Monday, September 06, 2004
The Commissions
No tyrannical father presiding over an intimidated household was ever tiptoed around with greater caution than is the figure of President George W. Bush in the Senate Intelligence Committee's fat report of its investigation into the scary stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction cited by the President as all the justification he needed for going to war in Iraq. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17413
So begins Thomas Powers’ review essay on the Senate Intelligence Commission. Indeed, both Commissions wound up tiptoeing around Bush- not out of politeness, but due to ‘power considerations.’ Powers helps us address our current predicament: The Bush misdeeds have been so numerous, so dire, that the public denies and the opponents and the media cringe from making basic criticisms, such as ‘You’re destroying the environment; You lied us into a catastrophic war. You don’t deserve re-election; in fact, you should be impeached.’
Powers lays out what the Commission found to be the ‘errors’:
The basic sin came in many varieties—ignoring evidence, misrepresenting evidence, exaggerating evidence, overstating the evidence, going beyond the evidence, interpreting some evidence as strong when it was weak, sometimes even reaching conclusions without any real evidence at all. The report reaches 117 separate conclusions about the October 2002 NIE and other matters relating to prewar intelligence about Iraq, and it is fair to say that almost every one contains a more or less stinging rebuke of the CIA. The report does not say, but unmistakably implies with persuasive detail, that the exaggerations, overstatements, and misreadings of the CIA's estimate writers all fail in one direction—describing Iraq as more dangerous than it really was.
But, he reasons, you can’t ask the CIA to stand up to its boss, the President.
Asking CIA analysts if they have been cooking the books while their bosses sit in the room reminds me of those well-meaning Western lefties who paid visits in the 1930s to prisoners in the Soviet gulag and returned with assurances that the prisoners all agreed the food was great and they were getting plenty of outdoor exercise. Understanding how the CIA came up with its "high confidence" NIE requires the Senate to connect the dots, but it shouldn't be hard. There are only two—the White House and the CIA. Which way does the committee think the influence runs? But the Senate Intelligence Committee has declined to hazard a guess on this point, and its careful wording amounts at best to a Scotch verdict—not proven. But the rest of the report, with its numerous examples and close analysis of evidence used to build a case for war, raises troubling questions about the CIA's ability to dig in its heels when a president insists that a grab bag of ambiguous information is all he needs to prove a "gathering threat" or a "growing danger."
Where does that leave us? He notes the limits for this and other committees and poses the basic question:
Perhaps holding presidents accountable is more than any commission or Senate committee can fairly be asked to do; perhaps only the electorate can properly hold a president accountable. We shall see…
But the failure to act before September 11 and the unnecessary war with Iraq cannot fairly be blamed on intelligence organizations or anyone else. The White House is the problem, not for the first time. Iraq is President Bush's war. He insisted on it, and nothing can save us from the same again until we find the will to hold the President responsible.
Indeed, we shall see. Some backbone, please, Mr. Kerry?!
9/11 Commission. Another superb essay, this from veteran Washington observer Elizabeth Drew on the Administration’s interference with the 9/11 Commission.
We know about the non-cooperation, Bush refusing to testify under oath and only with Cheney present, etc. They also sought to browbeat the Commission, seeking to reshape the conclusions by taking out or inserting sentences/paragraphs. It’s a withering indictment, yet Drew, like others, lists her observations, but avoids the obvious conclusions as to the Administration’s behavior.
The administration fought the commission at nearly every turn—at first denying it sufficient funds, then opposing an extension of time, refusing it documents, trying to prevent Condoleezza Rice from testifying in public. The White House, in a preemptive move, told the commission that Bush would not testify under oath, and insisted that he appear along with Vice President Cheney. The main partisan division within the commission, I was told, was over how hard to press the White House for information that it was holding back. In its effort to achieve a unanimous, bipartisan report, the commission decided not to assign "individual blame" and avoided overt criticism of the President himself. Still, the report is a powerful indictment of the Bush administration for its behavior before and after the attacks of September 11.
In fact, the commission gives a devastating picture of the chaos within the Bush administration on the morning of the attacks, when the President famously remained in the Florida classroom for some five to seven minutes (according to the report) after learning of the second attack on the World Trade Center. But this is just one of several examples that morning of questionable judgment on the part of the President, as well as of the officials traveling with him, including his chief of staff, Andrew Card, and his political mentor, Karl Rove. Bush told the commission that he attributed the first crash, which he learned of before he entered the school classroom, to "pilot error," but this seems strange, since it is unlikely that a pilot would accidentally stray into a very tall, prominent building in a highly controlled air space on a clear autumn day. Subtly but damningly, the report makes it clear that after Bush left the classroom, "the focus was on the President's statement to the nation"—his "message"—rather than on taking charge of the nation's response to the attacks.
The White House, I was told, pressed for two things about these hours to be included in the final report. First, it wanted the commission to publish Bush's statement, as it did, that he remained in the classroom because he "felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening"—though the fact that a calamity had taken place wasn't exactly a secret. Second, the White House wanted the report to include Libby's description of Cheney's very quick decision—"in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing"—that United Flight 93, which was believed to be headed toward Washington, should be shot down. Some commissioners found this description hardly flattering, but at the Republicans' insistence it remained in the final report.
The White House was apparently so upset by the staff report's account of Cheney's deciding on his own to give the order to shoot down the planes that it overlooked the statement in another staff report, presented at the same time, that though there had been "contacts" between Iraq and al-Qaeda—involving al-Qaeda representatives seeking help from Iraq but not receiving it—"they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."
Once it received prominent attention in the press, this clear contradiction of one of the administration's principal arguments for going to war— which had been repeated only two days earlier by Cheney—could not be left unchallenged by the White House. Bush said that the staff report validated his claims of "ties" between Saddam and al-Qaeda. In a television interview the day after the staff report was published, Cheney attacked the press for reporting accurately what the commission had said. (One commissioner, Jim Thompson, made similar comments on Bill O'Reilly's show.) In the final report, the commission said there had been no "collaborative operational relationship." One commissioner told me the word "operational" was added for clarity; another said that it was intended to underscore the fact that Bush's and Cheney's assertions were wrong. In announcing on August 2 his proposals for acting on the commission's recommendations, Bush, ignoring the language of the report, repeated his vague claim that Saddam Hussein "had terrorist ties." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17390
Kerry Follow-up?
The question is whether his midnight (tepid) speech marked a beginning of trying to win. The more sagacious pundits noted that his first opportunity would come Friday morning at 8:31AM when mediocre job stats were to be released. Indeed, the fact that less jobs were created (144,000) than are necessary to even keep up with population growth (150,000) was such an opportunity. He and his fellow Dems were hardly deafening. The media followed, as they basically only compared the figure to what economists had predicted (150,000). Then, he Kerry off Sunday… for his daughter’s birthday. Sweet, but sends a bad signal to his supporters.
Beyond Michael Moore: Bob Graham addresses the Saudi issue
So, now, retiring Sen. Bob Graham’s book, noted in the Miami Herald. Elsewhere? Anyone screaming about this?
Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm
California I: ‘Whatever it Takes’: We tend to frown on conspiratorial thoughts. But, the other way to look at it: the well-organized Republican Right will do, as the Bush text last week often noted, “whatever it takes” to hold power. So, in that vein, we should bear witness to stories such as the following:
In California the Republican governor has frozen election funds that would
normally be used "to train poll workers, educate voters or adequately monitor electronic voting systems." http://www.smdailyjournal.org/article.cfm?issue=09-02-04&storyID=34419
California, II: Arnold and Corporate America (cont.)
AP Exclusive: Chevron Influenced Schwarzenegger Reorganization Plan, Made Large Contributions
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious plan to reorganize almost every aspect of state government was influenced significantly by oil and gas giant ChevronTexaco Corp., which managed to shape such key recommendations as the removal of restrictions on oil refineries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040903/schwarzenegger_chevron_6.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: “Insurgents” of various stripes are all over the country, i.e. it’s a country-wide “insurgency” that leaves our troops in enclaves from which they periodically emerge to attack, aside from relying on bombing.
Over the past few months, insurgents in Samarra have deposed the U.S.-picked leaders and put to death people suspected of collaborating with them, making the northern Iraqi city the latest no-go zone for Iraqi and American troops. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20040903/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_rebel_territory
Casualties: Worst yet: Not the sense we’ve gotten from the Conventions and the Media. And, the article below was written before 7 were announced as killed on Monday.
About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas
U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62425-2004Sep4.html
But, of course, in our 1984 world these casualties prove the Administration to be “successful, on the right track, etc.”, for it means that “we’re fighting the terrorists over there instead of over here.”
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: Not improving. From the BBC:
A top election observer body has said Afghanistan's security situation makes it impossible to monitor its first-ever polls, due in October.
In a report obtained by the BBC, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said it was not safe for "meaningful" monitoring.
The OSCE added that examining the elections too closely at this stage could actually undermine the process.
It also appears there will be few other monitors to fill the gap. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3617790.stm
What’s Happening, Australia: Docs protest the Invasion Lies:
Fifty-six of the nation's most eminent doctors will today drag Iraq back onto the election stage with an open letter accusing the Government of taking Australia to war on "false and misleading" grounds.
They will call on an incoming Howard or Latham government to make amends for a policy they see as immoral and a "tragic mistake", and for a war still killing and injuring Iraqis without an end in sight http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/04/1094234080677.html
Media Distort Jobs Report:
What else is new? As is well known, and as was noted above, the economy must produce 150,000 jobs each and every month, or on average, to keep up with population growth. August produced 144,000 in a recovery phase; that is not good economic news. But, CNN thought otherwise.
The report could give a lift to the Bush campaign, coming just hours after the Republicans renominated him. The president and his advisers like to point to the nearly 1.7 million jobs created since August 2003.
But the Kerry campaign notes that despite the recent job gains, the economy has still lost 1 million jobs since Bush took office in early 2001, meaning Bush is likely to become the first president since the Depression era's Herbert Hoover to complete his term with an overall drop in U.S. payrolls.
Roger Altman, senior economic advisor to Kerry, told CNNfn that even with the most recent gain, the administration's job performance has been weak.
"You need about 150,000 new jobs a month to keep even with growth in population," he said. "Taken in proper context, it's just not a very good record." http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/03/news/economy/jobless_august/index.htm?cnn=yes
Will SOMEONE in the media do the math? If each month should produce 150000 jobs, then Bush is not merely “minus 900,000 jobs”, but rather is almost 8 million behind where we’d hope to be.
-R
No tyrannical father presiding over an intimidated household was ever tiptoed around with greater caution than is the figure of President George W. Bush in the Senate Intelligence Committee's fat report of its investigation into the scary stories about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction cited by the President as all the justification he needed for going to war in Iraq. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17413
So begins Thomas Powers’ review essay on the Senate Intelligence Commission. Indeed, both Commissions wound up tiptoeing around Bush- not out of politeness, but due to ‘power considerations.’ Powers helps us address our current predicament: The Bush misdeeds have been so numerous, so dire, that the public denies and the opponents and the media cringe from making basic criticisms, such as ‘You’re destroying the environment; You lied us into a catastrophic war. You don’t deserve re-election; in fact, you should be impeached.’
Powers lays out what the Commission found to be the ‘errors’:
The basic sin came in many varieties—ignoring evidence, misrepresenting evidence, exaggerating evidence, overstating the evidence, going beyond the evidence, interpreting some evidence as strong when it was weak, sometimes even reaching conclusions without any real evidence at all. The report reaches 117 separate conclusions about the October 2002 NIE and other matters relating to prewar intelligence about Iraq, and it is fair to say that almost every one contains a more or less stinging rebuke of the CIA. The report does not say, but unmistakably implies with persuasive detail, that the exaggerations, overstatements, and misreadings of the CIA's estimate writers all fail in one direction—describing Iraq as more dangerous than it really was.
But, he reasons, you can’t ask the CIA to stand up to its boss, the President.
Asking CIA analysts if they have been cooking the books while their bosses sit in the room reminds me of those well-meaning Western lefties who paid visits in the 1930s to prisoners in the Soviet gulag and returned with assurances that the prisoners all agreed the food was great and they were getting plenty of outdoor exercise. Understanding how the CIA came up with its "high confidence" NIE requires the Senate to connect the dots, but it shouldn't be hard. There are only two—the White House and the CIA. Which way does the committee think the influence runs? But the Senate Intelligence Committee has declined to hazard a guess on this point, and its careful wording amounts at best to a Scotch verdict—not proven. But the rest of the report, with its numerous examples and close analysis of evidence used to build a case for war, raises troubling questions about the CIA's ability to dig in its heels when a president insists that a grab bag of ambiguous information is all he needs to prove a "gathering threat" or a "growing danger."
Where does that leave us? He notes the limits for this and other committees and poses the basic question:
Perhaps holding presidents accountable is more than any commission or Senate committee can fairly be asked to do; perhaps only the electorate can properly hold a president accountable. We shall see…
But the failure to act before September 11 and the unnecessary war with Iraq cannot fairly be blamed on intelligence organizations or anyone else. The White House is the problem, not for the first time. Iraq is President Bush's war. He insisted on it, and nothing can save us from the same again until we find the will to hold the President responsible.
Indeed, we shall see. Some backbone, please, Mr. Kerry?!
9/11 Commission. Another superb essay, this from veteran Washington observer Elizabeth Drew on the Administration’s interference with the 9/11 Commission.
We know about the non-cooperation, Bush refusing to testify under oath and only with Cheney present, etc. They also sought to browbeat the Commission, seeking to reshape the conclusions by taking out or inserting sentences/paragraphs. It’s a withering indictment, yet Drew, like others, lists her observations, but avoids the obvious conclusions as to the Administration’s behavior.
The administration fought the commission at nearly every turn—at first denying it sufficient funds, then opposing an extension of time, refusing it documents, trying to prevent Condoleezza Rice from testifying in public. The White House, in a preemptive move, told the commission that Bush would not testify under oath, and insisted that he appear along with Vice President Cheney. The main partisan division within the commission, I was told, was over how hard to press the White House for information that it was holding back. In its effort to achieve a unanimous, bipartisan report, the commission decided not to assign "individual blame" and avoided overt criticism of the President himself. Still, the report is a powerful indictment of the Bush administration for its behavior before and after the attacks of September 11.
In fact, the commission gives a devastating picture of the chaos within the Bush administration on the morning of the attacks, when the President famously remained in the Florida classroom for some five to seven minutes (according to the report) after learning of the second attack on the World Trade Center. But this is just one of several examples that morning of questionable judgment on the part of the President, as well as of the officials traveling with him, including his chief of staff, Andrew Card, and his political mentor, Karl Rove. Bush told the commission that he attributed the first crash, which he learned of before he entered the school classroom, to "pilot error," but this seems strange, since it is unlikely that a pilot would accidentally stray into a very tall, prominent building in a highly controlled air space on a clear autumn day. Subtly but damningly, the report makes it clear that after Bush left the classroom, "the focus was on the President's statement to the nation"—his "message"—rather than on taking charge of the nation's response to the attacks.
The White House, I was told, pressed for two things about these hours to be included in the final report. First, it wanted the commission to publish Bush's statement, as it did, that he remained in the classroom because he "felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening"—though the fact that a calamity had taken place wasn't exactly a secret. Second, the White House wanted the report to include Libby's description of Cheney's very quick decision—"in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing"—that United Flight 93, which was believed to be headed toward Washington, should be shot down. Some commissioners found this description hardly flattering, but at the Republicans' insistence it remained in the final report.
The White House was apparently so upset by the staff report's account of Cheney's deciding on his own to give the order to shoot down the planes that it overlooked the statement in another staff report, presented at the same time, that though there had been "contacts" between Iraq and al-Qaeda—involving al-Qaeda representatives seeking help from Iraq but not receiving it—"they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."
Once it received prominent attention in the press, this clear contradiction of one of the administration's principal arguments for going to war— which had been repeated only two days earlier by Cheney—could not be left unchallenged by the White House. Bush said that the staff report validated his claims of "ties" between Saddam and al-Qaeda. In a television interview the day after the staff report was published, Cheney attacked the press for reporting accurately what the commission had said. (One commissioner, Jim Thompson, made similar comments on Bill O'Reilly's show.) In the final report, the commission said there had been no "collaborative operational relationship." One commissioner told me the word "operational" was added for clarity; another said that it was intended to underscore the fact that Bush's and Cheney's assertions were wrong. In announcing on August 2 his proposals for acting on the commission's recommendations, Bush, ignoring the language of the report, repeated his vague claim that Saddam Hussein "had terrorist ties." http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17390
Kerry Follow-up?
The question is whether his midnight (tepid) speech marked a beginning of trying to win. The more sagacious pundits noted that his first opportunity would come Friday morning at 8:31AM when mediocre job stats were to be released. Indeed, the fact that less jobs were created (144,000) than are necessary to even keep up with population growth (150,000) was such an opportunity. He and his fellow Dems were hardly deafening. The media followed, as they basically only compared the figure to what economists had predicted (150,000). Then, he Kerry off Sunday… for his daughter’s birthday. Sweet, but sends a bad signal to his supporters.
Beyond Michael Moore: Bob Graham addresses the Saudi issue
So, now, retiring Sen. Bob Graham’s book, noted in the Miami Herald. Elsewhere? Anyone screaming about this?
Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm
California I: ‘Whatever it Takes’: We tend to frown on conspiratorial thoughts. But, the other way to look at it: the well-organized Republican Right will do, as the Bush text last week often noted, “whatever it takes” to hold power. So, in that vein, we should bear witness to stories such as the following:
In California the Republican governor has frozen election funds that would
normally be used "to train poll workers, educate voters or adequately monitor electronic voting systems." http://www.smdailyjournal.org/article.cfm?issue=09-02-04&storyID=34419
California, II: Arnold and Corporate America (cont.)
AP Exclusive: Chevron Influenced Schwarzenegger Reorganization Plan, Made Large Contributions
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious plan to reorganize almost every aspect of state government was influenced significantly by oil and gas giant ChevronTexaco Corp., which managed to shape such key recommendations as the removal of restrictions on oil refineries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040903/schwarzenegger_chevron_6.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: “Insurgents” of various stripes are all over the country, i.e. it’s a country-wide “insurgency” that leaves our troops in enclaves from which they periodically emerge to attack, aside from relying on bombing.
Over the past few months, insurgents in Samarra have deposed the U.S.-picked leaders and put to death people suspected of collaborating with them, making the northern Iraqi city the latest no-go zone for Iraqi and American troops. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20040903/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_rebel_territory
Casualties: Worst yet: Not the sense we’ve gotten from the Conventions and the Media. And, the article below was written before 7 were announced as killed on Monday.
About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas
U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62425-2004Sep4.html
But, of course, in our 1984 world these casualties prove the Administration to be “successful, on the right track, etc.”, for it means that “we’re fighting the terrorists over there instead of over here.”
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: Not improving. From the BBC:
A top election observer body has said Afghanistan's security situation makes it impossible to monitor its first-ever polls, due in October.
In a report obtained by the BBC, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said it was not safe for "meaningful" monitoring.
The OSCE added that examining the elections too closely at this stage could actually undermine the process.
It also appears there will be few other monitors to fill the gap. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3617790.stm
What’s Happening, Australia: Docs protest the Invasion Lies:
Fifty-six of the nation's most eminent doctors will today drag Iraq back onto the election stage with an open letter accusing the Government of taking Australia to war on "false and misleading" grounds.
They will call on an incoming Howard or Latham government to make amends for a policy they see as immoral and a "tragic mistake", and for a war still killing and injuring Iraqis without an end in sight http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/04/1094234080677.html
Media Distort Jobs Report:
What else is new? As is well known, and as was noted above, the economy must produce 150,000 jobs each and every month, or on average, to keep up with population growth. August produced 144,000 in a recovery phase; that is not good economic news. But, CNN thought otherwise.
The report could give a lift to the Bush campaign, coming just hours after the Republicans renominated him. The president and his advisers like to point to the nearly 1.7 million jobs created since August 2003.
But the Kerry campaign notes that despite the recent job gains, the economy has still lost 1 million jobs since Bush took office in early 2001, meaning Bush is likely to become the first president since the Depression era's Herbert Hoover to complete his term with an overall drop in U.S. payrolls.
Roger Altman, senior economic advisor to Kerry, told CNNfn that even with the most recent gain, the administration's job performance has been weak.
"You need about 150,000 new jobs a month to keep even with growth in population," he said. "Taken in proper context, it's just not a very good record." http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/03/news/economy/jobless_august/index.htm?cnn=yes
Will SOMEONE in the media do the math? If each month should produce 150000 jobs, then Bush is not merely “minus 900,000 jobs”, but rather is almost 8 million behind where we’d hope to be.
-R
