are not auto workers who lost jobs. Many received buyouts that should keep them afloat for a while. And because they tend to be older, some have paid off their mortgages.

Those feeling the worst squeeze, rather, are workers at the auto supply companies, such as Max, 44, an engineer who spoke on condition that his last name not be used because he is embarrassed by his situation.

Max bought a condominium in the Detroit suburb of Plymouth using a traditional fixed-rate mortgage more than five years ago. But three years later, his firm took away company cars from its workers, hiked insurance premiums and cut raises and bonuses -- raising Max's monthly living expenses and reducing his pay.

Max responded by refinancing his condo twice. Though he did not realize it then, the second loan was adjustable. Over time, his monthly payments rose from $1,500 to $1,800 to $1,950.

"I wasn't even reading the paperwork," said Max, who makes $106,000 a year.

Weeks ago, Max turned in his keys to his lender. The bank paid him $500 and took possession of the condo earlier than it otherwise could under Michigan law.

In fact, across the country, official foreclosure numbers do not capture the full scope of the mortgage problem, since many people are doing what Max did. Others are signing over their deeds to the bank in lieu of foreclosure to lessen the damage to their credit records. Some have been granted permission from their lenders to sell the property for less than they owe on the loan.

Signs of Trouble

As the problems grow, at least one type of business is booming in Michigan -- those that help manage foreclosed property. Take the case of Property Maintenance Inc., which changes keys, mows lawns, shovels snow and repairs foreclosed-upon homes in Michigan so that they are ready for sale.

Deanna Simmons, who created the company in 2002, said the revenue of her six-employee firm shot up from $20,000 in the first year to $1.6 million last year.

Driving through the streets of a working-class neighborhood in Dearborn Heights, Simmons points out the tell-tale signs of a foreclosed house: mail boxes overflowing, fliers piling up, shades drawn.

Once inside, she can tell which people left angry. They're the ones who leave all the water faucets running or take the door knobs with them. "They do anything they can to make it difficult for the mortgage companies, like they're trying to get back at them," she said.

Simmons spots the home next door to Laitis, the Dearborn Heights resident alarmed by the foreclosures on her street. The white ranch house is not for sale yet, but the tell-tale signs are there.

Laitis said her neighbors, a couple in their 40s, left recently after they learned their house would be foreclosed upon. The husband, a carpenter, had lost his job. The wife did not work. They crammed what they could into their white Bonneville and drove off without saying goodbye.

Laitis said the house was paid for at some point but the couple took out a $75,000 home equity line of credit to buy a car and build a garage, now half-finished.

Lots of people can't afford their mortgage or can't afford rising property taxes, Laitis said. For her, the taxes have become onerous. She wondered aloud if she could lose her house for failure to pay them. She could.

"Maybe I'm going to be the next one out of here," she said.