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Monday, October 11, 2004 |
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From the War and Peace Watch Newsletter Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office Iraq is in danger of costing George Bush his presidency, and the Coalition Provisional Authority's media staff are determined to see that does not happen. Inside the palace hall that serves as the press office of the US-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq, striving to ensure that Americans receive a positive spin on the administration's invasion, occupation, and reconstruction of Iraq. The office is packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees, and ex-Capitol Hill staffers, with one-third of the US civilian workers in the press office having GOP ties. So much for "fair and balanced." Associated Press AP: Bush Loyalists Pack Iraq Press Office Baghdad, Iraq (AP) - Inside the marble-floored palace hall that serves as the press office of the U.S.-led coalition, Republican Party operatives lead a team of Americans who promote mostly good news about Iraq. Dan Senor, a former press secretary for Spencer Abraham, the Michigan Republican who's now Energy Secretary, heads the office packed with former Bush campaign workers, political appointees and ex-Capitol Hill staffers. One-third of the U.S. civilian workers in the press office have GOP ties, running an enterprise that critics see as an outpost of Bush's re-election effort with Iraq a top concern. Senor and others inside the coalition say they follow strict guidelines that steer clear of politics. ``Beautification Plan for Baghdad Ready to Begin,'' one press release in late March said in its headline. Another statement last month cautioned, ``The Reality is Nothing Like What You See on Television.'' Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said his office is guided by ethical ``red lines'' that prevent it from crossing into the Bush campaign. ``We have an obligation to communicate with the U.S. Congress and the American people, given that they're spending almost $20 billion in Iraq and have committed over 100,000 U.S. troops here,'' Senor said in an interview with The Associated Press. Earlier in his career, after Hebrew University and Harvard Business School, Senor was with the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with Bush family ties and big defense industry holdings. Senor jogged in a Thanksgiving Day race here wearing a ``Bush-Cheney 2004'' T-shirt. Known as the Green Room, the press office is inside coalition headquarters in the Republican Palace that used to belong to Saddam Hussein. The palace is in central Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. The office counts 21 Republicans - 11 of whom have worked inside the Bush administration before their Iraq posting - among its 58 U.S. civilian staffers, according to figures Senor provided. More than half a dozen CPA officials in the press office worked on Bush's 2000 presidential campaign or are related to Bush campaign workers, according to payroll records filed with the Federal Elections Commission. Republican figures also permeate the wider CPA staff, including top advisers to U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and the Iraqi ministries. The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees, not political appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or language skills that most of the Americans lack. The drive to re-elect Bush is a sensitive topic. Several coalition officials angered by what they see as CPA politicking - with U.S. accomplishments in Iraq being trumpeted to help Bush - grumbled privately, but would not go on record with complaints. But Gordon Robison, a former CPA contractor who helped build the Pentagon-funded Al-Iraqiya television station in Baghdad, said Republicans in the press room intensely followed the Democratic presidential primaries as John Kerry emerged as the presumed nominee. ``Iraq is in danger of costing George W. Bush his presidency and the CPA's media staff are determined to see that does not happen,'' Robison said. ``I had the impression in dealing with the civilians in the Green Room that they viewed their job as essentially political, promoting what the Coalition Provisional Authority is doing in Iraq as a political arm of the Bush administration,'' he added. Robison, a journalist who said his political affiliation is a private matter, left Baghdad in March after finishing his contract with U.S. defense contractor Science Applications International Corp. A new U.S. contractor, Harris Corp., has taken over the Al-Iraqiya operations. One CPA staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity said the press office had sent targeted ``good news'' releases to American television, radio and newspaper outlets that were timed to deflect criticism of Bush during the Democratic primaries. Stratcom's schedule of news releases shows that stories were sent to media outlets in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia and other states in the days before their Democratic primaries. But the schedule also shows releases sent to Virginia, Ohio and Florida after the primaries were over. Senor said any correlation to the vote was a coincidence. Rich Galen, 57, a well-known Republican strategist, oversees the daily news releases sent directly to media outlets in the United States. Before joining the CPA press operation late last year, Galen wrote a GOP insider column and appeared on Fox News to harpoon liberal critics of Bush. Now, he's still writing an Internet column, but he's turned it into what he calls a travelogue about Iraq. And he still appears on Fox - but long-distance via satellite and as a CPA spokesman. Galen has been press secretary for both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Vice President Dan Quayle during their careers. Galen's 27-year-old son, Reed, is involved in the Bush re-election effort. Since arriving in Iraq, Galen said he has made sure not to veer into politics in his work in the Green Room, in his column or during his television appearances. ``I understand when the game clock is on and when the game clock is off,'' Galen said. ``The clock is off.'' Were he to get directly involved in the Bush campaign, Galen said he'd be far more effective working at an office in Virginia outside of Washington D.C. than from the Iraqi capital. ``It's as inefficient a way to run a campaign as I can imagine,'' he said of being in Baghdad. Outside political analysts, however, said Galen's vast expertise lies in political campaigning, not shipping radio and TV spots to local audiences. Putting a sharp strategist like him in the press room is a campaign masterstroke, said Bob Boorstin of the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan political think-tank in Washington. ``You know they're in trouble if they shipped Rich Galen over there,'' said Boorstin, who worked on four presidential campaigns, all Democratic. ``They're desperate to control the story over there. It's a very smart thing on their part. He knows what he's doing.'' Still, Boorstin said the shaping of the American message out of Iraq should come as no surprise. The rigors of election year politics demand the best possible portrayal of key policies, and Bush has staked his presidency on the notion that he's a war president. ``There's some deep questions about whether (the U.S. invasion) was a good idea. Wherever and whenever they can, Bush's political people are manipulating whatever they can,'' he said. ``Is that a surprise? No. Would Democrats do it? Yes. But it's particularly noxious because people's lives are on the line.'' Associated Press Writer Aparna H. Kumar contributed to this report from Washington. © Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) 4:03:18 PM 
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Monday, July 21, 2003 |
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Re: 16 Little Words Dear Friends: It's more than Bush's 16 words that are the problem--it's a whole pattern of corruption that we are dealing with. Paul Krugman queries how we got into this mess. The case of the bogus uranium purchases wasn't an isolated instance. It was part of a broad pattern of politicized, corrupted intelligence. So far, George Tenet, director of the CIA,has been ordered to fall upon his sword in protection of his boss. Bush can throw officials to the lions all he wants, but that's not going to make the problem go away. If you truly desire regime change at home, and an outing of the truth, keep asking questions and keep the pressure on. ________________________ The New York Times July 15, 2003 Pattern of Corruption by Paul Krugman More than half of the U.S. Army's combat strength is now bogged down in Iraq, which didn't have significant weapons of mass destruction and wasn't supporting Al Qaeda. We have lost all credibility with allies who might have provided meaningful support; Tony Blair is still with us, but has lost the trust of his public. All this puts us in a very weak position for dealing with real threats. Did I mention that North Korea has been extracting fissionable material from its fuel rods? How did we get into this mess? The case of the bogus uranium purchases wasn't an isolated instance. It was part of a broad pattern of politicized, corrupted intelligence. Literally before the dust had settled, Bush administration officials began trying to use 9/11 to justify an attack on Iraq. Gen. Wesley Clark says that he received calls on Sept. 11 from "people around the White House" urging him to link that assault to Saddam Hussein. His account seems to back up a CBS.com report last September, headlined "Plans for Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," which quoted notes taken by aides to Donald Rumsfeld on the day of the attack: "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not." But an honest intelligence assessment would have raised questions about why we were going after a country that hadn't attacked us. It would also have suggested the strong possibility that an invasion of Iraq would hurt, not help, U.S. security. So the Iraq hawks set out to corrupt the process of intelligence assessment. On one side, nobody was held accountable for the failure to predict or prevent 9/11; on the other side, top intelligence officials were expected to support the case for an Iraq war. The story of how the threat from Iraq's alleged W.M.D.'s was hyped is now, finally, coming out. But let's not forget the persistent claim that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, which allowed the hawks to pretend that the Iraq war had something to do with fighting terrorism. As Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence official, said last week, U.S. intelligence analysts have consistently agreed that Saddam did not have a "meaningful connection" to Al Qaeda. Yet administration officials continually asserted such a connection, even as they suppressed evidence showing real links between Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia. And during the run-up to war, George Tenet, the C.I.A. director, was willing to provide cover for his bosses--just as he did last weekend. In an October 2002 letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, he made what looked like an assertion that there really were meaningful connections between Saddam and Osama. Read closely, the letter is evasive, but it served the administration's purpose. What about the risk that an invasion of Iraq would weaken America's security? Warnings from military experts that an extended postwar occupation might severely strain U.S. forces have proved precisely on the mark. But the hawks prevented any consideration of this possibility. Before the war, one official told Newsweek that the occupation might last no more than 30 to 60 days. It gets worse. Knight Ridder newspapers report that a "small circle of senior civilians in the Defense Department" were sure that their favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, could easily be installed in power. They were able to prevent skeptics from getting a hearing and they had no backup plan when efforts to anoint Mr. Chalabi, a millionaire businessman, degenerated into farce. So who will be held accountable? Mr. Tenet betrayed his office by tailoring statements to reflect the interests of his political masters, rather than the assessments of his staff--but that's not why he may soon be fired. Yesterday USA Today reported that "some in the Bush administration are arguing privately for a C.I.A. director who will be unquestioningly loyal to the White House as committees demand documents and call witnesses." Not that the committees are likely to press very hard: Senator Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems more concerned about protecting his party's leader than protecting the country. "What concerns me most," he says, is "what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to discredit the president." In short, those who politicized intelligence in order to lead us into war, at the expense of national security, hope to cover their tracks by corrupting the system even further. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:16:34 PM
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Re: Weaponsgate Has Begun Dear Friends: The momentum regarding the untruths told about the weapons of mass destruction is growing daily. It's important that we keep our eye on the prize, and that we keep the pressure on the administration to come clean about what they knew and when they knew it. What has been done in America's name will not easily be forgotten by the world, and a regime change will not be enough to win back our self respect. Dues must be paid. _______________________________ United for Peace and Justice July 15, 2003 Demand That Bush Come Clean on Weaponsgate The Bush Administration is desperately trying to contain the brewing controversy about its false statements regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. They lied to drive us into a war against a country that posed no threat, a war which has so far killed over 6000 Iraqi civilians (http://www.iraqbodycount.net) and over 200 American soldiers. Speak out now! Help keep this issue in the public spotlight. Take Action: Call You Elected Representatives. Contact your Senators and Representatives and urge them to push for an independent investigation into whether the Bush Administration misled the public with claims that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors. Tell them the American public deserves answers to the tough questions. We want open, thorough, timely televised public hearings and an investigation with a broad mandate. We need the truth. Both Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) have introduced legislation (H.R. 2625 and H. Res. 307 resp.) that addresses some of these concerns. Each has supported the others bill, although Tauschers is stronger in several regards--it calls for a House Select Committee rather than an independent commission and it calls for reporting before the election. The Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121. Write a Letter to the Editor or Op-Ed. Keep this issue in the public spotlight by writing a letter to the editor or opinion piece for your local newspaper. Letters to the editor should be less than 200 words, opinion pieces about 600 words. Most newspapers post specific guidelines on their websites, which also have information about where to send your piece. An excellent resource on lies about the war can be found at http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=424008 Distribute Flyers. Educate people about how the Bush Administrations claims compare to the facts. Good places to hand out flyers include bus stops, subway stations, grocery stores, college campuses, libraries, and churches, among other sites. Downloadable flyers will soon be available at www.unitedforpeace.org. List Your Group's Peace and Justice Events on the UFPJ website: http://unitedforpeace.org/calendar_gxinput.php Background: Eight days ago, former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson revealed that he had been charged by the Bush administration with investigating claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and that the Bush administration had ignored his report that these claims were false. Building on earlier reports that the claim was based on crudely forged documents, this has set off a chain of events that could turn Weaponsgate into a major scandal. (New York Times, July 6) Another insider, recently retired State Department intelligence official Greg Thielmann, has disclosed that intelligence agencies agreed that there was no meaningful connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. He confirmed other allegations that the administration has systematically distorted and misused intelligence in order to justify the war on Iraq. (USA Today, July 13) The Bush administration has moved swiftly to try to contain the brewing controversy. It has so far succeeded in blocking attempts to have open congressional hearings on the question. On Friday it pinned the blame for the Niger claims on the CIA, with director George Tenet taking full responsibility for their inclusion in Bush's State of the Union address. On Sunday it stepped back from its earlier admission that the claims were based on bogus information, saying that the statement in the address was, in Donald Rumsfeld's words, "technically correct." (New York Times, July 13) The attempts to pass the buck don't hold water. Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst, says that administration claims about their ignorance are "stretching the truth beyond the breaking point." And in Australia, where similar revelations have been made (the Defense Intelligence Organization admits it had information on the Niger forgeries but says it didn't tell the Defense Minister), ex-intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie points out, "You've got three intelligence organizations in Australia, the intelligence organizations in the US, and every one is saying they knew this was bad information, but not one political leader reckons they were told" It is unbelievable to the point of fantasy." (Truthout, July 13) More important, restricting attention to the Niger claims keeps attention away from all the other information about a systematic pattern of deceit and denial by the Bush administration. (See "20 Lies About the War") It includes deception about the link with al-Qaeda, about the alleged massive stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, about the "unmanned aerial vehicles" that George W. Bush once claimed could be used to attack the United States, and about Iraq's level of cooperation with weapons inspections, and much more. Furthermore, the administrations extreme dishonesty over the Niger claims should lead people to question all of its assertions, including the repeated statements that the war on Iraq and the current occupation is about liberating Iraq. Instead of democracy, Iraq is getting a council of political figures hand-picked by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S.-appointed ruler of Iraq. Instead of having Iraq's oil used for the benefit of the Iraqi people, Bremer plans to privatize the state oil companies as part of privatizing over 40 government-owned companies. (New York Times, June 23) Instead of bringing a new prosperity to the Iraqi people, Bremer has fired over 500,000 government employees. And, of course, U.S. plans to use Iraq as a military staging-area for regional "force projection" are openly admitted. (Reuters, April 28) At the same time, we have been deceived about how easy and cheap the occupation would be. The American death toll has mounted to well over 200, including over 30 killed by hostile action since May 1, the declared end of the war. The costs of the occupation are double what was projected -- $3.9 billion per month. (New York Times, July 11) And Donald Rumsfeld announced recently that additional troops would likely be needed in Iraq. (New York Times, July 14) Its important to keep the Bush administrations deception over weapons of mass destruction in the public eye and also to connect that to the larger deception in the drive to war and to deception over its aims for Iraq. For Background Info, See These Sources: -- "What I didn't find in Africa," New York Times, July 6, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html or www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm -- "Bush overstated Iraq links to al-Qaeda, former intelligence officials say," USA Today, July 13, 2003. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-13-bush-alqaeda_x.htm -- "Bush Aides Now Say Claim on Uranium Was Accurate," New York Times, July 13, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/international/worldspecial/14INTE.html -- William Rivers Pitt, "The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet," Truthout, July 13, 2003. http://truthout.org/docs_03/071403A.shtml -- "20 Lies About the War," The Independent, July 13, 2003. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=424008 -- "Overseer in Iraq Plans to Sell off Government-Owned Companies, New York Times, June 23. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30D1EF93F5F0C708EDDAF0894DB 404482 -- "Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Four Key Bases in Iraq," New York Times, April 20. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0811F9395E0C738EDDAD0894DB 404482 -- "Israeli Ambassador to U.S. calls for Regime Change in Iran, Syria," Reuters, April 28. -- "Wars Cost Brings Democratic Anger," New York Times, July 11, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/11/international/worldspecial/11COST.html -- "Rumsfeld Says Iraq May Need a Larger Force," New York Times, July 14, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/international/worldspecial/14TROO.html --United for Peace and Justice http://www.unitedforpeace.org 212-603-3700 _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:15:42 PM
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Re: Group Demands Cheney's Resignation Dear Friends: A group of senior former intelligence officials have written an open letter to George Bush, demanding the resignation of Vice-President Dick Cheney. In the letter they accuse him of using his office to insist that a false claim about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear program be included in Bush's State of the Union address---ignoring the concerns of CIA director George Tenet. Cheney was also accused of knowingly misleading Congress when the administration sought its authorization for the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein. The former intelligence officials believe that information from the intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought for political reasons. The chickens are coming home to roost. ____________________________ The Independent (UK) July 16, 2003 Cheney Under Pressure to Quit Over False War Evidence Anger grows on both sides of Atlantic at misleading claims on eve of Iraq conflict by Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Marie Woolf Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration's most outspoken hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night as he was accused of using false evidence to build the case for war. He was accused of using his office to insist that a false claim about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear programme be included in George Bush's State of the Union address - overriding the concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet. Mr Cheney was also accused of knowingly misleading Congress when the administration sought its authorisation for the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein. The allegations against Mr Cheney have come most vocally from a group of senior former intelligence officials who believe that information from the intelligence community was selectively used to support a war fought for political reasons. In an open letter to President George Bush, the group have asked that he demand Mr Cheney's resignation. As the clamour for a full inquest into the African uranium claims grew on both sides of the Atlantic, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was accused by MPs of lacking "credibility" after he admitted knowing a month before the war that documents making the assertion were forgeries. Mr Straw said in a statement he had known that letters given to the UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, about the Niger claim were fake as early as February. Mr Straw also claimed that the Government's case for military action was not based on "intelligence reports". Labour MPs, including Tam Dalyell, the father of the House, asked why Mr Straw had not told MPs that the documents were fake in advance of the vote to approve military action on 18 March. "He now says the Government knew it was a forgery in February. Why didn't he tell us before Parliament voted for war?" he said. "Also if the case for war is not based on intelligence, what is it based on?" Last night the Labour-dominated Foreign Affairs Committee asked Mr Straw to reveal what he knew about the Niger claim. Donald Anderson, the committee's chairman, wrote to Mr Straw asking him when the CIA first questioned the Niger connection, and why ministers had not admitted earlier that there were doubts about the claims. The committee also asked whether the CIA had questioned any other claims in the September dossier on Iraq's weapons. The letter, signed by 11 MPs of all parties, called on Mr Straw to confirm The Independent's report that technical documents and centrifuge parts found at the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist in Baghdad had lain buried for 12 years. The letter also asked Mr Straw to reveal when he knew that the former US ambassador Joseph Wilson had found claims about Niger-Iraq links to be false. Last week the White House admitted that the claim that Iraq was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa" - based on faked documents provided by the Italian intelligence services - should not have been included in President Bush's speech of 28 January. In Washington there is no conclusive proof that Mr Cheney was responsible for insisting that the claim be made in the speech. But there is clear evidence of Mr Cheney's interest in the alleged Niger deal. Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador, said he was asked by the CIA to go to Niger and investigate the claim in a request from the Vice-President's office. Mr Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has admitted that during a briefing from the CIA "the Vice-President asked a question about the implication of the report". There have been reports from CIA officials that in the months before the war Mr Cheney made a "multiple number" of personal visits to its headquarters in Virginia to meet officials analysing intelligence relating to Iraq. "[He] sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here," one senior CIA official told reporters. The CIA director, Mr Tenet, said he accepted responsibility for approving the speech but said his officers had only "concurred" with White House officials that by naming the British Government as the source of the Niger claim it was "factually correct". Britain has stood by the claim, saying it has evidence in addition to the Italian documents. © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:15:15 PM
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Re: Intelligence Professionals Blast Cheney Dear Friends: In a blistering memo to George Bush, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) demand that Cheney be fired for his role in manipulating evidence to support the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The VIPS state that, "There is just too much evidence that Ambassador Wilson was sent to Niger at the behest of Vice President Cheney's office, and that Wilson's findings were duly reported not only to that office but to others as well. Equally important, it was Cheney who launched (in a major speech on August 26, 2002) the concerted campaign to persuade Congress and the American people that Saddam Hussein was about to get his hands on nuclear weapons--a campaign that mushroomed, literally, in early October with you and your senior advisers raising the specter of a 'mushroom cloud' being the first 'smoking gun' we might observe... We strongly recommend that you ask for Cheney's immediate resignation." Ray McGovern is a 27-year veteran of the CIA and a member of the steering committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. The VIPS is a group of 30 retired senior intelligence officers formed in January of 2003 to keep watch on the use/abuse of intelligence, primarily regarding Iraq. Most of them are from the analytic ranks of the CIA, but they have strong representation from the operations officers as well. Their ranks include retired officers from State Department Intelligence, Defense Intelligence, Army Intelligence, and the FBI. __________________________________________ Memo to the President from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity July 14, 2003 MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity SUBJECT: Intelligence Unglued The glue that holds the Intelligence Community together is melting under the hot lights of an awakened press. If you do not act quickly, your intelligence capability will fall apart -- with grave consequences for the nation. The Forgery Flap By now you are all too familiar with the play-by-play. The Iraq-seeking-uranium-in-Niger forgery is a microcosm of a mischievous nexus of overarching problems. Instead of addressing these problems, your senior staff is alternately covering up for one another and gently stabbing one another in the back. CIA Director George Tenet's extracted, unapologetic apology on July 11 was classic -- I confess; she did it. It is now dawning on our until-now somnolent press that your national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, shepherds the foreign affairs sections of your state-of-the-union address and that she, not Tenet, is responsible for the forged information getting into the speech. But the disingenuousness persists. Surely Dr. Rice cannot persist in her insistence that she learned only on June 8, 2003 about former ambassador Joseph Wilson's mission to Niger in February 2002, when he determined that the Iraq-Niger report was a con-job. Wilson's findings were duly reported to all concerned in early March 2002. And, if she somehow missed that report, the New York Times' Nicholas Kristoff on May 6 recounted chapter and verse on Wilson's mission, and the story remained the talk of the town in the weeks that followed. Rice's denials are reminiscent of her claim in spring 2002 that there was no reporting suggesting that terrorists were planning to hijack planes and slam them into buildings. In September, the joint congressional committee on 9/11 came up with a dozen such reports. Secretary of State Colin Powell's credibility, too, has taken serious hits as continued non-discoveries of weapons in Iraq heap doubt on his confident assertions to the UN. Although he was undoubtedly trying to be helpful in trying to contain the Iraq-Niger forgery affair, his recent description of your state-of-the-union words as "not totally outrageous" was faint praise indeed. And his explanations as to why he made a point to avoid using the forgery in the way you did was equally unhelpful. Whatever Rice's or Powell's credibility, it is yours that matters. And, in our view, the credibility of the intelligence community is an inseparably close second. Attempts to dismiss or cover up the cynical use to which the known forgery was put have been -- well, incredible. The British have a word for it: "dodgy." You need to put a quick end to the dodginess, if the country is to have a functioning intelligence community. The Vice President's Role Attempts at cover up could easily be seen as comical, were the issue not so serious. Highly revealing were Ari Fleisher's remarks early last week, which set the tone for what followed. When asked about the forgery, he noted tellingly -- as if drawing on well memorized talking points -- that the Vice President was not guilty of anything. The disingenuousness was capped on Friday, when George Tenet did his awkward best to absolve the Vice President from responsibility. To those of us who experienced Watergate, these comments had an eerie ring. That affair and others since have proven that cover-up can assume proportions overshadowing the crime itself. All the more reason to take early action to get the truth up and out. There is just too much evidence that Ambassador Wilson was sent to Niger at the behest of Vice President Cheney's office, and that Wilson's findings were duly reported not only to that office but to others as well. Equally important, it was Cheney who launched (in a major speech on August 26, 2002) the concerted campaign to persuade Congress and the American people that Saddam Hussein was about to get his hands on nuclear weapons -- a campaign that mushroomed, literally, in early October with you and your senior advisers raising the specter of a "mushroom cloud" being the first "smoking gun" we might observe. That this campaign was based largely on information known to be forged and that the campaign was used successfully to frighten our elected representatives in Congress into voting for war is clear from the bitter protestations of Rep. Henry Waxman and others. The politically aware recognize that the same information was used, also successfully, in the campaign leading up to the mid-term elections -- a reality that breeds a cynicism highly corrosive to our political process. The fact that the forgery also crept into your state-of-the-union address pales in significance in comparison with how it was used to deceive Congress into voting on October 11 to authorize you to make war on Iraq. It was a deep insult to the integrity of the intelligence process that, after the Vice President declared on August 26, 2002 that "we know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced during the critical month of September featured a fraudulent conclusion that "most analysts" agreed with Cheney's assertion. This may help explain the anomaly of Cheney's unprecedented "multiple visits" to CIA headquarters at the time, as well as the many reports that CIA and other intelligence analysts were feeling extraordinarily great pressure, accompanied by all manner of intimidation tactics, to concur in that conclusion. As a coda to his nuclear argument, Cheney told NBC's Meet the Press three days before US/UK forces invaded Iraq: "we believe he (Saddam Hussein) has reconstituted nuclear weapons." Mr. Russert: ...the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have a nuclear program; we disagree? Vice President Cheney: I disagree, yes. And you'll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of the intelligence community disagree...we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei (Director of the IAEA) frankly is wrong. Contrary to what Cheney and the NIE said, the most knowledgeable analysts -- those who know Iraq and nuclear weapons -- judged that the evidence did not support that conclusion. They now have been proven right. Adding insult to injury, those chairing the NIE succumbed to the pressure to adduce the known forgery as evidence to support the Cheney line, and relegated the strong dissent of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (and the nuclear engineers in the Department of Energy) to an inconspicuous footnote. It is a curious turn of events. The drafters of the offending sentence on the forgery in president's state-of-the-union speech say they were working from the NIE. In ordinary circumstances an NIE would be the preeminently authoritative source to rely upon; but in this case the NIE itself had already been cooked to the recipe of high policy. Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador who visited Niger at Cheney's request, enjoys wide respect (including, like several VIPS members, warm encomia from your father). He is the consummate diplomat. So highly disturbed is he, however, at the chicanery he has witnessed that he allowed himself a very undiplomatic comment to a reporter last week, wondering aloud "what else they are lying about." Clearly, Wilson has concluded that the time for diplomatic language has passed. It is clear that lies were told. Sad to say, it is equally clear that your vice president led this campaign of deceit. This was no case of petty corruption of the kind that forced Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation. This was a matter of war and peace. Thousands have died. There is no end in sight. Recommendation #1 We recommend that you call an abrupt halt to attempts to prove Vice President Cheney "not guilty." His role has been so transparent that such attempts will only erode further your own credibility. Equally pernicious, from our perspective, is the likelihood that intelligence analysts will conclude that the way to success is to acquiesce in the cooking of their judgments, since those above them will not be held accountable. We strongly recommend that you ask for Cheney's immediate resignation. The Games Congress Plays The unedifying dance by the various oversight committees of the Congress over recent weeks offers proof, if further proof were needed, that reliance on Congress to investigate in a non-partisan way is pie in the sky. One need only to recall that Sen. Pat Roberts, Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has refused to agree to ask the FBI to investigate the known forgery. Despite repeated attempts by others on his committee to get him to bring in the FBI, Roberts has branded such a move "inappropriate," without spelling out why. Rep. Porter Goss, head of the House Intelligence Committee, is a CIA alumnus and a passionate Republican and agency partisan. Goss was largely responsible for the failure of the joint congressional committee on 9/11, which he co-chaired last year. An unusually clear indication of where Goss' loyalties lie can be seen is his admission that after a leak to the press last spring he bowed to Cheney's insistence that the FBI be sent to the Hill to investigate members and staff of the joint committee -- an unprecedented move reflecting blithe disregard for the separation of powers and a blatant attempt at intimidation. (Congress has its own capability to investigate such leaks.) Henry Waxman's recent proposal to create yet another congressional investigatory committee, patterned on the latest commission looking into 9/11, likewise holds little promise. To state the obvious about Congress, politics is the nature of the beast. We have seen enough congressional inquiries into the performance of intelligence to conclude that they are usually as feckless as they are prolonged. And time cannot wait. As you are aware, Gen. Brent Scowcroft performed yeoman's service as National Security Adviser to your father and enjoys very wide respect. There are few, if any, with his breadth of experience with the issues and the institutions involved. In addition, he has avoided blind parroting of the positions of your administration and thus would be seen as relatively nonpartisan, even though serving at your pleasure. It seems a stroke of good luck that he now chairs your President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Recommendation #2 We repeat, with an additional sense of urgency, the recommendation in our last memorandum to you (May 1) that you appoint Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to head up an independent investigation into the use/abuse of intelligence on Iraq. UN Inspectors Your refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq has left the international community befuddled. Worse, it has fed suspicions that the US does not want UN inspectors in country lest they impede efforts to "plant" some "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, should efforts to find them continue to fall short. The conventional wisdom is less conspiratorial but equally unsatisfying. The cognoscenti in Washington think tanks, for example, attribute your attitude to "pique." We find neither the conspiracy nor the "pique" rationale persuasive. As we have admitted before, we are at a loss to explain the barring of UN inspectors. Barring the very people with the international mandate, the unique experience, and the credibility to undertake a serious search for such weapons defies logic. UN inspectors know Iraq, know the weaponry in question, know the Iraqi scientists/engineers who have been involved, know how the necessary materials are procured and processed; in short, have precisely the expertise required. The challenge is as daunting as it is immediate; and, clearly, the US needs all the help it can get. The lead Wall Street Journal article of April 8 had it right: "If the US doesn't make any undisputed discoveries of forbidden weapons, the failure will feed already-widespread skepticism abroad about the motives for going to war." As the events of last week show, that skepticism has now mushroomed here at home as well. Recommendation #3 We recommend that you immediately invite the UN inspectors back into Iraq. This would go a long way toward refurbishing your credibility. Equally important, it would help sort out the lessons learned for the intelligence community and be an invaluable help to an investigation of the kind we have suggested you direct Gen. Scowcroft to lead. If Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity can be of any further help to you in the days ahead, you need only ask. /s/ Ray Close, Princeton, NJ David MacMichael, Linden, VA Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA Steering Committee Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity ©2003 Veterans for Common Sense Veterans for Common Sense is an organization of Gulf War veterans working to ensure the debate over war considers all necessary issues. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:14:14 PM
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Re: CIA Left Out of the Loop Dear Friends: Lack of communication has been rife between the White House, the State Department, and the CIA. Although the CIA vetoed certain documents as inadequate or unsubstantial for action, the administration continued to override this guidance if it did not support the picture they wanted to present. Such cherry-picking is risky, and has resulted in the shameless dissemination of a country, its economy, and its people. We've now begun to reap the whirlwind. ___________________________ Associated Press July 18, 2003 Analysts Reportedly Missed Faked Documents by John J. Lumpkin WASHINGTON (AP) - Documents alleging Iraq sought uranium from Africa were obtained months before President Bush cited them in making his case for war, but intelligence analysts did not look at them closely enough to know they were forgeries until after Bush had made the claim, U.S. officials say. U.S. officials offered new information Thursday on the trail of the documents, which purported to show Iraq tried to obtain uranium from the African country of Niger for its weapons programs. Their account suggested a disconnect between the CIA and the State Department over the handling of what turned out to be a crucial but faulty piece of intelligence used to make the Bush administration's case for war. Officials acknowledged that had U.S. intelligence analyzed the documents sooner, they could have discovered the forgeries before the information was used as fodder for Bush administration statements vilifying Iraq. The State Department said Thursday it obtained the documents in the fall of 2002, but intelligence officials said the CIA didn't get them until the following February. The State Department said it made them available to other agencies in the government shortly after acquiring them; officials could not explain why the CIA did not get copies of them sooner. The U.S. Embassy in Rome obtained the documents, which purported to show contacts between officials in Iraq and Niger over the transfer of uranium, from a journalist there in October 2002, officials said. They were shown to CIA personnel in Rome and sent to State Department headquarters in Washington. But the CIA's station in Rome did not forward them to CIA headquarters outside Washington, where they would have been analyzed. ``We acquired the documents in October 2002 and they were shared widely within the U.S. government, with all the appropriate agencies,'' said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. Those agencies included the CIA, another U.S. official said. But an intelligence official said the CIA didn't obtain the documents from the State Department until February 2003. The official suggested analyzing the documents was not a top priority at the time because the CIA had already investigated their substance. The CIA only got the documents to respond to a request from the United Nations, the intelligence official said. U.N. officials, trying to run a weapons inspections regime in Iraq, asked for evidence behind the allegation in Bush's Jan. 28 speech that ``the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'' The CIA provided them to the United Nations. U.N. officials announced in early March the documents were fakes, and the CIA concurred, the intelligence official said. The Italian government, which also obtained a copy of the documents, had passed on their contents - but not their source - to the CIA several months earlier. The CIA had sent a retired diplomat to Africa to investigate but found little to substantiate the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Still, the CIA included the claim, with a note that it was unconfirmed, in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the classified document that summarized information on Iraq's weapons programs. he estimate also noted the U.S. government had other, ``fragmentary'' intelligence suggesting that Iraq sought uranium for its nuclear weapons program in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Despite the uncertainties, Bush administration officials tried repeatedly to use this information in speeches and statements. The CIA protested several times as the statements were being prepared, but the Niger claim made it into a State Department fact sheet in December, and the more general Africa claim was used in the president's State of the Union address. The controversy over Bush's claim in his address has raised further questions about the administration's assertions that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, a nuclear weapons program, and ties to al-Qaida. None of those assertions, which the administration said were backed up by solid intelligence, have been validated by discoveries in postwar Iraq. --Associated Press writer Harry Dunphy in Washington contributed to this report. © Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ======================= 5:02:18 PM
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Re: The Peace From Hell Dear Friends: That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. Now is not the time to stand back timidly hoping it will work out well in the end. ________________________ AlterNet July 15, 2003 The Peace from Hell by Molly Ivins, AlterNet July 15, 2003 I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I'd rather not see my prediction come true and I don't think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. If this thing turns into Vietnam simply because that man is too vain and arrogant to admit that Gen. Eric Shinseki was right when he said we would need "several hundred thousand soldiers" over there, I hope Rumsfeld rots in a hell worse than the one he's making. Now is not the time to stand back timidly hoping it will work out well in the end. The population of Baghdad is broiling through the 115-degree summer without electricity or water for much of the time. Given the background poverty and generally hideous conditions, the place is a major riot waiting to happen. As we have known ever since the Kerner Commission Report, all it takes is a couple of bad policing incidents to set one off. It is more than painfully apparent that the Pentagon did somewhere between inadequate to zero planning for the occupation, despite the equally apparent fact that this war was settled on more than a year in advance and then intelligence was bent to support it. Hugh Parmer (formerly of Fort Worth), head of the American Refugee Committee (ARC), was in Iran and Iraq at the beginning of the summer, the first NGO (non-governmental organization) to go in because ARC had privately funded relief supplies. He was fairly shaken by what he found. Among other things, the crack disaster-relief team he had created while he was with USAID under President Clinton was sitting around filing their fingernails because the military was rejecting all advice from civilians in favor of doing it their way. Since the military is in this mess precisely because it is not well-trained at peacekeeping, you'd think it would have enough sense to ask people who've been there and done that. That would include the United Nations and NATO. Parmer was there while Gen. Jay Garner, Rumfeld's choice, was still in charge. Clearly that was a mistake, but Paul Bremer, the current viceroy, also seems to have thin credentials. He is described as a diplomat, but he's actually a counterterrorism expert with business ties to many major corporations. We don't need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers -- we need people who know how to fix water and power plants. The late Fred Cuny of Dallas, who was killed in Chechnya, is exactly the kind of person now needed in Baghdad. Cuny was an engineer and a sort of Milo Minderbinder who could find anything, fix anything and finagle anything no matter how disastrous the war zone. He was chiefly famous for his work in Sarajevo during the siege there. He ran a small, private company out of Dallas and always said the only reason he charged for his services was that governments don't listen to advice unless they pay for it. I don't know whose idea it was to cancel municipal elections in Iraq, but it looked awful. We fought the war to bring democracy to Iraq, remember? Anyone there with any sense of public relations? Setting up an "advisory council" in Baghdad isn't going to cut it. Maj. Gen. Carl Strock said Monday electricity and water in Baghdad are still below prewar levels. The New York Times noted, in its Timesly way, "The assessment appeared to run counter to earlier assurances by the Pentagon ..." Rumsfeld, with his usual cocksure breeziness, said on May 15: "A few areas have challenges, to be sure. But most areas are progressing and a growing number actually have conditions that are today estimated to be better than prior to the recent war." What number, from what to what? Out of how many? When is the Washington press corps going to figure out that's precisely the kind of statement by Rumsfeld that needs extensive deconstruction? The New Republic's ruthless dissection of the administration's lies, deceptions and flimflam in its June 30 issue (don't miss it) is a stinging rebuke to the disgraceful level of journalism we are now getting in this country. Have you ever read anything as tortured and ridiculous as Ari Fleischer's non-admission admission that Bush lied about the supposed Iraq-Niger uranium deal? Not even Clinton at his most "depends on what the definition of is is" could top that one. Do look it up. Ol' "Bring 'em on" Bush talks tough and can't even figure out how to find the right stick. © 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ================================== 5:01:36 PM
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Re: Gag Rule for Soldiers? Dear Friends: Not all the US soldiers that are stationed in Iraq are happy about it. Many feel abandoned and let down. And no, it's not because of our protests against this hellish war, it's because they have been repeatedly told one thing, only to have it change in the blink of an eye. Remember those distasteful "Iraqi playing cards?" The circle has now come full circle, with some disgruntled soldiers creating their own "most wanted lists." The prime suspects are the gang of 4 responsible for US policy in Iraq--Rumsfeld, Bremer, Bush, and Wolfowitz. ______________________ ABC News July 16, 2003 General Unrest New U.S. Commander Upset by Comments From Troops in Iraq The new U.S. war commander today took exception with American soldiers who, angry over extended tours of duty in Iraq, criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in televised interviews on ABCNEWS. "None of us that wear this uniform are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense, or the president of the United States," said Gen. John Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command. But several of the wives of soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division who talked to ABCNEWS said today that their husbands spoke the truth and they wanted those views heard. "They feel that their mission is completed. They feel that they came, did what they went over there to do. And, I mean, they're done," said Rhonda Vega, whose husband is Sgt. Felipe Vega. Sgt. Vega, in the interview with ABCNEWS' Jeffrey Kofman, said it was not easy to maintain morale in his platoon when the Army keeps changing the orders. "They turn around and slap you in the face," he said. When asked if that's the way it feels, he said, "Yeah, kicked in the guts, slapped in the face." Another soldier who was interviewed, Spc. Clinton Deitz, said he had a message for the defense secretary. "If Donald Rumsfeld was here," he said, "I'd ask him for his resignation." Asked about the comments made to him by the soldiers, Kofman said he did not pre-interview any of them to find soldiers who were critical of the situation in Iraq before they spoke on camera. "They just spoke. I simply asked questions. I was utterly astonished by their candor. They let their guard down and they said what was on their mind," said Kofman, who is reporting from Baghdad. Unfortunate Comments Today, Abizaid said he had seen the interviews and was not happy. "It's very unfortunate that soldiers, professional soldiers, made comments like that," he said in his inaugural briefing at the Pentagon after taking control of Central Command from Gen. Tommy Franks, who retired. "Whatever action may be taken, whether it's a verbal reprimand or something more stringent, is up to the commanders on the scene." Officially, a soldier could be court-martialed for making such comments, although it is rare and is at the discretion of a commanding officer. Abizaid said the United States was still, in effect, at war in Iraq as anti-American fighters are waging a "classical guerrilla-type campaign against us." The general also said U.S. troops may have to stay for yearlong tours to meet the threat. "It's war, however you describe it," Abizaid said. Abizaid did say definitively that the 3rd Infantry Division would be out of Iraq by September. But he also made clear that the current troop strength of 160,000 will be needed for the foreseeable future. "If the situation gets worse, I won't hesitate to ask for more," he said. Anxious for Spouses to Return The delays in getting their spouses home clearly has upset some Army family members at home. "This saying one thing and backing out of it, all it does is breed distrust," said Michelle Brock, wife of a 3rd Infantry soldier based at Fort Stewart in Georgia. "It's going to be really hard to trust anything that the military tells us again." Brock and others had been led to believe that Fort Stewart's soldiers, some of the first into Baghdad and the ones who saw some of the fiercest fighting, would be relieved quickly. "In the beginning, they told us they'd be the first ones back," said Army wife Stacey Gilmore. But Gilmore's husband, Sgt. Terry Gilmore, remains in Iraq almost a year after he was deployed. Sgt. Gilmore was one of the soldiers who spoke to ABCNEWS. Sgt. Gilmore had to call his wife this week to her that he wouldn't be home in a few weeks to see her and their two little children after all. He said he was upset by the repeated delays and the constantly changing orders. "We couldn't figure out why they do it. Why they can keep us over here right after they told us we were coming home," he said. Stacey Gilmore is upset over Abizaid's harsh criticism of her husband and his colleagues. She said her husband's comments spoke volumes because he is not one to complain. "It takes a lot for Terry to get upset and he's been through a lot. He has the right to complain. I think anybody would," she said. But there are wives who are willing to be patient, given the uncertainties in Iraq. "They're doing their jobs and if our government says they have to stay and do the job longer, that's what they have to do," said Army wife Mychelle Ostrow. Abizaid said he understood some of the frustrations. "It's very, very important to all of us to make sure that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines know when they're coming home," he said. "Every now and then we've got to look at our young people and understand why they said what they said, and then do something about it." ABCNEWS' Martha Raddatz and Erin Hayes contributed to this report. Copyright ABCNEWS ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================= 5:01:01 PM
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Re: Attempt to Discredit Whistleblower Dear Friends: Another intelligence analyst has come forward to speak out against the United States' plans to manipulate prewar intelligence in their favor. Australian Andrew Wilkie has been enlisted by the Democrats to help campaign for a full, open inquiry into whether Washington--and, by association, Canberra--manipulated or ignored prewar intelligence on Iraq. Already there have been attempts to discredit him, implying that he is unstable and is having family problems. To this he commented, "It doesn't surprise me. It's understandable that the Government has decided to try to discredit me. I don't like it, but I understand what they are trying to do." _______________________________ The Sydney Morning Herald July 17, 2003 Australian Analyst Joins US Push for Weapons Inquiry by Caroline Overington, Herald Correspondent in Washington The Australian former intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie has been enlisted by Democrats in the United States to help campaign for a full, open inquiry into whether Washington - and, by association, Canberra - manipulated or ignored prewar intelligence on Iraq. Mr Wilkie, who was invited to Washington DC by one of the nine Democratic candidates for president, said there was "no doubt that [George] Bush, [John] Howard and [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair exaggerated the threat from Iraq, to justify a war." But he said the truth was being kept from the public, because inquiries into the matter were being held in secret or, in the case of a British inquiry last month, "they are just a whitewash". "I don't hold much hope for the Australian inquiry, behind closed doors," he said. "I wait to see what the US inquiry can do." Mr Wilkie, who resigned from the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in protest over the war on Iraq in March, has not been invited to testify at US hearings into the use of prewar intelligence. "I'm not surprised," he said. "I was probably invited to the British inquiry [only] in their hope to discredit me. These inquiries really don't want to hear what I have to say because I'm threatening to spoil their war." Mr Wilkie said the Howard Government had tried to discredit him by saying that his job with ONA did not include studying the prewar intelligence on Iraq, and that "I'm mentally unstable, that I'm having family problems". "It's been hard," he said, of his campaign against governments that supported the war. "The Government has taken a number of opportunities to say I wasn't involved in the Iraq issue. They sent a detailed submission to Britain, and the first 10 minutes [of his testimony there] was them going through this submission, trying to discredit me. It's also had some ugly dimensions. "It doesn't surprise me. It's understandable that the Government has decided to try to discredit me. I don't like it, but I understand what they are trying to do." Mr Wilkie's appearance in Washington on Tuesday was one of a series of events organised by Democrats, who have been emboldened in their campaign against the Bush Administration by the continuing attacks on US soldiers in Iraq, and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction or Saddam Hussein. Senator Ted Kennedy told an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that the Bush Administration's handling of prewar intelligence was a "disgrace". "The case for war seems to have been based on shoddy intelligence, hyped intelligence, and even false intelligence," he said. "They put a spin on the intelligence and a spin on the truth." Mr Wilkie's host, Dennis Kucinich, a 2004 presidential hopeful, said the apparent manipulation of prewar intelligence was "profoundly embarrassing to this nation". Mr Wilkie criticised Mr Howard for saying that Australians had "moved on" and were no longer interested in the arguments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. "I find statements like that incredibly arrogant," he said. Copyright © 2003. The Sydney Morning Herald. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:00:31 PM
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Re: A Call for Impeachment Dear Friends: Several years ago, Bill Clinton was charged with lying under oath and betraying the public trust. In the end, the attempt to convict and remove Mr. Clinton from office failed. Today we have a person occupying the office of president who has consistently betrayed the public trust, abused the power of his office, and contributed to the mental stress, anguish, and death of thousands of innocent people. And yet, there has been no serious attempt to impeach Bush. The mere electing of another to fill this office will not excuse the damage that has been done. The seriousness of what has been done cannot be glossed over; Americans, and the world, must not forget what can happen when a country abdicates its will and judgment to another. The move to impeach is the first step towards regaining our moral compass. _______________________ Tom Paine July 4, 2003 Published July 15, 2003 Turning Back Progress by Thomas Paine Cronin This address was given at a July 4th demonstration near Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Thomas Paine Cronin is president of AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) in Philadelphia, District Council 47. A few years ago, the president of the United States got caught having an affair with a White House intern. The media were all over the story. You couldn't open a newspaper or turn on the TV without seeing Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky recently said that even she was sick of seeing Monica Lewinsky. So the House of Representatives voted to impeach. The charge: lying under oath, also called perjury. In the end, the attempt to convict and remove Mr. Clinton from office failed, because if indiscretion were an impeachable offense, there wouldn't be many legislators left in the hallowed halls of Congress. Today, we have a president who is, in effect, squatting in the White House. That is, illegally occupying it. His opponent in the election got a half million more votes than he did. He seized power by using the state government of Florida, commanded by his brother, and the Supreme Court, several members of which were appointed by his father. This same president has dragged this country into war so far with two other nations. I believe this president directed the Armed Forces to attack Iraq knowing that there were no weapons of mass destruction there and that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. This president is still lying about that and many other things. This president's biggest corporate campaign contributor was Enron. And yet the media passes over all this in silence. And no one, in the press or Congress, utters the word: impeachment. In the three years since he seized power, Mr. Bush has done many things, two of which are of particular concern. First, he's created a foreign policy based on endless, and now pre-emptive, war. Terror is the rationale and the means to intimidate. We now live in a world of yellow alerts, orange alerts, bridge and subway closings, attack rehearsals, the airport shakedowns, the national equivalent of weekly panic attacks, where library records can be investigated and non-citizens arrested and held indefinitely without charge. And guess what? It costs money. The Homeland Security department has a $35 billion budget. We've paid $80 billion for the Iraq debacle so far. The second thing Mr. Bush has done is ram his tax cuts through Congress. Under Bush, every day is Christmas, if you're wealthy in America. That's who gets the money back. Bush says his tax cuts are about stimulating the economy. If you believe that, I have some weapons of mass destruction I'd like to sell you. Under Bush, every day is Christmas, if you're wealthy in America. And now that the rich are several hundred billion dollars richer, the results speak for themselves: economic growth, flat. Unemployment, 6.4 percent: the highest it's been in nine years. And don't spend your hundred dollar tax refund too soon. State governments are $75 billion in the red, at least, and forced to cut costs any way they can, meaning they'll have no choice but to raise property and other taxes to make up for revenue shortfalls. Mr. Bush is a man with a mission, and the mission is to return this country to a time when privilege went unchallenged, when wealth was untaxed, business unrestricted, and the workforce unorganized, those halcyon days before Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the EPA, OSHA, Head Start, all the programs government uses to ameliorate poverty and regulate powerful interests. In other words, Bush wants to go back to the days before social justice. He knows he can't openly eliminate programs like Medicare and Social Security, so he uses war and terror to run up huge deficits, deficits intended to make these programs unaffordable and unsustainable. The majority of people in this country who are too old to work rely on Social Security. Imagine a future without it. Imagine a future without Medicare. Imagine millions living in the street, or thrown back on the charity of relatives. Imagine a president, who, steeped in arrogance, bungles and blunders his way into nuclear war. It's time we stopped allowing ourselves to be intimidated by the Ashcrofts and the Rush Limbaughs out there. It's time we blew the dust off the Constitution. It's going to take millions of marching feet -- marching in the street and, next year, to the polls -- to put Mr. Bush and his dog-eat-dog vision of America where they belong. In the dog house. This is Thomas Paine Cronin for TomPaine.com. --Sharon Basco produced this piece. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) =================================== 4:59:06 PM
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Dear Friends: With great respect, we publish the obituary of Dr. David Kelly. May his next lifetime be a kinder and gentler one for him. __________________________ The Guardian July 19, 2003 Obituary by Nigel Fountain and Sarah A Smith Obituary David Kelly Biological weapons expert with a reputation for thoroughness Before this year's Iraq war, the microbiologist David Kelly, who has died aged 59, would recall that, with Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the pattern of his life for the ensuing decade had been set. Ironically, his spectacularly professional work in Iraq in the 1990s, was to suck him towards a media and political quagmire. Kelly was the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific officer and senior adviser to the proliferation and arms control secretariat, and to the Foreign Office's non-proliferation department. The senior adviser on biological weapons to the UN biological weapons inspections teams (Unscom) from 1994 to 1999, he was also, in the opinion of his peers, pre-eminent in his field, not only in this country, but in the world. After the eviction of the Iraqis from Kuwait in 1991, the UN invited Kelly to join Unscom to force Saddam into compliance with the peace agreements. Kelly made 36 visits to Iraq, and, from New York, continued his work into the late 1990s. What made him the obvious candidate for such work was his earlier, and continuing, experience in Russia. In autumn 1989, he had been called in to assist MI6 in debriefing Vladimir Pasechnik, a leading Soviet biochemist and defector. Eighteen months later, armed with Pasechnik's evidence of a gross violation of the 1972 biological weapons convention, Kelly co-led the US/British delegation to inspect suspect Russian sites. His sympathetic manner was an asset: at Vektor laboratories in Novosibirsk, Siberia, a researcher mentioned that the lab was studying the smallpox virus - in contravention of WHO regulations and the biological weapons convention. This was a major discovery, which revealed the seriousness of the Soviet undertaking. Later, he was an observer on the reciprocal trip the Russians made to the US. More revelations were to come when Kelly co-led the team sent to examine Russian production and weapons-filling capabilities in October 1993, the first time the west had been granted such access. Evidence suggested the potential to grow smallpox in massive quantities, and pointed to a continuation of an offensive capacity under Boris Yeltsin's supposedly more friendly, post-Soviet regime. A second visit led by Kelly in January 1994 discovered that Russian work was dormant, rather than halted. The son of an RAF officer and school teacher, Kelly was born in the Rhondda Valley, but raised in Tunbridge Wells. His early interests were in agriculture - and in Oxford, he was an expert on biological pesticides. In 1984, he was appointed head of microbiology at the chemical and biological defence establishment, Porton Down. Thus would academics introduce doctoral students to a man who was endlessly accommodating. He was also, as colleagues emphasise, a scientist who, completely straight and honest, knew the laboratory bench work, but, unlike a lot of his fellows, went beyond it. His virtues included a willingness to share his expertise - though not his secrets - within that world where non-governmental organisations, academia and public and private institutions met. He is survived by his wife Janice and three daughters. Professor Alastair Hay writes: As an environmental toxologist, I have covered chemical and biological warfare issues since the 1970s and met David Kelly at many conferences; notably the Pugwash gatherings, which brought together scientists from many countries to talk issues through as professionals, not bound by national or political rivalries. Pugwash, and those other meetings, simply relied on people like David. There is no Pugwash party line, it is simply a place where expertise is paramount. Meetings aside, when I needed to talk to somebody on a key issue of the moment - like the anthrax-in-the-post scare following 9/11 - David was there. There was no other person I would have gone to as such a source of unvarnished truth - and of such funny asides. The two key areas where his insights were invaluable were around the biological weapons inspections in Russia in the 1980s, and in Iraq in the 1990s, where, in both cases, he had an central role. He would have absolutely ensured that the weapons, and the weapons material, were dismantled. The complete professional, he had such an eye for detail that nothing got past him. Such talents served him less well when sucked into the controversies of the last few months. I dread to think of the pressures he must have been under within the MoD. To see him on television, before that parliamentary committee, almost inaudible, was to see him involved in a quite different process, over which he did not have control. A week ago, I spent 40 minutes trying to get through to him at the MoD, to wish him well; they would not put me through to any of his numbers. After I finally got through by email, telling him to take care, he replied that he wanted to get back to Baghdad, and some real work. --David Christopher Kelly, microbiologist, born May 17 1944; died July 18 2003 Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 4:58:28 PM
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Re: A Moment of Silence for Dr. Kelly Dear Friends: The tragedy of Dr. David Kelly should not be taken lightly. We ask that you take a moment of silence in his honor. Dr. Kelly, a Defense Ministry adviser on Iraqi arms, had recently been named as the possible "mole" for a BBC report claiming that the government had "sexed" up its reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to make a more convincing case for military action. Clearly overwhelmed by the harshness of the inquiry and by being thrust unwillingly into the glaring spotlight, he look his life. For more on this story, please see "Another Tragedy of the War," from the July 19, 2003 issue of the War and Peace Watch newsletter. _________________________ The Guardian July 19, 2003 The Vendetta's Victim Crisis for the Blair government by Michael White, Richard Norton-Taylor, Steven Morris and Matt Wells Tony Blair's government was last night shaken to its foundations by the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, the backroom Whitehall scientist caught in the lethal crossfire over weapons of mass destruction between Downing Street and the BBC. Though No 10 moved quickly to concede a judicial inquiry, chaired by Lord Hutton, into the official handling of Dr Kelly during the last week of his life, the latest tragedy arising from the Iraq war looked set to cast an ever-longer shadow over Mr Blair's already troubled second administration. The prime minister's Boeing 777 was high over the Pacific en route to Tokyo from his triumphant address to a joint session of Congress in Washington when news emerged at breakfast time of Dr Kelly's disappearance from his Oxfordshire home. The timing evoked Greek tragedy: triumph followed by disaster. Within hours a body, still officially unidentified, was found shortly before Mr Blair's flight landed in the Japanese capital on what was meant to be routine trade and political business. Alastair Campbell, the No 10 communications director, who is the main target of opposition and media attacks, had earlier flown home from the US and was busy last night organising the government's defence. Mr Campbell has no intention of resigning over the tragedy. And some senior and well-informed backbench MPs believe that the report of the intelligence and security committee (ISC), expected in September around the same time as Lord Hutton's narrower investigation is published, will exonerate him from the BBC-promulgated charge of "sexing up" the key Iraq intelligence dossier. Far from home, on the kind of week-long foreign trip which many voters mistrust, Mr Blair was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, his "history will forgive us" claim for the invasion of Iraq instantly overshadowed by the body discovered on Harrowdown Hill, near Abingdon. The muted reaction to the tragedy of politicians on all sides is unlikely to last and there was immediate criticism of the way No 10 and the Ministry of Defence had, in the view of some MPs, allowed Dr Kelly to become the "fall guy" in the affair. A Labour MP, Donald Anderson, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee (FAC), was also forced to defend his panel's conduct, despite concluding that Dr Kelly was "most unlikely" to be the BBC's mole and complaining in writing to Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, that the contract scientist had been "poorly treated by the government" since voluntarily admitting an "unauthorised" media contact. The FAC interrogated the soft-spoken Dr Kelly on Tuesday, six days after he was outed as Whitehall's most likely source for the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. It was a rough session. Next day he endured a gentler grilling by the more senior intelligence and security committee of MPs and peers, who extracted "nothing new" from him. Amid genuine distress expressed by Mr Blair and echoed by Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy, some MPs backed complaints that Dr Kelly was unfairly roughed up - a complaint Gilligan also made on his own behalf after a second FAC grilling on Thursday. The FAC has already reported, though it has belatedly concluded Mr Gilligan is an "unsatisfactory witness". The reporter is unlikely to face ISC interrogation, though the committee will see transcripts of his and Dr Kelly's private testimony. So will Lord Hutton if he so wishes. A key question facing the judicial inquiry is the pressure put on Dr Kelly by the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, in the attempt to flush out the BBC's source. Mr Hoon is potentially as much in the frame as Mr Campbell. He and his senior officials will be crucial witnesses at the inquiry. Crucial to the inquiry will be the circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's admission to senior MoD officials that he might have been a source for Gilligan's claim that No 10 had inserted, against intelligence advice, the claim that Iraq could ready its banned weapons in 45 minutes. The MoD says Dr Kelly volunteered that he had met Gilligan after reading the reporter's evidence to the FAC, as he later told MPs himself. Five days later, the MoD issued a carefully worded statement, agreed with Dr Kelly but drafted in a way that made it relatively easy for him to be identified. Mr Hoon, like Mr Campbell, was convinced Dr Kelly was the BBC's source and relentlessly pursued the corporation in an effort to expose him. The corporation defied calls to confirm or deny that claim, insisting on protecting its source. Both sides dug in, leaving Dr Kelly in no-man's-land. No 10 is adamant that it played no part in the process, but confirms he was warned that his agreed anonymity might not last. He was even offered secure accommodation and faced no disciplinary action other than a mild reprimand, officials said last night. Dr Kelly left home, a three-storey 18th-century farmhouse in the south Oxfordshire village of Southmoor, at around 3pm on Thursday. When he failed to return after a few hours, friends and neighbours began to hunt for him. They called the police at 11.45pm. The force helicopter was scrambled and sniffer dogs were brought in. By morning more than 70 officers were involved and a body was found at about 9.30am in a wood on Harrowdown Hill, about two miles from Dr Kelly's home. Though the body will not be formally identified until today, police are certain it is that of Dr Kelly. Clothes on the body matched those the scientist had been wearing. The manner of his death remained unknown last night but it is understood investigators quickly ruled out natural causes. Suggestions that Dr Kelly, a father of three daughters, suffered shotgun injuries or that a rope was found at the scene were discounted by police sources. No suicide note has been found at the scene or at Dr Kelly's home. Police sources said the family did not report the disappearance more quickly because they were so sure that, despite the pressure he was under, he would not be driven to take his own life. However, when Dr Kelly's wife, Janice, spoke to a close friend of her husband's, the television journalist and author Tom Mangold, before the body was found she conceded that her husband had been furious at how he had been treated over the last two weeks. Mangold said: "She said he was very stressed and unhappy about what had happened. This was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in." She told Mangold her husband had felt physically sick after he left the foreign affairs committee. The BBC was reeling from the news, appearing unsure how to react. It put out a short statement, which said: "We are shocked and saddened to hear what has happened and we extend our deepest sympathies to Dr Kelly's family and friends." Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 4:57:38 PM
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Re: More Cultural Vulgarity From Bush Dear Friends: In its latest insult to Iraq and the Middle East, the Bush administration has begun publishing and propagating a glossy new magazine dedicated to teaching Middle Eastern youth to love America. How can these youths even bear to utter America's name after what we've done to their countries? We've insulted their culture, rounded up their people living in America and called them terrorists, and had the audacity to send missionaries to "save" those who choose to profess the Muslim faith. The magazine even has a feature on life in American universities, containing interviews with Arab students "enjoying the freedom of thought" in the US. I wonder if this publication will ever discuss Kent State and what happened there while students enjoyed this "freedom of thought?" One would hope that the targeted market is more savvy towards the ways of Bush and his cronies than are most Americans seem to be. ________________________ The Independent July 18, 2003 Bush Launches Magazine to Teach Young Arabs to Love America by Andrew Buncombe in Washington So what if George Bush is threatening to invade your country? At least the kids in America have nice, white teeth and listen to the same music as you. Isn't that enough for you to love the good 'ol US of A? That, at least, appears to be the message of a glossy new magazine published by the Bush administration and going on sale across the Middle East this week, targeting young people with a mix of features, celebrity profiles and music. The Arabic-language Hi magazine is US propaganda 2003-style. "We're fighting a war of ideas as much as a war on terror," said Tucker Eskew, director of the White House's Office of Global Communications. Hi, a monthly, will be available for the equivalent of around $2 (£1.25) in Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Algeria, Egypt, Cyprus and several Gulf states. Saudi Arabia - home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 11 September and where drug dealers are publicly beheaded - has not yet been deemed ready to get Hi. The first issue of the magazine, published by the State Department, contains features on the jazz musician Norah Jones, sandboarding, an apparent resurgence of interest in Arabic poetry in the US, and yoga. There is also a section on relationships entitled "Making Marriage Work". A feature on life in American universities has interviews with Arab students "enjoying the freedom of thought" in the US. The administration claims the magazine is designed to show a positive image of America and highlight the similarities between young people in the US and the Middle East. The articles have been written by Arab Americans in Washington and stringers in the Middle East. "There is an editorial board which reviews all the articles," said a State Department spokeswoman. While it has an annual budget of $4.2m (£2.6m), the magazine is just part of a broader media attack on the Middle East. In a speech to the Southern Centre for International Studies in Atlanta this week, Mr Eskew cited plans to spend $62m developing an Arabic language television network. Not everyone is convinced the magazine and the network will succeed. Rani al-Hajjar, an Atlanta student and co-ordinator for Palestinian Media Watch, said: "I think if it's coming from a cultural superiority complex, saying that we are infallible and saying that our policies are best, then I think it is liable to fail." © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 4:56:45 PM
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Tuesday, July 08, 2003 |
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Re: Gore Vidal Interview With Democracy Now! Dear Friends: I'll be travelling on business through next Tuesday the 15th, and will not be publishing the newsletter during that time. So here' s a treat for you, in my absence. Should you choose a more leisurely read, you can visit The War and Peace Watch web site at warandpeacewatch.com and go to the "Newsletter section." See you next week - Otoño Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, recently interviewed Gore Vidal, during which they spoke about September 11, the 2000 Election, and the War on Iraq. Gore Vidal is one of America's most prolific and best-known writers, and has written more than 22 books and more than 200 essays. Vidal is the author most recently of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta. Writing in the Scotsman, critic Gavin Esler called Perpetual War "the finest serious critique of America's use and abuse of power in the 21st century that I have read." __________________________________ Democracy Now! May 13, 2003 Gore Vidal on the "United States of Amnesia," 9/11, the 2000 Election and the War in Iraq An Interview with Gore Vidal by Amy Goodman Gore Vidal is one of America's most prolific and best-known writers. He has written more than 22 books and more than 200 essays -- a collection of his essays won the National Book Award in 1993. Vidal is the author most recently of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta. Taken together, the books constitute a comprehensive attack on Americas imperialist ambitions and the military industrial complex. Writing in the Scotsman, critic Gavin Esler called Perpetual War "the finest serious critique of America's use and abuse of power in the 21st century that I have read." Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman recently met up with Gore Vidal for an extensive interview. The interview aired on May 13, 2003. GORE VIDAL:The United States is not a normal country. We are a homeland now under military surveillance and military control. The President asked the Congress right after 9-11 not to conduct a major investigation. "As it might deter our search for terrorism wherever it might be in the world." So Congress obediently rolled over. There was, I remember, Pearl Harbor. I was a kid then. And within three years of it I enlisted in the army. That's what we did in those days; we did not go off to the Texas Air Force and hide. I realize the country has totally changed, that the government is not responsive to the people. Either in protecting us from something like 9-11, which they should've done, could've done. Did not do. And then when it did happen, to investigate, investigate, investigate. So I wrote two little books, one called Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, in which I try to go into the why Osama Bin Laden, if it were he, or whoever it was, why it was done. And I wrote anther one, Dreaming War, on why we were not protected on 9-11, which ordinarily would have led to the impeachment of the President of the United States who had allowed it to happen. They said they had no information. Since then every day the New York Times prints another mountain of people that say they had warned the government, President Putin of Russia, he had warned us, President Mubarek, of Egypt, he had warned us, three members of Mossad claim they had come to the US to warn us that sometime in September something unpleasant might come out of the sky in our direction. Were we defended? No we were not defended. Has this ever been investigated? No, it hasn't. There was some attempt at the midterm election, there was a pro forma committee in Congress which has done nothing thus far, and we"¹re three years later. This is shameful. The media, which is controlled by the great conglomerates, which control the political system, has done an atrocious job of reporting, though sometimes good stories get in. I've worn my eyes out studying the Wall Street Journal, which despite its dreadful editorial policies is a pretty good newspaper of record, which the New York Times is not. If you read the Wall Street Journal very carefully you can pretty much figure out what happened that day. At the time the first hijacking, according to law, FAA, it is mandatory within four minutes of a hijacking, fighter planes from the nearest air military base go up to scramble, that means go up and force the plane down, find out who they are, find out what's happening. One hour and 50 minutes I think it was, no fighter plane went up. During that hour and 20 minutes, we lost the two towers, and one side of the Pentagon. Why didn't they go up? No description from the government, no excuse, a lot of mumbling stories which were then retracted, new stories replaced them. That to me was the end of the republic. We no longer had a Congress which would ask questions, which it was in place to do of the executive. We have a commander in chief who likes strutting around in military uniform, which no commander ever did, as they are supposed to be civilians keeping charge of the military. This thing is surrealistic now and it is getting nastier and nastier, as we are more and more kept in the dark about those things which most affect us, which are war and peace, prosperity and poverty. These are the main things that the government should look after. And we the people should be told about them. We have been told nothing. And every voice is silent. So I wrote two little books, which were then noticed by people who like to look at the Internet, and then a few hundred thousand people have bought them. And I don't come out with conspiracy theories, I never became a journalist, I am a historian. Because journalists give you their opinions. And pretend they're facts. I don't give you my opinions because they may be valuable to my mother, but they are of no value to anybody else. But I give you the facts as I find them, and I list them and they're quite deadly. This government is culpable of, if nothing less, negligence. Why were we not protected with all the air bases' fighter planes up and down the eastern seaboard? Not one of them went aloft while the hijackings took place. Finally two from Otis Field in Massachusetts arrived at the twin towers I think at the time the second one was hit. If anybody had been thinking, they would have gone on the Washington to try to prevent the attack on the Pentagon. They went back to Otis, back to Massachusetts. So I ask these questions, which Congress should ask, does not ask, which the press should ask, but is too frightened. It's a reign of terror now. AMY GOODMAN: A recent expose shows that even a Congressional Committee that's looking into this can't get a hold of documents that are classified, and even public testimony is now being reclassified. GORE VIDAL: Well isn't it pretty clear that the dictatorship is in place. We're not supposed to know certain things and we're not going to know them. They're doing everything to remove our history, to damage the Freedom of Information Act. Bush managed to have a number of Presidential papers, including those of his father, put out of the reach of historians, or anybody for a great length of time, during which they will probably be shredded, so they will never be available. And what I have always called jokingly the United States of Amnesia will be worse then an amnesiac it will have suffered a lobotomy, there will be no functioning historical memory of our history. AMY GOODMAN: How has George Bush accrued so much power? GORE VIDAL: Well, the election of 2000 was the end of the republic. It was the second time that it happened that somebody who got the popular vote did not get the election. 1876, when Governor Tilden, a Democrat of New York, won the election. But they were able -- we still had troops in the south -- they were able to turn the election around, the electoral college, Tilden didn't want another Civil War, so he just withdrew, but there was no sinister group taking charge, it was just a party group of Republicans who wanted to continue the reign of General Grant. That was mildly sleazy. This is major corruption. This is corporate America, as one, putting in place a president who was not elected. Getting the Supreme Court to delay and delay, when under the 10th amendment, every decision about the voting in Florida, should be made by the Florida Supreme Court. Not the U.S. Supreme Court, which the Constitution rules out in matters of election. AMY GOODMAN: How did that happen? Well isn't he your relative, Al Gore? GORE VIDAL: That's nothing that I go through the streets boasting of no, but yes, he's my cousin. And very un-Gore. The Gores are known for their belligerence and he is not known for self-defense let us say. He should have asked it's easy to say he should've, but it was pretty clear at the time. I would've, and I've been in that situation to count the total Florida vote. He has every right to demand that, and they couldn't have played games, cause it's too big of a vote. Instead he asked I think three counties, Dade and Brower and one other, to do their count over again. AMY GOODMAN: Concern that he wouldn't win outside of those? GORE VIDAL: No I think he figured that he had won those, Dade is certainly a large minority vote, which had all voted for him, there's a wonderful book by [John] Nichols, called Jews for Buchanan, and it's a marvelous shot of four Jewish gentlemen looking terribly alarmed, and you see Dade County goes for Buchanan. And even Buchanan goes 'these are not my votes down there, something's wrong.' And it was stolen by the Secretary of State, that lady who now has been rewarded with a seat in Congress, the president's brother, the losing president candidate's brother, was governor, and he took part in it. And the court did by five to four. Two of the five should have recused themselves, should have just withdrawn from the case when Gore vs. Bush came before the court. Why? One of them, [Anthony] Scalia, had a son, who was working for the Bush team of lawyers before the Supreme Court. Did Justice Scalia recuse himself as he should because his son is arguing? No. He wants to kill Gore. He wants to make sure that the bad guys win. Thomas' wife was busy, getting Curricula Viti of potential people to serve in a Bush administration. Clarence Thomas should have recused himself and withdrawn for the case, in which case it would have been 4 to 3 for Gore, who would now be president. And Iraq and Afghanistan I can guarantee would not have been knocked down, in order to benefit Halliburton and Bechtel. AMY GOODMAN: Scalia recently went to Cleveland, he spoke at the Cleveland City Club, which is known as the oldest free speech forum in the country, he allowed no press in, and the night before he spoke in the city, and he said that that vote, choosing George Bush, was his proudest moment. GORE VIDAL: I would impeach him and in a well-run country the Senate should make a move toward the trial of Justice Scalia. And in back of that there's some interesting organization going on, which is hard to determine, Opus Dei, both Scalia and Thomas have connections with Opus Dei, a secret Catholic order, originally fascist. General Franco is Spain was sort of a Godfather to it, and we don't know much about it, and it's all over the place, about 80,000 worldwide, Louis Freeh of the FBI at that time was a member, as was Mr. [Robert] Hanssen, the spy, who had been giving all of our secrets, he was with the CIA, he had been giving our secrets to the Russians for many years. I make no charges, but I simply bring up questions, why not ask questions of these people. Does it suit Opus Dei that Bush is President? Now we're getting into God territory, which I normally would stay away from as any good American should, it's not my business other people's religions. But Bush is Born Again, that's why he used biblical language. (imitating Bush) "He's evil! He's an evildoer!" Well that's theological language. You can say he's a bad man, a dishonest man, a ruthless man. Evildoer? And he believes the end of the world is coming. Born Agains believe in rapture, they don't care about this world. When it ends George W. Bush will be lifted up in a state of rapture into the bosom of our lord. Also among the born-again category, not that kind of protestant, is Tony Blair, who has become likes his wife, Roman Catholic, which is difficult for a British Prime Minister, since the Prime Minister is supposed to be an Anglican what we would call Episcopalian -- as he picks the Bishops of the Anglican Church, so you can't have a Roman Catholic picking Anglican Bishops, but he is. So now we have two boys who think "Jesus wants them for sunbeams," who are willing to put at risk -- I'm extrapolating on my own just from the evidence at hand. This is mostly humorous. You can judge it as you may -- But two believers in our Lord's coming, an Armageddon and the end of the world -- this is the way the Reagan used to talk -- and it made him very popular with the southern states, that's why this big thing was just about South Carolina that's the heart of it why? Well those states don't have much in the way of population, but they have very strong born-again Evangelical Protestants, and they believe in our Lord returning at any moment, and if you can collect them all, by saying you hate abortion and this and that. They have a swing vote in those states because of the Electoral College, they don't have much population, but they have a lot of electoral votes among them. The Electoral College was devised -- you call yourself democracy, you're very un-American, the founding fathers did not want democracy in the US ever. They also did not want tyranny, a king or Hitler, they wanted a Republic. And they devised the Electoral College so the majority could never control anything. So you have a popular vote out there and in those days it was just for congress, so there was one electoral vote per congressmen, one per senator and the state, and they get together and decide the election. So what Scalia was doing was going back to the Electoral College in order to put together a majority to put in his candidate who will probably hasten the end of the world. I don't know where Scalia will be during rapture. He may be [points up and points down.] AMY GOODMAN: You're talking about religion, you've written about Pat Robertson and John Ashcroft. GORE VIDAL: Yes I have, they are very religious men. The wall that Thomas Jefferson thought that he had built, as did John Adams who was pretty much an antagonist of Jefferson, but they were both agreed that religion ought not to in any way intrude itself into politics, it was something quite separate, whatever your religion, you obeyed its laws, if you believed in those laws and nobody would stop you. But once you start raising money in tax free institutions, who's tax-free money you use to influence elections, like Mr. Robertson, and Mr. Falwell then you are out of the constitution, and you should be taxed anyway before you use it, but they are free of taxation and with that the whole country began to change and this very small minority of Evangelicals, mostly in the south and southwest, have achieved great power, in states of small population where their electoral college count, state by state, adds up to quite a lot, in fact added up to a Bush "victory." AMY GOODMAN: Gore Vidal, you've said, I don't see us winning this war, you've also said that this will force Saddam Hussein to use whatever weapons of mass destruction he may have. Maybe you were prophetic, and maybe in fact that was true that if he had them he would have used them, and he didn't. GORE VIDAL: Well, it's pretty plain he didn't have them, nobody in Europe thought he did. The Europeans at least have a free press which we don't, or most of the countries there do. I said he probably would, if we pressed him hard enough. You see when you live with nothing but lies being told to you in the media, nothing but lies, and it's done the way they do advertising, it's repetition: "Weapons of mass destruction! He's got weapons of mass destruction! Mass destruction! Mass destruction! Mass destruction!" When you hear that 10,000 times a day, you finally think he must have, they can't go on like this forever, well he didn't have them, now I'm sure we're busy planting them all over the place, and we'll be: "Oh look what we found! Goodness me! Here's at Atom Bomb! Made in USA. No, scratch that out, scratch that out. He made that mark." I fully expect us to plant something or other, but as it's the United States of Amnesia, why go to the trouble, it's expensive to have troops going around looking for stuff. I think they think the public will have forgotten it, I think the public is forgetting it, doesn't much care. I thought when I said that we would lose the war, I still think we will. Afghanistan the fighting is going on, rather rougher then it was during the so-called war. It will keep right on going as long as we have a presence in Iraq. And we will eventually be driven out. Somebody will have a bright idea, one of those neo-conservatives, we know what they're like, and will decide to kill everybody there, that this would be a very good thing to do. Gotta show force. And all these sissies, all of whom who ran from the idea of going into the army, talk so tough when they get together, we're gonna show our muscle , you look at Mr. Crystal, and Mr., who's the sidekick who rides with him? Fat Boys With Asthma, talking tough, it makes their blood run cold. So I think that we haven't a chance of winning in the Middle East, nobody has, nobody except the Turks, with the Ottoman Empire, which Woodrow Wilson, one of the great fools of our history, decided to break up at the end of WWI, so we get Turkey, which turns out to be really quite a formidable country now, and broke up bits and pieces, into Syria, and Jordan, into this into that, which became British and French mandates, and are now countries which are uneasy, with all sorts of warring religious groups. AMY GOODMAN: Gore Vidal, you developed a relationship with Timothy McVeigh. Can you talk about that? GORE VIDAL: I never met him, nor did we talk on the telephone, but we did exchange letters, he read a piece I wrote in Vanity Fair, about the shredding of the Bill of Rights, which has been further shredded since his death, and he wrote me a letter, and I wrote him back, and he wrote me some very informative letters about himself, he was very smart, knew the constitution backwards and forwards. I was struck by reading about his trial, at first I had no interest, he was the lone crazed killer, that our public must always have, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, we all know that, you can get the Warren Commission to say that, he was obviously not alone. But that worked so well that, the people always fall for it every time, so they decided that Timothy McVeigh, a rather slight young man, with no knowledge of explosives, had put together this two ton bomb, which he himself, and this guy called Nichols loaded on a Ryder truck -- it took at least 9 people it's been figured out, to get that bomb onto that truck, and then a very careful, experienced driver to get that thing without blowing himself up into Oklahoma City in front of the building. He was not alone, and we have a pretty good idea of some of the people he was associated with who might have been in on it. The FBI began quite professionally, they had infiltrated a lot of these Patriot movements out there in the middle-west, people who don't like the government and others who were as angry, as was McVeigh at what the federal government had done to the Branch Dividians at Waco, for McVeigh this was revenge upon at what he regarded was an odious government, a tyrannical government, he had gone out there and watched them using military, army stuff. And remember he was an army hero of the Gulf War, and he watched them break the law. The Posse Commitus Act of 1876. and in one of the letters to me, these are all reprinted in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, if you want to read McVeigh's actual words about it. He said 'You know soldiers are trained to kill. The police are trained to protect persons and property. These are two different functions. The justice dept. called in the army. They wanted tanks and all sorts of things, army material. With which they shot up the buildings that fired oil and people died.' There was once again no proper investigation. In the course of McVeigh's trial, which was a kind of joke, the FBI behaved pretty well, they had a lot of interesting leads, 305s I think they're called, they take down the evidence that people give them, directions in which to look and so on. They followed up nothing. And I wrote Louis Freeh who was then the head of the FBI, a letter which I include in the little book, a letter which I read aloud on the Today Show, just to make sure that he saw it, no answer, but I said there's certain very interesting leads here, and this is all from evidence at the pre-trials, which anybody can get at, and I said these should have been investigated, but they weren't, they decided it was McVeigh and that was it. Now a couple of days ago we find out that the FBI was faking it, some anti-McVeigh stuff in their labs, trying to prove that he built the bomb, that he had ammonia on his trousers or something. Well he may well have been in on it, I don't know, I'm not a prophet, but my impression is that he could not have done it alone. So there were others to follow up, and on television I said you've got to start doing your job, at the FBI, at the Justice Department, your job is to protect persons and property. You didn't follow up there may be 100 McVeighs out there, waiting to take another crack at us. And you did nothing, cause you want to unload Gray's killer, and you wanted the book shut (SHUTS A BOOK). So what sort of government is this. I'd say a bad one. AMY GOODMAN: What effect do you thin that the Persian Gulf was had on Timothy McVeigh? It said that he was involved with bulldozing people in the highway of death, as Iraqi soldiers retreated after surrender. GORE VIDAL: Well he was shocked by it, he also got the Bronze Star, he was a great marksman, and he did his share of shooting soldiers, but he was appalled at the civilians, the children. That's why it's so ironic, 'oh, he killed all those children,' as though he got up in the morning to kill all the children in the nursery in that building. He says in one of his statements, he finally says, I did it, because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in a box, he could live 30-40 more years and then as he wrote me, I'd rather have federally assisted suicide, which is how he termed the injection in the arm, then a lifetime in a box. Because he saw there was no way out. He could have sung, but he didn't, he could have said who else was involved in this, but he did not. He was a complex character, and endlessly interesting I thought, and he should have been kept alive, so we could find out who these other people were. AMY GOODMAN: Would you put Timothy McVeigh in the same category as Mohammed Atta? GORE VIDAL: No no no. We don't know that story either. Mohammad Atta was obviously a Muslim zealot. Also in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace there's another question that goes unanswered, the head of the Pakistan Secret Service, was in Washington a week or so before 9-11, while he was there, it was just a ceremonial visit with the head of the CIA, they worked together, he sent back word to Islamabad about one of his henchman, to wire $100,000 to Mohammad Atta in the United States, which was duly done. The FBI, I think it was the Wall Street Journal where I got the story from, only said American Secret Services found out about this, they complained to the Pakistani Government. 'What is the head of the Secret Service in Washington telling somebody to send $100,000 to a guy that we now know was the lead bomber, lead hijacker just a week before 9-11.' Times of India published the whole story, Wall Street Journal did a pretty good version for them, now shouldn't that be examined? Wouldn't Congress be interested in this guy in Washington meeting with all our top secret people? Says ok, send him $100,000. Not one more word, not one more word. Now in a country with any curiosity, in a public that was informed of anything, there would be a great deal of outcry. I couldn't imagine this happening in England, maybe questions in Parliament, the papers would be full of it until it was solved. It couldn't happen in Italy, which dearly loves a conspiracy, or Germany. In the U.S., everybody listens to 19th Century Fox TV News. In which a bunch of loons just scream and scream and scream. And with each scream they tell another lie. How are we ever going to have an informed citizenry? Which means then how can we have an informed election? AMY GOODMAN: So what's it like for you, Gore Vidal, to go back and forth between Italy and the United States through this period. GORE VIDAL: Let's clear up one thing. The right wing has been desperate to explain to Americans that I live in Italy, that I'm an ex-patriot. "He hates America." Just because I dislike them. I've had a house in California for 30 years. I've had a house in Southern Italy for 30 years. Sometimes I'm there when I'm working, but I've always been involved in American politics, and American history. That's a fact that you can look at a long line of books, to attest to that fact. The idea of geography is very exciting to people, because I think it's only 7% of the American people have passports, only 7% have been abroad. Not counting the ones who were sent in the military of course, but 7% have voluntarily gone abroad. It's a tiny percent of those in congress who've been abroad. Bush had never set foot in Europe before he became President. He had spent 10 minutes in China when his father was Ambassador there, and obviously never went outside of the compound. What I have to do lot of times in Europe is explain to them that Americans are not stupid, when they meet them, they think they're very stupid because they don't know anything, I have to explain the them that we're not stupid, I think we're rather brighter then the average, but we're ignorant, which means not knowing, we have no information because it isn't given to us. Our public schools are a scandal, they stopped teaching geography in 1950 in most of the public schools, by which time we were a global empire, we have a global empire and nobody knows where anything is, nobody knows any languages, so our statesmen go abroad and people laugh at them, because they are so dumb, or seem to be so dumb. © Democracy Now! _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:46:07 PM
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Re: Tom Hayden on the "Q" Word Dear Friends: Contrary to the expectations promoted by Bush and media, Iraq is now a quagmire, not a cakewalk. Jay Garner is gone. The cheering Iraqis with flowers never appeared. And what of those weapons of mass destruction? We've resorted to bribing and threatening informants to produce something we can claim as justification for our invasion of Iraq. The perfect summing up of this whole mess was made by General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week when he said that "intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true. I mean, that's not what intelligence is." ____________________ AlterNet July 7, 2003 Say It: This Is a Quagmire by Tom Hayden On the day U.S. soldiers occupied Baghdad, draped the American flag over Saddam Hussein's statue and pulled it down, 103 GIs had died in the Iraq war. The number killed since that supposedly triumphal moment on April 9 may double in this coming week, in a war that an American general now admits is ongoing. The total number of American soldiers killed since the toppling of Saddam's statue is 93 by July 4, including the nine Americans killed in the bombing in Saudi Arabia. That makes a total of 196 dead so far, not including the six British soldiers killed last month. The media is being forced to recognize this reality, but continues to minimize the numbers. Using the definition "killed in hostile encounters" and May 1 as the date when President Bush declared the cessation of hostilities, the reported death toll is lowered to "about 24" Americans, according to the New York Times front-page spin based on figures from Paul Bremer III. (NYT, July 4). The official non-fatal casualty number acknowledged since May 1 is 177 Americans. Most of the dead and wounded are grunts, "low-ranking ground troops who are performing mundane activities like buying a video, going out on patrol, or guarding a trash pit." The manipulation of the American body count, like the earlier manipulation of the costs of war and occupation, only feeds the growing anger among military personnel and their families, as cited in the New York Times. During the Vietnam war, troop demoralization rose as Americans continued to die while President Nixon promised that the war was winding down. A similar phenomenon appears to be happening already in the 115-degree temperatures of occupied Iraq. No one wants to sacrifice his life for President Bush after he's held an aircraft-carrier press conference declaring "mission accomplished." No family wants the death of a son or daughter minimized to airbrush the President's victory image. Contrary to the expectations promoted by the Administration and media, Iraq is now a quagmire, not a cakewalk. Remember Jay Garner? Gone. Remember the cheering Iraqis with flowers? Never appeared. Remember the nukes and weapons of mass destruction? We're bribing and threatening informants. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that "intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true. I mean, that's not what intelligence is." No one in the media, military or political establishment can use the "Q-word" apparently, for fear of dredging up the images of Vietnam that they have been trying to erase for the past generation. Quagmire is not a metaphor for Vietnam, but has a specific meaning. It is a strategic defeat. The occupier can't declare victory and can't withdraw. It's too early to be certain, but quagmire is becoming an accurate description of the American crisis: ***The occupation forces are stretched thin, forced into non-military roles such as policing and infrastructure repair, which makes them vulnerable to small-scale ambushes. A single suicide bomber could wreak havoc; ***the occupation forces cannot withdraw, for that would mean humiliation and failure; ***nor can the occupation forces expand significantly, not only for political reasons, but because they are bogged down in Afghanistan, Bosnia and many smaller destination spots in the U.S. Empire; ***the original plan for installing a new regime has stalled for reasons never adequately explained. Gen. Garner was forced out, and the Pentagon's favorite government-in-exile led by Ahmed Chalabi is marginalized and quarreling. ***Like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, the imperial mindset is dangerously incapable of understanding its opposition. The Iraqis must be fighting not because they oppose the occupation but because Saddam Hussein is secretly manipulating them from hiding. ***The most dangerous characteristic of quagmires is that there is no way out for the occupiers except through acknowledging the mistake. The longer the denial, the worse the quagmire. ***Opposition parties like the Democrats become sunk in quagmire as well. Some of them can declare "I told you so," but they fear the consequences of an American military withdrawal. ***Often, it takes the military, starting with the soldiers on the ground, to bring the nature of the quagmire to public attention. That may be beginning to happen. Last week, military officials needed military escorts to escape "seething spouses" at a military base in Georgia. (NYT, July 4) Ending a quagmire eventually requires a strong peace movement and public frustration. The American people have little patience with quagmires, at least those with televised casualties. That is why the percentage of Americans who think the war is going badly has shot up from 13 percent to 42 percent since Bush declared it over. In a quagmire, when body counts, costs and credibility are sufficiently worrisome, politicians step forward with plans to save the larger system by strategic retreat. This trapped imperial mindset is always on display in Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, edited by aristocratic neo-conservatives like William Kristol, as in the glory days after President Bush's media adventure aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. "Victory!" proclaimed the neo-cons, for "The Restoration of American Awe and the Opening of the Arab Mind." (May 12, 2003). Sounding unconsciously like the Crusades, the magazine announced proudly that we had taken away Saddam's "hayba," his aura of invincible authority. The danger to America and the world is that the Bush Administration believes this analysis, which is nothing more than a projection of our own insecurities onto Saddam as the Other. It is the Bush Administration, after all, that insists on projecting an American hayba, or image of invincibility, as its new National Security Strategy. Who knows, the Americans may overpower the remaining Iraqi resistance, get the electricity and water running in due time, set up some Fort Apache outposts, manage to make the media withdraw, and create another ... Afghanistan. But for now, it's time to break through the denial of the media and the politicians before more Americans die while guarding Baghdad trash pits. It's time to call it what it is, a deepening quagmire. --Tom Hayden is a veteran progressive activist and politician. He has written nine books, including the just published "Irish on the Inside. " © 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============== 5:45:27 PM
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Re: Bush Admits Error Dear Friends: The Bush administration has finally acknowledged that he should not have alleged in his January State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. The administration's statement capped months of turmoil over the uranium episode during which senior officials have been forced to defend Bush's claims in the face of growing reports that they were based on faulty intelligence. The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the uranium story -- which centered on documents alleging Iraqi efforts to buy the material from Niger -- was based on forged documents. Although the administration did not dispute the IAEA's conclusion, it launched the war anyway against Iraq later that month. __________________________ The Washington Post July 8, 2003 White House Backs Off Claim on Iraqi Buy by Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time yesterday that President Bush should not have alleged in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. The statement was prompted by publication of a British parliamentary commission report, which raised serious questions about the reliability of British intelligence that was cited by Bush as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program were a threat to U.S. security. The British panel said it was unclear why the British government asserted as a "bald claim" that there was intelligence that Iraq had sought to buy significant amounts of uranium in Africa. It noted that the CIA had already debunked this intelligence, and questioned why an official British government intelligence dossier published four months before Bush's speech included the allegation as part of an effort to make the case for going to war against Iraq. The findings by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee undercut one of the Bush administration's main defenses for including the allegation in the president's speech -- namely that despite the CIA's questions about the assertion, British intelligence was still maintaining that Iraq had indeed sought to buy uranium in Africa. Asked about the British report, the administration released a statement that, after weeks of questions about the president's uranium-purchase assertion, effectively conceded that intelligence underlying the president's statement was wrong. "Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said last night in a statement authorized by the White House. The administration's statement capped months of turmoil over the uranium episode during which senior officials have been forced to defend the president's remarks in the face of growing reports that they were based on faulty intelligence. As part of his case against Iraq, Bush said in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 28 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the uranium story -- which centered on documents alleging Iraqi efforts to buy the material from Niger -- was based on forged documents. Although the administration did not dispute the IAEA's conclusion, it launched the war against Iraq later that month. It subsequently emerged that the CIA the previous year had dispatched a respected former senior diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson, to Niger to investigate the allegation and that Wilson had reported back that officials in Niger denied the story. The administration never made Wilson's mission public, and questions have been raised over the past month over how the CIA characterized his conclusion in its classified intelligence reports inside the administration. The report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee followed weeks of hearings by the panel into two intelligence dossiers on Iraq's weapons programs -- one published in September and the other in January -- that the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair used to justify supporting the administration in going to war against Iraq. Questions about the British government's handling of intelligence have mirrored many of the issues being raised in the United States. But they have created a far greater political uproar in London. Parliament's response has been notably different than that of Congress. The House and Senate intelligence panels have moved cautiously, with Democrats and Republicans divided over the necessity of full-blown public hearings into the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. The House of Commons moved quickly to investigate the matter, with the Blair government battling accusations that it misled Parliament and members of the Labor Party in persuading them to support an unpopular war. The commission's report issued yesterday found that Blair and his other key ministers "did not mislead" Parliament in describing the threat from Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. But the panel did find that the Blair government mishandled intelligence material on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. The panel said it is too soon to determine whether the government's assertions about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs will be borne out, but added that the government's actions "were justified by the information available at the time." In a major political issue within Britain, the panel found that Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief, "did not exert or seek to exert improper influence" in drafting the September intelligence report or a key statement in the document that "the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes if ordered to do so." The panel did find that this statement "did not warrant the prominence given to it" in the first pages of the dossier because it was based on "intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source." The panel asked the Blair government to explain why it was given such a prominent position in the report. A senior administration official said yesterday that a classified version of a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programs, completed last September, contains references to intelligence reports that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from three African countries, not just Niger. The other two countries are Namibia and Gabon, according to intelligence sources. The sources said the reports about other countries have not been confirmed and that some government analysts do not consider the information reliable. A senior intelligence official said that there were reports of "possible attempts" by Iraqis or their agents to buy uranium, but that "they were all somewhat sketchy." One Bush administration official said British and U.S. intelligence agencies got their Niger documents from the intelligence service of one country that he refused to name, but that others have identified as Italy. "We both had one source reporting through some liaison service which said, 'Look what we found,' " this official said. "There were other [intelligence] reporting streams, but it may be that all streams are traced to the same source." © 2003 The Washington Post Company _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) =========================== 5:45:01 PM
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Re: A Second George Custer Dear Friends: International columnist and broadcaster Eric Margolis cannot resist comparing George Bush to that infamous, and self-deluded American commander, General George Armstrong Custer. Both arrogantly tried to impose their wills upon a foreign people, with disaster and heartbreak as the result. Custer did not go down in the annals of history as a noble hero. Neither will Bush. _____________________________ Big Eye July 7, 2003 `Bring'em on Bush' by Eric S. Margolis Vancouver - Here in Canada's `make love, not war' capitol, I am reminded of a French reader who asked me last week, `why was President Clinton impeached for making love, while Bush goes unpunished for making a war over weapons that didn't exist?' Excellent question, monsieur. Asked on TV this week about steadily mounting attacks on US occupation forces in Iraq, Bush narrowed his eyes, and hunched forward aggressively - thrilling his ardent fans from Biloxi to Paducah - and growled, `Bring'em on!,' a call to battle worthy of the famously dimwitted general, George Armstrong Custer who, like Bush, knew what he knew and didn't need advice.. As a US Army vet, listening to such adolescent boasting from a man who never heard a shot fired in anger outside of downtown Washington DC made me gag. Bush, let's recall, dodged real military service during the Vietnam War by making occasional appearances at the Texas Air National Guard. Watching him play John Wayne at Iwo Jima for the benefit of his adoring core voters, many of whom believe Elvis still lives, made me realize how much American politics have been debased by the double whammy of catch-me-if-you can Bill Clinton and truth-deprived George Bush. I mention these points because I am appalled watching Bush and his neo-conservative handlers pursue an imperial war in Iraq that will kill or wound growing numbers of American GI's and turn Iraq into the ugly twin of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Decent, honest, good-natured American soldiers are now being turned into an iron-fisted colonial occupation army. All colonial wars - Algeria, Chechnya, Kashmir, Aceh, Palestine - are similar. Occupying forces in these dirty wars became brutalized, sadistic and cynical. Look back at Vietnam. I shudder watching American GI's kicking down doors of civilian homes in the dead of night, threatening screaming children with their weapons, hooding and beating suspects, firing into crowds of unarmed demonstrators, and calling air strikes on villages. As night follows day, this nasty war will lead, as all colonial wars do, to torture of prisoners, masked informers, mass reprisals against civilians, secret executions. That's what happened in Indochina, and is already taking shape in occupied Iraq. Just this week, Amnesty International sharply rebuked the US for brutalizing and humiliating captives. Bush's claims that mounting attacks on US forces in Iraq are the work of Saddam loyalists and `terrorists' belong in the same trash bin as White House lies about weapons of mass destruction. Yes, there are some Baath Party loyalists fighting US occupation, but so are many more ordinary Iraqis who are reacting as would any other proud people to invasion of their nation. George Bush has well and truly stuck the US into twin quagmires in both Afghanistan and Iraq. These ongoing guerillas wars and their logistical support now tie down some 175,000 men, fully one third of total US ground forces. Back in the 1980's, Osama bin Laden preached that the only way to drive the US from the Muslim World was to bleed it in a score of small guerilla wars. Bush, who now threatens to attack Iran, is falling right into bin Laden's strategic trap. Bravo, Mr President. Iraq is not Vietnam, but we see disturbing reminders of America's Indochina debacle. US pro-consul for Iraq, Paul Bremer just requested more troops, shades of Gen. William Westmoreland. Roads in Iraq are increasingly unsafe. Attacks against US military forces are both of the amateur, spontaneous kind, and well-organized assaults by former military men. Corruption, civic collapse, and political chaos hang over everything. The Iraqi oil that was supposed to be instantly plundered to pay for the Bush-Wolfowitz colonial adventure, and enrich powerful Republican corporate political donors, is barely being pumped due to sabotage. Faced by the growing mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Administration is trying to emulate its role model, the late, unlamented British Empire by hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work in Iraq. Washington is offering billions to India and Pakistan to send 15,000 troops each to pacify Iraq's unruly natives. No one in the west will care if Indian or Pak mercenaries skin Iraqis alive or burn down their homes. Other nations like Poland, Italy and Bulgaria, are being pressured, bribed, or lured with offers of a share of Iraq's oil to send token forces to help pull Bush's chestnuts out of the fire in Iraq. Canada has been browbeaten into sending troops to increasingly dangerous Afghanistan where they have no useful mission other than protecting the widely detested regime of US-installed puppet ruler, Hamid Karzai. The longer US forces stay in Iraq, the uglier the war will get. And the more Americans will realize they were led into this needless conflict by a second George Custer manipulated by a cabal of neo-conservatives. --You may email Mr. Margolis at: margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com You may write to him at: Eric Margolis c/o Editorial Department The Toronto Sun 333 King St. East Toronto Ontario Canada M5A 3X5 Copyright: Eric S. Margolis, 2003 BigEye.com, Inc. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:44:35 PM
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I read about this too. Check it out. It's important. Re: Turning the Tables Website 6:06:23 PM
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Re: A Duty to the Truth Dear Friends: Joseph C. Wilson 4th was the US ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, and a career foreign service officer and ambassador for 23 years. Based on his experience with the Bush administration in the months preceding the war on Iraq, he concluded that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the threat from Iraq. He stresses that we must uncover the truth-- America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. In the search for this truth, we must be willing to question this selective use of intelligence to justify the war on Iraq. This is not political opportunism or what Bush has referred to as "revisionist history." The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers, and countless Iraqis, have already lost their lives due to our folly. We have a duty to them to find out the truth and make it known to all. __________________________ The New York Times July 6, 2003 What I Didn't Find in Africa by Joseph C. Wilson 4th WASHINGTON Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me. In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake a form of lightly processed ore by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government. In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible. The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival. I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired. (As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.) Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip. Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure. I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country. Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case. Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government. The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted. I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed. But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons. --Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ======================================= 6:05:28 PM
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Re: New York City Flash Mobs Dear Friends: You're probably familiar with the growing phenomenon known as Flash Mobs. They're fun, sociologically intriguing, and have lots of political potential. Part performance art, part guerilla theater, the possibilities are limitless. Just think what you and your community could do.... ____________________________ Wired News July 5, 2003 Mail Mobs Materialize All Over by Leander Kahney Inexplicable "flash mobs" are starting to form all over. Begun in New York City, the gatherings are popping up in San Francisco, Minneapolis and suburban New York City, just north of the city. There also is talk of launching a similar group in London. Flash mobs are performance art projects involving large groups of people. Mobilized by e-mail, a mob suddenly materializes in a public place, acts out according to some loose instructions, and then melts away as quickly as it formed. In New York, the city's finest turned out in force to block the city's third mob gathering last Wednesday evening. Set to gather at 7 p.m. at Grand Central Station for what promised to be an elaborate "mob ballet," the crowd of about 250 was greeted by a "huge" police presence, according to the Mob Project's anonymous organizer known only as Bill. Bill said the mob moved to the Grand Hyatt next door instead. The crowd walked quietly upstairs to the hotel's mezzanine and gathered shoulder-to-shoulder around the balcony. "At 7:12, we burst into thunderous, screaming applause for 15 seconds, and then dispersed, just as police cars came screaming around the corner to where we were," said Bill. "It was fabulous." In Minneapolis, a mob is planning to gather at an as-yet-undisclosed location on July 22 at 6:25 p.m., according to the group's organizer, who asked to remain anonymous. The organizer said he has created a list of ideas, scripts and potential locations for mob events, but is worried about the gatherings getting out of hand. "The problem with mob events is getting the event at a location that won't cause a problem," the organizer said. "In Minneapolis, mobs have a real bad connotation. People think about the Minnesota Gopher hockey team and the carnage that resulted from just taking part in a hockey tournament. The last thing we want to see is an unruly mob event." For the last two years, Gopher fans have rioted in Minneapolis after NCAA championship games. "As long as we keep it brief and covert, I see little problem with the event," the organizer added. The Minneapolis mob has a discussion list at Yahoo. In San Francisco, a mob event is promised in "the next few weeks," according to organizer Rob Zazueta. Zazueta, a 28-year-old Web developer who works in the city, said nearly 200 people have signed up for the mailing list. Unlike the NYC mob, which is an invite-only affair, the San Francisco mob is open to one and all. "I didn't want it to be an exclusive group," Zazueta explained. "And besides, the more the merrier." Zazueta said the nature of the gathering has not yet been decided, but he's leaning toward some kind of collaborative art project. "I don't think there's a lot of sustainability to prankish mobs," he said. "They will have to be ever-increasingly clever to get people to attend and, eventually, I think some folks might just get bored with them. This is why I'm trying to think along the lines of organizing around an action or a creative activity." Zazueta also is working on a website for groups in other cities hoping to organize their own mob projects. (The site is not yet live). "There's a real desire for something like this out there," he said. "Community has always been a big buzzword in the Web space, and I think the smart mob concept helps to bring the virtual community into real space. No matter how good our devices become at allowing us to communicate, I think we're always going to need some real face time with folks." NYC's Mob Project organizer Bill said he was pleased with the ever-growing turnout. The attraction, he said, was that the events are part social, part political, even though the gatherings are expressly apolitical. "There seems to be something inherently political about an inexplicable mob," he said. "People feel like there's nothing but order everywhere -- even crowds these days are forecast and managed -- and so they love to be a part of just one thing that nobody was expecting." Sean Savage, a 31-year-old San Francisco designer and weblogger who has followed flash mobs, said these kinds of semi-anarchic gatherings have roots that go at least as far back as the late 1970s. Savage said San Francisco groups like the Suicide Club and the Cacophony Society have been staging group pranks in the city for decades, while Santa Rampage has been an annual San Francisco tradition for nearly a decade and has spread to more than 15 cities worldwide. "There's a vague, growing interest in grass-roots activity that transcends more traditional institutions," Savage said. "(They) prove people can still form ad hoc communities and make things happen that are beyond the reach of the gigantic, corrupt corporate and governmental powers that seem to dominate so much of modern life. But maybe I'm reading too much into it." Wired News © Copyright 2003, Lycos, Inc. All Rights Reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:04:56 PM
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Re: A Rat in the Wheat Fields of Iraq Dear Friends: The war on Iraq couldn't have come at a worse time for Iraq's beleaguered farmers. Spring is harvest time in the barley and wheat fields of the Tigris River valley and planting time in the vast vegetable plantations of southern Iraq. Though the war is now over, the situation in the fields of Iraq continues to rapidly deteriorate. The banks, which provide credit and cash, have been looted, irrigation systems destroyed, road travel restricted, markets closed, warehouses, and grain silos pillaged. Even if the crops can be harvested, there's no clear way for the grain to get stored, marketed, sold ,and distributed to hungry Iraqi families. Into this dire circumstance strides Daniel Amstutz, the Bush administration's choice to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq's agricultural system. His most virulent critic has been Kevin Wilkins, Oxfam's policy director in London. "This guy is uniquely well-placed to advance the commercial interests of American grain companies and bust open the Iraqi market, but singularly ill-equipped to lead a reconstruction effort in a war torn country," Watkins warns. "Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission." And the beat goes on.... _________________________ CounterPunch July 4, 2003 The Rat in the Grain Dan Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture by Jeffrey St. Clair The war on Iraq couldn't have come at a more dire time for Iraq's beleaguered farmers. Spring is harvest time in the barley and wheat fields of the Tigris River valley and planting time in the vast vegetable plantations of southern Iraq. The war is over, but the situation in the fields of Iraq continues to rapidly deteriorate. The banks, which provide credit and cash, have been looted, irrigation systems destroyed, road travel restricted, markets closed, warehouses and grain silos pillaged. To harvest the grain before it rots in the fields Iraqi farmers need more than eight million gallons of diesel fuel to power Iraq's corroding armada of combines and harvesters. But most of the fuel depots were incinerated by US bombing strikes. There's no easy way to get the fuel that remains to the farmers who need it most and no desire to do so by the US forces of occupations. Even if the crops can be harvested, there's no clear way for the grain to get stored, marketed, sold and distributed to hungry Iraqi families. Under the Hussein regime, the crops were bought by the Baghdad government at a fixed priced and then distributed through a rationing system. This system, inefficient as it was, is gone. But nothing has taken its place. Iraqi farmers are still owed $75 million for this year's crop, with little sign that the money will ever arrive. There's speculation throughout the country that one intent of the current policy is to force many farmers off their farms and into the cities so that their lands can be taken over by favorites of Ahmed Chalabi and his US protectors. The post-Saddam Iraq will almost certainly witness a land redistribution program: more farmland going into fewer and fewer hands. Grain farmers aren't alone. As in the first Gulf War, US bombing raids targeted cattle feed lots, poultry farms, fertilizer warehouses, pumping stations, irrigation systems and pesticide factories (the closest thing the US has come to finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in the country)-the very infrastructure of Iraqi agriculture. It will take years to restore these operations. Many fields in southern Iraq lie fallow, as vegetable farmers have been unable to secure seeds for this summer's crops of melons, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and beans-all mainstays of the Iraqi diet. "We expect failures," said Abdul Aziz Nejefi, a barley farmer from Mosul, in a dispatch from the Guardian. "We never had this situation before. There is no government." Meanwhile, millions of Iraqis face starvation this summer. A UN staff report from late May paints a bleak portrait. It notes that Iraq's poultry industry has effectively been decimated. Millions of chickens perished during the war. Millions of others face starvation, since nearly of the chicken feed stored in government warehouses has been looted. Chicken and eggs are staples of the Iraqi, amounting for more than half of the animal protein consumed by the population. Many other farm animals, including sheep and goats, could be ravaged by disease, since the nation's stockpiles of veterinary medicines and vaccines have been almost totally destroyed or looted. Some 60% of Iraq's 24 million people depend totally for their food on the food ration system that was established after the Gulf War. Each week, these Iraqis could count on a "food basket" consisting of wheat flour, rice, vegetable oil, lentils beans, milk, sugar and salt. That system is now in shambles and is scorned at by US policymakers. And promised grain imports have yet to materialize. "Before there is unwarranted military technological triumphalism, let those setting out to manage the peace think mouths," says Tim Land, professor food policy at City University in London. "Grumbling stomachs are bad politics as well as disastrous for the public health. There has to be a food democracy after decades of food totalitarianism." Into this dire circumstance strides Daniel Amstutz, the Bush administration's choice to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq's agricultural system. Now an international trade lobbyist in DC with a fat roster of big ag clients, Amstutz once served as a top executive at Cargill, the food giant which controls much of the world trade in grain. During Amstutz's tenure at Cargill, the grain company went on a torrid expansion campaign. It is now the largest privately held corporation in the US and controls about 94 percent of the soybean market and more than 50 percent of the corn market in the Upper Midwest. It also has it's hands on the export market controlling 40 percent of all US corn exports, a third of all soybean exports and at least 20 percent of wheat exports. Al Krebs, who edits the Agribusiness Examiner, a vital publication on US farm policy, unearthed a 1982 questionnaire on food, politics and morality that vividly illustrates the Cargill philosophy. The Joseph Project a public policy research group sponsored by the Senate of Catholic Priests of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St.Paul, asked Cargill executives to explain the company's attitude toward hunger and famine issues. The executives responded as follows: "The assumption that there are moral priorities that are offended in serving world or domestic markets as economically and efficiently as possible rests on a confusion about economic facts. It is also a highly objectionable characterization of business's role. Before one makes moral judgments and advocates economic actions, one should understand the economic issues that are involved. "The business of making moral judgments is both hazardous and potentially irresponsible unless one is fully satisfied that all the facts and causal relationships have been explored . . . We are not in a position --- given time and other constraints --- to provide all the relevant background. Nor are we anxious to make moral judgments --- or moral defenses --- of our own." In 2000, the biggest food companies in the world, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Cenex Harvest States Co-op, DuPont and Louis Dreyfus, got together to form Pradium Inc., a kind of secret, internal grain market that offered real-time, cash commodity exchanges for grains, oilseeds and agricultural by-products as well as global information services. It also offered ways to fix price grain prices on a global scale. Amstutz served as Pradium's chairman. Amstutz is no stranger to government, either. During the first Bush administration he served as Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity programs. He was also the chief US negotiator on agricultural issues for the Uruguay Round of GATT talks, which led to the WTO. "Daniel Amstutz, an ex-Cargill executive, is there to push the agribusiness agenda, not a democratic agenda," says George Naylor, president of the National Family Farm Coalition. "He will excel in telling the world that his policy is good for farmers, consumers and the environment when just the opposite is true." The small farmers of the grain belt of the Midwest have a particular loathing for Amstutz. During his stint in the first Bush administration, Amstutz devised the notorious Freedom to Farm Bill, which eliminated tariffs and slashed federal farm price supports-all in an effort to lower grain prices for the benefit of Amstutz's cronies in the big agricultural conglomerates. As a result, thousands of American farmers lost their farms and monopolists like Cargill reaped the benefits. The contours of Amstutz's plan for Iraq are familiar: a combination of free-market shock therapy and predation by multinational corporations. Gliding over a decade of UN sanctions that have starved the nation and a war that ravaged the nation's infrastructure, Amstutz announced that the real problem facing Iraqi agriculture is, naturally, government subsidies. "Iraqi farmers have had little incentive to increase production because of price controls that have kept food very inexpensive," Amstutz announced. "With a transition to a market economy, we can see health returning to agriculture and incentives to employ good farming practices and modern techniques." The more likely scenario is that Amstutz will use destitute condition of Iraq's farmlands as a lucrative opportunity to dump cheap grain from American companies like Cargill, all of it paid for by Iraqi oil. If this scenario plays out, it will spell disaster for Iraq's struggling farmers. Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq imported more than one million metric ton per year of American wheat. Since then, however, no direct sales of American agricultural products have occurred. Amstutz is anxious to begin flooding Iraq with Cargill grain. Moreover, Iraq owes the US Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corp. $2 billion on loans that facilitated pre-1991 ag sales and nearly $2 billion in interest on the loans. Amstutz will certainly demand that those loans be recouped through oil sales. "Someone needs to warn the Iraqi people that other third world countries can already attest that the dependence Amstutz will create surely means that Iraq's sovereignty will be greatly compromised," says Naylor. And Naylor argues that cash-strapped American farmers won't see any benefits, either. "Even if there will be more exports to Iraq, this little drop in the "Amstutz perpetuates the more exports lie because his agribusiness cronies are encouraging overproduction all over the world, thus being able to sell more genetically-modified seeds and chemicals and buying ever cheaper farm commodities." Even as millions of Iraqi's face starvation under the stern hand of their food pro consul, Amstutz's appointment has excited little commentary in the US. His most virulent critic has been Kevin Wilkins, Oxfam's policy director in London. Watkins warns that Amstutz is little more than a carpetbagger seeking to advance the interests of the same food titans that his lobbying outfit in DC represents, Cargill, DuPont, Cenex and Archer Daniels Midland. "This guy is uniquely well-placed to advance the commercial interests of American grain companies and bust open the Iraqi market, but singularly ill-equipped to lead a reconstruction effort in a war torn country," Watkins warns. "Putting Dan Amstutz in charge of agricultural reconstruction in Iraq is like putting Saddam Hussein in the chair of a human rights commission." Amstutz was recently spotted in Iowa, pitching his agricultural reconstruction plan to Iowa feedlot owners. He told the farmers that they stood to profit handsomely from his plan to bring modern feedlots to Iraq, those foul-smelling operations that pack thousands of cattle and hogs into tightly confined pens. "They are meat eaters," he brayed. "Iraq is not a vegetarian society." Iowa doesn't have many cattle or sheep operation. Most of the people in his audience raised hogs. And unless Amstutz has joined in a partnership with Franklin Graham to Christianize Iraq, there won't be a big market for pork products in Baghdad. © Copyright CounterPunch _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:04:30 PM
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Re: Turning the Tables Dear Friends: At last, a Total Information Awareness and snooping program on THEM. Thanks to two researchers at MIT, the tables have been turned, and citizens will now have the ability to create dossiers on government officials. In a response to the US government's Total Information Awareness program, assistant professor Chris Csikszentmihalyi and graduate student Ryan McKinley have created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project. ''It's sort of a citizen's intelligence agency,'' Csikszentmihalyi said. _____________________________ Boston Globe July 4, 2003 Website Turns Tables on Government Officials by Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff Annoyed by the prospect of a massive new federal surveillance system, two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are celebrating the Fourth of July with a new Internet service that will let citizens create dossiers on government officials. The system will start by offering standard background information on politicians, but then go one bold step further, by asking Internet users to submit their own intelligence reports on government officials -- reports that will be published with no effort to verify their accuracy. ''It's sort of a citizen's intelligence agency,'' said Chris Csikszentmihalyi, assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab. He and graduate student Ryan McKinley created the Government Information Awareness (GIA) project as a response to the US government's Total Information Awareness program (TIA). Revealed last year, TIA seeks to track possible terrorist activity by analyzing vast amounts of information stored in government and private databases, such as credit card data. The system would use this information to analyze the actions of millions of people, in an effort to spot patterns that could indicate a terrorist threat. News of the plan outraged civil libertarians and prompted Congress to set limits on the scope of such activity. The Defense Department then renamed the program Terrorist Information Awareness, to ease public concern. But the controversy gave McKinley the idea for the GIA project. ''If total information exists,'' he said, ''really the same effort should be spent to make the same information at the leadership level at least as transparent -- in my opinion, more transparent.'' McKinley worked with Csikszentmihalyi to design the GIA system. It's partly based on technology used to create Internet indexes such as Google. Software crawls around Internet sites that store large amounts of information about politicians. These include independent political sites like opensecrets.org, as well as sites run by government agencies. McKinley created software that ferrets out the useful data from these sites, and loads it into the GIA database. The result is a one-stop research site for basic information on key officials. The site also takes advantage of round-the-clock political coverage provided by cable TV's C-Span networks. McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi use video cameras to capture images of people appearing on C-Span, which generally includes the names of people shown on screen. A computer program ''reads'' each name, and links it to any information about that person stored in the database. By clicking on the picture, a GIA user instantly gets a complete rundown on all available data about that person. The GIA site constantly displays snapshots of the people appearing on C-Span at that moment. If there's a dossier on a particular person, clicking on the picture brings it up. A C-Span viewer watching a live government hearing could learn which companies have contributed to a member of Congress's reelection campaign, before the politician had even finished speaking. All of the information currently on the site is available from public sources. But GIA will go one step further. Starting today, the site will allow the public to submit information about government officials, and this information will be made available to anyone visiting the site. No effort will be made to verify the accuracy of the data. This approach to Internet publishing isn't new. It resembles a method known as Wiki, in which a website is constantly amended by visitors who contribute new information. The best known Wiki site, www.wikipedia.org, is an online encyclopedia created entirely by visitors who have voluntarily written nearly 140,000 articles, on subjects ranging from astronomy to Roman mythology. Any Wikipedia user who thinks he has spotted an error or wants to add information can modify the article. Unlike at a standard encyclopedia operation, there is no central authority to edit or reject articles. The GIA approach, though, raises the possibility that people could post libelous information, or data that unreasonably compromises a person's privacy. That troubles Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology & Liberty Program of the American Civil Liberties Union. ''We think that there should be some restrictions on the publishing of personally identifiable information, whether it involves government officials or not,'' he said. But he noted that the public has a right to know some things about a politician that would be properly kept private about an ordinary citizen. For instance, voters have a right to know where a politician sends his children to school, if that politician has taken a strong stand on school vouchers. ''Do they have the right to publish every piece of data they're going to publish?'' Steinhardt asked. ''It's going to depend on what they publish.'' In any case, Steinhardt said, McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi have a First Amendment right to set up the GIA project. And he said that it's a valuable response to the government's TIA surveillance. ''I assume the point of this is, turnabout is fair play.'' On a page of the GIA website, at opengov.media.mit.edu, McKinley and Csikszentmihalyi give their answer to questions about the legitimacy of their actions. ''Is it legal?'' the site reads. ''It should be.'' --Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ================= 6:03:57 PM
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Re: A Fourth of July Treat for You Dear Friends: Here's a Fourth of July treat for you, posted by Bob Harris on This Modern World/Tom Tomorrow's blog. Watch closely, and enjoy. Have a great Fourth of July weekend, and I'll see you back Monday. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- This Modern World/Tom Tomorrow July 02, 2003 Your First Mission for Today posted by Bob Harris 1) Pay a visit to Google. 2) Type in (without using any quotes): weapons of mass destruction 3) Click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" icon. You'll see why. Just go... ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ================ 6:03:26 PM
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Re: The Bill of Rights Dear Friends: Constitutional Amendments 1-10: The Bill of Rights The following text is a transcription of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution in their original form. These amendments were ratified December 15, 1791, and form what is known as the "Bill of Rights." These are your heritage as an American citizen. They belong to you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment I Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment II A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment III No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment VII In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment VIII Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. ___________________________________________________________________________ ____ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:02:52 PM
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Re: Happy birthday, America Dear Friends: These time-honored words are perhaps even more important today than they were 227 years ago. ___________________________________ The Declaration of Independence IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:02:21 PM
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Re: The Cost of War Dear Friends: What does a war cost? In dollars? In lives? In emotional suffering? To paraphrase the old V-8 commercial, "I could have had an education, better care for the elderly, more public services," and the list goes on and on. To see the running total for the Iraq war (over $70 billion at this writing), have a look at the Cost Of War Clock, http://www.costofwar.com. Of special mention are the pull-down menus comparing the running total for the Iraq war with how else that money could have been used for the nation and individual communities. A special tip of the Stetson to a reader who provided us with this one. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:01:54 PM
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Re: The Politics of Fear Dear Friends: Bush, rather than becoming the wise father that reassures his children during a fierce lightning storm, has sought to control his family, his nation, by threatening them with constant images of death and destruction. He personifies the sort of father that would tell his child that there really is a closet monster, and that only he can save the child from certain doom. And, only if the child obeys and does not question. Hmmm...I'd rather be an orphan. ___________________________ The American Prospect July 1, 2003 Fear Factory The Bush administration's dangerous manufacturing of post-9-11 dread by Jim McDermott Long before I was elected to Congress, I served as a U.S. Navy Medical Corps psychiatrist at the Long Beach Naval Station, home of the 7th Fleet. I treated the walking wounded of the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1970. Our brave troops, who endured lies from our leaders in addition to the usual horrors of war, suffered from fear, anger, sleep disorders and depression, among other things. These symptoms came to be known as post-traumatic stress disorder. On September 11, Americans suffered a horrible trauma, and we still suffer from the psychological fallout of the terrorist attacks. The administration's calculated campaign to raise and maintain fear and anxiety in America has been an effective tool in prolonging the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder caused by 9-11. As the Bush administration builds its military presence in the Middle East, it is upping the psychological ante here at home. The deputies of the Bush Terror Posse -- Donald Rumsfeld, Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft -- are conducting a deliberate campaign to frighten us. One facet of the campaign has, over the last 18 months, persuaded large portions of the population to rush to the stores for water, food, plastic sheeting and, of course, duct tape. The threats of impending danger are on record for the future, the administration seems to be saying. When something happens, you won't be able to say we didn't warn you. This is just the latest and most egregious step in a fear campaign designed to prepare Americans to do whatever the administration wants us to do. Here's how it works: Throw a hundred claims against the wall and poll every night to see what sticks. Leak stories that are later discredited. Get a graduate student's dissertation and plagiarize it. Lift paragraphs from a war-industry magazine. Every so often, raise the danger level to code "yellow" or "orange." Give the people a rest. Then start all over again. Mix it all up and put an official seal on it. Now it seems true, despite the skepticism of intelligence professionals. We have been inundated with fables, lies and half-truths. Remember the 33 pounds of "weapons-grade uranium" being smuggled in a taxi from Turkey to Iraq? A few days later, it turned out to be about 3 ounces of nonradioactive metal. And then there is smallpox: The administration is encouraging vaccinations, but it's only in parentheses that it adds that there is "no imminent threat" of a smallpox attack. There is no clear reason for this focus on smallpox, except to ratchet up the level of anxiety. Our leaders have worked hard to keep the anxiety level up so that the public will forget about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda (who were they again?). Instead, in Iraq, we focused on an impaired dictator of a country with a deteriorated infrastructure and a destroyed economy. This kind of tactic was described by Hermann Goering, who said at the Nuremberg trials, "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." What are the next steps? Let's look to history for a clue. In 1941 we rounded up Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps. Then we offered them the opportunity to volunteer for the armed services where, because of their valor, the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team became the most decorated combat units in World War II. We have since paid a price in shame for indefensible actions our government took against these citizens out of suspicion and manufactured fear. And now? The Bush Terror Posse already has required 18-to-45-year-old noncitizen males from Arab and predominantly Muslim countries to register with the U.S. government. If another terrorist attack should occur, don't be surprised if Bush and Co. issue orders to round up these men and intern them. Details leaked about the proposed Patriot Act II do nothing to reassure us about the future of civil liberties for our citizens, much less for legal aliens who live here. I'm not sure how much more of this our country can take. Memories of conversations with veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder haunt me. I know I'm not alone: I've talked with other veterans who have had recent flare-ups. The nightmares are coming back. Lately, I think often of FDR's admonition, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Americans may have nothing to fear but the fearmongers themselves. --Jim McDermott is a Democratic congressman from Washington State's 7th District. Copyright © 2003 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Jim McDermott, "Fear Factory The Bush administration's dangerous manufacturing of post-9-11 dread," The American Prospect Online, July 1, 2003. This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to permissions@prospect.org. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:01:31 PM
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Re: Getting Ready for the 2004 Convention Dear Friends: Sharpshooters will man the rooftops. Counterterrorism agents will patrol in civilian guise. Bomb squads will case subway tunnels. At least this much will be certain when the Republican National Convention comes to Madison Square Garden next year, say two former NYPD officials who helped oversee previous conventions there. Sounds just like Grant Park and the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. I'll be there--wouldn't miss it for the world. Hope you will be there too. _________________________ Village Voice July 2-8, 2003 issue Activists Push Back at NYPD by Chisun Lee Sharpshooters will man the rooftops. Counterterrorism agents will patrol in civilian guise. Bomb squads will case subway tunnels. At least this much will be certain when the Republican National Convention comes to Madison Square Garden next year, say two former NYPD officials who helped oversee previous conventions there. And while he won't divulge specifics, police spokesperson Michael Collins says plans are forming more than a year in advance to ensure "the highest levels of security this city has ever seen" when President George W. Bush arrives to be renominated in September 2004. For the NYPD, in concert with the Secret Service and a slew of federal agencies, maintaining order will be a daunting challenge, and not just because of the obvious terrorism concerns. The Bush administration's policies have roused hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to some of the most heated agitation the city has seen in decades. Angry protesters have claimed police are meeting these demonstrations with new heights of repressiveness, amounting to a pattern of unfounded arrests and abuses. Now, with an eye to the near future, they are pushing back. A look at the activist scene today reveals a number of challenges that together form a multipronged effort to free the streets. New Yorkers want their right to protest to be as firmly entrenched as the police presence will be come 2004. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Fifteen activists were set to file a federal lawsuit July 1 claiming the NYPD trampled on their civil liberties at the massive February 15 anti-war demonstration near the United Nations. Accusing police of interference and abuse--including arbitrary arrests and blocked access to the rally--the complaint will seek damages and a declaration that police violated the constitutional rights of a potentially huge class of participants from the year's biggest protest. The ranks of the wronged could include "everybody who was denied access to the demonstration site that day because police were blocking off the streets," says William Goodman, former legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who represents the plaintiffs along with police brutality lawyer Jonathan Moore. Police refused to issue a permit for a march past the UN, citing security concerns, and instead approved a stationary rally, ultimately located at 51st Street and First Avenue. But to get there, an estimated 100,000 to 400,000 people, of all ages and backgrounds, packed First, Second, and Third avenues, inching along in the frigid cold for hours. Cops wearing riot gear, at metal barricades, in the crowd, and on horseback, tried to shift bodies en masse, mostly away from the side streets. A great many who showed up that day complained of being unable to reach the rally site. Some 300 were arrested. At minimum, Goodman argues, police robbed legions of their rights to assemble and express their views--through decisions ranging from the denial of the march permit to the handling of the crowds. Then there are the folks like plaintiff Sara Parkel, a 31-year-old freelance artist from Brooklyn, who was arrested and held overnight, although, she says, "I wasn't doing anything wrong." "I was always under the assumption that you would be arrested if you did something wrong, like threw a rock," says Parkel. "I wasn't even in the street." Knowing protesters were supposed to stay on the sidewalks, she says she was among the minority who managed to do so. But on a sidewalk on West 39th Street, "I was trapped," she says, when a small army of police pressed the throng around her against a building and began making arrests. Parkel was locked up with 13 other women in the back of a paddy wagon for approximately four hours, she says. "People were peeing in the back of the truck," because "overloaded" police ignored their pleas to use the bathroom. They also ignored her three or four requests to use the phone once at the Seventh Precinct, where she was held overnight. "Around 1:30 or two in the morning, they called us all in individually," she says, to question the arrestees about their political affiliations and views. "I grew up knowing you're supposed to be read your rights, which we weren't, and you're supposed to be allowed one phone call, which we weren't." None of the plaintiffs arrested that day was convicted. Says Goodman, "People were arrested in the hundreds, not as a method of legitimate law enforcement, but as crowd control." The 40-page complaint mentions other wrongs, including people being injured by police horses, manhandled by cops, and denied food and water for many hours. Similar charges appear in a New York Civil Liberties Union report based on a much larger number of complaints from that day, over 300. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman knows of about 35 charges from that day that were dropped outright. Says Parkel, "The arrests were a tactic to discourage people who were talking out against our government." She signed on to the class action "to fight against intimidation." Goodman hopes the lawsuit will make the NYPD more protest-friendly by convention time. "If they get away with it once, they'll do it again," he says. But police blame the disorder of February 15 on the rally's organizers. The NYPD's Collins says leaders failed to adequately inform people how to get to the protest site and provided too few marshals to manage the crowd. Police acted well within reason, says Collins. "Thousands and thousands of people were not arrested," he points out, when asked about the legitimacy of the several hundred arrests. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- There is the possibility of another lawsuit by activists, however, which would accuse police of making questionable arrests to deal with demonstrators on yet another occasion. On the morning of April 7, about 20 people purposely risked arrest by blocking the entrance to the midtown office of the Carlyle Group, a defense-industry investment firm with ties to the Bush administration, to dramatize their opposition to the war in Iraq. Across the street stood some 100 protesters who sought to support those engaging in civil disobedience through lawful means. According to a number of participants, those supporters kept to the sidewalk and left a path clear for pedestrians, as instructed by the First Amendment lawyers there to advise them. Two of those lawyers told the Voice that a swarm of helmeted police--so many as to seem to outnumber the protesters--abruptly surrounded the group of supporters. Spurning the participants and lawyers, who said the crowd was willing to disperse, police reportedly would not let anyone leave and arrested approximately 80 people, ranging from teens to seniors. Mark Milano, a longtime organizer with ACT UP/NY, the direct-action AIDS activist group, says, "One of the cops said it was really a preemptive strike, that they thought the people across the street might break the law." Several arrested that day say they were questioned while in custody about their political views and associations, but they were not read their rights or permitted to speak with lawyers. They complain of being held as long as 12 hours without counsel. On the outside, one attorney, Joel Kupferman, went so far as to draft a writ of habeas corpus, get it signed by a State Supreme Court judge, and submit it to police officials to get detainees access to lawyers, who had been trying to see them all day. The NYPD's Collins said he lacked enough specific knowledge of the April 7 arrests to comment on them. But asked about the traditional practice of giving demonstrators notice and opportunity to disperse, he said, "We generally try to warn protesters that they are violating the law before arresting them. However, that can't always be done, if they're taking actions that pose an immediate risk." Activists in this case deny they were taking any such actions. Many charged on April 7 are too angry to take the administrative dismissals that are often offered to resolve minor disorderly conduct charges and vow to fight their cases in court. At least two have gone to trial so far and been acquitted. Center for Constitutional Rights staff attorney Nancy Chang says the organization is seriously considering a class action suit against the city, pending the resolution of all the cases. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Still another battle to protect activists' rights targets the NYPD's use of its newly won power to investigate lawful political activity. After September 11, the department claimed it needed that power to root out potential terrorists, who might masquerade as law-abiding New Yorkers. In March 2003 a federal judge agreed to radically weaken a long-standing ban, known as the Handschu agreement, on police investigations of lawful, constitutionally protected activity--a remedy to the politically motivated FBI and police probes of the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, hundreds of arrestees from various protests have reported being quizzed, some under duress, on their political views and group memberships. In April, it was revealed that a police intelligence officer had created a "demonstration debriefing form" and computer database to compile such information. Public outcry led the NYPD to destroy the forms and database. But the scandal has prompted a team of civil rights lawyers to challenge the lifting of the old ban on political probes. "That change was based on concerns about investigating terrorism," says Martin Stolar, one of the attorneys. "Now we find out they used [the new powers] on low-level First Amendment protest." The lawyers, who won the original ban on political surveillance in 1985 in an activists' class action suit against the city, want internal police investigation guidelines to be made enforceable through the courts. Political questioning "takes us back to the days of the old Red Squad, where police are keeping dossiers on noncriminal citizens," says Stolar. "If people know they'll end up in a police file, they won't participate in demonstrations." A judge is expected to rule soon. Also pending are at least 70 individual grievances that protesters made this year to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the independent agency that investigates NYPD misconduct. CCRB spokesperson Ray Patterson says the number of protest-related complaints is unusually high. With most, "excessive force was alleged, like use of horses." A handful of individuals have filed their own civil suits against the city on protest-related claims. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- The spate of complaints by activists may signal not necessarily that police tactics have become harsher, but that more people are being exposed to them. Unjustified arrests and rough treatment were always to be found at anti-police-brutality rallies and events like Harlem's Million Youth March, claims activist Wol-san Liem. She and some 80 members of a racially diverse group were arrested this May during three days of planned civil disobedience, dubbed Operation Homeland Resistance. In shifts, they blocked the entrance to 26 Federal Plaza, which houses immigration authorities, in an effort to highlight "the war at home" against the undocumented. "It's interesting to hear white, middle-class protesters talk about how unbelievable it is to them that they were not treated humanely. People of color daily deal with police brutality, and they resist it routinely--that's what the Diallo protests were about," she says. Indeed, the city's protester population has recently burgeoned with additions from across the political spectrum. The numbers promise a rowdier convention than the several Democratic gatherings the city has hosted in the past. "Back then, we were pretty laid-back," says Miami police chief John Timoney, who commanded NYPD operations during the 1992 Democratic convention. He notes that nothing like the September 11 attacks haunted police then, and the issues and the candidate were less controversial. There was no preemptive war on Iraq, no suspicions of political lies about weapons of mass destruction, and there was no great anxiety over losing civil liberties to a White House-led war on terrorism. The traditional convention-protest area, Eighth Avenue between 31st and 33rd streets, holds a maximum of about 5,000 bodies, says Timoney. Bush policies have propelled hundreds of thousands into city streets this year. "People are going to be as angry or angrier about the Bush administration as they are now. The fact that there is some possibility of getting rid of this guy will draw a lot of people," predicts Leslie Cagan, lead organizer of United for Peace and Justice. Accused by police of not planning its February 15 anti-war demonstration far enough in advance, UFPJ has already submitted two permit requests for a march and a rally during convention week. The NYCLU asked the police a month ago to begin negotiations for convention protest, says executive director Lieberman, and a meeting is expected as early as July. She says the NYPD's response to current criticism of its protest tactics is a key indicator. "The refusal to acknowledge mistakes will be the single biggest cause for pessimism as we move ahead." The mass arrests and political questioning have already had a chilling effect, according to some activists. Liem says immigrants, especially, find themselves weighing their desire to demonstrate against the risk of detention and even deportation, to themselves and, by association, family and friends. No one, says ACT UP/NY's Milano, should have to "be afraid just to come out to a street protest." Copyright © 2003 Village Voice Media, Inc., 36 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003 The Village Voice and Voice are registered trademarks. All rights reserved. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:01:09 PM
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Re: Echoes of Vietnam Dear Friends: Pat Holt, former chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, compares of the war in Iraq to the Vietnam war. Seems like old times. _____________________________ The Christian Science Monitor July 03, 2003 edition How Iraq echoes Vietnam by Pat M. Holt WASHINGTON - This war in Iraq is beginning to look enough like Vietnam to bring back memories of those turbulent years from long ago. The Vietnam War stretched through the administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Eisenhower's involvement was mostly symbolic. US military forces had a token presence and few advisers. Kennedy had a few more, but unrest was beginning to simmer. Kennedy sent Army Gen. Matthew Ridgway and civilian adviser Walt Rostow to Vietnam to report. Their separate reports disagreed so sharply that the president asked if they'd been to the same country. Quarrelsome religious sects appeared in Vietnam as well as some political violence. The prime minister of South Vietnam was assassinated shortly before Kennedy was in November 1963. Johnson came to office suddenly and devoutly wishing to get out of Vietnam but not knowing how. He feared being charged with having led the "only war America ever lost." Then came the Gulf of Tonkin incident. On Aug. 2, 1964, the US destroyer Maddox reported that it had been attacked while it was on what the Navy described as a routine patrol off the North Vietnamese coast. It was joined by the destroyer C. Turner Joy, and both ships reported further attacks Aug. 4. There was no damage to the destroyers, nor casualties to their crews, but Johnson ordered air strikes against North Vietnam. He also asked Congress for a joint resolution authorizing him to "take all necessary measure to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to repel further aggression." Congress passed the resolution, nearly unanimously, within two days. (Both Presidents Bush received similar authority before attacking Iraq in 1991 and 2003, respectively.) One reason the Vietnam resolution got heavy Democratic support was that the 1964 presidential race was shaping up between President Johnson and Sen. Barry Goldwater, the conservative Arizona Republican who was talking about "bombing Vietnam back to the Stone Age." Compared with that, the Johnson response to Tonkin looked moderate. But it led to increasing troop levels, to more bombing of the North, to more casualties, draft calls, and protests on campuses. As the scope of US involvement grew, the prospects of its success diminished, and opposition increased among the public and in Congress. In the Senate, and more slowly in the House, the center of opinion shifted gradually along a scale ranging from all-out support to all-out opposition. Two events are noteworthy in influencing this shift. The first was the 1966 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on Vietnam, which made opposing the war respectable. Opponents of the war were no longer only wild, long-haired college kids, but also mature, successful adults. Returning veterans began to speak out. This robbed the administration of the argument that failure to support the war was failure to support "our boys." These decorated veterans said the best way to support the troops was to bring them home. The second event was the unraveling of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. An anonymous tip led the Foreign Relations Committee to investigate that incident more thoroughly. The Maddox, it turned out, hadn't been on a routine patrol at all, but on a sensitive, deliberately provocative, intelligence mission against North Vietnam. The Johnson administration was dissembling about the attacks, just as the Bush administration has dissembled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A far-sighted member of the House had foreseen how the end would come in Vietnam when opposition was a mere wisp. "We can take one casualty per congressional district," he'd said privately. "We can maybe even take 10. But if it gets to be 100, Congress will pull the plug." That is precisely what happened. Congress eventually ended the war in 1975 by using its power of the purse, at which point there'd been more than 50,000 American deaths. But, as early as March 1968, with the American death-toll in the war nearing 20,000, President Johnson decided not to seek reelection. George W. Bush, have you noticed this? --Pat M. Holt is former chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:00:45 PM
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Re: Descending into the Quagmire Dear Friends: More and more, we hear the word "quagmire" being used to describe the situation in Iraq. Between May 1 (when President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over) and June 26, 57 U.S. and 8 UK military personnel have died in Iraq--more than one death every day. To this toll must be added the scores of Iraqis, both Saddamists and innocent civilians. The media are finally beginning to question what kind of war we're fighting in Iraq. "Counterinsurgency," a 1960s buzzword, has re-appeared in some reports, and some have begun to ask why a liberated people would not be happy to have The Authority among them. Given this desire to be liberated--from Saddam, from Bush, and from the present occupation--one wonders what will be the next step on Iraq's road to self-determination. ____________________________ Foreign Policy in Focus June 2003 Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire by Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) Foreign Policy In Focus Between May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat in Iraq was over, and June 26, 57 U.S. and eight UK military personnel have died in Iraq. That is more than one death every day. To the U.S. and UK toll must be added the sometimes tens or scores of Iraqis, both Saddamists--military, intelligence, fedayeen, non-Iraqi volunteers--and innocent civilians. Having splashed the President's declaration over their electronic and newspaper front pages and magazine covers, the media are edging ever so gingerly toward serious questioning of what kind of "war" U.S. and UK troops (the "Authority") are fighting in Iraq. "Counterinsurgency," a 1960s buzzword, has already re-appeared in some reports. The dreaded "quagmire" has also been voiced. The Pentagon denies it is doing "body counts"--although the media always seems to know the number of guerrilla dead. Can "free fire zones," "five o'clock follies" (the daily official U.S. military briefings in Saigon), and "light at the end of the tunnel" be far off? These phrases bring to mind Bernard Fall, author, chronicler, and journalist in the Vietnam War. Very early in that war--December 10, 1964--Fall delivered a lecture at the Naval War College on "The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency." Parts of his presentation seem as current today in the context of Iraq as they were in 1964 for Vietnam. For example, Fall believed that the real objective of guerrilla (or small) war methods is to advance "an ideology or a political system." The U.S. government saw fighting as the primary challenge and responded by seeking a military solution. In so doing, it misjudged the depth and extent of political action by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong--the primacy of "political, ideological, and administrative" control--and thus the true nature of their "revolutionary warfare." Moreover, in failing to properly assess the political and ideological (nationalistic) forces at work in Vietnam, the Johnson and Nixon administrations tended to mischaracterize (or ignore) the multitudinous economic and social cross-currents that were represented by those committed to the cause of Vietnam unification under Vietnamese leaders. The result was a steady build-up of U.S. personnel and equipment and the expenditures of billions of dollars, none of which brought the U.S. any nearer to the tunnel's end--but all of which added to the casualties on both sides and exponentially increased the alienation of the civilian population. Even Buddhist monks protested, with some expressing their opposition to the repressive Saigon government and the actions of its U.S. ally through self-immolation. As Fall noted, "One can do almost anything with brute force except salvage an unpopular government." History Repeating Itself The Bush administration seems headed toward committing the same mistakes of its Vietnam-era predecessors--plus a number of its own. Washington expected that the dominate Shi'ite (62%) population, long subservient to the minority Sunnis (35%), would at least welcome its "liberation" by the Western coalition forces if not assist them in ousting Saddam and his cronies. Instead, the dominant reaction has been a growing disillusionment with and sustained protests about the continuing absence of basic services--water, electricity, telephone, garbage and sewage removal, basic policing, and physical security--for all classes of Shi'ites and Sunnis under the coalition occupation. Prior to the U.S. attack in March, 2003 the Iraqi people were promised participation in a post-war effort to build a functioning interim democratic governance structure. In April, two meetings of 43 and 250 Iraqi "leaders" selected by retired General Jay Garner, the Pentagon's man-on-the-scene, were held "to advance the national dialogue among Iraqis regarding composition of an Iraqi interim authority." No decisions were made, in part because of unhappiness with the selection process and dissension about the tribal and geographical representation (there are 2,500 tribes and sub-tribes in Iraq). One prominent returned exile, Ahmad Chalabi, said: "The composition at this time looks like Noah's Ark, but that is fine at this stage." (Reuters) Within two weeks, the idea of an "interim Iraqi authority" was dead. The new top man-on-the-scene, L. Paul Bremer III, said that the security situation remained too unsettled and that additional "purging" of Saddam loyalists from the police, civil service, and political parties was needed. Bremer plans to appoint a council of 25-30 "advisers," which he will control. This reversal almost immediately sparked calls for the U.S. to leave Iraq from the more militant, competing, fundamentalist Shi'ite factions--Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr's adherents, and Abdul Karim al-Enzi's Dawa sect. (Al-Enzi caught the mood exactly: "Democracy means choosing what people want, not what the West wants.") Then, in late June, a clear signal came that the U.S. was getting closer to falling into a Vietnam-like quagmire. Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who was at first quite tolerant and even supportive of the invading troops, wrote of "great unease" concerning the length of the U.S. occupation, the failure of the U.S. to grant Iraqis self-rule, and what he saw as the biggest threat to Iraq: "the obliteration of its cultural identity." (Washington Post, June 23) As if to accentuate the Ayatollah's remarks, within 48 hours six UK military police were dead and another eight UK troops were wounded in two attacks deep in Shi'ite dominated southern Iraq. Distant Rhetoric The rhetoric from Washington seems as distant from what is happening on the ground in Iraq today as it was during the Vietnam War. The President and his representatives point to the $2.5 billion for Iraq's reconstruction in the March supplemental, of which $700 million has been committed. They trumpet the vaccination programs for Iraqi children and the expected troop augmentations of 20,000-30,000 from as many as 41 other countries to assist with security in Iraq--troops for whom, in many cases, the U.S. is footing the bill. Even with this force augmentation, the U.S. military will continue to carry the load. There are still 146,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq (plus 16,000 UK troops) and another 45,000 providing support from Kuwait. More than 210,000 National Guard and Reserves have been called up for either homeland defense, duty in the Balkans and the Sinai Desert, or the Iraq war itself, with many into their second year of continuous active duty. U.S. planners say a new Iraqi army of 40,000 will be ready in three years, a clear signal that administration assurances of being out of Iraq in two years simply will not happen. Some in Congress predict a 5- to 10-year presence. U.S. forces will also continue to bear the brunt of the casualties. In the fighting up to and including Baghdad's capture, 138 U.S. forces were killed; of the 57 who have died since May 1, 20 were killed by hostile fire (plus the UK dead noted above). Washington says the casualties are "militarily insignificant," while field commanders note a seemingly steady stream of outsiders entering Iraq for the immediate purpose of killing U.S. soldiers and a longer-range goal of building pressure in the United States for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The demonstrations by disgruntled Iraqi civilians, civil servants, and cashiered military officers seeking back pay or pensions, combined with the plethora of firearms in Iraq, have contributed to Iraqi civilian casualties as U.S. troops react to the taunts ("America is the enemy of Allah"), gunfire, and general chaos in Iraq. In Baghdad's first post-war public opinion poll, 73% said the U.S. had failed to provide adequate security in the city. (London Times, June 20) But even as they deride the lack of results, Iraqis sense that, for now, they have no option; in the same poll, only 17% want the Western troops out immediately. That figure may start to increase if U.S. troops continue to engage in "security practices" that Iraqis deem inappropriate--e.g., male soldiers "patting down" Iraqi women while looking for weapons or arresting minor children. And a surge in "Yankee go home" sentiment could be expressed in increased attacks on U.S. forces by new groups in new, often Shi'ite areas. Such opposition, armed only with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and light mortars may seem puny against tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and modern aircraft with precision-guided munitions, but that is what Vietnam-era administrations thought in the 1960s and early 1970s. Between June 9 and June 22, the Pentagon logged 131 "incidents" involving U.S. troops in Iraq, including 41 attacks on U.S. compounds, 26 attacks on sentry or observation posts, and 26 on convoys. (New York Times, June 22) The next 24-hour period saw an additional 25 incidents. Moreover, not all heavy weapons in Iraq are being collected by "the Authority." The 70,000 Kurdish pesh merga will retain their tanks and artillery until their expected integration into the new Iraqi army. (Obviously, not all 70,000 can be amalgamated; those excluded could cause problems later.) A question the Bush White House and the Pentagon still have to answer is just how many U.S. military men and women will be needed to pacify and provide security in Iraq. Before the war, on February 25, 2003, then-Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki told Congress that "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed in post-war Iraq. Both Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, sharply disagreed, with the latter stating that Shinseki's estimate was "wildly off the mark." But the question lingers for many in Congress, the U.S. public, and the armed forces. How Many Troops and for How Long? Traditional military doctrine estimates that a conventional army requires roughly a 10-to-1 size advantage if it is to defeat a well-equipped, well-executed, persistent insurgency. But where insurgents, while less centrally organized, are still too powerful for standard police (or where standard police do not exist), responding to and measuring against armed insurgent strength may not be the best gauge. In 1995, James Quinlivan, writing in the Army War College's quarterly, Parameters, suggested that force requirements should be based on the need for population control (to cut off support to the insurgents) and local security--that is, the need to "win hearts and minds" and therefore requires a force proportional to the population. Quinlivan describes three historical force ratio levels. The first, one to four security personnel per 1,000 population, is essentially the ratio for ordinary policing. In a military setting, the U.S. Constabulary force in post-World War II Germany was staffed at 2.2 per thousand for "enforcing public order, controlling black market transactions, and related police functions." The same ratio existed in the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (1992-1993), whose duties included "supervision of the cease-fire and voluntary disarmament of combatants, supervision of about 60,000 indigenous police to provide law and order, and administration of a free and fair election." But the UN had little real presence outside the main urban areas. The second force ratio is from four to ten security personnel per 1,000 population. India's campaign against militants in Punjab, viewed as quite punitive by many, was implemented at a ratio of almost 6 per 1,000 population. At the high point of the 1965 U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic, whose purpose was preventing civil war and restoring "stability," Army and Marine personnel operated at a ratio of 6.6 per 1,000 population. Quinlivan's third ratio level is above ten per 1,000 population. Military examples of this level are the Malayan Emergency of the 1950s when foreign and full-time indigenous security forces operated at a ratio of 20 per 1,000 population. The same ratio pertained to the combination of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and British troops in Northern Ireland for much of the period 1969-1994. Here, multiple small groups advocating separation from or continued union with Great Britain waged war on each other, and one side fought "occupying" security forces with a goal of forcing them out--conditions that are unfolding in Iraq today. Applying the average of 2.2 per 1,000 of level one to Iraq would require 52, 800 individuals. But Iraq is not a defeated, broken, devastated country like Germany. Nor is it at peace or semi-peace, where the main task is maintaining public order. It is still a country at war, a country saturated with weapons, a country that is becoming more and more restless under its "liberator." Level two ratios of 6 and 6.6 yield 144,000 and 158,400, respectively. These are comparable strength totals to what the U.S. and its allies have in Iraq today. Yet these forces seem unable to isolate Iraqi and foreign militants who have come into Iraq to fight "the Authority" and to provide both the perception and reality of public safety. Perhaps even more important is the need to avoid any hint of punitive measures that inevitably would lead to a precipitous decline in general Iraqi tolerance of foreign forces. At 10 per 1,000 population, the point of intersection between levels two and three, Quinlivan's numbers skyrocket to 240,000. (Interestingly, just in Baghdad, where the population is roughly five million, there are 55,000 troops, producing a ratio of 11 per 1,000.) Matching the British experience in Malaysia and Northern Ireland at 20 per 1,000 doubles this total to 480,000, which is the total authorized strength of the active U.S. Army. Clearly, any of these levels are impossible to sustain given the demands for and on people. Even level two ratios may be impossible, given that 5 of the Army's 10 active divisions currently are engaged in Iraq. In Iraq, as one phase of the "global war on terror," the Bush administration chose war and occupation, and must now face the consequences of its choices. Having dislodged the previous regime by force, the U.S. increasingly is caught in the quagmire of depending on force to control the Iraqi people in the name of national and regional "peace." But "peace through war" or the threat of war is a costly chimera, both for the "victor" and the loser. This truth was well understood by the 19th Century British statesman Edmund Burke, who noted that "War never leaves where it found a nation." What remains to be seen is what price will be exacted from the U.S. public--and in what condition Iraq will be in two, five, or 10 years. --Dan Smith <dan@fcnl.org> is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org), a retired U.S. army colonel and a senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Recommended Citation: Dan Smith, "Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire," (Silver City, NM & Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, June 2003). Production Information: Writer: Dan Smith; Editor: John Gershman, IRC; Layout: Tonya Cannariato, IRC Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2003. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2002 IRC and IPS. All rights reserved. ________________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:00:06 PM
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Re: The RFID Surveillance Chip Dear Friends: Right now, you can buy a hammer, a pair of jeans, or a razor blade with anonymity. With RFID tags, that all may be a thing of the past. Some manufacturers are planning to place these minute tags in just packaging, but others will also tag their products as well. In many cases, RFID transponders are forever part of the product, and designed to respond when they receive a signal. In a world where everything you own is 'numbered, identified, catalogued, and tracked,' privacy goes out the window, betrayed by your very possessions. There is even discussion about to placing these tags into all sensitive or important documents. And, Applied Digital Solutions has designed an RFID tag - called the VeriChip - for people, designed to go under the skin. There is no law requiring a label indicating that an RFID chip is in a product. With RFID about to arrive in full force, major changes are coming, and not all of them will be positive. What will be the unintended consequences of these surveillance devices, smaller than the period at the end of this sentence? Be forewarned. _________________________________________________ The Register June 27, 2003 RFID Chips Are Here By Scott Granneman Bar codes are something most of us never think about. We go to the grocery store to buy dog food, the checkout person runs our selection over the scanner, there's an audible beep or boop, and then we're told how much money we owe. Bar codes in that sense are an invisible technology that we see all the time, but without thinking about what's in front of our eyes. Bar codes have been with us so long, and they're so ubiquitous, that its hard to remember that they're a relatively new technology that took a while to catch on. The patent for bar codes was issued in 1952. It took twenty years before a standard for bar codes was approved, but they still didn't catch on. Ten years later, only 15,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That changed in 1984. By 1987 - only three years later! - 75,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That's one heck of a growth curve. So what changed in 1984? Who, or what, caused the change? Wal-Mart. When Wal-Mart talks, suppliers listen. So when Wal-Mart said that it wanted to use bar codes as a better way to manage inventory, bar codes became de rigeur. If you didn't use bar codes, you lost Wal-Mart's business. That's a death knell for most of their suppliers. The same thing is happening today. I'm here to tell you that the bar code's days are numbered. There's a new technology in town, one that at first blush might seem insignificant to security professionals, but it's a technology that is going to be a big part of our future. And how do I know this? Pin it on Wal-Mart again; they're the big push behind this new technology. So what is it? RFID tags. RFID 101 Invented in 1969 and patented in 1973, but only now becoming commercially and technologically viable, RFID tags are essentially microchips, the tinier the better. Some are only 1/3 of a millimeter across. These chips act as transponders (transmitters/responders), always listening for a radio signal sent by transceivers, or RFID readers. When a transponder receives a certain radio query, it responds by transmitting its unique ID code, perhaps a 128-bit number, back to the transceiver. Most RFID tags don't have batteries (How could they? They're 1/3 of a millimeter!). Instead, they are powered by the radio signal that wakes them up and requests an answer. Most of these "broadcasts" are designed to be read between a few inches and several feet away, depending on the size of the antenna and the power driving the RFID tags (some are in fact powered by batteries, but due to the increased size and cost, they are not as common as the passive, non-battery-powered models). However, it is possible to increase that distance if you build a more sensitive RFID receiver. RFID chips cost up to 50 cents, but prices are dropping. Once they get to 5 cents each, it will be cost-efficient to put RFID tags in almost anything that costs more than a dollar. Who's using RFID? RFID is already in use all around us. Ever chipped your pet dog or cat with an ID tag? Or used an EZPass through a toll booth? Or paid for gas using ExxonMobils' SpeedPass? Then you've used RFID. Some uses, especially those related to security, seem like a great idea. For instance, Delta is testing RFID on some flights, tagging 40,000 customer bags in order to reduce baggage loss and make it easier to route bags if customers change their flight plans. Three seaport operators - who account for 70% of the world's port operations - agreed to deploy RFID tags to track the 17,000 containers that arrive each day at US ports. Currently, less than 2% are inspected. RFID tags will be used to track the containers and the employees handling them. The United States Department of Defense is moving into RFID in order to trace military supply shipments. During the first Gulf War, the DOD made mistakes in its supply allocation. To streamline operations, the U.S. military has placed RFID tags on 270,000 cargo containers and tracks those shipments throughout 40 countries. On a smaller level, but one that will instantly resonate with security pros, Star City Casino in Sydney, Australia placed RFID tags in 80,000 employee uniforms in order to put a stop to theft. The same idea would work well in corporate PCs, networking equipment, and handhelds. In all of these cases, RFID use seems reasonable. It is non-intrusive, and it seems to balance security and privacy. Other uses for RFID, however, may be troublesome. Visa is combining smart cards and RFID chips so people can conduct transactions without having to use cash or coins. These smart cards can also be incorporated into cell phones and other devices. Thus, you could pay for parking, buy a newspaper, or grab a soda from a vending machine without opening your wallet. This is wonderfully convenient, but the specter of targeted personal ads popping up as I walk through the mall, a la Minority Report, does not thrill me. Michelin, which manufactures 800,000 tires a day, is going to insert RFID tags into its tires. The tag will store a unique number for each tire, a number that will be associated with the car's VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Good for Michelin, and car manufacturers, and fighting crime. Potentially bad for you. Who will assure your privacy? Do you really want your car's tires broadcasting your every move? The European Central Bank may embed RFID chips in the euro note. Ostensibly to combat counterfeiters and money-launderers, it would also enable banks to count large amounts of cash in seconds. Unfortunately, such a move would also makes it possible for governments to track the passage of cash from individual to individual. Cash is the last truly anonymous way to buy and sell. With RFID tags, that anonymity would be gone. In addition, banks would not be the only ones who could in an instant divine how much cash you were carrying; criminals can also obtain power transceivers. Several major manufacturers and retailers expect RFID tags to aid in managing the supply chain, from manufacturing to shipping to stocking store shelves, including Gillette (which purchased 500 million RFID tags for its razors), Home Depot, The Gap, Proctor & Gamble, Prada, Target, Tesco (a United Kingdom chain), and Wal-Mart. Especially Wal-Mart. The retail giant, the largest employer in America, is working with Gillette to create "smart shelves" that can alert managers and stockboys to replenish the supply of razors. More significantly, Wal-Mart intends for its top 100 suppliers to fully support RFID for inventory tracking by 2005. Wal-Mart would love to be able to point an RFID reader at any of the 1 billion sealed boxes of widgets it receives every year and instantly know exactly how many widgets it has. No unpacking, no unnecessary handling, no barcode scanners required. RFID Issues Right now, you can buy a hammer, a pair of jeans, or a razor blade with anonymity. With RFID tags, that may be a thing of the past. Some manufacturers are planning to tag just the packaging, but others will also tag their products. There is no law requiring a label indicating that an RFID chip is in a product. Once you buy your RFID-tagged jeans at The Gap with RFID-tagged money, walk out of the store wearing RFID-tagged shoes, and get into your car with its RFID-tagged tires, you could be tracked anywhere you travel. Bar codes are usually scanned at the store, but not after purchase. But RFID transponders are, in many cases, forever part of the product, and designed to respond when they receive a signal. Imagine everything you own is "numbered, identified, catalogued, and tracked." Anonymity and privacy? Gone in a hailstorm of invisible communication, betrayed by your very property. But let's not stop there. Others are talking about placing RFID tags into all sensitive or important documents: "it will be practical to put them not only in paper money, but in drivers' licenses, passports, stock certificates, manuscripts, university diplomas, medical degrees and licenses, birth certificates, and any other sort of document you can think of where authenticity is paramount." In other words, those documents you're required to have, that you can't live without, will be forever tagged. Consider the human body as well. Applied Digital Solutions has designed an RFID tag - called the VeriChip - for people. Only 11 mm long, it is designed to go under the skin, where it can be read from four feet away. They sell it as a great way to keep track of children, Alzheimer's patients in danger of wandering, and anyone else with a medical disability, but it gives me the creeps. The possibilities are scary. In May, delegates to the Chinese Communist Party Congress were required to wear an RFID-equipped badge at all times so their movements could be tracked and recorded. Is there any doubt that, in a few years, those badges will be replaced by VeriChip-like devices? Surveillance is getting easier, cheaper, smaller, and ubiquitous. Sure, it's possible to destroy an RFID tag. You can crush it, puncture it, or microwave it (but be careful of fires!). You can't drown it, however, and you can't demagnetize it. And washing RFID-tagged clothes won't remove the chips, since they're specifically designed to withstand years of wearing, washing, and drying. You could remove the chip from your jeans, but you'd have to find it first. That's why Congress should require that consumers be notified about products with embedded RFID tags. We should know when we're being tagged. We should also be able to disable the chips in our own property. If it's the property of the company we work for, that's a different matter. But if it's ours, we should be able to control whether tracking is enabled. Security professionals need to realize that RFID tags are dumb devices. They listen, and they respond. Currently, they don't care who sends the signal. Anything your companies' transceiver can detect, the bad guy's transceiver can detect. So don't be lulled into a false sense of security. With RFID about to arrive in full force, don't be lulled at all. Major changes are coming, and not all of them will be positive. The law of unintended consequences is about to encounter surveillance devices smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. © SecurityFocus.com Scott Granneman is a senior consultant for Bryan Consulting Inc. in St. Louis. He specializes in Internet Services and developing Web applications for corporate, educational, and institutional clients. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:59:44 PM
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Re: Letter to Colin Powell Dear Friends: With the expiration of its July 1 deadline to cut off military aid to states supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Bush administration should end its ill-conceived campaign to weaken the court, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. The American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA) revokes military assistance to countries that have ratified the ICC unless they conclude a separate bilateral agreement with the United States by July 1, agreeing never to hand over U.S. personnel to the ICC. Despite a yearlong campaign by the U.S. diplomatic corps, only about 48 countries have signed such agreements so far, the majority of them small and poor countries that have not ratified the ICC treaty anyway and therefore have no obligation to transfer U.S. personnel to the court. "U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch. _______________________________ Human Rights Watch July 1, 2003 U.S.: End Bully Tactics Against Court Letter to Colin Powell (New York, July 1, 2003) With the expiration of its July 1 deadline to cut off military aid to states supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Bush administration should end its ill-conceived campaign to weaken the court, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. The American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA) revokes military assistance to countries that have ratified the ICC unless they conclude a separate bilateral agreement with the United States by July 1, agreeing never to hand over U.S. personnel to the ICC. Despite a yearlong campaign by the U.S. diplomatic corps, only about 48 countries have signed such agreements so far, the majority of them small and poor countries that have not ratified the ICC treaty anyway and therefore have no obligation to transfer U.S. personnel to the court. "U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. campaign has not succeeded in undermining global support for the court. But it has succeeded in making the U.S. government look foolish and mean-spirited." The letter cites several examples of U.S. hardball tactics: * U.S. Ambassador Richard Blankenship publicly warned the Bahamas that if it did not support the U.S. position on the ICC, a significant amount of U.S. aid would be withheld, including funds for paving and lighting an airport runway. * An Assistant Secretary of State informed foreign ministers of Caribbean states that they would lose the benefits for hurricane relief and rural dentistry and veterinary programs if their governments did not sign. "U.S. officials are engaged in a worldwide campaign pressing small, vulnerable and often fragile democratic governments," said the Human Rights Watch letter, signed by executive director Kenneth Roth. "Because most ICC member states are democracies with a relatively strong commitment to the rule of law, the threatened aid cutoffs represent a sanction primarily targeting states that abide by democratic values." The exact number of countries that have signed bilateral immunity agreements is unclear, since some of the agreements are "secret." But at least 38 of them are classified as "less developed" or "least developed" countries by the United Nations Development Program index. Most of the ICC's 18 judges come from countries closely allied with the United States. Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine national who was most recently the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard Law School, has recently been sworn in as the court's Chief Prosecutor. "No one really believes that Moreno Ocampo is likely to indulge in unwarranted prosecutions of American citizens," said Dicker. "It's really time for the Bush administration to wake up from its own nightmarish delirium." To read the Human Rights Watch letter, please see: http://hrw.org/press/2003/06/usa063003ltr.htm For more information on the International Criminal Court, please see: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/ © Copyright 2003, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA __ _____________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:59:07 PM
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Re: US Threatens Suspension of Aid Dear Friends: Bush has suspended military aid to nearly 50 countries because they support the International Criminal Court. This threat of suspension, contained within the American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, was passed by Congress out of disapproval for the International Criminal Court and its attempt to try war crimes and acts of genocide. The United States says it feared politically motivated prosecutions of civilian or military leaders. Now why do you suppose the US would fear such prosecutions? This sounds to me like another version of "if you don't play by my rules, I'm taking my marbles and going home." _________________________________ Reuters July 1, 2003 U.S. Bans Military Aid to Almost 50 Countries WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday declared almost 50 countries ineligible for military aid, including Colombia and six nations seeking NATO membership, because they back the International Criminal Court and have not exempted Americans from possible prosecution. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said 35 of those countries had been receiving U.S. military aid this year and, in some cases, all the money was already spent. But the ban could still be in effect when a new fiscal year starts in October. As the deadline passed for governments to sign exemption agreements or face the suspension of military aid, President Bush issued waivers for 22 countries. But those 22 did not include Colombia and the eastern European countries of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Colombia, where the government is fighting leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers, has been one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid, with $98 million this year. Boucher said all but $5 million of the Colombia military aid has already been spent. The $5 million is now frozen. Richard Dicker, director of the international justice program at Human Rights Watch, said the suspension of aid worked against some of the Bush administration's other policy goals, such as intercepting drugs in the Caribbean and expanding NATO into eastern Europe. Of the seven eastern European countries expected to join NATO in May, only Romania has signed a deal with Washington on the ICC. ``This campaign has brought resentment and bitterness from some of the U.S. government's closest allies and comes at an extraordinary high price,'' Dicker told Reuters. Other major countries liable to the suspension of military aid are Brazil, Cambodia, Serbia and South Africa. TRAINING AND WEAPONS A U.S. official said that if countries had ratified the treaty setting up the international court and had not received a waiver, the ban on military aid would come into effect. But the threat, enshrined in the American Service Members Protection Act of 2002, does not apply to the 19 NATO members and to nine ``major non-NATO allies.'' The suspension covers international military education and training funds, or IMET, which mainly pay the cost of educating foreign officers at U.S. institutions, and foreign military funding, which pays for U.S. weapons and other aid. IMET funds usually amount to less than $1 million per country a year, but foreign military funding can run into the hundreds of millions. Congress passed the law out of disapproval of the International Criminal Court, set up to try war crimes and acts of genocide. The United States says it feared politically motivated prosecutions of civilian or military leaders. The United States had hoped that the threat to withdraw aid would lead to a last-minute rush to sign Article 98 agreements exempting U.S. personnel from transfer to the court. Altogether 44 governments have publicly acknowledged signing the agreement and at least seven others have signed secret agreements, U.S. officials say. The pace of signatures does appear to have picked up a little. About 25 governments have signed in the last four months, about half of those in the last three weeks. Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================ 5:58:43 PM
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Re: Confidence in War Effort Slips Dear Friends: Are we there yet? Peace still proves illusive in Iraq, even though the war was officially declared over two months ago. Guerrilla-style attacks against American troops continue in post-war Iraq, and anti-US protests have been renewed in Falluja, where a massive blast destroyed a mosque and killed ten Iraqis yesterday. In a sign of the growing mistrust between the occupying forces and the people they say they have liberated from a tyrannical regime, locals immediately blamed a US airstrike for the tragedy. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld continues to deride those who express concern that feel the Iraq occupation is turning into a Vietnam-style quagmire. Meanwhile, a recent CNN/USA Today poll shows that confidence in military operations in Iraq is declining among Americans. The almost daily attacks on coalition soldiers are eroding support for a long-term presence, with only 56% of American who feel things are going well, compared to 70% last month. __________________________________ USA Today July 1, 2003 Confidence in war effort slips; Bush support still strong Steady decline in view of conflict by Richard Benedetto WASHINGTON -- Confidence in the war effort in Iraq is declining as the search for weapons of mass destruction goes on and as U.S. troops continue to suffer deadly attacks, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows. Most Americans say things are going well for the United States in Iraq. But although 56% feel that way in the latest survey, 70% were satisfied a month ago and 86% on May 7, a week after President Bush declared combat largely over. The poll finds most people have confidence in the president's leadership and character, but there is erosion on those questions, too. Bush is rated as being ''honest and trustworthy'' by 65% of respondents, and 57% say he ''cares about the needs of people like you.'' Both are down 8 percentage points from a poll conducted in April. Analysts suggest that if the search for weapons drags on for months without success, if the U.S. death toll continues to mount and if former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is not found, critics will grow louder, support will drop and the public might begin calling for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. ''This bears the seeds for potential problems for the president down the road as he looks to re-election,'' said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at Catholic University of America in Washington. Nevertheless, most Americans are giving the president the benefit of the doubt. Six in 10 people say his administration did not deliberately mislead the country about evidence that Iraq had nuclear, chemical or biological weapons that posed a threat to the United States. And despite a recent rash of attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq, 74% of those polled say the number of U.S. deaths since major combat ended is to be expected. Among other findings: * 69% say it is worth having U.S. troops in Iraq now. * 63% say the administration did a good job planning for a post-combat Iraq. * 53% are confident that weapons of mass destruction will be found. That's a drop of 31 percentage points since March 30. And although 48% now believe that Saddam will be killed or captured, 70% expressed confidence in the March poll. * 56% say the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over. That represents a 17-point drop since April 16, a week after the fall of Baghdad. Bush's overall job rating, a solid 61%, has been on a gradual decline from a recent high of 71% in April, shortly after U.S. troops captured Baghdad. Thad Beyle, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the drop in the president's character ratings could come as much from his handling of the economy and other domestic issues as from perceived problems in post-combat Iraq. As people hear about severe state and local budget problems, they are worrying more about their personal situations than about Iraq, Beyle said. © Copyright 2003 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:58:22 PM
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Re: 10 Things That Aren't True Dear Friends: If you ever have trouble getting to sleep at night, try counting the lies that Bush and his gang have told us about Iraq, Saddam, and the WMD. Here are 10 to start with. Then again, that might keep you awake, or give you nightmares. _____________________________ AlterNet June 27, 2003 Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq Christopher Scheer "The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons." -- George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati. There is a small somber box that appears in the New York Times every day. Titled simply "Killed in Iraq," it lists the names and military affiliations of those who most recently died on tour of duty. Wednesday's edition listed just one name: Orenthal J. Smith, age 21, of Allendale, South Carolina. The young, late O.J. Smith was almost certainly named after the legendary running back, Orenthal J. Simpson, before that dashing American hero was charged for a double-murder. Now his namesake has died in far-off Mesopotamia in a noble mission to, as our president put it on March 19, "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger." Today, more than three months after Bush's stirring declaration of war and nearly two months since he declared victory, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their existence, nor any sign they were deployed in the field. The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the truth. What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody: LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... 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." -- President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati. FACT: This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie." LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." -- President Bush, Jan. 28, 2003, in the State of the Union address. FACT: This whopper was based on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," he told the New Republic, anonymously. "They [the White House] were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly." LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." -- Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press." FACT: There was and is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." -- CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush. FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun the intelligence 180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested. LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." -- President Bush, Oct. 7. FACT: No evidence of this has ever been leaked or produced. Colin Powell told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern Iraq. To his great embarrassment, the area he indicated was later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes. LIE #6: "We have 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 are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAV's [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." -- President Bush, Oct. 7. FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6,000 miles from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore, Iraq's drone-building program wasn't much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't a "manned aerial vehicle" just a scary way to say "plane"? LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." -- President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address. FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces, there are no signs, traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else during the war. LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council. FACT: Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks -- if they existed -- were well past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder. LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press. FACT: Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east, west, south or north, somewhat or otherwise. LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." -- President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003. FACT: This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American experts -- including the State Department's intelligence wing in a report released this week -- have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves. So, months after the war, we are once again where we started -- with plenty of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this "grave danger" for which O.J. Smith died. The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the blame for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence was fine; it was their abuse of it that was "faulty." Rather than apologize for leading us to a preemptive war based on impossibly faulty or shamelessly distorted "intelligence" or offering his resignation, our sly madman in the White House is starting to sound more like that other O.J. Like the man who cheerfully played golf while promising to pursue "the real killers," Bush is now vowing to search for "the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes." On the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark received a strange call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House position: "I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein,'" Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. "I said, 'But -- I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence.'" And neither did we. --Christopher Scheer is the managing editor of AlterNet.org. He can be reached at feedback@alternet.org © 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:58:01 PM
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Dear Friends: Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee announced Friday plans to stage their own inquiry on the credibility of prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its links to the al-Qaida terror network. The announcement by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat, marked an unusual split with Chairman John Warner, R-Va., on an issue with strong political overtones ahead of next year's elections. Warner and Levin are longtime colleagues on the committee and repeatedly stress bipartisan cooperation... On Thursday, 24 House Democrats announced that would seek an independent commission to examine the Iraq intelligence. They say they want to know whether intelligence was inaccurate or whether the administration presented a distorted interpretation of the intelligence to make the case for war. ______________________________________ Associated Press June 27, 2003 Democrats Begin Probe of Prewar Intel by Ken Guggenheim, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee announced Friday plans to stage their own inquiry on the credibility of prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its links to the al-Qaida terror network. The announcement by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat, marked an unusual split with Chairman John Warner, R-Va., on an issue with strong political overtones ahead of next year's elections. Warner and Levin are longtime colleagues on the committee and repeatedly stress bipartisan cooperation. Democrats in both the House and Senate have been pushing for widened examinations of prewar intelligence beyond reviews already under way by both bodies' intelligence committees. Levin said he has directed Democratic staff to examine the objectivity and credibility of the intelligence and its effect on Defense Department policy decisions, military planning and operations in Iraq. He said Warner refused his request to begin such an inquiry. In a letter released by Levin, Warner said the committee should wait until the Senate Intelligence Committee has completed its review, then decide how to move ahead. Both Levin and Warner are members of the intelligence panel. The Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, will continue oversight hearings on military operations in Iraq, Warner said in the letter. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, will appear before the panel the week of July 7. He said Levin's review is "clearly your prerogative" and said his staff may work periodically with Levin's. In a statement, Warner's press secretary, John Ullyot, said the committee has held four hearings on the weapons and intelligence issues and will hold more, in addition to the Intelligence Committee review. "Sen. Levin is welcome to direct his own staff to look into these matters as well," he said. Levin and Warner will be traveling together next week to Iraq and the Middle East, along with the leaders of the Intelligence Committee and other senators. The prewar intelligence has been called into question both nationally and abroad because of the military's inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Also, some evidence cited by the Bush administration has been discredited, including documents on supposed approaches to obtain uranium in Africa, which turned out to be forgeries. At a news conference in Washington, Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio said Friday the failure to find the weapons was a defeat for her government, which strongly supported the war. "There is a pervasive concern when and how we will find them," Palacio said. But she said she was relaxed about the weapons search. Republicans say there is little doubt the weapons existed and accuse Democrats of questioning the intelligence and its use for political reasons. They defeated three attempts by House Democrats this week to expand the weapons inquiries as part of an intelligence bill approved early Friday. On Thursday, 24 House Democrats announced that would seek an independent commission to examine the Iraq intelligence. They say they want to know whether intelligence was inaccurate or whether the administration presented a distorted interpretation of the intelligence to make the case for war. Democrats have also questioned whether the Bush administration overstated Iraqi links to al-Qaida. A recently completed draft report by a U.N. terrorism committee on efforts to stop al-Qaida operations does not mention Iraq. The committee has seen no evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaida, said its chief investigator Michael Chandler. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday that the committee's mandate did not include examining Iraqi links to al-Qaida. He said the committee lacked the expertise to assess any links. In addition to the intelligence issue, Democrats and some Republicans have criticized President Bush for not speaking publicly of the long-term costs and U.S. troop commitments that will be needed in Iraq. Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, urged Bush to ask for help policing Iraq from the NATO military alliance and its member states. "I implore the president to kind of get over his feelings about the Europeans, and the French and the Germans in particular, and seek their assistance because I believe they are ready to assist. They need to be asked," Biden said. In an interview with NPR's "All Things Considered," Secretary of State Colin Powell said "a large presence of troops" will be needed for months to stabilize the country, improve security and eliminate remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and his Baathist Party. "I can't be more precise than that, because we don't know," he said. Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ **Note: I hope you are enjoying the e-newsletter. To remove your email from the War and Peace Watch mailing list, reply to this email with "unsubscribe" written in the subject box. 5:57:37 PM
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Re: Congressional 9/11 Investigation Dear Friends: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has written a fascinating and well-researched article on the administration's near gag-order concerning the congressional investigation of September 11. Because it is quite lengthy, only the initial paragraphs will be included in the War and Peace Watch newsletter. To read the complete article, please see our web site www.warandpeacewatch.com and go to the "Articles" section. ________________________________________ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists March/April 2003, Volume 59, No. 2, pp. 28-37 "Slow-walked and Stonewalled" by John Prados The administration's near-gag order assured a less-than-satisfactory outcome to the congressional investigation of 9/11. From the day after September 11, 2001, when the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. took place, it was clear there would be a congressional investigation of the intelligence aspects of the disaster. Unanswered questions loomed in everyone's minds: Who were the men who had seized airliners in flight and driven them into huge buildings? How had they eluded sophisticated American security systems? And what warning, if any, had there been? It took some time to agree on the form the inquiry might take, but at length the issue was settled, and the examination was completed in December 2002. Oddly enough, given the magnitude of the attacks and the importance of learning how they could have happened, the inquiry attracted startlingly little attention. How did that happen? It is important to understand how the investigation was conducted, how it became sidetracked, and what the process can tell us, not only about the workings of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and its intelligence cohorts, but also about Bush administration policy and politics. **********for more of this article, please refer to our web site www.warandpeacewatch.com and go to the "Articles" section.********** © 2003 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 5:56:43 PM
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Re: Cheney and the CIA Dear Friends: We're pleased to feature another article by Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst. He reports that the repeated visits made to the CIA before the war in Iraq by VP Dick Cheney were hardly business as usual. In fact, they were unprecedented. During McGovern's 27 years with the Central Intelligence Agency, he states that no vice president ever came to them for a working visit. --McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1964 to 1990, and regularly reported to the vice president and senior policy-makers on the President's Daily Brief from 1981 to 1985. _____________________ The Hartford Courant June 27, 2003 Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual by Ray McGovern As though this were normal! I mean the repeated visits Vice President Dick Cheney made to the CIA before the war in Iraq. The visits were, in fact, unprecedented. During my 27-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, no vice president ever came to us for a working visit. During the '80s, it was my privilege to brief Vice President George H.W. Bush and other very senior policy-makers every other morning. I went either to the vice president's office or (on weekends) to his home. I am sure it never occurred to him to come to CIA headquarters. The morning briefings gave us an excellent window on what was uppermost in the minds of those senior officials and helped us refine our tasks of collection and analysis. Thus, there was never any need for policy-makers to visit us. And the very thought of a vice president dropping by to help us with our analysis is extraordinary. We preferred to do that work without the pressure that inevitably comes from policy-makers at the table. Cheney got into the operational side of intelligence as well. Reports in late 2001 that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger stirred such intense interest that his office let it be known he wanted them checked out. So, with the CIA as facilitator, a retired U.S. ambassador was dispatched to Niger in February 2002 to investigate. He found nothing to substantiate the report and lots to call it into question. There the matter rested - until last summer, after the Bush administration made the decision for war in Iraq. Cheney, in a speech on Aug. 26, 2002, claimed that Saddam Hussein had "resumed his effort to acquire nuclear weapons." At the time, CIA analysts were involved in a knock-down, drag-out argument with the Pentagon on this very point. Most of the nuclear engineers at the CIA, and virtually all scientists at U.S. government laboratories and the International Atomic Energy Agency, found no reliable evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program. But the vice president had spoken. Sad to say, those in charge of the draft National Intelligence Estimate took their cue and stated, falsely, that "most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." Smoke was blown about aluminum tubes sought by Iraq that, it turns out, were for conventional weapons programs. The rest amounted to things like Hussein's frequent meetings with nuclear scientists and Iraq's foot-dragging in providing information to U.N. inspectors. Not much heed was paid to the fact that Hussein's son-in-law, who supervised Iraq's nuclear program before he defected in 1995, had told interrogators that Iraq's nuclear capability - save the blueprints - had been destroyed in 1991 at his order. (Documents given to the United States this week confirm that. The Iraqi scientists who provided them added that, even though the blueprints would have given Iraq a head start, no order was given to restart the program; and even had such an order been given, Iraq would still have been years away from producing a nuclear weapon.) In sum, the evidence presented in last September's intelligence estimate fell far short of what was required to support Cheney's claim that Iraq was on the road to a nuclear weapon. Something scarier had to be produced, and quickly, if Congress was to be persuaded to authorize war. And so the decision was made to dust off the uranium-from-Niger canard. The White House calculated - correctly - that before anyone would make an issue of the fact that this key piece of "intelligence" was based on a forgery, Congress would vote yes. The war could then be waged and won. In recent weeks, administration officials have begun spreading the word that Cheney was never told the Iraq-Niger story was based on a forgery. I asked a senior official who recently served at the National Security Council if he thought that was possible. He pointed out that rigorous NSC procedures call for a very specific response to all vice presidential questions and added that "the fact that Cheney's office had originally asked that the Iraq-Niger report be checked out makes it inconceivable that his office would not have been informed of the results." Did the president himself know that the information used to secure congressional approval for war was based on a forgery? We don't know. But which would be worse - that he knew or that he didn't? --Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst from 1964 to 1990, regularly reported to the vice president and senior policy-makers on the President's Daily Brief from 1981 to 1985. He now is co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an inner-city outreach ministry in Washington. Copyright 2003, Hartford Courant _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================= 5:56:17 PM
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Re: It Matters Dear Friends: In her essay "Is There Anything Left That Matters?" Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Sister, writes of the importance of honesty and integrity in our lives, and in our government. She asks, "What is the depth of the American soul if we can allow destruction to be done in our name and the name of 'liberation' and never even demand an accounting of its costs, both personal and public, when it is over?" If the people speak and the government doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the government. If the government acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people. Sister Joan has been recognized by universities and national organizations for her work for justice, peace, and equality for women in the Church and society. She is a best-selling author, well-known international lecturer, and is an active member of the International Peace Council. ___________________________ National Catholic Reporter May 27, 2003 Vol. 1, No. 9 Is There Anything Left That Matters? by Joan Chittister, OSB This is what I don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter. First, they said they wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive." But they didn't get him. So now they tell us that it doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man. Then they said they wanted Saddam Hussein, "dead or alive." He's apparently alive but we haven't got him yet, either. However, President Bush told reporters recently, "It doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man." Finally, they told us that we were invading Iraq to destroy their weapons of mass destruction. Now they say those weapons probably don't exist. Maybe never existed. Apparently that doesn't matter either. Except that it does matter. I know we're not supposed to say that. I know it's called "unpatriotic." But it's also called honesty. And dishonesty matters. It matters that the infrastructure of a foreign nation that couldn't defend itself against us has been destroyed on the grounds that it was a military threat to the world. It matters that it was destroyed by us under a new doctrine of "pre-emptive war" when there was apparently nothing worth pre-empting. It surely matters to the families here whose sons went to war to make the world safe from weapons of mass destruction and will never come home. It matters to families in the United States whose life support programs were ended, whose medical insurance ran out, whose food stamps were cut off, whose day care programs were eliminated so we could spend the money on sending an army to do what did not need to be done. It matters to the Iraqi girl whose face was burned by a lamp that toppled over as a result of a U.S. bombing run. It matters to Ali, the Iraqi boy who lost his family and both his arms in a U.S. air attack. It matters to the people in Baghdad whose water supply is now fetid, whose electricity is gone, whose streets are unsafe, whose 158 government ministries' buildings and all their records have been destroyed, whose cultural heritage and social system has been looted and whose cities teem with anti-American protests. It matters that the people we say we "liberated" do not feel liberated in the midst of the lawlessness, destruction and wholesale social suffering that so-called liberation created. It matters to the United Nations whose integrity was impugned, whose authority was denied, whose inspection teams are even now still being overlooked in the process of technical evaluation and disarmament. It matters to the reputation of the United States in the eyes of the world, both now and for decades to come, perhaps. And surely it matters to the integrity of this nation whether or not its intelligence gathering agencies have any real intelligence or not before we launch a military armada on its say-so. And it should matter whether or not our government is either incompetent and didn't know what they were doing or were dishonest and refused to say. The unspoken truth is that either as a people we were misled, or we were lied to, about the real reason for this war. Either we made a huge and unforgivable mistake, an arrogant or ignorant mistake, or we are swaggering around the world like a blind giant, flailing in all directions while the rest of the world watches in horror or in ridicule. If Bill Clinton's definition of "is" matters, surely this matters. If a president's sex life matters, surely a president's use of global force against some of the weakest people in the world matters. If a president's word in a court of law about a private indiscretion matters, surely a president's word to the community of nations and the security of millions of people matters. And if not, why not? If not, surely there is something as wrong with us as citizens, as thinkers, as Christians as there must be with some facet of the government. If wars that the public says are wrong yesterday as over 70% of U.S. citizens did before the attack on Iraq suddenly become "right" the minute the first bombs drop, what kind of national morality is that? Of what are we really capable as a nation if the considered judgment of politicians and people around the world means nothing to us as a people? What is the depth of the American soul if we can allow destruction to be done in our name and the name of "liberation" and never even demand an accounting of its costs, both personal and public, when it is over? We like to take comfort in the notion that people make a distinction between our government and ourselves. We like to say that the people of the world love Americans, they simply mistrust our government. But excoriating a distant and anonymous "government" for wreaking rubble on a nation in pretense of good requires very little of either character or intelligence. What may count most, however, is that we may well be the ones Proverbs warns when it reminds us: "Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who speaks the truth." The point is clear: If the people speak and the king doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the king. If the king acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people. It may be time for us to realize that in a country that prides itself on being democratic, we are our government. And the rest of the world is figuring that out very quickly. From where I stand, that matters. --Comments or questions about this column may be sent to: fwis@nationalcatholicreporter.org Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company, 115 E. Armour Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111 All rights reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ======================== 7:49:20 PM
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Re: Homeland Security's Nuala Kelly Dear Friends: Nuala O'Connor Kelly has been chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security for two months now. As such, she is charged with balancing the government's anti-terrorism program with protecting the privacy rights of Americans. Will she be able to serve her masters and the public as well? Privacy proponents are divided over whether she'll be a glorified public relations flack or a true privacy advocate. One doesn't have to be familiar with C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, the writings of George Orwell, or even the struggles against the dark side envisioned by J.K. Rowling, to be aware of the tension between the one and the many, the government and the people, or the security of the state vs. the rights of privacy. She'll truly be walking the razor's edge on this one. --Nuala O'Connor Kelly, a 34-year-old lawyer who describes herself as "truly a geek at heart," is best known in privacy-activist circles as part of the team that Internet advertising firm DoubleClick hauled in to clean house when the company was being besieged by complaints about its privacy policies -- or lack thereof. ________________________ Wired News June 30, 2003 Nuala: Tech Not a Complete Fix by Michelle Delio Two months into her job as chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security Department, Nuala O'Connor Kelly spoke by phone and e-mail with Wired News about her personal experiences with both terrorism and government surveillance, what she really did at Internet advertising firm DoubleClick, and how she's balancing government antiterrorism efforts with the rights of the people whose privacy she's now charged with protecting. Wired News: You've described yourself a "geek at heart." What is it about technology that interests and excites you? O'Connor Kelly: What interests me about technology is our ability to develop and discover things that help us, particularly that help us communicate, live, work, and thrive through our own intelligence and ingenuity. I suppose it sounds incredibly corny, but it's one form of making the world a better place. What excites me is our own power to create; to make something that runs, moves, operates -- whether on the screen or elsewhere in our lives -- that essentially has a life, or at least a purpose, of its own. I think the challenge for me, since I am enamored of technological solutions, is to remember that sometimes technology is not the complete fix. It takes a combination of technology, people, policies and practices to ensure that something like privacy, for example, is embedded into the culture of an organization or into a particular program or activity. WN: How did you become involved in privacy issues? Was it a burning interest of yours or did you just sort of end up here? O'Connor Kelly: That story is part accidental and part intentional, probably like many people's careers. The accidental part was being fortunate to get a number of different jobs in different places all dealing with phenomenal privacy issues in the online space, in the government space. But I've been interested particularly in the relationship between government and the individual, and the impact on personal privacy and dignity for a long time. I was born in Northern Ireland and spent a little bit of time there as a child. Living in an environment of terrorism and security issues has an impact on people that goes far beyond even the immediate fear of the terrorist act. The governmental actions that often flow from anti-terrorism purposes equally affect the individual, and that individual's sense of their personal autonomy and space. We in the United States are learning and evaluating and creating our response to terrorist acts such as those on September 11, and in the process of developing that response, we need to consider the impact that our response will have on the lives and dignity and privacy of our neighbors and our children and ourselves. WN: What do you think will be the most challenging part of your job? O'Connor Kelly: I think any time you're trying to have a cross-cultural conversation -- between technologists and non-technologists, between government and those outside government, between our country and other countries -- the risk of misunderstandings is great. I see myself as an internal educator -- to bring an awareness of privacy and data-protection practices to a new organization -- and also as a translator. But I also I think external education is crucial as well, so that people can form educated opinions about the scope of DHS's activities. Being precise and accurate and complete and clear, particularly when talking about complex technologies, is a challenge. WN: Any unexpected challenges that have cropped up since you started, things that now appear to be a bit more complicated that you expected? O'Connor Kelly: I think our impact on non-U.S. citizens is something we need to consider further. As an immigrant, I've always thought that I've been sensitive to non-citizens living in the States. But the need for our government to understand the flow of people and persons is crucial to making our homeland safe for all of us, citizens and residents alike. I think having the conversation internationally about how people flow across borders is a hard one, since each country has a different system of accepting visitors, and also wants to protect the rights of its citizens to the greatest extent possible when they travel. WN: Some people are becoming increasingly spooked over the government's plans to gather private information in the war against terrorism. What is your response to people who are skeptical about the need and effectiveness (against terror) of the new surveillance plans? O'Connor Kelly: I have frequently said (both before and since joining the government) that a healthy skepticism about the government is a good thing, and part of our right as Americans. I think the idea of "mission creep" is something we should be constantly vigilant about, not only to protect the rights of people who are affected by these programs, but also because I want DHS to succeed as an organization, and part of that means defining and achieving its mission. WN: Some have suggested that your primary job is to provide good PR for homeland defense, not to make real changes in how the government handles private data. Your response to that? O'Connor Kelly: I've heard that comment (I think I read it in Wired, in fact), and I have to confess to being quite baffled by it. I have no background in PR, and I haven't been in Washington long enough to know how to "spin" things. People who know me know how hard I work now, and how hard I worked at DoubleClick to make good decisions internally for the organization. Perhaps I should have demanded more credit externally, but that part of the job never occurred to me. I do think it's incredibly important to be transparent and accountable and accessible. We owe it our citizens, our customers, our clients, to explain what it is we're doing. If that's PR, then I suppose it's part of the job. But I don't think of it as PR; I think of it as communicating accurately and responsibly to citizens so that they are aware of what their government is up to ... so that they can make informed judgments about those activities. Apparently, I've done a really poor job of PR on my own behalf, as I think that most of my work was internal to the organizations I've been a part of, and apparently those on the outside didn't know the scope of it. WN: Can you bring me up to date with what's happening with CAPPS II (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System)? O'Connor Kelly: I think the CAPPS II program has come a tremendously long way from a privacy perspective since people first started talking about it. In the few weeks I've been here, I've learned about some important, and even impressive, privacy protections that the CAPPS II team has put in place based on feedback received formally and informally through responses to the first Federal Register notice announcing the system, through open meetings with the public, with advocacy groups, with members of Congress. Where it stands now is that the department will be issuing shortly a new Privacy Act notice that details what the system plan is, what it would do, what information is collected, used, and stored, and for what purpose. I think the notice will answer many of the questions and address many of the concerns that people have about the system. The notice may also raise some more questions, and that's OK. We still have questions, too, about CAPPS II and that's why we're going to test the technologies, put the system through its paces, over the summer and into the fall, to see if it can work. That's another reason for the test -- while it won't be making decisions affecting traveling passengers, the system will contain personal information for a time, and people have a right to know that. Wired News: Will you develop ways to check the accuracy of the data that CAPPS II accesses, limit the information that is collected, and also enable ways for people to easily correct captured data? O'Connor Kelly: Those are pretty much all the key questions, from a policy side, that we're in the process of answering on CAPPS II. We've built some good protocols on data accuracy and on minimizing what data will be collected and what data will be retained, and for how long. I think the harder question is the timely correction of data. We're in the process of building a system where people can complain about problems to a passenger advocate, but eventually DHS will have a process through which individuals can complain to a passenger advocate, an ombudsman, and eventually to me and my office. I'm confident that we will figure out a way to resolve issues in the long term but I want to, in the short term, minimize travelers' delays, and I believe that the greater accuracy that new technologies will bring in this system, versus the current system, will allow us to minimize the incidence of incorrect data. WN: What else is on your immediate to-do list? O'Connor Kelly: We want to create an educational structure across the department, where the privacy office works with and teaches fair information principles in a formal and informal way. And we're working on creating procedural frameworks where privacy is considered at the beginning of the development of any new policy or product or procedure, so that privacy becomes core to the development, rather than an afterthought. Plus, making sure we're being brought into all DHS programs that use personal data. It's a big department -- 182,000 employees -- so that's a lot of ground to cover. WN: Are you meeting any resistance within the DHS when you promote privacy concerns? O'Connor Kelly: In general, I have met with great support from my colleagues. The tension in providing access and transparency is particularly striking, however, in the most highly sensitive, classified information and information about law enforcement activities. We have some forms of information which are essential to ongoing investigations, for example, which, if revealed, might imperil a legitimate law enforcement activity ... while the investigation is ongoing. In these cases, we need to devise ways of providing redress mechanisms for people who feel that they've been wrongly singled out, or who believe that the wrong information might be somehow associated with them, while still protecting the data for legitimate purposes. That's something I will be working on, and that I already am working on. WN: How do you balance the needs of your employer (the government) with the needs of the people whose privacy you're charged with protecting? O'Connor Kelly: I think of citizens and the people affected by DHS's activities as our ultimate client, or boss, or stakeholder, whatever word you want to use. I actually find it much easier -- perhaps this is my legal training or just a personal trait -- to aggressively protect the needs of others rather than my own personal needs. Ultimately I don't see a tension or a balancing act between the needs of the government and the people. The mission of the government should be to meet the needs of the people. In DHS's case, the need is to create a secure homeland, but that means not only securing the people and the places, but also the lifestyles and the liberties of Americans and our visitors. And just as being safe from terror is one of those liberties; so is the ability to safeguard one's privacy. Wired News © Copyright 2003, Lycos, Inc. All Rights Reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:48:48 PM
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Re: The Not in Our Name Project Dear Friends: The Not In Our Name project was initiated at a meeting in New York City, on March 23, 2002. The meeting was called for by a letter that proposed ways to strengthen and expand resistance to the U.S. government's course in the wake of September 11, 2001. The meeting adopted the proposal - and the Not In Our Name project was born. To quote from the project, "We are people of conscience who cannot stand silent as our government wages war without limits of time and space. We cannot stand silent as immigrants are rounded up and detained. We cannot stand silent in the face of new police state restrictions threatening the very right to dissent. We refuse to allow President Bush to speak for all the American people. We will not give up our right to question. We will not hand over our consciences in return for a hollow promise of safety. Together as one, we say NOT IN OUR NAME." The Not In Our Name project is being developed to strengthen and expand the existing movement of resistance - resistance that must take many forms. Resistance of critical thought, resistance by speaking out, resistance through creating powerful art, and resistance through finding ways to halt the machinery of war and repression. Resistance by individuals and resistance through mass action. _______________________ Not In Our Name May 5, 2003 This Was Not a War of Liberation but an Unjust War and Occupation US & UK Troops Out of Iraq NOW! Our government told us we had to go to war because of terrorism - but it was never proven that Iraq was linked with Al Qaeda. Our government told us we had to go to war because of weapons of mass destruction - but the evidence of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, which Colin Powell brought to the UN Security Council and George Bush brought to the nation in his State of the Union address, contained forged documents that were the so-called proof that Iraq was trying to buy 500 tons of uranium oxide from Niger. No chemical or biological weapons have been found and, moreover, the Iraqis used no such weapons against U.S. troops - which hardly gives credibility to U.S. claims that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the security of the United States. Our government told us that the goal was disarmament - but when the U.S. refused to go along with the majority of the Security Council's call for continued weapons inspections and disarmament, it was made explicit that the raison d'etre for this war has all along been regime change, an objective the Bush administration put on the agenda only days after Sept 11th 2001. Our government tells us that this was a war of liberation to free the Iraqi people from the brutal tyranny of Saddam Hussein - and now the Iraqi people will have democracy and the right to choose. But the Iraqi people were given no choice in the matter of literally hundreds of thousands of military sorties over Iraq and rockets raining down on Iraqi streets. The Iraqi people were not given a choice to be "collateral damage." The Iraqi people were given no choice in the matter of U.S. military generals who will occupy and rule the country indefinitely - or the decisions to protect the Ministry of Oil while the heritage of the country was looted. The Iraqi people were given no choice when U.S. Marines shot into crowds of demonstrators and killed people - including children - who were demanding that the U.S. leave their country. Our government tells us that they seized the oil fields first, to keep them safe for the people of Iraq. But the press conferences of the war planners unashamedly announced that revenues from the oil fields will be used to pay for the invasion, occupation and rebuilding of Iraq. The first contracts for rebuilding Iraq have gone without bidding to the very corporations who sat on the policy boards that directed the rush to war. Companies like Bechtel and the Stevedoring Services of America are getting hundreds of billions worth of contracts to rebuild the country they just destroyed. The agribusiness conglomerate Cargill is being brought in to bust open the Iraqi market for U.S. exports by administering to the reconstruction of the Ministry of Agriculture, and ex-CIA chief James Woolsey is being recommended to reconstruct the Ministry of Information. Our government is now telling us that we are there to "help build a peaceful and representative government. And then our military forces will leave." But a terrible historical precedent has been established in Iraq - of pre-emptive use of military force to reorder whole countries, with the promise of reordering whole regions of the world strategic to U.S. imperial interests. Woe be the national sovereignty of the country that stands in the way of Pax Americana. Patriot Missiles and Patriot Acts The Bush national security doctrine of "global domination" and "pre-emptive" use of military power has ushered in an era of unprecedented and radical change in foreign policy and in government - a dangerous direction of endless war and domestic repression, of patriot missiles and patriot acts. Under the Patriot Act, the powers of government have been steadily transferred to the executive branch. Under the Patriot Act, immigrants - especially Arabs, Muslims and South Asians - have been stripped of any rights. They have been ordered to report for government interviews and put on lists, detained and deported with no right to due process. Thousands have been "disappeared" from their families with no right to contact a lawyer or family member, reminiscent of the very tyranny our government is supposedly liberating people from. The use of torture at off shore prisons and the denial of the Geneva Convention for "enemy combatants" have been legitimized. Unlimited police powers to spy on U.S. citizens have been established, and now members of the U.S. Senate are advocating eliminating the "sunset clause" of Patriot Act I while advocating the passage of Patriot Act II with provisions that make the fiction of George Orwell's 1984 real life. Iraq is only the second stop in the so-called "war on terrorism" - a war we were told was for our safety and turned out to be for empire. But we as citizens of the United States do not want to live in the new Rome - where the U.S. is not bound by international treaties or international bodies and where wars are promised to last generations. As the U.S. declared victory over Baghdad, Donald Rumsfeld was already directing belligerent and inflammatory remarks towards Syria, Iran and North Korea. U.S. troops lie just off the coast of the Philippines - awaiting a way around the Philippine constitution that outlaws foreign troops on its soil. Ex-CIA director James Woolsey told a group of college students on April 8 that the war the U.S. in engaged in should be called World War 4. He said, "I think that more accurately characterizes the degree of commitment that we [the U.S.] are going to be engaged in now for some years." We Will Not Stop Resisting! This war on Iraq was wrong, the occupation is Iraq is wrong, and the whole Bush doctrine of war and repression is wrong! Not In Our Name calls on all people living in the U.S. to refuse to be party to this and to repudiate this war and occupation and any inference that this war by our government is in our name. We stand with the world against this war and extend our hand to those suffering under U.S. military attack and occupation. We pledge that we will not stop until this war and the entire war on the world are stopped. We pledge that our youth will not be used as cannon fodder for immoral wars. We pledge to the youth of the world a better world than this! Our actions and protest leading up to the Iraq war made an historic difference. All over the world people take heart to know that there is an anti-war movement in the United States. The Iraqi people need to know that there are people here in this country that are opposed to the military occupation they do not want. You are invited to join with Not In Our Name to expand and strengthen resistance to end this war and the government's whole course of war and repression. End the Occupation of Iraq! U.S. and UK Troops Out of Iraq Now! Stop the War on the World! Stop Detentions, Roundups and Registration of Immigrants! End Police State Measures! --Not In Our Name www.notinourname.net info@notinourname.net _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:48:16 PM
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Re: The Pledge of Resistance Dear Friends: The Not In Our Name Pledge of Resistance was created collectively by artists and activists in April 2002 as a means of inspiring protest and resistance. It is at the heart of the Not In Our Name Project. The Pledge was not intended to be signed, rather, it is a tool to be used by individuals, organizations and communities to inspire and strengthen individual and group resistance. Student organizations, trade unions, religious congregations and professional organizations could adopt the Pledge. Meetings and gatherings of all kinds could end (or begin) with the Pledge recited aloud by everyone. Sermons could be written around it. Letters-to-the-editor could discuss its themes. The Pledge of Resistance could be printed in campus and community newspapers and organization newsletters all over the country. ________________________ The Pledge of Resistance We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names Not in our name will you wage endless war there can be no more deaths no more transfusions of blood for oil Not in our name will you invade countries bomb civilians, kill more children letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless Not in our name will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for Not by our hands will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil Not by our mouths will we let fear silence us Not by our hearts will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil Not by our will and Not in our name We pledge resistance We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice, freedom and peace Another world is possible and we pledge to make it real. --Not In Our Name is not collecting individual Pledge of Resistance signatures; however, we encourage groups and organizations to adopt it. Not In Our Name www.notinourname.net info@notinourname.net _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:47:41 PM
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Re: America's Crime of Silence Dear Friends: The recent leaks of classified intelligence information have alerted the American people that something is amiss. Many government experts feel that intelligence had been manipulated to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and yet the public seems complacent to bask in the "patriotic" glow of victory, caring little about what happens to the defeated country now that the war is over. One of the most disturbing things about Iraq War II is that the American people had plenty of evidence before the war that the Bush administration was exaggerating the threat, and yet they did not speak out. This is not patriotism--this is America's crime of silence. ______________________________ Too Many Lies, Too Little Outrage by Ivan Eland Alternet June 24, 2003 Recent leaks of highly classified intelligence information are a clear signal to the American people that many government experts felt that intelligence was manipulated to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Yet the public so far seems complacent to bask in the "patriotic" glow of the battlefield victory over Iraq. As a nation, most Americans relished the sight of the American flag being draped over the statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad as a symbol of the U.S. conquest of another vanquished foe. And we were a bit disappointed that the reception from the "liberated" Iraqi masses to the American troops was one of ambivalence rather than adulation. In short, the war was about "us" and not the Iraqis. To demonstrate this unnerving conclusion, one needs only to look at the media coverage, which may well reflect where the public's attention lies. We have moved on to coverage of Scott Peterson's trial and the Catholic bishop who allegedly committed a hit-and-run crime. And who can tell us what is happening in Afghanistan now -- the scene of the last U.S. military victory? The ugly truth is that most Americans care little what happens to defeated countries after the war as long as we can "beat our chests," as Lt. Gen. Garner put it, and revel in the military trouncing our superpower juggernaut gave to the armies of tinpot despots in the relatively poor developing world. In fact, as long as a victory was won, the slumbering public doesn't care much about why we went to war in the first place. We don't seem to care that the administration twisted the intelligence (and maybe even lied) to hype the threat from Iraq in order to garner support for a questionable war. The Congress's and the media's focus on the U.S. military's failure to find mass quantities of chemical and biological weapons after the war is quite curious, however. More important -- even if some such weapons are eventually found -- before the war the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency both reported to the administration that unless attacked, Iraq was unlikely to use such weapons or give them to terrorists. In a letter to Congress made public prior to the war, CIA Director George Tenet made this assessment fully known. Yet senior Bush administration officials simply ignored the unveiling of embarrassing information and soldiered on -- apparently taking a page out of the Bill Clinton playbook during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In repeated public statements, senior Bush officials portrayed Iraq's chemical and biological weapons as a threat to the United States, either directly or because they might be given to terrorists. Subsequent events proved that the threat from Iraq proved to be even less than the intelligence community predicted. Iraq did not even use such "super weapons" in the most dire case imaginable for the Saddam Hussein Regime -- being overrun by a U.S. invasion. And now the U.S. can't seem to even find any of the vast quantities of chemical and biological agents promised by the administration. The most troubling matter surrounding the war is not that the Bush administration has failed to uncover super weapons in Iraq; it is that the American public did not say "no" to the war (and to this day has not reversed its approval of the conflict) even when the war rationale by Bush administration officials was contradicted publicly by their own intelligence community. This public acceptance of the war is even more curious given the sordid history of presidential lying to the American people about wars in the past. In 1846, the Polk administration sent U.S. troops into a disputed region along the Texas-Mexican border to provoke Mexico into firing the first shot in the Mexican War. In 1898, the McKinley administration used an explosion aboard the U.S. warship Maine in a Cuban harbor to take the country to war against Spain. Most historians now believe the explosion was a total accident. In the 1916 election, Woodrow Wilson promised the American people he would keep the United States out of war; in 1917, the United States entered World War I. In 1940, also an election year, Franklin Roosevelt promised to keep the country out of World War II, while actively trying to start a naval war with the Germans in the Atlantic and imposing provocative economic sanctions on Japan in the Pacific. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson lied about an incident between U.S. and North Vietnamese ships in the Gulf of Tonkin to gain acceptance from Congress to escalate the war in Vietnam. But he conveniently waited until 1965, after the 1964 election, to do so. To justify Operation Desert Storm, the first Bush administration cited satellite photos showing Iraqi forces massing on the border between newly-occupied Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Curiously, simultaneous photographs from Russian satellites did not detect any military build-up. In all these cases, however, Americans trusted their government and later found such trust to be misplaced. The alarming thing about Iraq War II is that the American people had plenty of evidence before the war -- from the president's own intelligence chief -- that the Bush administration was exaggerating the threat. In a republic, aren't the people ultimately responsible for the policies their government adopts in their name? Most of the public seems to revel in its willingness to allow the U.S. Government -- like the empires of old -- to conduct "patriotic" wars of conquest for glory. The Founders of our nation -- who realized that foreign wars lead to many ill-effects, both domestically and abroad -- would find this misguided conception of "patriotism" very troubling indeed. --Ivan Eland is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif., and author of the book, "Putting 'Defense' Back into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security in the Post-Cold War World." © 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:47:11 PM
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Re: The Language of Domination Dear Friends: Do we say what we mean, or mean what we say? Clinical psychologist Renana Brooks offers us insights into how Bush uses negative and dominating language to intimidate Americans. Remember, it's never "just words." We speak as we think, and we think as we speak. ____________________________ The Nation June 30, 2003 Issue Bush Dominates a Nation of Victims by Renana Brooks George W Bush is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language. What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language - especially negatively charged emotional language - as a political tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances, and his political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of language to dominate others. President Bush, like many dominant personality types, uses dependency-creating language. He employs language of contempt and intimidation to shame others into submission and desperate admiration. While we tend to think of the dominator as using physical force, in fact most dominators use verbal abuse to control others. Abusive language has been a major theme of psychological researchers on marital problems, such as John Gottman, and of philosophers and theologians, such as Josef Pieper. But little has been said about the key role it has come to play in political discourse, and in such "hot media" as talk radio and television. Bush uses several dominating linguistic techniques to induce surrender to his will. The first is empty language. This term refers to broad statements that are so abstract and mean so little that they are virtually impossible to oppose. Empty language is the emotional equivalent of empty calories. Just as we seldom question the content of potato chips while enjoying their pleasurable taste, recipients of empty language are usually distracted from examining the content of what they are hearing. Dominators use empty language to conceal faulty generalizations; to ridicule viable alternatives; to attribute negative motivations to others, thus making them appear contemptible; and to rename and "reframe" opposing viewpoints. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech contained thirty-nine examples of empty language. He used it to reduce complex problems to images that left the listener relieved that George W Bush was in charge. Rather than explaining the relationship between malpractice insurance and skyrocketing healthcare costs, Bush summed up: "No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit." The multiple fiscal and monetary policy tools that can be used to stimulate an economy were downsized to: "The best and fairest way to make sure Americans have that money is not to tax it away in the first place." The controversial plan to wage another war on Iraq was simplified to: "We will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people." In an earlier study, I found that in the 2000 presidential debates Bush used at least four times as many phrases containing empty language as Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Senior or Gore had used in their debates. Another of Bush's dominant-language techniques is personalization. By personalization I mean localizing the attention of the listener on the speaker's personality. Bush projects himself as the only person capable of producing results. In his post-9/11 speech to Congress he said, "I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people." He substitutes his determination for that of the nation's. In the 2003 State of the Union speech he vowed, "I will defend the freedom and security of the American people." Contrast Bush's "I will not yield" etc. with John F: Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." The word "you" rarely appears in Bush's speeches. Instead, there are numerous statements referring to himself or his personal characteristics - folksiness, confidence, righteous anger or determination - as the answer to the problems of the country. Even when Bush uses "we," as he did many times in the State of the Union speech, he does it in a way that focuses attention on himself. For example, he stated: "Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility." In an article in the Jan. 16 New York Review of Books, Joan Didion highlighted Bush's high degree of personalization and contempt for argumentation in presenting his case for going to war in Iraq. As Didion writes: "'I made up my mind,' he had said in April, 'that Saddam needs to go.' This was one of many curious, almost petulant statements offered in lieu of actually presenting a case. I've made up my mind, I've said in speech after speech, I've made myself clear. The repeated statements became their own reason." Poll after poll demonstrates that Bush's political agenda is out of step with most Americans' core beliefs. Yet the public, their electoral resistance broken down by empty language and persuaded by personalization, is susceptible to Bush's most frequently used linguistic technique: negative framework. A negative framework is a pessimistic image of the world. Bush creates and maintains negative frameworks in his listeners' minds with a number of linguistic techniques borrowed from advertising and hypnosis to instill the image of a dark and evil world around us. Catastrophic words and phrases are repeatedly drilled into the listener's head until the opposition feels such a high level of anxiety that it appears pointless to do anything other than cower. Psychologist Martin Seligman, in his extensive studies of "learned helplessness," showed that people's motivation to respond to outside threats and problems is undermined by a belief that they have no control over their environment. Learned helplessness is exacerbated by beliefs that problems caused by negative events are permanent; and when the underlying causes are perceived to apply to many other events, the condition becomes pervasive and paralyzing. Bush is a master at inducing learned helplessness in the electorate. He uses pessimistic language that creates fear and disables people from feeling they can solve their problems. In his September 20, 2001, speech to Congress on the 9/11 attacks, he chose to increase people's sense of vulnerability: "Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.... I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight.... Be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat." (Subsequent terror alerts by the FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security have maintained and expanded this fear of uknown, sinister enemies.) Contrast this rhetoric with Franklin Roosevelt's speech delivered the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He said: "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.... There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God." Roosevelt focuses on an optimistic future rather than an ongoing threat to Americans' personal survival. All political leaders must define the present threats and problems faced by the country before describing their approach to a solution, but the ratio of negative to optimistic statements in Bush's speeches and policy declarations is much higher, more pervasive and more long-lasting than that of any other President. Let's compare "crisis" speeches by Bush and Ronald Reagan, the President with whom he most identifies himself. In Reagan's October 27, 1983, televised address to the nation on the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, he used nineteen images of crisis and twenty-one images of optimism, evenly balancing optimistic and negative depictions. He limited his evaluation of the problems to the past and present tense, saying only that "with patience and firmness we can bring peace to that strife-torn region and make our own lives more secure." George W Bush's October 7, 2002, major policy speech on Iraq, on the other hand, began with forty-four consecutive statements referring to the crisis and citing a multitude of possible catastrophic repercussions. The vast majority of these statements (for example: "Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time"; "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists") imply that the crisis will last into the indeterminate future. There is also no specific plan of action. The absence of plans is typical of a negative framework, and leaves the listener without hope that the crisis will ever end. Contrast this with Reagan, who, a third of the way into his explanation of the crisis in Lebanon, asked the following: "Where do we go from here? What can we do now to help Lebanon gain greater stability so that our Marines can come home? Well, I believe we can take three steps now that will make a difference." To create a dependency dynamic between him and the electorate, Bush describes the nation as being in a perpetual state of crisis and then attempts to convince the electorate that it is powerless and that he is the only one with the strength to deal with it. He attempts to persuade people they must transfer power to him, thus crushing the power of the citizen, the Congress, the Democratic Party, even constitutional liberties, to concentrate all power in the imperial presidency and the Republican Party. Bush's political opponents are caught in a fantasy that they can win against him simply by proving the superiority of their ideas. However, people do not support Bush for the power of his ideas, but out of the despair and desperation in their hearts. Whenever people are in the grip of a desperate dependency, they won't respond to rational criticisms of the people they are dependent on. They will respond to plausible and forceful statements and alternatives that put the American electorate back in touch with their core optimism. Bush's opponents must combat his dark imagery with hope and restore American vigor and optimism in the coming years. They should heed the example of Reagan, who used optimism against Carter and the "national malaise"; Franklin Roosevelt, who used it against Hoover and the pessimism induced by the Depression ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"); and Clinton (the "Man from Hope"), who used positive language against the senior Bush's lack of vision. This is the linguistic prescription for those who wish to retire Bush in 2004. --Renana Brooks, PhD, is a clinical psychologist practicing in Washington, DC. She heads the Sommet Institute for the Study of Power and Persuasion (www.sommetinstitute.org) and is completing a book on the virtue myth and the conservative culture of domination. Copyright 2003 The Nation _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:46:42 PM
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Re: Robert Fisk Interview Dear Friends: Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman recently interviewed Robert Fisk, reporter with the Independent newspaper of London. Just out of Iraq, where he was chronicling the rising resistance to the U.S. occupation, he gives his thoughts on the anti-US opposition in Iraq and the Roadmap to peace in the Middle East. __________________________ Democracy Now June 12, 2003 Anti-US Opposition In Iraq And The So Called Roadmap An Interview with Robert Fisk by Amy Goodman and Robert Fisk On June 11, 2003, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman interviewed Robert Fisk, reporter with the Independent newspaper of London. He recently left Iraq where he was chronicling the rising resistance to the U.S. occupation. Ten American soldiers have been killed in ambushes across Iraq in the past 15 days including one yesterday in Baghdad who was attacked with rocket propelled grenades. Fallujah has been a hotbed of Iraqi resistance since April when U.S. troops fired into large crowds of civilians twice killing at least 18 people. Democracy Now! is a national listener-sponsored radio and television program. ------------------------------------------------ AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk, can you talk more about what you found there? ROBERT FISK: I don't think I've ever seen a clearer example of an army that thought it was an army of liberation and has become an army of occupation. It's important perhaps to say -- I did mention it in [a recent] article that a number of those soldiers who were attached to the 3rd infantry division who were military policeman, American ordinary cops like one from Rhode Island, for example--they had a pretty shrewd idea of what was going on. You got different kinds of behavior from the Americans. You got this very nice guy, Phil Cummings, who was a Rhode Island cop, very sensitive towards people, didn't worry if people shouted at him. He remained smiling. He just said that if people throw rocks at me or stones at me, I give them candies. There was another soldier who went up to a middle aged man sitting on a seat and he said, "If you get out of that seat, I'll break your neck," and there was quite a lot of language like that as well. There were good guys as well as bad guys among the Americans as there always are in armies, but the people who I talked to, the sergeants and captains and so on--most of them acknowledge that something had gone wrong, that this was not going to be good. One guy said to me, every time we go down to the river here--he was talking about the river area in Fallujah--it's a tributary of the Tigris--it's like Somalia down there. You always get shot at and you always get stoned, I mean, have stones thrown at them. Some of the soldiers spoke very frankly about the situation in Baghdad. One man told me--I heard twice before in Baghdad itself, once from a British Commonwealth diplomat and once from a fairly senior officer in what we now have to call the coalition, C.P.A., the Coalition-- for the moment forces or whatever it's called--Authority, the authority that's hanging on there until they can create some kind of Iraqi government--they all say that Baghdad airport now comes under nightly sniper fire from the perimeter of the runways from Iraqis. Two of them told me that every time a military aircraft comes in at night, it's fired at. In fact some of the American pilots are now going back to the old Vietnamese tactic of cork screwing down tightly on to the runways from above rather than making the normal level flight approach across open countryside because they're shot at so much. It's a coalition provisional authority I'm thinking of, the C.P.A., previously an even more long fangled name. There is a very serious problem of security. The Americans still officially call them the remnants of Saddam or terrorists. But in fact, it is obviously an increase in the organized resistance and not just people who were in Saddam's forces, who were in the Ba'ath Party or the Saddam Fedayeen. There was also increasing anger among the Shiite community, those who were of course most opposed to Saddam, and I think what we're actually seeing, you can get clues in Iraq, is a cross fertilization. Shiites who are disillusioned, who don't believe they have been liberated, who spent so long in Iran, they don't like the Americans anyway. Sunni Muslims who feel like they're threatened by the Shiites, former Sadaam acolytes who've lost their jobs and found that their money has stopped. Kurds who are disaffected and are beginning to have contacts, and that of course is the beginning of a real resistance movement and that's the great danger for the Americans now. GOODMAN: We're talking to Robert Fisk, who is just come out of Iraq. There's a front page piece in The New York Times today, "GI's In Iraqi City Are Stalked By Faceless Enemies At Night, and Michael Gordon writes about how organized the resistance is, how it seems to come alive at night and that what's clear, he says , is some attacks are premeditated, involve cooperation among small groups of fighters including a system of signaling the presence of American forces: talking about the use of red, white and blue flares when forces come and then the attacks begin. FISK: Yes, I've heard this. I also know that in Fallujah, for example, there's a system of honking the horns of cars: when the vehicles approach, the American convoy approaches, there's one honk on the horn. When the last vehicle goes by the same spot, there's two honks on the horn, and the purpose is to work out the time element between the first hooter and the second because by that, they know how big is the convoy and whether it's small enough to be attacked. That comes from a sergeant in the military police in Fallujah taking part in this actual operation which I described to you just now, which you read out from my report. One of the problems with the Americans I think is that the top people in the Pentagon always knew that this wasn't going to be human rights abuses ended, flowers and music for the soldiers, and everyone lives happily every after and loves America. You may remember when Rumsfeld first came to Baghdad, something your president didn't dare to do in the end, he wanted to fly over in an airplane. He made a speech which I thought was very interesting, rather sinister in the big hanger at Baghdad airport. He said we still have to fight the remnants of Saddam and the terrorists in Iraq, and I thought, hang on a minute, who are these people? And it took me a few minutes to realize I think what he was doing, he was laying the future narrative of the opposition to the Americans. I.E when the Americans get attacked, it could be first of all laid down to remnants of Saddam, as in remnants of the Taliban who seem to be moving around in Afghanistan now in battalion strength, but never mind. It could be blamed on Al Qaeda, so America was back fighting its old enemies again. This was familiar territory. If you were to suggest that it was a resistance movement, harakat muqawama, resistance party in Arabic, that would suggest the people didn't believe they had been liberated, and of course, all good-natured peace loving people have to believe they were liberated by the Americans, not occupied by them. What you're finding for example is a whole series of blunders by Paul Bremer, the American head of the so-called coalition forces, at least coalition authority in Baghdad. First of all, he dissolved the Iraqi Army. Well, I can't imagine an Army that better deserves to be dissolved. But that means that more than quarter of a million armed men overnight are deprived of their welfare and money. Now if you have quarter of a million armed Iraqis who suddenly don't get paid any more, and they all know each other, what are they going to do? They are going to form some kind of force which is secret, which is covered; then they will be called terrorists, but I guess they know that, and then of course they will be saying to people, why don't you come and join us. It was very interesting that in Fallujah, a young man came out to see me from a shop just after the American searches there had ended and said some people came from the resistance a few nights ago and asked him to join. I said, what did you say, and he said, I wouldn't do that. But now, he said, I might think differently. I met a Shiite Muslim family in Baghdad who moved into the former home of a Saddam intelligence officer. This family had been visited three nights previously by armed men who said, you better move out of this house. It doesn't belong to you unless you want to join us. The guy in Fallujah said that the men, the armed men who came to invite him to join the resistance had weapons, showed their mukhabarat intelligence identity card and said, we're still being paid and we are proud to hold our I.D. cards for the Ba'ath Party. So, now you have to realize that Fallujah and other towns like it are very unlike Tikrit, are very much pro-Saddam. Fallujah is the site of a great munitions factory, it gave people massive employment. They all loved Saddam in the way Arabs are encouraged to love dictators or go to prison otherwise. But nonetheless, there is an embryo of a serious resistance movement now. On top of this, you can see the measure of what I think is basically desperation. I've been writing about this in The Independent this morning in London, well, last night for this morning's paper, and Paul Bremer now asked the legal side of the coalition provisional authority to set up the machinery of Iraqi press censorship. In other words, Iraqi newspapers are going to be censored. Controlled I think is the official word they use, but that means censorship. That is the kind of language that Saddam used. Iraqis are used to a censored press; after all, they lived with it for more than 20 years under Saddam Hussein. Now when you question the Americans about it, first of all they deny it. Then the British half accept it; then other people involved in the coalition say well it's probably true, yes, it is true. But the problem is the wild stories appearing in the Iraqi press. Now, of course there's no tradition of western style journalism in Iraq. There are those that say it's a good idea, no tradition for example of letting the other side have a say, checking the story out, going back on the ground and asking the other side for their version of events. It doesn't exist. It's a little bit, but not much. What you get after saying that Americans are going with Iraqi prostitutes, American troops are chasing Iraqi women, that Muslim women are being invited to marry Christian foreigners, that this is worse than it was under Saddam. I'm actually quoting from one particular newspaper called The Witness, which is a Shiite Muslim paper, basically that had its first issue the other day. Other newspapers carry reports of American beatings; they also carry reports of "I was Saddam's double" , and the opening of mass graves. They're not totally one sided against the Americans. But you can see how the occupation forces, let's call them by their real name, are troubled by this kind of publication because it seems to them to provoke or incite animosity towards the liberators of Iraq, which it is not meant to do. But of course the problem is that the Imams in the mosques are saying the same thing about the Americans. Now, the last quote I read from American official said that it may be necessary to control what the Imams were saying in the mosques; well, this is preposterous. I sat on Rashid Street in Baghdad a few days ago and listened to the loud speaker carrying the sermon of the imam from within the mosque. I think he was saying the Americans must leave immediately, now. Well, under the new rule presumably he's inciting the people to violence. What are we going to do? Arrest all the Imams in the mosques, arrest all the journalists who won't obey, close down the newspapers? I mean what Iraqi journalists need are courses in journalism from reporters who work in real democracies. You can come along and say, look, by all means criticize the Americans and put the boot in if you want to, but make sure you get it right. And if you also do that you have to look at your own society and what is wrong in it and how Saddam ever came about. He didn't just come about because America supported Saddam which my goodness they did. But Bremer is not interested in this. What Bremer wants to do is control, control the press, control the Imams, and it doesn't work. A lot of the incidents taking place now, the violent incidents are not being divulged. GOODMAN: Robert, you were just talking about a lot of the attacks we're hearing about--what seems like a good number, a lot of the attacks--on U.S. forces are not being reported. FISK: I have a colleague, for example, who went down to Fallujah before the incident I was describing to you earlier, after two gunmen, one American had been killed in the fire fight, he reported, I spoke to both sides. On his way back he was traveling past the town of Abu Garab a rather sinister place where the huge prison is where Saddam executed so many prisoners, including an Observer journalist back in the late 1980's. As we were, as the colleague was passing by the town, he saw a young man come up and throw a hand grenade at American troops in the Humvee. The grenade missed them and exploded in the canal and wounded six Iraqi children, a very clear account of what happened. I rang the coalition forces, the telephone didn't answer as it very often doesn't do. And no report ever emerged except in my paper that this incident had occurred. Now, over and over again we keep seeing things, seeing small incidents occur, soldiers threatening people outside petrol lines because people are trying to jump the line and steal. And it just doesn't make it back into the coalition record of what's actually happening in Iraq. The danger here is not so much that we're not being told about it because we can see and find out for ourselves. The danger is that the United States leadership in Baghdad, and of course, especially back in the White House and Pentagon is also not being told about it. Or if it is, information is only going to certain people who can deal with that information. It's very easy to say, well Iraq's been a great success we've got rid of a dictatorship, the weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist have now been destroyed or whatever interpretation you want to put on that. Human rights abuses have ended, certainly the Saddam kind. But if you try and if this information goes up the ladder every bit of it to people like Bremer, I'm not sure it all is--I think it should be--then you can see how the coalition doesn't represent the reality. One of the big problems at the moment is the Americans and, to some extent the British, particularly the Americans in Baghdad. They're all ensconced in this chic gleaming marble palace, largest, most expensive palace. There they sit with their laptops trying to work out with Washington how they're going to bring about this new democracy in Iraq. They rely upon for the most part former Iraqi exiles who never endured Saddam Hussein, who are hovering around making sure that they get the biggest part of the pie possible. When they leave the palace, when they go into the streets of Baghdad, the dangerous streets of Baghdad, they leave in these armored black Mercedes with gunmen in the front and back, soldiers, plain clothes guys with weapons and sunglasses. One Iraqi said to me the other day "who did you think was the last person we saw driving through town like [this]?" I said, Saddam Hussein? They all burst out laughing, of course, they said, exactly the same. We are used to this just like they're used to press censorship. I think it's difficult--you need to be in Baghdad to understand the degree to which there's been this slippage of ambition and slippage in the ideological war. I was in small hotel called the Al Hama the other day--it has a swimming pool, 24-hour generators. Just going down to have a meal in the evening, I came across two westerners, one with a pump action shotgun, the other with a submachine gun passing me in the hallway. I said, "Who are you?" He said, "Well, who are you?" "I'm a guest in the hotel. You have guns. Who are you?" He said, "We work for D.O.D" "Department of Defense, right?" (But he was obviously English--he had a British accent.) "Hang on a second you're not American." "No, we're a British company that is hired to look after D.O.D. employees in Baghdad. That's why we're armed." I said, "Who gives you permission to have weapons?" He said, "The coalition forces, we're here protecting them." Now, how often have Iraqis seen armed plain clothes men moving in and out of hotels, they have for more than 20 years, now seeing them again. Well these guys are not going to string them up by their fingernails and electrocute them in torture cells. But again, the image, the picture is the same. The armored escort, limousines in the street, soldiers kicking down the doors searching for, "terrorists." The press censorship plans. Plain clothes armed men going into a hotel asking who you are immediately by asking them who they are, same system as before. It has this kind of ghastly ghostly veneer of the old regime about it. The Americans are not Saddam, they're not murdering people - they're not lining up people at mass graves, of course they're not. But if you see through the eyes of the Iraqis, it doesn't look quite that simple. GOODMAN: We are talking to Robert Fisk, just came out of Iraq but you've also written about the so-called road map to peace. I just wanted to get your response to what happened yesterday in Gaza, with the Israeli helicopter gun ships attempting to assassinate the political leader for Hamas, Abdel Azziz Rantizzi. And also Bush strongly criticizing the attempted assassination on the part of the Israel. FISK: First of all he didn't strongly criticize them, he mildly, rather pathetically and rather cowardly criticized the Israelis. This was an attack which was meant to kill the political head of Hamas. And in the ghastly role which the Palestinians and Israelis play in their bloody and useless conflict, I can understand why the attack was made in that context. But that attack did not kill Rantizzi, it killed a little child of five and a young woman. Now your president said that that was "troubling". That isn't troubling that's a shameful act, that's a despicable thing to do. But there was no strong condemnation from Mr. Bush, he just said it was troubling. If a Palestinian had attacked Israeli forces or Israeli political leader involved in encouraging violence, had killed a little Israeli girl, and a young innocent Israeli woman Mr. Bush would not have called it troubling. He would have said it was a shameful, terrorist act, which it would have been. How can it work when the most powerful president of the most powerful state in the world, United States of America, can be so gutless and cowardly in condemning the killing of two innocent people. It is not troubling. It is an outrage that those two innocent people died. Just as it would be if the Palestinians had done it. Just as it is when the Palestinians do do it. [For Bush]It is not an outrage. Not a tragedy. Not shameful. It is merely troubling. Like a flood is troubling or a heavy rainfall that kills people or a storm is troubling. In that context how can this new peace possibly work. It's called a road map, who invented the phrase road map? I suppose the poor old State Department and all the journalists dutifully used the word road map. They can't use peace process because that's associated with Oslo and that failed. You remember the cliche for the peace process, always had to be put back on track. I suppose peace process was a railway line or a railway train so it presumably always has to be put back on the main road or back on the highway that is the cliche. What has Sharon done? he's closed down a few empty caravans on hilltops. At large and continuing to expand Jewish settlements, the Jews and Jews only in occupied Arab land. What have the Palestinians done? Mahmoud Abbas says I'm going to finish terrorism, there's going to be no more violence by the Palestinians and, bang, there immediately is. We have the three main violent groups, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa immediately carrying out the suicide bombing. And then praised by Rantizzi, I remember thinking, he's praising them, that's against the road map so Israelis have got a green light to knock him off and they tried and failed. I remember interviewing Rantizzi along similar lines about six months ago in Gaza, as I was talking to him I saw an Israeli helicopter emerge in the window and his body guard looked around very nervously and I thought, oh, no, please go away and so I finished the interview. But I always thought he was a target, he always had two gunmen with him all the time. That's not the point. Rantizzi is a very tough Hamas man, a very ruthless man. He was one of the Palestinians who was illegally deported from Israeli prisons into Lebanon in 1992. I actually met him there in the southern Lebanon in the hills, when he was living rough, months after months in a tent. This is a very rough character, very tough guy--grew up the hard way in guerrilla warfare as well as politics. But when you're going to have a situation where you have an Israeli prime minister who doesn't want to end the settlements, who is indeed the creator of the settlements, and a Palestinian prime minister who can't stop the intifada and a U.S. president who is so gutless he can only call a killing of a woman and a child troubling, what chance is there for a road map or peace process or any other kind of agreement in the Middle East? GOODMAN: We're talking to Robert Fisk, who is just come out of Iraq and who has reported extensively on the Middle East for more than 30 years. I wanted to end, back in Iraq. CNN is reporting today that Ahmed Chalabi who has addressed the Council on Foreign Relations is saying that Saddam Hussein is moving in an arc around the Tigris River starting northeast of Baghdad. He said finding Saddam would just be a matter of knowing whom to talk to. He says based on information from credible sources, he believes the former Iraqi president wants revenge and has obtained two suicide bombing vests for attacks on U.S. forces. Chalabi says Saddam is paying bounty for every U.S. soldier killed. Your response? FISK: I long ago gave up putting any credit in anything that Ahmed Chalabi says. The real issue is not where is Saddam Hussein, he could be sitting in Minsk or Belarus or he could be sitting in Tikrit or in the Iraqi countryside somewhere. Obviously there were plans to hide him in advance. You know this goes back to another issue of the degree of real effort to find him. Just look back, the Americans wanted to arrest Valadich and put him in the Hague. We were going to capture Osama bin laden, he's still on the loose. We were going to capture Mullah Omar, he's only got one eye, not difficult to identify. But he's still on the loose. We can't get vice president Ramadan in Iraq or Uday Hussein, the sons of Saddam. We can't get Saddam himself. Can't get Naji Sabri the foreign minister. I was sitting in a restaurant in Baghdad a week and a half ago, at the next table next to me was Saddam's personal translator. I sort of did a double take, I said, hi, how are you? I knew the guy. I'd known him for years and years. I said, are you okay? Fine, fine no problem, he was having a beer with friends. And he walked out. This is the same restaurant that later on I saw Paul Bremer walk into with several special forces men to protect him and his guests for dinner. I have to ask myself sometimes what's going on. Ahmed Chalabi says that Saddam is moving in an arc, he maybe moving in a circle or square for all I know but it's clear he's still alive. That's the point. GOODMAN: Well, Robert Fisk, thank you very much for being with us. Robert Fisk of the Independent of London just out of Iraq. _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:46:15 PM
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Re: The Ends Don't Justify the Means Dear Friends: How does one keep a movement, or an agenda, pure? Immoral and undemocratic means lead inevitably to immoral and undemocratic ends. With the administration's core rationale for invading Iraq--saving the world from Saddam Hussein's deadly arsenal--almost wholly discredited, the Republicans now want us to believe that any distortions of the truth should have been forgotten once we took Baghdad. But as we all know, the ends don't justify the means. ______________________ Robert Scheer.com June 24, 2003 No, Newt, the Ends Don't Justify the Means Whatever happens in Iraq, lying to Americans and the world about the reasons for war is not acceptable June 24, 2003--There was a time when the sickness of the political far left could best be defined by the rationale that the ends justified the means. Happily, support for revolutionary regimes claiming to advance the interests of their people through atrocious acts is now seen as an evil dead end by most on the left. Immoral and undemocratic means lead inevitably to immoral and undemocratic ends. Unfortunately, junior Machiavellis claiming to wear the white hat still are running amok among us. This time, however, they are on the right, apologists for the Bush administration arguing that noble ends justify deceitful means. With the administration's core rationale for invading Iraq--saving the world from Saddam Hussein's deadly arsenal--almost wholly discredited, the Republicans now want us to believe that any distortions of the truth should have been forgotten once we took Baghdad. As Newt Gingrich put it last week: "Does even the most left-wing Democrat want to defend the proposition that the world would be better off with Saddam in power?" The quick answer is that we don't know what the future holds for Iraq. Our track record of military interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere would lead any competent historian or Vegas bookie to conclude that a stable secular dictatorship is about the best outcome we can predict. But the larger, more frightening meaning of Gingrich's statement is that in order to rid the world of a tinhorn dictator who posed no credible threat to the United States, it was just dandy to lie to the people. It was OK to lie about the nonexistent evidence of ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda. It was OK to lie about the U.N. weapons inspectors, claiming they were suckered by Hussein. It was OK to lie, not only to Americans but to our allies in this war, about "intelligence" alleging that Iraq's military had chemical and biological weapons deployed in the field. Only it's not OK. Washington's verbal attack on the U.N. inspectors, for example, is of no small consequence, undermining global efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. Meanwhile, to justify a political faction's blunder we ignore core values upon which this country was built. The New York Times on Friday blithely referred to the use of "coercive" measures in interrogating former Iraqi scientists and officials. Apparently, protections in international treaties for political prisoners do not apply to us. Similarly, the indefensible gambit of preemptive war has seriously damaged two of this nation's most precious commodities--our democracy and the reputation of our form of government. By giving Congress distorted and incomplete intelligence on Iraq, the Bush administration mocks what is most significant in the U.S. model: the notion of separation of powers and the spirit of the Constitution's mandate that only Congress has the power to declare war. Is this an exaggeration? Consider that on Oct. 7, 2002, four days before Congress authorized the Iraq war, President Bush asserted that intelligence data proved Iraq had trained Al Qaeda "in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases." Yet no such proof existed. Never in modern times have we beheld a Congress so easily manipulated by the Executive branch. Last week, the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee caved in and dropped their opposition to closed hearings on whether Congress was lied to. How can they not be open to the public, which is expected under our system to hold the president and Congress accountable? To be sure, many Americans were never fooled, and many more have become upset at seeing continuing casualties and chaos in Iraq after Bush's pricey aircraft carrier photo op signaled that the war was over. But much of our public has been too easily conned. For contrast, consider that in Britain the citizens, Parliament and media have been far more seriously engaged in questioning the premises of their government's participation in the invasion of Iraq. This administration's behavior is an affront to the nation's founders and the system of governance they crafted. It is sad that we now have a president who acts like a king and a Congress that is his pawn. Copyright © 2003 Robert Scheer _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 7:45:45 PM
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Thursday, June 26, 2003 |
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Re: You Want to Watch This One Dear Friends: Several months back, we ran an article on arch-neo-conservative Michael Ledeen ("Who is Michael Ledeen", May 10, 2003). I remember thinking at the time what a frightening character he was, and one to keep an eye one. Well, he's back. Ledeen has very strong views that war and violence are integral parts of human nature. And when it comes to Iran, it's war he wants--a conviction that he is all too keen to share with George W. Bush's closest advisor. [As a service to our readers, we have reprinted the May 10 article on our web site: http:// www.warandpeacewatch.com. Please see the "Newsletter" section, containing the June 26, 2003 issue.] __________________________________ Asia Times June 26, 2003 Veteran Neo-con Advisor Moves on Iran by Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - When The Washington Post published a list of the people whom Karl Rove, President George W Bush's closest advisor, regularly consults for advice outside the administration, foreign policy veterans were shocked when Michael Ledeen popped up as the only full-time international affairs analyst. "The two met after Bush's election," the Post reported cheerfully, quoting Ledeen about Rove's request that "any time you have a good idea, tell me". "More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric," noted the newspaper. "When I saw that, I couldn't believe it," said one retired senior diplomat. "But then again, with this administration, it seemed frighteningly plausible." Michael A Ledeen, resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works closely with the better-known former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, has been a fixture of Washington's neo-conservative community for more than 20 years. But he is now out front, in a public campaign for the United States to confront Iran, warning that Tehran will cause Washington problems in both Iraq and Afghanistan and that "the mullahs are determined to obliterate Israel". "We are now engaged in a regional struggle in the Middle East, and the Iranian tyrants are the keystone of the terror network," he wrote in Monday's Post. "Far more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the defeat of the mullahcracy and the triumph of freedom in Tehran would be a truly historic event and an enormous blow to the terrorists." Along with Morris Amitay, a former top lobbyist for the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Ledeen has already co-founded a new group, called the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), which is pressing Congress to approve a pending bill that would, among other things, provide some US$50 million in aid to both exile groups and opposition forces in Iran. To Ledeen, whose own contacts with the mullahs in the Iran-Contra affair 15 years ago remain the source of some mystery, Iran is "the mother of modern terrorism". And terrorism has been Ledeen's bread and butter since at least the late 1970s, when he consulted for Italian military intelligence, which in turn enabled him to expose Billy Carter's dealings with the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya to the great satisfaction of Republicans, who were revving up their campaign against Billy's brother, then president Jimmy Carter. Ledeen's right-wing Italian connections - including alleged ties to the P-2 Masonic Lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s - have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as "anti-terrorism" advisor to the new secretary of state, Al Haig. Over the next several years, Ledeen used his position as consultant to Haig, the Pentagon and the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan to boost the notion of a global terrorist conspiracy based in the Kremlin, whose KGB pulled the strings of all of the world's key terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East. He was a heavy promoter of the thesis that it was the KGB that was behind the 1981 attempted assassination by Turkish right-winger, Mehmet Ali Agca, of Pope John Paul II, a view he continues to expound today and which also helps explain his contempt for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose analysts never accepted the "Bulgarian Connection", as it was called. In the mid-1980s, when Ledeen was working for the National Security Council, he tangled with the CIA again over his efforts with Israeli spy David Kimche to gain the release of US hostages in Beirut through an Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, in the opening stages of what would become the Iran-Contra affair. But Ghorbanifar did not come through. Despite Ledeen's assessment of the middleman as "one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known", he flunked four lie detector tests administered by the CIA, which had long warned that the Iranian "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance". Undaunted and untouched by the Iran-Contra investigation, Ledeen recorded his experience in Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair, one of more than 10 books he has written on US foreign policy, de Tocqueville, Machiavelli and terrorism, the latest of which is titled The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win. Ledeen has been no less prolific in his organizational work, although, besides AEI - where he works with fellow foreign policy neo-cons Perle, former United Nations ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Joshua Muravchik and Reuel Marc Gerecht - his main institutional forum over the past 25 years has been the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (JINSA), an activist group that promotes a strategic alliance between the United States and Israel. He has also served on the board of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon and has taken an organizing role in CDI. His co-founder there, Amitay, also works for JINSA. He is also close to key figures in the administration, particularly Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, whose pro-Likud politics he largely shares; Vice President Dick Cheney's powerful chief of staff, I Lewis Libby; and Elliott Abrams, the director for the Near East on the National Security Council. To that list can now apparently be added Rove, who is as close to Bush as it is possible to get. Throughout his career, Ledeen has insisted that war and violence are integral parts of human nature and derided the notion that peace can be negotiated between two nations. He was a fierce opponent of the Oslo peace process. "I don't know of a case in history where peace has been accomplished in any way other than one side winning a war [and] imposing terms on the other side," he said two years ago. He also has expressed little faith in traditional US allies, notably in "Old Europe", which he spent much of the 1980s attacking for being insufficiently anti-Soviet. As Washington moved toward war in Iraq, for example, he even questioned whether France and Germany were in league with al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. "The Franco-German strategy was based on using Arab and Islamic extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice, and the United Nations as the straitjacket for blocking a decisive response from the United States," he wrote, suggesting three weeks later, as the US offensive stalled on its way to Baghdad, that France and Germany be treated as "strategic enemies". For Ledeen, Iraq was only the beginning of the broader struggle against the "terror masters". "As soon as we land in Iraq, we're going to face the whole terrorist network," he told an interviewer in March. "Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia are the big four, and then there's Libya." "You can't solve all problems I grant that," he told the BBC. "I mean, I wrote a book about Machiavelli, and I know the struggle against evil is going to go forever." (Inter Press Service) No material from Asia Times Online may be republished in any form without written permission. Copyright 2003, Asia Times Online, 4305 Far East Finance Centre, 16 Harcourt Rd, Central, Hong Kong _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:12:57 PM
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Re: William Gibson on Orwell Dear Friends: Novelist William Gibson muses on George Orwell, 1984, and 2003. In our current information age, it is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone to keep a secret. In the age of the leak, the blog, and of evidence extraction, truths will be outed. In the end, we are all accountable, and by our works we will be known and judged. ________________________ The New York Times June 25, 2003 The Road to Oceania by William Gibson Vancouver, British Columbia Walking along Henrietta Street recently, by London's Covent Garden, looking for a restaurant, I found myself thinking of George Orwell. Victor Gollancz Ltd., publisher of Orwell's early work, had its offices there in 1984, when the company published my first novel, a novel of an imagined future. At the time, I felt I had lived most of my life under the looming shadow of that mythic year--Orwell having found his title by inverting the final digits of the year of his book's completion. It seemed very strange to actually be alive in 1984. In retrospect, I think it has seemed stranger even than living in the 21st century. I had a valuable secret in 1984, though, one I owed in large part to Orwell, who would have turned 100 today: I knew that the novel I had written wasn't really about the future, just as "1984" hadn't been about the future, but about 1948. I had relatively little anxiety about eventually finding myself in a society of the sort Orwell imagined. I had other fish to fry, in terms of history and anxiety, and indeed I still do. Today, on Henrietta Street, one sees the rectangular housings of closed-circuit television cameras, angled watchfully down from shop fronts. Orwell might have seen these as something out of Jeremy Bentham, the utilitarian philosopher, penal theorist and spiritual father of the panoptic project of surveillance. But for me they posed stranger possibilities, the street itself seeming to have evolved sensory apparatus in the service of some metaproject beyond any imagining of the closed-circuit system's designers. Orwell knew the power of the press, our first mass medium, and at the BBC he'd witnessed the first electronic medium (radio) as it was brought to bear on wartime public opinion. He died before broadcast television had fully come into its own, but had he lived I doubt that anything about it would have much surprised him. The media of "1984" are broadcast technology imagined in the service of a totalitarian state, and no different from the media of Saddam Hussein's Iraq or of North Korea today--technologically backward societies in which information is still mostly broadcast. Indeed, today, reliance on broadcasting is the very definition of a technologically backward society. Elsewhere, driven by the acceleration of computing power and connectivity and the simultaneous development of surveillance systems and tracking technologies, we are approaching a theoretical state of absolute informational transparency, one in which "Orwellian" scrutiny is no longer a strictly hierarchical, top-down activity, but to some extent a democratized one. As individuals steadily lose degrees of privacy, so, too, do corporations and states. Loss of traditional privacies may seem in the short term to be driven by issues of national security, but this may prove in time to have been intrinsic to the nature of ubiquitous information. Certain goals of the American government's Total (now Terrorist) Information Awareness initiative may eventually be realized simply by the evolution of the global information system--but not necessarily or exclusively for the benefit of the United States or any other government. This outcome may be an inevitable result of the migration to cyberspace of everything that we do with information. Had Orwell known that computers were coming (out of Bletchley Park, oddly, a dilapidated English country house, home to the pioneering efforts of Alan Turing and other wartime code-breakers) he might have imagined a Ministry of Truth empowered by punch cards and vacuum tubes to better wring the last vestiges of freedom from the population of Oceania. But I doubt his story would have been very different. (Would East Germany's Stasi have been saved if its agents had been able to mouse away on PC's into the 90's? The system still would have been crushed. It just wouldn't have been under the weight of paper surveillance files.) Orwell's projections come from the era of information broadcasting, and are not applicable to our own. Had Orwell been able to equip Big Brother with all the tools of artificial intelligence, he would still have been writing from an older paradigm, and the result could never have described our situation today, nor suggested where we might be heading. That our own biggish brothers, in the name of national security, draw from ever wider and increasingly transparent fields of data may disturb us, but this is something that corporations, nongovernmental organizations and individuals do as well, with greater and greater frequency. The collection and management of information, at every level, is exponentially empowered by the global nature of the system itself, a system unfettered by national boundaries or, increasingly, government control. It is becoming unprecedentedly difficult for anyone, anyone at all, to keep a secret. In the age of the leak and the blog, of evidence extraction and link discovery, truths will either out or be outed, later if not sooner. This is something I would bring to the attention of every diplomat, politician and corporate leader: the future, eventually, will find you out. The future, wielding unimaginable tools of transparency, will have its way with you. In the end, you will be seen to have done that which you did. I say "truths," however, and not "truth," as the other side of information's new ubiquity can look not so much transparent as outright crazy. Regardless of the number and power of the tools used to extract patterns from information, any sense of meaning depends on context, with interpretation coming along in support of one agenda or another. A world of informational transparency will necessarily be one of deliriously multiple viewpoints, shot through with misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and a quotidian degree of madness. We may be able to see what's going on more quickly, but that doesn't mean we'll agree about it any more readily. Orwell did the job he set out to do, did it forcefully and brilliantly, in the painstaking creation of our best-known dystopia. I've seen it said that because he chose to go there, as rigorously and fearlessly as he did, we don't have to. I like to think there's some truth in that. But the ground of history has a way of shifting the most basic of assumptions from beneath the most scrupulously imagined situations. Dystopias are no more real than utopias. None of us ever really inhabits either--except, in the case of dystopias, in the relative and ordinarily tragic sense of life in some extremely unfortunate place. This is not to say that Orwell failed in any way, but rather that he succeeded. "1984" remains one of the quickest and most succinct routes to the core realities of 1948. If you wish to know an era, study its most lucid nightmares. In the mirrors of our darkest fears, much will be revealed. But don't mistake those mirrors for road maps to the future, or even to the present. We've missed the train to Oceania, and live today with stranger problems. --William Gibson is author of the novels "Neuromancer" and, most recently, "Pattern Recognition." Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================= 6:12:32 PM
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Re: The Trailers of Doom Dear Friends: Well, so much for the trailers of doom. Whistle-blowers and people of conscience continue to come forth to tell the truth about what we really knew, who knew, and when they knew. _______________________________ The New York Times June 26, 2003 Agency Disputes C.I.A. View of Trailers as Iraqi Weapons Labs by Douglas Jehl WASHINGTON, June 25--The State Department's intelligence division is disputing the Central Intelligence Agency's conclusion that mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making biological weapons, United States government officials said today. In a classified June 2 memorandum, the officials said, the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research said it was premature to conclude that the trailers were evidence of an Iraqi biological weapons program, as President Bush has done. The disclosure of the memorandum is the clearest sign yet of disagreement between intelligence agencies over the assertion, which was produced jointly by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency and made public on May 28 on the C.I.A. Web site. Officials said the C.I.A. and D.I.A. did not consult with other intelligence agencies before issuing the report. The report on the trailers was initially prepared for the White House, and Mr. Bush has cited it as proof that Iraq indeed had a biological weapons program, as the United States has repeatedly alleged, although it has yet to produce any other conclusive evidence. In an interview with Polish television on May 30, Mr. Bush cited the trailers as evidence that the United States had "found the weapons of mass destruction" it was looking for. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell echoed that assessment in a public statement the next day, saying that the accuracy of prewar assessments linking Iraqi trailers to a biological weapons program had been borne out by the discovery. Some intelligence analysts had previously disputed the C.I.A. report, but it had not been known that the C.I.A. report did not reflect an interagency consensus or that any intelligence agency had later objected to its finding. The State Department bureau raised its objections in a memorandum to Mr. Powell, according to Congressional officials. They said the memorandum was cast as a dissent to the C.I.A. report, and that it said that the evidence found to date did not justify the conclusion that the trailers could have had no other purpose than for use as mobile weapons laboratories. The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said tonight: "I'm not in a position to comment on reports of classified memorandum from our intelligence folks." But a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "We do rely on I&R for their best judgment on things, but when you weigh in all the factors, the C.I.A. and D.I.A. folks are the ones who have been out there, and their conclusion was that these trailers were mobile labs." An administration official sympathetic to Mr. Powell said the memo put him in an uncomfortable position, but would not characterize Mr. Powell's view of its findings. The reasons cited in the State Department memorandum to justify its dissent could not be learned. But in interviews earlier this month in Washington and the Middle East, American and British analysts with direct access to the evidence also disputed the C.I.A.'s claims, saying that the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment. Administration officials said one argument made in the State Department report was that each of the two trailers and one laboratory discovered by the United States in Iraq could constitute only part of what the C.I.A. report said it believed had been two- or three-trailer systems necessary for the manufacture of chemical weapons. The missing trailers have not been found. Among the alternative purposes for the trailers that the State Department report described as plausible were that they had been intended for the refueling of Iraqi missiles, one administration official said. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research is a small but important agency in the intelligence community. Its principal purpose is to provide the Secretary of State and his top advisers with intelligence analysis independent of other agencies, but it also has a voice in the drafting of national intelligence estimates and other documents that are supposed to reflect the consensus of the intelligence community. The fact that the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. did not consult with other agencies in producing the so-called white paper reflects a rare but not unknown approach, officials from the intelligence agencies and Congress said. The government's intelligence apparatus spans more than a dozen agencies, and officials usually try to reach consensus before making their findings public. The exclusion of the State Department's intelligence bureau and other agencies seemed unusual, several government officials said, because of the high-profile subject. Administration officials said the State Department agency was given no warning that the C.I.A. report was being produced, or made public. A C.I.A. official defended the process by which the agency reached its conclusion, saying that the C.I.A. and the D.I.A. were most intimately familiar with the physical evidence and human intelligence related to the trailers, and were thus most qualified to issue public findings. But a Defense Department official acknowledged today that some analysts in the D.I.A. in Iraq had also objected to the conclusions. The C.I.A. has said that its initial information about the use of mobile trailers as biological weapons laboratories came from a former Iraqi scientist, and that the discovery of the trailers appeared to have confirmed intelligence that he provided. "We didn't shop that paper around because we were the ones who were most knowledgeable about it," the C.I.A. official said. "We were the ones who knew from a former Iraqi scientist what to expect, and we didn't have to ask a handful of people in small agencies." But administration officials sympathetic to the State Department said that the department's intelligence bureau felt it had been deliberately shut out of the process. The intelligence bureau has been more skeptical than the C.I.A. and D.I.A. on matters related to Iraq's suspected illicit weapons program and its ties to terrorism. An intelligence official sympathetic to the C.I.A. view said the State Department intelligence bureau's skepticism had been well known and that seeking its input on the report would have served no useful purpose. The C.I.A. official said the State Department document was an internal memorandum and that it had not been read by George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, or other officials at the agency. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:12:06 PM
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Re: Expert Pressured to Distort Evidence Dear Friends: When the Watergate scandal was breaking years ago, it took the continuous drip-drip-dripping of articles by The Washington Post to keep the story of "a third-rate burglary" in the news, ultimately resulting in the exposing of a corrupt president, his administration, and a major regime change. Today's times are not much different, except that America has become even more complacent, "refusing to be bothered" by "things it can do nothing about." And so, we at the War and Peace Watch continue to put forth articles about the non-existence of WMD, misused faulty intelligence, and analysts who were pressured into bending the truth to serve their masters. I hope that you too are adding to this constant dripping in your own way, so that we may wear away the false facade of the Bush administration, the neo-cons, and their shadowy right-wing think tanks, and let the light back in. _________________________ The New York Times June 25, 2003 Expert Said to Tell Legislators He Was Pressed to Distort Some Evidence by James Risen and Douglas Jehl WASHINGTON, June 24--A top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings last week that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform with the Bush administration's views, several Congressional officials said today. The officials described what they said was a dramatic moment at a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week when the weapons expert came forward to tell Congress he had felt such pressure. By speaking out, they said, the senior intelligence expert, identified by several officials as Christian Westermann, became the first member of the intelligence community on active service to make this sort of admission to members of Congress. The House Intelligence Committee was examining questions concerning the Bush administration's handling of prewar reports on evidence that Iraq had illegal weapons and ties to terrorist groups. Mr. Westermann, officials said, is an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, a small but important office at the State Department that is intended to provide the secretary of state with intelligence analysis independent of the C.I.A. and other agencies. Mr. Westermann told lawmakers last week that while he felt pressure, he never actually changed the wording of any of his intelligence reports. He did not immediately provide lawmakers with details about his complaints, and it remains uncertain the degree to which his concerns related to Iraq or other regional issues. Administration officials said his most specific complaints concerned issues related to intelligence on Cuba, and he has not yet provided similar specific complaints about the handling of intelligence on Iraq. Mr. Westermann, who is in his mid-40's, has worked as a State Department expert on unconventional weapons for the last several years and is viewed within the department as a careful and respected analyst of intelligence. An administration official said he had served previously as a Navy officer and had not worked for the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies. Mr. Westermann's decision to speak out has caused a stir inside the House and Senate intelligence committees, even though he did not go into details and indicated he was not comfortable doing so in front of the large group of officials around him in the House hearing. But he said he was prepared to discuss the matter further. In a second hearing last week with the Senate Intelligence Committee, he made it clear that he had felt pressure from John Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, that originally dated to a clash the two had over Mr. Bolton's public assertions last year that Cuba had a biological weapons program. Mr. Westermann argued those assertions were not supported by sufficient intelligence. Mr. Bolton declined to comment on the matter. Mr. Westermann also declined to comment. The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said tonight, "We don't comment on closed hearings, but I can tell you that the secretary and deputy secretary have full confidence in John Bolton." A number of analysts at the C.I.A. and other agencies have privately complained over the past few months that they felt pressure from administration officials to write reports that they believe overstated evidence that Iraq had illegal weapons programs and terrorist links. Mr. Westermann was one of a large group of officials from several intelligence agencies who had been summoned to appear at the opening session of the House intelligence panel's review on Iraq last week. Addressing the group, Representative Silvestro Reyes, a Texas Democrat, asked whether any of them had felt political pressure in the development of their intelligence reports, which are supposed to be objective. All of the intelligence officials remained silent - except for Mr. Westermann. Staff members from the House and Senate committees have begun to pursue the matter in greater detail with him, Congressional officials said. Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat and a ranking member on the House panel, declined to discuss the matter. A spokesman for Mr. Reyes, Kira Maas, said, "The congressman does not comment on closed hearing information." The failure of the United States to find evidence of Iraq's weapons programs or its links to Al Qaeda has raised questions about whether the administration overstated the threat posed by Baghdad as it made the case for going to war. Both the House and Senate intelligence committees have begun investigations into the matter, and the C.I.A. has begun an internal review of its prewar intelligence reports. Pressure to politicize intelligence is often subtle and extremely difficult to corroborate or quantify. A number of analysts have said that the pressure they felt came in the form of intensive questioning from senior administration officials, particularly about reports that concluded that there was little evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A number of analysts have suggested that they felt less direct pressure on reports concerning the status of Iraq's unconventional weapons, but were angered that senior Bush administration officials selectively disclosed classified intelligence reports that supported the worst-case scenario concerning Iraq's weapons programs, making it seem as if there was an imminent threat to the United States. The analysts believe that in some cases, White House and Pentagon officials made public statements about Iraq's weapons based on intelligence that was far from definitive. An administration official said that Mr. Westermann had clashed repeatedly with Mr. Bolton. A State Department official sympathetic to Mr. Bolton's views said of Mr. Westermann, "He doesn't have anything that he can point to, and he doesn't have anything more recent than Cuba." That official added, "We're in a period where people are looking for particular evidence of intelligence being altered, and he's talking about mood swings." But other administration officials said there had been ongoing tensions between the two since the Cuban issue first came up, to the point that Mr. Bolton has unsuccessfully sought to have Mr. Westermann reassigned. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company _______________________________ In peace, Otoño ________________________________ Read all about it and get the news that matters by receiving the War and Peace Watch. To subscribe, send an e-mail to: Reikiworks@compuserve.com Thank you for your support, The War and Peace Watch publisher. contact: Otoño Johnston ============================================================ (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment for research and educational purposes only.) ============================================================ 6:11:33 PM
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Re: Big Brother is Watching You Dear Friends: One hundred years ago today, George Orwell was born. His dark vision of the future, portrayed in his 1984, is chilling, and closer than we might think. "On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran." How similar in design to the Air Force's Eagle Eyes anti-terrorist program and the Department of Defense's new database of "suspicious" characters. Are you on the list? Are you sure? _________________________ Wired News June 25, 2003 DoD Logging Unverified Tips by Brian McWilliams To track domestic terrorist threats against the military, the Pentagon is creating a new database that will contain "raw, non-validated" reports of "anomalous activities" within the United States. According to a Department of Defense memorandum, the system, known as Talon, will provide a mechanism to collect and rapidly share reports "by concerned citizens and military members regarding suspicious incidents." Talon was described in a May 2 memorandum to top Pentagon brass from Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In the memo, Wolfowitz directed the heads of military departments and agencies to begin producing Talon reports immediately. A similar reporting system proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft was shelved last year following opposition from privacy groups and others. Known as Operat |