Replies to post #60576 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[goodluck]

Won't make a dent in Kerry's critics--they aren't interested in truth, they are only interested in (a) vengeance against Kerry for his anti-war activities, and (b) electing Dubya. Whatever it takes.

It will all unravel in the end though, IMO.

[harrypothead]

Bush Flip Flops on Role as "War President"
Via Reuters:

Bush Says: 'I Want to Be the Peace President'
By Adam Entous

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - After launching two wars, President Bush said on Tuesday he wanted to be a "peace president" and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being lawyers and weak on defense.

With polls showing public support for the war in Iraq in decline, Bush cast himself as a reluctant warrior and assured Americans they were "safer" as he campaigned in the battleground states of Iowa and Missouri against Democrat John Kerry and his running mate, former trial lawyer John Edwards.

"The enemy declared war on us," Bush told a re-election rally in Cedar Rapids. "Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president... The next four years will be peaceful years." (emphasis added. Bush used the words "peace" or "peaceful" a total of 20 times.

Bush has called himself a "war president" in leading the United States in a battle against terrorism brought about by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind," he said in February.

Posted by Doug McDaniel

[Gulfbreeze]

Statement By Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Member Larry Thurlow

I am convinced that the language used in my citation for a Bronze Star was language taken directly from John Kerry's report which falsely described the action on the Bay Hap River as action that saw small arms fire and automatic weapons fire from both banks of the river.

To this day, I can say without a doubt in my mind, along with other accounts from my shipmates -- there was no hostile enemy fire directed at my boat or at any of the five boats operating on the river that day.

I submitted no paperwork for a medal nor did I file an after action report describing the incident. To my knowledge, John Kerry was the only officer who filed a report describing his version of the incidents that occurred on the river that day.

It was not until I had left the Navy -- approximately three months after I left the service -- that I was notified that I was to receive a citation for my actions on that day.

I believed then as I believe now that I received my Bronze Star for my efforts to rescue the injured crewmen from swift boat number three and to conduct damage control to prevent that boat from sinking. My boat and several other swift boats went to the aid of our fellow swift boat sailors whose craft was adrift and taking on water. We provided immediate rescue and damage control to prevent boat three from sinking and to offer immediate protection and comfort to the injured crew.

After the mine exploded, leaving swift boat three dead in the water, John Kerry's boat, which was on the opposite side of the river, fled the scene. US Army Special Forces officer Jim Rassmann, who was on Kerry's boat at the time, fell off the boat and into the water. Kerry's boat returned several minutes later -- under no hail of enemy gunfire -- to retrieve Rassmann from the river only seconds before another boat was going to pick him up.

Kerry campaign spokespersons have conflicting accounts of this incident -- the latest one being that Kerry's boat did leave but only briefly and returned under withering enemy fire to rescue Mr. Rassmann. However, none of the other boats on the river that day reported enemy fire nor was anyone wounded by small arms action. The only damage on that day was done to boat three -- a result of the underwater mine. None of the other swift boats received damage from enemy gunfire.

And in a new development, Kerry campaign officials are now finally acknowledging that while Kerry's boat left the scene, none of the other boats on the river ever left the damaged swift boat. This is a direct contradiction to previous accounts made by Jim Rassmann in the Oregonian newspaper and a direct contradiction to the "No Man Left Behind" theme during the Democratic National Convention.

These ever changing accounts of the Bay Hap River incident by Kerry campaign officials leave me asking one question. If no one ever left the scene of the Bay Hap River incident, how could anyone be left behind?


-30-

[Rick Faurot]

WASHINGTON - Three U.S. senators have called on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to account for 8.8 billion dollars entrusted to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq earlier this year but now gone missing.
In a letter Thursday, Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Byron L Dorgan of North Dakota and Tom Harkin of Iowa, all opposition Democrats, demanded a "full, written account" of the money that was channeled to Iraqi ministries and authorities by the CPA, which was the governing body in the occupied country until Jun. 30.

The loss was uncovered in an audit by the CPA's inspector general. It has not yet been released publicly and was initially reported on the website of journalist and retired U.S. Army Col David Hackworth.

The CPA was terminated at the end of July to make way for an interim Iraqi government, which is in turn scheduled to be replaced by an elected body early in 2005.

"We are requesting a full, written account of the 8.8 billion dollars transferred earlier this year from the CPA to the Iraqi ministries, including the amount each ministry received and the way in which the ministry spent the money," said the letter.

The senators also requested that the Pentagon designate a date by which it will install adequate oversight and financial and contractual controls over money it spends in Iraq.

They accused the CPA of transferring the "staggering sum of money" with no written rules or guidelines to ensure adequate control over it.

They pointed to "disturbing findings" from the inspector general's report that the payrolls of some Iraqi ministries, then under CPA control, were padded with thousands of ghost employees. They refer to an example in which CPA paid the salaries of 74,000 security guards although the actual number of employees could not be validated.

The report says that in one case some 8,000 guards were listed on a payroll but only 603 real individuals could be counted.

"Such enormous discrepancies raise very serous questions about potential fraud, waste and abuse," added the letter.

This is not the first time that U.S. financial conduct in Iraq has come under fire, specifically over funds slated for reconstruction after the U.S.-led attack in March 2003, which then went unaccounted for.

In June, British charity Christian Aid said at least 20 billion dollars in oil revenues and other Iraqi funds intended to rebuild the country have disappeared from banks administered by the CPA.

Watchdog groups have complained before about the opaque nature of the CPA's handling of Iraqi money and the lack of transparency of U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Halliburton, a giant U.S. company that has been awarded 8.2 billion dollars worth of contracts from the Defense department to provide support services such as meals, shelter, laundry and Internet connections for U.S. soldiers in Iraq, has been targeted for allegedly overcharging for those services.

"Continued failures to account for funds, such as the 8.8 billion dollars of concern here - and the refusal, so far, of the Pentagon to take corrective action are a disservice to the American taxpayer, the Iraqi people and to our men and women in uniform," the senators wrote.

Groups critical of the lack of transparency in the CPA's spending have been particularly angry that the authority used Iraqi money to pay for questionable contracts -- some awarded without a public tendering process -- with U.S. companies.

Washington initially restricted the most lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq to gigantic U.S. firms that appeared able to reap huge profits, fueling accusations the Bush administration was seeking to benefit a select few U.S. companies rather than find the best, and possibly the cheapest, options to help rebuild Iraq.

After loud complaints, the contracting process was officially opened to firms from other nations, but many of them still insist they are not competing on a level playing field with U.S. businesses.

A Pentagon spokeswoman told IPS that the CPA administered the money transparently and that Iraqi ministries used the eight billion dollars in ways that directly "benefited the people of Iraq."

"The CPA provided these funds to Iraqi ministries from the Development Fund for Iraq through a transparent and open budget process," said Lt Col Rose-Ann L Lynch of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. "This is Iraqi money -- revenue from such sources as oil sales -- not U.S. funds."

The official added that the money was used to pay the salaries of hundreds of thousands of government employees, teachers, health workers, administrators and government pensioners, as well as to fund the Iraqi Defense ministry and police forces.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0821-01.htm