Office of former Rumsfeld policy chief investigated
Harry Hope
From The Associated Press, 11/19/05:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/11192005/world/73981.htm
Office of former Rumsfeld policy chief investigated
By Robert Burns
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -
The Pentagon’s inspector general said Friday it has begun an
investigation into allegations that an office run by Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld’s former policy chief, Douglas J. Feith, engaged in
illegal or inappropriate intelligence activities before the Iraq war.
The probe, which two senators requested two months ago, comes at a
contentious point in the political debate over President Bush’s
decision to invade Iraq and the intelligence upon which Bush based his
decision.
It extends a controversy that has prominently featured Sen. Carl
Levin, D-Mich., a vocal critic of Bush’s Iraq policy, who has accused
Feith of engaging in inappropriate intelligence activities at the
Pentagon and of deceiving Congress about intelligence on Iraq’s
pre-war links to the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Levin told reporters Friday that Feith provided the White House and
its National Security Council with "really erroneous and distorted
intelligence" about Iraq and its purported links to terrorist groups.
One of the questions to be probed by the Pentagon inspector general,
Levin said, is whether Feith, in his position as undersecretary of
defense for policy, "provided a separate channel of intelligence,
unbeknownst to the CIA, to the White House - which he did."
In a letter Wednesday to Feith’s successor, Eric Edelman, and to
Rumsfeld’s intelligence chief, Stephen Cambone, the inspector
general’s office asked for points of contact for the investigation no
later than Dec. 1.
"The overall objective will be to determine whether personnel assigned
to the Office of Special Plans from September 2002 through June 2003
conducted unauthorized, unlawful or inappropriate intelligence
activities," the letter said.
A copy was released by the Pentagon late Friday afternoon.
Feith left his Pentagon post this summer.
Attempts to reach him for comment Friday were not successful.
____________________________________________________
Like the Energizer Bunny.... it keeps going and going and going....
Harry
dontcowerf...@yahoo.com
look up this JINSA (serving Israel first traitor to America) Feith in
the index of esteemed US intelligence author James Bamford's 'A Pretext
for War' book (page 403 of the recently released paperback version
conveys how Feith had Israeli generals walk to his office at the
Pentagon like they owned the place). You can see Feith at the top of
http://www.nowarforisrael.com
Senate Asks Pentagon to Probe Feith Role on Iraq:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=44271
This 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article conveys what the real
motivation is for the Jewish Likudnik Neocons who took to war in Iraq
for their beloved Israel in accordance with the 'A Clean Break' agenda
that esteemed US intelligence author James Bamford discusses on pages
261-269/321 of his 'A Pretext for War' book:
http://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm
Pat Buchanan had their agenda down in this 'Whose War?' article:
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocons moving fast for action against Syria:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=43325
From: rbl...@igc.org
To: "rbleier" <rbl...@igc.org>
Subject: T.Schuh: Faking the case ag Syria: Pushing the next neo con
war
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:19:49 -0500
I've snipped a long section, but kept the part about super-Zionist,
Jack Abramoff who is (was?) apparently involved in planned regime
change in Syria which is scheduled for next year.
The part about Mehlis is important. From the looks of it, Kofi Annan
knew Mehlis would do a hatchet job on Syria, but was powerless to go
against the US.
Yet another example of pernicious Zionist influence in getting us into
more disasters. You'd think out of simple self interest, US Zionists
would say, enough already. But since it's perceived to be good for
Israel, they ignore US interests-- not to mention the rest of the
world's. -RB
www.counterpunch.org
November 18, 2005
Mehlis's Murky Past; US and Israeli Proxies Pushing the Next Neo-Con
War
Faking the Case Against Syria
By TRISH SCHUH
Another slam dunk forgery is being used to convict Syria. The United
Nations' Detlev Mehlis inquiry into the murder of Lebanon's former
Prime Minister Rafiq Hairri depends on a central witness, Zuhir Ibn
Mohamed Said Saddik, who has faced accusations of being a swindler and
embezzler. Der Spiegel exposed Saddik's brags of "becoming a
millionaire" from his testimony to the Mehlis Commission. Saddik was
referred to the Mehlis Commission by Syrian regime critic Rifaat Assad,
the uncle of current Syrian President Bashar Assad. Rifaat has been
lobbying the Bush administration to become the president of Syria in
the event his nephew Bashar is ousted.
The record of the UN's investigator Mehlis does not inspire faith in
his credibility. As Senior Public Prosecutor in the German Attorney
General's office, Mehlis investigated the 1986 LaBelle Discotheque
bombing in Berlin. Relying on alleged National Security Agency
intercepts of coded messages between Tripoli and Libyan suspects in
Germany (later revealed by former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky as
false telex signals generated by Mossad itself), Mehlis provided the
'irrefutable proof' of Libya's guilt that then justified Ronald
Reagan's bombing of Libya.
In the case of the accusations against Syria, Mehlis's case revolves
around a series of questionable phone conversations and intersecting
calling card numbers allegedly dialled by the perpetrators. It contains
no definitive forensics on the car bomb explosives used. Outside
investigators have said it could have been RDX plastique, not TNT as
Mehlis suggested in his report. The German Mercedes manufacturers were
also perplexed at how Hariri's vehicle, reinforced by the heaviest
steel-titanium alloy, was "melted by the force of the explosion,"
after-effects usually associated with high density DU munitions. The
car bomb vehicle (stolen in Japan and never fully traced) was possibly
driven by a suicide bomber, whose identity is still unknown. Mehlis's
report then states: "Another only slightly less likely possibility is
that of a remotely controlled device."
Mehlis conclusions on the case , due on December 15 could justify an
attack on Syria, using the Hariri assassination as justification. But
from Beirut to Damascus, the "Arab Spring" was a neocon forgery
designed to destabilize the Levant and redraw the map of the middle
east.
Near the Mohammad Al Amin Mosque of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri
in Beirut, I interviewed a founder of the Martyrs' Square tent city and
asked about US-Israeli sponsorship of the 'Independence Intifadah'.
Surrounded by red and white Lebanese flags, soldier Michael Sweiden of
the Lebanese Forces emphasized he was Christian Lebanese.
"We love Israel", he told me. "Israel helps us. Israel is like our
mother."
Years before its role in the so-called "Cedar Revolution" (a moniker
coined by US Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, a signatory to
the Project for a New American Century), Israel awarded citizenship and
grants of up to $10,000 to South Lebanon Army soldiers who collaborated
with the Israeli Defense Forces during Lebanon's civil war. The Israeli
newspaper Haaretz revealed, "Senior officials at Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's office were in touch with Lebanese leaders even before the
current crisis." Backed by American and Israeli neocons, a Christian
Lebanese Likud is proxying Israel's second invasion.
One example is the Lebanese Foundation for Peace, a self-styled
"Government of Lebanon in Exile in Jerusalem" founded by former
Lebanese Forces' military intelligence officer Nagi Najjar. Najjar, a
CIA consultant, testified not so long ago in support of Ariel Sharon's
"complete innocence" in the Sabra and Shatila affair against charges by
Human Rights Watch and regional governments. Najjar has also paired
with Mossad agent Yossef Bodansky while lobbying the U.S. congress to
intervene in Hezbollah-dominated south Lebanon. His NGO, The Lebanese
Foundation for Peace, endorsed the AIPAC-sponsored sanctions against
Syria, known as the Syria Accountability / Lebanese Sovereignty
Restoration Act of 2003. On his LFP website featuring an Israeli flag,
Najjar's "government in exile" issued an official declaration; "We, the
people of Free Lebanon, thank Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom for the campaign launched by the Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Afffairs aimed at ousting Syria from occupying
Lebanon."
Another NGO of the Lebanese Likud is the United States Committee for a
Free Lebanon. Its President, Ziad Abdel Nour is the son of wealthy
Lebanese Minister of Parliament Khalil Abdel Nour. USCFL partners with
designated "democratizers" such as the American Enterprise Institute
(created by Lebanese-American William Baroody, Sr.), Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs, Republican Jewish Coalition, Foundation for
the Defense of Democracies, Middle East Forum, the Hudson Institute and
kindred pro-Israel lobbies.
The USCFL hails former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel for signing a
peace deal with Israel in 1983. (According to the UAE's late president
Sheik Zayed bin sultan Al Nahyan, Saddam Hussein agreed to leave Iraq
before the war in 2003 to halt the invasion. But Amin Gemayel, the
mediator between Saddam and the US administration, wrongly informed the
US that Hussein had rejected all offers of exile). Abdel Nour's other
links include the World Lebanese Organization, which advocates Israel's
re-occupation of south Lebanon. In 2000, he and neocon Daniel Pipes
composed the policy paper "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: the US
Role" and together co-author the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. The
bulletin is a project of the neocon Middle East Forum and is a frequent
resource for American intelligence agencies. On November 2, 2005 Abdel
Nour updated me on the Syrian crisis by phone.
Schuh: What is the future of Syria, of President Bashar Al Assad's
situation?
Nour: Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed- whether
they like it or not- whether it's going to be a military coup or
something else... and we are working on it. We know already exactly
who's going to be the replacements. We're working on it with the Bush
administration. This is a Nazi regime of 30 years, killing ministers,
presidents and stuff like that. They must be removed. These guys who
came to power, who rule by power, can only be removed by power. This is
Machiavelli's power game. That's how it is. This is how geopolitics --
the war games, power games -- work. I know inside out how it works,
because I come from a family of politicians for the last 60 years.
Look, I have access to the top classified information from the CIA from
all over the world. They call me, I advise them. I know exactly what's
going on. And this will happen.
Q: So would they remove the entire Assad family?
A: Why not? Who is Bashar Al Assad?
Q: I didn't see forensic proof in the Mehlis report that would legally
convict Assad of Hariri's death in a court of law.
A: I don't give a damn. I don't give a damn, frankly. This Bashar Al
Assad-Emil Lahoud regime is going to go whether it's true or not. When
we went to Iraq whether there were weapons of mass destruction or not,
the key is -- we won. And Saddam is out! Whatever we want, will happen.
Iran? We will not let Iran become a nuclear power. We'll find a way,
we'll find an excuse- to get rid of Iran. And I don't care what the
excuse is. There is no room for rogue states in the world. Whether we
lie about it, or invent something, or we don't... I don't care. The end
justifies the means. What's right? Might is right, might is right.
That's it. Might is right.
Q: You sound just like Saddam. Those were his rules too.
A: So Saddam wanted to prove to the whole world he was strong? Well,
we're stronger- he's out! He's finished. And Iran's going to be
finished and every single Arab regime that's like this will be
finished. Because there is no room for us capitalists and
multinationalists in the world to operate with regimes like this. Its
all about money. And power. And wealth... and democracy has to be
spread around the world. Those who want to espouse globalization are
going to make a lot of money, be happy, their families will be happy.
And those who aren't going to play this game are going to be crushed,
whether they like it or not! This is how we rule. And this is how it's
going to be as long as you have people who think like me.
Q: When will this regime change take place?
A: Within 6 months, in both Lebanon and Syria.
Q: Some names of replacements?
A: It is classified. There are going to be replacements and we know who
they are, but I cannot mention the names.
Q: Will this be done peacefully?
A: It doesn't matter. The end justifies the means. I don't care about
how it's done. The important thing is that it is done. I don't rule out
force. I'm not against force. If it's an option, it will be an option.
Q: But if it's just trading Syrian control for American or Israeli
control?
A: I have -- we have -- absolutely no problem with heavy US involvement
in Lebanon. On an economic level, military level, political level,
security level... whatever it is. Israel is the 51st state of the
United States. Let Lebanon be the 52nd state. And if the Arabs don't
like it, tough luck.
[snip -- long section]
Rumsfeld's team had already begun discussions with Israeli intelligence
about assassinating Lebanese officials -- particularly "Hezbollah and
their supporters" in 2002, and intelligence operatives were dispatched
to Lebanon. (This writer was introduced to at least one Israeli
'student' studying Arabic at AUB in Beirut. He travelled with an
American passport, coming to Lebanon "to study 'the enemy' to find out
how they think.") The Sunday Times (6/5/05) revealed that Mossad had
been using Trojan Horse email surveillance on President Assad's wife
Asma, labelling her family correspondence a "legitimate soft target".
By January 2005, the Pentagon were preparing for military operations in
Lebanon to destroy "insurgency strongholds along the Lebanese-Syrian
border". Simultaneously, Israeli approval for a military operation in
Lebanon was given after Hezbollah killed an IDF officer.
Political-security cabinet members comprised of PM Sharon, Deputy PM
Ehud Olmert, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, and FM Silvan Shalom had
authorized the action. (Haaretz, 5/3/05). But then Rafiq Hariri was
killed, and the door to Syria swung open.
Syria may become America's 53rd state, if Farid Ghadry's NGO, the
Reform Party of Syria rushes through that opened door. Ghadry is a
Syrian Christian who worked for EG & G, a Department of Defense
contractor. EG & G assisted in the development and testing of nuclear
weapons and in many of the US military's top secret atomic projects.
Ghadry's Reform Party coordinates with the Syrian National Council, and
transmits Radio Free Syria from Cyprus and Germany to destabilize
Syria. The CIA and Mossad have long used Kurds to target nations in the
region. Journalist Jack Anderson wrote in 1972 about Israeli envoys
delivering $50,000 a month to Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani to
destabilize Iraq.
In March 2004, this writer was approached in Damascus by Kurds from
Qamishli and Hasaka (one whose brother was arrested in the riots)
wanting to "thank Bush for helping us get rid of Assad". News accounts
later verified that the chaos up north had been orchestrated by the US
and Israel, using Turkish and Iraqi Kurds. 'Protesters' at the height
of the melee even waved posters of President Bush and American flags.
The ringleaders were sponsored by the Department of Defense and the US
State Department. "Let the Damascus spring flower, and let its flowers
bloom," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. So sprouted another
color catastrophe -- Syria's "Jasmine Revolution".
Reform Party of Syria's Farid Ghadry has been a featured speaker at the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and is himself a member
of AIPAC. When repeated calls to his organization went unanswered, I
visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the RFP. Reform Party of
Syria is the office of "super-Zionist" lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Middle
Gate Ventures, Abramoff's 'political advisory company' partners with
RFP. Abramoff is a top Beltway lobbyist now under intensive FBI
investigation concerning, among other things, his proposed $9 million
fee to get Gabon's president an Oval Office session with Bush.
As a College Republican in the 1980s, Abramoff founded the
International Freedom Foundation, a project linked to the South African
Defence Forces. The International Freedom Foundation was the PR branch
of sister NGO Strategic Communications, a covert organization charged
by former spy Craig Williamson in the Weekly Mail and Guardian for
2/24/95 with being involved with frame-ups, extreme violence and dirty
tricks campaigns.
According to the Weekly Standard (12/20/04), one Abramoff venture was
his organization of a 1985 global "summit" of underworld thugs. With
Citizens for America sponsorship, Contra leaders, guerilla rebels and
right wing 'freedom fighters' from around the world convened in the
African hinterlands to strategize. During this period, Abramoff's
membership/financial transactions with the secretive Council for
National Policy, which included Oliver North and Richard Secord, became
a template for how to mask money that still remains partially hidden.
(Nizkor Project)
Recently Abramoff's interventionism has focused on the Middle East.
Tomflocco.com reveals that Abramoff's long-time employer, Greenberg
Traurig, partially financed a Homeland Security Government Contract
Team trip to Israel for the US House/Senate Armed Services Committee
and defense contractor CACI (accused of Abu Ghraib torture). The
delegation reviewed IDF "resistance to interrogation techniques" used
in Palestine, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The Lebanon Daily Star
reported that the group visited Beit Horon "the central training camp
for the anti-terrorist forces of the Israeli police and border police"
and were able to "witness exercises related to anti-terror warfare."
Legislators' names were not disclosed.
Abramoff also works with the World Zionist Organization and the
Christian Coalition to bankroll illegal Israeli settlement activities.
According to Israeli prosecutor Talia Sasson they are part of a larger
international problem. Some $60 billion worldwide has been illicitly
funnelled to Israeli settlements via different foreign donors,
quasi-NGOs and secret military accounts.
In one such case, according to Senate testimony and news reports in
Newsweek and The New Republic, an Abramoff charity, Capital Athletic
Fund, underwrote sniper scopes, camouflage suits, thermal imagers,
night vision goggles, hydration tactical tubes, shooting mats and other
paramilitary equipment through Greenberg Traurig to right wing settler
Shmuel Ben-Zvi. Abramoff wanted to help ultraorthodox settlement Beitar
Illit "neutralize terrorists" and wrote to Ben-Zvi; "Thanks brother. If
only there were another dozen of you the dirty rats would be finished."
Apparently angling for cover and a tax deduction, Beitar Illit seminar
director Ben-Zvi suggested invoicing the weaponry to the Israeli
Defence Forces on 'Sniper Workshop' stationery with a sniper logo and
letterhead to qualify it as an educational entity. Payments were
partially run through "Kollel Ohel Tiferet," an entity not publicly
listed or traceable. Beitar Illit Mayor Yitzhak Pindrus claims never to
have heard of it. (Newsweek, 5/2/05)
Abramoff dollars may also have found their way to the Israeli Defense
Forces' Lebanon Border Unit, the civilian SF troops that patrol the
Israel-Lebanon border. Yaagal, supposedly disbanded after Israel's 2000
pullout from south Lebanon, still conducts clandestine reconnaissance,
plans ambushes and carries out cross-border incursions into
Hezbollah-held areas of south Lebanon. As so often with lobbyist
Abramoff's entities, the tools and trails remain murky.
Indicted AIPAC lobbyist Steven Rosen told the New Yorker; "A lobby is
like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." But
Abramoff's own words to Ralph Reed in 1983 are even more apropos; "It
is not our job to seek peaceful coexistance" with opponents. "Our job
is to remove them permanently." Flowery language for forged freedoms,
an "Arab Spring" Machiavelli-style.
Trish Schuh writes about Middle East politics. She can be reached at:
hsva...@yahoo.com
TELLUSTHE...@yahoo.com
So why wasn't the above covered in the US mainstream media either? One
Gandalf Grey
Bush War is for GOP Profit
Harry Hope
GuitarMan
"Gandalf Grey" <Ganda...@1NF3CTEDMA1L.C0M> wrote in message
news:f7j0o1982o3arhnhl...@4ax.com...
dontcowerf...@yahoo.com
by Ahmed Amr
(Monday November 28 2005)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We won't hear the fat lady sing until we see Douglas Feith, Paul
Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney testifying
under oath about the OSP. When that day comes, the fat lady will sound
a lot like George Bush."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After two long years of dodging and weaving, the Bush administration is
finally being held to account for fixing, twisting, exaggerating and
cherry picking pre-war WMD intelligence. So far, the White House has
responded to these charges with pleas of innocence and assertions that
hostilities were initiated only as a last resort and based on the best
information available at the time. Since the Libby indictment, the
administration and its media cronies have launched an aggressive
campaign to convince an increasingly skeptical public that Bush
honestly believed that Saddam possessed WMD stockpiles and was behind
the 9/11 atrocities.
One positive aspect of this new White House strategy is that Dick
Cheney is no longer free to insinuate that Iraq had lethal arsenals of
unconventional weapons. Until very recently, Cheney continued to
propagate the ridiculous notion that Saddam was involved in the
planning and execution of the 9/11 terrorist assaults. This is no small
retreat for a man who claimed that "It's been pretty well confirmed
that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of
the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several
months before the attack." This, after all, is the very same Cheney
who told us on Aug. 26, 2002 that "there is no doubt that Saddam
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
We should all be thankful for small favors but there remains the single
most important question: did the administration get the intelligence
wrong or did they deliberately and systematically cook the books?
When George Bush claims both ignorance and naiveté - who amongst us
can provide convincing evidence to prove a contrarian thesis? To make a
case that Bush and Cheney systematically lied us into a war of choice,
one has to provide iron clad proof that the pre-war intelligence was
fabricated, manipulated and distorted and that both men were fully
aware of the cherry picking operation going on in their front yard.
By all accounts, Cheney was personally involved in the intelligence
gathering process and spent an inordinate amount of time in Langley.
The CIA analysts - despite enormous pressure - refused to give
credibility to the neocon contention that Saddam was behind 9/11 or in
any way connected to Al Qaeda. So, why then did our President of Vice
and Torture continue to spread the unfounded and incredible idea that
Iraq was providing aid and comfort to Bin Laden and that Saddam had set
up WMD training camps for Al Qaeda terrrorists? More to the point, why
is it so reprehensible and irresponsible to call Cheney a serial liar?
Despite the daily accumulation of evidence that the pre-war
intelligence was deliberately corrupted, the White House continues to
market the Rovian spin de jure which goes something like this. "We
had credible intelligence that Saddam had WMD stockpiles. After 9/11,
we couldn't take the chance that he might hand them over to Bin
Laden. Other intelligence agencies around the world concurred with our
assessments and we shared all available information with Congress
before they voted to support the invasion. If we were wrong, so was the
rest of the world. We were taken in by the Chalabi crowd and had no
reason to suspect that they were duping us. In any case, what's done
is done. We have to look forward - not rehash the past and waste time
on revisionist history. Our mission is to defeat the insurgents and we
will not waiver until we achieve a decisive victory. We can't
publicly define the parameters of victory because that will only
embolden the enemy. If we falter, Iraq will fall in the hands of Al
Zarqawi and become a base for exporting terrorism. It is irresponsible
and reprehensible to suggest that this administration lied to the
American people. We intend to vigorously contest this vicious slander
which originated from the usual suspects on the radical left coast.
Trust us. We did not deliberately fix the intelligence to make a case
for a war of choice. We went to war as a last resort and only after all
other options had been exhausted. This smear campaign is providing aid
and comfort to the enemy and confusing our brave lads who are fighting
the good fight to spread the blessings of democracy to the people of
the Middle East."
You have to give Karl Rove and his cronies credit for their sheer
audacity and their stalinist discipline in communicating the party
line. Even when their defense strategy rests entirely on a claim of
stupidity and ignorance, they like to show off their talents for spin.
It doesn't hurt that they have legions of embedded pundits to amplify
their message. Time will prove that Bob Woodward and Judith Miller were
no abberations. Even as you read these words, dozens of Woodward and
Miller clones are busy doing stenography chores for Rove in yet another
campaign to evade answering some very basic questions. In the CNN and
FOX accounts, you might detect a few slight deviations from Rove's
talking points. But inevitably, these neocon media operatives will all
deliver the same essential message that "it is an outrageous canard
to suggest that the president deliberately and systematically decieved
the American people."
When senior public officials make insistent and repetitive assertions
about any given subject, people assume that they know what they're
talking about. When their point of view is reinforced by the
politicians of the 'loyal opposition', their contentions become
unassailable. Add to the mix a few dozen mass media operatives who act
as uncritical conduits for their message and you end up with the gospel
truth.
It is easy enough to prove that Cheney is a one man canard factory. But
contesting the claim that Bush is just a gullible fool is a heavier
burden. It doesn't help that many of the president's detractors on
the left continue to lampoon the man as an idiot - the kind of idiot
who managed to convince 90 per cent of Americans that they faced an
imminent danger of witnessing Iraqi nuclear mushroom clouds from their
front porch.
Caught between Iraq and a hard place, the administration is now
challenging its critics to provide hard evidence that the president was
a willingly and competent participant in the plan to decieve the public
with false claims that Iraq posed a national security threat to the
United States of America. Let me predict that their final point of
retreat will be to claim that Bush was duped by a professional liar -
the most powerful President of Vice in American history.
Blaming the whole Iraqi mess on Cheney and his neocon advisers
doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Let's start with the fact that Bush
had access to the same intelligence as the Brits. It's fair to assume
that the Robin Cook was privy to the same intelligence as Tony Blair. I
single out the British Foreign Minister because the administration
invariably places MI5 at the top of the list of foreign intelligence
operatives that allegedly concluded that Iraq had WMD capabilities and
posed an imminent threat to the 'civilized world.' Let's not
forget that the president's infamous 'yellow cake' uranium claim
was attributed to the British government.
To debunk the "every body thought Iraq had WMDs" argument, it is
worth quoting the late Robin Cook at length.
"It seems almost cruel to remind those who sold the case for the Iraq
war of what they claimed at the time. But it is necessary, because they
appear to be forgetting it themselves. President Bush was definite and
apocalyptic: "Saddam is building and hiding weapons that could enable
him to intimidate the civilized world." Donald Rumsfeld went one
better: "We know where they are." On the eve of war, Tony Blair was
equally specific that Saddam Hussein had the real thing: "Saddam has
chemical and biological weapons."
The case that George Bush and Tony Blair made for war was that
containment had failed and that we must launch a pre-emptive strike
before Saddam used his imaginary weapons. Indeed, the claim that Saddam
already had weapons of mass destruction ready for use was central to
their argument that military action must be taken urgently. As Donald
Rumsfeld warned in alarmist terms, "within a week, or a month, Saddam
could give his WMD to al-Qaida".
If Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, there was no urgent need
to invade Iraq. George Bush and Tony Blair could have given Hans Blix
the extra few months for which he pleaded to finish his job and prove
Saddam was no threat. What created real urgency in Washington to start
the invasion may have been the dawning realisation that Hans Blix was
about to remove their pretext for war. "
When the phantom WMD stockpiles failed to materialize, Robin Cook was
fully entitled to point out that the exhaustive CIA search "establishes
that Iraq had no stockpile, no biological agents, no chemical
feedstocks, no plants to manufacture them and no delivery systems to
fire them. Saddam was no threat to us and had no weapons of mass
destruction to pass to terrorists. Brushing the UN inspectors aside in
order to go to war on false intelligence was a colossal blunder."
Both George Bush and Tony Blair knew what Robin Cook knew. The
president also had contrarians among his staff - like Colin Powell
- who debunked most of the suspect intelligence cooked up by Scooter
Libby and the neocon operatives in the Office of Special Plans. We now
know that Bush set up the White House Iraq Group and specifically
tasked it with the mission to market the war in August of 2002. We have
the Downing Street Memos. And we have reports that the American and
British military started escalating military strikes against Iraq long
before the actual invasion.
Still, the President continues to maintain that he made his decision to
go to war based on the same intelligence that was provided to Congress.
It is not my purpose to defend Kerry, Clinton, Biden, Lieberman, or any
of the other willing enablers in the 'loyal opposition.' They are
as deeply entrenched in the war party as Dick Cheney. Whether they were
recipients of the same intelligence as Bush would hardly have made a
difference. They supported the war for purely opportunistic reasons and
because they march to the tune of the Likudnik neocons embedded in the
Democratic Party. If you want to know why the Democratic Party ignores
the overwhelming opposition to the war among its rank and file, educate
yourself on the Democratic Leadership Committee, the neocon party
within the party. The neocons in the DLC call themselves neo-liberals.
Same difference. Until very recently, the Kerry-Clinton-Biden-Lieberman
DLC cabal was prodding Bush to escalate the conflict in Iraq by sending
more troops. Notice how quickly they distanced themselves from Rep.
John Murtha when he proposed an orderly and swift withdrawal of
American troops.
Even so, the claim that Congress had access to the same intelligence as
the president is pure nonsense. Most of them apparently made their
decision to authorize the war after reviewing a five page summary of
intelligence that had already been thoroughly corrupted by Douglas
Feith, Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and the Office of Special Plans.
At this late date, why is it so important to prove that Bush was a key
player in orchestrating the intelligence fixing operation? Because as
the leader of the wrecking crew that created the disaster in Iraq -
he is hardly equipped to lead the clean up operations. In the effort to
cover up his role in the WMD hoax, Bush continues to make discredited
arguments about why we invaded Iraq. The president's judgment about
where we are and where to go from here is impaired by his desire to
conjure up an end game that can be sold as a 'victory.'
Consider Bush's argument that casting a little light on the
corruption of pre-war intelligence would undermine the military. Here
is my two-word rebuttal: John Murtha. The congressman's defection
from the war party is significant precisely because the powers that be
understand that he was talking for the brass. If the generals believe
that this venture is going badly, we should all pay attention. As a
general rule, military officers do not involve themselves in public
policy debates. But their concerns about the folly of 'staying the
course' have obviously been communicated to Murtha - who has a well
deserved reputation of being a defense hawk and a voice for the rank
and file. Murtha is also a man who keeps the company of generals and he
is privy to their private assessments of the situation on the ground.
The president continues to pedal the silly notion that if American
forces withdraw from Iraq - Zarqawi and Bin Laden would move in to
fill the vacuum. First of all, let's not forget that we have a
Jihadist element because we have an insurgency that came about as a
result of the invasion. Even by Pentagon estimates, the foreign
jihadists represent less than five per cent of the insurgents. If they
choose to continue causing havoc after an American withdrawal, the
prospect that they could eventually take over Iraq is too negligible to
merit serious consideration. Their support among the population is very
limited and directly tied to the presence of foreign occupation forces
on Iraqi soil. Just like in Bosnia, the strength and role of these
elements has been vastly exaggerated and they will most likely vanish
from the scene once the occupation ends.
If there is one legitimate concern about what could eventually happens
in Iraq - it is the prospect of civil strife. It is not quite clear
whether the continued presence of foreign troops increases or
diminishes the chances of a civil war that might already be in
progress. It doesn't help matters that the coalition has allowed the
police and army to be infiltrated by the Badr brigades and the
Peshmerga. Entire units of the new Iraqi army are now made up of
Shiites or Kurds. The Police moonlight as death squads and are brazen
enough to operate torture centers right in the heart of Baghdad.
One of the obligations of an occupation army is to provide security for
the population under their control. In Iraq, the British and American
forces are mainly concerned with protecting their own soldiers. We have
tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq primarily because we have 160,000
military personnel to protect. The main mission of American forces in
Iraq is 'force protection'. It is a policy that has resulted in
rules of engagement that contribute to high civilian casualties. That,
in turn, ends up fueling the insurgency.
In any case, even at the risk of civil war, the Iraqis want an end to
foreign occupation. According to a recent poll comissioned by the
British government, 80% of Iraqis want an immediate end to the
occupation. Which puts them on the same wave length as the 63% of
Americans who want to bring the troops home. The recent Cairo meeting
between representatives of all Iraqi factions also called for the
withdrawal of coalition forces. So, just two weeks before a national
elections, Iraqi politicians are competing for the votes of the vast
majority of Iraqis who want an immediate end to the occupation. That
should tell us something.
The bottom line is that Bush doesn't have a leg to stand on. There
was no good reason to invade and there is no sound rationale for the
continued presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil. The real fear in
the Bush administration is that exiting now would leave Iran as the
only winner in this conflict. Try to explain that to the American
people.
Whether he likes it or not, Bush will have very little say in the final
outcome of what transpires in Iraq. The leadership of the Shia
community has long standing ties with Tehran. No amount of occupation
is likely to dent such intimate relationships. These are connections
that go back all the way to Ayatollah Khomeni who founded and funded
SCIRI, an exile para-military organization that has emerged as the
largest party in post-war Iraq. The SCIRI leadership and it military
wing - The Badr Brigades - were recruited, trained and armed by
Iran. I don't think the prospect of leaving Iraq in the hands of
Tehran's Iraqi allies is exactly what Bush had in mind when he
decided to topple Saddam. Just chalk it up as another one of those
unintended consequences of 'pre-emptive' wars.
Which brings us back to why it is so vital to investigate the pre-war
corruption of intelligence. The price of this quagmire in blood and
treasure has been too high and the rewards are nowhere near the
delusional expectations of the neocon prophets. To borrow a neocon
phrase, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Lewis Libby,
Michael Ledeen and Ken Adelman were 'wildly off the mark.' One of
their patron saints and willing enablers was non other than Dick
Cheney. Another was Donald Rumsfeld. Yet another was George Bush, the
man ultimately responsible for their foul produce.
And then there is the small matter of how George Bush decided to
conduct the war. Starting with the 'Shock and Awe' campaign that
incinerated thousands of innocent Iraqis, the president moved on to
construct torture chambers in Abu Ghraib and then turned his attention
to converting Fallujah into a modern day Guernica. The country is
crawling with forty thousand foreign mercenaries who are a law unto
themselves and are not subject to the Geneva Convention. Sectarian Shia
and Kurdish militias have been empowered and allowed to infiltrate the
ranks of the new Iraqi Army and the Police.
They now roam the streets on death squad errands fully camouflaged in
Iraqi army and police uniforms. After failing to find Iraqi WMD
stockpiles, Bush imported American white phosphorus ammunition,
depleted uranium shells, napalm and cluster bombs and used them as
weapons of urban warfare. In the process he squandered the lives of
over 2,100 young Americans and uncounted thousands of Iraqis.
Even at this late date, we have very little definitive information on
why Bush really invaded Iraq. But we do know how he obtained a carte
blanche license to create this catastrophe. He did it by convincing the
American public that we were going to disarm Saddam of his WMD arsenal
before he handed them to Bin Laden. It was the president who was the
tip of the spear in the campaign to systematically bombard us with
incessant lies about Iraq's military capabilities. He consistently
and consciously exploited the tragedy of 9/11 to scare the nation into
war.
Let there be no doubt, that there is readily available hard evidence of
Bush and Cheney's culpability in corrupting the intelligence
gathering process. As Lawrence Wilkerson has made clear, there are also
paper trails to document how the American military was authorized to
use torture and ignore the Geneva Convention. Unfortunately, much of
the evidence is still locked up in the Office of Special Plans. For two
years, the administration's congressional allies have obstructed the
investigation into this rogue Pentagon operation where the intelligence
hoax was fabricated. For very good reasons, Bush has invested
considerable effort derailing all inquiries into the activities of this
WMD fib factory. Bush owns the OSP just as surly as he owns the broken
Iraqi pottery. The OSP is the address where you will find answers to
who fabricated the WMD hoax, why they felt the need to cook the books
and who authorized the operation? There you will also find details of
the elaborate propaganda campaign that involved wholesale leaks to
neocon operatives in a few favored media outlets.
We won't hear the fat lady sing until we see Douglas Feith, Paul
Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney testifying
under oath about the OSP. When that day comes, the fat lady will sound
a lot like George Bush.
Notes in the Margin: The cover-up of the OSP would not be possible
without the active collaboration of Arthur Sulzberger, Donald Graham,
Rupert Murdoch and other media tycoons. The fact that the OSP scandal
is not playing 24/7 on CNN and FOX is certain proof that these lap dogs
don't hunt and won't bark unless they are on patrol with an
officially sanctioned war party. If anything good can come out of this
useless war, let us hope that it will permanently cripple the monopoly
media franchises held by the New York Times, The Washington Post, FOX
and CNN. The Iraq war enriched the coffers of the embedded media barons
who, along with Halliburton, stand accused of war profiteering. Does
anybody seriously believe that Judith Miller and Bob Woodward were not
intimately familiar with the Office of Special Plans or the White House
Iraq Group? Is it even sane to assume that Woodward and Miller were the
only mainstream 'journalists' actively marketing the invasion of
Iraq? Without naming a single source, Woodward and Miller can write
entire books about the OSP and the systematic corruption of
intelligence. But that's not part of their job description.
If you want to know what Judith Miller really does for a living, read
this Rolling Stones article on Miller and James Bamford and how they
sold the war.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/879
8997?rnd=1133173267750&has-player=true&version=6.0.8.1024