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Latest spin: Iraq secretly destroyed WMD's.
"Dayton, who will head a new team of more than 1,400 experts to search for proscribed weapons, said in a press briefing on Friday that it was possible that Iraq “deliberately misled” US intelligence agencies, making them think that weapons were being produced and deployed even as they were secretly being destroyed."
Makes sense. The "evil" Iraqis were secretly producing WMD's while the "good" Iraqis were secretly destroying them as they were produced. And we simply went to war to confirm this.
POETIC LICENCE: US intelligence hoax hits the fan
Kaleem Omar
Failure to find banned weapons is becoming an increasing embarrassment for the Bush administration, with several influential lawmakers saying on Friday that they believe the White House had hyped the Iraq threat
The Bush administration should have heeded Mark Twain’s advice: “When in doubt, speak the truth.” But it didn’t, and thought it could fool people into believing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, had links to Al Qaeda and was even involved in the 9/11 attacks on the US. This, of course, was rubbish, tripe of the highest order, as many of us had been saying for months. The truth, however, will out sooner or later. And the expletive deleted has finally hit the fan.
On Friday the ranking Democrat on the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee warned that President Bush’s contention that America went to war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to rid the country of hidden biological and chemical weapons “could be the greatest intelligence hoax” of all time. And it’s not only Democrats that are saying this. So are Intelligence Committee members from Bush’s own Republican Party.
Representative Jane Harman, Democrat-Ranco Palos Verdes (Los Angeles County), has sent a letter, along with Representative Porter Goss, Republican-Florida, the Intelligence Committee chairman, to CIA Director George Tenet asking him to explain what “intelligence” led spy agencies to believe Iraq had stocks of the banned weapons or that Al Qaeda operated on Iraqi territory.
“US credibility is at stake,” Harman told reporters on Friday. “Especially if there is an interest in another military adventure, we need the facts.”
The congresswoman said intelligence briefings about weapons of mass destruction she received in the committee were a major reason why she had voted for last October’s war resolution in the House of Representatives.
The underlying implication was that had it not been for such briefings, Harman might well have voted against the resolution. The same could probably be said of other US lawmakers, many of whom must now be thinking they were conned into voting for the war resolution.
To add to the Bush administration’s embarrassment, the top US Marine commander in Iraq said on Friday that US intelligence was “simply wrong” in its assessment that Saddam Hussein intended to unleash biological or chemical weapons against America forces during the war.
“It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons,” Lt. General James Conway, commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said from Baghdad in a teleconference with reporters in Washington.
“It’s not for want of trying,” he continued. “We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.”
Conway said, “What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood, or we certainly had our best guess, our most dangerous, our most likely courses of action that the intelligence folks were giving us. We were simply wrong.”
His comments are likely to further fuel concern in Washington that the prewar intelligence in Iraq was flawed at best and an outright lie at worst.
Amid the mounting criticism, CIA Director George Tenet took the unusual step of issuing a statement on Friday denying that the agency’s assessments on Iraq were politicised.
“Our role is to call it like we see it — to tell policymakers what we know, what we don’t know, what we think, and what we base it on,” Tenet said.
His remarks were intriguingly reminiscent of Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s comments at a Pentagon press briefing during the height of the war, when he observed, “There are things we know. There are things we don’t know. Then there are things we know we don’t know and things we don’t know we don’t know.”
Even this example of Rumsfeldian doublespeak pales into insignificance, however, compared to the spin that Major General Keith Dayton, the director of the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency’s human intelligence service, tried to put on the US’ failure to find any weapons of mass destruction.
Dayton, who will head a new team of more than 1,400 experts to search for proscribed weapons, said in a press briefing on Friday that it was possible that Iraq “deliberately misled” US intelligence agencies, making them think that weapons were being produced and deployed even as they were secretly being destroyed.
So now we are being asked to believe that Iraq wasn’t secretly producing weapons of mass destruction but secretly destroying them, though why on earth it should have wanted to resort to such subterfuge Dayton was unable to say.
In fact, the US’ failure to find even a shred of evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction only confirms what the Saddam Hussein regime had been saying all along in the months before the war — that it didn’t have any.
Failure to find banned weapons is becoming an increasing embarrassment for the Bush administration, with several influential lawmakers saying on Friday that they believe the White House had hyped the Iraq threat or was misled by the intelligence community.
No such doubts seemed to assail White House spokesman Ari Fleischer at a press briefing on May 29, when a reporter asked, “Is the President satisfied with the intelligence he got before the war? Because now one Cabinet officer is saying that they (the Iraqis) buried the weapons; another said they destroyed them; and another said they — what’s the President’s view on all this?”
Fleischer replied, “The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that is borne out by the fact that just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the two trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That’s proof perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target.”
Reporter: “We go to war for two trucks?” Fleischer: “I’m sorry?” Reporter: “You would go to war from the finding of two trucks?” Fleischer: “Well, I don’t think it’s anything to dismiss. Iraq had, contrary to their protestations to the United Nations, trucks for the purpose of producing biological weapons. They said they didn’t have them, they got caught — proof-perfect that they had them.”
This whole exchange sounds like a scene from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
But if there is already “proof-perfect” evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, would Fleischer, aka Ari, the evasive, care to explain why the Bush administration has now decided to send in a new team of more than 1,400 experts to search for evidence of such weapons?
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_2-6-2003_pg3_8
>>>Fewer people can own the media now?<<<
It's all coming together now. Fewer media owners means more FOX clones and more New York Posts. Elsewhere, public libraries are shut down and public schools are starved to death in favor of vouchers towards private (mostly Christian) schools. It would almost seem like an attempt by this administration to control the message to the general public but they wouldn't do that..?
>>>I object to public monies being used to educate people in a language other than English...<<<
Just curious, you see no advantage in being able to understand and communicate in various foreign languages for American military personnel, intelligence personnel, customs agents and law enforcement in general?
>>>The only surprising (disappointing) aspect of the invisible WMDs is the general public seems very content with not asking the admin more questions.<<<
Agree completely. This editorial sums it up nicely I think. It won't make you feel any better about it, but at least the editor is one of very few to speak frankly on a touchy subject.
"Sept. 11 rightly made us more cautious and more vigilant. But it also diminished us. We're less tolerant of dissent; less thoughtful about world issues; less concerned with principles of justice, fairness and equity; and -- to the apparent benefit of Bush's poll numbers -- less demanding of our political leaders.
It made us intellectually passive -- which frightens me much more than a hijacked airliner."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/5949241.htm
>>>dont know the data, only reporting what blair said<<<
I know. Sarcasm wasn't aimed at you.
>>>Blair says dont worry be happy WMD are already being found<<<
Those trailers? That find is already starting to look as explosive as the drums of roach spray and rat poison that turn up every other week.
"Intelligence analysts told reporters last week that the configuration of equipment in the trailers would not work efficiently as a biological production plant, is not a design used by anyone else and would not lead anyone to link the trailers intuitively with biological weapons."
June 1, 2003
The Bioweapons Enigma
President Bush may be convinced that two trailers found in Iraq were used as biological weapons labs, but the evidence is far from definitive. Referring to the two trailers in an interview with Polish television before he departed for Europe last week, Mr. Bush said the United States had found weapons of mass destruction and banned manufacturing devices in Iraq. Reports from the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency support that view, but they are based on inconclusive information.
Intelligence analysts told reporters last week that the configuration of equipment in the trailers would not work efficiently as a biological production plant, is not a design used by anyone else and would not lead anyone to link the trailers intuitively with biological weapons. The intelligence officials took all that as a sign that the Iraqis were ingeniously clever in trying to hide the true nature of what they were doing from international inspectors. But the uncertainties leave open the disquieting possibility that the trailers might not be what the intelligence agencies think they are. It seems increasingly imperative, as this page has argued before, to get an authoritative, unbiased assessment from the United Nations or some other independent body.
Intelligence officials say they are "highly confident" of their conclusions because of what they deem striking similarities between one of the trailers seized last month and a description provided three years ago by an Iraqi chemical engineer who is said to have managed a mobile weapons plant. Unfortunately, it is impossible for outsiders to judge the reliability of this source, whose information was described as "absolutely critical" to concluding that the trailers were biological warfare units.
No traces of biological agents have been detected so far in the trailers, and search teams have yet to find the additional trailers that would be needed to convert the slurry produced by these trailers into usable weapons. The technical analysis simply argues that the trailers could be used to produce a biological slurry and that no other plausible use can be identified that would justify the high cost and effort of mobile production. Officials dismiss Iraqi claims that the units were intended to produce hydrogen as an unlikely cover story but acknowledge that trace amounts of aluminum, a residue of hydrogen production, were detected, in amounts they deem too small to be significant.
In an environment in which the administration is under pressure to come up with evidence validating its prime justification for invading Iraq, these judgments are too subjective and conjectural to accept without further corroboration. Unless independent experts are given a chance to examine the trailers and all test results, a skeptical world is not apt to accept the findings.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company / Home / Privacy Policy / Search / Corrections / Help / Back to Top
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/01/opinion/01SUN2.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=
The noose is tightening. CIA and DIA officials fuming over White House's manipulation of Iraq intelligence data.
"The outrage among the intelligence professionals is so widespread that they have formed a group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, that wrote to President Bush this month to protest what it called "a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions."
May 30, 2003
Save Our Spooks
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
On Day 71 of the Hunt for Iraqi W.M.D., yesterday, once again nothing turned up.
Maybe we'll do better on Day 72. But we might have better luck searching for something just as alarming: the growing evidence that the administration grossly manipulated intelligence about those weapons of mass destruction in the runup to the Iraq war.
A column earlier this month on this issue drew a torrent of covert communications from indignant spooks who say that administration officials leaned on them to exaggerate the Iraqi threat and deceive the public.
"The American people were manipulated," bluntly declares one person from the Defense Intelligence Agency who says he was privy to all the intelligence there on Iraq. These people are coming forward because they are fiercely proud of the deepest ethic in the intelligence world — that such work should be nonpolitical — and are disgusted at efforts to turn them into propagandists.
"The Al Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons issue were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S.," notes Greg Thielmann, who retired in September after 25 years in the State Department, the last four in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "And the administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things."
The outrage among the intelligence professionals is so widespread that they have formed a group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, that wrote to President Bush this month to protest what it called "a policy and intelligence fiasco of monumental proportions."
"While there have been occasions in the past when intelligence has been deliberately warped for political purposes," the letter said,"never before has such warping been used in such a systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting to authorize launching a war."
Ray McGovern, a retired C.I.A. analyst who briefed President Bush's father in the White House in the 1980's, said that people in the agency were now "totally demoralized." He says, and others back him up, that the Pentagon took dubious accounts from émigrés close to Ahmad Chalabi and gave these tales credibility they did not deserve.
Intelligence analysts often speak of "humint" for human intelligence (spies) and "sigint" for signals intelligence (wiretaps). They refer contemptuously to recent work as "rumint," or rumor intelligence.
"I've never heard this level of alarm before," said Larry Johnson, who used to work in the C.I.A. and State Department. "It is a misuse and abuse of intelligence. The president was being misled. He was ill served by the folks who are supposed to protect him on this. Whether this was witting or unwitting, I don't know, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt."
Some say that top Pentagon officials cast about for the most sensational nuggets about Iraq and used them to bludgeon Colin Powell and seduce President Bush. The director of central intelligence, George Tenet, has been generally liked and respected within the agency ranks, but in the last year, particularly in the intelligence directorate, people say that he has kowtowed to Donald Rumsfeld and compromised the integrity of his own organization.
"We never felt that there was any leadership in the C.I.A. to qualify or put into context the information available," one veteran said. "Rather there was a tendency to feed the most alarming tidbits to the president. Often it's the most ill-considered information that goes to the president.
"So instead of giving the president the most considered, carefully examined information available, basically you give him the garbage. And then in a few days when it's clear that maybe it wasn't right, well then, you feed him some more hot garbage."
The C.I.A. is now examining its own record, and that's welcome. But the atmosphere within the intelligence community is so poisonous, and the stakes are so high — for the credibility of America's word and the soundness of information on which we base American foreign policy — that an outside examination is essential.
Congress must provide greater oversight, and President Bush should invite Brent Scowcroft, the head of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a man trusted by all sides, to lead an inquiry and, in a public report, suggest steps to restore integrity to America's intelligence agencies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/30/opinion/30KRIS.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2...
>>>Greenspan a Democrat? He was originally appointed by Reagan.<<<
"...and so did Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, in announcing that the lifelong Republican economist had accepted appointment to a fourth term."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june00/greenspan_1-4.html
Powell and Jack Straw had doubts about their own official WMD claims.
Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims
Secret transcript revealed
Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday May 31, 2003
The Guardian
Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.
Their deep concerns about the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5.
The meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source who has read a transcript of the conversation.
The foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being made by Mr Blair and President Bush could not be proved. The problem, explained Mr Straw, was the lack of corroborative evidence to back up the claims.
Much of the intelligence were assumptions and assessments not supported by hard facts or other sources.
Mr Powell shared the concern about intelligence assessments, especially those being presented by the Pentagon's office of special plans set up by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz.
Mr Powell said he had all but "moved in" with US intelligence to prepare his briefings for the UN security council, according to the transcripts.
But he told Mr Straw he had come away from the meetings "apprehensive" about what he called, at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favour of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence.
Mr Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not "explode in their faces".
What are called the "Waldorf transcripts" are being circulated in Nato diplomatic circles. It is not being revealed how the transcripts came to be made; however, they appear to have been leaked by diplomats who supported the war against Iraq even when the evidence about Saddam Hussein's programme of weapons of mass destruction was fuzzy, and who now believe they were lied to.
People circulating the transcripts call themselves "allied sources supportive of US war aims in Iraq at the time".
The transcripts will fuel the controversy in Britain and the US over claims that London and Washington distorted and exaggerated the intelligence assessments about Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme.
An unnamed intelligence official told the BBC on Thursday that a key claim in the dossier on Iraq's weapons released by the British government last September - that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of an order - was inserted on the instructions of officials in 10 Downing Street.
Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, admitted the claim was made by "a single source; it wasn't corroborated".
Speaking yesterday in Warsaw, the Polish capital, Mr Blair said the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in the dossier was "evidence the truth of which I have absolutely no doubt about at all".
He said he had consulted the heads of the security and intelligence services before emphatically denying that Downing Street had leaned on them to strengthen their assessment of the WMD threat in Iraq. He insisted he had "absolutely no doubt" that proof of banned weapons would eventually be found in Iraq. Whitehall sources make it clear they do not share the prime minister's optimism.
The Waldorf transcripts are all the more damaging given Mr Powell's dramatic 75-minute speech to the UN security council on February 5, when he presented declassified satellite images, and communications intercepts of what were purported to be conversations between Iraqi commanders, and held up a vial that, he said, could contain anthrax.
Evidence, he said, had come from "people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam is really up to".
Some of the intelligence used by Mr Powell was provided by Britain.
The US secretary of state, who was praised by Mr Straw as having made a "most powerful and authoritative case", also drew links between al-Qaida and Iraq - a connection dismissed by British intelligence agencies. His speech did not persuade France, Germany and Russia, who stuck to their previous insistence that the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq should be given more time to do their job.
The Waldorf meeting took place a few days after Downing Street presented Mr Powell with a separate dossier on Iraq's banned weapons which he used to try to strengthen the impact of his UN speech.
A few days later, Downing Street admitted that much of its dossier was lifted from academic sources and included a plagiarised section written by an American PhD student.
Mr Wolfowitz set up the Pentagon's office of special plans to counter what he and his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, considered inadequate - and unwelcome - intelligence from the CIA.
He angered critics of the war this week in a Vanity Fair magazine interview in which he cited "bureaucratic reasons" for the White House focusing on Iraq's alleged arsenal as the reason for the war. In reality, a "huge" reason for the conflict was to enable the US to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia, he said.
Earlier in the week, Mr Rumsfeld suggested that Saddam might have destroyed such weapons before the war.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,967548,00.html
>>>BnB, Was the intel info erroneous or a fabrication to justify war? If it is proven the Admin lied, Bush is a lame duck<<<
Been there, done that already and still has a 70% approval rating. As with everything else that makes this administration look bad, these stories disappeared like morning fog shortly after they surfaced.
"The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0927-08.htm
"There was only one problem with the documents. They were forgeries. After all the buildup, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, stepped in to tell the Security Council that the papers were bogus. "The IAEA has concluded," said its director-general, "with the concurrence of outside experts that these documents... are in fact not authentic."
The White House went virtually mute, as if the whole episode had never happened."
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0314/schanberg.php
"When President Bush traveled to the United Nations in September to make his case against Iraq, he brought along a rare piece of evidence for what he called Iraq's "continued appetite" for nuclear bombs. .......But according to government officials and weapons experts, the claim now appears to be seriously in doubt."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2003%2F01%2F24%2FMN163516.DTL
>>>So the next question is why. Why does the US have such a low voter turn out?<<<
One can only guess, but education surely plays a role. US students consistently bring up the rear on tests competing against foreign students. If you can't find your own country on a world map, you probably don't go out of your way to register to vote either. And then it's the overall culture. Our media no longer feels obligated to inform us of important events but concentrate instead on what produces the largest profit. As we keep noting here - we seem to get all the big political stories from the European press these days, and if it's not too embarrassing for Bush, our own media may cover it a week or two later and then typically in passing before going back to the latest murder circus.
>>>Voter turnout in western Europe is typically 80% or higher...<<<
It's fallen off a bit here and there but overall it's still way up there compared to "the greatest democracy on earth". All of Scandinavia is around 80% and look at Italy and Belgium.
http://www.idea.int/vt/index.cfm
>>>I wish the outrage in England would spread here.<<<
It will, but it's going to take time. Europe called the Bush/Blair bluff before the war even started so they're just building on what they knew all along. I suspect it takes Americans that much longer to catch on since they just don't care about politics and world events. Voter turnout in western Europe is typically 80% or higher where ours was 47% in the 2000 election. Which population would you rather try to deceive politically?
>>>British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Friday his government did not fabricate evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to justify the war on Iraq.<<<
Well, he can say that. Others see it differently:
Tom Happold and agencies
Thursday May 29, 2003
Downing Street doctored a dossier on Iraq's weapons programme to make it "sexier", according to a senior British official, who claims intelligence services were unhappy with the assertion that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were ready for use within 45 minutes.
Despite a No 10 denial that "not one word of the dossier was not entirely the work of the intelligence agencies," the revelations are likely to cloud Tony Blair's visit to Iraq today. Critics of the war are expected to claim that the document shows it was one of conquest, not pre-emptive self-defence or liberation.
It is understood that the parliamentary intelligence and security committee is set to launch an enquiry into the claims made by the government about Iraq. And the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, who resigned over his opposition to the war, last night called for a more independent select committee to investigate the matter.
The unnamed official told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Most people in intelligence weren't happy with the dossier because it didn't reflect the considered view they were putting forward."
Describing how it was "transformed" in the week before it was published to make it "sexier", he added: "The classic example was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes.
"That information was not in the original draft. It was included in the dossier against our wishes because it wasn't reliable. Most things in the dossier were double-source but that was single-source and we believe that the source was wrong."
The unnamed official was, however, keen to state that he believed Iraq did have WMD. "I believe it is about 30% likely that there was a chemical weapons programme about six months before the war and considerably more likely that there was a biological weapons programme," he said.
The 50-page document drew on intelligence material from MI6, MI5 and GCHQ and outlined Iraq's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and to develop long-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel or British bases in Cyprus. It claimed that Saddam Hussien did not regard his WMD as "weapons of last resort" but was ready use them against his enemies and own people.
The defence minister, Adam Ingram, today denied that Downing Street had ordered the doctoring of the dossier. "There was no pressure from No 10," he told the Today programme. "That allegation is not true."
But he did admit that the claim that WMD could be used within 45 minutes was based on a single source. "It wasn't corroborated. I think that has already been conceded."
Mr Ingram also refuted suggestions that the war had been prosecuted on the basis of fanciful and unsubstantiated allegations.
"The war was fought on the basis of all of the allegations, much of which was substantiated, not just by a security document produced by our security services, not concocted by No 10 or under pressure from No 10 to produce it in a particular way, but their best knowledge and their best assessment of what they could declare into the public domain, based upon the knowledge of what was out there."
"The whole world knew what Saddam Hussein was up to in terms of weapons of mass destruction. That's why we prosecuted that war. That's why we were right," he added.
And Mr Ingram echoed Mr Blair's claims yesterday about the doubtless "existence of weapons of mass destruction", saying that "extensive searching" was under way to find the weapons, while a wide range of Iraqis with knowledge of the programmes were being interrogated.
"The jigsaw is now beginning to come into place," he said.
The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, said today's claims "corroborated" rumours that the intelligence services were "generally unhappy" with the government's use of their information.
"What I think it demonstrates is that if you start to turn the intelligence into a means by which to achieve your political objective then of course it becomes propaganda and is no longer as reliable," he told Today.
Today's allegations follow US defence secretary Donald Rumfeld's comments yesterday that Saddam Hussien may have destroyed his weapons before the start of war and that . They also follow the revelation that part of the government's February document on Iraq's intelligence network was cut and pasted from a PhD student's dissertation.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,966208,00.html
>>>What else are we eventually going to learn?<<<
That the Jessica Lynch rescue spectacle keeps getting weirder.
"When asked about his daughter's memory, Greg Lynch said it "is as good as it was when she was home. She can still remember everything." But, he said, the family has not pressed her for details."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/South/05/29/lynch.family/index.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer29may29,1,3547347.column
>>>Do you actually believe everything you read - try thinking through what they are saying and see if it makes any sense at all - it does not.<<<
I don't believe everything I read. Far from it. I do believe there is something to this story though but I don't believe my eyes when I read your repeated refusal to even consider it possible. For someone consistently accusing the fed of conspiring to control the market, you have an awful lot of faith in the people who the fed answers to.
>>Name one social program the republicans were in favor of to begin with."............mlsoft: What does that have to do with anything??<<<
It's got everything to do with it since they're getting rid of everything else they didn't like to begin with. What makes you think they would somehow choose to protect social programs they voted against and still consider wasteful and unnecessary? Here's what the British Financial Times said:
"Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door."
Article published May 28, 2003
SOCIAL PROGRAMS IN JEOPARDY
Radicals concoct a fiscal crisis
'The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum." So wrote the normally staid Financial Times, traditionally the voice of solid British business opinion, when surveying last week's tax bill. Indeed, the legislation is doubly absurd: The gimmicks used to make an $800 billion plus tax cut carry an official price tag of only $320 billion are a joke, yet the cost without the gimmicks is so large that the nation can't possibly afford it while keeping its other promises.
But then maybe that's the point. The Financial Times suggests that "more extreme Republicans" actually want a fiscal train wreck: "Proposing to slash federal spending, particularly on social programs, is a tricky electoral proposition, but a fiscal crisis offers the tantalizing prospect of forcing such cuts through the back door."
Good for the Financial Times. It seems that stating the obvious has now, finally, become respectable.
It's no secret that right-wing ideologues want to abolish programs Americans take for granted. But not long ago, to suggest that the Bush administration's policies might actually be driven by those ideologues -- that the administration was deliberately setting the country up for a fiscal crisis in which popular social programs could be sharply cut -- was to be accused of spouting conspiracy theories.
Yet by pushing through another huge tax cut in the face of record deficits, the administration clearly demonstrates either that it is completely feckless, or that it actually wants a fiscal crisis. (Or maybe both.)
Here's one way to look at the situation: Although you wouldn't know it from the rhetoric, federal taxes are already historically low as a share of GDP. Once the new round of cuts takes effect, federal taxes will be lower than their average during the Eisenhower administration. How, then, can the government pay for Medicare and Medicaid -- which didn't exist in the 1950s -- and Social Security, which will become far more expensive as the population ages? (Defense spending has fallen compared with the economy, but not that much, and it's on the rise again.)
The answer is that it can't. The government can borrow to make up the difference as long as investors remain in denial, unable to believe that the world's only superpower is turning into a banana republic. But at some point bond markets will balk -- they won't lend money to a government, even that of the United States, if that government's debt is growing faster than its revenues and there is no plausible story about how the budget will eventually come under control.
At that point, either taxes will go up again, or programs that have become fundamental to the American way of life will be gutted. We can be sure that the right will do whatever it takes to preserve the Bush tax cuts -- right now the administration is even skimping on homeland security to save a few dollars here and there. But balancing the books without tax increases will require deep cuts where the money is: that is, in Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
The pain of these benefit cuts will fall on the middle class and the poor, while the tax cuts overwhelmingly favor the rich. For example, the tax cut passed last week will raise the after-tax income of most people by less than 1 percent -- not nearly enough to compensate them for the loss of benefits. But people with incomes over $1 million per year will, on average, see their after-tax income rise 4.4 percent.
The Financial Times suggests this is deliberate (and I agree): "For them," it says of those extreme Republicans, "undermining the multilateral international order is not enough; long-held views on income distribution also require radical revision."
How can this be happening? Most people, even most liberals, are complacent. They don't realize how dire the fiscal outlook really is, and they don't read what the ideologues write. They imagine that the Bush administration, like the Reagan administration, will modify our system only at the edges, that it won't destroy the social safety net built up over the past 70 years.
But the people now running America aren't conservatives: They're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need. The Financial Times, it seems, now understands what's going on, but when will the public wake up?
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.newscoast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?SearchID=7313643108871&Avis=SH&Dato=20030528...
>>>But to conclude that the administration is trying to engender an economic crisis in order to eliminate social programs is utterly absurd.<<<
Why do you consider this so completely unbelievable? Name one social program the republicans were in favor of to begin with. They opposed social security when first introduced, they opposed medicare and medicaid and they absolutely abhor welfare of any kind except corporate. Creating a situation where these programs can no longer be supported will probably be less damaging to the party than simply telling voters the programs should be eliminated or drastically reduced. If you look under the hood, this is exactly what's taking place now.
Where did the feisty Americans go?
A US newspaper finally had the guts to print an editorial that puts the blame for the mess we're in squarely where it belongs - with the American people who allowed it to happen with no questions asked.
"Sept. 11 rightly made us more cautious and more vigilant. But it also diminished us. We're less tolerant of dissent; less thoughtful about world issues; less concerned with principles of justice, fairness and equity; and -- to the apparent benefit of Bush's poll numbers -- less demanding of our political leaders.
It made us intellectually passive -- which frightens me much more than a hijacked airliner."
Posted on Tue, May. 27, 2003
ROBERT STEINBACK
Where did the feisty Americans go?
It will be a question historians will debate perhaps for centuries to come.
How did a president remain solidly popular with the American people, even though:
• The economy stagnated during his watch;
• He turned a projected federal surplus of $5.7 trillion over the next decade into a projected $2 trillion deficit, fueled by huge tax cuts that enriched the wealthy and failed to stimulate the economy;
• He proposed and won more tax cuts, though most economists warned that they wouldn't likely create many jobs;
• His administration trimmed basic domestic civil rights, including the right to privacy, counsel and habeas corpus;
• He openly scorned relations with traditional allies and potential friends worldwide;
• He launched a war against a sovereign nation without establishing why it was urgent and necessary, and without achieving any of his stated goals for attacking, except regime change;
• The company once headed by his vice president landed a no-bid contract in Iraq far more lucrative than originally revealed?
There has never been anything like this in American political history. Despite a record of budget irresponsibility, international discord, warmongering and even scandal, the Bush veneer is hardly scuffed.
It isn't anything about Bush; it's about us. We've changed, and not for the better.
It seems only yesterday that the typical American took a delicious pride in holding the feet of political leaders -- even the ones we admired -- to the fire. Whether it was Nixon or Carter or Reagan or Clinton, presidents have had to endure the relentless heat of popular scrutiny. Until now.
Bush exists in a dimension far beyond having to fend off criticism. It's as if critical evaluation itself has gone into hibernation. Virtually nobody questions Bush -- not the opposition Democrats, not the bulk of the media, and by all reckoning, not the public.
There can be only one explanation: Sept. 11. That terrible day in 2001 transformed us in many ways, but the most subtle and insidious change was how it sapped our national confidence.
The terrorist attacks provoked in us not courage, but fear -- fear of being victimized again, as we were that day. We've reacted like the rape victim whose faith in human nature is crushed by anxiety and suspicion, rather than the one who fights back spiritually, refusing to be degraded by a degrading act.
Bush told us that we needed to attack Iraq for our security, and we accepted it. He told us that we needed to compromise certain civil rights to help catch terrorists, and we accepted it. He told us that our security required us to detain suspects without charges or access to lawyers, and we accepted it.
It's as if the American people, shivering with fear, are huddling around Bush as if he were a shepherd. Do whatever you must, dear shepherd; just protect us. Consequently:
• We won't even question economic policies that have created a weak dollar, a soft stock market and creeping unemployment.
• We won't explore the logic of disarming the newly freed Iraqi people, while backing a resumption of sales of assault-style weapons at home.
• We won't evaluate the ludicrous notion that Haitian asylum seekers must be imprisoned as a matter of national security, even as migrants from communist Cuba are allowed to swim ashore and go free.
When I press Bush supporters on his record, they invariably respond with general references to faith and trust: He has good reasons for what he has done. Time will prove him right. He's a good man.
That's no America I recognize. Some amount of faith is fine and healthy. But aren't we Americans supposed to be feisty, indomitable, demanding, assertive, skeptical?
Sept. 11 rightly made us more cautious and more vigilant. But it also diminished us. We're less tolerant of dissent; less thoughtful about world issues; less concerned with principles of justice, fairness and equity; and -- to the apparent benefit of Bush's poll numbers -- less demanding of our political leaders.
It made us intellectually passive -- which frightens me much more than a hijacked airliner.
rsteinback@herald.com
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/5949241.htm
>>>Government has no business doing anything but defense and enforcing contracts and property rights<<<
Don't forget police.....and lots of it since a byproduct of the survival of the fittest society they strive for is anarchy.
>>>This is the Grail of at least a portion of the radical right.<<<
Maybe it's just a portion, but it's a growing portion and the portion that controls the party.
>>>Furthermore, unlike his father, this Bush is a political animal. He has a clever team.<<<
Translation: Bush is a ruthless, power crazed fraud who is lucky enough to have Karl Rove tell him what to say and what do do.
You think it's a coincidence that Bush has only held two press conferences in 2 1/2 years, the last one with reporters hand picked by the White House? No coincidence since this president is an accident waiting to happen when forced to think on his feet. Not that it matters much as Bush's "clever team" has taken propaganda and deception to levels never previously seen in this country.
>>>Right before your eyes they are accomplishing their states rights agenda, shifting the tax base from the Federal Government to the states. No one even seems to notice.<<<
I notice! I own Florida rental property and property taxes have gone up 35-40% in the past 2 years. On top of that, Jeb Bush keeps shutting down "unprofitable" mental institutions so mental patients are either displacing real criminals out of overcrowded prisons, or they are roaming streets and beaches all hours of the day. And I won't even get into what he's doing to what is already one of the lousiest public school systems in the country. I think a lot more people would notice if they just quit waving their little flags long enough to look around themselves.
>>>Gotta wonder why the Dem candidates are not talking more about this.<<<
Most of them signed off on the war in the first place which makes it a delicate issue to criticize. Also, a recent poll said 70% of Americans don't care if WMD's are ever found and 60% approve of Bush suggesting the nation is still paralyzed by unconditional patriotism. Probably wise not to try to fight that and wait for the average citizen to start thinking for themselves again - if Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld allows it that is.
Texas passes abortion legislation based on evidence disputed by scientists.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
HOUSTON -- Texas approved one of the nation's most sweeping abortion counseling laws Wednesday, requiring doctors, among other things, to warn women that abortion might lead to breast cancer.
That link, however, does not exist, according to the American Cancer Society and federal government researchers, and critics say the law is a thinly veiled attempt to intimidate, frighten and shame women who are seeking an abortion. Proponents say they are merely trying to give women as much information as possible, and argue that research into the alleged link between abortion and breast cancer remains inconclusive.
After years of failed attempts to outlaw abortion outright, social conservatives across the nation are now finding success in limiting abortions by requiring so-called counseling of patients. Among the most aggressive tactics is the attempt to link abortion with breast cancer, a move that many conservative organizations have undertaken, but rarely with the success they have found in Texas.
"They don't care what science says," said Claudia D. Stravato, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle. "It's like talking to the Flat Earth Society."
The bill's author, state Rep. Frank Corte Jr., a San Antonio-area Republican, titled the bill the Women's Right to Know Act.
"This is an issue that many folks see as something we need to do," Corte said. "We think these are standards that should be set."
In all, 29 state legislatures have introduced 64 counseling proposals this year. Legal experts who track trends in the debate said those types of proposals are now introduced and discussed in the nation's statehouses more than any other abortion legislation.
Several states have certain restrictions that are more aggressive than those contained in the Texas law. But Texas, by incorporating pieces of other states' laws, has packaged together one of the most comprehensive such laws to date, legal experts on both sides of the debate said.
The Republican-controlled Texas Senate approved the bill Wednesday; the state House had previously passed it. Gov. Rick Perry's office said he "supports the concept," and he is expected to sign it into law.
The Texas law requires women to wait through a 24-hour "reflection" period before they receive an abortion, making Texas the 18th state with that law on the books. Supporters say that provision will help ensure that women are making the right decision. Opponents point out that abortion services are only available in 15 of Texas' 254 counties, and say the waiting period will be a hardship for women from rural areas who have to travel long distances for health care.
'Just Cruel,' Critic Says
The law also requires doctors or clinics to offer women written materials containing everything from a list of adoption agencies to a reminder that fathers are typically liable for paying child support. Women would be offered photographs approximating what their fetus looks like — color photographs, as specified by the law. Democrats' attempts to exempt victims of rape or incest from having to view the photos were defeated, which is "just cruel," said Peggy Romberg, executive director of the Women's Health and Family Planning Assn. of Texas.
The bill requires abortions performed after 16 weeks of pregnancy to be conducted in ambulatory surgical centers or hospitals, where safety standards are higher, supporters say, but where costs associated with having an abortion quadruple, women's health advocates say.
Finally, the bill requires doctors to offer women information warning them that abortion can increase the risk of breast cancer. Texas becomes one of a handful of states, including Mississippi and Minnesota, with such laws on the books.
Kimberlee M. Ward, a staff attorney with NARAL Pro-Choice America, the group formerly known as the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, said abortion opponents are finding success in pursuing counseling laws because of the way the laws are packaged. By framing them as measures that are helpful to women, abortion opponents have made these proposals more palatable to the public, she said.
"Even though there are states that are trying to ban abortion outright, that is seen as a fringe effort," Ward said. "Anti-choice advocates see this as a way to whittle away at abortion rights."
Since the 17th century, when scientists learned that nuns suffered breast cancer at a disproportionate rate, researchers have debated the health effects of pregnancy.
Researchers aren't sure what causes breast cancer, but some believe that hormonal changes associated with the final stages of pregnancy can help protect a woman from breast cancer. Others have argued that breast cells might become vulnerable to cancer if those hormones do not develop, a notion that social conservatives have seized upon.
Doctors will have to offer all women information about the alleged link between abortion and breast cancer — even if they have had children previously and, therefore, have developed the hormones.
In February, the National Cancer Institute — the federal government's cancer research organization — asked more than 100 of the world's experts to review more than 30 studies that have been conducted and attempt to resolve the issue. Their conclusion: Having an abortion "does not increase a woman's subsequent risk of developing breast cancer." The American Medical Assn. has not taken a formal position on the issue, but most large health-care organizations, including the American Cancer Society, agree with that conclusion.
"The American Cancer Society's reputation as a source of information for the public is just critical to our mission. We're not going to mislead people about this," said Mary Coyne, a board member of the society's Texas division. "We spend $100 million a year on research. We know what we're talking about. There is just no research that supports this claim."
Corte, who has a professional background in property management, said he believes that conclusion is "flawed."
"It's not most of the experts. It's some of their experts that make a lot of noise about it," said Elizabeth Graham, associate director of the Texas Right to Life Committee Inc., an antiabortion group. "If women are going to make the decisions, that's fine. Our goal is to help them make an informed decision."
Women, Corte said, "need to be aware that it's still disputed."
The trouble is, among the vast majority of physicians, it's not disputed, said Dr. Bernard Rosenfeld, a Houston physician who performs abortions.
"There is absolutely no medical validity to this," Rosenfeld said Wednesday night. "Nobody seriously believes this."
Carol J. Stahl, an Amarillo resident who sits on Planned Parenthood's board of directors, said proponents of the bill are well aware that the medical community has settled the issue.
"They must be extremely cynical people to refuse to accept facts and to depend on scaring people to pass their agenda," she said.
In Texas, the abortion bill has been around in one form or another for 10 years. For the last six years, Corte couldn't even get it out of committee. This year, it has sailed through the Legislature — and has become a symbol of change in Austin, where Republicans hold the governor's mansion and control the state House and Senate simultaneously for the first time in 130 years.
New Power Dynamic
The nation acquainted itself with that new power dynamic last week, when 55 Democrats left the state and boycotted the Legislature. The maneuver kept the House from establishing a quorum, killing the GOP's attempt to redraw the state's congressional districts. The new maps could have allowed Republicans, in the 2004 election, to seize at least five seats currently held by Democrats.
"In past legislative sessions, conservative Republicans would introduce bills like this knowing there was no chance to get them through, because Democrats controlled the House. They would introduce them so they could say to their constituents that they made a good partisan try," said Cal Jillson, an independent, nonpartisan analyst and professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
The Republicans' newfound power in Texas, the nation's second-most populous state, comes with added responsibility, Jillson said — a lesson that can be drawn from this bill, he argued. If Republicans go overboard because they are blinded by power it could blunt their long-term ability to advance their agenda, he said.
"In a sense, they have to be more careful because they can pass what they introduce," he said. "There will be a bright light shined on this bill. They should have left this very shaky connection out of the bill."
Joel Brind, a professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York, is an outspoken proponent of the alleged link between abortion and breast cancer.
Brind, who said he is opposed to abortion, said Texas has merely corrected an "egregious wrong" — the fact that clinics are not required to warn prospective patients about abortion and breast cancer.
"This is the kind of thing that is politically incorrect," he said. "It gets caught up in the whole abortion debate. I can see the Republicans saying, 'Now we are in the majority; now we have a chance to right a glaring and egregious wrong.' But how do you not do this? That would be anathema to anybody who got themselves into office with an honest concern to do some good for the people of Texas."
http://www.latimes.com/la-na-abort22may22,1,2359921.story
Texas passes abortion legislation based on evidence disputed by scientists.
"They don't care what science says," said Claudia D. Stravato, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle. "It's like talking to the Flat Earth Society."
http://www.latimes.com/la-na-abort22may22,1,2359921.story
>>>oh he just used the Department of Homeland Security to spy on Texas lawmakers who wouldn't vote for his gerrymandering<<<
And some suspect he also ordered the paper trail destroyed. He'll get away with it though. Spineless democrats initiating an investigation that will go nowhere as usual.
"Misuse of federal law enforcement agencies for domestic political purposes. Sounds like Watergate in 1974 and Richard Nixon, doesn't it?" asked Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas. "The silence of Republican leadership and Majority Leader Tom DeLay on these abuses is deafening."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/21/texas.legislature.ap/index.html
>>>But Bush seems rather unconcerned... The tax cut is for re-election purposes only.<<<
Yes it is and Bush is stealing from the poor to finance his 2004 bid. Very, very few actually benefit from these cuts in any meaningful way, and if you consider cuts in various programs and services, there are a lot of big losers too at the bottom of the social rung.
"Although more than half of all taxpayers make $30,000 a year or less, they would receive only 5 percent of the benefits of the bill, according to the center."
"This tax bill is one of the most dangerous and destructive and dishonorable acts of government that I've ever seen," said Senator Mark Dayton, Democrat of Minnesota. "It is a shameful looting of the federal treasury by the rich and powerful of America, compliments of their friends in Congress. It uses every trick in the budget book to line the pockets of the upper class."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/24/politics/24TAX.html?pagewanted=1&th
>>>Strange, we don't see that stuff reported by Fox or the other neocon outlets... Why is that?? :)<<<
I searched CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC for that story and came up with exactly zero. The more foreign news stories I read, the more blatant the US media's pandering to Bush appears. At the very least, you'd think that an investigation by the CIA related to possible manipulation of Iraq related intelligence data by the Pentagon would be news worthy. Maybe when they're done celebrating Bush's third monstrous tax cut in 2 1/2 years we'll hear something about it.
Richard Lugar says the US is on the brink of catastrophe in Iraq. A senior republican not goose stepping behind Bush? Interesting to see how they'll dispose of this traitor.
"Mr Lugar’s warning came as it emerged that the CIA has launched a review of its pre-war intelligence on Iraq to check if the US exaggerated the threats posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The review is intended to determine if the Pentagon manipulated the assessment of intelligence material for political ends."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-689407,00.html
>>>And now it seems too many in the media have become the mouth piece of the far right -- total spin control!..<<<
It's all about ratings now. Objectively reporting the news with informing the public as the highest priority is a thing of the past. Fox is winning the ratings game? Whatever their formula, everyone else has to copy it. Look at MSNBC/CNBC's nightly lineup; First Chris Matthews where Ralph Reed, Gordon Liddy and Peggy Noonan have permanent invitations, then Larry Kudlow and Chris Scarborough preaching American fascism for another two hours. Meanwhile, CNN has a live camera team behind Bush no matter where he goes and interrupts regular broadcasting for all his public appearances. And that's our liberal media.
>>>Talk about systemic failure of gov - from the Oval Office to Main Street.The latter 90s are a low period in American politics and history, to say the least...<<<
Have to make special mention of the media who completely lost its collective head for a year and a half. Definitely a low point in their history as well.
>>>absolutely to the contrary -- GWB would be forced to resign (just as the republicans forced nixon to resign) should he in any way demonstrate a lack of integrity on any important matter;<<<
hap, I could be wrong but I have serious doubts on whether you are able to concede lack of integrity on part of GW Bush regardless of importance of the matter. If Bush announced he must start giving cancer to children in order to protect the homeland and to create new jobs, I would fully expect you to rush to his defense. But you could prove me wrong by selecting one or several items from the current Bush "evil index" and point to that as proof of lack of integrity on his part. Here:
http://www.wage-slave.org/scorecard.html
>>>but it sounds like it's from a fruit cake...<<<
Well, I guess it is from a fruitcake, only one that's been promoted. I should be conditioned by now but I keep having to read a lot of political news out of Texas twice just to confirm. Would Mexico be interested in extending its borders I wonder?
Ben Stein also said the second Nasdaq BUBBLE is forming with the index wildly overvalued. Quiet a change in posture from his days as e-trade pimp.
>>>I have a difficult time understanding how the Democrats can't seem to understand how simple it is to oppose the Bush Administration.<<<
To be blunt about it, the democrats have acted like wimps for the past two and a half years. Look at what the republicans managed to do to Bill Clinton over a money losing real estate transaction 20 years ago and compare that to what the democrats have done to Bush and the republicans over Florida 2000, Enron, Harken, Bush's rap sheet, Cheney and Halliburton, Rick Santorum, Trent Lott and lately, what appears to have been a smoke & mirrors show to take the country to war. Further, the quotes below don't belong to some fruitcake low level GOP campaign worker but to Texas GOP chairwoman Susan Weddington:
"God will protect the work we're doing" in support of Republican efforts to seek major changes in state government, including cuts in health care and other services."
"Weddington and party Vice Chairman David Barton defended Republican efforts to cut spending on health care and other services for thousands of needy Texans in order to reduce spending and "realign" the role of state government. Weddington said then that many low-income Texans could purchase their own health insurance and "maybe have a little less disposable income or a little less inheritance from Mom and Dad."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/1920268
This story stinks to high heaven. Homeland security used for local partisan politics games?
"The three commissioners who oversee the DPS were appointed by Bush when he was governor and have other political connections with Bush and his family. Commissioner Bobby Holt of Midland was political finance chairman for Bush's father, the former president. Commissioner Jim Francis was chairman of the Bush Pioneers, individuals who raised more than $100,000 for the current president's 2000 election campaign. Francis also has close ties to presidential senior adviser Karl Rove."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/1920259
"More and more this situation is echoing the mistakes of Watergate," said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas.
One Texan even suggested a possible coverup could go as high as U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/21/eveningnews/main555028.shtml
Is there any defense of this? It's got Tom Delay written all over it, and as usual, he'll outscream and out-bully anyone who tries to get to the bottom of it. Given time and patience though, this administration will self-destruct in their obsessive thirst for absolute power. They already control every branch of government including the courts but they still want more...
"The fight over the flight of Democratic legislators intensified yesterday as the Texas Department of Public Safety admitted it had destroyed documents that were collected last week as state troopers searched for the missing lawmakers.
What started out as a local partisan dispute about redistricting escalated into accusations of a cover-up and abuse of federal power."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/national/22TEXA.html?th
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/05/21/texas.legislature.ap/index.html
>>>Sara - no - the military will see that Iraq doesn't become Iran or Saudi Arabia<<<
Looks like we could use some help. Or maybe now that the first war is over, who has time for peace and rebuilding efforts when there are others to pick fights with?
"It's close to a fiasco," said Loren Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Washington research organization. "The contrasts between the efforts to rebuild Iraq and the stunning military victory could hardly be more pronounced."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030519/pl_afp/iraq_us_postwar_030519234257
>>>Fellow Democrats, get serious about defense or get used to losing.<<<
I say this is mostly a myth although one that's costing a lot of votes. Show me some historical evidence that supports the notion that America is less safe in the hands of democratic leadership than republican. The big difference is that as usual - republicans shout louder and more obnoxiously and they make defense one of only three issues in their platform (tax cuts, abortion and defense) giving them much more exposure on the defense issue than democrats who frankly spread themselves too thin on too many issues. Incidentally, America's worst terrorist attack ever along with its biggest intelligence failure ever took place under the watch of a republican president who chose to go on vacation following credible warnings of imminent attacks. If Bill Clinton had been in GW Bush's shoes under identical circumstances, can someone say with a straight face that republicans would not have started impeachment hearings within weeks of 9/11?
>>>Sea, Do you still have your duct tape?... 8}<<<
Sure do. Same roll I bought five or six years ago for who knows what reason. I actually watched a guy fill an entire shopping cart at Home Depot with duct tape and plastic sheeting the day it was recommended by Tom Ridge and later saw him load it onto a pickup with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on display. Common sight I'm sure but it was still pathetic.