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28-29 August 2004
With 9/11 as G.O.P. Backdrop, Families
Express Raw Emotions
By JAMES BARRON and MARJORIE CONNELLY
NYT, 29 August 2004
EXCERPT: With the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks coming
little more than a week after the convention, a survey by The New York
Times shows that those with the most personal connection to 9/11 - those
who lost a loved one - differ from the public at large on some political
and national issues: They are more skeptical about national safety and
less impressed with the administration's efforts before and after the
attacks. Their views on the way the 9/11 investigation was handled are
also complex. About half of the 339 people questioned faulted the Bush
administration for not providing "adequate cooperation," but almost four
in five said the administration was taking the commission's findings
"somewhat seriously" or "very seriously." A majority said the federal
government was still not doing enough to prevent terrorism, and almost
as many expressed concern about another attack on New York. About half
also said the city was not prepared to deal with one. Both major parties
have tried to form an emotional connection with the victims' families,
but the survey indicates that the relatives have seesawing feelings
about whom to blame and whom to vote for - feelings that will probably
keep them from becoming political props this year.
VIDEO LINK
Man Who Leapfrogged Bush into National
Guard
Speaks Out
(Apple QuickTime Required)
Courtesy of Talking Points Memo, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: Let¹s talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush and I know
them both. And I¹m not name dropping to say I know them both. I got a
young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov.
of Texas and I¹m not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got
a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was
what people should do, when you're in office you helped a lot of rich
people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I
looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more
ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing
that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of
people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard
and I¹m very sorry about that and I¹m very ashamed and I apologize to
you as voters of Texas.
SEE ALSO:
Josh Marshall comments on the Audio Clip
(TPM)
SEE ALSO: Viet
Nam Remains a Hot Issue
(NYT)
SEE ALSO:
Bushes carefully arrange not so "plausible
deniability"
Texas Official Regrets Allowing Bush to Enlist
in National Guard
BY PETE SLOVER
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 29 August 2004
EXCERPT: On a videotape posted on a pro-Kerry Web site, former Texas Lt.
Gov. and House Speaker Ben Barnes for the first time publicly took
credit and apologized for helping President Bush secure a Vietnam-era
slot in the Texas Air National Guard.
SEE ALSO:
Greg Palast has a not so well documented
explanation of why Barnes has waited so long to apologize.
Damaged Goods: How Far Will
Republicans Go to Stay in Power?
By William Greider
The Nation, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: The core dynamic driving the 2004 campaign is this: George W.
bet his presidency on two dubious, high-risk propositions, and he lost
on both. First, he assumed that top-down tax cuts and other regressive,
wealth-shifting measures would be sufficient to restore a prospering
economy. Second, he decided after 9/11 to become the President of
permanent war. As recently as nine months ago, this looked like a sure
winner to the White House. Republican insiders assumed an easy
re-election would be buoyed by the return of "good times" at home and
patriotic fervor for triumph in Iraq. Wrong on both fronts. When the
opposite occurred, Bush was trapped by his own concocted image of
Churchillian tough guy. It's too late to change, so Bush's best shot now
is destroying Kerry. The President cannot acknowledge the disappointing
results in Iraq or the struggling economy without diminishing himself.
Plus, a lot of people have figured out that the man tells lies--big
lies--or, worse, is not capable of handling hard facts and adjusting his
policy accordingly. In short, can people any longer trust this guy--not
just on personal honesty, but his sense of judgment, his competence as
President? That killer question is now stalking the Bush II regime. I
discern (wishfully, perhaps) that the Kerry campaign understands that
this contest will pivot on the public's declining trust in the President
and is poking relentlessly at this vulnerability in different ways. I
wish Kerry would put the attack more forcefully but, who knows, maybe he
is right not to get too personal or, like Bush, hit below the belt.
SEE ALSO:
Gore Vidal on the State of the Union, 2004
(Nation)
SEE ALSO:
Oh and By the Way, Vidal is Selling his House in
Italy
(NYT)
Where Is The Shame?
By BOB HERBERT
NYT, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: Max Cleland, minus the three limbs he lost in Vietnam, showed
up in his wheelchair outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex.,
on Wednesday to suggest that the president take the simple and decent
step of condemning the slime that is being spread by Bush supporters
against the war record of John Kerry. He didn't get very far. The
president was busy vacationing and had neither the time nor the
inclination to meet with Mr. Cleland, a former U.S. senator who was
himself the target of vicious, unconscionable attacks by the G.O.P.
slime machine when he ran for re-election in Georgia in 2002. Later, at
a press conference under the hot Crawford sun, Mr. Cleland told
reporters: "The question is, where is George Bush's honor? Where is his
shame?" Mr. Cleland reminded reporters of the scurrilous attacks by Bush
forces against Senator John McCain in the Republican presidential
primary in 2000 and said: "Keep in mind, this president has gone after
three Vietnam veterans in four years. That's got to stop."
Editors Grapple With How to Cover Swift Boat Controversy
Editor & Publisher, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: O'Shea also pointed out that giving the anti-Kerry veterans too
much attention, in an attempt to hold them accountable, creates a
situation of ignoring other issues. He said this may be an instance of a
growing problem for newspapers in the expanding media world -- being
forced to follow a story they might not consider worthwhile because
other news outlets (in this case, Fox News and talk radio) have made it
an issue. ...Downie said he believes the Swift Boat Veterans coverage
had been fair and properly scrutinizing. "We have printed the facts and
some of those facts have undermined Kerry's opponents," he said. "We are
not judging the credibility of Kerry or the (Swift Boat) Veterans, we
just print the facts." He defended a lengthy Post story that ran Sunday
which appeared to give equal credibility to both Kerry's version of the
events in Vietnam (which is supported by his crewmates and largely
backed up by a paper trail) and the Swift Boat Veterans, despite the
fact that previous stories in the Post and the New York Times had
debunked many of the group's accounts.
On Monday, Michael Tomaskey, writing for The American Prospect's Web
site, took issue with Downie's decision: "The Washington Post should not
even be running such a story ... in the first place. Len Downie and the
paper's other editors would undoubtedly argue that the story represents
the Post's tenacity for getting to the truth, without fear or favor.
But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have in
the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their lies
are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the media
agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the country to
focus on picayune 'truths' while missing the larger story." [BWUSA
emphasis]
Republicans Refuse to Account
for the Difference Between Negative Ads and Ones That Peddle
Falsehoods
Josh Marshall
Talking Points Memo, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: ...Republicans are arguing that they've been the victim of 527s
(i.e., "shadowy groups") just as much as Sen. Kerry has been the victim
of SBVT. Now, my guiding assumption in this case is that Republicans are
having difficulty -- willful or otherwise -- in distinguishing between
negative and/or hard-hitting ads and ones that peddle demonstrable
falsehoods -- i.e., smears. (You know, it's that old, hard distinction
between 'mean' and 'untrue'.) And, frankly, everything I've seen thus
far lends credence to my assumption. If you look at the talking points
out of the Bush campaign in the last few days one of the key slanders
that Democratic 527s have made against the president is the claim that
he has been "poisoning pregnant women" On August 20th Bush campaign
spokesman Taylor Griffin said that Democratic 527s had been "accusing
President Bush of poisoning pregnant women."
Now, Smearing the Trial Lawyers
If you like the Karl Rove-inspired attack on John Kerry's Swift Boat
service, you're going to love the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's coming
assault on John Edwards.
By Robert Kuttner
The American Prospect, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: Like the right-wing vets smearing Kerry's Vietnam record, the
anti-Edwards group is nominally an independent committee. But as The New
York Times reports, the cochairmen of the new "November Fund" are a
former Republican National Committee chairman, Bill Brock, and a former
chief of staff to Bush Sr., Craig Fuller. The core of their attack will
be that Edwards is (gasp) a trial lawyer. For decades, "trial lawyer"
has been used in Republican speeches as an epithet. Business executives
applaud in appreciation -- and everyone else scratches his head. What's
so terrible about trial lawyers? Are they worse than, say, corporate
lawyers?
America's Failing Health
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NYT, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: Working Americans have two great concerns: the growing
difficulty of getting health insurance, and the continuing difficulty
they have in finding jobs. These concerns may have a common cause:
soaring insurance premiums. In most advanced countries, the government
provides everyone with health insurance. In America, however, the
government offers insurance only if you're elderly (Medicare) or poor
(Medicaid). Otherwise, you're expected to get private health insurance,
usually through your job. But insurance premiums are exploding, and the
system of employment-linked insurance is falling apart.
We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty
transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their
Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a
jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
By Garrison Keillor
TomPaine.com, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party.
Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in
steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted
to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises
all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier
elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat
Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The
genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who
made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the
Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System,
declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a
period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and
letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree
of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants
compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to
feel a Christian obligation toward the poor. In the years between Nixon
and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail
of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the
Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death
Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the
media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of
Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II,
took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate
vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white
men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another
term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I
don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size
where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The
boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
...The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the
death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has
survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what
happens to ours. The omens are not good. Our beloved land has been
fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous
silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to
keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of
vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off
the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public
education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks
on the rich. There is a stink drifting through this election year. It
isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11
that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a
turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a
lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking
hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national
security at the time. Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying
along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward
their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I
think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit
those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama,
cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious
nation-changing done in his second term.
27 August 2004
More Americans Were Uninsured and Poor in 2003,
Census Finds
By DAVID LEONHARDT
NYT, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: The ranks of the poor and those without health insurance grew
in 2003 for the third straight year, the government reported on
Thursday, in a sign of the lingering pain being caused by a long slump
in the job markets. Those trends, spelled out by the United States
Census Bureau, signaled a clear shift in the way the 2001 recession and
its aftermath have spread across the country. The economy's troubles,
which first affected high-income families even more than the middle
class and poor, have recently hurt families at the bottom and in the
middle significantly more than those at the top.
Apocalypse
Redux: A Debate the Right
Lacks the Guts to Have!
by Peter Beinart
The New Republic Online, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: Calling Kerry unpatriotic is a useful way of delegitimizing his
allegations without disproving them. Some of the organizers of the
Winter Soldier Investigation have been discredited, but most of the
testimonies themselves have not. Miami University Professor Jeffrey
Kimball, one of the most respected Vietnam historians, says, "On the
whole, the Winter Soldier Investigations established that some Americans
committed atrocities in Vietnam. Claims that their testimony has been
discredited are unwarranted." Another prominent historian of the war,
Wayne State University's Mel Small, says, "Most of the evidence of
atrocities presented by the [Winter Soldier] vets remains unchallenged
to this day." On the question of atrocities more broadly, Kerry's claims
also find widespread academic support. The University of Kentucky's
George Herring, author of America's Longest War, says, "The
atrocities that took place are pretty much those described by Kerry in
1971." In a recent interview with The Boston Globe, Stanley
Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History, also said Kerry got it
right. Even Robert McNamara himself has stated that "there were
atrocities, without any question. ... I don't think enough attention was
paid to it by the chain of command." Conservatives have taken special
umbrage at Kerry's statement, in a 1971 "Meet the Press" interview, that
he "committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other
soldiers." What they generally ignore is that Kerry was referring to the
fact that he "took part in shootings in free-fire zones"--zones where
the U.S. military designated any Vietnamese who did not evacuate as
combatants. And Kerry was right: The free-fire zones violated the fourth
Geneva Convention, which outlaws indiscriminate attacks against areas in
which civilians are present. In the end, though, Kerry's claims about
American atrocities can't be separated from his claims about the war
itself. "There is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that
realistically threatens the United States," he told the Senate in 1971.
Most Vietnamese, he argued, wanted "this foreign presence of the United
States of America to leave them alone in peace." It was because the war
lacked any strategic or moral justification that Kerry deemed the
atrocities committed in its name to be so indefensible. It is that
fervent moral opposition to Vietnam that so galls conservatives
today--and that, they claim, undergirds his supposed hostility to
American power ever since. And yet, conservatives want to discredit
Kerry for being against the war without defending it themselves.
Dirty Tricks, Patrician Style
Dick Meyer
CBSNews.com, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: If you had any thought that the first presidential campaign
after 9/11 would be especially sober and responsible, give it up. There
are a million angles to the saga of John Kerry and his swift boat
enemies and none of them reveal anything virtuous about politics. But
one element that is missing from this story is surprise. Any student of
Bush family campaigns could have seen the swift boat shiv shining a mile
away. This old family has traditions – horseshoes, fishing, bad syntax
and having the help do the dirty work in campaigns as well as the
kitchen. And they are very good at getting jobs done without leaving
fingerprints, without compromising their patrician image and their
alleged character.
Even the audaciousness of this year’s episode is not surprising. Who
would have believed that George Bush, with all the trouble over his
National Guard service, could get John Kerry in hot water for his combat
duty and medals in Vietnam? Well, anyone who saw what George Bush did to
former POW John McCain in the 2000 primaries, which was even more
outrageous.
Ambush! The Failure of American Media
By Brian Montopoli, Thomas Lang, and Zachary Roth
Columbia Journalism Review, The Campaign Desk, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: News consumers haven't heard much over the past couple of weeks
about the economy, terrorism, health care, or Iraq. Instead, the talk
has been focused on Vietnam, thanks to the Swift Boat Veterans For
Truth, who have released in quick order two ads and a book denouncing
John Kerry as a dishonorable man who lied to earn his medals, lied to
Congress as an antiwar activist, and ultimately betrayed his countrymen.
Liberal commentators, not unjustifiably, are blaming the SBVFT for
polluting campaign rhetoric with their loaded claims and harsh attacks.
But the lion's share of the blame should not fall on the group, whose
paid ads, after all, have appeared in just three states -- and are the
kind of strident attack that might easily have quickly dropped off the
national radar screen. While the SBVFT may have a questionable grasp of
the facts, it has been extraordinarily sophisticated in its manipulation
of the media. To understand why this campaign has been hijacked by a
small group of veterans bearing a thirty-year old grudge, it's worth
examining the institutional susceptibilities of a campaign press corps
that allowed the SBVFT's accusations to take on a life of their own. The
SBVFT may have put themselves in the game, but it's a flawed media that
made them stars.
Campaign Desk has written many times about the perils of "he said/she
said" journalism, the practice of reporters
parroting competing rhetoric instead of measuring it for veracity
against known facts. In the wake of the first SBVFT spot
early this month, cable news programs for the most part offered viewers
two talking heads, one on each side of the issue, to debate the merits
of the claims. Verifiable facts were rarely offered to viewers --
despite the fact that military records supporting Kerry's version of
events were readily available. Instead of acting as filters for the
truth, reporters nodded and attentively transcribed both sides of the
story, invariably failing to provide context, background, or any sense
of which claims held up and which were misleading. And sometimes even
that was asking too much. According to Media Matters, the Aug. 4th
editions of FOX News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" and MSNBC's
"Scarborough Country" both reported and aired the ad without mentioning
(1) that despite the ad's claims, those featured in it did not serve on
Kerry's boat, (2) that the SBVFT was wrapped in Republican ties, dating
all the way back to former Nixon protege John O'Neill, or (3) the fact
that the doctor who claims to have treated Kerry in the ad was not the
medical official who signed his medical records.
SEE ALSO:
Fact Check, Pretty Please, Just Once
(CJR Compaign Desk)
Bush Tries to Hide Poverty Numbers
Daily MisLead, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: Anticipating the release of devastating new poverty and health
care statistics, the Bush administration today took the extraordinary
step today of trying to bury the numbers. Specifically, the
Administration had its top political appointee at the Census Bureau
release the numbers a month earlier than usual, during the August
congressional recess when many reporters and Americans take their summer
vacations. The rescheduling of the announcement also means that the bad
numbers will not come out in September immediately after the Republican
National Convention, when they have traditionally been released.
With the President's economic and health care agenda leaving millions
behind, the Associated Press reports, "the statistics today show the
number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last
year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million." This is
not the first time the White House and Republicans have gone to great
lengths to hide damning information. As CBS News reported, President
Bush released his military service records late on a Friday night on the
eve of a three day weekend in order to make sure the story about his
poor attendance was seen by as few people as possible. In Congress, GOP
leaders regularly pass the most controversial bills in the middle of the
night. Those included bills to slash veterans benefits and
health/education funding, as well as spending $87 billion on war in Iraq
and passing the President's Medicare bill.3
Iraq War Cost in New Yorkers'
Faces
Asia Times, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: A flashy new billboard in New York City's Times Square reminds
Americans exactly how much they have spent, and are continuing to spend
at the rate of more than US$122,000 a minute, on military operations in
Iraq. Meanwhile, a left-leaning think-tank has detailed how it believes
$144.4 billion could have been better spent on national security.
Opportunism Knocks: How McCain Sold
Out
by Franklin Foer
The New Republic Online, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: To grasp the strangeness of the current rapprochement between
President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, you need to understand
the saga of John Weaver, the political operative who brokered the peace.
Long before many Democrats became Bush haters, Weaver was already there.
As a chief strategist for John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, he
bore witness to the carnage of the primary in South Carolina, where Bush
campaign proxies spread spurious rumors about their rival's venereal
diseases, treasonous wartime behavior, and the black child he sired with
a prostitute. That experience alone might have been enough to drive
Weaver from the Republican Party. But the Bushies--and especially Karl
Rove, whose rivalry with Weaver dated back to their early careers in
Texas--took all the steps necessary to seal the deal. At the direction
of the White House, GOP campaign contracts stopped coming Weaver's way.
In one widely reported instance, Rove allegedly prevented Weaver from
joining Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions's reelection campaign. Things got
so bad for Weaver that McCain told talk-show host Don Imus in March
2002, "John was made unwelcome in the Republican Party. He does have a
right to make a living." In early 2002, Weaver reregistered as a
Democrat. And even that doesn't do justice to his alienation. Soon after
crossing the aisle, he signed contracts with the Association of Trial
Lawyers of America and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (dccc)--two
organizations deeply committed to the defeat of Republican candidates.
He joined the inner circle of consultants planning Dick Gephardt's
presidential campaign. (Had he not developed cancer, he would have
likely remained active in that campaign.) And, to almost any reporter
who called, he articulated a stinging critique of the Bushies. So, the
fact that he agreed to sit down for coffee with Rove later this spring
was, itself, a shocking turn of events. The results of their meeting are
even harder to assimilate. Not only has Weaver helped arrange a series
of BushMcCain appearances--including two days of joint campaigning
planned for the middle of the Republican National Convention--but he has
also become a primary liaison between the two camps.
This détente is, of course, a kick in the gut for McCain's Democratic
admirers, many of whom hoped the senator's persistent criticism of the
administration could become a weapon for John Kerry in his run against
Bush--or that McCain might even be persuaded to join Kerry in a kind of
national unity ticket. When the senator's advisers encounter such
Democratic disappointment, they answer it with bemusement. "You forgot
he was a Republican."
Family
Values: Cheney's Selfish Stance On Gay Rights
by Michelle
Cottle
The New Republic Online, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: Cheney's approach to public policy seems to be that he believes
in a basic set of rules that everyone should live by--except in those
cases where doing so would prove inconvenient for him or his family. Gay
marriage isn't the only area in which he's invoked this personal
exemption. There was also Cheney's behavior toward Iraq during his
tenure as Chairman and CEO of Halliburton. Despite being a hardliner
about America's not doing business with Saddam, Chief Executive Cheney
conveniently looked the other way while his firm's foreign subsidiaries
made millions selling oil-drilling equipment to Baghdad.
26 August 2004
God the Running Mate
Amy Sullivan
The Washington Monthly, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: ...check
out this animation video sponsored by a coalition of religious
groups that is out to remind everyone that God and Religion aren't
wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Republican Party--or the Democratic,
for that matter. The groups are also
getting ready to run a
full-page ad with the same message in the New York Times,
just to remind all of those good Christians in town for the GOP
Convention. It's about time someone outside the Religious Right got some
media savvy and gumption. Good for them.
US Olympic Committe Asks Bush Campaign
to Pull TV Ad
AP in NYT, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: The U.S. Olympic Committee has asked President Bush's
re-election campaign to pull a television ad that mentions the Olympics.
The USOC is awaiting a response from the re-election campaign, committee
spokesman Darryl Seibel said Thursday. The ad shows a swimmer and the
flags of Iraq and Afghanistan. ``In 1972, there were 40 democracies in
the world. Today, 120,'' an announcer says. ``Freedom is spreading
throughout the world like a sunrise. And this Olympics there will be two
more free nations. And two fewer terrorist regimes.'' Some of the
players on the Iraqi Olympic soccer team have complained about the ad
appearing as part of a political campaign. Campaign spokesman Scott
Stanzel said last week there were no plans to pull the ad. ``We are on
firm legal ground to mention the Olympics and make a factual point in a
political advertisement,'' Stanzel said. The International Olympic
Committee and the USOC have the authority to regulate the use of
anything involving the Olympics. An act of Congress, last revised in
1999, grants the USOC exclusive rights to such terms as ``Olympic,''
derivatives such as ``Olympiad'' and the five interlocking rings. It
also specifically says the organization ``shall be nonpolitical and may
not promote the candidacy of an individual seeking public office.''
Using Their Own Words
Watch MoveOn.org's shocking new web video featuring radical Republican
quotes at:
https://www.moveonpac.org/give/04endorsed.html
Apple's QuickTime required.
Texas trout anyone?
E.P.A. Says Mercury Taints Fish Across
U.S.
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
NYT, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday
that fish in virtually all of the nation's lakes and rivers were
contaminated with mercury, a highly toxic metal that poses health risks
for pregnant women and young children. Michael O. Leavitt, the E.P.A.
administrator, drew his conclusion from the agency's latest annual
survey of fish advisories, which showed that 48 states - all but Wyoming
and Alaska - issued warnings about mercury last year. That compared with
44 states in 1993, when the surveys were first conducted. The latest
survey also shows that 19 states, including New York, have now put all
their lakes and rivers under a statewide advisory for fish consumption.
But Mr. Leavitt said that the widespread presence of mercury reflected a
surge in monitoring - not an increase in emissions - as part of growing
state efforts to warn local anglers about the fish they are catching.
Last year, states issued 3,094 advisories for toxic substances, compared
with 1,233 in 1993. "Mercury is everywhere," Mr. Leavitt said at a news
conference in his office. "The more waters we monitor, the more we find
mercury. Monitoring is up and will continue to go up. But emissions are
down and will continue to go down." The latest survey represents
monitoring from 35 percent of the nation's lakes, more than 100,000 of
them; 24 percent of total river miles, nearly 850,000 miles; 75 percent
of coastal waters; and all of the Great Lakes. The E.P.A. also provided
a chart showing the level of mercury emission from human causes fell 45
percent in 1999 from 1990. The agency said that was the most recent data
it had available. Mr. Leavitt promised to issue the nation's first
regulations for mercury emissions "within a few months." The plan, with
a deadline of March 15, 2005, has gained industry support because of the
likelihood it will include a ''cap-and-trade program" that lets
companies buy and sell credits that give them a pollution allowance,
which would save them in cleanup costs. ...But environmentalists, as
well as President Bush's Democratic opponent, Senator John Kerry, have
attacked the Bush administration's proposed standards as weak and
unnecessarily drawn out. The administration has proposed reducing
emissions 29 percent by 2010 and 69 percent by 2018. Emily Figdor, a
policy analyst for Clear the Air, a coalition of environmental groups,
said, "The technology is available now to reduce emissions by 90 percent
by 2008, as the Clean Air Act requires, but there is no indication that
the administration is considering a stronger proposal." Carl Pope,
executive director of the Sierra Club, accused the administration of
"dragging its feet" by endorsing a weak plan. A spokesman for Mr. Kerry
accused the Bush administration of proposing standards that industry
lobbyists helped write, a criticism the E.P.A. has denied, and said Mr.
Kerry, as president, would support sharper reductions in a shorter
period of time. "With George Bush in the White House, you better think
twice before you eat the fish you catch," said the spokesman, Phil
Singer. "While the Bush administration has opted for a lobbyist-written
approach to mercury emissions, John Kerry will go further faster and be
more effective in ridding our lakes and rivers of poisons that threaten
pregnant women and children.
A changing landscape
White House Puts the West on Fast Track for Oil, Gas
Drilling
By Alan C.
Miller, Tom Hamburger and Julie Cart
LA Times, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: Placing a heavy emphasis on energy production in the American
West, the Bush administration has moved aggressively to open up broad
areas of largely unspoiled federal land to oil and gas exploration. The
administration has pressed for approval of new drilling permits across
the Rocky Mountains and lifted protections on hundreds of thousands of
acres with gas and oil reserves in Utah and Colorado. In the process, it
has targeted a number of places prized for their scenery, abundant
wildlife and clean water, natural assets increasingly valuable to the
region's changing economy.
Soon after taking office in 2001, the Bush White House set up a
little-known task force that acts as a complaint desk for industry,
passing energy company concerns directly to federal land management
employees in the field. Although the creation of White House task
forces is commonplace, experts on the executive branch say it is unusual
to have one primarily serving the interests of a single industry. In
addition, the Bureau of Land Management has been pushed to issue
drilling permits at a record pace for three of the last four years, an
increase of 70% since the Clinton administration. Internal memos and
interviews show senior administration officials have directed federal
employees to be responsive to industry, commended offices that approved
large numbers of drilling permits and chastised those that were slow.
The effort is so intense in the oil- and gas-rich Rockies that some
Bureau of Land Management employees there have taken to calling the
region "the OPEC states." [BWUSA italics]
Swift Boat
Vets' Lawyer Quits Bush Campaign
2nd link between group, GOP re-election effort
MSNBC News, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: An election lawyer for President Bush who also has been
advising a veterans group running TV ads against Democrat John Kerry
resigned Wednesday from Bush’s campaign. “I cannot begin to express my
sadness that my legal representations have become a distraction from the
critical issues at hand in this election,” Benjamin Ginsberg wrote in a
resignation letter to Bush released by the campaign. “I feel I cannot
let that continue, so I have decided to resign as national counsel to
your campaign to ensure that the giving of legal advice to decorated
military veterans, which was entirely within the boundaries of the law,
doesn’t distract from the real issues upon which you and the country
should be focusing.” Ginsberg’s acknowledgment Tuesday evening that he
was providing legal advice to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth marked
the second time in days that an individual associated with the
Bush-Cheney campaign had been connected to the group, which Kerry
accuses of being a front for the Republican incumbent’s re-election
effort. Federal election rules bar organizations that take unrestricted
donations from coordinating their activities with campaigns or political
parties. ...But Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill countered:
“The sudden resignation of Bush’s top lawyer doesn’t end the extensive
web of connections between George Bush and the group trying to smear
John Kerry’s military record. In fact, it only confirms the extent of
those connections.” [BWUSA emphasis]
SEE ALSO:
Swift Boat Writer Lied on Cambodia Claim
(NewsDay.com)
SEE ALSO:
More
Navy Records Support Kerry's
Version
Swift Boats came under fire, task force reported
MSNBC News, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: The Navy task force overseeing John Kerry’s swift boat
squadron in Vietnam reported that his group of boats came under enemy
fire during a March 13, 1969, incident that three decades later is being
challenged by the Democratic presidential nominee’s critics. The March
18, 1969, weekly report from Task Force 115, which was located by The
Associated Press during a search of Navy archives, is the latest
document to surface that supports Kerry’s description of an event for
which he won a Bronze Star and a third Purple Heart. The Task Force
report twice mentions the incident five days earlier and both times
calls it “an enemy initiated firefight” that included automatic weapons
fire and underwater mines used against a group of five boats that
included Kerry’s. Task Force 115 was commanded at the time by retired
Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, the founder of the group Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth, which has been running ads challenging Kerry’s account of the
episode.
SEE ALSO:
Summary of Bush Connections to Smear
Ads
Daily MisLead, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: While aides to President Bush continue to claim "we weren't
involved in any way in these ads" against Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) by
Swift boat vets, more evidence emerged yesterday to disprove those
denials.
First, the Washington Post reports that a "top lawyer in President
Bush's reelection campaign acknowledged that he has been advising the
veterans group." Benjamin L. Ginsberg, the "chief outside counsel to the
Bush campaign" admitted "I've done some work for" the Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth. Ginsberg has long been a top adviser to Bush. The LA
Times reports he represented the Bush campaign in 2000 and became a
prominent figure during the Florida recount. In the current presidential
campaign, his law firm has been paid $256,635 for his services by the
Bush campaign. That figure does not include any cash Ginsberg made in
his work with the Swift Boat Veterans. Additionally, the Dallas Morning
News yesterday reported that the man bankrolling the smear ads is
hosting President Bush's top political adviser at a fundraiser in New
York during the Republican National Convention. Robert Perry, the top
Bush-Cheney fundraiser who is financing the Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth ads, "is listed as the co-host" of an event whose guest list
includes Karl Rove on September 1. This news follows revelations earlier
this week that one of the veterans smearing Kerry in the ads is actually
a member of the Bush-Cheney campaign. It also follows news that the
Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in Florida is distributing fliers
promoting the group smearing Kerry. [Note that major broadcast media
countered this information by noting various connections of Kerry
campaign officials with 527's. This trivialized Kerry's contention that
Bush is backing smear tactics. So much for "fair and balanced."--BWUSA]
SEE ALSO:
W. Overstated His Military Record
(David Corn in The Nation)
10 Nobel Economists Endorse Kerry
Experts criticize Bush's 'reckless and extreme course'
MSNBC, 25 August 2004
Courtesy of gs
EXCERPT: John Kerry won the endorsement of 10 Nobel Prize-winning
economists Wednesday as he attacked President Bush for policies that he
said have led to the creation of only low-paying jobs. The Democratic
presidential nominee released a letter from the economists saying the
Bush administration had “embarked on a reckless and extreme course that
endangers the long-term economic health of our nation.” They cited
“poorly designed” tax cuts that instead of creating jobs have turned
budget surpluses into enormous budget deficits, a “fiscal
irresponsibility threatens the long-term economic security and
prosperity of our nation.” The endorsement, in the form of an open
letter American voters, was signed by George Akerlof and Daniel McFadden
of the University of California at Berkeley, Kenneth Arrow and William
Sharpe of Stanford University, Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University,
Lawrence Klein of the University of Pennsylvania, Douglass North of
Washington University, Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow of MIT and Joseph
Stiglitz of Columbia University.
Hoodwinked (in Florida)
Why is Florida's voting system so corrupt?
By Ann Louise Bardach
Slate, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: One indicator of the dire state of electoral affairs in Florida
is the fact that Theresa LePore, the election supervisor who designed
the infamous butterfly ballot, will once again be on the job. It was Ms.
LePore's ballot that awarded the votes of thousands of elderly Jews in
Palm Beach County to Pat Buchanan, arguably costing Al Gore the
election. Given the multitude of other failures in the state's voting
system, that's the good news.In the wake of the most scandalous election
in U.S. history, which led to an unprecedented 36-day recount, most
Americans believed that state and federal authorities would take steps
to ensure that the country would never again go through such an ordeal.
But in truth very few changes have been made, and those that have been
implemented have raised new concerns. Yet nearly all of Flordia's
current troubles share a common denominator—they were decisions made or
endorsed by Florida's secretary of state and chief elections officer,
Glenda Hood, who was handpicked by Gov. Jeb Bush in November 2002.
...About the only thing that could restore confidence in Florida
electoral procedures would be Hood's immediate resignation; her
successor should then be chosen by a bipartisan commission. And as Gov.
Bush cannot possibly be an impartial observer in his brother's quest for
another term, he should recuse himself from every aspect involving the
vote count in Florida. He also needs to flex his power with his famously
compliant Legislature to repeal the new laws eliminating manual recounts
and witnessed absentee ballots. In addition, all felons who have repaid
their debt to society, following completion of their sentences, should
have their voting rights restored. If these changes are not made,
Florida cannot conduct a credible election come November.
Dog Bites President
Edwards snarls at Bush, this time with feeling.
By Chris Suellentrop
Slate, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: The reason the Swift boat veterans want to focus on the past,
Edwards suggests, the reason they must resort to "a campaign based on
fear and lies," is because the present is so miserable. "During the last
three weeks or so that these ads have been running, that they've been
focused on this personal, negative attack on John Kerry, what's happened
here in the state of Ohio?" Edwards asks. "Forty-five-hundred people
have filed for bankruptcy. Four proud military men and women" from Ohio
have lost their lives in Iraq. "The price of a barrel of oil has gone up
$5."
Part of
GW's safer world...
Weapons of Mass. Destruction: Boston Hub Cops Sitting on DNC Arsenal
By Thomas Caywood
Boston Herald, 24 August 2004
Courtesy gs
EXCERPT: Armed to the teeth for a DNC disaster that never happened,
Boston police are sitting on a weapons stockpile of stun grenades,
projectile launchers, rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas they may
never use in a real-life crisis. Footing the bill: federal taxpayers.
The city so far has submitted $1.9 million in expenses, including
roughly $540,000 in police and fire overtime and $1.4 million for
supplies and equipment, to the feds. The police department bought more
than $160,000 worth of crowd-control firepower - including nearly
$14,000 worth of ``Stinger'' rubber-ball-and-tear-gas-spewing concussion
grenades - for a political shindig that saw only one minor scuffle with
protesters and five related arrests. ``We are going to be recycling
these as part of our training. They are not going to sit on the shelf
and expire,'' Boston police spokeswoman Beverly Ford said of the
munitions. Boston Fire Department officials also made major purchases of
equipment but say some of the new supplies are already in use on the
street, while the rest are reserved for training. The eight-page expense
report offers a chilling glimpse into the worst-case scenarios
apparently considered by Democratic National Convention planners. The
fire department spent tens of thousands of dollars on the kinds of
concrete-cutting power saws and jackhammer bits needed to rescue people
from rubble and on sophisticated chemical and radiation monitoring
equipment. Other security expenditures forwarded in the first
reimbursement request included nearly $5,000 worth of military-style
pants, bull horns, batteries, bolt cutters, thousands of gas-mask
filters, lumber, high-tech radio systems and a $300,000 custom
surveillance camera system. City officials expect the federal government
to reimburse the multimillion-dollar shopping spree out of an initial
$24.8 million grant and a second one nearing final approval. Police have
estimated the total bill including overtime at $35 milllion to $40
million.
25 August 2004
A presidential potpourri of cuts, blunders,
stonewalls, deceptions, and distractions
The 10 Ways Bush Screwed New York
by Wayne Barrett, special reporting by Daniel Magliocco
The Villiage Voice, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: Here's a welcome from New York 9-11 Veterans for Truth, a big
hello for Republicans from a city hit by a couple of swift jets 35
months—not 35 years—ago. It's matched by just as friendly an insistence
that the convention focus on how Bush-Cheney responded to our riverbank
assault, rather than on an ancient Mekong attack, where the first test
of courage was being there. With the president scheduled to barely show
up here all week, wouldn't it be respectful if the delegates and media
actually got around town to see just what he's done to us since the
bullhorn bravado of 2001? They could start with NYPD Blue, that
All-American army deployed all over midtown. There are actually 5,879
fewer city cops than in 2000, partly due to the nearly 90 percent Bush
cuts in Bill Clinton's COPS programs. Even with the post-9-11 invention
of homeland security funding, NYC is getting $61 million less in federal
public-safety subsidies than it did before our cops became America's
front line. Bush's 2005 budget proposes even more cuts. Though most
conventioneers would prefer to forget it, George W. Bush has slashed the
troop strength that host committee hero Rudy Giuliani put on duty.
Danger - Rip Tide
Kerry Critic Listed
as GOP Fund-Raiser's Co-host
NYC event guest list includes president's father, Rove
By CHRISTY HOPPE
The Dallas Morning News, 23 August 2004
Courtesy of Talking Points Memo
EXCERPT: Houston home builder Bob Perry, a key bankroller for Swift Boat
Veterans for Truth, is listed as the co-host of a New York City
fund-raiser next week for the Harris County GOP, whose guest list
includes President Bush's top political adviser. ...Mr.
Perry, who has given $200,000 to the veterans' group to help launch the
anti-John Kerry ads that question the Democrat's Vietnam War record, has
denied any links to Mr. Bush or the national Republican Party regarding
the Swift Boat Veterans' campaign. ......Invitations to the
Harris County reception and fund-raiser Sept. 1 at Tavern on the Green
name Mr. Perry as an event sponsor, and those on the invitation list
include former President George Bush, presidential adviser Karl Rove and
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
Just
another coincidence
Same
Attorney Works for Bush, Anti-Kerry Group
By SHARON THEIMER
MyWay.com, 24 August 2004
A lawyer for President Bush's re-election campaign disclosed Tuesday
that he has been providing legal advice for a veterans group that is
challenging Democratic Sen. John Kerry's account of his Vietnam War
service. Benjamin Ginsberg's acknowledgment marks the second time in
days that an individual associated with the Bush-Cheney campaign has
been connected to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which Kerry
accuses of being a front for the Republican incumbent's re-election
effort. The Bush campaign and the veterans' group say there is no
coordination.
Tests of a Smear Campaign
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Washington Post, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: This is also a test for the media. We see here a fascinating
and ugly development in the politics of annihilation. A supposedly
outside group raises money from close Bush supporters, staffs itself
with political operatives close to Bush and the Republicans, and then
puts up several hundred thousand dollars worth of television ads. This
is, as one operative with years of experience in Republican campaigns
put it, "a professional hit." Suddenly, questions about Kerry's service
that were asked and answered months ago become big news again. To their
credit, several news organizations -- the New York Times, Chicago
Tribune and The Post among them -- have run reports exposing the
distortions, inconsistencies and fabrications of the anti-Kerry crowd,
and the links between this operation and the Bush machine. But this
hasn't stopped the run of unproven innuendo. Even highly respected
Republicans have jumped in. "There's got to be some truth to these
charges," Dole, a true war hero, said on CNN. Alas, this is the classic
course a smear campaign takes. A group throws up accusations that, when
subjected to scrutiny, prove to be full of holes. Supporters of the
attack campaign say that, well, those charges may not pan out, but there
must be something here. Let's just keep attacking. The media have to do
more than "he said/he said" reporting. If the charges don't hold up,
they don't hold up. And, yes, now that John Kerry's life during his
twenties has been put at the heart of this campaign just over two months
from Election Day, the media owe the country a comparable review of what
Bush was doing at the same time and the same age. If all the stories
about what Kerry did in Vietnam are not balanced by serious scrutiny of
Bush in the Vietnam years, the media will be capitulating to a
right-wing smear campaign. Surely our nation's editors and producers
don't want to send a signal that all you have to do to set the media's
agenda is spend a half-million bucks on television ads.
On Cable, a Fog of Words About Kerry's
War Record
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
NYT, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: There is the fog of war and then there is the fog of cable.
Over the last few weeks, 24-hour news networks have done little to find
out what John Kerry did in Vietnam, but they have provided a different
kind of public service: their examination of his war record in Vietnam
illustrates once again just how perfunctory and confusing cable news
coverage can be. Facts, half-truths and passionately tendentious
opinions get tumbled together on screen like laundry in an industrial
dryer - without the softeners of fact-checking or reflection. Somehow,
on all-cable news stations - CNN as well as Fox News - a story that
rises or falls on basic and mostly verifiable facts blurs into just
another developing news sensation alongside the latest Utah kidnapping
or the Scott Peterson murder trial. (It is particularly confusing on Fox
News, where so many of its blond female anchors look like Amber Frey.)
...At best, cable news programs swing into action when a crisis or major
news development occurs, marshaling their resources to give viewers
instant, live access. At their worst, they amplify the loudest voices
and blur complexities. People can blame the confusion of combat for some
of the discrepancies over Mr. Kerry's war record, but cable has done
little to clear the air.
From John Ashcroft's lips to God's ear
Kiss Your Rights Goodbye
by Gary Indiana
The Village Voice, 23 August 2004
EXCERPT: What should have been a disaster for G.W. Bush's presidency,
then, has instead served as a pretext for conducting it like a
dictatorship, with John Ashcroft's Justice Department as its secret
police. Strange to say, the branch of the government that got the
country into this mess is the only one that can get us out. The Supreme
Court's rulings in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Rasul v.
Bush, and Rumsfeld v. Padilla, affirming habeas corpus
rights for detainees as well as criminal defendants, while not
unequivocal triumphs for Hamdi, Rasul, or Padilla per se, at least
indicate a dawning recognition within the Supreme Court that its own
prerogatives are liable to be usurped by an executive branch that
defines "war" against a phantom enemy as an eternal state of emergency.
If we can't rely on the court for fairness, the republic may yet be
rescued by its resentment.
Goss Backed '95 Bill to Slash
Intelligence
Plan Would Have Cut Personnel 20%
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: President Bush's nominee to be the director of central
intelligence, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), sponsored legislation that
would have cut intelligence personnel by 20 percent in the late 1990s.
Goss, who has been chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence for the past eight years, was one of six original
co-sponsors of legislation in 1995 that called for cuts of at least 4
percent per year between 1996 and 2000 in the total number of people
employed throughout the intelligence community. The legislation, part of
a wide-ranging budget-cutting measure that included abolishing the
Energy Department and privatizing the air traffic control system, never
received a vote. But the nine-year-old legislation, exhumed by
Democrats, presents a political hurdle for Goss. The Bush reelection
campaign has been blasting Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry
as deeply irresponsible for proposing intelligence cuts at the same
time. A Bush campaign ad released on Aug. 13 carried a headline: "John
Kerry . . . proposed slashing Intelligence Budget 6 Billion Dollars."
But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry and
specifically targeted the "human intelligence" that has recently been
found lacking. The recent report by the commission probing the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks called for more spending on human intelligence.
Bush Expands
Energy Leasing of Public Lands
Exploration Allowed on 229 Million Acres in West Since '82
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post, 23 August 2004
EXCERPT: The federal government has leased 229 million acres in 12
western states for energy development since 1982, an area equal to the
combined acreage of Montana, Utah and Wyoming, according to a report
issued yesterday by an environmental group. The study, by the
Environmental Working Group, was based on an analysis of 125 million
records from the Interior Department; the group said it is the most
comprehensive overview to date of how recent administrations have opened
up public land to oil and gas drilling. It is also part of an effort by
environmentalists to highlight the Bush administration's promotion of
energy development on federal lands. While administrations from both
parties have leased federal property for energy exploration, the Bush
administration has removed barriers to drilling on 45 million acres in
12 western states since 2001, while the Clinton administration put 64
million acres off-limits between 1993 and 2000, the study said. Much of
that difference stems from Clinton's decision to bar development on 42
million acres of roadless areas on federal land. Mike Casey, a spokesman
for the environmental group, said the study contradicts pronouncements
such as the one Vice President Cheney made earlier this month in
Arkansas, that "large parts of the Rocky Mountain West are off-limits."
"They're not blocked," Casey said of oil and gas companies. "They own
the West."
Journalist Testifies in CIA Case
Contempt Charges Against Time Reporter Are Dropped
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: A federal judge yesterday canceled a contempt-of-court order
against Time magazine and one of its reporters, Matthew Cooper, after
Cooper was interviewed by Justice Department prosecutors investigating
who leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to journalists.
Officials at Time said Cooper, who had been threatened with jail time
for refusing to respond to a grand jury subpoena, gave a deposition
Monday about his conversations with a single anonymous source -- I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney -- after
Libby waived Cooper's responsibility to keep their conversations on the
topic confidential. Time officials said Libby was the only source of
Cooper's that special counsel prosecutors asked about. Cooper is at
least the third journalist to answer questions under pressure from
prosecutors about private conversations with Libby in July 2003. The
inquiry seeks to determine whether any senior administration official
knowingly revealed the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie
Plame to syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak and other journalists. It
can be a felony to do so intentionally. "Matt would have gone to jail if
Libby didn't waive his right to confidentiality . . . and we would have
fought all the way to the Supreme Court," said Time Managing Editor Jim
Kelly. "Matt has been absolutely steadfast in his desire to protect
anonymous sources."
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28-29 August 2004
Pentagon/Israel Spying Case
Expands:
Fomenting a War on Iran
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 29 August 2004
EXCERPT: The FBI has evidence that Franklin passed a draft
presidential directive on Iran to AIPAC, which then passed it to the
Israelis. The FBI is construing these actions as espionage or
something close to it. But that is like getting Al Capone on tax
evasion. Franklin was not giving the directive to AIPAC in order to
provide them with information. He was almost certainly seeking
feedback from them on elements of it. He was asking, "Do you like
this? Should it be changed in any way?" And, he might also have been
prepping AIPAC for the lobbying campaign scheduled for early in
2005, when Congress will have to be convinced to authorize military
action, or at least covert special operations, against Iran. AIPAC
probably passed the directive over to Israel for the same
reason--not to inform, but to seek input. That is, AIPAC and Israel
were helping write US policy toward Iran, just as they had played a
key role in fomenting the Iraq war.With both Iraq and Iran in
flames, the Likud Party could do as it pleased in the Middle East
without fear of reprisal. This means it could expel the Palestinians
from the West Bank to Jordan, and perhaps just give Gaza back to
Egypt to keep Cairo quiet. Annexing southern Lebanon up to the
Litani River, the waters of which Israel has long coveted, could
also be undertaken with no consequences, they probably think, once
Hizbullah in Lebanon could no longer count on Iranian support. The
closed character of the economies of Iraq and Iran, moreover, would
end, allowing American, Italian and British companies to make a
killing after the wars (so they thought). Franklin's movements
reveal the contours of a rightwing conspiracy of warmongering and
aggression, an orgy of destruction, for the benefit of the Likud
Party, of Silvio Berlusconi's business in the Middle East, and of
the Neoconservative Right in the United States. It isn't about
spying. It is about conspiring to conscript the US government on
behalf of a foreign power or powers.
Bush nears understanding with Pyongyang
North
Korea Calls Bush `Trash,' Spurns Future Talks on Weapons
By Tim Johnson
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 29 August 2004
EXCERPT: Striving mightily to goad Washington to pay attention,
North Korea on Tuesday called President Bush "human trash," raising
its invective to a new level a day after labeling the U.S. leader a
"political idiot" and comparing him to Hitler. It was the second
consecutive day that North Korea has issued unusually strident
personal criticism of Bush. In its tirade, the communist North
Korean government reiterated its contention that future six-party
talks on its nuclear weapons program are pointless. North Korea "can
no longer pin any hope on the six-party talks, and there is a
question as to whether there is any need for it to negotiate with
the U.S. anymore," the statement said. While impoverished North
Korea has used insults to capture Washington's attention before
negotiations, the latest outpouring came while the talks were in
limbo. Many analysts say the North Korean weapons crisis has entered
relative dormancy until after the U.S. presidential elections in
November...Rising to the challenge of global name-calling, North
Korea's latest statement said: "It is the greatest tragedy for the
U.S. that Bush, a political idiot and human trash, still remains in
the presidential office of the world's only superpower, styling
himself an emperor of the world. "Had Bush had even an iota of
elementary reason, morality and ability to judge reality as a human
being, he would have not dared defile the political system of his
dialogue partner so malignantly," said the statement, which was
carried by the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency. In its
statement, North Korea also pledged to strengthen the "quality and
quantity" of its war deterrent to repel aggression. Pyongyang
usually refers to its nuclear capability as its war deterrent.
(Perhaps Kerry should think about bringing these guys in as campaign
consultants.--BWUSA)
Iran-Contra II?
Fresh scrutiny on a rogue Pentagon operation.
By Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Glastris
The Washington Monthly, 29 August 2004
EXCERPT: Perhaps you've been following the case of the Defense
Department analyst
Larry Franklin, whom the FBI is investigating for passing
classified documents to Israel. Perhaps you've read that Franklin
works in the office of Undersecretary Douglas Feith. Perhaps you've
noticed that this is the same shop that sponsored Ahmed Chalabi and
pushed raw intel about an ultimately disproven partnership between
Saddam and Osama. And perhaps you've wondered where this FBI
investigation might be headed. If so, then read
this. It's the first installment of an investigative project
that Joshua Micah Marshall,
Laura Rozen, and I have been
working on. It's about yet another rogue intel operation involving
these same folks and a couple names you might remember from the
past: neocon operative Michael Ledeen and Iranian arms dealer
Manucher Ghorbanifar of Iran-Contra fame. ...Over the last year, the
Senate Intelligence Committee has conducted limited inquiry into the
meetings, including interviews with Feith and Ledeen. But under
terms of a compromise agreed to by both parties, a full
investigation into the matter was put off until after the November
election. Republicans on the committee, many of whom sympathize with
the "regime change" agenda at DoD, have been resistant to such
investigations, calling them an election-year fishing expedition.
Democrats, by contrast, see such investigations as vital to
understanding the central role Feith's office may have played in a
range of a dubious intelligence enterprises, from pushing claims
about a supposed Saddam-al Qaeda partnership and overblown estimates
of alleged Iraqi stocks of WMD to what the committee's ranking
minority member Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D-WV) calls "the Chalabi
factor" (Rhode and others in Feith's office have been major sponsors
of the Iraqi exile leader, who is now under investigation for
passing U.S. intelligence to Iran). With the FBI adding potential
espionage charges to the mix the long-simmering questions about the
activities of Feith's operation now seem certain to come under
renewed scrutiny.
FBI Espionage Probe Goes Beyond
Israeli Allegations
By Warren P. Strobel
Knight Ridder Newspapers, 29 August 2004
EXCERPT: An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified
material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported,
and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst
gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources
familiar with the investigation said Saturday. The probe, which has
been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other
civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources,
who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have
first-hand knowledge of the subject. In addition, one said, FBI
investigators in recent weeks have conducted interviews to determine
whether Pentagon officials gave highly classified U.S. intelligence
to a leading Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, which
may in turn have passed it on to Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi has
denied his group was involved in any wrongdoing. The linkage, if
any, between the two leak investigations, remains unclear. But they
both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith,
the Pentagon's No. 3 official. Feith's office, which oversees policy
matters, has been the source of numerous controversies over the last
three years. His office had close ties to Chalabi and was
responsible for post-war Iraq planning that the administration has
now acknowledged was inadequate. Before the war, Feith and his aides
pushed the now-discredited theory that former Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein was in league with al-Qaida.
The pure
courage of Professor Cole
Straight
Talk About Terrorism and Israel
The U.S. is way overdue for this kind of
open discussion because its the last thing the pro-Likud Israeli
lobby wants.
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 28 August 2004
EXCERPT: AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee)
currently has a project to shut up academics such as myself, the
same way it has shut up Congress, through congressional legislation
mandating "balance" (i.e. pro-Likud stances) in Middle East programs
at American Universities. How long the US public will allow itself
to be spied on and pushed around like this is a big question. And,
with the rise of international terrorism targeting the US in part
over these issues, the fate of the country hangs in the balance.
If al-Qaeda succeeds in another big attack, it could well tip the
country over into military rule, as Gen. Tommy Franks has suggested.
That is, the fate of the Republic is in danger. And the danger comes
from two directions, not just one. It comes from radical extremists
in the Muslim world, who must be fought. But it also comes from
radical extremists in Israel, who have key allies in the US and whom
the US government actively supports and against whom influential
Americans are afraid to speak out.
If I had been in power on September 11, I'd have called up Sharon
and told him he was just going to have to withdraw to 1967 borders,
or face the full fury of the United States. Israel would be much
better off inside those borders, anyway. It can't absorb 3 million
Palestinians and retain its character, and it can't continue to hold
3 million Palestinians as stateless hostages without making itself
inhumane and therefore un-Jewish. And then I'd have thrown
everything the US had at al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and frog-marched
Bin Laden off to justice, and rebuilt Afghanistan to ensure that
al-Qaeda was permanently denied a base there. Iraq, well, Iraq was
contained. [BWUSA will be watching with great anticipation for
Juan Cole's next appearance on the PBS News Hour. And good luck
getting on your next flight, Juan.]
Confirmed:
Bush-Israel
joined at the head (with Iraq war architects Feith and Wolfowitz
anyway)
Pentagon Official Suspected of Giving U.S. Secrets to Israel
By JAMES RISEN
NYT, 28 August 2004
EXCERPT: The F.B.I. is investigating a Pentagon official on
suspicion of passing secrets to Israel, government officials said
Friday. The espionage investigation has focused on an official who
works in the office of Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense
for policy, officials who have been briefed about the investigation
said. The F.B.I. has gathered evidence that the official passed
classified policy documents to officials at the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, a major pro-Israeli lobbying group, which
in turn provided the information to Israeli intelligence, the
officials said. The bureau has evidence that the Pentagon official
has given the Israelis a sensitive report about American policy
toward Iran, along with other materials, the officials said. Several
government officials identified the official who was under
investigation, but he could not be immediately reached for comment
about the accusations. Neither the official under suspicion nor
anyone else associated with the case has been arrested, the
officials said. Government officials suggested Friday that
investigators were seeking the cooperation of the Pentagon official
being investigated. ...The F.B.I. inquiry has been under way for at
least a year and has been one of the bureau's most sensitive spy
cases in years, officials said. One official said that the suspected
involvement of people working at a major pro-Israeli lobbying
organization led the Justice Department to move cautiously. The fact
that the official under investigation works for Mr. Feith has also
made the case politically sensitive for the Bush administration.
Before the war in Iraq, Mr. Feith created a special intelligence
unit that sought to build a case for Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda, an
effort that has since been heavily criticized by American
intelligence professionals as an effort to justify the war. Mr.
Feith has also long been known as a major supporter of Israel, and
while he was out of government in 1996 signed a paper, titled "A
Clean Break," issued by a Jerusalem-based policy group that called
for the toppling of Saddam Hussein in order to enhance Israeli
security. Before he came to the Pentagon, Mr. Feith was also a
partner in a law firm with L. Marc Zell, a lawyer with a firm now
based in Israel. ...Some of the classified information that
investigators suspect was passed to Israel dealt with sensitive
discussions about the United States' position toward Iran, officials
said. As a result, the investigation is likely to give rise to
questions about whether Israel may have used the information to
influence American policy in the Middle East.
SEE ALSO:
VIDEO
LINK
FBI Probes Pentagon Spy Case (CBS
News)
SEE ALSO:
Israeli Spy in Defense Department
Investigated
CBS 60 Minutes
Lesley Stahl, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has
involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS
News was told document the passing of classified information from
the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis. CBS sources
say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst
at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy
toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S.
policy-makers were still debating the policy." This put the
Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop"
so they could "try to influence the outcome." The case raises
another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst
to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq? With ties to top
Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the analyst was
assigned to a unit within the Defense Department tasked with helping
develop the Pentagon's Iraq policy.
SEE ALSO:
The FBI Investigation
(WarandPiece.com)
EXCERPT: It’s no secret that some prominent neoconservative
officials like Doug Feith, Vice Presidential advisor David Wurmser,
and the former Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle are
sympathetic to the government of Ariel Sharon and the Likud
government. Feith, Wurmser and Perle co-authored the paper, A Clean
Break, which advocated that Israel abandon the Oslo peace process.
But (Larry) Franklin (the suspected spy), although a passionate advocate of regime change in
Iran, is not really among them. From modest beginnings, Franklin
reportedly put himself through school, earned a PhD, and is now the
Pentagon’s top Iran analyst. It would be an irony if he were to be
the target of an investigation into passing US intelligence to
Israel. A friend points out one other irony is that what the
Pentagon official is alleged in the CBS report to have passed to AIPAC and the Israelis is essentially a diplomatic document that
describes a draft US policy position to Iran; in other words --
hardly the crown jewels, and hardly enough to warrant wiretaps and
surveillance of Aipac's offices, he says. "The Israelis can get
that stuff by going directly to Condoleezza Rice." ...It's
no secret as well that there's intense competition over who would be
national security advisor in a second term Bush administration.
Anything that taints Feith and Wolfowitz could benefit their
internal Bush administration foes. We obviously haven't heard the
last of this yet. Stay tuned. Update: Or does this story
leaking now indicate rather, a case of "controlled burn?" An
investigation that was leaked or interrupted before it could go
further, as reader MC suggests? Franklin is seemingly more
expendable than others.
[BWUSA
emphasis]
In Western Iraq, Fundamentalists
Hold U.S. at Bay
By JOHN F. BURNS and ERIK ECKHOLM
NYT, 28 August 2004
EXCERPT: While American troops have been battling Islamic militants
to an uncertain outcome in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, events in
two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western
approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American
plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq. Both of the cities,
Falluja and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled
by fundamentalist militias, with American troops confined mainly to
heavily protected forts on the desert's edge. What little influence
the Americans have is asserted through wary forays in armored
vehicles, and by laser-guided bombs that obliterate enemy safe
houses identified by scouts who penetrate militant ranks. Even
bombing raids appear to strengthen the fundamentalists, who blame
the Americans for scores of civilian deaths. American efforts to
build a government structure around former Baath Party stalwarts -
officials of Saddam Hussein's army, police force and bureaucracy who
were willing to work with the United States - have collapsed.
Instead, the former Hussein loyalists, under threat of beheadings,
kidnappings and humiliation, have mostly resigned or defected to the
fundamentalists, or been killed. Enforcers for the old government,
including former Republican Guard officers, have put themselves in
the service of fundamentalist clerics they once tortured at Abu
Ghraib. In the past three weeks, three former Hussein loyalists
appointed to important posts in Falluja and Ramadi have been
eliminated by the militants and their Baathist allies. The chief of
a battalion of the American-trained Iraqi National Guard in Falluja
was beheaded by the militants, prompting the disintegration of guard
forces in the city. The Anbar governor was forced to resign after
his three sons were kidnapped. The third official, the provincial
police chief in Ramadi, was lured to his arrest by American marines
after three assassination attempts led him to secretly defect to the
rebel cause.
Q--Why do they hate us? A--Bush
Powell Pulls Out of Athens Visit
Washington denies anti-U.S. protests to blame
CNN.com, 28 August 2004
 EXCERPT: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has
pulled out of a visit to Athens to attend Sunday's closing
ceremonies for the Olympic Games, U.S. officials said. Washington
denied Powell changed plans because of anti-U.S. protests which saw
police hurl tear gas Friday at about 1,000 demonstrators heading for
the U.S. Embassy in Athens. On Saturday Greek activists hoisted a
massive banner saying "Powell Killer Go Home" on the Acropolis
hillside towering over Athens to protest against his planned 24-hour
visit.
Scott Ritter on Israel's
Nuclear Policy, Disarmament, Iraq and Citizenship
By Sunny Miller
ZNet, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: First of all, we need to understand that, as long as Israel
has nuclear weapons, it has chosen to take a path that is inherently
confrontational, and that's a very dangerous path. It's a path that
says, 'We will confront you, and, if the situation warrants, we will
use our ultimate weapon.' Now the Arab countries, the Muslim world,
is not about to sit back and let this happen, so they will seek
their own deterrent. We saw this in Iraq, not only with a nuclear
deterrent but also with a biological weapons deterrent, the poor
man's nuclear bomb that the Iraqis were developing to offset the
Israeli nuclear superiority. So it doesn't make Israel safer. It
makes Israel much less secure. Now we bring into the fold an
additional element, that Israel has developed its nuclear weapons in
violation of international agreements and standards and refuses to
allow inspections of its nuclear facilities, its nuclear weapons
production capacity. And, again, this is another signal that Israel
is sending out that it's okay for Israel to turn its back on the
rest of the world and to go it alone and create a nuclear weapon for
its own security, but it's not okay for anybody else. It sets a
double standard, which, again, only adds to the sense of frustration
in the Arab world, and increases rather than decreases the
likelihood that they will seek to acquire a nuclear capability that
counterbalances the Israeli capability. Remember, Israel needs
lots of nuclear weapons because they have lots of potential targets.
Israel is such a small country that any potential nuclear enemy only
needs a handful of nuclear weapons, and you can destroy Israel, so
Israel has put itself at great risk with this nuclear weapons
capability. Maybe the nuclear weapons were something Israel needed
during the time of the Cold War, but we're in a post-Cold War
environment. This is definitely a new era, and, if the United
States, and we're in the midst of a Presidential election in which
both candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry
have spoken about the dangers of nuclear proliferation, the dangers
of proliferating weapons of mass destruction and the importance for
the US to have a very broad spectrum, viable,
counter-proliferation/nonproliferation strategy. I don't care what
your strategy is; it will not succeed so long as Israel maintains a
nuclear weapons capability. Israel's nuclear capability is the
Achilles' heel of any attempt to bring weapons of mass destruction
under control. Until which time Israel agrees to open itself up to
full international inspections and to embark on a disarmament
program to eliminate its nuclear weapons capability, all other
Muslim nations will be seeking to acquire either directly or
assisting other nations to acquire this capability. [Emphasis by
BWUSA]
SEE ALSO:
Debate Between Chomsky and Cohen on the Middle
East
(ZNet)
SEE ALSO:
Caving in to Sharon
(ZNet)
General Says US Forces
Tortured Iraqis
By Will Dunham
Reuters, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: An Army general has acknowledged for the first time that
U.S. forces tortured Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib jail and his report
said a colonel who headed the military intelligence unit at the
prison could face criminal charges. "It's a harsh word, and in some
instances, unfortunately, I think it was appropriate here. There
were a few instances where torture was being used," Army Major
General George Fay told a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday on his
investigation with Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones into the role of military
intelligence personnel in the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, on
the outskirts of Baghdad. Pentagon leaders and Bush administration
officials had previously steered clear of describing the physical
abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners as torture. Fay did
not specify the actions he considered torture.
SEE ALSO:
US Army Report Faults General in Prison Abuse
(Reuters)
SEE ALSO:
Bringing Najaf to New York
(Nation)
SEE ALSO:
'Village Idiot' resurfaces
Rumsfeld Denies Abuses Occurred at
Interrogations
By ERIC SCHMITT
NYT, 28 August 2004
EXCERPT: In his first comments on the two major investigative
reports issued this week at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld on Thursday mischaracterized one of their central
findings about the American military's treatment of Iraqi prisoners
by saying there was no evidence that prisoners had been abused
during interrogations. The reports, one by a panel Mr. Rumsfeld had
appointed and one by three Army generals, made clear that some
abuses occurred during interrogations, that others were intended to
soften up prisoners who were to be questioned, and that many
intelligence personnel involved in the interrogations were
implicated in the abuses. The reports were issued Tuesday and
Wednesday. But on Thursday, in an interview with a radio station in
Phoenix, Mr. Rumsfeld, who was traveling outside Washington this
week, said, "I have not seen anything thus far that says that the
people abused were abused in the process of interrogating them or
for interrogation purposes." A transcript of the interview was
posted on the Pentagon's Web site on Friday. Mr. Rumsfeld repeated
the assertion a few hours later at a news conference in Phoenix,
adding that "all of the press, all of the television thus far that
tried to link the abuse that took place to interrogation techniques
in Iraq has not yet been demonstrated." After an aide slipped him a
note during the news conference, however, Mr. Rumsfeld corrected
himself, noting that an inquiry by three Army generals had, in fact,
found "two or three" cases of abuse during interrogations or the
interrogations process. In fact, however, the Army inquiry found
that 13 of 44 instances of abuse involved interrogations or the
interrogation process, an Army spokeswoman said. The report itself
explicitly describes the extent to which each abuse involved
interrogations. On Friday, the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di
Rita, sought to play down Mr. Rumsfeld's comments, saying: "He
misspoke, pure and simple. But he corrected himself." While the
abuses that first came to light - depicted in photographs taken in
Abu Ghraib prison - were not the ones involving interrogations, the
subsequent investigations have shown that, among other abuses,
prisoners were kept in harsh isolation, beaten, kept naked and
threatened by dogs as part of the interrogation process there. Mr.
Rumsfeld has condemned the prisoner abuses, and did so again in his
public appearances on Thursday in Arizona. But he has also hewed to
the line that a small band of rogue military police were largely
responsible for the beatings, sexual humiliating poses and other
abuses, especially those depicted in a notorious set of photographs
that became public in April.
Bush Admits Iraq 'Miscalculation'
BBC News, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: US President George W Bush has acknowledged for the first
time that he made a "miscalculation" of what conditions would be in
post-war Iraq. Mr Bush told The New York Times that the error was by
by-product of a "swift victory" in the initial conflict. Saddam
Hussein's military disappeared into cities, enabling them to mount a
rebellion against US troops much faster than Washington anticipated,
he said. Mr Bush also told the newspaper John Kerry had not lied
over his war record. On Iraq, Mr Bush said the US's strategy had
been "flexible enough" to respond to the long-running insurgency,
and said that even now "we're adjusting to our conditions" in places
such as Najaf, where a stand-off has just ended between US and Iraqi
troops and Shia militants. But Mr Bush declined to enter into
discussion with the newspaper on further mistakes in Iraq. He said,
just as his father has done, that he would resist going "on the
couch" to rethink decisions.
...Asked by the USA Today, in a separate interview, how the death
toll - now approaching 1,000 US military personnel - would affect
his election chances, he answered: "The president has to make hard
decisions. "My job is to confront problems not pass them on. And the
American people have seen me make the hardest of decisions. That's
just going to have to be a part of their decision-making process."
Bush policies
corrupt all who support them
Silence of the Doctors
Boston Globe, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: The damage to the reputation of the United States done by
the abuses and, in some cases, the killings of detainees at the Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq will take years to repair. Now allegations
have surfaced that in addition to the soldiers who disgraced the
uniform by their actions, health care personnel might have violated
their own professional codes. An article in the British medical
journal The Lancet last week provided evidence that doctors,
physician assistants, nurses, and medics at Abu Ghraib assisted in
or remained silent in the face of prisoner abuse. A crucial step in
the process of establishing accountability for Abu Ghraib will be
the reports that both military and civilian review panels put
together. This week Major General George Fay is expected to release
a report that will blame high-level failures of leadership but call
for no charges against any of the officers involved. According to
the Lancet article's author, Dr. Steven Miles, a previous Army
report on the prison, testimony before Congress, and news reports
reveal that medical personnel at the prison did not give detainees
appropriate care, assisted interrogators in abusive techniques,
falsified detainees' death certificates to report violent homicides
as natural deaths, and never reported any of the inhumane treatment
of detainees to their superiors before the Army began its own
investigation last January. First reports of the abuse came from the
International Committee of the Red Cross, later ones from nonmedical
enlisted soldiers. ...On Aug. 6, before the Lancet article appeared,
Physicians for Human Rights called on James Schlesinger, chairman of
an independent panel reviewing military detention operations, to
question the role of medical personnel at the Pentagon's overseas
prisons. There should be no whitewashing of misconduct either by
physicians or by those at the top of the chain of command.
SEE ALSO:
AUDIO LINK
NPR's Science Friday discussion with the
author of the Lancet report, Steven Miles, M.D., Professor of
Medicine, Center for Bioethics
University of Minnesota Medical School
Minneapolis, Minnesota (audio will be available soon)
Tentative Accord Reached in Najaf
to Halt Fighting
By DEXTER FILKINS and JOHN F. BURNS
NYT, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: Aides to the country's most powerful Shiite leader said
they had reached a tentative agreement on Thursday to end the
three-week siege in this Shiite holy city, after a day of chaos and
bloodshed here that left at least 74 Iraqis dead and more than 300
wounded.
SEE
ALSO:
Najaf's Winners and Losers
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: I think the big losers from the Najaf episode (part deux)
are the Americans. They have become, if it is possible, even more
unpopular in Iraq than they were last spring after Abu Ghuraib,
Fallujah and Najaf Part 1. The US is perceived as culturally
insensitive for its actions in the holy city of Najaf. The
Allawi government is also a big loser. Instead of looking decisive,
as they had hoped, they ended up looking like the lackeys of
neo-imperialists. The big winner is Sistani, whose religious
charisma has now been enhanced by solid nationalist credentials. He
is a national hero for saving Najaf. For Muqtada, it is a wash. He
did not have Najaf until April, anyway, and can easily survive not
having it. His movement in the slums of the southern cities is
intact, even if its paramilitary has been weakened.
Protest in Athens Turns Violent
AP in NYT, 27 August 2004
EXCERPT: Police used tear gas Friday night to disperse more than
2,000 demonstrators who lit fires, smashed windows and beat up
journalists while marching through downtown Athens to protest the
weekend visit of Secretary of State Colin Powell. The demonstrators,
who scuffled with police in front of the Parliament, fought running
battles with riot squads trying to prevent them from reaching the
U.S. Embassy. The embassy is not near any Olympic venues, but it is
near the hotel being used by the International Olympic Committee and
located on a major Olympic traffic lane. The protesters shouted
slogans against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
27 August 2004
Iraq's Top Cleric Arrives in Najaf
on Peace Mission as a Mortar Barrage Kills 27 at Mosque
By Abdul Hussein Al-Obeidi
AP via Boston Globe, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: Rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed Thursday to a
peace deal presented by Iraq's top Shiite cleric, who brought his
enormous authority to bear in an attempt to end three weeks of
fighting in the holy city of Najaf, a top al-Sistani aide said.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential cleric among
Iraq's Shiite majority, reached the deal in direct talks with al-Sadr
in the evening, only hours after making a dramatic return to Najaf.
Aides have said that al-Sistani's peace plan calls for Najaf and
Kufa to be declared weapons-free cities, for all foreign forces to
withdraw from Najaf and leave security to the police, and for the
government to compensate those harmed by the fighting. ''Mr. Muqtada
al-Sadr agreed to the initiative of his eminence al-Sistani,'' said
Hamed al-Khafaf, a top al-Sistani aide. ''You will hear good news
soon from the government and Mr. Muqtada al-Sadr.'' 'It's the same
initiative that we had proposed ... almost the same initiative has
been agreed upon,'' al-Khafaf said. Thousands of Iraqis had flocked
to Najaf in answer to al-Sistani's call Wednesday for a peace march,
but the Iraqi government's police did not let them enter the holy
city.
AUDIO LINK
Abu
Ghraib: Its Legacy for Military Medicine
NPR's Science Friday, Steven Miles, M.D., Professor of
Medicine
Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota Medical School
A new report says military doctors were complicit with the abuses at
the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. According to an article in the
Lancet, doctors at the prison went beyond merely not reporting what
they saw, instead collaborating with abusive guards and helping to
design coercive interrogation methods. In this hour, we'll talk
about the role of military doctors in inhumane treatment and
torture. What should doctors do when their professional duties to
their patients conflict with other obligations?
Moqtada's Here to Stay
The lesson of Najaf is that Sadr's radical populism has a large
following
By TONY KARON
Time.com, 25 August 2004
The return of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani sets the stage for ending
the siege of Najaf. And the fact that the three-week battle looks
set to end with a mass march by Iraqi Shiites to "save the (Imam
Ali) Mosque" is a telling indicator of how the siege changed Iraq's
power equation. Sistani has demanded that the U.S. and Iraqi forces
withdraw from around the mosque and that Sadr's gunmen leave before
he'll enter. The U.S. and the interim government of Prime Minister
Iyad Allawi may have no option but to comply, because alienating
Sistani, the most influential cleric in Iraq, would be political
suicide. Getting Sadr's fighters out of the mosque would, of course,
accomplish one of the government's primary objectives. Doing so
along the lines suggested by Sistani, however, also helps Sadr.
More importantly, Sadr has called on his own supporters — most of
whom hail not from Najaf, but from the urban Shiite neighborhoods of
Baghdad, Basra and the cities in between — to answer Sistani's call
and make for Najaf. Ever alert to the political opportunity, Moqtada
Sadr appears intent on making sure he emerges from the siege looking
not only victorious, but also in lockstep with Sistani and the
Shiite clerical mainstream.
Imperialism without Empire
By Jonathan Schell
The Nation/TomDispatch, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: Is the United States -- as so many have said, in
celebration or dismay -- a planet-mastering empire or not? The
question presses upon us as George W. Bush gets ready to descend
upon New York for the Republican convention, as he once descended
upon the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln under the banner declaring
"mission accomplished" in Iraq.
Just as the President's landing on the Lincoln invited an assessment
of the Iraq war, so now his visit to New York invites assessment of
the larger, global mission of the administration. (And, come to
think of it, Manhattan Island, with its slim uptown and its
broad-beamed downtown, is shaped rather like a gargantuan aircraft
carrier.) The decision to hold the convention in New York City was
apparently conceived as a triumphal return by the nation's savior to
the scene of September 11. But the recent fortunes of the United
States have been anything but triumphal. The President's policies
have failed to check the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. The entire "axis of evil," consisting, according to the
President, of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, continues to defy his
administration in one way or another. In Iraq, the Marines are now
at war with the Shiite community the United States supposedly came
to save. North Korea has allegedly become a nuclear power, and Iran
seems to be heading that way. The traditional alliances of the
United States have been shaken. After 9/11, editorialists asked,
"Why do they hate us?" Whatever the reasons, "they" have multiplied
to include most of the world.
MPs Launch Bid to Impeach Blair
ALISON HARDIE
Scotsman, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: An audacious bid to impeach Tony Blair for misleading
Parliament over the reasons for the war in Iraq will be launched by
MPs today. The cross-party group say they have rock-solid academic
backing for their attempt to invoke an ancient mechanism that could
unseat the Prime Minister. This latest assault on Mr Blair’s
integrity is being led by the Scottish National Party and Plaid
Cymru, the Welsh nationalists together with a Conservative MP, but
it is expected that other Tories and Liberal Democrats will sign up
along with disaffected Labour backbenchers. The power of impeachment
has not been used in Britain for 150 years, but it remains on the
statute book despite an attempt to erase it in 1999. Mr Price said:
"The Prime Minister’s deliberate and repeated distortion of the
truth has destroyed our reputation for honesty around the world. "It
has produced a war with no end in sight, it has damaged and
discredited the intelligence services which are essential to the
security of the state, it has undermined the constitution by
weakening cabinet government to breaking point; and it has made a
mockery of Parliament as representatives of the people. "As the
major report we publish today conclusively demonstrates, the Prime
Minister’s statements about Iraq’s weapons in the run-up to the war
simply were not true, and there was British intelligence and UN
evidence available to the Prime Minister at the time he made these
statements showing them to be false. In other words, we were duped.
"Faced with such compelling evidence of deliberate deception which
is outlined in our report, it is simply unprecedented for a Minister
to refuse to resign.
26 August 2004
Mortar Attack Kills at Least
27 at Mosque in Iraq
AP in NYT, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: A mortar barrage slammed into a mosque filled with Iraqis
preparing to march on the embattled city of Najaf, killing 27 people
and wounding 63 Thursday, while the nation's top Shiite cleric
headed to the area in a massive convoy hoping to end three weeks of
fighting. Hours later, unidentified gunmen opened fire from an Iraqi
National Guard base on thousands of Shiite Muslim marchers heading
to Najaf, killing at least three and wounding 46, witnesses said.
Fierce clashes also continued Thursday in Najaf, just miles away
from Kufa, with U.S. warplanes bombing suspected positions of
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and
explosions booming across the city. The violence dampened renewed
hopes for a rapid resolution to the three-week crisis that has
pitted al-Sadr loyalists against a combined U.S.-Iraqi force. The
U.S. military and the insurgents both blamed the other for the
mortar barrage on Kufa's main mosque.
Top Cleric Moves to End Najaf
Bloodshed
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Edmund Sanders
LA Times, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric returned
unexpectedly to Iraq on Wednesday and called on his devotees to
converge on Najaf on Thursday in a massive march aimed at ending
weeks of fighting in the holy city. The return of Grand Ayatollah
Ali Sistani from Britain, where he was reportedly treated for a
heart ailment, was a potentially decisive development in the crisis
in Najaf, where U.S. and Iraqi troops have been battling the forces
of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for three weeks. Aides said
Sistani planned to travel to Najaf on Thursday in a direct and
dramatic personal intervention aimed at resolving the situation
peacefully. Sistani is headed to Iraq "to stop the bloodshed,"
Sayyid Murthada Kashmiri, a Sistani representative in London, told
Associated Press. "Those believers who wish to join him, let them
join." As Sistani supporters began loading up cars and preparing to
make the trip to Najaf, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was said
to be traveling late Wednesday to confer with the cleric in the
southern city of Basra, where Sistani was staying overnight. It was
unclear late Wednesday what exactly Sistani planned to do in Najaf
once he and his followers reach the holy city. The governor of Basra
province, Hassan Rashid, said the arriving masses would gather at
the outskirts of Najaf and would not enter the city until all armed
men -- except Iraqi police -- evacuate. Sistani wields great
influence among Iraq's Shiite majority, and he has sometimes been
called the most powerful man in Iraq. In the past, U.S. officials
have endeavored not to antagonize him.
SEE ALSO:
A Test of U.S. Sensitivity
and Sensibility
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: The stakes here are enormous. If Iraqi police fire on the
peaceful demonstrators again, or if US troops refuse to make way for
Sistani, there could be a big social explosion in Iraq. If Sistani
is successful in his plan, on the other hand, it will further
increase his authority in the Shiite South and perhaps even
transform him into a nationalist hero. All this is important because
Sistani is insisting on the January elections being held on time. If
they are postponed he will almost certainly send his followers into
the streets to protest, and could well bring down Allawi.
Abuses at Prison Tied to Officers
in Intelligence
By ERIC SCHMITT
NYT, 26 August 2004
EXCERPT: A high-level Army investigation has found that military
intelligence soldiers played a major role in directing and carrying
out the abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The report
undercut earlier contentions by military officials and the Bush
administration that a handful of renegade military police guards
were largely to blame. The report, released at the Pentagon on
Wednesday, recommended that the Army punish the top two military
intelligence officers at the prison, Col. Thomas M. Pappas and Lt.
Col. Steven L. Jordan, and three other intelligence officers
involved in the interrogations at the jail, near Baghdad, saying
they bore responsibility for what happened even though they were not
directly involved in abusing prisoners. The inquiry, by Maj. Gen.
George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones, also implicated 29
other military intelligence soldiers in at least 44 cases of abuse
between July 2003 and February 2004. These soldiers could face
disciplinary action ranging from criminal charges to administrative
punishments, like reductions in pay and rank. Even lesser penalties
can effectively end a military career. While the involvement of
intelligence soldiers, as well as civilian contractors, was
reportedly significantly greater than previously disclosed, many of
the allegations had been described before, sometimes in less detail.
The 171-page report chronicled a gruesome range of abuses, including
one death, an alleged rape, numerous beatings and instances where
prisoners were stripped naked and left for hours in dark, poorly
ventilated cells that were stifling hot or freezing cold. Gen. Paul
J. Kern, who supervised the work of General Fay and General Jones,
spoke with disgust of a "game" in which dog handlers terrorized
adolescent prisoners. ..."When you put these reports together, the
clear message is that the system failed in a widespread manner,"
said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican on the
Armed Services Committee. Moreover, the reports offer revealing new
details on the military's failure to prepare adequately for the
postwar environment in Iraq, in this case underestimating the
ferocity of an Iraqi insurgency that led to violence at Abu Ghraib.
"One of the consequences of not addressing the postwar challenges is
that there were not enough troops in Iraq, and many of those were
untrained," said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican. The
reports have renewed calls by some senior Democrats, including
Senator John Kerry, for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to
resign. The Schlesinger panel implicitly blamed Mr. Rumsfeld for
contributing to a confusing set of interrogation polices, but its
members said he should not resign. On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry called on
Mr. Rumsfeld to step down and urged President Bush to appoint an
independent investigation to provide reforms. "It's not just the
little person at the bottom who ought to pay the price of
responsibility," Mr. Kerry said at a campaign appearance in a
Philadelphia union hall.
Reports show need for independent examination
Prisoner
Abuse Extended Beyond Abu Ghraib
Slate, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: One point that the papers fly by—and which, in fairness,
the report itself might gloss over: Much of the recorded abuse
didn't happen at Abu Ghraib. The report found 300 overall cases
under investigation—three times what the military has previously
acknowledged—in Iraq, Gitmo, and Afghanistan. The NYT
raises this issue, albeit in the 16th paragraph. A
Red Cross
report, which made news a few months ago, said officers
"confirmed that it was part of the military intelligence process to
use inhumane and degrading treatment, including physical and
psychological coercion." The Post did a detailed
piece at the time: "MISTREATMENT OF DETAINEES WENT BEYOND
GUARDS' ABUSE." Another abuse report, this one focused on military
intelligence's role, is due out today. Everybody reports that it
will implicate about two dozen intelligence officers as well as a
handful of civilian contractors.
SEE ALSO:
Prison Abuse Panel Faults Leaders
Group puts final blame on top Defense officials
By Richard A. Serrano and Mark Mazzetti
LA Times, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: An investigative panel said Tuesday that ultimate blame for
the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq goes all the
way to the Pentagon's top civilian and military command.
...Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry also
applauded the conclusions but said investigations must look more
closely at Bush administration actions. "The administration has
tried to say that what happened at Abu Ghraib was an isolated
problem caused by a few bad apples, but this report makes clear that
the failures at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere start at the top —
beginning with a failure to plan for the peace in Iraq, a failure to
adequately train the troops and a failure to provide clear orders
for interrogation," he said. "This report is important to
understanding what happened, but there are a number of key questions
that go to the heart of the White House involvement in this matter
that have not been answered." Tillie K. Fowler, a former Republican
lawmaker from Florida and a member of the Schlesinger panel, agreed
that blame went "well beyond an isolated cellblock in Iraq."
Key findings of the investigative panel on Abu Ghraib prison
abuses, led by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger:
• Interrogators and guards were "directly responsible" for the
abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, but blame goes all the way to the
Pentagon's top civilian and military command, including Secretary of
Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
• Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former top commander of ground
forces in Iraq, and other military leaders did not properly train
and staff units to guard and interrogate prisoners at the facility
outside Baghdad.
• Senior military leaders failed to anticipate the insurgency
that would follow the toppling of Saddam Hussein. When the
resistance accelerated in the summer of 2003 and the prison
population soared, commanders did little to adequately train or beef
up security and intelligence operations at Abu Ghraib.
• Rumsfeld and other senior civilian leaders failed to lay
down consistent, specific policies on the treatment of detainees.
• Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who ran the 800th Military
Police Brigade, and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who oversaw the 205th
Military Intelligence Brigade, were supposed to operate in tandem to
lock up suspects and interrogate them, but they never worked well
together. They provided "weak and ineffectual leadership," and
"disciplinary action may be forthcoming."
• Military intelligence officers, not just the seven guards
charged, should be disciplined.
• Although top officials and commanders were not "focused" on
detention operations in Iraq, their errors do not warrant a call for
resignations.
Muslim Scholar Loses U.S. Visa as
Query Is Raised
By STEPHEN KINZER
LA Times, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: A prominent Muslim scholar from Switzerland was supposed to
begin teaching a seminar on Islamic ethics at the University of
Notre Dame on Tuesday, but he did not show up for his first class
because the State Department revoked his visa. University officials
said an American diplomat telephoned the scholar, Tariq Ramadan,
this month at his home in Geneva and told him that his permission to
work in the United States, which was approved earlier this year, had
been revoked. They said the diplomat offered no explanation.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security,
Dean Boyd, said his agency had given the State Department
information about Mr. Ramadan. He declined to say what it was. "We
provided the information to them, and they ultimately made a
decision to revoke the visa," Mr. Boyd said. "Generally speaking,
the criteria for revocation of visas include public safety risk or
national security threat." Kelly Shannon, a spokeswoman for the
State Department, said Mr. Ramadan's visa was revoked under a legal
provision that bans espionage agents, saboteurs and anyone the
United States "knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, is
engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist
activity." She said she could not provide any details about Mr.
Ramadan's case. Mr. Ramadan, 42, has written extensively about the
challenges of blending Islam with Western habits and values. Some
critics have interpreted his work as calling for conciliation
between Muslims and Christians, but others have accused him of
anti-Semitism and sympathy for terrorism. ...Last year Mr. Ramadan
touched off a furor by accusing some French intellectuals of
favoring Israel simply because they are Jewish. Mr. Ramadan told the
French newspaper Le Monde that he would "entirely reject" any charge
of anti-Semitism and asserted that he had had "no respite from
combating all occurrences of anti-Semitism among Muslims." Daniel
Pipes, director of the pro-Israel advocacy group Middle East Forum,
said groups in France approached American officials there and urged
them to review Mr. Ramadan's status. He said the groups, which he
declined to identify, "attempted to bring to the attention of the U.
S. government who he really is." [BWUSA emphasis]
It works so well in Iraq...
Israel Urged to Adopt
Geneva Convention
Accepting the attorney general's proposal could cloud the
government's contention that Jewish settlements in the West Bank
and Gaza are legal.
By Laura King
LA Times, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: In the first such recommendation by a senior Israeli
official, the country's attorney general has urged that Israel
consider adopting the Fourth Geneva Convention, a document that lays
out the responsibilities of an occupying military power toward
civilians under its control. Successive Israeli governments have
refused to formally recognize the United Nations protocols as
applying to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel seized from
Jordan and Egypt respectively in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel
contends — although many human rights groups disagree — that it
already follows the humanitarian principles of the convention in its
treatment of Palestinians. The 1949 accord is meant to protect
people under occupation from torture and unnecessary hardship, and
to guarantee basic services such as education and healthcare. Israel
maintains that because Jordanian and Egyptian rule in the
Palestinian lands before 1967 was never internationally recognized,
the convention — which addresses questions involving territory
seized by one sovereign entity from another — does not apply. The
recommendation by the attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, was part of
the continuing fallout over an advisory opinion rendered seven weeks
ago by the International Court of Justice in the Hague on the
separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank. In its
nonbinding ruling, the world court declared the partly built barrier
illegal and demanded that it be torn down. The court, the highest
U.N. judicial body, also issued a sweeping condemnation of Israeli
policies in the West Bank and Gaza.
25 August 2004
Top Shiite Cleric Calls For March
to Najaf
AP, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric returned home from
Britain on Wednesday to help broker an end to nearly three weeks of
fighting in Najaf and is calling on his followers to join him in a
march to reclaim the holy city, his spokesmen and witnesses said.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani return came as heavy
fighting persisted in Najaf's Old City. U.S. warplanes fired on
suspected insurgent positions, helicopters flew overhead and heavy
gunfire was heard in the streets, witnesses said.
Rumsfeld's Status Taken Down a
Notch
By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon
has been weighed by a jury of his peers and found somewhat wanting.
A report by a blue-ribbon panel he appointed to review the military
establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse
problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played
a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the
scandal. In addition, the four-member panel, which was led by one
former defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger, and included
another, Harold Brown, found that Rumsfeld's slow response when the
Iraqi insurgency flared last summer worsened the situation.
SEE ALSO:
Pentagon Blamed Over Jail 'Sadism'
Julian Borger
The Guardian, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: An official report on the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal
yesterday blamed a failure of leadership at the Pentagon for
negligence over prison conditions and confusion over interrogation
rules which led to "Animal House" sadism in the Iraqi jail.
The report, by a four-member panel of Pentagon advisers, did not pin
direct responsibility on the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, by
name, nor did it find any top officials legally culpable. The worst
abuse at Abu Ghraib, it said, was carried out by night shift guards.
But the report represented an implicit indictment of the defence
secretary's management of the defence department. "We believe there
is institutional and personal responsibility right up the chain of
command as far as Washington is concerned," James Schlesinger, a
former defence secretary who chaired the panel, told reporters
yesterday.
SEE ALSO:
A Trail of 'Major Failures' Leads
to Defense Secretary's Office
By DOUGLAS JEHL
NYT, 25 August 2004
EXCERPT: The panel cited what it called major failures on the part
of Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides in not anticipating and responding
swiftly to the post-invasion insurgency in Iraq. On the eve of the
Republican convention, that verdict could not have been welcome at
the White House, where postwar problems in Iraq represent perhaps
President Bush's greatest political liability. The report rarely
mentions Mr. Rumsfeld by name, referring most often instead to the
"office of the secretary of defense.'' But as a sharp criticism of
postwar planning for Iraq, it represents the most explicit official
indictment to date of an operation that was very much the province
of Mr. Rumsfeld and his top deputies.
Soccer Does Not A Democracy Make
George "Orwell" Bush Redefines
'Freedom'
Juan Cole
Informed Comment via TomPaine.com, 24 August 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush campaign is defining freedom as the absence of
indigenous tyranny. Thus, they claim to have liberated 50 million
persons (25 each in Afghanistan and Iraq) since September 11,
insofar as they overthrew the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. But to
date, no one in either country has been freely and openly elected by
the popular electorate. The US has more or less appointed the
governments of both countries (in consultation with other
international actors). Even one Iraqi cabinet minister admitted last
spring that the then Interim Governing Council was no more
representative than had been the Baath government. The Western press
often confuses a government that reflects the composition of the
country with a "representative" one. Thus, the Interim Governing
Council had and the new national advisory council has
representatives from all over Iraq, and some journalists have said
the council is the most representative body Iraq has had since 1958.
But this allegation ignores the undemocratic way in which it was
chosen. As for Afghanistan, the Bush administration simply turned it
back over to the pre-Taliban warlords who had fought the Soviets in
alliance with the US and then had fallen to squabbling when the US
walked away, reducing much of the country to rubble. Herat province
is ruled by Ismail Khan, Mazar by Abdul Rashid Dostam, etc., etc.
Even really bad guys like Abu Sayyaf have their fiefdoms in the
Pushtun areas (although he broke with the Taliban, it would be hard
to distinguish his ideas and style of ruling from theirs). This is
not to mention the revival of the poppy trade, which fuels heroin
smuggling to the tune of $2 billion a year, nearly half
Afghanistan's gross national product. ...So, the Bush definition of
"liberated" and the Iraqi definition are two entirely different
things. Given that the Bush administration has turned Iraq into a
failed state and a country in flames, the condition of which is far
worse than the US public is allowed to know, it is quite outrageous
that Bush should be trumpeting Iraq as an achievement. That he is
doing so in connection with the Olympics is just tacky and probably
illegal. Will any of the Iraqi soccer players get interviewed on US
television?
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