Friday, June 04, 2004
Heading to D.C.; Light Blogging Ahead
"I wake up thinking about the astonishing amount of harm these people have done to our national interest on every level, and it takes a tremendous act of will not to write about it every day."- Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury)
Fahrenheit 9/11
The trailer for the Michael Moore movie: http://www.fahrenheit911.com/trailer/windows/medium.php
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Chalabi: Iranian agent? Dupe? Fall Guy?
Did the Iranians set him up, part of their masterful manipulation of the Administration, or is Chalabi the Master (less likely).
The basics:
Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials…
The F.B.I. has opened an espionage investigation seeking to determine exactly what information Mr. Chalabi turned over to the Iranians as well as who told Mr. Chalabi that the Iranian code had been broken, government officials said. The inquiry, still in an early phase, is focused on a very small number of people who were close to Mr. Chalabi and also had access to the highly restricted information about the Iran code. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/02/politics/02CHAL.html?hp
Truthout’s William Rivers Pitt:
It is difficult to imagine a worse situation for the Bush administration than what is currently unfolding. Chalabi is completely the creation of those running the White House and the Pentagon. This is widely known. If it is true that, as they were anointing Chalabi, he was funneling Iranian disinformation straight to the highest levels of our government, who subsequently gave him intelligence data which he handed over to Iran...if this is indeed true, it is a disaster of millennial proportions for the administration. It reveals this White House to be saps, played like violins by Iran in a masterful intelligence operation that removed a long-time enemy of Tehran while setting the stage for a fundamentalist Shia regime in Iraq that would become a boon ally. How any aspect of this helps George W. Bush and his crew is hard to see. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/060104A.shtml
Bush and Chalabi: Pulling a Kenny Boy
Chronic liars have an advantage: Many of us can’t believe that they ‘lie as they breathe’, so we give them the benefit of our doubts. Bush and Co. don’t deserve such generosity.
Recall his bragging about his long affiliation with supporter Kenneth Lay of Enron, then after Lay’s downfall, Bush claimed that Lay was a (Gov) Richards supporter when he opposed her in the ’94 Texas election. As Reagan used to say, (to Carter), ‘there you go again.’
THE PRESIDENT: Chalabi?
Q Yes, with Chalabi.
THE PRESIDENT: My meetings with him were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him.
Then there was Bush last February, on Meet The Press (emphasis added):
Russert: If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?
President Bush: They're not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I'm very aware of this basic law they're writing. They're not going to develop that because right here in the Oval Office I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi and al-Hakim, people from different parts of the country that have made the firm commitment, that they want a constitution eventually written that recognizes minority rights and freedom of religion.
Finally, this entry, from the US Embassy web site:
President Bush says he had a "good talk" for about 30 minutes November 27 with four members of Iraq's Governing Council at Baghdad International Airport, following his surprise meeting with U.S. troops there.
Briefing the White House press pool accompanying him on Air Force One as he returned to the United States after the two-and-one-half-hour stop in Baghdad, Bush said he and L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, met with Jalal Talibani, the current president of the council, Raja Habib Khuzaii, Ahmed Chalabi, and Mowaffak Rubaie. http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20031201-07.html
Speaking of lies, recall the anti-French sentiment of 2002-2003:
American anger at France over its refusal to support war in Iraq reached new heights yesterday when President George Bush took a direct swipe at President Chirac.
"I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch any time soon," was Mr Bush's tart comment in an interview with NBC News, when asked about Jacques Chirac – a reference to the informal summits Mr Bush likes to hold with favored foreign leaders at his cherished retreat in Crawford, Texas. Many in his administration – by implication, himself among them – had the impression "that the French position was anti-American", the President said.
...
In Paris, one French official was told by a White House official that "I have instructions to tell you our relations have been degraded", while senior Bush aides met on Monday to decide on the nature of the punishment.
The likely sanctions will include steps to marginalize France within Nato, and efforts to downgrade or even bar French participation in US- sponsored international meetings http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0426-06.htm
Alas, reality has been altered:
"I've never been angry at the French. France has been a longtime ally."
Asked whether that meant that he would invite Mr. Chirac to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., Mr. Bush replied, "If he wants to come and see cows, he's welcome to come out here and see some cows."
This time, he has Chirac’s help, as the NY Times explains:
Privately, the two men are said to believe that they have no choice except to bury their mutual anger over Iraq, find areas of agreement and move on. Mr. Bush needs the help of the Europeans, both in rebuilding Iraq and in remaking his image during the election campaign as a president who has not alienated some of America's most important allies.
Mr. Chirac has told some European counterparts in recent weeks that Mr. Bush and his aides refuse to listen to anyone and has harshly criticized the administration's handling of the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians. But he is well aware that Mr. Bush may be re-elected and that they may have to coexist for another four years. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/international/europe/03FRAN.html
Chalmers Johnson asks:
Please tell us more about your notion of "full sovereignty" for Iraq. Will this be like our returning Okinawan sovereignty to Japan in 1972, when we retained exclusive control over the 38 military bases on the island and the deployment and behavior of American forces on them?
Please tell us: If we plan to return Iraq to the Iraqis, why is the U.S. currently building fourteen permanent bases there? http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1468
Our Withdrawal from Fallujah (and other cities) as seen by the Independent:
US marines pulled out last month and an Iraqi security force hastily formed from Saddam Hussein's old army moved in. The fighting was over as abruptly as it had begun, with US commanders lauding the peace deal.
"It's an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem," said a marine general optimistically. Fallujah has since become a model for dealing with the Shia uprising in the south.
But few on the ground share such optimism. There may be peace, but officers say Fallujah has simply been handed over to the insurgents.
A US officer said: "All we've succeeded in doing is paying off the mujahideen to stop shooting at us. There's a cauldron of hate out there and its going to boil over." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/03/wirq03.xml&site=5
And, re Allawi’s reign:
The appointment of Iyad Allawi as Iraq's interim Prime Minister this weekend was being seen as an American-backed coup which wrong-footed Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy supposed to be putting together the interim government which will wield "sovereignty" after 30 June.
The more that is learnt, however, about the sudden emergence of Mr Allawi, a man close to the CIA and MI6, the more it appears the appointment of the new government has been hijacked by the ambitious politicians of the Iraqi Governing Council - the very body it was meant to replace. The only question is whom the IGC was conspiring with as its members picked jobs for themselves.
But whatever the answer, the appointment of Mr Allawi is the culmination of a series of spectacular U-turns that has given President George Bush and his administration the appearance of lurching in a panic from one flawed policy on Iraq to the next. Since last November every decision seems to have been taken with an eye to one political event alone: Mr Bush's bid for re-election this November http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=526332
More signs of Chaos
As the US spends billions to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, there is increasing evidence that sensitive military equipment, apparently new components for oil rigs and water plants and even entire buildings are being plundered from the country. In what some experts call a massive looting operation, at least 100 semi-trailers loaded with what is billed as scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, one of six countries that share a border with Iraq ...
"There is a gigantic salvage operation, stripping anything of perceived value out of the country," said John Hamre, president and chief executive of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, which sent a team to Iraq and issued a report on reconstruction efforts at the request of the Pentagon last July. "This is systematically plundering the country," Mr Hamre said. http://www.theage.com.au/
Tenet’s Exit:
A CIA chief does the President’s bidding; Tenet was loyal and helpful, frequently taking the blame, though he couldn’t have been pleased with the ongoing pressure exerted on the Agency to supply ‘fitting’ intelligence.
Voter Registration: Is it Worthwhile?
Looking back to last Sunday’s Boston Globe article on the subject, it seems that voter registration has not resulted in higher voting rates, raising the question as to the worth of the Effort. We all need to do what makes us feel productive, especially to oust the Bush Crowd, but the article raises an important question:
At the same time, Motor Voter’s legacy might give pause. Apparently, motor voters don’t necessarily trend Democratic so much as apathetic. Since the law’s passage, registration is up, but voting isn’t- and the Census Bureau found that, strangely enough, fewer people said they were registered in 1996, three years after Motor Voter went into effect, than in 1992, the year before. As Wattenberg writes in his book “Where Have All the Voters Gone?” (2002), “The Motor Voter procedures apparently made registering so easy that many forgot that their names were on the voting ledgers.” www.boston.com (pay)
…seems that an equal effort needs to be expended to make sure those registrants actually vote.
Bush Gets a Lawyer:
Its import was dismissed by the White House, but consider:
Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name
Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.
Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
The move suggests the president anticipates being questioned by prosecutors. Sources say grand jury witnesses have implicated the President and his top advisor, Karl Rove. http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_4629.shtml
” Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides”
”President George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind.” http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml
What’s Happening: Congo:
The latest- uranium- from the land that’s had more than its share of tragedy since 1961,
President Joseph Kabila ordered the zone closed three months ago amid growing concerns that unregulated nuclear materials could get into the hands of so-called rogue nations or terrorist groups. Yet 1,000 miles away from the capital, Kinshasa, thousands of diggers are still hacking away at a dark cavity of open earth in this southeastern village, filling thousands of burlap sacks a day with black soil rich in cobalt, copper and radioactive uranium.
The illegal mining provides stark evidence of how little control Africa's third-largest nation has over its own nuclear resources, highlighting the government's weak authority beyond the capital in the aftermath of Congo's devastating 1998-2002 war.
"They're digging as fast as they can dig, and everyone is buying it," John Skinner, a mining engineer in the nearby town of Likasi, said of the illegal freelance mining at Shinkolobwe. "The problem is that nobody knows where it's all going. There is no control."
The raw uranium is an inadvertent addition to the miners' real prize high-grade cobalt in lucrative concentrations and there is no evidence Congo's uranium is being spirited away to terrorists. The United States, which pressured Kabila to close the mine out of concern over the uranium, said in March it did not believe there was any "worrisome movement" of the radioactive ore at Shinkolobwe.
But some proliferation experts worry because the digging is uncontrolled, and they caution that even small amounts should be tracked for misuse. http://printerfriendly.abcnews.com/printerfriendly/Print?fetchFromGLUE=true&GLUEService=ABCNewsCom
-R
"I wake up thinking about the astonishing amount of harm these people have done to our national interest on every level, and it takes a tremendous act of will not to write about it every day."- Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury)
Fahrenheit 9/11
The trailer for the Michael Moore movie: http://www.fahrenheit911.com/trailer/windows/medium.php
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Chalabi: Iranian agent? Dupe? Fall Guy?
Did the Iranians set him up, part of their masterful manipulation of the Administration, or is Chalabi the Master (less likely).
The basics:
Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials…
The F.B.I. has opened an espionage investigation seeking to determine exactly what information Mr. Chalabi turned over to the Iranians as well as who told Mr. Chalabi that the Iranian code had been broken, government officials said. The inquiry, still in an early phase, is focused on a very small number of people who were close to Mr. Chalabi and also had access to the highly restricted information about the Iran code. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/02/politics/02CHAL.html?hp
Truthout’s William Rivers Pitt:
It is difficult to imagine a worse situation for the Bush administration than what is currently unfolding. Chalabi is completely the creation of those running the White House and the Pentagon. This is widely known. If it is true that, as they were anointing Chalabi, he was funneling Iranian disinformation straight to the highest levels of our government, who subsequently gave him intelligence data which he handed over to Iran...if this is indeed true, it is a disaster of millennial proportions for the administration. It reveals this White House to be saps, played like violins by Iran in a masterful intelligence operation that removed a long-time enemy of Tehran while setting the stage for a fundamentalist Shia regime in Iraq that would become a boon ally. How any aspect of this helps George W. Bush and his crew is hard to see. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/060104A.shtml
Bush and Chalabi: Pulling a Kenny Boy
Chronic liars have an advantage: Many of us can’t believe that they ‘lie as they breathe’, so we give them the benefit of our doubts. Bush and Co. don’t deserve such generosity.
Recall his bragging about his long affiliation with supporter Kenneth Lay of Enron, then after Lay’s downfall, Bush claimed that Lay was a (Gov) Richards supporter when he opposed her in the ’94 Texas election. As Reagan used to say, (to Carter), ‘there you go again.’
THE PRESIDENT: Chalabi?
Q Yes, with Chalabi.
THE PRESIDENT: My meetings with him were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him.
Then there was Bush last February, on Meet The Press (emphasis added):
Russert: If the Iraqis choose, however, an Islamic extremist regime, would you accept that, and would that be better for the United States than Saddam Hussein?
President Bush: They're not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I'm very aware of this basic law they're writing. They're not going to develop that because right here in the Oval Office I sat down with Mr. Pachachi and Chalabi and al-Hakim, people from different parts of the country that have made the firm commitment, that they want a constitution eventually written that recognizes minority rights and freedom of religion.
Finally, this entry, from the US Embassy web site:
President Bush says he had a "good talk" for about 30 minutes November 27 with four members of Iraq's Governing Council at Baghdad International Airport, following his surprise meeting with U.S. troops there.
Briefing the White House press pool accompanying him on Air Force One as he returned to the United States after the two-and-one-half-hour stop in Baghdad, Bush said he and L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, met with Jalal Talibani, the current president of the council, Raja Habib Khuzaii, Ahmed Chalabi, and Mowaffak Rubaie. http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20031201-07.html
Speaking of lies, recall the anti-French sentiment of 2002-2003:
American anger at France over its refusal to support war in Iraq reached new heights yesterday when President George Bush took a direct swipe at President Chirac.
"I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch any time soon," was Mr Bush's tart comment in an interview with NBC News, when asked about Jacques Chirac – a reference to the informal summits Mr Bush likes to hold with favored foreign leaders at his cherished retreat in Crawford, Texas. Many in his administration – by implication, himself among them – had the impression "that the French position was anti-American", the President said.
...
In Paris, one French official was told by a White House official that "I have instructions to tell you our relations have been degraded", while senior Bush aides met on Monday to decide on the nature of the punishment.
The likely sanctions will include steps to marginalize France within Nato, and efforts to downgrade or even bar French participation in US- sponsored international meetings http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0426-06.htm
Alas, reality has been altered:
"I've never been angry at the French. France has been a longtime ally."
Asked whether that meant that he would invite Mr. Chirac to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., Mr. Bush replied, "If he wants to come and see cows, he's welcome to come out here and see some cows."
This time, he has Chirac’s help, as the NY Times explains:
Privately, the two men are said to believe that they have no choice except to bury their mutual anger over Iraq, find areas of agreement and move on. Mr. Bush needs the help of the Europeans, both in rebuilding Iraq and in remaking his image during the election campaign as a president who has not alienated some of America's most important allies.
Mr. Chirac has told some European counterparts in recent weeks that Mr. Bush and his aides refuse to listen to anyone and has harshly criticized the administration's handling of the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians. But he is well aware that Mr. Bush may be re-elected and that they may have to coexist for another four years. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/international/europe/03FRAN.html
Chalmers Johnson asks:
Please tell us more about your notion of "full sovereignty" for Iraq. Will this be like our returning Okinawan sovereignty to Japan in 1972, when we retained exclusive control over the 38 military bases on the island and the deployment and behavior of American forces on them?
Please tell us: If we plan to return Iraq to the Iraqis, why is the U.S. currently building fourteen permanent bases there? http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1468
Our Withdrawal from Fallujah (and other cities) as seen by the Independent:
US marines pulled out last month and an Iraqi security force hastily formed from Saddam Hussein's old army moved in. The fighting was over as abruptly as it had begun, with US commanders lauding the peace deal.
"It's an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem," said a marine general optimistically. Fallujah has since become a model for dealing with the Shia uprising in the south.
But few on the ground share such optimism. There may be peace, but officers say Fallujah has simply been handed over to the insurgents.
A US officer said: "All we've succeeded in doing is paying off the mujahideen to stop shooting at us. There's a cauldron of hate out there and its going to boil over." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/03/wirq03.xml&site=5
And, re Allawi’s reign:
The appointment of Iyad Allawi as Iraq's interim Prime Minister this weekend was being seen as an American-backed coup which wrong-footed Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy supposed to be putting together the interim government which will wield "sovereignty" after 30 June.
The more that is learnt, however, about the sudden emergence of Mr Allawi, a man close to the CIA and MI6, the more it appears the appointment of the new government has been hijacked by the ambitious politicians of the Iraqi Governing Council - the very body it was meant to replace. The only question is whom the IGC was conspiring with as its members picked jobs for themselves.
But whatever the answer, the appointment of Mr Allawi is the culmination of a series of spectacular U-turns that has given President George Bush and his administration the appearance of lurching in a panic from one flawed policy on Iraq to the next. Since last November every decision seems to have been taken with an eye to one political event alone: Mr Bush's bid for re-election this November http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=526332
More signs of Chaos
As the US spends billions to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, there is increasing evidence that sensitive military equipment, apparently new components for oil rigs and water plants and even entire buildings are being plundered from the country. In what some experts call a massive looting operation, at least 100 semi-trailers loaded with what is billed as scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, one of six countries that share a border with Iraq ...
"There is a gigantic salvage operation, stripping anything of perceived value out of the country," said John Hamre, president and chief executive of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, which sent a team to Iraq and issued a report on reconstruction efforts at the request of the Pentagon last July. "This is systematically plundering the country," Mr Hamre said. http://www.theage.com.au/
Tenet’s Exit:
A CIA chief does the President’s bidding; Tenet was loyal and helpful, frequently taking the blame, though he couldn’t have been pleased with the ongoing pressure exerted on the Agency to supply ‘fitting’ intelligence.
Voter Registration: Is it Worthwhile?
Looking back to last Sunday’s Boston Globe article on the subject, it seems that voter registration has not resulted in higher voting rates, raising the question as to the worth of the Effort. We all need to do what makes us feel productive, especially to oust the Bush Crowd, but the article raises an important question:
At the same time, Motor Voter’s legacy might give pause. Apparently, motor voters don’t necessarily trend Democratic so much as apathetic. Since the law’s passage, registration is up, but voting isn’t- and the Census Bureau found that, strangely enough, fewer people said they were registered in 1996, three years after Motor Voter went into effect, than in 1992, the year before. As Wattenberg writes in his book “Where Have All the Voters Gone?” (2002), “The Motor Voter procedures apparently made registering so easy that many forgot that their names were on the voting ledgers.” www.boston.com (pay)
…seems that an equal effort needs to be expended to make sure those registrants actually vote.
Bush Gets a Lawyer:
Its import was dismissed by the White House, but consider:
Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name
Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.
Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
The move suggests the president anticipates being questioned by prosecutors. Sources say grand jury witnesses have implicated the President and his top advisor, Karl Rove. http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_4629.shtml
” Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides”
”President George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind.” http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml
What’s Happening: Congo:
The latest- uranium- from the land that’s had more than its share of tragedy since 1961,
President Joseph Kabila ordered the zone closed three months ago amid growing concerns that unregulated nuclear materials could get into the hands of so-called rogue nations or terrorist groups. Yet 1,000 miles away from the capital, Kinshasa, thousands of diggers are still hacking away at a dark cavity of open earth in this southeastern village, filling thousands of burlap sacks a day with black soil rich in cobalt, copper and radioactive uranium.
The illegal mining provides stark evidence of how little control Africa's third-largest nation has over its own nuclear resources, highlighting the government's weak authority beyond the capital in the aftermath of Congo's devastating 1998-2002 war.
"They're digging as fast as they can dig, and everyone is buying it," John Skinner, a mining engineer in the nearby town of Likasi, said of the illegal freelance mining at Shinkolobwe. "The problem is that nobody knows where it's all going. There is no control."
The raw uranium is an inadvertent addition to the miners' real prize high-grade cobalt in lucrative concentrations and there is no evidence Congo's uranium is being spirited away to terrorists. The United States, which pressured Kabila to close the mine out of concern over the uranium, said in March it did not believe there was any "worrisome movement" of the radioactive ore at Shinkolobwe.
But some proliferation experts worry because the digging is uncontrolled, and they caution that even small amounts should be tracked for misuse. http://printerfriendly.abcnews.com/printerfriendly/Print?fetchFromGLUE=true&GLUEService=ABCNewsCom
-R
