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The British are outraged over possible lies told in this Iraq war. But you're right, as long as our media doesn't focus on it, Americans won't care. Lucky Bush!! Funny how the FCC thing happened on Bush's watch too... :)
Did Saddam have something to do with 9/11?
I think you missed the point, hap, again....
"We haven't found Saddam Hussein, and I don't know anyone who's running around saying he didn't exist."
-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
I this a great country, or what??... =)
maine, I think you meant sarals?? :)
U.N. nuclear experts back in Iraq
Officials will try to secure looted facility near Baghdad
Friday, June 6, 2003 Posted: 9:43 AM EDT (1343 GMT)
International Atomic Energy Agency specialists arrived Friday in Baghdad for inspections of the Tuwaitha nuclear facility, which was looted after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/06/sprj.irq.main/
You can't possibly be serious??.. Do you know what Tuwaitha is/was??..
Ever heard of Shoreham or Chernobyl? Three Mile Island??...
Commentary: Osama's global fan club
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor-at-Large
From the International Desk
Published 6/5/2003 5:55 PM
WASHINGTON, June 5 (UPI) -- Pew phew! The results of the Pew Foundation's Global Attitudes Project stunned the Bush Administration's Public Diplomacy bureaucrats. They have spent big bucks to spruce up America's image in the Arab and Muslim worlds, apparently to no avail. Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, now inspires more confidence than President Bush in Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, Morocco and among Palestinians. The war on Iraq seems to be the principal culprit.
The al-Qaida leader, who is responsible for the death of some 3,000 Americans on 9/11, received a strong vote of confidence -- as the man most trusted to do the right thing in world affairs -- in these four countries and in the occupied Palestinian territories with a combined population of 430 million.
Bush's nemesis, France's President Jacques Chirac, tied the U.N.'s Kofi Annan as the leader most trusted to do the right thing. Chirac's confrontation with Bush won him plaudits in many places. Britain's Tony Blair outpolled the U.S. President in the United States.
In Jordan, a friendly pro-Western country, 99% had an unfavorable opinion of the United States, up from 75% a year ago. Pro-Western Morocco voted overwhelmingly (92%) to say Israelis and Palestinians could not coexist as opposed to 67 of Americans who say they can.
The distrust of the U.S. was so high that majorities in seven of eight Muslim populations surveyed -- Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait ?- said they thought the U.S. could become a military threat to their countries. In Pakistan, 64% felt Islam was seriously threatened by the U.S. In Jordan, it was 97%, up from 80% a year ago.
The Pew Project surveyed 38,000 people in 44 nations last year and followed up after the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom with 16,000 people in 20 nations and in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. The war clearly produced larger percentages of anti-American answers.
One of the most disturbing shifts in public opinion was apparent in Turkey, a long-time pro-American ally. Responding to anti-American sentiment generated by U.S. war preparations against Iraq, the Turkish parliament voted against letting U.S. troops traverse its soil to open a northern front against Saddam Hussein. Now 83% of Turks have a negative opinion of the U.S. (versus 55% a year ago).
Spain, one of the few countries to join Bush's coalition of the willing against Iraq, produced only 38% with positive feelings about the U.S. But two other members of the coalition -- Italy (77%) and Britain (80%) -- gave Bush a ringing endorsement.
The silver lining came in answers to questions about democratic pluralism, which a slim majority of Muslims seem to favor -- except Indonesia. The lightning rod was more frequently president Bush the man than the U.S. or Americans.
The U.N. also took its lumps. Not a single country surveyed believes the U.N. still plays an important role in dealing with international conflicts.
Support for America's war on terror dropped in France and Germany by identical margins (from 75% to 60%). Both sides of the Atlantic seemed to favor an easing of the security bonds that have linked them within NATO. Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State who chaired the Pew Project, said, "For those of us who care about NATO, this is a red flag. The only way to get beyond this is to find more ways we can work together in NATO...it can't be relevant if you don't work at it."
Bush's Mideast peace initiative hopefully will alter negative perceptions for the better. But there is much ground to make up. No one believes the U.S. can be even-handed between Israel and the Palestinians. Muslim populations surveyed see U.S. policies as destabilizing the Middle East, as do majorities in most other countries polled.
Public diplomacy became a top priority after 9/11. The Bush Administration pledged to dispel the grotesque distorting mirror image Muslims have of America and Americans. Countless millions of Muslims believed the canard that 9/11 was a plot engineered by the CIA and Israel's Mossad. They still do.
The war on Iraq ?- following the war on Afghanistan -- was further evidence to Muslim militants that the U.S. is determined to eradicate Islam. The fact that Pew has elicited more anti-Americanism in the Arab and Muslim worlds today than before 9/11 would seem to indicate that the Administration's much vaunted "innovative ideas" about public diplomacy have been a dismal and costly failure.
The State Department is spending over $1 billion a year on challenging anti-American views, particularly in the Muslim world. Radio Sawa that reaches across the Middle East is aimed at Arab listeners under 30. They like the music but evidently ignore the administration's commercials.
It's back to the drawing board for the spin doctors.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Health crisis looms over looted Iraqi nuclear plant
AP
06 June 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=412943
Thank heavens they protected those OIL FIELDS!!
It's official: politicians lie, and we expect it
May 19 2003
After intensive research, scientists have concluded that politicians lie. Glen Newey, a political scientist at the University of Strathclyde, concluded that lying was an important part of politics in a modern democracy.
"Politicians need to be more honest about lying," he said, and voters expected to be lied to in certain circumstances, and sometimes even required it.
"Politics should be regarded as less like an exercise in producing truthful statements and more like a poker game," Mr Newey said."And there is an expectation by a poker player that you try to deceive them as part of the game."
He said lying by politicians can occasionally be justified, such as when national security is at risk, and the public even has a "right to be lied to" in cases where they do not expect to be told the whole truth, such as during a war.
Copyright © 2003 The Age Company Ltd
Rick...
Wonder how much Ken Lay paid for a seat at the table that included a get of jail card?
And one the theory of "right" scams and wrong scams, it is Martha who will be re-decorating the inside of a prison cell!...
Her crime??... LYING.
Influence peddling... For "moral decay" -- look not further than the US gov...
Ridiculous, isn't it, and it's no wonder lying has become not only common place but expected.
The Devil's Advocate
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
By CHRIS FLOYD
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd05312003.html
Israelis Keep Stakes Planted at Outposts
As Sharon Pledges to Close Sites, Settlers Are Resolute in Opposition
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 6, 2003; Page A01
SHILOH, West Bank, June 5 -- When Benny and Batsheva Shoham's 5-month-old son was killed by a rock hurled through their windshield by Palestinian attackers, a stricken Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sat with them at the hospital and later visited their home in this Jewish settlement to pledge his undying support for their movement.
On Wednesday night, during a rally in Jerusalem attended by thousands of settlers and their supporters, organizers played over and over again a videotape of Sharon's visit to the Shohams two years ago. The settlers were protesting Sharon's declared readiness at this week's summit in Aqaba, Jordan, to dismantle unauthorized settlements known as outposts and accede to a Palestinian state, provided violence against Israelis ceases. This morning, Benny Shoham paid a visit to his son's grave and declared that no matter what Sharon has in mind, he and thousands of others would resist any attempt to evict them from their West Bank homes.
When he came to Shiloh, Shoham recalled, Sharon "said a lot of things he wants to forget -- that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish nation and the Jewish people and it will always be this way, and the terrorists won't be given anything. Unfortunately, today he is giving up . . . but we are not."
A visit to Shiloh and a handful of nearby outposts suggests just how difficult it will be for Sharon to deliver even on the cautious opening commitments he made at Aqaba. Religious settlers like Shoham believe that they are fulfilling the commandment to settle the land God bestowed on the Jewish people in the Bible and that they are the true pioneers and guardians of Zionism. They make no distinction between the 70 to 80 hilltop outposts that have sprung up in recent months and the 145 more settled communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and they have no intention of surrendering even one acre.
"This isn't Texas," said Dov Berkovits, an Orthodox rabbi originally from Chicago who has lived in Shiloh for 23 years. "This is a very small piece of land. Where would we go if they forced us to leave here? In terms of Israeli society and the soul of the Jewish people, it'd be a tremendous blow."
The peace process faced another potential obstacle today when Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority, told reporters at his battered West Bank compound that Sharon had not offered "anything tangible" to the Palestinians at the Aqaba summit, the Reuters news agency reported. Arafat said Sharon's pledge to uproot some West Bank outposts did not represent a significant concession. "What's the significance of removing a caravan [mobile home] from one location and then saying 'I have removed a settlement'?" said Arafat, who was excluded from the summit.
Sharon's ambiguous public pronouncements have intensified unease here. In April he singled out Shiloh in an interview with the newspaper Haaretz in which he declared, "We will be ready to carry out very painful steps" for peace. He added: "Our whole history is bound up with these places -- Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El -- and I know that we will have to part with some of these places. . . . As a Jew, this torments me."
A few days later the prime minister qualified those remarks, telling another interviewer he was not specifying any settlements for demolition. "I mentioned those places only as examples of towns that the Jewish people are connected to in its history," he said.
But settlers here believe they got the message. "It gave us a chill," said Berkovits.
Shiloh, which lies between the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Nablus, is home to about 230 families. It is built next to the site of an ancient Israeli kingdom, and was one of the first places Jewish radicals settled in the late 1970s. Located on land captured during the 1967 war, these settlements have long been considered illegal by most countries.
Israeli government policy now prohibits new settlements, but Jewish settlers have been accused of using outposts to create new neighborhoods. Over the years, Israeli governments have attributed settlement expansion to the need for natural growth or security.
Settlers like Benny Shoham contend Shiloh is as much a part of the Jewish state as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There are about 225,000 Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza among more than 3 million Palestinians.
Sharon, 75, has long been identified with this and other settlements. Gazing from the picture window of Shiloh's yeshiva, Shoham can point to the first houses built here, which Sharon encouraged and funded as agriculture minister in the late 1970s, and a second wave of homes he authorized as housing minister a decade later. On the next ridge lies the sister settlement of Shvut Rachel, which Sharon funded in 1992 in memory of Rachel Druck, a Shiloh mother of seven who was shot dead in a Palestinian attack on an Israeli passenger bus. And the main highway beyond the gates of the settlement was planned and funded by Sharon as prime minister.
"He is one of the great builders" of West Bank settlements, Shoham said of Sharon.
Shoham, 28, has been here since arriving as a soldier 11 years ago. He is principal of an after-school children's learning center and a new member of the settlement's ruling council.
He and his wife were returning from his parents' home outside Tel Aviv on June 5, 2001, when they were ambushed by rock throwers. Yehuda, their son, was in a car seat in the back, he recalled, when struck by the rock. The baby died six days later.
He was Shiloh's sixth victim of Palestinian attacks, and the fourth to die in the violence that began in September 2000 and has claimed the lives of more than 2,000 Palestinians and 780 Israelis. "We're dealing with it, it's not easy," said Shoham, whose wife gave birth to another son a year ago. "But because the community sticks together, it's a little easier to go on and not fall apart."
Angry settlers crying out for vengeance brought the baby's body to Sharon's office for a funeral service, and the prime minister addressed the crowd. Israel would not capitulate to terrorism, he pledged to them.
With a new yeshiva going up on a hillside, lush gardens and 30 new homes in the works, Shiloh looks settled and prosperous. Two hilltops away, on a treeless, dust-ridden landscape, smaller makeshift outposts have sprouted -- a handful of prefabricated huts, a few abandoned cars and a chain-link fence strewn with razor wire, along with armed residents with little to say to outsiders.
"Get back in your car and get the hell out of here," a barefoot man told two reporters this afternoon at the outpost known as Esh Kodesh -- "Holy Fire."
Farther down the main road, at an outpost named Givat Assaf after an Israeli victim of a Palestinian attack, Amichai Hadad, a 22-year-old yeshiva student, was more welcoming. He offered homemade cookies, cold fruit juice and his own prediction of what will happen if the government attempts to evict him, his wife and his comrades from the dozen prefabricated homes.
"Jews don't kill other Jews," he said. "If the army forces us to leave, we'll just come back the next day."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Mlsoft,
Give him 500 people for 500 years and he would find nothing
Your boy Bush has had 11 weeks and 150,000 people, and he hasn't found anything either.... What do you think it will take to find "something"?... Or "something" significant enough to justify war??... They could find "something" in your garage, but that hardly justifies your "liberation", does it?
Got Fertilizer??... :)
mlsoft, If the "Dream Team" is ever looking for a Dubya jury, they're gonna want guys like you!!.... :)
What is amazing is that it's the "right" who continually preachs "moral decay". Yet, what is one to expect when "moral decay" is present at the highest levels of gov...and is equally evident in our largest corporations?
Fox was amazing tonight. Constant banter regarding misinformation at the NY Times, yet barely a word about possible "misinformation" at the Whitehouse. Such hypocrisy... Laci's big news too!.. :)
Mlsoft.... You seem more concerned with "protecting" Mr Bush than with truth. Obviously, the current "scandal in the works" is a very, very serious matter. And if Bush, his Admin, or agencies under his watch intentionally misrepresented facts to make a case for war he could be the subject of impeachment proceedings, and rightfully so...
============================================================
Again, on the issue of Pres responsibility:
..Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it..."
=============================================================
"not even the vast majority of democrats believe such a charge, levied almost entirely by the far left and anti-American factions."
"Far left and anti-American factions"?? Are you unaware of the current political angst of Mr Blair. The majority of the UK public is suspect of the case presented for war, as are many in their Parliament.
=============================================================
Go get credible proof of your allegations and come back to me then.
No need to get snippy, mlsoft, and I don't have to "prove" anything to you. I have a feeling the Brits will provide all the proof needed. Unfortunately for Mr Bush, the US media and/or the anti-American blather can not protect him from what may or may not come out of the UK - Blair investigation...
As always, we shall see!!... Agree? :)
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense...
"a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause.?
"President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation...
..Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it..."
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
AN EXCELLENT READ!!
Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
By JOHN W. DEAN
Friday, Jun. 06, 2003
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless, perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter. Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to explore the relevant issues.
President Bush's Statements On Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.
Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations Address
September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States"
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003
Should The President Get The Benefit Of The Doubt?
When these statements were made, Bush's let-me-mince-no-words posture was convincing to many Americans. Yet much of the rest of the world, and many other Americans, doubted them.
As Bush's veracity was being debated at the United Nations, it was also being debated on campuses - including those where I happened to be lecturing at the time.
On several occasions, students asked me the following question: Should they believe the President of the United States? My answer was that they should give the President the benefit of the doubt, for several reasons deriving from the usual procedures that have operated in every modern White House and that, I assumed, had to be operating in the Bush White House, too.
First, I assured the students that these statements had all been carefully considered and crafted. Presidential statements are the result of a process, not a moment's though. White House speechwriters process raw information, and their statements are passed on to senior aides who have both substantive knowledge and political insights. And this all occurs before the statement ever reaches the President for his own review and possible revision.
Second, I explained that - at least in every White House and administration with which I was familiar, from Truman to Clinton - statements with national security implications were the most carefully considered of all. The White House is aware that, in making these statements, the President is speaking not only to the nation, but also to the world.
Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements are typically corrected rapidly if they are later found to be false. And in this case, far from backpedaling from the President's more extreme claims, Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at times, been even more emphatic than the President had. For example, on January 9, 2003, Fleischer stated, during his press briefing, "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
In addition, others in the Administration were similarly quick to back the President up, in some cases with even more unequivocal statements. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that Saddam had WMDs - and even went so far as to claim he knew "where they are; they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
Finally, I explained to the students that the political risk was so great that, to me, it was inconceivable that Bush would make these statements if he didn't have damn solid intelligence to back him up. Presidents do not stick their necks out only to have them chopped off by political opponents on an issue as important as this, and if there was any doubt, I suggested, Bush's political advisers would be telling him to hedge. Rather than stating a matter as fact, he would be say: "I have been advised," or "Our intelligence reports strongly suggest," or some such similar hedge. But Bush had not done so.
So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed, to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?
After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given Bush's statements, they should not have been very hard to find - for they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production equipment also existed.
So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House's unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?
There are two main possibilities. One that something is seriously wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That seems difficult to believe. The other is that the President has deliberately misled the nation, and the world.
A Desperate Search For WMDs Has So Far Yielded Little, If Any, Fruit
Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the President had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.
Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.
As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs. None were found.
During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.
British and American Press Reaction to the Missing WMDs
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is also under serious attack in England, which he dragged into the war unwillingly, based on the missing WMDs. In Britain, the missing WMDs are being treated as scandalous; so far, the reaction in the U.S. has been milder.
New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has taken Bush sharply to task, asserting that it is "long past time for this administration to be held accountable." "The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat," Krugman argued. "If that claim was fraudulent," he continued, "the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history - worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra." But most media outlets have reserved judgment as the search for WMDs in Iraq continues.
Still, signs do not look good. Last week, the Pentagon announced it was shifting its search from looking for WMD sites, to looking for people who can provide leads as to where the missing WMDs might be.
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, while offering no new evidence, assured Congress that WMDs will indeed be found. And he advised that a new unit called the Iraq Survey Group, composed of some 1400 experts and technicians from around the world, is being deployed to assist in the searching.
But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."
Perhaps most troubling, the President has failed to provide any explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements, yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be? Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?
The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements may actually have been intentional lies.
Investigating The Iraqi War Intelligence Reports
Even now, while the jury is still out as to whether intentional misconduct occurred, the President has a serious credibility problem. Newsweek magazine posed the key questions: "If America has entered a new age of pre-emption --when it must strike first because it cannot afford to find out later if terrorists possess nuclear or biological weapons--exact intelligence is critical. How will the United States take out a mad despot or a nuclear bomb hidden in a cave if the CIA can't say for sure where they are? And how will Bush be able to maintain support at home and abroad?"
In an apparent attempt to bolster the President's credibility, and his own, Secretary Rumsfeld himself has now called for a Defense Department investigation into what went wrong with the pre-war intelligence. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd finds this effort about on par with O. J.'s looking for his wife's killer. But there may be a difference: Unless the members of Administration can find someone else to blame - informants, surveillance technology, lower-level personnel, you name it - they may not escape fault themselves.
Congressional committees are also looking into the pre-war intelligence collection and evaluation. Senator John Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee would jointly investigate the situation. And the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence plans an investigation.
These investigations are certainly appropriate, for there is potent evidence of either a colossal intelligence failure or misconduct - and either would be a serious problem. When the best case scenario seems to be mere incompetence, investigations certainly need to be made.
Senator Bob Graham - a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee - told CNN's Aaron Brown, that while he still hopes they finds WMDs or at least evidence thereof, he has also contemplated three other possible alternative scenarios:
One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of war against Iraq.
Senator Graham seems to believe there is a serious chance that it is the final scenario that reflects reality. Indeed, Graham told CNN "there's been a pattern of manipulation by this administration."
Graham has good reason to complain. According to the New York Times, he was one of the few members of the Senate who saw the national intelligence estimate that was the basis for Bush's decisions. After reviewing it, Senator Graham requested that the Bush Administration declassify the information before the Senate voted on the Administration's resolution requesting use of the military in Iraq.
But rather than do so, CIA Director Tenet merely sent Graham a letter discussing the findings. Graham then complained that Tenet's letter only addressed "findings that supported the administration's position on Iraq," and ignored information that raised questions about intelligence. In short, Graham suggested that the Administration, by cherrypicking only evidence to its own liking, had manipulated the information to support its conclusion.
Recent statements by one of the high-level officials privy to the decisionmaking process that lead to the Iraqi war also strongly suggests manipulation, if not misuse of the intelligence agencies. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during an interview with Sam Tannenhaus of Vanity Fair magazine, said: "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." More recently, Wolfowitz added what most have believed all along, that the reason we went after Iraq is that "[t]he country swims on a sea of oil."
Worse than Watergate? A Potential Huge Scandal If WMDs Are Still Missing
Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.
As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, which was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power.
Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us hope that is not the case.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html
John Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former Counsel to the President of the United States.
Copyright © 1994-2003 FindLaw
You're missing the point. If the info that was provided to Congress was erroneous heads should roll. Bush is President, the HEAD HONCHO. He is ultimately responsible for the info that was supplied to Congress.
If they Admin Lied: If there were known false and/or misleading statements, and/or known material omissions made to Congress in the "case" the Bush Admin presented for war, then that's a very, very "high crime". Again, Bush is President, the HEAD HONCHO. He is ultimately responsible for the info that was supplied to Congress - by whatever source....
Personal responsibility would be a beautiful thing in gov, as in life... And only so much "buck passing"
will actually pass the "giggle test"... And you asked before if I believed it was possible the crew lied, and the answer is... Absolutely!! :)
Saddam was a rotten fellow, no question. There are PLENTY of rotten fellows around the world. But UN weapons inspectors were only recently let back into Iraq. The US Admin said had info that Saddam posed an immediate threat. They said they needed more time to complete their inspection. The US is saying the same thing now after enormous criticism and claiming they knew where the weapons were..... Congression approval is necessary for war. It appears the info provided may have been eroneous. Heads SHOULD roll!! Bush has ultimate responsibility as Commander in Chief.
It is militarily impossible to assemble a large force for attack like that and just keep them sitting there forever - they had to be used or brought home.
You can't be serious with that one??... Chitt happens for bad info and, heck, we were in the neighborhood for war??... I guess Summer in Baghdad is not a good time for war...
Still, mlsoft, referencing the case of the gay males, in the privacy of their own homes, the Framers never intended such intrusion into the homes of lawful Americans. They would never have wanted gov in our doctor's offices either. It was all about freedom, equality and liberty for all people for -- the Founding Father's, at least.....
I get it.. "Liberal" has a very negative connotation in many parts of the country.
How bout "Americans for freedom and democracy v. Bush".....?
I admire those qualities in any person. It takes guts and character to stand up for what's right. Those qualities have been sorely lacking in public officials. BTW, I admire your willingness to get involved in a campaign you feel strongly about. That's character! Good luck!!
They lied about Iraq. Will they do it again?
04/06/03
DURING the UN Security Council debate on the need to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, we were told that Iraq represented an immediate threat not only to its neighbours but to the US itself.
Tony Blair took a country racked by doubt into conflict because Saddam’s weapons posed an immediate threat to his neighbours and to world order.
The whole purpose of the war, he said, was “a proper process of disarmament.” Nice words, but there’s one problem .
A senior British intelligence officer has told the BBC that a dossier compiled by them on Saddam’s weapons was rewritten to make it “sexier”.
It claimed that Saddam had the capacity to activate his biological and chemical weapons in just 45 minutes.
Mr Blair used this in another one of his emotional outbursts during a pre-war Commons debate.
The same intelligence officer added that the dossier had been “transformed” a week before it was published on the orders of Downing Street. Paul Wolfowitz, a senior adviser to Mr Bush, last week put it flippantly when he said that, for bureaucratic reasons, “we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”
It’s obvious that lies were told to justify the war on Iraq. Now it seems that Iran is in the firing line. Can the international community let this US administration simply do as it wishes?
© Irish Examiner, 2003, Thomas Crosbie Media, TCH
McCain targets media changes
Senator and others in Congress seek to stop FCC's ownership rules
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/business_e3edceb916ea115210a0.h...
"I have a long voting record in support of deregulation," McCain said. "But the business of media ownership, which can have such an immense effect on the nature and quality of our democracy, is too important to be dealt with so categorically" by a small group of regulators.
Liberals Want to Lead Fight Against Bush
Thu June 5, 2003 04:47 PM ET
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2886161
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who picked up early support in the campaign with his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, received a rousing welcome. He told the conference the way to beat Republicans was to "stand up against them and fight."
Oneb...
Freedom Is An Ongoing & Everlasting Battle!!!
Do you have any idea what that statement means? Really?
Your Rights: Use 'Em or Lose 'Em
By Rachel Neumann, AlterNet
May 30, 2003
When I was growing up, there was a popular bumper sticker, seen mostly on the back of old VW vans that said: "What if there was a war and nobody came?"
I am reminded of that bumper sticker now, in light of this administration's unprecedented attack on civil liberties. What if our basic rights were taken away and no one noticed? What if our system of checks and balances was destroyed and everyone remained convinced it was happening to someone else?
Under current legislation, if you are "suspected" of terrorist activity, you can be picked up and held indefinitely, without charges and without access to a lawyer. If your loved ones call to find out where you are or if you are okay, they will be told nothing. After all, to disclose your whereabouts would infringe on your right to privacy. Don't bother clutching your passport to your chest; this law applies to all U.S. citizens.
And, if currently proposed legislation – PATRIOT Act II – passes, you may no longer even be a citizen. Under PATRIOT II, if you attend a legal protest sponsored by an organization the government has listed as "terrorist," you may be deported and your citizenship revoked. This is true even if you are only suspected of terrorist activity and nothing has been proven. More specifically, according to FindLaw's Anita Ramasastry, a U.S. citizen may be expatriated "if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a 'terrorist organization.'"
I wish this were an exaggeration. The attack on civil liberties hasn't been subtle; rather it has erred on the side of being so extreme as to seem surreal. Some of the lowlights include:
The USA PATRIOT Act creates a new crime of "domestic terrorism" – defined so broadly as to include civil disobedience and other nonviolent forms of resistance. The PATRIOT Act also greatly reduces free speech and privacy, allowing for Internet and library surveillance and eliminating the need for warrants before searching video or music store records.
The new Homeland Security Department, whose massive reorganization of over 22 different federal agencies includes a beefed-up immigration office, renamed the Bureau of Border and Transportation Security, with a focus on catching immigrant violations and keeping people outside of U.S. borders.
Total Information Awareness, recently renamed "Terrorist Information Awareness," which hopes to predict terrorist actions by analyzing such transactions as passport applications, visas, work permits, driver's licenses, car rentals, airline ticket purchases, arrests or reports of suspicious activities. TIA would make financial, education, medical and housing records, as well as biometric identification databases based on fingerprints, irises, facial shapes and even how a person walks available to U.S. agents.
Patriot Act II: Enough Already!
If all this weren't enough, currently proposed legislation would increase the PATRIOT Act's powers. The Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org) lists the full provisions of the act, which include, beside the deportation of citizens who are suspected of consorting with or supporting terrorists:
Immunity from liability for law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people;
Immunity from liability for businesses and employees that report "suspected terrorists" to the federal government, no matter how unfounded, racist, or malicious the tip may be.
Furthermore, PATRIOT II explicitly allows the indefinite detention of citizens, incommunicado, without charges, and without releasing their names to their own family members. And unlike PATRIOT Act 1, which expires in 2004 unless it passes another majority vote, PATRIOT Act II never expires and removes the expiration date on PATRIOT I.
The Terrorist Smokescreen
If you're not engaged in any activity that could even be suspected of terrorism, no need to worry, right? Wrong. According to a Washington Post report, the Government Accounting Office has found that the majority of people prosecuted under new antiterrorism security measures were being pursued for reasons unrelated to terrorism, including credit card fraud and drug violations. "Many of [the] terrorism powers were actually being asked for as a way of increasing the government's authority in other areas," Tim Edgar of the ACLU said in the report.
Canaries in the Coal Mine
Perhaps no one you know personally has been arrested. Perhaps you've had no problem at airports. One of the reasons that the response to aggressive Homeland Security Measures has been muted is that, so far, the primary targets of "homeland security" have been immigrants, Arab-Americans and South Asian-Americans.
Tirien Steinbach, a lawyer at East Bay Community Law Center who works with indigent clients, says she has seen a noted increase in harassment of her clients since the passage of the act. "It's not the policies themselves," she says, "but the climate of repression that lets law enforcement feel as if they can get away with anything these days."
She sees her clients, and immigrant groups that have come under attack, as canaries in the coal mine – a warning signal that others should heed. "Everyone thinks it only happens to some other kind of people," she says, "and by the time they realize the extent of the repression, it will be too late."
Mac Scott, of the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants (CHRI), agrees. "The effects on immigrant communities has been devastating," he says. "So many people have had family members deported, detained, or – at the very least – interrogated." While it is difficult to get the exact number of immigrants detained and deported, since the government won't release these numbers, the ACLU, CHRI and other organizations put the number as reliably in the thousands. What can't be measured, however, is the increase in general harassment that immigrants have experienced and the heightened level of fear they feel.
New Coalitions and Strange Bedfellows
Because of that increased repression, some members of immigrant communities have been wary of organizing for fear of being targeted for harassment. Still, many have reacted to the attacks by organizing within their communities and reaching out to new allies.
"We have to work as a coalition," says Tram Nguyen of Colorlines, a national quarterly focused on race and public policy. "Communities are under such attack that they have to speak out. Despite the intense fear, we have seen Latino, South Asian and Arab communities sharing resources and supporting each other." She says these alliances are forged from the recognition that, under new civil liberties attacks, we are all at risk.
This recognition has also created an unusual alliance of libertarians, progressives and conservatives. Magazines such as The New American and groups including the American Conservative Union and the Eagle Forum have come out against the PATRIOT Act, TIA, and the Homeland Security Department. In part, the criticism from the right comes from those who remember a time when a base of conservatism supposedly stood for small government, less bureaucracy and more individual liberty.
Defending the Bill of Rights
One of the largest indicators of the new alliances forming in support of civil liberties and the biggest victory for rights advocates has been the success of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (www.BORDC.org) in encouraging communities to pass resolutions and ordinances repudiating the PATRIOT Act and reaffirming the Bill of Rights. Since the passage of the PATRIOT Act in October of 2001, over 100 cities, towns and counties, including Baltimore, MD, Castle Valley, UT, and Detroit, MI – and two states (Alaska and Hawaii) have passed resolutions directly opposing the legislation and reaffirming the importance of basic civil liberties.
While these resolutions are non-binding (so far only one city – Arcata, CA – has passed a binding ordinance), they do not mince words. Here is the language from the recently passed Alaska resolution:
It is the policy of the State of Alaska to oppose any portion of the USA PATRIOT Act that would violate the rights and liberties guaranteed equally under the state and federal constitutions...[The State] implores the United States Congress "to correct provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act and other measures that infringe on civil liberties, and opposes any pending and future federal legislation to the extent that it infringes on Americans' civil rights and liberties."
Close to 13 million people live in places that have passed BORD resolutions. One would hope that federal legislators would recognize the concerns of their constituents and take a stronger stand in support of basic rights and liberties. Bill of Rights advocates see the upcoming fights over PATRIOT Act II and Terrorist Information Awareness as well as the 2004 Presidential election as key places to let legislators know that their stand on civil liberties issues will be carefully watched.
Still, it is not enough to wait for politicians to act. We must disabuse ourselves of the notion that it is only "other people's" liberties that are at stake. Our own government threatens our collective liberty far more than do outside sources. The response, as the Bill of Rights Defense Committees have shown, is to use our rights or lose them. Our right to think and speak for ourselves, without fear of spying neighbors, surveillance cameras or retaliation, is gravely threatened and only our collective and coordinated resistance will stop that threat.
Rachel Neumann is Rights & Liberties editor of AlterNet.
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The Sons and Daughters of Liberty
'All of Us Are in Danger'
June 21st, 2002 3:30 PM
Nat Hentoff
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0226/hentoff.php
Bush Vows U.S. Will Reveal Truth About Iraqi WMD
Thu June 5, 2003 08:18 AM ET
By Adam Entous
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2882727
Woman Suicide Bomber Kills 18 Near Chechnya
Thu June 5, 2003 09:57 AM ET
By Richard Balmforth
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2883554
Anger at US deepens since war
A new poll finds fallout from the Iraq war, but some see an upside in Bush's trip.
By Howard LaFranchi / Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the June 05, 2003 edition
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0605/p01s02-wogi.html
While Bush might be holding up well in US polls, poll numbers abroad must have reached new and unprecedented lows...
Of course it shouldn't matter what other people think because we are always "right" and they are always wrong. "With us or with evil", "with us or unpatriotic", blah blah blah...You know the rant...
The Sons and Daughters of Liberty
'All of Us Are in Danger'
June 21st, 2002 3:30 PM
Nat Hentoff
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0226/hentoff.php
Mlsoft,
"I think the first thing we need to do is give more time to find the WMD's or find out what happened to them, assuming they existed.
You're making an excellent point... DC and the warhawks were unwilling to give UN inspectors "more time" preferring a military route over time, investigation and diplomacy...
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien: "Liberal" or "Conservative" on fiscal issues, social issues?...
Soaring deficits damage world economy: PM
Last Updated Thu, 29 May 2003 20:03:42
ATHENS - The world's eight leading industrialized nations should follow Canada's lead and eliminate deficits, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said Thursday.
The prime minister told business leaders in Athens that growing budget shortfalls are a threat to the world's economic stability.
Jean Chrétien
"Money oriented to pay the deficits of all the nations will be money not available for investment in the private sector," Chrétien said, adding that it wasn't easy to achieve Canada's five consecutive budget surpluses, but it was rewarding.
"This creates a business climate that encourages growth," he said.
As leader of the economic discussions at next week's G-8 summit in France, Chrétien said delegates will discuss how to boost the world's most important economies – the U.S., Japan and Europe.
European Commission President Romano Prodi agreed with the PM's assessment.
"The three so-called locomotives are on a standstill, so we have to put them on track with a joint, co-ordinated action," said Prodi.
FROM MAY 27, 2003: U.S. reacts to Chrétien's tough talk
Chrétien drew fire Wednesday after he criticized the $500-billion American deficit in an impromptu chat with reporters Tuesday.
The White House responded by saying the U.S. had to rebuild from terrorist attacks and helped lead the war in Iraq.
Copyright © CBC 2003
seabass,
Is it possible that the common man has gotten so spooked over terrorism,
Nah... Terrorism is a concern but I think the American public has simply become too complacent to give a darn. This type of complacency is a dangerous thing.
I don't see the high approval ratings either, but it's a big country... Who knows..
Senators Attack FCC Rules
Most on Oversight Panel Sign On to Revise Changes
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 5, 2003; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14861-2003Jun4.html