February 25, 2004
Quote Of The Moment #0044
"This is probably the No. 1 issue for the American people: getting the deficit down. The governors must expect flat funding on everything other than homeland security and defense. Not just the governors, but the American people." -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
"If you start with the view that there's never enough money, then there's always unfunded mandates. I share my brother's view. ... I worry that there's not the fiscal discipline here [in Washington]." -- Jeb Bush
Posted by Eddie Tews at 06:16 PM
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Donald H. Rumsfeld may have sunk to a new low during his visit to Iraq earlier this week.
Complaining that, "Syria and Iran have not been helpful to the people of Iraq. Indeed, they've been unhelpful. They've allowed people to move from their countries to Iraq to engage in terrorist activities against the Iraqi people," because, let's face it, "the powers that be in Syria and Iran are not wishing the free Iraqi people well." Rumsfeld also blamed "terrorist networks, plus the former regime elements, plus some criminals" for the miserable security situation in Free Iraq.
Not all is lost, though, as, according to Donald H., "Instead of responding by acquiescing, we see that volunteers are still in line to join the police. They're still in line to join the army. Instead of retreating, they are leaning forward and taking losses, and God bless them for it."
Now, as this blog has discussed before now, those pesky Geneva Conventions mandate the occupying power to maintain security in an occupied nation. We've also discussed the reason that volunteers are "leaning forward and taking losses": "Why do you think we work with them? There are no other jobs." It's also been fairly widely reported that the Iraqi resistance is mostly home-grown.
But to gauge the degree of hypocrisy and racism in Rumsfeld's worldview, we could ask ourselves what the expected reaction might be if, noting that extremists abroad were slamming aeroplanes into New York skyscrapers on a weekly basis, official reaction were to decry the unhelpful nature of the countries from which the attacks were staged while praising American people for continuing to show up at their high-rise workplaces to "take losses" in the name of freedom -- but not removing a finger from its collective ass to try to prevent the all-too-predictable next attack.
In other H. Rumsfeld news, twenty years and two months after his December '83 visit to Iraq, the Donald was in Uzbekistan this week re-enacting his infamous handshake with the then-beloved Saddam Hussein. Now, as then, Rumsfeld was despatched to the Asian continent to "discuss the growing military partnership between the United States" and a murderous dictator.
That Uzbek President Islam Karimov submerges his prisoners in boiling water, among various and sundry other grisly misdeeds, underscores "the delicate and difficult nature of U.S. support for Uzbekistan." In other words, it might force McClellan to do a bit of tapdancing at some point -- but the handshake can proceed as planned.
Update: Continuing his World Tour, Rumsfeld next stepped up to the mic while in Kazakhstan. Demonstrating that he's been drinking from the same pixie water that has so bamboozled his Commander in Chief, Rumsfeld allowed that
It's interesting when one thinks about Iraq and their unwillingness to disarm, that Kazakhstan stands as an impressive model of how a country can do it. If Iraq had followed the Kazakhstan model, after 17 U.N. resolutions, and disarmed the way Kazakhstan did, there would not have been a war.
In a "related development", Shell Oil has inked a deal to "develop" a Kazakh oil field. This would be the same Shell Oil which has already wreaked havoc upon indigenous communities in Nigeria, Colombia, Peru, and elsewhere.
Yeah, a "military-to-military partnership" and a rapacious multinational are "related" all right. We mustn't forget, however, that if Shell weren't to put down stakes in Kazakhstan, then "the sound and ethical business practices synonymous with Shell, the environmental investment, and the tens of millions of dollars spent on community programs would all be lost."
God Bless Those Niggers!
Donald H. Rumsfeld may have sunk to a new low during his visit to Iraq earlier this week.
Complaining that, "Syria and Iran have not been helpful to the people of Iraq. Indeed, they've been unhelpful. They've allowed people to move from their countries to Iraq to engage in terrorist activities against the Iraqi people," because, let's face it, "the powers that be in Syria and Iran are not wishing the free Iraqi people well." Rumsfeld also blamed "terrorist networks, plus the former regime elements, plus some criminals" for the miserable security situation in Free Iraq.
Not all is lost, though, as, according to Donald H., "Instead of responding by acquiescing, we see that volunteers are still in line to join the police. They're still in line to join the army. Instead of retreating, they are leaning forward and taking losses, and God bless them for it."
Now, as this blog has discussed before now, those pesky Geneva Conventions mandate the occupying power to maintain security in an occupied nation. We've also discussed the reason that volunteers are "leaning forward and taking losses": "Why do you think we work with them? There are no other jobs." It's also been fairly widely reported that the Iraqi resistance is mostly home-grown.
But to gauge the degree of hypocrisy and racism in Rumsfeld's worldview, we could ask ourselves what the expected reaction might be if, noting that extremists abroad were slamming aeroplanes into New York skyscrapers on a weekly basis, official reaction were to decry the unhelpful nature of the countries from which the attacks were staged while praising American people for continuing to show up at their high-rise workplaces to "take losses" in the name of freedom -- but not removing a finger from its collective ass to try to prevent the all-too-predictable next attack.
In other H. Rumsfeld news, twenty years and two months after his December '83 visit to Iraq, the Donald was in Uzbekistan this week re-enacting his infamous handshake with the then-beloved Saddam Hussein. Now, as then, Rumsfeld was despatched to the Asian continent to "discuss the growing military partnership between the United States" and a murderous dictator.
That Uzbek President Islam Karimov submerges his prisoners in boiling water, among various and sundry other grisly misdeeds, underscores "the delicate and difficult nature of U.S. support for Uzbekistan." In other words, it might force McClellan to do a bit of tapdancing at some point -- but the handshake can proceed as planned.
Update: Continuing his World Tour, Rumsfeld next stepped up to the mic while in Kazakhstan. Demonstrating that he's been drinking from the same pixie water that has so bamboozled his Commander in Chief, Rumsfeld allowed that
It's interesting when one thinks about Iraq and their unwillingness to disarm, that Kazakhstan stands as an impressive model of how a country can do it. If Iraq had followed the Kazakhstan model, after 17 U.N. resolutions, and disarmed the way Kazakhstan did, there would not have been a war.
In a "related development", Shell Oil has inked a deal to "develop" a Kazakh oil field. This would be the same Shell Oil which has already wreaked havoc upon indigenous communities in Nigeria, Colombia, Peru, and elsewhere.
Yeah, a "military-to-military partnership" and a rapacious multinational are "related" all right. We mustn't forget, however, that if Shell weren't to put down stakes in Kazakhstan, then "the sound and ethical business practices synonymous with Shell, the environmental investment, and the tens of millions of dollars spent on community programs would all be lost."
Posted by Eddie Tews at 06:14 PM
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Are the Bush Administration's recent protestations that had never claimed, in the run-up to war, that Iraq posed an "imminent" threat to the United States, but rather a "grave and growing danger"; a put-on? With these clowns, one never knows for sure.
But Russell Mokhiber's hilarious take-down of White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan -- in which Mokhiber produces and attempts to read from a transcript from February 10, 2003, in which McClellan used the magic word on two separate occasions -- should offer a clue.
Surely a lexis search would turn up several more uses of the word.
One can't help wonder, though, at the rigamarole. Hans Blix, a few weeks before the invasion, estimated that it "would not take years, nor weeks, but months" to determine the status of Iraq's weapons programmes.
In other words, the danger was "grave" enough that the Administration could not wait a few months to "disarm" the madman. Actions speak louder than words, they say.
More words from the horse's mouth:
Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?
February 18, 2004
Imminence Front
Are the Bush Administration's recent protestations that had never claimed, in the run-up to war, that Iraq posed an "imminent" threat to the United States, but rather a "grave and growing danger"; a put-on? With these clowns, one never knows for sure.
But Russell Mokhiber's hilarious take-down of White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan -- in which Mokhiber produces and attempts to read from a transcript from February 10, 2003, in which McClellan used the magic word on two separate occasions -- should offer a clue.
Surely a lexis search would turn up several more uses of the word.
One can't help wonder, though, at the rigamarole. Hans Blix, a few weeks before the invasion, estimated that it "would not take years, nor weeks, but months" to determine the status of Iraq's weapons programmes.
In other words, the danger was "grave" enough that the Administration could not wait a few months to "disarm" the madman. Actions speak louder than words, they say.
More words from the horse's mouth:
Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?
Posted by Eddie Tews at 07:09 PM
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Ever notice how some of the most manic flag-wavers are also some of the quickest to make try to make a buck (or twenty, or twenty million) off the taxpayers?
Why don't military contractors, if they're so fucking patriotic, offer to design and build the Pentagon's high-tech war-toys at cost? Why doesn't Halliburton, rather than overcharging for its underwhelming "services" in Iraq, offer them at cost?
Here's another example of one company's idea of what it means to help the cause:
As the Coast Guard tackles its new mission of protecting America from terrorist attacks, one of the tools it needs is a radio frequency to help monitor the movements and cargo of thousands of ships that enter the nation's ports each year.
But it's out of luck.
The Federal Communications Commission -- over the Coast Guard's objections -- sold the frequency at auction to a private company in 1998 for $6.8 million.
Now the Coast Guard wants a slice of the frequency back, calling it essential to its plans. The winning bidder, MariTEL, says it can have it, maybe, for $20 million.
MariTEL bought the frequency fair and square, realizing at the time, even if the FCC didn't, just how valuable it was. Like any good entrepreneur, the company expects to profit from its investment, says Dan Smith, who as MariTEL's president supervises its two other employees.
Kinda reminds you of Goodfellas, doesn't it?
That's the way it is with a wiseguy partner. He gets his money no matter what. You got no business? Fuck you, pay me. You had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning and World War Three started in the lounge? Fuck you, pay me.
February 11, 2004
That's The Spirit!
Ever notice how some of the most manic flag-wavers are also some of the quickest to make try to make a buck (or twenty, or twenty million) off the taxpayers?
Why don't military contractors, if they're so fucking patriotic, offer to design and build the Pentagon's high-tech war-toys at cost? Why doesn't Halliburton, rather than overcharging for its underwhelming "services" in Iraq, offer them at cost?
Here's another example of one company's idea of what it means to help the cause:
As the Coast Guard tackles its new mission of protecting America from terrorist attacks, one of the tools it needs is a radio frequency to help monitor the movements and cargo of thousands of ships that enter the nation's ports each year.
But it's out of luck.
The Federal Communications Commission -- over the Coast Guard's objections -- sold the frequency at auction to a private company in 1998 for $6.8 million.
Now the Coast Guard wants a slice of the frequency back, calling it essential to its plans. The winning bidder, MariTEL, says it can have it, maybe, for $20 million.
MariTEL bought the frequency fair and square, realizing at the time, even if the FCC didn't, just how valuable it was. Like any good entrepreneur, the company expects to profit from its investment, says Dan Smith, who as MariTEL's president supervises its two other employees.
Kinda reminds you of Goodfellas, doesn't it?
That's the way it is with a wiseguy partner. He gets his money no matter what. You got no business? Fuck you, pay me. You had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning and World War Three started in the lounge? Fuck you, pay me.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 07:38 PM
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The Shrub, early in his Meet The Press interview, reassured the teevee viewing public that
There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made a good calls, whether or not I used good judgment, whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power, and I look forward to that debate, and I look forward to talking to the American people about why I made the decisions I made.
That's awfully white of him. But, gee, you don't think the proper time-frame for debating whether or not it would have been the right decision would have been before the war? There was certainly "ample time" then -- and "ample" public willingness to take up the debate. But we'll recall that, at the time, the Dubya had insisted that he couldn't "decide policy based upon a focus group."
Here's an analogy: a serial bank-robber, finally apprehended by the po-lice, agrees to "debate" the merits of his practice with a judge, all the while keeping hold of all his stolen assets, and continuing to plan and execute further robberies.
Who could possibly complain?
In other Meet The Press logical hijinks:
• You remember U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 clearly stated show us your arms and destroy them, or your programs and destroy them. And we said, there are serious consequences if you don't. That was a unanimous verdict. In other words, the worlds of the U.N. Security Council said we're unanimous and you're a danger. So, it wasn't just me and the United States. The world thought he was dangerous and needed to be disarmed.
And, of course, he defied the world once again.
By submitting the required weapons declaration, allowing inspectors into the country, and agreeing to destroy the al Samoud missiles (all in addition to having allowed the destruction of his banned weapons years earlier), he demonstrates "defiance"? Okay, dude.
• Libya, for example, there was an positive effect in Libya where Moammar Khaddafy voluntarily disclosed his weapons programs and agreed to dismantle dismantle them, and the world is a better place as a result of that.
Leaving aside the reality that Libya had been attempting a rapprochement with the West for a good decade, why is Libya the only country to renounce its WMD programmes in the wake of the "disarming" of Saddam? Why not North Korea? Why not Israel? Why not Pakistan? Why not Russia? Why, for god's sake, not the United States? Huhn. Could it be that WMD are a red herring? Could it be that WMD-hoarding dictators on friendly terms with the Bush Administration are free to disregard the "message" sent by the Iraq invasion?
• The fundamental question is: Do you deal with the threat once you see it? What - in the war on terror, how do you deal with threats? I dealt with the threat by taking the case to the world and said, Let's deal with this. We must deal with it now.
An issue this blog has raised time and time again. The Iraq "threat" was "seen", presumably, no later that the 2002 State Of The Union address, when Iraq was included in the "Axis of Evil" club. Or, at the very latest, on September 24, 2002 -- the date of Tony Blair's infamous "45 minutes" dossier. If the "threat" was of such pressing urgency that it could be "dealt with" not "now", but 14 months after it was first "seen", that's some big-time negligence, by Bush's own logic.
• In complaining that Saddam was not the world's only "madman", Russert's first example is Fidel Castro. Whatever his faults, in 45 years in power, Castro has never invaded another country, never fired off radiological munitions, never overthrown a democratically elected government... If Castro is a "madman", Russert is correct indeed -- there are a fuck of a lot of madmen in the world.
• And the reason why I felt like we needed to use force in Iraq and not in North Korea, because we had run the diplomatic string in Iraq. As a matter of fact, failed diplomacy could embolden Saddam Hussein in the face of this war we were in. In Iraq I mean, in North Korea, excuse me, the diplomacy is just beginning. We are making good progress in North Korea.
Waitasecond. Didn't you just, not fifteen seconds earlier, get done saying that once we "see" a "threat", "We must deal with it now"? What reason is there to suppose that diplomacy would "embolden" Saddam, but will not "embolden" North Korea?
• And the reason I'm not surprised [by the "level and intensity" of the resistance] is because there are people in that part of the world who recognize what a free Iraq will mean in the war on terror. In other words, there are people who desperately want to stop the advance of freedom and democracy because freedom and democracy will be a powerful long term deterrent to terrorist activities.
Uh, wasn't the reason that the 9/11 perpetrators carried out the attacks supposed to be because they despise freedom and democracy? Then, shouldn't an increase in the "level and intensity" of freedom and democracy serve as a powerful catalyst to terrorist activities? In a world ridden with enslavement and autocracy, bin Laden wouldn't have anything to bitch about, so would have to retire from terrorism, yes? Granted, this presents a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. But surely the bin Laden-ites should be able to prioritise their target selections. First, go after the most free and democratic societies -- the Scandinavian countries. Then hit the pseudo-democracies in North America and Europe and/or the semi-democracies in Latin America and East Asia. Then, finally, the "emerging" democracies under U.S. tutelage (Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Turkey, et al.).
• I look forward to articulating...
Brother, we all look forward to you articulating something, anything.
Looking Forward
The Shrub, early in his Meet The Press interview, reassured the teevee viewing public that
There is going to be ample time for the American people to assess whether or not I made a good calls, whether or not I used good judgment, whether or not I made the right decision in removing Saddam Hussein from power, and I look forward to that debate, and I look forward to talking to the American people about why I made the decisions I made.
That's awfully white of him. But, gee, you don't think the proper time-frame for debating whether or not it would have been the right decision would have been before the war? There was certainly "ample time" then -- and "ample" public willingness to take up the debate. But we'll recall that, at the time, the Dubya had insisted that he couldn't "decide policy based upon a focus group."
Here's an analogy: a serial bank-robber, finally apprehended by the po-lice, agrees to "debate" the merits of his practice with a judge, all the while keeping hold of all his stolen assets, and continuing to plan and execute further robberies.
Who could possibly complain?
In other Meet The Press logical hijinks:
• You remember U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 clearly stated show us your arms and destroy them, or your programs and destroy them. And we said, there are serious consequences if you don't. That was a unanimous verdict. In other words, the worlds of the U.N. Security Council said we're unanimous and you're a danger. So, it wasn't just me and the United States. The world thought he was dangerous and needed to be disarmed.
And, of course, he defied the world once again.
By submitting the required weapons declaration, allowing inspectors into the country, and agreeing to destroy the al Samoud missiles (all in addition to having allowed the destruction of his banned weapons years earlier), he demonstrates "defiance"? Okay, dude.
• Libya, for example, there was an positive effect in Libya where Moammar Khaddafy voluntarily disclosed his weapons programs and agreed to dismantle dismantle them, and the world is a better place as a result of that.
Leaving aside the reality that Libya had been attempting a rapprochement with the West for a good decade, why is Libya the only country to renounce its WMD programmes in the wake of the "disarming" of Saddam? Why not North Korea? Why not Israel? Why not Pakistan? Why not Russia? Why, for god's sake, not the United States? Huhn. Could it be that WMD are a red herring? Could it be that WMD-hoarding dictators on friendly terms with the Bush Administration are free to disregard the "message" sent by the Iraq invasion?
• The fundamental question is: Do you deal with the threat once you see it? What - in the war on terror, how do you deal with threats? I dealt with the threat by taking the case to the world and said, Let's deal with this. We must deal with it now.
An issue this blog has raised time and time again. The Iraq "threat" was "seen", presumably, no later that the 2002 State Of The Union address, when Iraq was included in the "Axis of Evil" club. Or, at the very latest, on September 24, 2002 -- the date of Tony Blair's infamous "45 minutes" dossier. If the "threat" was of such pressing urgency that it could be "dealt with" not "now", but 14 months after it was first "seen", that's some big-time negligence, by Bush's own logic.
• In complaining that Saddam was not the world's only "madman", Russert's first example is Fidel Castro. Whatever his faults, in 45 years in power, Castro has never invaded another country, never fired off radiological munitions, never overthrown a democratically elected government... If Castro is a "madman", Russert is correct indeed -- there are a fuck of a lot of madmen in the world.
• And the reason why I felt like we needed to use force in Iraq and not in North Korea, because we had run the diplomatic string in Iraq. As a matter of fact, failed diplomacy could embolden Saddam Hussein in the face of this war we were in. In Iraq I mean, in North Korea, excuse me, the diplomacy is just beginning. We are making good progress in North Korea.
Waitasecond. Didn't you just, not fifteen seconds earlier, get done saying that once we "see" a "threat", "We must deal with it now"? What reason is there to suppose that diplomacy would "embolden" Saddam, but will not "embolden" North Korea?
• And the reason I'm not surprised [by the "level and intensity" of the resistance] is because there are people in that part of the world who recognize what a free Iraq will mean in the war on terror. In other words, there are people who desperately want to stop the advance of freedom and democracy because freedom and democracy will be a powerful long term deterrent to terrorist activities.
Uh, wasn't the reason that the 9/11 perpetrators carried out the attacks supposed to be because they despise freedom and democracy? Then, shouldn't an increase in the "level and intensity" of freedom and democracy serve as a powerful catalyst to terrorist activities? In a world ridden with enslavement and autocracy, bin Laden wouldn't have anything to bitch about, so would have to retire from terrorism, yes? Granted, this presents a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. But surely the bin Laden-ites should be able to prioritise their target selections. First, go after the most free and democratic societies -- the Scandinavian countries. Then hit the pseudo-democracies in North America and Europe and/or the semi-democracies in Latin America and East Asia. Then, finally, the "emerging" democracies under U.S. tutelage (Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Turkey, et al.).
• I look forward to articulating...
Brother, we all look forward to you articulating something, anything.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 03:33 PM
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Having been caught with their pants down regarding Iraq's previously hyped (and hyped, and hyped, and hyped, and hyped...) banned weapons programmes, both the President and Vice President are now spinning (and spinning, and spinning, and spinning) the line that Saddam had both the capability to produce, and the intent to use, weapons of mass destruction.
The former is a lie, as even David Kay has acknowledged that Iraq had no extant programmes at the time of invasion. But even if the mainstream media were to throw the Administration this bone, it still leaves the obvious followups:
• If Saddam's intent to use WMD represented a "grave and growing danger" necessitating "regime change", why was the invasion not undertaken until two years into the Administration's time in office (or, alternatively, why couldn't it have waited the few months that the UNMOVIC inspectors claimed to need before definitively determining the status of Iraq's WMD programmes)?
• In October of 2002, the CIA advised Congress that "the probability of him initiating an attack -- let me put a time frame on it -- in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now, the likelihood I think would be low." Does this jibe with "intent"?
• Jafar Dhia Jafar, a coordinator of Iraq's 1980s-circa nuclear programme, fled the country in April of last year, and was subsequently debriefed by the CIA:
Up until the 91 Gulf war, our adversaries were regional.... But after the war, when it was clear that we were up against the United States, Saddam understood that these weapons were redundant. "No way we could escape the United States." Therefore, the W.M.D. warheads did Iraq little strategic good.
While the Administration didn't have access to this defector before the war, it is now making its "intent" justification several months after having received this testimony. How does this jibe with "intent"?
A question so obvious the mainstream media hasn't bothered to ask.
February 09, 2004
Obvious Followup #0002
Having been caught with their pants down regarding Iraq's previously hyped (and hyped, and hyped, and hyped, and hyped...) banned weapons programmes, both the President and Vice President are now spinning (and spinning, and spinning, and spinning) the line that Saddam had both the capability to produce, and the intent to use, weapons of mass destruction.
The former is a lie, as even David Kay has acknowledged that Iraq had no extant programmes at the time of invasion. But even if the mainstream media were to throw the Administration this bone, it still leaves the obvious followups:
• If Saddam's intent to use WMD represented a "grave and growing danger" necessitating "regime change", why was the invasion not undertaken until two years into the Administration's time in office (or, alternatively, why couldn't it have waited the few months that the UNMOVIC inspectors claimed to need before definitively determining the status of Iraq's WMD programmes)?
• In October of 2002, the CIA advised Congress that "the probability of him initiating an attack -- let me put a time frame on it -- in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now, the likelihood I think would be low." Does this jibe with "intent"?
• Jafar Dhia Jafar, a coordinator of Iraq's 1980s-circa nuclear programme, fled the country in April of last year, and was subsequently debriefed by the CIA:
Up until the 91 Gulf war, our adversaries were regional.... But after the war, when it was clear that we were up against the United States, Saddam understood that these weapons were redundant. "No way we could escape the United States." Therefore, the W.M.D. warheads did Iraq little strategic good.
While the Administration didn't have access to this defector before the war, it is now making its "intent" justification several months after having received this testimony. How does this jibe with "intent"?
A question so obvious the mainstream media hasn't bothered to ask.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 07:05 PM
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Run Suskind has begun posting to the web the already famous documents obtained by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, used in the preparation of their book The Price Of Loyalty.
Interestingly, Suskind is also soliciting other insiders to submit documents: "Those who wish to add documents to The Bush Files, can contact Ron Suskind through this site or send submissions to his private post office box."
The Pentagon Papers' leaker, Daniel Ellsberg, a week before the initiation of war in Iraq, "called on government officials to leak documents to Congress and the press showing the Bush administration is lying in building its case against Saddam Hussein."
Didn't happen then, but now that "chinks exposed in the White House armor" by O'Neill, Joseph Wilson, and to an extent George Tenet have put the Shrub "very much on the defensive" bringing an "every warrior for himself" atmosphere to the Administration; here's hoping that Suskind's offer will attract some takers.
February 07, 2004
Is It Time For A New Pentagon Papers?
Run Suskind has begun posting to the web the already famous documents obtained by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, used in the preparation of their book The Price Of Loyalty.
Interestingly, Suskind is also soliciting other insiders to submit documents: "Those who wish to add documents to The Bush Files, can contact Ron Suskind through this site or send submissions to his private post office box."
The Pentagon Papers' leaker, Daniel Ellsberg, a week before the initiation of war in Iraq, "called on government officials to leak documents to Congress and the press showing the Bush administration is lying in building its case against Saddam Hussein."
Didn't happen then, but now that "chinks exposed in the White House armor" by O'Neill, Joseph Wilson, and to an extent George Tenet have put the Shrub "very much on the defensive" bringing an "every warrior for himself" atmosphere to the Administration; here's hoping that Suskind's offer will attract some takers.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 05:11 PM
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From a talk radio caller: black Republicans are "some of the most courageous people that we have in this country."
Quote Of The Moment #0043
From a talk radio caller: black Republicans are "some of the most courageous people that we have in this country."
Posted by Eddie Tews at 04:55 PM
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As we know, ad nauseum, arms-hunter extraordinaire David Kay has blamed faulty intelligence for the Bush Administration's "mistaken" pre-war assertions concerning Saddam Hussein's supposed stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons (and programmes for producing same). While many have accepted on its face Kay's analysis, some few commenters have argued that the Administration manipulated available intelligence to fit a desired outcome (in other words, that it lied).
This essay will argue the second point. But first, we should recall the context in which rests the issue at hand.
Bluntly, supposing Saddam had been maintaining such stockpiles?
CIA director George Tenet argued, in October of 2002, that Saddam would have used any WMD he may or may not have had in his possession only if attacked. As for Saddam giving his weapons to bin Laden, former CIA agent Bob Baer argued, at about the same time, that, "I'm unaware of any evidence of Saddam pursuing terrorism against the United States." (It's well known that bin Laden and Saddam were not on anything like friendly terms. Indeed, bin Laden considered Hussein a "communist".) Further, there was no evidence that Saddam had any means to deliver the supposed weapons.
So even if Saddam had maintained stockpiles of banned weapons, he had no intention of using them, and no ability to deliver them.
Moreover, the current leaders in North Korea, Israel, Pakistan and India, and Russia -- all countries currently maintaining nuclear stockpiles -- have either come close to using, threatened to use, or made little attempt to completely account for; these stockpiles.
In fact, we now know that Pakistan, erstwhile ally in the "War On Terror", was selling nuclear secrets to the remaining two "Axis of Evil" nations, as well as to the long-time Libyan bogeyman. While the Bush Administration isn't exactly happy about the Pakistani misadventures, it's not currently planning an invasion to thwart this danger -- clearly a proliferation threat much, much greater that that posed by Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, at precisely the time that the Bush Administration was waxing hysterical over the "imminent" threat posed by Saddam's WMD arsenal, it was engaged in chemical and biological warfare -- on a massive and devastating scale -- in Colombia, permanently destroying hundreds of thousands of acres with its fumigation campaign, and preparing to set loose the diabolical pathogenic fungi known as "Agent Green".
Even worse, according to the UNDP, 30,000 children perish every single day -- yes, that's ten September 11s of children, every day of the year -- from easily preventable and treatable poverty-related diseases. The UNDP also estimates that 500,000 women per year die in childbirth. This is, essentially, a product of IMF-mandated (read: U.S.-mandated) austerity programmes imposed upon the Third World. In other words, it's bio-warfare (bio-terrorism, if you like), writ very, very large.
In its attack upon Iraq, ostensibly to eradicate Weapons of Mass Destruction, the United States fired off over 1,000 tonnes of Depleted Uranium munitions -- a form of nuclear warfare whose consequences, for Iraqis and U.S. troops both, are sure to be the more horrifying given its extensive use, this time around, in urban areas.
This is far the most underreported story of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Imagine the reaction if an outside force were to poison a geographical area "the size of California", within the United States or Europe, with several hundreds of tonnes of a cancer-causing heavy metal boasting a radioactive half-life of 4.5 Billion years? The non-reaction of even those nominally opposed to the war in Iraq -- France, Russia, China, Germany -- was and is one of history's truly shameful moments, laying bare the despicably racist double-standard by which the "civilised" world operates.
To add insult to injury, the U.S. war machine littered the country with unexploded cluster bomb-lets (which are now killing and maiming about 1,000 children per month), used incendiary munitions "remarkably similar" to Napalm, and has failed to restore the electricity works. Not a trivial matter, this last, as the planners of the first Gulf War were very much aware:
With no domestic sources of both water treatment replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United Nations Sanctions to import these vital commodities. Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease.
As far as the future is concerned, Congress has recently given the green light for the Bush Administration to develop "useable" nuclear weapons, and the Pentagon is hard at work on its "FALCON" weapons system, which will ultimately allow it the capability of "striking targets 9,000 nautical miles distant in less than two hours," thereby fully automating the process of blowing up those brown-skinned persons whose (as often as not Washington-installed) leaders have fallen out of favour. "FALCON Phase I" contractors were selected in November, with testing set to begin in 2006.
Keeping the foregoing in mind, let us turn to the question of whether or not the Bush Administration sincerely believed that Saddam had "failed to disarm". Both logical and evidentiary considerations should make it fairly clear that the Bush Administration was lying then, and is lying now.
Logical Considerations • If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam was in possession of WMD, then it never would have invaded, for the same reason that it hasn't invaded North Korea: it doesn't want WMD to be used against them! So obvious, yet so rarely cited.
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam was in possession of WMD, then why did it not re-consider this position when Colin Powell's aenemic February '03 presentation of "evidence" before the United Nations went over like a lead balloon. Any honest analysis would have taken the world's skepticism into account instead of, ultimately, resorting to bullying and coercion in a failed attempt to cause the UN to sign off on its designs? Tony Blair's infamous September '02 dossier claimed that Saddam could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes' time. Tony needed simply show the evidence that led to this "conclusion", and obtaining UN approval would have been a slam dunk. Even more to the point, why, when it was perfectly clear that the UN was only all too happy to allow the Administration to unleash the dogs at even the slightest sign of a "smoking gun", did Colin Powell, who claimed to "have more assets available to me than the inspectors do," not share his "assets" with the UNMOVIC inspectors, who instead were left to complain that the Bush Administration was feeding it "garbage after garbage after garbage" -- a charge George Tenet more less acknowledges?
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam was in possession of WMD, why did it mount repeated attempts to manipulate intelligence to its desired ends?
"This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents. ... Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," read a July23, 2002 "UK Eyes Only" report summing up a meeting involving Anglo-American planners.
"In my view, the expert intelligence analysts of the DIS were overruled in the preparation of the dossier in September 2002, resulting in a presentation that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities," says the head of the British Defence Intelligence Staff.
Similarly, U.S. intelligence officials, in October of 2002, worried that, "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," and that, "I would just say there is not much support for that [nuclear] theory around here," and that, "There's a catfight going on about this right now. On one side you have most of the experts on gas centrifuges. On the other you have one guy sitting in the CIA," and that, "The administration can say what it wants and we are expected to remain silent."
Do we not remember the Administration's "stovepiping" of intelligence to fit its needs? Do we not remember Donald H. Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans", created specifically to end-run around the established intelligence agencies' work? Do we not remember (certainly the Washington Post doesn't want us to remember) when, back in the lazy days of Autumn 2002, Dubya was cheered for having "until now relied little on the Langley agency for his information on Iraq," as, "There is simply no way to reconcile what the CIA has said on the record and in leaks with the positions Bush has taken on Iraq."
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam could lay an attack upon a Western city at any moment, and that only an invasion and "regime change" could eliminate this threat, why did it wait so long to attack? Dubya claims that it's because he "didn't know", before September 11, that terrorists were capable of striking on U.S. soil. This is total horseshit. Al-Qaida's 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center would have, except for a slight placement error, killed tens of thousands of people. If nothing else, the Oklahoma City bombing demonstrated the country's continued vulnerability to terror bombings, while the millennium plot revealed the ongoing desire of the bin Laden-ites to carry out attacks.
But supposing that 9/11 had, as he claims, taught Bush this harsh lesson? Even supposing that the invasion of Afghanistan were the logical first step in addressing this new-found vulnerability (though the perpetrators were almost all Saudi, not Afghan, nationals; and though the Taliban offered to extradite bin Laden if shewn some evidence of his involvement in the plot; and though the Afghan invasion proved absolutely devastating to the civilian population while apparently strengthening bin Laden: al-Qaeda has pulled off 17 major attacks in the two years since 9/11, as opposed to five in the eight years before 9/11)?
Why then, after the fall of the Taliban in November of 2001, did not the Bush Administration immediately set its sights upon Iraq? Why did it wait until the mid-term elections began heating up, almost a full year later, to begin pleading its hysterical case? (Apparently, in the words of Chief of Staff Andrew Card, it was because "from a marketing standpoint, you don't roll out a new product in August." Okay, but why, if it posed such a grave danger, wasn't the Iraqi menace "product" rolled out any time before August of 2002?)
Shortly after the mid-term elections, the New York Times reported that, "President Bush gave notice to the United Nations and to the American people today that the political season is over and that the time has come to disarm Saddam Hussein -- and that it may take war to accomplish that goal." Would we expect, if it were truly a matter of "national security" that the schedule of the "political season" would have any bearing on the timing of the war build-up?
• If the Blair Administration truly believed that Saddam could strike within 45 minutes, why did Blair acknowledge, in private, to former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook that Saddam's WMD capability, if any, was limited to battlefield uses, and that "the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult for him to assemble them quickly for use"?
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam posed an imminent threat, why did Colin Powell remark, in February of 2001, that Saddam "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors"?
• Why, if the Anglo-American intelligencies agencies were unable to determine that Saddam posed no threat whatever, was the 90% of the world's population opposed to the war able to recognise precisely this fact? Why was opposition to the war strongest in the region itself? Why is the United States now a worldwide pariah state? Why can't Dubya show his face anywhere in the world without touching off massive protests?
• If the Bush Administration truly sought war only out of concern that "the lives and the liberty of the American people" were in imminent danger from Saddam's weapons programmes, then why did Paul Wolfowitz later reminisce that, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Why did materials from Dick Cheney's March '01 Energy Task Force, obtained through an FOIA lawsuit, "contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries, and terminals; as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects; and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts'"?
Why did the Dubya, in May of 2003, enact Executive Order 13303, declaring sovereign control over
all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons?
Why did, upon coming into "possession" of Iraq, the Bush Administration immediately begin selling off the country's resources to "suitors" closely connected to the Administration, while at the same time rewriting the country's economic laws, putting it "up for sale" -- a violation of International Law?
Why did Donald H. Rumsfeld, on the afternoon of September 11, pen his famous attack memo, urging his staffers to, "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not" when looking for potential targets?
• If the Bush Administration was truly intent upon accurately determining the status of Saddam's WMD programmes, then why did the famous "sixteen words" concerning the fabled Niger uranium purchases make their way into the 2003 State of the Union address over the objections of the CIA?
Why, after Joseph Wilson had publicly debunked the story (claiming, no less, that, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat,") did the Administration retaliate against Wilson by outing his wife?
Why did the Bush Administration make the decision to go to war before the completion of the October '02 National Intelligence Estimate (regarding Saddam's weapons programmes)?
Why did Colin Powell lovingly praise as a "fine paper" a Blair Administration "dossier" that had been culled -- spelling mistakes and all -- from dated materials taken from the Internet?
Why did the United States pinch Iraq's December '02 weapons declaration, "on grounds that Washington had the best photocopying capabilities", then return "purged" copies to the non-permanent Security Council members?
Why did the Bush Administration begin smearing the UNMOVIC inspectors even before inspections had begun?
Why did Richard Perle acknowledge that the United States would invade even if UNMOVIC returned a "clean bill of health"?
• If the Bush Administration truly launched its war only to remove the "threat" to world peace posed by Saddam -- either directly, or indirectly through bin Laden and co. -- or even to "liberate" the Iraqi people, why is it still there? All three have been either accomplished or found wanting. Why not apologise for its "mistake", offer to pay reparations, clean up the Depleted Uranium and the unexploded munitions, and leave off?
Evidentiary Considerations • Hussein Kamel, one of the Bush Administration's pet Iraqi defectors, testified in 1995 that, "All weapons -- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed."
• UNSCOM Executive Chairman Rolf Ekeus stated in August of 2000 that "in all areas we have eliminated Iraq's [WMD] capabilities fundamentally." This after having affirmed in 1996 that "not much is unknown about Iraq's retained proscribed weapons capabilities," in 1997 that, "Iraq has sustained a good level of cooperation in the operation of the monitoring system," and in 1998 that "the majority of [weapons] inspections were conducted in Iraq without let or hindrance."
• Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter (who voted for George W. Bush) has claimed, on repeated occasions, that Iraq had been "qualitatively disarmed" by 1997. In an interview with journalist John Pilger for his 2000 documentary Paying The Price, Ritter minced few words: "If I had to quantify Iraq's threat, in terms of 'weapons of mass destruction', the real threat is: zero. None." Then: "Does Iraq have a chemical weapons program today? No. Does Iraq have a long-range ballistic missiles program today? No. Nuclear? No. Biological? No. Is Iraq qualitatively disarmed? Yes."
• Another former weapons inspector, Raymond Zalinskas, stated in 1998 that, "UNSCOM has destroyed all the chemical facilities, the chemical weapons facilities, and also all known chemical weapons. ... In the biological area, UNSCOM has destroyed the dedicated biological weapons facility at al-Hakam, plus other ones at other institutes. And as far as we know, they have no biological weapons stored up."
• UNSCOM head Richard Butler stated, in July of 1998 that, "If Iraqi disarmament were a five-lap race, we would be three-quarters of the way around the fifth and final lap."
• The Congressional Research Service's November '01 update of its Issue Brief, "Iraq: Compliance, Sanctions, and U.S. Policy", argued that the United States had "succeeded in preventing Iraq from re-emerging as an immediate strategic threat to the region."
• Hans von Sponeck, a former UN Administrator in Iraq, traveled back to Iraq in the Summer of 2002 to informally inspect some Iraq's former WMD facilities, concluding that, "The U.S. Department of Defence and the CIA know perfectly well that today's Iraq poses no threat to anyone in the region, let alone in the United States. To argue otherwise is dishonest," and that, "One does not need to be a specialist in weapons of mass destruction to conclude that these sites had been rendered harmless and have remained in this condition. The truly worrying fact is that the U.S. Department of Defence has all of this information."
• Former Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (who recently retired after twenty years in the military -- the last four-and-a-half of those at the Pentagon), in a February 2004 interview with LA Weekly is similarly assertive. After discussing her first-hand experience with the Administration's dirty dealings, she concludes:
We knew. We knew from many years of both high-level surveillance and other types of shared intelligence, not to mention the information from the UN, we knew, we knew what was left [from the Gulf War] and the viability of any of that. Bush said he didn’t know.
The truth is, we know [Saddam] didn’t have these things. Almost a billion dollars has been spent -- a billion dollars! -- by David Kay's group to search for these WMD, a total whitewash effort. They didn’t find anything, they didn’t expect to find anything.
• According to "government officials", "In the two years before the war in Iraq, American intelligence agencies reviewed but ultimately dismissed reports from Iraqi scientists, defectors, and other informants who said Saddam Hussein's government did not possess illicit weapons," because "they were telling us something we didn't want to believe: that Iraq had no active WMD programs."
• IAEA inspector Mohammed ElBaradei, a few weeks before the war, updated the Security Council on the status of Saddam's nuclear weapons programmes (from which would spring Condi Rice's "mushroom cloud" nightmare):
At this stage, the following can be stated:
One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
Third, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminium tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminium tubes in question.
Fourth, although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in a centrifuge enrichment programme.
• UNMOVIC head Hans Blix, a few weeks before the invasion, arguing that Iraq was taking "proactive" measures to cooperate with the inspections, noted that, "The destruction undertaken [of the Al Samoud missiles] constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament. We are not watching the destruction of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed," and that, "It will not take years, nor weeks, but months," to completely disarm the country.
• UNMOVIC inspectors were "scandalised" at the Bush Administration's having cut short their work in order to go to war, after having found Iraq "a ruined country, not a threat to anyone," and considering the extent of Saddam's weapons programmes "a few guys with paper and pencil and some computer in a back room.''
Faulty intelligence, then, or Bush Administration lies? You decide!
Update, 5/8/04: Highly recommend an excellent piece by Doug Giebel, on the Counterpunch website, staking out similar territory.
Update, 8/5/04: In These Times' David Siroty and Christy Harvey are on the case as well.
February 04, 2004
The Case Of The Missing Weapons
As we know, ad nauseum, arms-hunter extraordinaire David Kay has blamed faulty intelligence for the Bush Administration's "mistaken" pre-war assertions concerning Saddam Hussein's supposed stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons (and programmes for producing same). While many have accepted on its face Kay's analysis, some few commenters have argued that the Administration manipulated available intelligence to fit a desired outcome (in other words, that it lied).This essay will argue the second point. But first, we should recall the context in which rests the issue at hand.
Bluntly, supposing Saddam had been maintaining such stockpiles?
CIA director George Tenet argued, in October of 2002, that Saddam would have used any WMD he may or may not have had in his possession only if attacked. As for Saddam giving his weapons to bin Laden, former CIA agent Bob Baer argued, at about the same time, that, "I'm unaware of any evidence of Saddam pursuing terrorism against the United States." (It's well known that bin Laden and Saddam were not on anything like friendly terms. Indeed, bin Laden considered Hussein a "communist".) Further, there was no evidence that Saddam had any means to deliver the supposed weapons.
So even if Saddam had maintained stockpiles of banned weapons, he had no intention of using them, and no ability to deliver them.
Moreover, the current leaders in North Korea, Israel, Pakistan and India, and Russia -- all countries currently maintaining nuclear stockpiles -- have either come close to using, threatened to use, or made little attempt to completely account for; these stockpiles.
In fact, we now know that Pakistan, erstwhile ally in the "War On Terror", was selling nuclear secrets to the remaining two "Axis of Evil" nations, as well as to the long-time Libyan bogeyman. While the Bush Administration isn't exactly happy about the Pakistani misadventures, it's not currently planning an invasion to thwart this danger -- clearly a proliferation threat much, much greater that that posed by Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, at precisely the time that the Bush Administration was waxing hysterical over the "imminent" threat posed by Saddam's WMD arsenal, it was engaged in chemical and biological warfare -- on a massive and devastating scale -- in Colombia, permanently destroying hundreds of thousands of acres with its fumigation campaign, and preparing to set loose the diabolical pathogenic fungi known as "Agent Green".
Even worse, according to the UNDP, 30,000 children perish every single day -- yes, that's ten September 11s of children, every day of the year -- from easily preventable and treatable poverty-related diseases. The UNDP also estimates that 500,000 women per year die in childbirth. This is, essentially, a product of IMF-mandated (read: U.S.-mandated) austerity programmes imposed upon the Third World. In other words, it's bio-warfare (bio-terrorism, if you like), writ very, very large.
In its attack upon Iraq, ostensibly to eradicate Weapons of Mass Destruction, the United States fired off over 1,000 tonnes of Depleted Uranium munitions -- a form of nuclear warfare whose consequences, for Iraqis and U.S. troops both, are sure to be the more horrifying given its extensive use, this time around, in urban areas.
This is far the most underreported story of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Imagine the reaction if an outside force were to poison a geographical area "the size of California", within the United States or Europe, with several hundreds of tonnes of a cancer-causing heavy metal boasting a radioactive half-life of 4.5 Billion years? The non-reaction of even those nominally opposed to the war in Iraq -- France, Russia, China, Germany -- was and is one of history's truly shameful moments, laying bare the despicably racist double-standard by which the "civilised" world operates.
To add insult to injury, the U.S. war machine littered the country with unexploded cluster bomb-lets (which are now killing and maiming about 1,000 children per month), used incendiary munitions "remarkably similar" to Napalm, and has failed to restore the electricity works. Not a trivial matter, this last, as the planners of the first Gulf War were very much aware:
With no domestic sources of both water treatment replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United Nations Sanctions to import these vital commodities. Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease.
As far as the future is concerned, Congress has recently given the green light for the Bush Administration to develop "useable" nuclear weapons, and the Pentagon is hard at work on its "FALCON" weapons system, which will ultimately allow it the capability of "striking targets 9,000 nautical miles distant in less than two hours," thereby fully automating the process of blowing up those brown-skinned persons whose (as often as not Washington-installed) leaders have fallen out of favour. "FALCON Phase I" contractors were selected in November, with testing set to begin in 2006.
Keeping the foregoing in mind, let us turn to the question of whether or not the Bush Administration sincerely believed that Saddam had "failed to disarm". Both logical and evidentiary considerations should make it fairly clear that the Bush Administration was lying then, and is lying now.
Logical Considerations • If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam was in possession of WMD, then it never would have invaded, for the same reason that it hasn't invaded North Korea: it doesn't want WMD to be used against them! So obvious, yet so rarely cited.
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam was in possession of WMD, then why did it not re-consider this position when Colin Powell's aenemic February '03 presentation of "evidence" before the United Nations went over like a lead balloon. Any honest analysis would have taken the world's skepticism into account instead of, ultimately, resorting to bullying and coercion in a failed attempt to cause the UN to sign off on its designs? Tony Blair's infamous September '02 dossier claimed that Saddam could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes' time. Tony needed simply show the evidence that led to this "conclusion", and obtaining UN approval would have been a slam dunk. Even more to the point, why, when it was perfectly clear that the UN was only all too happy to allow the Administration to unleash the dogs at even the slightest sign of a "smoking gun", did Colin Powell, who claimed to "have more assets available to me than the inspectors do," not share his "assets" with the UNMOVIC inspectors, who instead were left to complain that the Bush Administration was feeding it "garbage after garbage after garbage" -- a charge George Tenet more less acknowledges?
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam was in possession of WMD, why did it mount repeated attempts to manipulate intelligence to its desired ends?
"This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents. ... Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," read a July23, 2002 "UK Eyes Only" report summing up a meeting involving Anglo-American planners.
"In my view, the expert intelligence analysts of the DIS were overruled in the preparation of the dossier in September 2002, resulting in a presentation that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities," says the head of the British Defence Intelligence Staff.
Similarly, U.S. intelligence officials, in October of 2002, worried that, "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," and that, "I would just say there is not much support for that [nuclear] theory around here," and that, "There's a catfight going on about this right now. On one side you have most of the experts on gas centrifuges. On the other you have one guy sitting in the CIA," and that, "The administration can say what it wants and we are expected to remain silent."
Do we not remember the Administration's "stovepiping" of intelligence to fit its needs? Do we not remember Donald H. Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans", created specifically to end-run around the established intelligence agencies' work? Do we not remember (certainly the Washington Post doesn't want us to remember) when, back in the lazy days of Autumn 2002, Dubya was cheered for having "until now relied little on the Langley agency for his information on Iraq," as, "There is simply no way to reconcile what the CIA has said on the record and in leaks with the positions Bush has taken on Iraq."
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam could lay an attack upon a Western city at any moment, and that only an invasion and "regime change" could eliminate this threat, why did it wait so long to attack? Dubya claims that it's because he "didn't know", before September 11, that terrorists were capable of striking on U.S. soil. This is total horseshit. Al-Qaida's 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center would have, except for a slight placement error, killed tens of thousands of people. If nothing else, the Oklahoma City bombing demonstrated the country's continued vulnerability to terror bombings, while the millennium plot revealed the ongoing desire of the bin Laden-ites to carry out attacks.
But supposing that 9/11 had, as he claims, taught Bush this harsh lesson? Even supposing that the invasion of Afghanistan were the logical first step in addressing this new-found vulnerability (though the perpetrators were almost all Saudi, not Afghan, nationals; and though the Taliban offered to extradite bin Laden if shewn some evidence of his involvement in the plot; and though the Afghan invasion proved absolutely devastating to the civilian population while apparently strengthening bin Laden: al-Qaeda has pulled off 17 major attacks in the two years since 9/11, as opposed to five in the eight years before 9/11)?
Why then, after the fall of the Taliban in November of 2001, did not the Bush Administration immediately set its sights upon Iraq? Why did it wait until the mid-term elections began heating up, almost a full year later, to begin pleading its hysterical case? (Apparently, in the words of Chief of Staff Andrew Card, it was because "from a marketing standpoint, you don't roll out a new product in August." Okay, but why, if it posed such a grave danger, wasn't the Iraqi menace "product" rolled out any time before August of 2002?)
Shortly after the mid-term elections, the New York Times reported that, "President Bush gave notice to the United Nations and to the American people today that the political season is over and that the time has come to disarm Saddam Hussein -- and that it may take war to accomplish that goal." Would we expect, if it were truly a matter of "national security" that the schedule of the "political season" would have any bearing on the timing of the war build-up?
• If the Blair Administration truly believed that Saddam could strike within 45 minutes, why did Blair acknowledge, in private, to former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook that Saddam's WMD capability, if any, was limited to battlefield uses, and that "the effort he has had to put into concealment makes it difficult for him to assemble them quickly for use"?
• If the Bush Administration truly believed that Saddam posed an imminent threat, why did Colin Powell remark, in February of 2001, that Saddam "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors"?
• Why, if the Anglo-American intelligencies agencies were unable to determine that Saddam posed no threat whatever, was the 90% of the world's population opposed to the war able to recognise precisely this fact? Why was opposition to the war strongest in the region itself? Why is the United States now a worldwide pariah state? Why can't Dubya show his face anywhere in the world without touching off massive protests?
• If the Bush Administration truly sought war only out of concern that "the lives and the liberty of the American people" were in imminent danger from Saddam's weapons programmes, then why did Paul Wolfowitz later reminisce that, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Why did materials from Dick Cheney's March '01 Energy Task Force, obtained through an FOIA lawsuit, "contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries, and terminals; as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects; and 'Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts'"?
Why did the Dubya, in May of 2003, enact Executive Order 13303, declaring sovereign control over
all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons?
Why did, upon coming into "possession" of Iraq, the Bush Administration immediately begin selling off the country's resources to "suitors" closely connected to the Administration, while at the same time rewriting the country's economic laws, putting it "up for sale" -- a violation of International Law?
Why did Donald H. Rumsfeld, on the afternoon of September 11, pen his famous attack memo, urging his staffers to, "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not" when looking for potential targets?
• If the Bush Administration was truly intent upon accurately determining the status of Saddam's WMD programmes, then why did the famous "sixteen words" concerning the fabled Niger uranium purchases make their way into the 2003 State of the Union address over the objections of the CIA?
Why, after Joseph Wilson had publicly debunked the story (claiming, no less, that, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat,") did the Administration retaliate against Wilson by outing his wife?
Why did the Bush Administration make the decision to go to war before the completion of the October '02 National Intelligence Estimate (regarding Saddam's weapons programmes)?
Why did Colin Powell lovingly praise as a "fine paper" a Blair Administration "dossier" that had been culled -- spelling mistakes and all -- from dated materials taken from the Internet?
Why did the United States pinch Iraq's December '02 weapons declaration, "on grounds that Washington had the best photocopying capabilities", then return "purged" copies to the non-permanent Security Council members?
Why did the Bush Administration begin smearing the UNMOVIC inspectors even before inspections had begun?
Why did Richard Perle acknowledge that the United States would invade even if UNMOVIC returned a "clean bill of health"?
• If the Bush Administration truly launched its war only to remove the "threat" to world peace posed by Saddam -- either directly, or indirectly through bin Laden and co. -- or even to "liberate" the Iraqi people, why is it still there? All three have been either accomplished or found wanting. Why not apologise for its "mistake", offer to pay reparations, clean up the Depleted Uranium and the unexploded munitions, and leave off?
Evidentiary Considerations • Hussein Kamel, one of the Bush Administration's pet Iraqi defectors, testified in 1995 that, "All weapons -- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed."
• UNSCOM Executive Chairman Rolf Ekeus stated in August of 2000 that "in all areas we have eliminated Iraq's [WMD] capabilities fundamentally." This after having affirmed in 1996 that "not much is unknown about Iraq's retained proscribed weapons capabilities," in 1997 that, "Iraq has sustained a good level of cooperation in the operation of the monitoring system," and in 1998 that "the majority of [weapons] inspections were conducted in Iraq without let or hindrance."
• Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter (who voted for George W. Bush) has claimed, on repeated occasions, that Iraq had been "qualitatively disarmed" by 1997. In an interview with journalist John Pilger for his 2000 documentary Paying The Price, Ritter minced few words: "If I had to quantify Iraq's threat, in terms of 'weapons of mass destruction', the real threat is: zero. None." Then: "Does Iraq have a chemical weapons program today? No. Does Iraq have a long-range ballistic missiles program today? No. Nuclear? No. Biological? No. Is Iraq qualitatively disarmed? Yes."
• Another former weapons inspector, Raymond Zalinskas, stated in 1998 that, "UNSCOM has destroyed all the chemical facilities, the chemical weapons facilities, and also all known chemical weapons. ... In the biological area, UNSCOM has destroyed the dedicated biological weapons facility at al-Hakam, plus other ones at other institutes. And as far as we know, they have no biological weapons stored up."
• UNSCOM head Richard Butler stated, in July of 1998 that, "If Iraqi disarmament were a five-lap race, we would be three-quarters of the way around the fifth and final lap."
• The Congressional Research Service's November '01 update of its Issue Brief, "Iraq: Compliance, Sanctions, and U.S. Policy", argued that the United States had "succeeded in preventing Iraq from re-emerging as an immediate strategic threat to the region."
• Hans von Sponeck, a former UN Administrator in Iraq, traveled back to Iraq in the Summer of 2002 to informally inspect some Iraq's former WMD facilities, concluding that, "The U.S. Department of Defence and the CIA know perfectly well that today's Iraq poses no threat to anyone in the region, let alone in the United States. To argue otherwise is dishonest," and that, "One does not need to be a specialist in weapons of mass destruction to conclude that these sites had been rendered harmless and have remained in this condition. The truly worrying fact is that the U.S. Department of Defence has all of this information."
• Former Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (who recently retired after twenty years in the military -- the last four-and-a-half of those at the Pentagon), in a February 2004 interview with LA Weekly is similarly assertive. After discussing her first-hand experience with the Administration's dirty dealings, she concludes:
We knew. We knew from many years of both high-level surveillance and other types of shared intelligence, not to mention the information from the UN, we knew, we knew what was left [from the Gulf War] and the viability of any of that. Bush said he didn’t know.
The truth is, we know [Saddam] didn’t have these things. Almost a billion dollars has been spent -- a billion dollars! -- by David Kay's group to search for these WMD, a total whitewash effort. They didn’t find anything, they didn’t expect to find anything.
• According to "government officials", "In the two years before the war in Iraq, American intelligence agencies reviewed but ultimately dismissed reports from Iraqi scientists, defectors, and other informants who said Saddam Hussein's government did not possess illicit weapons," because "they were telling us something we didn't want to believe: that Iraq had no active WMD programs."
• IAEA inspector Mohammed ElBaradei, a few weeks before the war, updated the Security Council on the status of Saddam's nuclear weapons programmes (from which would spring Condi Rice's "mushroom cloud" nightmare):
At this stage, the following can be stated:
One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
Third, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminium tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuges out of the aluminium tubes in question.
Fourth, although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in a centrifuge enrichment programme.
• UNMOVIC head Hans Blix, a few weeks before the invasion, arguing that Iraq was taking "proactive" measures to cooperate with the inspections, noted that, "The destruction undertaken [of the Al Samoud missiles] constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament. We are not watching the destruction of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed," and that, "It will not take years, nor weeks, but months," to completely disarm the country.
• UNMOVIC inspectors were "scandalised" at the Bush Administration's having cut short their work in order to go to war, after having found Iraq "a ruined country, not a threat to anyone," and considering the extent of Saddam's weapons programmes "a few guys with paper and pencil and some computer in a back room.''
Faulty intelligence, then, or Bush Administration lies? You decide!
Update, 5/8/04: Highly recommend an excellent piece by Doug Giebel, on the Counterpunch website, staking out similar territory.
Update, 8/5/04: In These Times' David Siroty and Christy Harvey are on the case as well.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 07:12 PM
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The fiscal 2005 budget, resting on record budget deficits, calls for a $31 billion spending increase in discretionary areas that Congress controls. Of that, $29 billion would go to domestic security and defense. The plan would restrict discretionary spending in the rest of the government to less than half the inflation rate and would eliminate or curtail 128 federal programs.
The budget plan, which reinforces many themes of the president's re-election campaign, targets its deepest cuts at environmental and agricultural programs, with sizeable but smaller reductions at the Treasury and Veterans Affairs departments and other agencies.
February 03, 2004
Quote Of The Moment #0042
The fiscal 2005 budget, resting on record budget deficits, calls for a $31 billion spending increase in discretionary areas that Congress controls. Of that, $29 billion would go to domestic security and defense. The plan would restrict discretionary spending in the rest of the government to less than half the inflation rate and would eliminate or curtail 128 federal programs.
The budget plan, which reinforces many themes of the president's re-election campaign, targets its deepest cuts at environmental and agricultural programs, with sizeable but smaller reductions at the Treasury and Veterans Affairs departments and other agencies.
Posted by Eddie Tews at 12:27 PM
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The Superbrain, in acknowledging the absence of any banned weapons in Iraq, defends his decision to invade thusly: "I said in the run-up [to war] that Saddam was a grave and gathering danger. I believed that then and I know it was true now."
The obvious followup question, then, would be: "What was the nature of this danger?"
We know he didn't possess WMD, as the Bush Administration itself now admits. We know he wasn't consorting with al-Qaeda, as the Bush Administration itself now admits. We know he didn't pose any sort of conventional military threat even to his neighbours (let alone to the "homeland") -- Iraq's pre-war military spending was 10% that of Kuwait, and Saddam had even okay-ed the destruction of his al-Samoud missiles (whose range was minimally greater than allowed).
We even know that Saddam didn't pose any sort of ideological threat (the "threat of a good example") -- as might be argued of Fidel Castro, for example. Saddam was a region- and world-wide pariah.
So what was the nature of the "grave and growing danger", Mr. President? A question so obvious the mainstream media hasn't bothered to ask.
February 02, 2004
Obvious Followup #0001
The Superbrain, in acknowledging the absence of any banned weapons in Iraq, defends his decision to invade thusly: "I said in the run-up [to war] that Saddam was a grave and gathering danger. I believed that then and I know it was true now."
The obvious followup question, then, would be: "What was the nature of this danger?"
We know he didn't possess WMD, as the Bush Administration itself now admits. We know he wasn't consorting with al-Qaeda, as the Bush Administration itself now admits. We know he didn't pose any sort of conventional military threat even to his neighbours (let alone to the "homeland") -- Iraq's pre-war military spending was 10% that of Kuwait, and Saddam had even okay-ed the destruction of his al-Samoud missiles (whose range was minimally greater than allowed).
We even know that Saddam didn't pose any sort of ideological threat (the "threat of a good example") -- as might be argued of Fidel Castro, for example. Saddam was a region- and world-wide pariah.
So what was the nature of the "grave and growing danger", Mr. President? A question so obvious the mainstream media hasn't bothered to ask.