The Daily Case Against Bush
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13 October 2004
Bush's democracy
Hefley: ‘I Was Threatened’
12 October 2004
How Would Cheney Complete the "War on
Terror"?
Cheney went on to say that he and Bush intend to prosecute the war on terror to completion, and that Kerry doesn't understand what it is or what that would entail. I have to confess that I have never understood what Bush and Cheney mean by the "war on terror," either. It is because they use the term in alarmingly vague and comprehensive ways. It is clear that they do not mean a war on "terror." They are completely uninterested in "terror" in general. What has the United States done about Basque terrorism in Spain? About Israeli settler terror against Palestinians? Or for that matter about Hamas terror against Israel? As I argued Friday, Bush hasn't even bothered to do anything serious to Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Jihad al-Islami, which was part of the 9/11 attack and hit Taba. James Woolsey and John Podhoretz have suggested that the US enter a World War IV against the Muslim world. While this is a nice daydream for the American Likud, it has the disadvantage of bearing no relationship to the real world. ...The "war on terror" of Bush-Cheney is a smokescreen for naked American imperial aggression. The sad story of how Iraq posed no threat either to the US or to any of its neighbors, despite high-decibel claims to the contrary for two years by Bush, Cheney and their acolytes, will be repeated in the case of Syria and Iran if Bush and Cheney are reelected. ...Bush and Cheney keep shouting that Kerry doesn't understand the war on terror. They mean he doesn't want to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iran. As for themselves, if the war on terror is so important to them, why are Bin Laden and Zawahiri at large? Why can al-Qaeda still strike at will? We now have the worst of both worlds, with a quagmire in Iraq and Palestine, and more quagmires planned, while al-Qaeda morphs and grows and continues to form a threat.
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Assails
Bush Administration Record on Civil Rights
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SEE ALSO: Who Could it Be...? (JohnKerry.com)
9-10 October 2004
Bush's Civil Rights Record Is
Criticized, Silently
AP, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: The United States Commission on Civil Rights voted on
Friday to wait until after next month's election to discuss a report
critical of the Bush administration's civil rights record. Republican
members had objected to the report's timing. The report remains posted
on the commission's Web site (http://www.usccr.gov/),
despite objections from Republican commissioners.
The report says Mr. Bush "has neither exhibited leadership on pressing
civil rights issues, nor taken actions that matched his words" on the
subject. It finds fault with Mr. Bush's funding requests for civil
rights enforcement; his positions on voting rights, educational
opportunity and affirmative action; and his actions against hate crimes.
BWUSA COMMENT
Presidential Debate - Round 2
| "The military's job is to win the war. The President's job is to win the peace." - John Kerry |
This time the president at least showed up. He also confirmed that he has not made any wrong decisions during his first term. Oh, perhaps he did make an appointment or two that were mistakes, but he didn't want to name any names so as not to embarrass anyone. What a thoughtful guy....
| KERRY: The president got $84 from a timber
company that he owns, and he's counted as a small business. Dick
Cheney's counted as a small business. That's how they do things.
That's just not right. BUSH: I own a timber company? (LAUGHTER) That's news to me. (LAUGHTER) Need some wood? |
Instead of responding to Kerry's statement that the
U.S. is taking on 90% of the casualties and cost of the war, Bush mimics
Cheney's disdain of Kerry/Edwards for belittling the "coalition."
Watch this
clip, courtesy of Oliver Willis and CNN.
Kerry, again, won easily on facts and debate points. He used the format
to make good personable contact with the audience. He hit Bush hard
several times but missed a couple of real opportunities to put him away.
The rest is in the hands of the spinners.
Bush Promises to Overturn Roe v. Wade
Dred Scott = Roe v.
Wade
Paperweight's Fair Shot,
9 October 2004
Some
people
seem to be
a bit boggled
by Bush's Dred Scott remark last night. It wasn't about racism or
slavery, or just Bush's natural incoherence. Here's what Bush actually
said:
If elected to another term, I promise that I will nominate Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Bush couldn't say that in plain language, because it would freak out
every moderate swing voter in the country, but he can say it in code, to
make sure that his base will turn out for him. Anti-choice advocates
have been comparing Roe v. Wade with Dred Scott v. Sandford for some
time now. There is a constant drumbeat on the religious right to compare
the contemporary culture war over abortion with the 19th century fight
over slavery, with the anti-choicers cast in the role of the
abolitionists.
Don't believe me?
Here.
Further, Bush has to describe Dred Scott as about wrongheaded
personal beliefs, rather than a fairly constricted constitutional
interpretation because he needs to paint Roe v. Wade the same way, and
he wants "strict constructionists" in the Supreme Court, so he can't
really talk about the actual rationale used in Dred Scott.
I can't emphasize enough how important this is, and how much it needs
to be publicized.
Hidden Angle
Spin Room Causing Nausea?
Brian Montopoli
Columbia Journalism Review, 9 October 2004
EXCERPT: Perhaps the most fascinating spectacle emerging from last
night's debate didn't come from the candidates, the undecideds, or even
the spinners. It came from the on air personalities, who, over and over,
subtly signaled their disdain for a process that has largely descended
into kabuki theatre. ...Before the debate, CNN showed live shots of the
spin room, portraying it as an exciting place where viewers would see
the spinners crossing rhetorical swords over what had been said by the
two candidates. But the talking heads knew better, and they had trouble
hiding their disdain for the fact that what had actually transpired in
the hall had little impact on what the partisan surrogates would say.
Still, despite the fact that everyone involved knew that the spinners
were spinning, there were those who took the bait.
Kerry and Shinseki
Kevin Drum
Political Animal in Washington Monthly, 9 October 2004
EXCERPT: A few commenters took me to task in
this post for referring to John Kerry's "misleading statement about
General Shinseki," and after a bit of checking around I think they've
got a point. Kerry did exaggerate, but it turns out I was
mistaken about some of the details of this affair too. Here's the whole
story:
What really happened is that in April 2002, 14 months before the end of
Shinseki's term as Army Chief of Staff,
Donald Rumsfeld leaked the name of Shinseki's successor to the
Washington Post — effectively making Shinseki a lame duck. But
while Rumsfeld was probably hoping Shinseki would take the hint and
choose to retire early, he didn't force him out — and in fact
Shinseki ended up serving out his full term. What's more, Rumsfeld did
this nearly a year before Shinseki's congressional testimony
about needing
"several hundred thousand" troops in Iraq. Rumsfeld disliked
Shinseki, but it was mainly because of
disagreements over weapons systems and Rumsfeld's view of
"transformation," not troop strength for the Iraq war.
Unfit for Office
George W. Bush Needs Us to Help Him Out
BWUSA
BOOK REVIEW
Bush On the Couch: Inside the Mind of the
President
By Justin A. Frank, M.D.
Review by Roger Bosse
Before
getting into the book, lets summarize a few common and rather well
documented observations regarding George W. Bush:
•
Bush is intellectually lazy. He’s unwilling or unable to do
the work to gather information necessary to make complex judgments
required by
the office he holds. He totally relies on his staff to verbally brief
him at every turn.
•
Bush doesn’t read. He skims. This makes him isolated and dependent on
a close circle of advisors. He is not a ‘detail’ man. He relies heavily
on the last person with whom he talks.
•
Bush's ineptitude
in economics is only exceeded by his ignorance of the physical sciences.
Bush has proceeded with a policy of cutting taxes which he maintains is
the solution to virtually all economic problems.
•
Bush freely engages in distortion and deception when making
his case to
Americans and the rest of the world.
•
Bush refuses to be held accountable for the outcomes of his decisions.
•
Bush is unable to acknowledge his mistakes
•
When presented with an opportunity to unite the country and world
against terrorism, he
chose instead to be arrogant and divisive and now declares the world to
be ‘a
safer place.’
•
Bush’s foreign policy has subverted decades of work to create an
international order of mutual interest and trust among nations.
•
Bush takes every opportunity to scold, demean and undermine the United
Nations. The UN Secretary General’s judgment is that Bush’s invasion and
occupation of Iraq violated the UN charter and international law.
Through the eyes of many, George W. Bush is an outlaw.
Certainly, there are deep rooted causes for Bush’s view of the world and the behavior he chooses. A huge volume of biographical information has been published about the Bush family, describing responses to crises in their lives. In Bush On the Couch psychoanalyst Justin Frank, MD, uses the tools of his trade and to formulate a psychological profile of George W. Bush. Frank's objective was to gain a better understanding of the man in the oval office and anticipate the nature of his performance. Some might condemn Frank's approach as being invalid and simply ‘a cheap partisan shot.’ But we argue that Frank’s systematic analysis is more legitimate than the casual observations noted in the paragraph above. The foundation of his analysis is well documented and the analytical tools he employs are generally recognized and accepted in the field of psychology. Frank’s resulting psychological profile of George W. Bush is not reassuring.
Psychological analysis and profiling without having the individual “on the couch” is not new. It’s true that many definitive aspects of face to face analysis are lacking, but the evidence is still very strong. The U.S. Department of State, the Pentagon and the CIA all use similar techniques to assess intent and project the probabilities of action and attitude of world leaders. This approach has roots back to pre-WWII and Hitler’s rise to power in Nazi Germany. With reams of documents and scores of observations accounting the life and times of the subject so readily available, this approach is not without merit and Frank develops its usefulness in several ways.
In Bush’s case, various components and degrees of the following conditions are evidently in play: significant paternal neglect, poorly developed anxiety management skills, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia and untreated alcoholism likely underpin how he sees and responds to events around him. We know that Bush is compelled to order the world into over-simplified categories of good and bad, those for us and those against us, etcetera. We have all seen his characteristic inability to express feelings of anxiety, grief, mourning or anguish. We know how difficult it is for him to admit mistakes and that it is almost impossible for him to examine them. George Bush is anything but introspective. He frequently exhibits symptoms of restlessness, impulsive and often childish behavior. These and other facets of Bush's personality enter into Frank’s analysis.
Much of Frank’s descriptive case study is relevant as we observe Bush during the “debates” and in the latter stages of the campaign. In particular:
|
…though he is strong in so many ways, Bush is at his core a fragile man. That much is apparent in his frightened eyes, in the stage theatrics of his appearances; spontaneity itself is unsafe for him. …there are two prognoses in this situation—one for President Bush, and the other for the nation at large. Having seen the depth and range of Bush’s psychological flaws, it should now be easier to observe President Bush’s actions and policies with and appreciation of the conditions that underlie his behavior. [Psychological analysis enables us]… to see what we have in common with our patients—and it often is a lot—and how we differ from them. The same is true for American voters, as
we assess our upcoming decision about President Bush’s future.
This isn’t to say that we all need treatment in order to
assess our president, but we must consider the ways in which we
are enablers, akin to the children of alcoholics. As we’ve noted
earlier, Bush’s popularity relies on the interplay between his
appeal and our tendency to respond and relate to his qualities. …as we re-evaluate President Bush, the most important mechanism to understand may be denial. As we’ve seen, George W. Bush has spent his life in strenuous denial of his many sources of anxiety. From the 2000 campaign through the first few years of his term, it seems that much of America—the media included—have relied just as desperately on denial. The Presidency may be the only job that could make George W. Bush feel safe: as president he is in control of everything and surround by people who will protect him. Pg. 218-19 |
Frank’s prognosis for Bush is dire. Bush’s position is comparable to that of many CEOs and other functional megalomaniacs “who are driven to satisfy their grandiose needs through a string of business risks that eventually lead to failure.” Similar events occurred early in Bush’s business career. He is once again poised in a position to add to his history of failure and lead the nation over that precipice with him. Bush’s denial and the collective denial of the nation have put him where he is and “…unless we overcome that denial, it will keep him there. Our sole treatment option—for his benefit and for ours—s to remove President Bush from office. It is up to all of us—Congress, the media, and voters—to do so before it is too late.”
Dubya's Political Waterloo
By Doug Thompson
Capitol Hill Blue, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: Just as Democratic presidential contender John Kerry's decision
to build his campaign around his Vietnam War record proved costly,
President George W. Bush's call to focus on national security and the
Iraq war is turning into a serious political liability. The President
and Vice President Dick Cheney may be the only two people left who don't
realize the ill-fated decision to invade Iraq is sinking the good ship
Bush. When the President's own weapons inspector says Iraq's so-called
weapons of mass destruction didn't exist, it's time to rethink strategy.
But George W. Bush is one stubborn son-of-a-bitch and once he makes his
mind up no one is going to change it. The fool thinks the only opinion
that matters in this world is his and, after all, he's doing God's will
(although we suspect God washed his hands of George a long time ago).
Consider the facts that have emerged over the last few days:
• Chief U.S. weapons
inspector Charles Duelfer says, in his report to Congress, that Saddam
Hussein couldn't have waged war against a Cub Scout troop much less the
United States. The weapons cited by Bush as his primary justification
for invading Iraq did not exist.
• A CIA analysis last
week said 'no conclusive evidence' can be found to prove a link between
Hussein an al Qaeda, which proves Bush lied to Congress and the American
people when he claimed his administration had proof of such a link.
• Paul Bremer, the first
head of the reconstruction effort in Iraq, says he urged the
Administration to commit more troops to Iraq but said he was ignored and
the lack of troops allowed looting and lawlessness to get out of hand
after the war was declared over.
Invading Iraq was a mistake, a classic FUBAR launched by a man who lied
to the American people and now refuses to admit he screwed the pooch by
sending Americans into a no-win war where more than a thousand men and
women have died and may thousands more may come home in body bags before
somebody in power finally admits they were wrong.
Senate Rejects Intel Plan
Endorsed by 9/11 Panel
By Philip Shenon
New York Times, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: The House voted Thursday night to reject a sweeping bill that
would have enacted most of the recommendations of the Sept. 11
commission and was similar to a bipartisan Senate bill that has the
endorsement of the White House, the commission's leaders and many of the
families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The vote, 203 to 213,
appeared to clear the way for passage on Friday of a related bill being
offered by House Republican leaders that includes many contentious
law-enforcement provisions that were not recommended by the Sept. 11
commission and have been strongly criticized by Democrats and civil
liberties groups. The Republican bill would create the post of national
intelligence director, in keeping with the commission's central
recommendation, but would provide the intelligence director with
significantly less budgetary and personnel authority than the commission
recommended and than is offered in the Senate bill. Commission members
and Congressional Democrats have warned that by pursuing a bill so
different from its popular Senate counterpart, House Republicans may
have made it impossible for Congress to agree on a final bill this year,
perhaps ending any hope for the intelligence overhaul recommended by the
bipartisan commission. "The Republican leadership insists on pursuing a
highly partisan process," said Representative Jane Harman of California,
the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "The American
people want us to defend our country, not our turf.''
Papers Show Confusion as Government
Watch List Grew Quickly
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
NYT, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: The government's list of banned airline passengers has grown
from just 16 names on Sept. 11, 2001, to thousands of people today amid
signs of internal confusion and dissension over how the list is
implemented, newly disclosed government documents and interviews showed
Friday. A transportation security official acknowledged in one internal
memorandum that the standards used to ban passengers because of
terrorism concerns were "necessarily subjective," with "no hard and fast
rules." More than 300 pages of internal documents, turned over by the
Justice Department on Friday as part of a lawsuit brought by the
American Civil Liberties Union, provide a rare glimpse inside the
workings of the government's so-called no-fly list. Federal officials
have maintained tight secrecy over the list, saying little publicly
about how it is developed, how many people are on it or how it is put
into practice, even as prominent people like Senator Edward M. Kennedy
have been mistakenly blocked from boarding planes. The American Civil
Liberties Union sued the federal government last year under the Freedom
of Information Act on behalf of two San Francisco women who said they
suspected their vocal antiwar protests led to their being banned from
flying.
In New Attacks, Bush Pushes Limit on
the Facts
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
NYT, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: From the beginning of the year, the White House has charted new
ground with the sweep of its negative campaigning, starting with an $80
million wave of attack advertisements directed at Senator John Kerry
that began the moment he effectively won his party's nomination last
spring. But the scathing indictment that Mr. Bush offered of Mr. Kerry
over the past two days - on the eve of the second presidential debate
and with polls showing the race tightening - took these attacks to a
blistering new level. In the process, several analysts say, Mr. Bush
pushed the limits of subjective interpretation and offered exaggerated
or what some Democrats said were distorted accounts of Mr. Kerry's
positions on health care, tax cuts, the Iraq war and foreign policy. To
cheers in Michigan, Mr. Bush asserted that under Mr. Kerry, the nation
would have to "wait for a grade from other nations and leaders'' before
acting to protect itself. Mr. Kerry has repeatedly said that he would
not give up the right to act pre-emptively "in any way necessary to
protect the United States,'' but has suggested that any president would
need to demonstrate legitimate reasons for such an action. To laughter,
Mr. Bush said that Mr. Kerry would impose "Hillary care'' on America, a
huge national health care program that would impose increased federal
control over the health care decisions of citizens. Mr. Kerry's health
care plan is significantly larger than the one Mr. Bush has offered, and
it includes increased reliance on Medicaid and state health insurance
programs for the poor. But unlike what Mrs. Clinton proposed in 1993, it
would not create any big new federal bureaucracy and would retain the
current employer-based system, and Mr. Kerry said he was averse to any
kind of national health care plan. To boos, Mr. Bush said that Mr. Kerry
had set "artificial timetables'' for pulling troops out of Iraq, which
the president warned would embolden the enemy and endanger the troops.
In fact, Mr. Kerry said that he could envision beginning to withdraw
troops in as little as six months, but only if he succeeded in moving
Iraq toward stability, and has decline repeatedly to set a timeline. Mr.
Bush's aides defended Mr. Bush's statements, saying that the president
had fairly spotlighted positions Mr. Kerry has taken over the years.
"The campaign's criticisms of John Kerry are meticulous and precise and
most of the criticisms involve reading back John Kerry's own words,''
said Steve Schmidt, a campaign spokesman for Mr. Bush. But other
analysts, including some Republicans, said Mr. Bush was repeatedly
taking phrases and sentences out of context, or cherry-picking votes, to
provide an unfavorable case against Mr. Kerry.
8 October 2004
Bush Campaign, Secret Service,
Local Police Suppress All Opposition
NPR's Morning Edition, 8 October
2004
Some would-be attendees at President Bush's campaign events say they're
being asked to leave for wearing clothes or stickers that support the
president's opponent. At Sen. Kerry's rallies, the presidential hopeful
ruefully acknowledges the presence of the opposition. NPR's Nina
Totenberg examines the rights of campaign event planners and attendees.
When Presidents Lie
By Eric Alterman
The Nation, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: Presidential dishonesty, like so many things in life, is not
what it used to be. Before the 1960s, few could even imagine that a
President would deliberately mislead them on matters so fundamental as
war and peace. When the evidence of presidential lying grew so enormous
the phenomenon could no longer be avoided, its revelation helped force
both Lyndon Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, out of the office.
LBJ's false assurances regarding the second Tonkin Gulf incident, and
their later exposure, would prove a significant factor in his own
political demise, the destruction and repudiation of his party, and the
ambitious Texan's personal humiliation and disgrace. Much the same can
be said about his successor, the no less ambitious or dishonest Nixon.
He, too, paid for his deceptions with his presidency, his reputation and
a degrading defeat for his party in the following presidential election.
... To the relief of many made uncomfortable by the complicated moral
questions raised by a President who lied about what most people consider
to be a private moral sphere, Clinton's successor, George W. Bush,
returned the presidency to the tradition of deception relating to key
matters of state, particularly those of war and peace. Bush may have
claimed as a candidate that he would "tell the American people the
truth," but as President he effectively declared his right to mislead
whenever it suited his purpose. We have no need here to rehearse the
many costly untruths that led to the disastrous invasion of Iraq, as
well as almost every significant policy initiative of the Bush
Administration, nor their costs. As Michael Kinsley sagely observed
early in the Administration's tenure, "Bush II administration lies are
often so laughably obvious that you wonder why they bother. Until you
realize: They haven't bothered. If telling the truth was less bother,
they'd try that, too. The characteristic Bush II form of dishonesty
is to construct an alternative reality on some topic and to regard
anyone who objects to it as a sniveling dweeb obsessed with 'nuance.'"
SEE ALSO:
Kerry Leads Bush in New AP Poll
(Associated Press)
Well, in addition to the campaign
rhetoric...
Administration Proposes to Allow
Release of Partially Treated Sewage on Rainy Days
BushGreenWatch, 4 October 2004
EXCERPT: Sewage that has not been properly treated would be routinely
released into American waterways on rainy or snowy days, under an
administration proposal that may soon become final. Under the Clean
Water Act, it is illegal to mix largely untreated sewage with fully
treated wastewater (a process known as "blending") prior to releasing it
-- except in dire emergencies, such as hurricanes, said Nancy Stoner,
director of the Clean Water Project for the Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC). "Current law allows this only when there are no feasible
alternatives," she told BushGreenwatch. "This proposal would make it
routine, and that's unacceptable." Typically, sewage goes through three
types of treatment before it is discharged into the water system. First,
solids are removed. Then, the sewage is treated for the removal of
viruses, parasites and nutrient pollution, which can reduce the oxygen
level in water. Last, the sewage is disinfected to remove bacteria. In
"blending," the second phase of treatment is skipped, which makes the
third phase far less effective as well, said Stoner. NRDC tests found a
1,000-times greater likelihood that people would become ill with
gastrointestinal problems from swimming near blended sewage than they
would from swimming near fully treated sewage releases, said Stoner.
Times Reporter Is Held in Contempt in
Leak Inquiry
By MARIA NEWMAN and ADAM LIPTAK
NYT, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: A federal judge held a reporter for The New York Times in
contempt of court today for refusing to disclose her sources in an
investigation of the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A.
agent. The judge, Thomas F. Hogan, ordered the reporter, Judith Miller,
jailed for as long as 18 months in an effort to coerce her to change her
mind. But Judge Hogan suspended the sanction until a planned appeal is
concluded, and he released Ms. Miller on her own recognizance. "We have
a classic confrontation between competing interests," Judge Hogan said
from the bench. "Miss Miller is acting in good faith, doing her duty as
a respected and established reporter who believes reporters have a First
Amendment privilege that trumps the right of the government to inquire
into her sources." But Ms. Miller is mistaken, Judge Hogan ruled. "Miss
Miller has no right to decline to answer these questions," he said. The
investigation seeks to determine who told Robert Novak and other
journalists that Valerie Plame was a C.I.A. official. A 1982 law makes
it a crime for people with access to classified information to disclose
the identities of undercover agents in some circumstances. Ms. Miller
spoke briefly at the hearing, affirming that she would indeed refuse to
answer questions about confidential communications.
Out-of-Touch Bush Goes on Attack
Bush Stump Speech Retooled
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
and DAVID E. SANGER
NYT, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: Mr. Bush's new speech signaled that he would stand firm between
now and Election Day over his handling of Iraq and appeared to be an
effort to take attention away from the 918-page report released in
Washington on Wednesday detailing how Saddam Hussein's stockpiles of
unconventional weapons had been dismantled years before the invasion
last year, and how the Iraqi dictator's ability to pose a serious
military threat - a justification for war Mr. Bush still makes regularly
- had eroded after 1991. ...Mr. Bush was silent on the weapons report.
And he made no mention of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's
statement on Monday that he had seen no firm evidence of a link between
Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda, or of the statement by his former top official
in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, that the United States had not put enough
troops into Iraq to secure the country. ...The result, many around Mr.
Bush concede, is that the president is taking a considerable risk in the
next 27 days that he will appear out of touch with the realities on the
ground in Iraq - and indeed Mr. Kerry's campaign quickly sought to
exploit that vulnerability on Wednesday. But one of Mr. Bush's closest
aides said that "it's more important that he shows he is going to stick
with it, not look back, and make this work." In fact, Mr. Bush's new
speech did not contain a line he has often used acknowledging that no
caches of chemical and biological weapons had been uncovered in Iraq.
Instead, like Vice President Dick Cheney in his debate with Senator John
Edwards on Tuesday night, Mr. Bush mounted an unapologetic defense of
his decision to invade Iraq, insisting that it had made the United
States and the world safer.
7 October 2004
Ride of the 'Ashcroft Boys'
After Convictions, the Undoing of a U.S. Terror
Prosecution
By DANNY HAKIM and ERIC LICHTBLAU
NYT, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: Publicly, federal prosecutors declared in the summer of
2002 that they had thwarted a "sleeper operational combat cell" based in
a dilapidated apartment here. Privately, senior Justice Department
officials had doubts about the strength of the case even as they were
moving to indict four Middle Eastern immigrants on terrorism charges.
The evidence was "somewhat weak," an internal Justice Department
memorandum obtained by The New York Times acknowledged. It relied on a
single informant with "some baggage," and there was no clear link to
terrorist groups. But charging the men with terrorism, the memorandum
said, might pressure them to give up information. "We can charge this
case with the hope that the case might get better," Barry Sabin, the
department's counterterrorism chief, wrote in the memorandum, "and the
certainty that it will not get much worse." But the case did get worse.
After winning highly publicized convictions of two suspects on terrorism
charges in June 2003, the Justice Department took the extraordinary step
five weeks ago of repudiating its own case and successfully moving to
throw out the terrorism charges. In a long court filing, the government
discredited its own witnesses and found fault with virtually every part
of its prosecution. The blame, the department suggested in its
filing, lay mainly at the feet of the lead prosecutor in Detroit,
Richard G. Convertino, whom it portrayed as a rogue lawyer. But
documents and interviews with people knowledgeable about the case show
that top officials at the Justice Department were involved in almost
every step of the prosecution, from formulating strategy to editing
the draft indictments to planning how the suspects would be
incarcerated. ...Justice Department's critics say that the
prosecution was overzealous and that it demonstrated how the Bush
administration's pre-emptive approach to fighting terrorists by
disrupting plots before they materialize can clash with legal principles
of due process and the right to a fair trial. "This case became a poster
child for the Justice Department in the war on terrorism, and it had
no institutional checks and balances in place to really look hard at the
evidence," said Peter Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams
University in Rhode Island who has written extensively about terrorism.
The Justice Department declined to discuss the case publicly, citing a
judge's gag order and pending investigations. But internal documents
show that from its early days, the case never appeared as strong as the
department's public enthusiasm for it. [BWUSA emphasis]
A Clash of Goals in Bush's Efforts on
the Income Tax
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
NYT, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: As he campaigns for re-election, President Bush is vowing to
lead a bipartisan effort to overhaul the personal income tax and make it
"simpler, fairer and progrowth." Almost all experts agree that the
current tax code is hideously complicated and often unfair. But they
also say that accomplishing any fundamental change will be hideously
difficult, in part because Mr. Bush's goals clash with one another and
with some of his own initiatives. Republican and Democratic tax experts
caution that making the tax code simpler would almost certainly set off
a fierce political battle over the issue of fairness, because most
options under discussion would shift a substantial share of the tax
burden from high-income families to middle-income earners. Making the
tax code simpler also clashes with other agendas. Even as he denounced
the "special interest loopholes" last month at the Republican National
Convention, for example, Mr. Bush suggested potentially popular new tax
breaks for home builders and businesses that invest in poor communities.
Since taking office in 2001, Mr. Bush has either supported or condoned
scores of other tax breaks for oil and gas production, small business
owners, hydrogen-powered cars, families with children and many other
purposes.
SEE ALSO:
Economists Speak Out
TomPaine.com, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: Call it Economists Speak Out Day , if you will.
Today, a total of 729 men and women with a lot of
knowledge about fiscal matters blasted President Bush and his policies
in two separate letters. The first, an open letter signed by 169
tenured professors of business and economics decried how every
major economic indicator has taken a nosedive since the Bush
administration took the reins. The professors hammer home the point that
the tax cuts did not work, and argue that the income inequality inherent
in a free-market scheme has been taken to an extreme. SEE
LETTER #1 The second letter, signed by 560 economists,
including several former Nobel Laureates, calls for an increase
in the minimum wage<—which hasn't gone up in seven years. They
propose a moderate increase to ease workers' hardships without incurring
serious averse effects like increasing unemployment. SEE
LETTER #2
| Kerry increases lead in Zogby battleground states poll. Now leads outside margin of error in Pennsylvania, Michigan |
Misleading Assertions By Cheney Far
Outweigh Those of Edwards in Both Number and Seriousness
By Glenn Kessler and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: Sen. John Edwards and Vice President Cheney clashed repeatedly
in their debate last night, making impressive-sounding but misleading
statements on issues including the war in Iraq, tax cuts and each
other's records, often omitting key facts along the way. Early in the
debate, Cheney snapped at Edwards, "The senator has got his facts wrong.
I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11." But in
numerous interviews, Cheney has skated close to the line in ways that
may have certainly left that impression on viewers, usually when he
cited the possibility that Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers on Sept.
11, 2001, met with an Iraqi official -- even after that theory was
largely discredited.
[BWUSA sampling]
--Cheney said that never suggested a link between Saddam and 9/11
(quotes a provided showing he did)
--Edwards said $200 b is what the Iraq war is costing (It's $174 b
allocated with another supplemental expected next year. No one believes
the war will cost less than $200 b.)
--Cheney suggested that an agreement had been reached on debt relief for
Iraq, saying that "the allies have stepped forward and agreed to reduce
and forgive Iraqi debt to the tune of nearly $80 billion, by one
estimate." (While there are reports of some sort of agreement, no plan
has been made public.)
--Cheney also said that allies had contributed $14 billion in "direct
aid." (Actually, $13 billion was pledged, but only $1 billion has
arrived.)
--In response to Edwards saying that U.S. costs and causalities amount
to 90% of the total coalition, Cheney said Iraqi security forces have
"taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq, which
leaves the U.S. with 50 percent, not 90 percent." (Iraqi numbers have
never been calculated in the coalition numbers before and the United
States does not keep track of Iraqi casualties, either civilian or in
the security services.)
--Cheney said Kerry's tax-cut rollback would hit 900,000 small
businesses. (This is misleading. Under Cheney's definition, a small
business is any taxpayer who includes some income from a small business
investment, partnership, limited liability corporation or trust. By that
definition, every partner at a huge accounting firm or at the largest
law firm would represent small businesses. According to IRS data, a tiny
fraction of small business "S-corporations" earn enough profits to be in
the top two tax brackets. Most are in the bottom two brackets.)
SEE ALSO:
Cheney's Avalanche of Lies
(TruthOut.org)
Cheney Blunder Lauded Anti-Bush Web
Site (and Irritated FactCheck.org)
By Joanne Kenen
Reuters via ABCNews.com, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: Vice President Dick Cheney probably did not intend to direct
millions of television viewers to a Web site calling for President
Bush's defeat but that's what a slip of the domain achieved. Anyone who
heeded Cheney's advice and clicked on "factcheck.com" was greeted on
Wednesday morning with a message from anti-Bush billionaire investor
George Soros entitled "Why we must not reelect President Bush."
"President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests,
and undermining American values," Soros' message said. Defending his
record as Halliburton's chief executive, Cheney said in the Tuesday
night debate that Democratic vice-presidential challenger John Edwards
was trying to use Halliburton as a smokescreen. Any voter who wanted the
facts, Cheney said, should check out factcheck.com -- which led to the
Soros site. The Web site Cheney had in mind, factcheck.org, was not
amused when the vice president proved that he was not master of the
factcheckers' domain.
Factcheck.org, run by the Annenberg Center of the University of
Pennsylvania, said on its site on Wednesday that Cheney not only got the
domain name confused, he had mischaracterized its fact-finding. "Cheney
... wrongly implied that we had rebutted allegations Edwards was making
about what Cheney had done as chief executive officer of Halliburton,"
the site said on Wednesday. "In fact we did post an article pointing out
that Cheney hasn't profited personally while in office from
Halliburton's Iraq contracts, as falsely implied by a Kerry TV ad. But
Edwards was talking about Cheney's responsibility for earlier
Halliburton troubles. And in fact, Edwards was mostly right."
Getting Junior's Goat
By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: W. has rocked the nation and the world as he gallops fast,
frantically trying to avoid his dad's electoral fate. He no longer has
to chafe at his father's imposing shadow. If he wants to go to war with
Saddam without even discussing it with his dad, he can. If he wants to
keep his dad from having a speaking slot at the Republican convention,
he can. Even though the president, waving off any attempts to put him
"on the couch," refuses to acknowledge any Oedipal sensitivities, John
Kerry artfully drilled into the sore spot in the first debate. Senator
Kerry evoked the voice of Bush 41 to get under 43's thin skin. The more
Mr. Kerry played the square, proper, moderate, internationalist war
hero, the more the president was reduced to childish scowling and
fidgeting, acting like a naughty little boy who refuses to sit in his
seat and eat his spinach and do all the hard things a parent wants you
to do. "You know, the president's father did not go into Iraq, into
Baghdad beyond Basra," Mr. Kerry said, as W. blinked and burned. "And
the reason he didn't is, he said, he wrote in his book, because there
was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would be occupiers
in a bitterly hostile land. That's exactly where we find ourselves
today. There's a sense of American occupation." ...The Bushes get very
agitated when confronted with the specters of fathers who made them feel
that they never measured up. And even though Mr. Kerry is more of a
stiff loner than Poppy Bush, they share enough - that patrician, dutiful
son, star of the class and the playing fields, hero on the killing
fields, stuffed résumé, Council on Foreign Relations, multilateral mojo
- that he can easily get W.'s goat. It was a sign of how unnerved W. was
that he had to rely on his own dark, foreboding and pathologically
unapologetic surrogate Daddy, Dick Cheney, to clean up his debate mess
and get the red team back in the game. The vice president shielded the
kid by treating John Edwards as even more of a kid. Mr. Kerry may take
on the voice of Daddy Bush again in Friday's domestic debate, pointing
out that W.'s father tried to fix the deficit, rather than mushrooming
it to $415 billion. The Clintonistas have infused the Kerry campaign
with a new motto: "It's the couch, stupid!"
The Opiate of the Electorate
By Michael Schwartz
TomDispatch, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: If your anti-Bush sentiments have turned into electoral
passion, then you probably restrained your exhilaration after last
Thursday's debate until you got a sense of how it played to the American
electorate; which means, how it played in the polls that began to pour
out only moments after the event ended. The first "instant" polls seemed
to indicate a Kerry victory, and by Sunday the Newsweek poll (considered
notoriously unreliable by the pros) had appeared with the news that
Kerry had pulled even or might be ahead in the presidential sweepstakes.
If it was then that the real rush of excitement hit you, face it, like a
host of other Americans, you're a polls addict.
Opinion polls are the narcotic of choice for the politically active part
of the American electorate. Like all narcotics, polls have their uses:
they sometimes allow us to function better as political practitioners or
even as dreamers, and don't forget that fabulous rush of exhilaration
when our candidate shows dramatic gains. But polls are an addiction that
also distort our political feelings and actions even as they trivialize
political campaigns -- and they allow our political and media suppliers
to manipulate us ruthlessly. The negatives, as pollsters might say,
outweigh the positives.
SEE ALSO:
Cultivating
the Habit
TomDispatch, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: For those of you who are already poll-addicted, however, let me
at least offer you some of the better tools in the on-line polling
trade: You can start by going bananas with anxiety checking out the
Rasmussen Reports presidential tracking poll posted every day (along
with various state polls posted less regularly). If you want to see the
almost bizarre range of the latest presidential polls, the best site to
go to is
Pollingreport.com where they're simply piled one atop the other like
a skyscraper of impossible to sort out information. I find
the Zogby polling site an
interesting one to poke around in -- with its news on polls, Zogby's own
polling (only some of which is available to non-subscribers), and John
Zogby's interpretative pieces, the latest of which explains why,
this
presidential election is still John Kerry's to lose.
For swing state polls, check out the rolling polling map at
the Los Angeles Times. If you want to be overwhelmed, visit
the Presidential
Election News and Election Polls page at the Better World Links
website, scroll down to the polling section and go berserk. If you
prefer to see, what polls can do best (as described by Schwartz below),
check out
the Bush approval ratings chart from 2001 to the present at
Professor Poll Katz's Pool of Polls site. Finally,
Ruy Teixeira's Rising Democratic Majority website offers perhaps the
most sophisticated polling analysis around on a day by day basis. Now
see if you can kick the habit. Tom
Ethics Panel Rebukes DeLay Second Time
House majority leader cited for inappropriate conduct
Associated Press via MSNBC News, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: The House ethics committee unanimously concluded Wednesday that
Majority Leader Tom DeLay appeared to link political donations to a
legislative favor and improperly persuaded U.S. aviation authorities to
intervene in a Texas political dispute. The committee’s findings were an
extraordinary second rebuke in six days for one of the nation’s most
partisan political leaders and most successful money-raisers. The Texas
Republican has long been known in the Capitol as “The Hammer.” The
committee of five Democrats and five Republicans reached no conclusions
on an allegation that DeLay violated Texas campaign finance rules.
Instead, the panel delayed action pending an investigation by state
authorities. Three DeLay associates were indicted last month in that
probe.
General Backs Down on New Command
NYT, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: The four-star Air Force officer named to command American
forces in the Pacific requested that his nomination be withdrawn
Wednesday after a Senate hearing turned contentious over the scandal
involving contracts with the Boeing Company. In concluding questioning
of the nominee, Gen. Gregory S. Martin, at the Senate Armed Services
Committee session, Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican,
challenged the general's fitness for command. The argument concerned
statements by an Air Force procurement official who was sentenced Friday
after admitting she had favored Boeing in contracts while seeking jobs
there for herself and her family. General Martin worked with her from
1998 until 1999. Mr. McCain said: "We very badly need to fix a system
where one individual is able to corrupt four major, major defense
contracts all by herself." General Martin responded by saying that he
did not know whether the official's comments were accurate. "General,
I'm questioning your qualifications for command," Senator McCain shot
back.
| International |
13 October 2004
|
The 'Bush Apocalypse' |
| Bush's
War U.S. Says It Hit Terror Targets, but Iraqi Civilians Disagree By EDWARD WONG NYT, 12 October 2004 EXCERPT: The American military staged a series of aggressive strikes today in insurgent strongholds west of Baghdad, including firing missiles into the streets of Falluja and conducting raids alongside Iraqi commandos in seven mosques in Ramadi. The wave of assaults inflamed Sunni Muslim leaders and residents of the cities, who said innocent civilians were killed or arrested in the operations. Warplanes attacked twice in Falluja in the early hours, with the first strike demolishing one of Iraq's most celebrated kabob restaurants, Haji Hussein, named after the owner. Mr. Hussein's son and his nephew, both working as night watchmen, were killed in the attack, residents said. The second attack took place about four hours later in another neighborhood, hitting an empty house and injuring two neighbors, nearby residents said. ...Marines in Ramadi said the mosque raids today came after insurgents had repeatedly used mosques as shelters or as staging areas for attacks. The most recent incident occurred on Monday afternoon, when guerrillas fired at marines and Iraqi National Guardsmen from a mosque in the nearby town of Hit, the First Marine Division said in a statement. After a three-hour exchange of gunfire, the division said, the marines launched an airstrike that dropped "precision-guided munitions" on the mosque. "It's a very bad situation in Ramadi," Muhammad Bashar al-Fadhi, a spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Association, said in an interview. "The Americans are just arresting whoever is in front of them at the mosques. They're behaving in a strange manner."
U.S. Raids in 2 Sunni Cities Anger Clerics
and Residents
Intel Probe: Rockefeller vs.
Roberts
Allawi Presses Effort to Bring
Back Baathists |
| Bush's
Oil Oil Prices Surge Briefly Above $54 a Barrel By JAD MOUAWAD NYT, 12 October 2004 EXCERPT: As oil prices surged briefly above $54 today, the International Energy Agency said that higher petroleum prices would hurt economic growth around the world next year. ...Higher prices also could crimp global oil consumption next year. The agency marginally trimmed its outlook for growth in demand for 2005 by 70,000 barrels a day, to 83.85 million barrels. The agency said the cut "reflects expectations of slower economic growth and the impact of high oil prices on demand and the economy." Rising oil prices are already rattling investors' confidence in the health of the global economy. The ZEW Center for European Economic Research said today that its index of German investor confidence had dropped to the lowest level in 16 months in October. A combination of very strong demand, high political uncertainty and tight production capacity has pushed oil prices up by 65 percent this year. While most producers are pumping at a record pace to meet demand, disruptions from places like Nigeria or the Gulf of Mexico — hit by a hurricane a month ago — have kept oil markets volatile. Crude oil rose as high as $54.05 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange today. But it retreated by midafternoon in New York, closing at $52.50, down $1.14. In electronic trading today, the price had reached a record $54.45 at one point. "People are starting to get worried again about supply disruptions from the usual suspects — Nigeria, Venezuela or Russia," an analyst at Sandford C. Bernstein, Ben Dell, said. "The reality is that we're in a very tight market, with strong demand and very little spare capacity. Getting into the winter, the situation is likely to remain the same or even get worse." |
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12 October 2004
UN Says Bush Let Iraqi Nuclear
Equipment Go Missing
By Luke Baker
Reuters, 12 October 2004
EXCERPT: If U.N. nuclear inspectors want to return to Iraq to check
for missing equipment and materials, they are welcome, a government
minister says. Science and Technology Minister Rashad Omar was
responding to concerns raised by the International Atomic Energy
Agency at the "apparent systematic dismantlement" of the physical
remnants of Saddam Hussein's once-vigorous nuclear programme. The
IAEA reported on Monday that neither Baghdad nor Washington appeared
to have noticed the disappearance of nuclear equipment and materials
once closely monitored by the agency. ...The IAEA report, released
three weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election, could fuel
criticism of the Iraq policies of the Bush administration, already
under fire for its handling of an insurgency that has so far proved
impossible to crush.
SEE ALSO:
UN: Iraqi Nuclear-Related
Materials Have Vanished
(YahooNews)
Bush insists that generals are in charge
Major Assaults on Hold Until After U.S. Vote
Attacks on Iraq's rebel-held cities will be delayed, officials
say. But that could make it harder to allow wider, and more
legitimate, Iraqi voting in January.
By Mark Mazzetti
LA Times, 11 October 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on
rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November,
say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military
offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race. Although
American commanders in Iraq have been buoyed by recent successes in
insurgent-held towns such as Samarra and Tall Afar, administration
and Pentagon officials say they will not try to retake cities such
as Fallouja and Ramadi — where the insurgents' grip is strongest and
U.S. military casualties could be the highest — until after
Americans vote in what is likely to be an extremely close election.
"When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously,"
said one senior administration official involved in strategic
planning, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Once you're past the
election, it changes the political ramifications" of a large-scale
offensive, the official said. "We're not on hold right now. We're
just not as aggressive." Any delay in pacifying Iraq's most
troublesome cities, however, could alter the dynamics of a different
election — the one in January, when Iraqis are to elect members of a
national assembly. With less than four months remaining, U.S.
commanders are scrambling to enable voting in as many Iraqi cities
as possible to shore up the poll's legitimacy. U.S. officials point
out that there have been no direct orders to commanders to halt
operations in the weeks before the November 2 U.S. election. Top
administration officials in Washington are simply reluctant to sign
off on a major offensive in Iraq at the height of the political
season. Asked for comment, White House spokesman Taylor Gross said,
"The commanders in the field will continue to make the decisions
regarding military operations, and will continue to assist the Iraqi
people in the pursuit of a more peaceful and safer Iraq."
Yellow Journalism
"Anonymous" Lives and Thrives in Washington
By Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch.com, 11 October 2004
EXCERPT: Every now and then, an article catches my eye that seems to
sum up the worst of Washington-based access journalism ("just the
spin, ma'am") in our imperial press. On Friday, the morning of the
second presidential debate, just such a piece -- Pentagon Sets Steps
to Retake Iraq Rebel Sites -- made it onto the front-page of my
hometown newspaper and I thought it might be worth taking a little
time to consider it.
Written by two veteran New York Times correspondents, Thom Shanker
and Eric Schmitt, it began, "Pentagon planners and military
commanders have identified 20 to 30 towns and cities in Iraq that
must be brought under control before nationwide elections can be
held in January, and have devised detailed ways of deciding which
ones should be early priorities, according to senior administration
and military officials."
There, right in paragraph one, were those unnamed "senior
administration and military officials" who so populate our elite
press that they sometimes present crowd-control problems. These are
the people our most prestigious newspapers just love to trust and
who, anonymous as they are, make reading those papers a ridiculous
act of faith for the rest of us. At a time when Sen. Kerry has
accused the Bush administration of not having a "plan" for Iraq,
other than "more of the same," here was a piece that claimed exactly
the opposite. Such a plan, the "U.S. National Strategy for
Supporting Iraq," was detailed; it had been written over the summer
and represented a "six-pronged strategy"; it embodied a "new"
approach for the U.S. in Iraq "approved at the highest levels of the
Bush administration" -- and the confirmation of the truth and
accuracy of all this was that lovely little kicker at the end of a
sentence: "officials said." According to Schmitt and Shanker, "the
officials" (born, I assume, to Mr. and Mrs. Official) called the
plan "a comprehensive guideline to their actions in the next few
months."
A "comprehensive guideline" -- and this only got you through
paragraph two of a front-page column of print and two more columns
on page 12 (the catch-all page which held the rest of the Iraq news
that day); 30 paragraphs, 1,593 words on the "plan," including
convenient-for-the-administration "news" that "President Bush has
been briefed on it, administration officials said."
Iraqis Fearing a Sunni Boycott of
the Election
By DEXTER FILKINS
NYT, 11 October 2004
EXCERPT: Leaders of Iraq's crucial Sunni Arab minority say they have
failed to generate any enthusiasm for nationwide elections scheduled
for January, and are so fearful of insurgent violence and threats
that they can meet only in private to talk about how - or even
whether - to take part. The leaders among the Sunni Arabs, which had
dominated Iraqi politics since the nation's birth in 1920, also said
in interviews here that many prospective Sunni voters were so
suspicious of the American enterprise in Iraq, and so infuriated by
the chaotic security situation in the Sunni-dominated areas, that
they were likely to stay away from the polls in large numbers. Sunni
participation is crucial to the election. While a Sunni boycott
remains far from certain and some Sunni leaders still hold out hope
for a turnaround, American officials fear that if large numbers of
Sunnis do not vote, the election will be regarded as illegitimate
and may even feed the insurgency that has gripped much of the
country. ...But for now, the mood among tribal and religious leaders
as well potential voters appears to be one of apathy. Many leaders
say they are especially fearful that the Sunnis, who dominated Iraq
under Saddam Hussein, face an era of persecution under an
American-backed alliance of Shiites and Kurds, who together make up
as much as 80 percent of the population. Both groups are expected to
vote in great numbers. Already, one of the largest independent Sunni
groups, the Association of Muslim Scholars, has announced that it
will not take part in the elections. The group claims to represent
3,000 Sunni mosques around the country. The prospect of a low
turnout by Sunni Arabs is deeply troubling to Iraqi leaders and
American officials, who fear that the results of an election in
which they do not take part will be viewed as illegitimate and fuel
the guerrilla insurgency, and not, as is hoped, bring it to end. The
body to be chosen in the elections, the National Assembly, is
supposed to draft Iraq's permanent constitution. Without adequate
Sunni representation on that body, many people fear here that the
constitution may not adequately protect them. Some Sunni leaders,
especially those who are planning to run for office, say they still
expect a large turnout among the Sunni voters once they realize that
they will be left behind if they do not take part. Even if they have
not begun campaigning in the Sunni Triangle, the area west of
Baghdad that has been a hotbed of the insurgency, these candidates
say they have begun meeting with tribal leaders to persuade them to
support their candidacies.
11 October 2004
The Inspection Process was
Rigged to Create Uncertainty Over WMD to Bolster the US and UK's
Case for War
By Scott Ritter
Independent (UK) via Common Dreams, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: It appears that the last vestiges of perceived legitimacy
regarding the decision of President George Bush and Tony Blair to
invade Iraq have been eliminated with the release this week of the
Iraq Survey Group's final report on Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction. The report's author, Charles Duelfer, underscored the
finality of what the world had come to accept in the 18 months since
the invasion of Iraq - that there were no stockpiles of WMD, or
programs to produce WMD. Despite public statements made before the
war by Bush, Blair and officials and pundits on both sides of the
Atlantic to the contrary, the ISG report concludes that all of
Iraq's WMD stockpiles had been destroyed in 1991, and WMD programs
and facilities dismantled by 1996. Duelfer's report does speak of
Saddam Hussein's "intent" to acquire WMD once economic sanctions
were lifted and UN inspections ended (although this conclusion is
acknowledged to be derived from fragmentary and speculative
sources). This judgement has been seized by Bush and Blair as they
scramble to re-justify their respective decisions to wage war. "The
Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the
system, using the UN oil-for-food program to try to influence
countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions," Bush
said. "He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons
program once the world looked away." Blair, for his part, has
apologised for relying on faulty intelligence, but not for his
decision to go to war. The mantra from both camps remains that the
world is a safer place with Saddam behind bars. But is it? When one
examines the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq today,
it seems hard to draw any conclusion that postulates a scenario
built around the notion of an improved environment of stability and
security. Indeed, many Iraqis hold that life under Saddam was a
better option than the life they are facing under an increasingly
violent and destabilizing US-led occupation. The ultimate
condemnation of the failure and futility of the US-UK effort in Iraq
is that if Saddam were released from his prison cell and
participated in the elections scheduled for next January, there is a
good chance he would emerge as the popular choice.
A Doctrine Under Pressure:
Pre-emption Is Redefined
By DAVID E. SANGER
NYT, 11 October 2004
EXCERPT: Under pressure to explain anew his decision to invade
Iraq in light of a damaging report from the C.I.A.'s top weapons
inspector, President Bush appears to be quietly redefining one of
the signature philosophies of his administration - his doctrine of
pre-emptive military action.
Traditionally, pre-empting an enemy is all about urgency, striking
before the enemy strikes. In the prelude to the invasion in March of
last year, Mr. Bush and his aides stopping short of saying Saddam
Hussein posed an "imminent" threat. Still, they used urgent-sounding
language at every turn to explain why they could not afford to wait
for inspectors to complete their work, or for the United Nations
Security Council to come to a consensus on authorizing military
action. "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the
final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a
mushroom cloud," he said in a speech delivered Oct. 7, 2002.
But the C.I.A. report released last week, written by Charles A.
Duelfer, described the evidence as anything but clear and the peril
as far from urgent. Mr. Hussein's military power began waning after
the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the report concluded. While Mr. Hussein
most probably wanted to rebuild his illicit weapons, there is no
evidence he had started by the time Mr. Bush was delivering that
speech.
So over the last five days, with some subtle changes of language and
a new previously undiscussed justification for the war, Mr. Bush
appears to have expanded the conditions for a pre-emptive military
strike. He no longer talks about urgency. Instead, for the first
time, he has begun to argue that a military invasion is justified if
an opponent is seeking to avoid United Nations sanctions - "gaming
the system" in his words. "We did not find the stockpiles we thought
were there," Mr. Bush told supporters in Waterloo, Iowa, on
Saturday. "But I want you to remember what the Duelfer report said.
It said that Saddam Hussein was gaming the oil-for-food program to
get rid of sanctions. And why? Because he had the capability and
knowledge to rebuild his weapon programs. And the great danger we
face in the world today is that a terrorist organization could end
up with weapons of mass destruction." Then, returning to the line he
has used in his debates with Senator John Kerry, and one that always
elicits applause, he added: "Knowing what I know today, I would have
made the same decision. The world is safer with Saddam in a prison
cell."
Taken at face value, Mr. Bush appears to be saying that under his
new standard, a country merely has to be thinking about developing
illicit weapons at some time. "He's saying intent is enough," said
Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor who under the Clinton administration
headed the National Intelligence Council, the group that assesses
for the president when countries have trespassed that hard-to-define
line. "The classical definition for pre-emption was 'imminent
threat,' " Mr. Nye said. Then, with the development of the
president's "National Security Policy of the United States," that
moved to something less than imminent, because, as Mr. Bush argued,
it is often hard to know when a country is about to attack. Now,
said Mr. Nye, "the Duelfer report pushed him into a box where
capability is not the standard, but merely intention."
New Scrutiny of the Flow of Iraqi
Oil to American Consumers
By SIMON ROMERO and SCOTT SHANE
NYT, 11 October 2004
EXCERPT: As Saddam Hussein pressed the United Nations oil-for-food
relief program for more money that he used to buy banned weapons, an
unwitting ally may have been the American driver. Almost until the
eve of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, American oil companies
were among the largest purchasers of Iraqi crude oil. The role that
the companies, including ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, played in the
oil-for-food program is now coming under greater scrutiny in the
wake of a report by the chief arms inspector for the Central
Intelligence Agency that disclosed how extensively Mr. Hussein was
abusing profits from the oil sales.
For Marines, a Frustrating Fight
Some in Iraq Question How and Why War Is Being Waged
By Steve Fainaru
Washington Post, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: Scrawled on the helmet of Lance Cpl. Carlos Perez are the
letters FDNY. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York, the
Pentagon and western Pennsylvania, Perez quit school, left his job
as a firefighter in Long Island, N.Y., and joined the U.S. Marine
Corps. "To be honest, I just wanted to take revenge," said Perez,
20.
Now, two months into a seven-month combat tour in Iraq, Perez said
he sees little connection between the events of Sept. 11 and the war
he is fighting. Instead, he said, he is increasingly disillusioned
by a conflict whose origins remain unclear and frustrated by the
timidity of U.S. forces against a mostly faceless enemy. "Sometimes
I see no reason why we're here," Perez said. "First of all, you
cannot engage as many times as we want to. Second of all, we're
looking for an enemy that's not there. The only way to do it is go
house to house until we get out of here." Perez is hardly alone. In
a dozen interviews, Marines from a platoon known as the "81s"
expressed in blunt terms their frustrations with the way the war is
being conducted and, in some cases, doubts about why it is being
waged. The platoon, named for the size in millimeters of its mortar
rounds, is part of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment based in
Iskandariyah, 30 miles southwest of Baghdad.
Two Car Bombs Kill at Least 11 as Rumsfeld
Visits Iraq
By EDWARD WONG
NYT, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: Two suicide car bombs exploded within 15 minutes of each
other today in eastern Baghdad, killing at least 10 Iraqis and one
American soldier and injuring at least 15 others, Iraqi and American
officials said. And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld arrived in
Iraq on an unannounced visit to meet with American and Iraqi forces
and military officials.
The Other Weapons Threat in Iraq
Little noticed in a CIA report are details about insurgent
groups' efforts to acquire chemical and biological agents since the
war began.
By Bob Drogin
LA Times, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: Insurgent networks across Iraq are increasingly trying to
acquire and use toxic nerve gases, blister agents and germ weapons
against U.S. and coalition forces, according to a CIA report.
Investigators said one group recruited scientists and sought to
prepare poisons over seven months before it was dismantled in June.
U.S. officials say the threat is especially worrisome because
leaders of the previously unknown group, which investigators dubbed
the "Al Abud network," were based in the city of Fallouja near
insurgents aligned with fugitive militant Abu Musab Zarqawi. The CIA
says Zarqawi, who is blamed for numerous attacks on U.S. forces and
beheadings of hostages, has long sought to use chemical and
biological weapons against targets in Europe as well as Iraq.
An exhaustive report released last week by Charles A. Duelfer, the
CIA's chief weapons investigator in Iraq, concluded that Saddam
Hussein destroyed his stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons
in the early 1990s and never tried to rebuild them. But a
little-noticed section of the 960-page report says the risk of a
"devastating" attack with unconventional weapons has grown since the
U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq last year.
The Bush administration, which went to war primarily to disarm the
Baghdad regime of suspected illicit stockpiles, has not previously
disclosed that the insurgent groups that have emerged and steadily
expanded since Hussein's ouster are trying to develop their own
crude supplies of such deadly agents as mustard gas, ricin and the
nerve gas tabun.
Kerry's Undeclared War
By MATT BAI
NYT Magazine, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: Kerry, too, envisions a freer and more democratic Middle
East. But he flatly rejects the premise of viral democracy,
particularly when the virus is introduced at gunpoint. ''In this
administration, the approach is that democracy is the automatic,
easily embraced alternative to every ill in the region,'' he told
me. Kerry disagreed. ''You can't impose it on people,'' he said.
''You have to bring them to it. You have to invite them to it. You
have to nurture the process.''
Those who know Kerry say this belief is in part a reaction to his
own experience in Vietnam, where one understanding of the domino
theory (''if Vietnam goes communist, all of Asia will fall'') led to
the death of 58,000 Americans, and another (''the South Vietnamese
crave democracy'') ran up against the realities of life in a poor,
long-war-ravaged country. The people of Vietnam, Kerry found, were
susceptible neither to the dogma of communism nor the persuasiveness
of American ''liberation.'' As the young Kerry said during his 1971
testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: ''We found most
people didn't even know the difference between communism and
democracy. They only wanted to work in rice paddies without
helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their
villages and tearing their country apart. They wanted everything to
do with the war, particularly with this foreign presence of the
United States of America, to leave them alone in peace.''
Biden, who is perhaps Kerry's closest friend in the Senate, suggests
that Kerry sees Bush's advisers as beholden to the same grand and
misguided theories. ''John and I never believed that, if you were
successful in Iraq, you'd have governments falling like dominoes in
the Middle East,'' he told me. ''The neo-cons of today are 'the best
and the brightest' who brought us Vietnam. They have taken a
construct that's flawed and applied it to a world that isn't
relevant.'' In fact, Kerry and his advisers contend that the
occupation of Iraq is creating a reverse contagion in the region;
they say the fighting -- with its heavy civilian casualties and its
pictures, beamed throughout the Arab world, of American aggression
-- has been a boon to Al Qaeda recruiters. They frequently cite a
Pentagon memo, leaked to the media last year, in which Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wondered whether Al Qaeda was recruiting
new terrorists faster than the U.S. military could capture or kill
them. ''God help us if we damage the shrine in Najaf,'' Richard
Holbrooke told me on a day when marines surrounded insurgent Shiites
inside the shrine, ''and we create a new group of Shiites who some
years from now blow up the Statue of Liberty or something like that,
all because we destroyed the holiest site in Shiism.''
If forced democracy is ultimately Bush's panacea for the ills that
haunt the world, as Kerry suggests it is, then Kerry's is diplomacy.
Kerry mentions the importance of cooperating with the world
community so often that some of his strongest supporters wish he
would ease up a bit. (''When people hear multilateral, they think
multi-mush,'' Biden despaired.) But multilateralism is not an
abstraction to Kerry, whose father served as a career diplomat
during the years after World War II. The only time I saw Kerry truly
animated during two hours of conversation was when he talked about
the ability of a president to build relationships with other
leaders. ''We need to engage more directly and more respectfully
with Islam, with the state of Islam, with religious leaders,
mullahs, imams, clerics, in a way that proves this is not a clash
with the British and the Americans and the old forces they remember
from the colonial days,'' Kerry told me during a rare break from
campaigning, in Seattle at the end of August. ''And that's all about
your diplomacy.'' When I suggested that effecting such changes could
take many years, Kerry shook his head vehemently and waved me off.
''Yeah, it is long-term, but it can be dramatically effective in the
short term. It really can be. I promise you.'' He leaned his head
back and slapped his thighs. ''A new presidency with the right
moves, the right language, the right outreach, the right
initiatives, can dramatically alter the world's perception of us
very, very quickly.
Afghanistan's Florida-Style
Elections
By Mike Whitney
Z-Net, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: The entire event has been stage managed on behalf of a
gullible American public who stick to the belief that we are making
great strides towards democracy. Not so; and the facts are available
to anyone willing to look objectively at what is happening on the
ground. Afghanistan has slipped into pre-Taliban anarchy. The opium
trade continues to flourish (providing 75% of the world¹s heroin),
Taliban attacks are on the upswing, and warlords dominate the entire
countryside beyond the confines of Kabul. Simply put, it is a failed
state, whose prospects for stability or prosperity are no greater
because of the American intervention. Behold the great Bush-Marshall
Plan; a ramshackle state, devoid of security, dependent on the
illicit drug trade for its meager survival. No "nation building" for
Afghanistan; just a "Karl Rove" face lift every four years around
election time, and a few random bombings in the hinterland.
Hand it to the Warlords
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times, 9 October 2004
EXCERPT: The United States bombed Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy al-Qaeda
and its Taliban hosts. Al-Qaeda leaders are still in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are a widespread guerrilla operation active in
approximately 40% of the country. There's hardly any security and
stability, not to mention economic prosperity (apart from some
real-estate speculation in Kabul) or the rule of law. Pledged
reconstruction funds (US$4.5 billion) are not flowing in - only $700
million so far.
So much for nation-building. Afghanistan, in a nutshell, remains a
collection of warlords in search of their best cut of the opium
economy ($2.3 billion in 2003, an expected 100% increase in 2004).
The 9,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops "stabilizing"
the country hardly venture outside of Kabul - so nothing is
"stabilized": more Afghan officials and aid workers died this year
than in 2002 and 2003. Doctors Without Borders pulled out - blaming
the Bush administration. As for the 18,000 US troops (now with
another 1,000 providing "election security"), they are helpless to
prevent a daily barrage of Taliban attacks and are obviously
incapable of "smoking out" bin Laden from his fabled cave.
The Bush administration's mistakes in Afghanistan were repeated in
Iraq: the carelessness in establishing a minimum of security, and
then the reluctance to turn over political control to a legitimate
government. Karzai's "popularity" is attested by the plethora of
DynCorp bodyguards protecting him from repeated death threats and
assassination attempts - or from staging an election rally.
The Taliban may no longer be in power, imposing their dreadful
edicts. Girls may be back to school (although women continue to be
harassed). The Kabul-Kandahar road may have been repaved (but that's
about it). Heroic aid workers may be working with their Afghan
colleagues (at maximum risk). But the US could have done so much
better to help Afghanistan. It didn't. For a stark reason: from the
Pentagon's point of view, Afghanistan has lost, again, its strategic
importance.
Climate Fear as Carbon
Levels Soar
Scientists bewildered by sharp
rise of CO2 in atmosphere for second year running
By Paul Brown
The Guardian (UK), 11 October 2004
EXCERPT: An unexplained and unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere two years running has raised fears that the world may
be on the brink of runaway global warming. Scientists are baffled
why the quantity of the main greenhouse gas has leapt in a two-year
period and are concerned that the Earth's natural systems are no
longer able to absorb as much as in the past. ... Analysts stress
that it is too early to draw any long-term conclusions. But the fear
held by some scientists is that the greater than normal rises in C02
emissions mean that instead of decades to bring global warming under
control we may have only a few years. At worst, the figures could be
the first sign of the breakdown in the Earth's natural systems for
absorbing the gas. That would herald the so-called "runaway
greenhouse effect", where the planet's soaring temperature becomes
impossible to contain. As the icecaps melt, less sunlight is
refected back into space from ice and snow, and bare rocks begin to
absorb more heat. This is already happening.
SEE ALSO:
Arizona's shrinking lake provides a stark
warning to America's thirsty west
(Guardian)
9-10 October 2004
Bush Spent Over a Billion
Dollars for a Report Telling Us What We Knew Last Year
Nuclear Fiction
By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: The president may not have gotten his money's worth with
the report of Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector.
After all, in a vain retroactive attempt to justify his hokum about
W.M.D., he had 1,200 people working for 15 months - stretching our
scarce supply of Arab linguists - to produce 918 pages at a cost of
about a billion dollars just to find out that Saddam would have
liked to have had weapons if he could have, but he couldn't, so he
didn't.
The Other Intelligence Failure
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NYT. 9 October 2004
EXCERPT: Such attention was rightly paid last week to the huge
intelligence failure of the Bush team in Iraq. Saddam Hussein had no
W.M.D. But I would argue that there is another, equally egregious
intelligence failure when it comes to Iraq - one that is still
bedeviling us right now: It is our complete ignorance about the
P.M.D.'s of Iraq - the people of mass destruction, the suicide
bombers - and the environment that nurtures them. The truth is, the
intelligence failure in Iraq was not just about the chemicals Saddam
was mixing in his basement; it was about the emotions he was brewing
in Iraqi society. Let's start with a simple observation: There have
been some 125 suicide bomb attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq in
the last 16 months, carried out most likely by Sunni Muslims. We
need to think about this. There is some kind of suicide-supply chain
working in the Muslim world and in Iraq that is able to draw
recruits, connect them with bomb makers and deploy them tactically
against U.S. and Iraqi targets on an almost daily basis. What is
even more unnerving about these suicide bombers is that, unlike the
Hamas crew in Israel, who produce videos of themselves, explain
their rationale and say goodbye to families, virtually all the
bombers in Iraq have blown themselves up without even telling us
their names. ...What is required on America's part now, Nakash said,
"is a strategic decision to come to terms with the reality on the
ground" - to accept the notion that not all Muslim clerics are
alike, and actively engage the moderate Islamists as part of the
solution in Iraq. We clearly need a broad strategy for Iraq and the
Middle East that will give Islamists a chance to prove that Islamic
democracy could not only stop the suicide bombers, but also
genuinely promote accommodation between Islam and the West.
The High Cost of Israel's Gaza
Mission: Innocent Victims
By GREG MYRE
NYT, 10 October 2004
EXCERPT: With helicopters circling overhead and tanks parked on the
fringes of the largest Palestinian refugee camp, Israeli forces are
trying to pick off masked militants who are shooting at the soldiers
and launching rockets into Israel. The mission is difficult. The
militants are elusive, darting through the camp's narrow alleys, and
civilians are everywhere, with children filling the streets. The
result is that many of the casualties are innocents. In 11 days of
fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have killed at
least 90 Palestinians, including about 55 militants and 35
civilians, according to Palestinian hospital officials. The dead
include 18 Palestinians who were 16 or younger, according to a count
by The Associated Press. In addition, most of the wounded, numbering
at least 300, have been noncombatants, hospital officials say. The
Israeli offensive in northern Gaza has claimed more Palestinian
lives than any operation since the military swept through
Palestinian cities in the West Bank in the spring of 2002 in
response to a wave of suicide bombings. Over all, several hundred
Palestinians were killed.
AUDIO/VIDEO LINK
Osama Endorsed Bush Six Months Ago!
Imad Khadduri, Former Iraqi Nuclear Scientist
Interview on DemocracyNow!, 7 October 2004
IMAD KHADDURI: ...To me, the whole truth about Iraq is so
horrible that it would even sink Kerry instantaneously. Because he
is a 'me-too' candidate. The best hope for the rest of the world,
apparently, I have come to believe, is that Bush should win and sink
the whole empire into complete isolation and hopefully into its
perdition. Now, you see, the problem is not that the problems or the
causes are not known. We know them better every day. The problem is
that those causing the world's miseries are powerfully and deeply
entrenched in their positions of power, and that it would take
massive, sustained violence, unfortunately, to dislodge them.
AMY GOODMAN: I just want to ask you to reiterate this point that
you made, to see if I understand you correctly. You're saying that
you think Bush should win to isolate the United States further?
IMAD KHADDURI: Well, I -- yes. That's what I'm saying. Now, I
didn't come with that of my own. Six months ago, when there was the
Spain Madrid train bombing and ten days later the Al Qaeda issued a
statement on that, that was six months ago. They said, we will ask
all operations to be halted in Spain, giving the Spanish people the
chance to vote and perhaps withdraw, and they did. Now, the second
part of that statement, declaration, was not published, was not
widespread in the west. I did translate it and send it to the
Toronto Star. It wasn't published there. What did it say? In it
Osama Bin Laden was hoping, was saying to Bush: "I really wish that
you would win next November election, because you are the only one
who can convince the Muslims of the -- of the -- with your -- with
your intransigence and violent approach, it will convince the
Muslims that American military postures and foreign policy is
against their interests. Therefore I have asked all operations to be
suspended from the United States until the election. And after that,
every event will have its own discourse." Now, he said–this is Osama
Bin Laden saying–that if Kerry comes into -- into power, he will
again ameliorate the whole situation. He will sugar-coat it to the
Muslims, thinking that he's giving them democracy, or whatever. So
that's why he was wishing -- Osama was wishing Bush, that he should
be winning; and that's why he asked all of his operations to stop in
the United States until the November elections. Now, when two
months ago there was this big fiasco about the financial district
among the attack by terrorists, and the red or orange alert came,
again I sent it to the Toronto Star, a day earlier on Sunday.
And I told Bill Schiller, he's the political editor of the Star,
I said, "Look this is a hoax. Bin Laden doesn't intend to strike
because he said so a few months ago. He has a policy on this." What
I'm saying now is apparently -- apparently, with all these lies
coming to bear, coming to light, and what is being done about them,
really? Is the American public still -- who is really in a very
litmus test of its own democracy. American democracy is really at
risk these days. And still, American public still think, and the --
and this misconception that they have been -- they have been painted
over with the mass media, they still believe in these lies. What
hope is there but for this to continue and -- until it's -- until
its termination? That Bush should stay, him and Cheney -- He owns
the world. We simply live in it, but he owns it, he and Bush,
apparently. That's the only way for it, I believe, to shorten the
occupation of Iraq is for their policy to simply flop. But if Cheney
comes and -- I mean if -- if Kerry comes and starts spending more
time and trying to build coalitions, in the meantime much more Iraqi
blood will be shed in that course. Therefore, I say, as I said
again, and I am reiterating, that the best hope for the rest of the
world is that Bush does win and sinks this whole empire in its own
folly.
US 'Precision' Strike Kills
11 at Iraqi Wedding
By Fadel al-Badrani
Reuters, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: A U.S. air strike aimed at foreign militants led by Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi has killed 11 people in the Iraqi city of Falluja
and insurgents later said a British hostage, held by Zarqawi's
group, had been beheaded. The U.S. military said a "precision
strike" hit a house where Zarqawi associates were meeting in the
north-west of the guerrilla-held city at 1:15 a.m. (11:15 p.m.
British time on Thursday). Residents and local doctors said 17
people were also wounded in the attack, among them nine women and
children. They said a wedding party had been held in the house on
Thursday night. The bridegroom was killed and the bride was wounded
in the raid. Reuters television footage showed four women lying
bloodied and bandaged at the local hospital. "We were celebrating my
cousin's wedding and my relatives gathered in this house for the
wedding," said one of them, Suad Mohammed, 26. "The wedding ended at
10 p.m., but some people gathered outside the house and the bombing
began. "I lost consciousness and this morning I knew I was in
hospital," said Mohammed, wounded in the legs and chest.
Oh, good...just in time
U.S. Said to Develop Strategy for Iraq
By TERENCE HUNT
AP, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush administration has developed a formal written
strategy for Iraq (news - web sites) that envisions using a mix of
diplomacy and military force to try to wrest control of dozens of
key cities from insurgents before planned January elections, a
senior administration official said Friday.
The strategy — already largely outlined by Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld and other top officials in recent weeks — was developed
over the summer as Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry was
accusing President Bush of lacking a coherent plan to end the rising
violence and pave the way for the withdrawal of American troops.
With more than 1,000 Americans killed, Iraq has become a dominant
issue in the campaign.
More of the same smart stuff...French bashing.
Report on Iraq Arms
Deals Angers France and Others
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
NYT, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: The Bush administration's handling this week of a report on
Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase weapons and buy influence has
angered French officials and set back a year of American efforts to
repair the rupture caused by the Iraq war, French and other European
officials said Friday. The anger of France and others is focused on
the assertions in the report by Charles A. Duelfer, the top American
arms inspector in Iraq, that French companies and individuals, some
with close ties to the government, enriched themselves through
Iraq's efforts to gain influence around the world in the years
before the war. Administration spokesmen said Friday that there was
no intent in releasing the report to endorse its findings or blame
France or any other country for corruption, or to link any alleged
corruption to that country's subsequent opposition to the war in
Iraq. On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney and others in
the administration are citing the Duelfer report as evidence that
Mr. Hussein had sought to corrupt foreign countries in order to have
sanctions on Iraq lifted. Although Mr. Cheney did not say so
directly, French officials say it was obvious that he was referring
to France and other countries that had opposed the war. French
officials say that the report's charges, based on documents and
interviews in Iraq, have been denied in the past, but that Mr.
Duelfer's report did not contain the denials. They also complain
that France was not given more than one day's notice before the
report was issued. They were incensed that the report also mentioned
Americans in connection with similar charges but that unlike the
French they were not identified because of American privacy
regulations. "You protect American citizens, but you put in danger a
number of private citizens in other countries who may be innocent
people," said Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to the
United States. "These names are from an old list, published months
ago, and those mentioned denied it flatly." A European diplomat said
the damage to French-American relations was so great that it could
disrupt a new spirit of cooperation with France on other fronts,
namely the joint American and European efforts to put pressure on
Iran to dismantle its suspected nuclear weapons program and to
organize an international conference next month on Iraq.
Free Vote Just Illusion for
Millions of Afghans
Few Women Allowed to
Participate, says Human Rights Group; Men Still Rule Their Lives
Despite Boasts of Progress
By Carol Harrington
Toronto Sun via Common Dreams, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: Even though U.S.-led forces toppled the oppressive Taliban
regime almost three years ago, millions of Afghan women like Farida
still face conservative social and cultural barriers. Some are
forced into marriages to men two or three times their own age, they
are jailed for running away from abusive homes, courts almost always
give fathers custody rights in rare divorce cases and young girls
are exchanged to settle feuds. Yet U.S. President George W. Bush has
repeatedly boasted that his country has liberated Afghan women. As
he desperately seeks re-election, Bush frequently points to
Afghanistan's first democratic vote as a foreign policy triumph.
Several times, he has said that almost 42 per cent of Afghan women
have registered to vote in tomorrow's presidential election. But
that number doesn't tell the whole picture. In fact, the number,
according to various reports and election experts, is grossly
inaccurate. "Pronouncements by Afghan and international officials
boasting that 40 per cent of registered voters are women ignores the
likelihood that tens of thousands of women have been registered more
than once," states a Human Rights Watch report. Some Afghans sold
their voting cards to political factions aiming to rig the vote;
others believed their cards would entitle them to money,
prescription drugs or food rations. Women had greater opportunity to
receive multiple voting cards, because, unlike men, they were given
the choice of opting out of having their photographs taken and
instead using their thumbprints. Even if they did agree to photos,
many did so under their cloaked burqas. Human Rights Watch also
reported that few women will turn out to cast ballots, as hard-line
Islamic Taliban insurgents are threatening and attacking women to
scare them away from polling booths. In the south, where the Taliban
has a stronghold in many areas, less than 10 per cent of those
registered are women. Even in the capital, only 40 per cent of
voting cards carry women's names. Several election officials in
Kabul told the human rights group in late September that the number
of Afghans expected to vote in Saturday's first presidential
election could range as low as 5 to 7 million ‹ not the 10.6 million
voters officials are touting.
Sidelined Neocons Stoke Future
Fires
by Jim Lobe
Antiwar.com, 8 October 2004
Sidelined by their failed predictions for Iraq and President George
W. Bush's efforts to reassure voters he is not a warmonger,
prominent neoconservatives and their Christian Right allies are
nonetheless trying hard to prepare the ground for future U.S.
adventures in the Middle East. Echoing increasingly threatening
noises from the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
about preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, neocons are
calling for Washington to undertake covert action, at the very
least, to oust what some of them call the "terror masters" in Tehran
as part of a more general "World War IV" against alleged Arab and
Islamic extremism. Some neocons are even complaining that if Bush
had been serious about the "war on terrorism," he should have taken
on Iran after Afghanistan, rather than Iraq. "Had we seen the war
for what it was, we would not have started with Iraq, but with Iran,
the mother of modern Islamic terrorism, the creator of Hezbollah,
the ally of al-Qaeda, the sponsor of Zarqawi, the longtime sponsor
of Fatah and the backbone of Hamas," wrote part-time Pentagon
consultant Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
this week.
Powell: U.S. in No Doubt of
Sharon's Commitment to Road Map
By Ari Shavit, Aluf Benn, Yair Ettinger
Haaretz, 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: United States Secretary of State Colin Powell told
reporters while visiting Grenada on Wednesday that the U.S. does not
doubt Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's commitment to the
internationally-brokered road map to Middle East peace.
The U.S. on Wednesday evening asked Israel to clarify statements
made by Sharon's senior advisor, Dov Weisglass, in an interview with
Haaretz, according to which the disengagement plan means a "freezing
of the peace process," Israel Radio reported.
"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the
peace process," Weisglass, one of the initiators of the
disengagement plan, said in an interview for the Haaretz Friday
Magazine. "And when you freeze that process," Weisglass added, "you
prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a
discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. "Effectively,
this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it
entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this
with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and
the ratification of both houses of Congress." "The disengagement is
actually formaldehyde," he said. "It supplies the amount of
formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political
process with the Palestinians."
8 October 2004
If it wasn't the WMDs, it must have been to
spread democracy! Well, that's certainly going well.
Bush Rejects View That Weapons Report Belies Case for War
By DAVID STOUT
NYT. 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: The White House said today that a weapons inspector's
finding that Iraq possessed no deadly unconventional weapons at the
time of the American-led invasion last year in no way undermined
President Bush's decision to go to war. The assertions, made by
President Bush himself as he departed the capital for a campaign
trip to Wisconsin, and by Vice President Dick Cheney as he
campaigned in Florida, signaled that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney would
stand by the decision on Iraq right up to Election Day. Such
steadfastness, the Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John
Kerry, said, effectively rendered Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney "the last
two people on the planet" who believed that the original rationale
for war was right. ...Senator Kerry said Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's
comments today indicated that they stubbornly refuse to take
responsibility for a failed policy. "It's always someone else's
fault," Mr. Kerry said while campaigning in Colorado. He said that
Mr. Bush was "still not being straight with the American people" and
that Mr. Bush had proven, once again, why he did not deserve another
term.
SEE ALSO:
Earth to Bush
By David Corn
The Nation, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: There were no WMDs in Iraq. There were no active WMD
programs. So says the report submitted by WMD hunter Charles Duelfer.
(For my selection of the report's greatest hits, go to
www.davidcorn.com and scroll down.) The report demolishes Bush's
prewar argument that Iraq was an "immediate," "direct," and
"gathering" threat. Sure, Saddam Hussein, a brutal, ruthless, tyrant
who yearned to possess biological, chemical and nuclear weapons
presented a problem. But if he did not have WMD stockpiles or active
WMD programs, what made the threat he posed "immediate" or "direct."
Since his WMD programs were, according to Duelfer's report,
moribund, what made this threat "gathering." There was nothing
"gathering" about it. But "gathering" is the buzzword that Bush used
before the war, and he has relied upon this speechwriter's find ever
since, as it has become apparent no WMDs will be found in Iraq. The
Duelfer report shows that whatever threat Iraq posed was rather
static. It was not becoming more serious. That means there was no
"immediate" and "direct" reason on March 19, 2003, to head into an
elective war, with few major allies, not enough body armor and
reinforced Humvees, and little planning for the aftermath. Bush,
though, will not--and cannot--concede this. Grim-faced, he read a
short statement today about Duelfer's 1,000-page-long report. Bush
noted that the report concluded that Hussein was "systematically
gaming the system," using the oil-for-food program in an "effort to
undermine sanctions." Pointing to the report, Bush declared that
Hussein had the "intent of restarting his weapons programs once the
world looked away." Well, no shit, Mr. President. But at the time
Bush ordered US forces to invade and occupy Iraq, the world was not
looking away. In fact, the world was quite engaged. The inspections
process was under way. UN inspectors had gained access to suspicious
sites. They had discovered a few missiles that were prohibited.
Hussein had begrudgingly agreed to destroy these weapons. The
nuclear inspectors had declared they had found no evidence of a
revived nuclear weapons program. (Bush and Dick Cheney had
repeatedly claimed Iraq had revved up its nuclear weapons program.)
And at the United Nations, countries looking to prevent a war were
discussing even more intrusive inspections and other means to hold
Hussein accountable and to force him to heed UN resolutions. So it's
disingenuous to state that the war was justified because Hussein
could have kick-started WMD programs once the world got off his
back. If Bush was indeed worried the world would one day tire of
keeping Hussein in check--and then Hussein might revive his WMD
programs--he could have developed a strategy to maintain the
international pressure on Hussein. Instead, he chose war.
SEE ALSO:
How 1,200 Inspectors Failed to Find WMD
(Independent)
SEE ALSO:
White House Conjures Bizarre
Retrospective Rationale for Iraq Invasion
By Josh Marshall
Talking Points Memo, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: If it weren't so sad (and tragic), it would truly be funny
to watch the White House scrounge around for even the most
ridiculous retrospective rationales for war as the original ones
collapse around them. Help Restore the Promise Press: "This
week marks the first time that the Bush administration has listed
abuses in the oil-for-fuel program as an Iraq war rationale." That's
the new casus belli -- corruption in the oil-for-food program. You
can't make this stuff up. Or, rather, I guess you can make this
stuff. Since they are making it up. In post-9/11 world, we can't
stand idly by while third-world politicians take bribes and
kickbacks!
SEE ALSO:
Fineman: Bush is Beginning to Sound
Desperate (MSNBC)
SEE ALSO:
Oil Wars
Transforming the American Military into a Global
Oil-Protection Service
By Michael T. Klare
TomDispatch.com, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: In the first U.S. combat operation of the war in Iraq, Navy
commandos stormed an offshore oil-loading platform. "Swooping
silently out of the Persian Gulf night," an overexcited reporter for
the New York Times wrote on March 22, "Navy Seals seized two Iraqi
oil terminals in bold raids that ended early this morning,
overwhelming lightly-armed Iraqi guards and claiming a bloodless
victory in the battle for Iraq's vast oil empire."
A year and a half later, American soldiers are still struggling to
maintain control over these vital petroleum facilities -- and the
fighting is no longer bloodless. On April 24, two American sailors
and a coastguardsman were killed when a boat they sought to
intercept, presumably carrying suicide bombers, exploded near the
Khor al-Amaya loading platform. Other Americans have come under fire
while protecting some of the many installations in Iraq's "oil
empire."
Indeed, Iraq has developed into a two-front war: the battles for
control over Iraq's cities and the constant struggle to protect its
far-flung petroleum infrastructure against sabotage and attack. The
first contest has been widely reported in the American press; the
second has received far less attention. Yet the fate of Iraq's oil
infrastructure could prove no less significant than that of its
embattled cities. A failure to prevail in this contest would
eliminate the economic basis upon which a stable Iraqi government
could someday emerge. "In the grand scheme of things," a senior
officer told the New York Times, "there may be no other place where
our armed forces are deployed that has a greater strategic
importance." In recognition of this, significant numbers of U.S.
soldiers have been assigned to oil-security functions.
SEE ALSO:
Denial, denial, denial
No Qualms: Cheney Uses the Duelfer Report to Justify Iraq War
By TOM RAUM
AP in YahooNews.com, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a
finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that Saddam
Hussein's government produced no weapons of mass destruction after
1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush's decision to
go to war. The report shows that "delay, defer, wait wasn't an
option," Cheney told a town hall-style meeting. While Democrats
pointed to the new report by Charles Duelfer to bolster their case
that invading Iraq was a mistake, Cheney focused on portions that
were more favorable to the administration's case.
Baghdad 'Safe Zone' Proves
Vulnerable in Hotel Attack
By EDWARD WONG and DEXTER FILKINS
NYT, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: Insurgents fired two rockets into the Ishtar Sheraton Hotel
in central Baghdad on Thursday night, setting rooms ablaze and
forcing the temporary evacuation of scores of journalists and
foreign contractors working on reconstruction projects in Iraq. No
deaths were reported but the attack sparked chaos, as American
soldiers, security contractors and police officers opened fire from
hotel checkpoints and rooftops. Red tracer rounds arced through the
night sky as guests, many stumbling from their rooms dazed and
wearing flak jackets, scrambled next door to the Palestine Hotel.
Broken glass littered the lobby floor and thick smoke filled the
area. The rocket fire underscored the extreme vulnerability of
foreign workers in Iraq and the determination of insurgents to drive
them out. There are no assuredly safe zones left in the capital, not
even in the fortified compound west of the Tigris that houses the
Iraqi government headquarters and the American Embassy.
An American military official said Thursday that a homemade bomb was
discovered on Tuesday in a popular restaurant inside the complex.
That bomb was defused, and officials declined to comment on how it
might have been planted inside the restaurant. Some 12,000 Iraqis
live inside the four-square-mile complex, called the Green Zone,
where there are indications of growing anger at the American
occupation. There have been reports in recent months of foreigners
being stabbed and mugged inside the compound, and a poolside July
Fourth party at the American Embassy was marred by a car-bomb scare
outside an embassy gate.
Afghanistan: What
'Democracy' Looks Like
How free and fair is an election
run by warlords?
By Christian Parenti
The Nation, 5 October 2004
EXCERPT: Officially, the upcoming October 9 presidential election in
Afghanistan is set to be a great success. Some international
observers point to widespread voter registration as evidence. Among
a population estimated at 20 to 25 million, a total of 10.5 million
Afghans have registered. That means most eligible adults are signed
up to vote; President Bush even mentioned this statistic in his
first debate with John Kerry. But look closer and the picture
changes. For example, I have two valid voter-registration ID cards
and I am a foreign journalist. If a friendly party (like the one who
gave me the cards) controls my polling station, I'll be able to vote
twice because there is no reliable system for verifying the identity
of voters. In four heavily Pashtun provinces along the eastern
border with Pakistan, more than 140 percent of the adult population
is registered to vote. In other words, despite the high hopes of
many Afghans, this election, in which eighteen candidates are
running for president, is shaping up to be a sham marked by fraud,
corruption and widespread confusion about how secret balloting
works. Nationwide, there is continuing low-level violence of all
sorts, from robbery to Taliban attacks along the Pakistani border to
interfactional fighting. Worst of all is the voter intimidation and
quotidian terror meted out by warlords, known in Dari Pashto as
jangsalaran. These former mujahedeen commanders rule most of
Afghanistan through a collection of semi-private fiefdoms, which
allow them to control much of the local smuggling, extortion, drug
trade and now voting.
Church and state in the land of Bush's favored
ally...
Pakistan Set to Ban
Religious Rallies after Bomb Kills 40
By Randeep Ramesh
The Guardian (UK), 8 October 2004
EXCERPT: The government of Pakistan yesterday moved to ban all
religious gatherings, except those at mosques, after bombs planted
in a car and on a motorcycle exploded at a rally commemorating the
death of an assassinated Sunni Muslim radical, killing at least 40
people and wounding more than 100. The attack yesterday in the city
of Multan, 300 miles south-west of the country's capital, Islamabad,
came after a night-long public meeting had broken up in the early
hours of the morning.
7 October 2004
Just Another Day in the Pit as Oil
Tops $52
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER
NYT, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: At a few minutes before 11 a.m. yesterday, the crude oil
pit on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the world's
largest oil market, shifted into high gear. Traders frantically
shouted and flashed their signals for buying and selling thousands
of barrels of crude oil as the price leapt to a new high of $51.80.
The Battle of the Pump
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NYT, 7 October 2004
EXCERPT: Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney, none have been worse than their opposition to
energy conservation and a gasoline tax. If we had imposed a new
gasoline tax after 9/11, demand would have been dampened and gas
today would probably still be $2 a gallon. But instead of the extra
dollar going to Saudi Arabia - where it ends up with mullahs who
build madrasas that preach intolerance - that dollar would have gone
to our own Treasury to pay down our own deficit and finance our own
schools. In fact, the Bush energy policy should be called No Mullah
Left Behind. Our own No Child Left Behind program has not been fully
financed because the tax revenue is not there. But thanks to the
Bush-Cheney energy policy, No Mullah Left Behind has been fully
financed and is now the gift that keeps on giving: terrorism. ...Building
a decent Iraq is necessary to help reverse such trends, but it is
not sufficient. We need a much more comprehensive approach,
particularly if we fail in Iraq. The Bush team does not offer one.
It has treated the Arab-Israeli issue with benign neglect, failed to
find any way to communicate with the Arab world and adopted an
energy policy that is supporting the worst Arab oil regimes and the
worst trends. Phil Verleger, one of the nation's top energy
consultants and a longtime advocate of a gas tax, puts it
succinctly: "U.S. energy policy today is in support of terrorism -
not the war on terrorism." ...The Arab-Muslim world is in a
must-change human development crisis, "but oil is like a narcotic
that kills a lot of the pain for them and prevents real change,''
says David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. Where is all the innovation in the Arab
world today? In the places with little or no oil: Bahrain is working
on labor reform, just signed a free-trade agreement with the U.S.
and held the first elections in the Arab gulf, allowing women to run
and vote. Dubai has made itself into a regional service center. And
Jordan has a free-trade agreement with the U.S. and is trying to
transform itself into a knowledge economy. Who is paralyzed or
rolling back reforms? Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, all now awash in
oil money. When did Jordan begin privatizing and deregulating
its economy and upgrading its education system? In 1989 - after oil
prices had slumped and the Arab oil states cut off Jordan's
subsidies. ...We have the power right now to stimulate similar
trends across the Arab world. It's the best way to fight a global
war on terrorism. If only we had a president and vice president
tough enough to fight this war. [BWUSA emphasis]
Afghanistan in Crisis – Facts and
Figures
Robert O. Boorstin and Mirna Galic
Center for American Progress, 4 October 2004
EXCERPT: Last week, President Bush claimed that the "Taliban no
longer is in existence." This inaccurate statement is just the
latest in a continuing White House effort to paint a rosy picture of
life in Afghanistan. Far from the success story the Bush
administration sells to the world, however, Afghanistan remains a
country in crisis. As the Oct. 9 Afghan presidential election draws
near, the country is in danger and disarray. Drug production is
booming, Taliban attacks are increasing, al Qaeda's capacity is
growing, and warlords rule across the countryside. The Afghan people
face danger and intimidation at the polls, hunger and chronic
malnutrition at home, and a future that still holds uncertainty and
fear for women. While we all share the goal of a successful election
and a safe and democratic future for Afghanistan, facing the facts
is critical. Here is the reality on the ground: (see article for
accompanying details)
Taliban resurgent, attacks increasing.
Evidence of renewed al Qaeda capacity.
Afghanistan in danger of becoming "narco-state."
Record opium production expected.
Warlords and militias wreak havoc.
Free and fair elections in jeopardy.
Aid workers forced to withdraw.
Afghans struggle with crippling food shortage.
Women continue to suffer.
Women and children's health poor.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bremer:
Deserting a Sinking Ship
Juan Cole
Informed Comment, 6 October 2004
[BWUSA summary] Cheney is trying to maintain some credibility during
the campaign. Bremer may have just thought his remarks were off the
record but he may also be trying to show that the mishandling of the
occupation was not all his doing. Rumsfeld may be preparing the
neocons in the pentagon for a rapid jettison following the election,
thereby making them the fall guys for the whole mess.
U.S. Report Finds Iraq Was Minimal
Weapons Threat in '03
By DOUGLAS JEHL
NYT, 6 October 2004
EXCERPT: Iraq now appears to have destroyed its stockpiles of
illicit weapons within months of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and
by the time of the American invasion in spring 2003, its capacity to
produce such weapons was continuing to erode, the top American
inspector in Iraq said in a report made public today. The report by
Charles A. Duelfer said the last Iraqi factory capable of producing
militarily significant quantities of unconventional weapons was
destroyed in 1996. The finding amounted to the starkest portrayal
yet of a vast gap between the Bush administration's prewar
assertions about Iraqi weapons and what a 15-month postinvasion
inquiry by American investigators has concluded were the facts on
the ground. At the time of the American invasion, Mr. Duelfer
concluded, Iraq had not possessed military-scale stockpiles of
illicit weapons for a dozen years and was not actively seeking to
produce them. The White House had portrayed the war as a bid to
disarm Iraq of unconventional weapons, and had invoked images of
mushroom clouds, deadly gases and fearsome poisons. But Mr. Duelfer
concluded that even if Iraq had sought to restart its weapons
programs in 2003, it could not have produced significant quantities
of chemical weapons for at least a year, and would have required
years to produce a nuclear weapon. "Over time he was getting further
away from nuclear weapons," an official familiar with the report
said of Saddam Hussein in advance of the public release of Mr.
Duelfer's report. "He was further away in 2003 than he was in 1991.
The nuclear program was decaying rather than being preserved."