Friday, October 03, 2003
Weapons of Mass Destruction: ‘Evidence of Intentions’
Aren’t we all tired of this subject? Well that’s what the Administration is hoping for, that it’ll all be “yesterday’s news” and it will be our “fault” that we are “unable to move on.” So, until the Administration is thoroughly discredited via bi-partisan denunciations, the repetition must proceed.
David Kay’s report essentially said there was not only no WMD program, but that they could only find “some evidence of intentions” to build a WMD program. Some imminent threat! The Guardian has this summary today:
In sum, Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess useable biological, chemical or nuclear weapons when the war was launched. Iraq could not therefore accurately be said to pose a current or serious or imminent threat to its neighbours and the west, at least in terms of WMD, as the US and Britain claimed. Less expected, perhaps, is the strong probability, on the basis of these preliminary findings, that such proven Iraqi WMD capability as did exist was largely destroyed in 1991, as Saddam maintained. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1055079,00.html
And, discrediting, while proceeding, is far from complete. The NY Times reports today (Todd S. Purdum, Janet Elder) on a Times/CBS poll.
Thirteen months before the 2004 election, a solid majority of Americans say the country is seriously on the wrong track, a classic danger sign for incumbents, and only about half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. That is roughly the same as when Mr. Bush took office after the razor-close 2000 election.
But more than 6 in 10 Americans still say the president has strong qualities of leadership, more than 5 in 10 say he has more honesty and integrity than most people in public life and 6 in 10 credit him with making the country safer from terrorist attack.
By contrast, the Democratic presidential contenders remain largely unknown, and nearly half of Americans — and a like number of registered voters — say the Democrats have no clear plan of their own for the country.
Wilson/Plamegate The AP reports that “the federal investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's name expanded Thursday beyond the White House and the spy agency to other parts of the government with access to the officer's classified identity. The Justice Department sent ``do not destroy'' letters to the Defense and State departments requesting preservation of phone logs, e-mails and other documents that could become evidence in the inquiry, senior.”
So maybe they can take some heat off the White House? Not likely; even Republicans are restless. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) notes that if he, Hagel, were Bush, he would be “sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it.” (CNBC, “Capital Report”) So, a Republican is pointing at Cheney’s office, which includes Cheney and other suspect Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief-of-staff. So, Cheney, Rove… whichever, it’s an ominous time for the Administration. And, those polls… just under 70% of the public believes that a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the allegations. (Washington Post/ABC News, in the Post, Dana Milbank/Mike Allen).
What’s Happening, Iraq
General Sanchez comes clean, warning that the military situation is worsening. “The enemy has evolved. It is a little bit more lethal, little bit more complex, little bit more sophisticated and in some cases a little bit more tenacious… We should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there’s been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack.”
Iraq-Terror Blurring: Good Media, Bad Media
An example to note. The Boston Globe’s Bryan Bender filed a story that did the proper distinguishing of the Iraq invasion and the “war on terror”, i.e. al-Qaeda.
Senior Bush administration officials and media executives gathered here yesterday at the only national war correspondents memorial to unveil a plaque in memory of four American journalists who died covering the war in Iraq and the war on terror. (Good!)
Compare with the AP report (David Dishneau- Bad)
Four U.S. journalists who died covering the war on terrorism were honored by the Bush administration on Wednesday as brave protectors of the First Amendment.
David Bloom of NBC News; Michael Kelly of The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post; Elizabeth Neuffer of The Boston Globe; and Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal were memorialized in the ceremony.
Grover Norquist, Republican arch-rightest ideologue, on Fresh Air (Terry Gross)
I know this is long, but it’s rich and disturbing. This fellow very much has the Administration’s ear.
Norquist [Discussing the death tax] I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70% plus of Americans want to abolish the death tax because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who play to the politics of hate and class division will say it's only 2% or 5% in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust, it's only a small percentage, it's not you it's somebody else. And this country, people who may not make, earning a lot of money, at the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just, if you've paid taxes on your income government should leave you alone, not tax you again.
Q. Did you just compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?
Norquist: No, the morality that says it's ok to do something to a group because they're a small percentage of the population, is the morality that says that the Holocaust is ok because they didn't target everybody. It's just a small percentage what are you worried about? It's not you. It's not you, it's them. And arguing that it's ok to loot some group because it's them, or kill some group because it's them, and because it's a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. The government's going to do something to or for us it should treat us all equally. And the argument that Bill Clinton used when he wanted to raise taxes in 1993 is I'm only going to tax the top 2%, so this doesn't affect the rest of you, I'm only going to get some of these guys, not you, others.
The challenge there, when people use that rhetoric, in addition to the fact that I think it's immoral to separate the society, by, uh, when South Africa divided society by race, that was wrong. When East Germany divided them by income and class, that was wrong. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Dividing people so when you can mug them one at a time is a bad thing to do. Whether you do on racial grounds, religious grounds, whether you work on Saturdays or not grounds, economic grounds.
Q. So you see taxes as being, the way they are now a terrible discrimination against the wealthy, comparable to the kind of discrimination of say, the Holocaust?
A. Well, when you pick, when you use, you can use different rhetoric, or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say don't let this bother you I'm only doing it, the government is only doing to a small part of the population, that is very wrong. And it's immoral. they should treat everybody the same. They shouldn't be shooting anyone. And they shouldn't be taking half of anybody's income or wealth when they die.
Lest we Forget: While the Bush administration was declaring war on the intelligence community North Korea was quietly preparing to threaten the peace of the world with deliverable (and sellable) nuclear weapons. From MSNBC: North Korea said Thursday it is using plutonium extracted from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic weapons, a move that would dramatically escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula. But U.S. officials cast doubt on the the statement, and suggested it was a move by Pyongyang to strengthen its hand in negotiations with the United States.
Enron: Still slow mo
This scandal still is on a slow track. An example: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request by the Houston Chronicle to force the District judge to release sealed transcripts and to stop holding closed hearings in Enron criminal cases. The active cases are against three former Enron execs, including Enron’s CFO, Andrew Fastow. And, the Chronicle notes,
"Federal regulators are trying to force former Enron Corp. chairman Ken Lay to hand over documents they believe will shed light on the Houston energy company's collapse.
Lay has refused to turn over the records, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The SEC, trying to determine whether Lay had knowledge of, or was involved in, fraudulent activities at Enron has subpoenaed documents from Lay's tenure at the one-time energy trading giant." http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/special/enron/2129992
-R
Aren’t we all tired of this subject? Well that’s what the Administration is hoping for, that it’ll all be “yesterday’s news” and it will be our “fault” that we are “unable to move on.” So, until the Administration is thoroughly discredited via bi-partisan denunciations, the repetition must proceed.
David Kay’s report essentially said there was not only no WMD program, but that they could only find “some evidence of intentions” to build a WMD program. Some imminent threat! The Guardian has this summary today:
In sum, Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess useable biological, chemical or nuclear weapons when the war was launched. Iraq could not therefore accurately be said to pose a current or serious or imminent threat to its neighbours and the west, at least in terms of WMD, as the US and Britain claimed. Less expected, perhaps, is the strong probability, on the basis of these preliminary findings, that such proven Iraqi WMD capability as did exist was largely destroyed in 1991, as Saddam maintained. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1055079,00.html
And, discrediting, while proceeding, is far from complete. The NY Times reports today (Todd S. Purdum, Janet Elder) on a Times/CBS poll.
Thirteen months before the 2004 election, a solid majority of Americans say the country is seriously on the wrong track, a classic danger sign for incumbents, and only about half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. That is roughly the same as when Mr. Bush took office after the razor-close 2000 election.
But more than 6 in 10 Americans still say the president has strong qualities of leadership, more than 5 in 10 say he has more honesty and integrity than most people in public life and 6 in 10 credit him with making the country safer from terrorist attack.
By contrast, the Democratic presidential contenders remain largely unknown, and nearly half of Americans — and a like number of registered voters — say the Democrats have no clear plan of their own for the country.
Wilson/Plamegate The AP reports that “the federal investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's name expanded Thursday beyond the White House and the spy agency to other parts of the government with access to the officer's classified identity. The Justice Department sent ``do not destroy'' letters to the Defense and State departments requesting preservation of phone logs, e-mails and other documents that could become evidence in the inquiry, senior.”
So maybe they can take some heat off the White House? Not likely; even Republicans are restless. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) notes that if he, Hagel, were Bush, he would be “sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it.” (CNBC, “Capital Report”) So, a Republican is pointing at Cheney’s office, which includes Cheney and other suspect Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief-of-staff. So, Cheney, Rove… whichever, it’s an ominous time for the Administration. And, those polls… just under 70% of the public believes that a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the allegations. (Washington Post/ABC News, in the Post, Dana Milbank/Mike Allen).
What’s Happening, Iraq
General Sanchez comes clean, warning that the military situation is worsening. “The enemy has evolved. It is a little bit more lethal, little bit more complex, little bit more sophisticated and in some cases a little bit more tenacious… We should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there’s been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack.”
Iraq-Terror Blurring: Good Media, Bad Media
An example to note. The Boston Globe’s Bryan Bender filed a story that did the proper distinguishing of the Iraq invasion and the “war on terror”, i.e. al-Qaeda.
Senior Bush administration officials and media executives gathered here yesterday at the only national war correspondents memorial to unveil a plaque in memory of four American journalists who died covering the war in Iraq and the war on terror. (Good!)
Compare with the AP report (David Dishneau- Bad)
Four U.S. journalists who died covering the war on terrorism were honored by the Bush administration on Wednesday as brave protectors of the First Amendment.
David Bloom of NBC News; Michael Kelly of The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post; Elizabeth Neuffer of The Boston Globe; and Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal were memorialized in the ceremony.
Grover Norquist, Republican arch-rightest ideologue, on Fresh Air (Terry Gross)
I know this is long, but it’s rich and disturbing. This fellow very much has the Administration’s ear.
Norquist [Discussing the death tax] I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70% plus of Americans want to abolish the death tax because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who play to the politics of hate and class division will say it's only 2% or 5% in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust, it's only a small percentage, it's not you it's somebody else. And this country, people who may not make, earning a lot of money, at the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just, if you've paid taxes on your income government should leave you alone, not tax you again.
Q. Did you just compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?
Norquist: No, the morality that says it's ok to do something to a group because they're a small percentage of the population, is the morality that says that the Holocaust is ok because they didn't target everybody. It's just a small percentage what are you worried about? It's not you. It's not you, it's them. And arguing that it's ok to loot some group because it's them, or kill some group because it's them, and because it's a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. The government's going to do something to or for us it should treat us all equally. And the argument that Bill Clinton used when he wanted to raise taxes in 1993 is I'm only going to tax the top 2%, so this doesn't affect the rest of you, I'm only going to get some of these guys, not you, others.
The challenge there, when people use that rhetoric, in addition to the fact that I think it's immoral to separate the society, by, uh, when South Africa divided society by race, that was wrong. When East Germany divided them by income and class, that was wrong. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Dividing people so when you can mug them one at a time is a bad thing to do. Whether you do on racial grounds, religious grounds, whether you work on Saturdays or not grounds, economic grounds.
Q. So you see taxes as being, the way they are now a terrible discrimination against the wealthy, comparable to the kind of discrimination of say, the Holocaust?
A. Well, when you pick, when you use, you can use different rhetoric, or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say don't let this bother you I'm only doing it, the government is only doing to a small part of the population, that is very wrong. And it's immoral. they should treat everybody the same. They shouldn't be shooting anyone. And they shouldn't be taking half of anybody's income or wealth when they die.
Lest we Forget: While the Bush administration was declaring war on the intelligence community North Korea was quietly preparing to threaten the peace of the world with deliverable (and sellable) nuclear weapons. From MSNBC: North Korea said Thursday it is using plutonium extracted from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic weapons, a move that would dramatically escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula. But U.S. officials cast doubt on the the statement, and suggested it was a move by Pyongyang to strengthen its hand in negotiations with the United States.
Enron: Still slow mo
This scandal still is on a slow track. An example: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request by the Houston Chronicle to force the District judge to release sealed transcripts and to stop holding closed hearings in Enron criminal cases. The active cases are against three former Enron execs, including Enron’s CFO, Andrew Fastow. And, the Chronicle notes,
"Federal regulators are trying to force former Enron Corp. chairman Ken Lay to hand over documents they believe will shed light on the Houston energy company's collapse.
Lay has refused to turn over the records, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The SEC, trying to determine whether Lay had knowledge of, or was involved in, fraudulent activities at Enron has subpoenaed documents from Lay's tenure at the one-time energy trading giant." http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/special/enron/2129992
-R
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Leaks of classified information are bad things, and we've had too many lately in Washington. We've had leaks from the executive branch and leaks from the legislative branch. I want to know who the leakers are. – Bush
Wilson/Plamegate- Rove?
Julian Borger of the Guardian claims that several journalists have privately told him that Rove phoned the journalists with the ‘leak’ re Valerie Plame. He adds that the White House is “safe” for now, as journalists cannot reveal sources, so we await the full investigation that is to be conducted by Ashcroft! We certainly trust that he will do a bang-up job investigating his superiors. The investigation got off to a start of sorts, warning the White House folk on Monday night that it’ll all begin on Tuesday, i.e. check your shredders.
Back to Bush’s words, above: Notice that he’s not about to address the charges at hand. The statement he read is part of the effort to change the subject. His words are blurring the leak into the general problem of leaking of classified information. Unlike Bush, press secretary Scott McClellan has to answer questions, but being fact-poor, he gets trapped and can merely repeat the refrain of “America is safer, the world is better, the world is safer because Saddam…” Or, when reminded by reporters that the White House statement denying the need for a special prosecutor is practically verbatim what the Clinton White House said about employing a Special Prosecutor with the Whitewater nonsense, McClellan rejoined, “I just reject that comparison”. This provoked some notable guffaws from the attending press.
As to the reporters, while understandable, it’s too bad that one of the six notable reporters didn’t do an ‘Ellsberg’ and reveal this instead of sitting on it since July 14.
What’s Happening, Iraq:
U.S. going it alone; Nothing new, just well stated by LeFigaro, via Truthout (Luc de Barochez)
No country asked has offered to send troops or contribute financially to the country’s reconstruction. Neither money nor men: at the end of a decisive week at the UN, American president George W. Bush measures the failure of his attempted return to the international organization. “The Iraqi nation needs our help”, he pleaded Tuesday before the General Assembly in New York. Two days later, not one of the 191 countries represented there had responded to his appeal for help with a concrete promise, whether in the form of a financial contribution or by placing troop contingents at his disposition. The UN even decided yesterday to withdraw part of their expatriate personnel in Iraq, undermining American normalization efforts a little more...
Vulnerable Soldiers…bits:
Brad Knickerbocker of the Christian Science Monitor focuses on the 8 American soldiers that are wounded each day. Jonathan Turley of the LA Times notes that our soldiers are so ill-equipped that parents are shopping for body armor to ship to their soldier-children. Apparently the Army issues flak jackets out of the Vietnam war era which are inadequate to deal with modern weaponry.
Suzanne Werfelman is a mother and a teacher who has been shopping for individual body armor. This is not in response to threats from her elementary-class students in Sciota, Pa.; it's a desperate attempt to protect her son in Iraq.
Cheney as Inveterate Liar
Even though others of the Administration are trying to undo a few of the chronic misrepresentations, Cheney persists. The Washington Post’s Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler noted in their page 1 article that Cheney is still pushing the Iraq-9/11 connection. As they summarize,
Cheney described Iraq as "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." Neither the CIA nor the congressional joint inquiry that investigated the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon found any evidence linking Iraq to the hijackers or the attacks. President Bush corrected Cheney's statement several days later.
Frank Rich had his rich take on Cheney in Sunday’s NY Times. Capturing the V.P.’s t.v. talk show appearance, Rich noted that
Mr. Cheney, a master of the above-reproach dead pan, just kept going, effortlessly mowing right through any objections by the host. The vice president was banking… on a cultural environment in which fiction and nonfiction have become so scrambled — and can be so easily manipulated by politicians and show-biz impresarios alike — that credibility itself has become a devalued, if not archaic, news value. This is why the big national mystery of the moment — why do almost 70 percent of Americans believe in Mr. Cheney's fictional insinuation that Saddam Hussein had some hand in 9/11? — is not so hard to crack. As low as the administration's credibility may be, it is still trusted more than the media trying to correct the fictions the White House plants in the national consciousness.
"Tonight we congratulate television news on becoming us — mindless ratings whores," said the comic Jon Stewart, host of the faux-news "Daily Show," after unreeling a montage of particularly ludicrous excerpts from this year's actual news shows on last Sunday's Emmy broadcast. It would have been even funnier if the story being covered hadn't been an actual war.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/arts/television/28RICH.html?pagewanted=print&position=
The awakening media correcting those “misrepresentations”
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post deals with some b.s. spun by the Administration that attempts to portray the Iraqis as overly thrilled with our invasion.
Top Bush administration officials in the past weeks have been citing a pair of public opinion polls to demonstrate that Iraqis have a positive view of the U.S. occupation. But an examination of those polls indicates Iraqis have a less enthusiastic view than the administration has portrayed.
For example, in testimony before Congress, L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz both cited a recent Gallup Poll that found that almost two-thirds of those polled in Baghdad said it was worth the hardships suffered since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein. Bremer also told Congress that 67 percent thought that in five years they would be better off, and only 11 percent thought they would be worse off.
That same poll, however, found that, countrywide, only 33 percent thought they were better off than they were before the invasion and 47 percent said they were worse off. And 94 percent said that Baghdad was a more dangerous place for them to live, a finding the administration officials did not discuss.
National (Airport) Liberation Front: Some of us become agitated when the flight attendant announces that “Welcome to Ronald Reagan National Airport”. I salute Jordan Barab, of http://spewingforth.blogspot.com, who has founded the above “organization.”
Colombia: Lest we forget: Three American military contractors have been hostages for 7 months, held by the “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia”. The trio survived while another American and the Colombian pilot were executed after the plane went down. Colombian and U.S. forces have apparently been unable to discern their location.
-R
Wilson/Plamegate- Rove?
Julian Borger of the Guardian claims that several journalists have privately told him that Rove phoned the journalists with the ‘leak’ re Valerie Plame. He adds that the White House is “safe” for now, as journalists cannot reveal sources, so we await the full investigation that is to be conducted by Ashcroft! We certainly trust that he will do a bang-up job investigating his superiors. The investigation got off to a start of sorts, warning the White House folk on Monday night that it’ll all begin on Tuesday, i.e. check your shredders.
Back to Bush’s words, above: Notice that he’s not about to address the charges at hand. The statement he read is part of the effort to change the subject. His words are blurring the leak into the general problem of leaking of classified information. Unlike Bush, press secretary Scott McClellan has to answer questions, but being fact-poor, he gets trapped and can merely repeat the refrain of “America is safer, the world is better, the world is safer because Saddam…” Or, when reminded by reporters that the White House statement denying the need for a special prosecutor is practically verbatim what the Clinton White House said about employing a Special Prosecutor with the Whitewater nonsense, McClellan rejoined, “I just reject that comparison”. This provoked some notable guffaws from the attending press.
As to the reporters, while understandable, it’s too bad that one of the six notable reporters didn’t do an ‘Ellsberg’ and reveal this instead of sitting on it since July 14.
What’s Happening, Iraq:
U.S. going it alone; Nothing new, just well stated by LeFigaro, via Truthout (Luc de Barochez)
No country asked has offered to send troops or contribute financially to the country’s reconstruction. Neither money nor men: at the end of a decisive week at the UN, American president George W. Bush measures the failure of his attempted return to the international organization. “The Iraqi nation needs our help”, he pleaded Tuesday before the General Assembly in New York. Two days later, not one of the 191 countries represented there had responded to his appeal for help with a concrete promise, whether in the form of a financial contribution or by placing troop contingents at his disposition. The UN even decided yesterday to withdraw part of their expatriate personnel in Iraq, undermining American normalization efforts a little more...
Vulnerable Soldiers…bits:
Brad Knickerbocker of the Christian Science Monitor focuses on the 8 American soldiers that are wounded each day. Jonathan Turley of the LA Times notes that our soldiers are so ill-equipped that parents are shopping for body armor to ship to their soldier-children. Apparently the Army issues flak jackets out of the Vietnam war era which are inadequate to deal with modern weaponry.
Suzanne Werfelman is a mother and a teacher who has been shopping for individual body armor. This is not in response to threats from her elementary-class students in Sciota, Pa.; it's a desperate attempt to protect her son in Iraq.
Cheney as Inveterate Liar
Even though others of the Administration are trying to undo a few of the chronic misrepresentations, Cheney persists. The Washington Post’s Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler noted in their page 1 article that Cheney is still pushing the Iraq-9/11 connection. As they summarize,
Cheney described Iraq as "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." Neither the CIA nor the congressional joint inquiry that investigated the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon found any evidence linking Iraq to the hijackers or the attacks. President Bush corrected Cheney's statement several days later.
Frank Rich had his rich take on Cheney in Sunday’s NY Times. Capturing the V.P.’s t.v. talk show appearance, Rich noted that
Mr. Cheney, a master of the above-reproach dead pan, just kept going, effortlessly mowing right through any objections by the host. The vice president was banking… on a cultural environment in which fiction and nonfiction have become so scrambled — and can be so easily manipulated by politicians and show-biz impresarios alike — that credibility itself has become a devalued, if not archaic, news value. This is why the big national mystery of the moment — why do almost 70 percent of Americans believe in Mr. Cheney's fictional insinuation that Saddam Hussein had some hand in 9/11? — is not so hard to crack. As low as the administration's credibility may be, it is still trusted more than the media trying to correct the fictions the White House plants in the national consciousness.
"Tonight we congratulate television news on becoming us — mindless ratings whores," said the comic Jon Stewart, host of the faux-news "Daily Show," after unreeling a montage of particularly ludicrous excerpts from this year's actual news shows on last Sunday's Emmy broadcast. It would have been even funnier if the story being covered hadn't been an actual war.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/arts/television/28RICH.html?pagewanted=print&position=
The awakening media correcting those “misrepresentations”
Walter Pincus of the Washington Post deals with some b.s. spun by the Administration that attempts to portray the Iraqis as overly thrilled with our invasion.
Top Bush administration officials in the past weeks have been citing a pair of public opinion polls to demonstrate that Iraqis have a positive view of the U.S. occupation. But an examination of those polls indicates Iraqis have a less enthusiastic view than the administration has portrayed.
For example, in testimony before Congress, L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz both cited a recent Gallup Poll that found that almost two-thirds of those polled in Baghdad said it was worth the hardships suffered since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein. Bremer also told Congress that 67 percent thought that in five years they would be better off, and only 11 percent thought they would be worse off.
That same poll, however, found that, countrywide, only 33 percent thought they were better off than they were before the invasion and 47 percent said they were worse off. And 94 percent said that Baghdad was a more dangerous place for them to live, a finding the administration officials did not discuss.
National (Airport) Liberation Front: Some of us become agitated when the flight attendant announces that “Welcome to Ronald Reagan National Airport”. I salute Jordan Barab, of http://spewingforth.blogspot.com, who has founded the above “organization.”
Colombia: Lest we forget: Three American military contractors have been hostages for 7 months, held by the “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia”. The trio survived while another American and the Colombian pilot were executed after the plane went down. Colombian and U.S. forces have apparently been unable to discern their location.
-R
Monday, September 29, 2003
Wilsongate
The name may not grab, but this budding scandal has been out there since July and may prove to have ‘legs’
To review, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Days later, Robert Novak’s syndicated column disclosed that ‘two senior administration officials’ had disclosed that Wilson’s wife that been a CIA operative. Now, a “senior administration official” said that before Novak’s column ran, two “White House officials” had called “at least six Washington journalists” and disclosed the identity / occupation of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame. Such disclosure violates the Intelligence Protection Act, passed in 1982, which imposes maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $50,000 in fines for unauthorized disclosure by government employees with access to classified information.
Of course, scandals only take root when the media grab on. The major players- the NY Times and Washington Post have joined the bloggers, and, more ominous for the Bushies, is that right-wing Fox (Brit Hume, Tony Snow) actually grilled Condi Rice on the subject.
The Wilson-Plame suspects? While Wilson has said that he suspects Karl Rove, other possibilities include Cheney, Condi Rice, Andy Card, White House Chief of Staff, then press secretary Ari Fleisher , Dan Bartlett, Assistant to the President for Communication, John Gordon, Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor and Scooter Libby, Cheney’s Chief of Staff.
Place your bets!
More “Bad” News:
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which contains notable Republicans, is condemning the Administration for going to war based on outdated, “vague”, “circumstantial” and “fragmentary” information re weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s purported ties to al-Qaeda. Criticizing the logic, or lack thereof of the Administration’s efforts, the committee questioned the Administration’s logic. "The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist."
Really!
And…
The Washington Post (Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin) reported on Republicans in Congress being upset with particulars in the $87 billion request. Examples: A new curriculum for training an Iraqi army for $164 million. Five hundred experts, at $200,000 each, to investigate crimes against humanity. A witness protection program for $200,000 per Iraqi participant. A computer study for the Iraqi postal service: $54 million.
“Such numbers, buried in President Bush's $20.3 billion request for Iraq's reconstruction, have made some congressional Republicans nervous, even furious. Although the GOP leadership has tried to unite publicly around its president, cracks are beginning to show.”
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Well, if other countries won’t help us…
Despite the improved atmospherics with the Germans and a hint of civility in dealings with Jacques Chirac, neither country nor the Russians will commit troops to the Iraq operation. And, despite rumors of a resolution that will ultimately be adopted, the Administration (and its ally, Great Britain) is preparing to go it alone. Kate Holton’s Reuters report quotes Britain’s confident special representative to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock
"It would be a very good development if we had a wider international involvement but that doesn't mean to say we cannot do what needs to be done with the forces we have deployed already."
And, troubled by less-censored reports out of Iraq, the Pentagon is expected to re-embed reporters. Twas a golden age during the invasion , when reporters parked their journalist training and became faithful conveyers of U.S. heroism and good intentions.
WMD: Time weighs in: There Weren’t Any!
It’s noteworthy when the establishment periodicals make the case for weapons of mass destruction being absent from Iraq in the pre-war period, that Iraqi scientists had confirmed to Time (Nancy Gibbs and Michael Ware) that the weapons were destroyed long before the war, just as Saddam’s defecting son had told media and the CIA in 1995.
Over the past three months, TIME has interviewed Iraqi weapons scientists, middlemen and former government officials. Saddam's henchmen all make essentially the same claim: that Iraq's once massive unconventional-weapons program was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt; that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that would prove it; that the shell games Saddam played with U.N. inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on conventional weapons systems—missiles, air defenses, radar…
Still More?
Hard not to notice that a notable local Republican has endorsed Howard Dean. Fosters.com (Anne Saunders) notes that Hilary Cleveland, wife of the late Congressman James Cleveland was the local co-chair for Junior’s 2000 campaign and had served as the state party’s finance chair of Senior’s 1980 campaign. Why the change? “I have been disappointed in the Bush Administration’s policies in Iraq, and former Governor Dean has best articulated why we should not have gone to war in Iraq. I like his emphasis on the importance of internationalism and his fiscal program.”
Demonstrations Abroad:
Saturday’s anti-Iraq war demonstrations were in Edinburgh, London (20- 100,000), Paris, Dublin, Athens, Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, and Seoul.
October 25 is the Washington D.C. demonstration.
Moyers’ NOW (www.pbs.org/NOW):
TV at its best:
Bernard-Henri Levy, French philosopher and author of the book on Daniel Pearl, focused on Pakistan, “the very core of terrorism.” Levy underscored the cozy relationship that binLaden has with Pakistan, noted that the head of Pakistani intelligence funneled money to Mohamed Atta, and focused on two scientists linked to al-Qaeda “with nuclear know-how.”
The program also highlighted “Faith Partners”, one of many faith-based “social service” organizations that utilize “untrained” citizens to “mentor” troubled locals; “phase 2” of such interventions steers clients to a “Christian Church”, sometimes providing the car pool to ensure attendance.
With Moyers’ retirement oft-rumored, it’s notable that non-progressive David Brancaccio has become co-host.
9/11: More intransigence
Newsweek (Mark Hosenbalol, Michael Isikoff) makes its contribution, underscoring the foot-dragging and worse of the Administration, as it delays/obstructs the work of the 9/11 Commission.
Despite pubic claims of cooperation, White House lawyers are still resisting turning over to the September 11 commission key documents—including the text of daily intelligence briefs provided to President Bush in the months before the attacks and closely held National Security Council memos on terrorism, sources familiar with the negotiations tell Newsweek. . ..At a minimum, the specter of White House lawyers claiming “executive privilege” over September 11 documents is sure to fuel charges—already heard from some of the Democratic presidential candidates—that the White House is covering up politically embarrassing details about the attacks, such as the administration’s failure to heed stark intelligence warnings in the summer of 2001 and its cozy relations with Saudi Arabia.
Apres Arnold…Dennis?
The LA Times (Joe Mathews) reports on some momentum for enlisting the iconoclastic comic Dennis Miller for statewide office. Once left-of-center, the comedian has marked his fading t.v. career by marrying himself to the Republican party. The contest? To oppose Barbara Boxer for the Senate. While Miller is more informed, intelligent and articulate than Arnold, he lacks Schwarzenegger’s muscle and following.
-R
The name may not grab, but this budding scandal has been out there since July and may prove to have ‘legs’
To review, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Days later, Robert Novak’s syndicated column disclosed that ‘two senior administration officials’ had disclosed that Wilson’s wife that been a CIA operative. Now, a “senior administration official” said that before Novak’s column ran, two “White House officials” had called “at least six Washington journalists” and disclosed the identity / occupation of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame. Such disclosure violates the Intelligence Protection Act, passed in 1982, which imposes maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $50,000 in fines for unauthorized disclosure by government employees with access to classified information.
Of course, scandals only take root when the media grab on. The major players- the NY Times and Washington Post have joined the bloggers, and, more ominous for the Bushies, is that right-wing Fox (Brit Hume, Tony Snow) actually grilled Condi Rice on the subject.
The Wilson-Plame suspects? While Wilson has said that he suspects Karl Rove, other possibilities include Cheney, Condi Rice, Andy Card, White House Chief of Staff, then press secretary Ari Fleisher , Dan Bartlett, Assistant to the President for Communication, John Gordon, Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor and Scooter Libby, Cheney’s Chief of Staff.
Place your bets!
More “Bad” News:
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which contains notable Republicans, is condemning the Administration for going to war based on outdated, “vague”, “circumstantial” and “fragmentary” information re weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s purported ties to al-Qaeda. Criticizing the logic, or lack thereof of the Administration’s efforts, the committee questioned the Administration’s logic. "The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist."
Really!
And…
The Washington Post (Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin) reported on Republicans in Congress being upset with particulars in the $87 billion request. Examples: A new curriculum for training an Iraqi army for $164 million. Five hundred experts, at $200,000 each, to investigate crimes against humanity. A witness protection program for $200,000 per Iraqi participant. A computer study for the Iraqi postal service: $54 million.
“Such numbers, buried in President Bush's $20.3 billion request for Iraq's reconstruction, have made some congressional Republicans nervous, even furious. Although the GOP leadership has tried to unite publicly around its president, cracks are beginning to show.”
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Well, if other countries won’t help us…
Despite the improved atmospherics with the Germans and a hint of civility in dealings with Jacques Chirac, neither country nor the Russians will commit troops to the Iraq operation. And, despite rumors of a resolution that will ultimately be adopted, the Administration (and its ally, Great Britain) is preparing to go it alone. Kate Holton’s Reuters report quotes Britain’s confident special representative to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock
"It would be a very good development if we had a wider international involvement but that doesn't mean to say we cannot do what needs to be done with the forces we have deployed already."
And, troubled by less-censored reports out of Iraq, the Pentagon is expected to re-embed reporters. Twas a golden age during the invasion , when reporters parked their journalist training and became faithful conveyers of U.S. heroism and good intentions.
WMD: Time weighs in: There Weren’t Any!
It’s noteworthy when the establishment periodicals make the case for weapons of mass destruction being absent from Iraq in the pre-war period, that Iraqi scientists had confirmed to Time (Nancy Gibbs and Michael Ware) that the weapons were destroyed long before the war, just as Saddam’s defecting son had told media and the CIA in 1995.
Over the past three months, TIME has interviewed Iraqi weapons scientists, middlemen and former government officials. Saddam's henchmen all make essentially the same claim: that Iraq's once massive unconventional-weapons program was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt; that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that would prove it; that the shell games Saddam played with U.N. inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on conventional weapons systems—missiles, air defenses, radar…
Still More?
Hard not to notice that a notable local Republican has endorsed Howard Dean. Fosters.com (Anne Saunders) notes that Hilary Cleveland, wife of the late Congressman James Cleveland was the local co-chair for Junior’s 2000 campaign and had served as the state party’s finance chair of Senior’s 1980 campaign. Why the change? “I have been disappointed in the Bush Administration’s policies in Iraq, and former Governor Dean has best articulated why we should not have gone to war in Iraq. I like his emphasis on the importance of internationalism and his fiscal program.”
Demonstrations Abroad:
Saturday’s anti-Iraq war demonstrations were in Edinburgh, London (20- 100,000), Paris, Dublin, Athens, Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, and Seoul.
October 25 is the Washington D.C. demonstration.
Moyers’ NOW (www.pbs.org/NOW):
TV at its best:
Bernard-Henri Levy, French philosopher and author of the book on Daniel Pearl, focused on Pakistan, “the very core of terrorism.” Levy underscored the cozy relationship that binLaden has with Pakistan, noted that the head of Pakistani intelligence funneled money to Mohamed Atta, and focused on two scientists linked to al-Qaeda “with nuclear know-how.”
The program also highlighted “Faith Partners”, one of many faith-based “social service” organizations that utilize “untrained” citizens to “mentor” troubled locals; “phase 2” of such interventions steers clients to a “Christian Church”, sometimes providing the car pool to ensure attendance.
With Moyers’ retirement oft-rumored, it’s notable that non-progressive David Brancaccio has become co-host.
9/11: More intransigence
Newsweek (Mark Hosenbalol, Michael Isikoff) makes its contribution, underscoring the foot-dragging and worse of the Administration, as it delays/obstructs the work of the 9/11 Commission.
Despite pubic claims of cooperation, White House lawyers are still resisting turning over to the September 11 commission key documents—including the text of daily intelligence briefs provided to President Bush in the months before the attacks and closely held National Security Council memos on terrorism, sources familiar with the negotiations tell Newsweek. . ..At a minimum, the specter of White House lawyers claiming “executive privilege” over September 11 documents is sure to fuel charges—already heard from some of the Democratic presidential candidates—that the White House is covering up politically embarrassing details about the attacks, such as the administration’s failure to heed stark intelligence warnings in the summer of 2001 and its cozy relations with Saudi Arabia.
Apres Arnold…Dennis?
The LA Times (Joe Mathews) reports on some momentum for enlisting the iconoclastic comic Dennis Miller for statewide office. Once left-of-center, the comedian has marked his fading t.v. career by marrying himself to the Republican party. The contest? To oppose Barbara Boxer for the Senate. While Miller is more informed, intelligent and articulate than Arnold, he lacks Schwarzenegger’s muscle and following.
-R
